Listening to The Gilhoolys’ new single, "Bad Routine," is to feel the pressure of a low, grey sky just before it breaks. There’s a muscular, unapologetic rock energy here, the kind of sound forged in rooms with sticky floors and loud histories. It moves with a bruised swagger, the ghost of Thin Lizzy hanging around the edges of a decidedly modern indie rock angst,...

Leon Blanchard, a name perhaps faintly echoing from the mid-noughties indie surge, returns not with fanfare, but with a solitary signal flare titled "Astronaut". Hailing from Grimsby, a town known more for its fishing heritage than its celestial aspirations, Blanchard's new song does not really feel like a return, but more like a personal gearbox picked up after years of chatter. In 2007, his old band,...