Table of contents for June/July 2025 in Rolling Stone UK

Irish band Cliffords might be at an early crossroads in their career, but their latest EP — the upcoming Salt of The Lee — shows off their ability to summon the soaring alt-rock soundscapes of bands like Wolf Alice and — from their own country — The Cranberries. “All the lovers come for trouble and now down at my door/They seek some sweet redemption but I cry out for more,” sings vocalist Iona Lynch on standout track ‘Bittersweet’, a song which perfectly captures the musical fireworks that this band are only too capable of creating. Elsewhere, the heartbreaking ‘Dungarvan Bay’ is Lynch’s very personal recollections on losing a close friend two years ago. “I wanted the song to show all the different emotions that come with loss, that there can…

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IT’S A LACK-LUSTRE Tuesday morning when Nova Twins duo Amy Love and Georgia South fizzle into view and onto my screen. The pair have had a raucous week, jumping from a buzzing show at Omeara, London — a rite-of-passage venue that’s hosted everyone from Ethel Cain to Gracie Abrams — to scrubbing up their new, sharp, yin-and-yang third album Parasites & Butterflies. Powering through their non-stop schedule, the pair readily have their phones whipped out, dialling in separately from their homes on the south coast of England and settling down for the interview almost in uniform sync. It’s not often you catch a glimpse of the inner lives of Love and South. The artists are best known for boot-stomping on stage, wielding flashy, brightly coloured electric guitars while grinning confidently…

Sarah Silverman has a shy side. No, really. For years, she avoided doing a podcast because she didn’t want to ask her friends to be on another comedy show. Then, during the pandemic, Silverman came up with a solution. She made her fans the guests. Now, listeners call in to The Sarah Silverman Podcast and leave voicemails for “your pal Sarah”, and then the New York University dropout provides counsel. Today, she sits in a West Hollywood studio in jeans, Converse, and a vaguely military-flight-jacket thingy on top. Her jet-black hair is piled up high, and her face is framed by oversized reading glasses. Now 54, she exudes a sexy homewrecker of Shaker Heights vibe. Her advice to callers can be serious — a month ago, she sympathised with a…

AFTER BECOMING a millionaire at the precocious age of 17 following his Grand Slam of Darts win last November, you might expect Luke Littler to be living a justified life of Lamborghinis and Lanson in the increasingly rare moments that he steps away from the oche. But ask the youngest world champion in darts history how he chooses to spend his downtime and, refreshingly, you’ll receive the same answer that you’d get from millions of teenagers across the land. “You know what it’s like,” the 18-year-old reflects as we sit down in a dressing room just off the vast corridors of Berlin’s Uber Arena on a sunny Wednesday afternoon in early April, a day before the Premier League Darts tournament arrives in the German capital. “You come home, and you…

Who would be a car manufacturer right now? From blank sheet of paper to showroom floor is a five-year design and development process, and then — if you’re lucky via a face-lift at the mid-point — you have an eight-year lifecycle in which to recoup your investment and make a return. In some ways, it’s a bit like making a fine wine: grow the grapes, press the juice, lay it down and then collect your pay-off later. Save for one thing: every 18 months for the past five years somebody in government isn’t rewriting your recipe for Chardonnay. But that’s been the lot of the automotive sector. Five years ago was five UK prime ministers back. And each has tinkered with the fundamentals of car design in the meantime, with…

Kellan Christopher Cragg Much of WRONG BALLOON, the new album from this enigmatic, Minnesota-based musician, can be considered singer-songwriter fare, but there’s a lot more going on besides that. Cragg has as much in common with the smooth R&B of Steve Lacy as he does with the lo-fi of Alex G. We reckon his music could get even weirder and more unique from here. Clara Mann This London-based singer-songwriter’s debut album, Rift, is inspired by the old and new greats of folk music — Joni, Dylan, Adrianne Lenker — but its greatest power comes from its lyrical openness as she ponders self-understanding and loneliness. “It really lights me up,” Mann told Rolling Stone UK recently of making music. “It makes me feel 3D and witnessed. It makes me feel alive.”…

THOM YORKE THOUGHT it was madness. “I never associated music favourably with Shakespeare,” says the Radiohead frontman. “I saw his work as something totemic, so applying our music to it initially seemed a kind of sacrilege.” He adjusts his thick black glasses and lets slip a small grin. “But I’m always up for a little bit of sacrilege.” In October 2003, director and designer Christine Jones was at Madison Square Garden as Radiohead played tracks from their soon-to-be Grammy Award-winning album Hail to the Thief. The heady, propulsive songs were still circling her mind a few months later when she was designing a production of Hamlet. Although the album had not been intentionally influenced by the 400-year-old play, uncanny similarities between them began to appear to Jones. “I was haunted…

THERE’S A BRIDAL shower just a few tables away from Marina as she sips a berry smoothie in the sun-dappled courtyard of a Los Angeles hotel and tells me she’s trying not to protect her heart quite so carefully these days. “I’ve dove into my fear of love,” says the singer, 39, who made her new album, Princess of Power, from the perspective of a superheroine whose greatest power is love. “It can sound trite, but I think the ability to love is so powerful and brave. It’s a courageous thing, particularly if you’ve been hurt… It can be really hard to reprogramme yourself, and I think I’ve finally been able to do that.” Fans got a taste of what’s to come with Princess of Power at Coachella, where Marina…

ELLIE ROWSELL IS ON THE FLOOR IN A LEATHER ONE-PIEACE straddling a wind machine like she’s channelling Stevie Nicks. As they watch their bandmate’s dark hair fanning out behind her, Joel Amey, Joff Oddie and Theo Ellis — each dressed in extreme amounts of denim — beam proudly, cheering Rowsell on and taking pictures with their phones. Lately, Wolf Alice have been thinking about the mythology of being in a band. It checks out: the beloved north London four-piece have been together for well over a decade now — being in any job that long leads to reflection. Your thirties often involve pauses where you check in on where you’re at, how you’re spending your time, and whether you’re actually happy. “We were playing with the idea of really owning…

On 13 October 2023, the band formerly known as easy life played their final show, at London’s KOKO. Less than two weeks previously, they had publicly announced that they were being sued by easy Group, the brand owner of easyJet airlines. The band swiftly declared defeat in the legal battle and scrabbled to arrange final shows in their hometown of Leicester and adopted base of London before their deadline to cease trading under their name. “Sadly, it seems that justice is only available to those who can afford it,” the band told fans at the time. At the final show (that date on the 13th was also a Friday, of course), a balance of righteous anger from fans and conflicted emotions from the band made for the most unique of…

It’s 5am in Georgia, and Tree Sound Studios is quiet. I’m in a side room of the vast, oaky complex near Atlanta, preparing to be the first person outside of Lil Wayne’s circle to hear Tha Carter VI, the album he’s been working on for six years. ● On this mid-January night, our listening session was supposed to begin at 1 am, but it took two hours for Wayne to show up. Wayne’s manager, Fabian Marasciullo, an affable, stout Queens native wearing all black, told me that the hip-hop icon is doing some last-minute edits to songs before I hear them. It’s been a long minute. I ogle the labyrinthine recording console in the room. I wouldn’t know the first knob to push, but I have mastered the Keurig machine;…

Tornado STARRING Kōki, RoryMcCann, Jack Lowden, Tim Roth DIRECTED BY John Maclean A founding member of The Beta Band, John Maclean made an impressive debut as a feature film director with 2015’s American-set western Slow West. A decade later, Maclean has returned to his homeland, Scotland, to shoot a period western set in 1790s Britain. His titular character, Tornado, is played by another impressively versatile musician: Kōki, the Japanese singer-song-writer. She puts in a magnetic, committed performance as a wily young woman who’s on the run from a gang of violent criminals led by the odious Sugarman (Tim Roth). The film opens with a gripping chase scene that takes Tornado into a remote mansion and the path of Sugarman’s son, Little Sugar (Slow Horses’ Jack Lowden). As she takes flight…

Specs appeal From Billie Eilish in her ‘Birds of a Feather’ video to the rising popularity of oval frames on runways, eyewear is having a major moment, and Gucci is leaning all the way in. Its Spring/Summer 2025 eyewear collection combines retro silhouettes with modern attitude, ranging from oversized cat-eyes and bold square acetate optical frames (pictured) to sleek metal designs etched with Gucci’s monogram. For a sustainable touch, select styles are crafted from ReAce, a recycled acetate material. Whether it’s bold or minimal, each pair speaks to individuality and adventure. gucci.com FAVOURITE THINGS…

You’re going back to being Steven Frayne and dropping Dynamo. How did that decision arise? A lot of it came from having a massive level of imposter syndrome, and that was heightened when I was in the midst of my illness [Frayne has Crohn’s disease] and my body was saying no. I was literally in the hospital bed, unable to do everyday tasks, let alone think about picking up a pack of cards and blowing someone’s mind. I was such an oxymoron: on one side I was the guy who walks across the River Thames and levitates with the Shard, but here’s Steven who can’t even make a cup of tea. I reached a point where I thought, ‘Well, I need to focus on getting Steven right and I just…

DENNIS MORRIS: MUSIC + Life, a major career retrospective of the British-Jamaican photographer at The Photographers’ Gallery in London, serves as a roadmap for pivotal moments of 20th-century culture as seen through an intimate lens. Morris’s portraits are now considered some of the most iconic in pop culture history. His images capturing the rebellious, youthful spirit of the 1970s reggae and punk scenes laid the groundwork for a career that would go on to span six decades. His work is characterised by an intensity and rawness, achieved by the trusting, authentic relationships he established with his subjects, not least that of his lifelong collaborator Bob Marley, of whom he has said: “It was much more than just taking the photos. It was a teaching, a learning, a growing.” Tying into…

The Who practically invented the concept of the rock ’n’ roll farewell tour back in 1982 when they hit the road for what they claimed was the final time. Seven years later, they practically invented the concept of the “forget that whole farewell thing” tour when they reformed for a lucrative run of stadium shows. They’ve been active for the past 30 years, but now, they’re kicking off a second farewell tour — and this time around, they mean it. The tour is just one project that band co-founder and guitarist Pete Townshend, 80, has in the works. He’s also releasing a seven-disc box set that chronicles his solo career, working with young bands the Wild Things and Bookshop, and writing new songs. “I’ve got maybe 10 years left as…

OVER NEARLY 700 PAGES, new book 75 Years of Atlantic Records chronicles the history of the legendary label, one that also shows the path of popular music across the globe over that time. From being at the vanguard of American jazz to releasing some of the biggest pop and rock albums of the 70s and 80s and now providing a home for Coldplay, Ed Sheeran, Charli XCX and more of today’s biggest global stars, theirs is a story of consistent excellence. Journey with us through the history of Atlantic Records.…

When Simon Pegg landed the role of Benji Dunn in Mission: Impossible III, he wasn’t entirely convinced that his casting — as a convivial British agent and a lovable gadget dealer for Tom Cruise — would go the distance. “It’s been 20 years since I first went onto set and it’s been a long road,” Pegg reflects over coffee on a rainy April morning in Soho. “I didn’t really think this role was anything major when I did it. I thought it was a bit of stunt casting off the back of Shaun of the Dead, but here we are.” Here we are indeed. The job was Pegg’s first taste of Tinseltown and marked the start of a journey that would see him chalk up the kinds of jobs that…

THERE’S A HAUNTING moment in new Disney drama Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles De Menezes when it becomes slowly and harrowingly clear that the Metropolitan Police have, to put it bluntly, fucked up. In the third episode, we see a bomb expert, decked out in full body armour, boarding a Northern Line train at Stockwell Tube Station to rifle through the clothing of a man shot dead by the force at point-blank range just minutes before. Through the narrow lens of a bomb helmet, we see a pair of uncertain eyes peering at the man’s ID. That one piece of evidence provides the first inkling that De Menezes was not one of the men involved in the previous day’s failed attacks on the capital. The bomb expert’s fears are…

When Bob Geldof first sat in on early workshops for Just For One Day — The Live Aid Musical, he did what he’s always done best: observed, listened and waited until the time was right to call things out. “The first [draft] was … about me and my life. And that’s not the story at all. So, I just said, ‘No, that’s not what this is,’” he tells Rolling Stone UK. Now playing in the West End after a record-breaking premiere at the Old Vic, Just For One Day — the fastest-selling musical in the theatre’s history — tells the story of Live Aid without slipping into nostalgia. Featuring the music of Queen, David Bowie, Madonna, Elton John, Bob Dylan, The Who, U2, The Police, Paul McCartney and more, it…

supported by ZYN This year’s launch of the Rolling Stone UK Future of Music, supported by ZYN, saw our annual Future 25 list brought to life with a trio of stunning live sets and interviews as our three Future of Music cover stars Jordan Adetunji, Pozer and Chloe Qisha delivered star power in spades. On 19 March, an excited crowd packed every inch of south London venue Omeara, just opposite the Shard. The vibe was shoulder to shoulder, hot, and loud. The tone for the event was very London, very now, and very ZYN — a brand that’s all about not missing a beat. With its exposed brickwork and low-slung ceiling, the atmospheric Omeara is known for being a place where future stars cut their teeth before stepping up to…