New month. New feature. Why not?
Over the past couple of years, EPs have slowly become baked into this website’s DNA. That liminal space between brevity and the longer voyage, and it’s been nice to see evolve.
However, given the frantic start to the year and the forecast that things won’t be slowing down anytime soon in the space of full-length releases, there’s been a constant struggle to shoehorn extended plays into our weekly schedule.
That’s not to say we haven’t been listening, though, and the idea of Out of Step is to carve out an enclave for the EP, because it’s a format that I believe will only become more prominent in the near future for many reasons; the main one being the economic climate that many bands are faced with.
Just like our Weirdo Rippers feature, this is a space not just limited to DIY artists. Even well-established acts are moving back to the extended play – perhaps also conscious of time and cost – and coupled with the fact that various other publications aren’t really focusing their energy on the EP, it felt like the perfect opportunity to allocate the space it deserves.
This doesn’t mean we won’t be covering EPs in isolation. As noted above, there’s so much going on elsewhere across the site, and with the lack of resources at our disposal, this feels like the best way to shine a light on new EP releases and artists that we consider worth the column inches.
Our first edition has a post-hardcore tinge to it, but that’s not to say the next one will. All options are the table from, indeed, Liverpool to beyond.
Blokeacola: Shoulda
Self-released
I’m not sure whether there’s a better name across the U.K.’s underground DIY landscape than Blokeacola? With the countless submissions that land in the email inbox, the name at least stands out from most, which is a good ploy (others take note!).
It helps that Blokeacola has the tunes to match, of course, and following his mammoth double LP (2023’s Quasars and Fluff), the Newport-based songsmith returns with Shoulda. It’s Blokeacola in looking-out-to-the-mountains-from-the-porch mode, and the results are great.
Simple songcraft that falls somewhere between Jeff Tweedy and later-era Lou Barlow, these five songs tie up the loose ends you have in your mind. Nothing extravagant, but the songs on Shoulda do a job when you need them to the most. They are also a nice gateway into the Blokeacola experience.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Doris/Es Muss Sein: Split
Kitty Records/Grey Sky Recordings
Doris hit the radar last year with their excellent debut full-length, four trees, and they return in 2025 alongside fellow antipodeans, Es Muss Sein, with Split.
Bursting with the kind of gut-busting chords that possess the same feeling as listening to the likes Exploding In Sound mainstays, Ovlov, and Adelaide darlings, Twine, this is how one smashes post-hardcore into emo. Not only that, but there’s a youthful energy at play here, and with bands like Doris and Es Muss Sein, essentially, they keep the flame of DIY culture burning.
There seems to be something brewing in Australia with new exciting bands popping up every few weeks; Doris and Es Muss Sein are just two of them, and Split is another document that underlines what feels like an important time in the country’s underground music history.
Hairpin: Modern Day Living
Self-released
Led by Adam Edwards and backed by Perry Sears, Sam Marsh and Callan Milward, Hairpin meld ’90s-inspired post-hardcore and traditional English punk into something anthemic on their debut EP, Modern Day Living.
On the foundation of thrumming bass lines, the south coast-based four-piece dig through the Bob Mould and Sugar discography to produce a set of songs that make for good companions on the open road, sliding in between Beaster and District Line.
Over the past decade, the likes of Witching Waves have paved the way for a new brigade to take post-hardcore into a new era, and with the likes of Achers, Hubert Selby Jr. Infants and Puzzle bringing new elements to the table, on Modern Day Living, Hairpin brings a little flavour of their own
Out Friday. Pre-order here.
Las Llagas: Cuanto tiempo nos queda para oler los eucaliptos?
Fiadh Productions / Uno Azero / El Octavo
Perhaps the pick of the bunch in our first edition of Out of Step is Uruguayan four-piece, Las Llagas who blow it open with their excellent debut, Cuanto tiempo nos queda para oler los eucaliptos?
Recorded just months after the band began, with droning, downturned guitars, the four-piece mix anarcho-punk with sludge-laden black metal. The results? Shrapnel exploding from the speakers.
Swapping instruments and sharing vocals from one track to the next, while perhaps the organic spirit steeped in punk, sonically, Las Llagas travel beyond, producing something dynamic and ear-splitting, crisscrossing from one thing to the next. It’s this attitude that will have everyone from the hardcore and punks kids to the metal heads finding something to cherish on Cuanto tiempo nos queda para oler los eucaliptos?
Sinews: Choreography
Divine Schism
Following their debut EP in last year’s Reanimated, Oxford-based Sinews return with their own interpretations of grizzly post-hardcore and noise-rock with Choreography.
Consisting of Richard Bell (singer/ guitar), Luke Allmond (drums), Thomas Instone (guitar) and Brian Guerin (bass) in fairness, Reanimated was unlucky not to be included in our Top 25 EPs of last year, and based on the strength of Choreography, that mistake won’t be happening twice. Five songs that see Sinews expanding from Choreography in what is a smorgasbord of post-hardcore as we known it.
Led by the one-two gut punch of Horesface and Idols, songs that are like reimagined versions of Wire doing noise-rock, it leads to album highlight, Prop Comic. The kind of track that blurs the lines punk and post-hardcore, and it encapsulates what Sinews produce on Choreography. Something that anyone who likes riffs needs in their ears.
Spare Skin: Spare Skin
Hyper Michel-les
In the spirit of DIY feminist punk, Paris’ Spare Skin delivered the first good release of 2025.
Their debut self-titled EP sees the three-piece (Anne–Lise – guitar/ vocals; Olivier – bass; Alisson – drums) deliver the kind of playful post-punk that echoes another new player in recent weeks in Manchester’s [slab]. There’s a plethora of gnarled, sharp-edged songcraft inspired by the likes of PJ Harvey and Patti Smith and everything just, well… fits!
Through the anger of injustice, violence and fascism that continues to spread across the world like wildfire, bands like Spare Snare are vital components in kicking against it. And through their songs on their debut release, the Parisians deliver a strong message.
Swervedriver: The World’s Fair
Outer Battery Records
Following last year’s 99th Dream reissue, some of that residue drips into Swervedriver’s excellent new EP, The World’s Fair.
Once again, vocalist/guitarist, Adam Franklin, and guitarist, Jimmy Hartridge, are joined by drummer, Mikey Jones and bassist Mick Quinn (Supergrass) in what has proved a solid line-up over the past several years. While 2020’s Future Ruins failed to recapture the majesty its predecessor, I Wasn’t Born to Lose You, The World’s Fair is a pleasant return to form with a band that simply keeps marching on against the odds.
With dreamy Byrdsian chimes and rolling washes of sound that match the best parts of the Swervedriver discography, the only disappointment here is that it’s not a full-length release. And speaking of, The World’s Fair feels like a precursor to something bigger. Watch this space.
Windowhead: Terrestrials
Self-released
With two albums already under their belt (2018’s Still Life and 2021’s Sunflowers) Brighton’s Windowhead return in 2025 with the Terrestrials EP.
Windowhead conjure up the kind of soundscapes that lead to a place where Thursday and Glassjaw may have eventually met in the mid-00s. However on Terrestrials, the four-piece move even further afield, with everything from Dillinger Escape Plan-inspired metalcore to American Football echoes that see the band in genre-straddling mode.
Terrestrials sees Windowhead amalgamating more ideas than they ever have before. Aesthetically, oddly enough, like Hairpin and Sinews above, all three acts inadvertently cross the same path at one stage or another; to the point where it wouldn’t be a surprise if they all jumped in a van together with plans of coming to a town near you.
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