As the music industry gets back into the swing of things for another jam-packed year, the IINAG team spotlights their favourite releases of the week.
Cardinals – I Like You
Cork quintet Cardinals have a commendable knack of employing their trademark poetic poignance, whether their instrumentation crashes like a cymbalic tide or laps with a lilting caress. Perhaps the most striking evidence of such can be found in their newest release, ‘I Like You’. Released as the final single from their upcoming debut album, ‘Masquerade’, the track sonically swells and contracts, much like the accordion riffs that underpin it. ‘I Like You’ is a tantalising last taste of one of Winter’s most anticipated releases. – Elizabeth Guest
Bleech 9:3 – Cannonball
Bleech 9:3’s “Cannonball” is a taut clash of restraint and jagged urgency. Distorted guitars and raspy vocals create a soundscape like a half-healed wound, opening with fragile strums before shattering into a feverish, bass-driven pulse where intimacy and dissonance entwine. Lyrically, it’s a confession of toxic “bad worship,” suggesting true loyalty lies in falling together, as restless drums and hypnotic grooves build toward a cathartic release and the hard-won clarity of emotional recovery. – Lauren Moreton
Courtney Barnett ft Waxahatchee – Site Unseen
Courtney Barnett’s latest single, ‘Site Unseen,’ carries the quiet assurance of a song that has finally found its shape. Years in the making, Barnett has said it only clicked once Waxahatchee came into the fold. Katie Crutchfield’s high, airy harmony feels less like a feature and more like the missing emotional layer floating above Barnett’s unmistakable voice. Relaxed and unforced, the track drifts with a subtle country lilt as Barnett turns inward, gently taking accountability for her own indecision, “from now on, I wanna finish what I start.” It’s a tender, self-aware release ahead of the album’s arrival in March. – Henry Dunn
Lime Garden – 23
Lime Garden have announced their second album, Maybe Not Tonight, alongside its lead single: a shimmering, euphoric track that captures both the rush and creeping anxiety of stepping into a club. Built around a Happy Mondays-inspired bassline conceived on a rainy January afternoon, it blends playful synths with a darker, introspective edge, balancing dancefloor euphoria with the quiet dread of what the night might bring. – Katie Macbeth
Snail Mail – Dead End
‘Dead End’ marks Snail Mail’s return with a rush of distortion and reflection, the first glimpse of the highly anticipated Ricochet, her first new record since 2021. Built on grunge-gaze textures, the song mourns the fading simplicity of suburban adolescence, as Lindsey Jordan sings with weary clarity about friendships once thought permanent. There’s a nineties edge to it, something that could soundtrack an episode of Buffy or Dawson’s Creek, as she pointedly asks, “Do you ever wonder where I’ve been?” – Henry Dunn
Check Out Our Playlist!
Bleech 9:3, Cardinals, Courtney Barnett, Lime Garden, Snail Mail, Waxahatchee
