More about: The 1975

Of all of the bands from the current wave that we’ll charitably call alt-pop – you know, the pop bands styled to within an inch of their empty souls to look like goths, surly indie rockers or t-shirt pub bands – The 1975 are by far the most dedicated to the spirit and mythology. Fresh from rehab in Barbados (the only place to rehab, darling) Matty Healy has decked himself and his band out like a cross between My Chemical Romance and The Strokes and indulged in some seriously heart-on-trackmarked-sleeve new single therapy.

Over guitars distorted to the point where, if they’re not already, then they might as well be synthesized, he sings of the classic Saturn returns issues of the screwed-up Millennial pop star staring thirty in the grizzled face. Finding grey hairs in your spliffs, getting “spiritually enlightened at 29”, battling STDs and how “you’ll make lots of money and it’s funny/’Cause you’ll move somewhere sunny and get addicted to drugs”. An everyday tale of wayward youth then (plus some money), delivered like classic garage punk rock fed through the ultra-modern age, as if someone’s asked Alexa to write the new ‘Hard To Explain’. Give it a try.

More about: The 1975