From Tel Aviv to Cape Town via Birmingham and Exeter, this week’s five rock acts share one thing: a whole lot of conviction. So let’s dive right in, while the amplifiers are hot ❤️🔥
fistpump! – Toyota Hellfire
fistpump! deliver a superb debut: Midwest emo tension and release handled with a maturity most new bands take years to find.
“Toyota Hellfire” earns its title through sheer dynamic range. The Birmingham four-piece build from twinkling, introspective guitar figures into detonations of percussion and dense, layered instrumentation, cycling through an almost ambient-like restraint in the verses to high-energy release with the kind of control that makes the loud parts genuinely hit. The track sits in the tradition of classic Midwest emo in its emotional weight and melodic intelligence, and it sounds like a fucking dream in my monitor headphones too.
Formed in 2024 and already playing the O2 Academy, fistpump! have moved quickly for a band less than two years old. “Toyota Hellfire” is their debut single, arriving ahead of an EP planned for late 2026. That speed of development is reflected in the song itself: Jonny Amos, who has worked across both Sony Music and Warner Music Group, praised the band for being “musically mature” with “high level songs”. Whatever some lad from Sony said, i think it’s fantastic and will be watching them carefully.
The Lazz – Observer
The Lazz make “Observer” a stunning pivot point in a four-part metal saga: the moment the protagonist stops struggling and starts watching, and the music opens up into something genuinely compelling
“Observer” is track three in a sequence – The Resonance, Riddle in the Mist, Observer, The Absolute – that follows a character named Maya through a Jungian inner journey from shadow to transcendence. Not your average song about a summer romance, this one. But it’s the precisely that grand vision, combined with the fantastically driving riffs and soaring vocals in ‘Observer’, that make it special. Most of all, it’s just a great tune – a brilliant chorus, elements of almost classical approaches at times, and a sort of heavy vibe that never becomes claustrophobic.
The Lazz is Ben Lazzaro, a San Diego composer and guitarist performing since 1982, with 13 years as a professional 3D digital artist in the video game industry running alongside the music. That visual practice is not incidental to how the project works. Lazzaro describes his songs as “fragments of a larger conversation that keeps evolving” rather than isolated pieces, and The Lazz is built on exactly that premise: “I’m not just writing the next song – I’m building a world that listeners can step into and follow over time.” For a metal project operating outside the mainstream, that kind of long-game thinking is rare, and it shows. A fantastic piece, and we’re really excited to hear more.
ANACY – Good Luck To Her
ANACY turns personal betrayal into one of the best pop-punk kiss-offs you’ll hear all year, vivid and cathartic in equal measure.
“Good Luck To Her” is built on a specific hurt: the moment of being replaced by someone described in the song as a “tall blonde with blue eyes,” a detail so precise it makes the heartbreak feel immediate rather than generalised. ANACY transforms that specificity into momentum, letting the face-melting guitars do what guitars do when someone has genuinely earned the right to be furious. The track moves from sting to release with real momentum, the kind of pop-punk that works because it never softens the edges. By the end, the title itself has shifted from bitter to something much more like freedom.
ANACY is based in Cape Town, South Africa, and brings a multicultural perspective shaped by growing up in one of the world’s most creatively diverse cities. Her work has twice put her on the cover of Pop SA Today, and several tracks have deservedly landed on Spotify editorial playlists, establishing her well beyond local scenes. “Good Luck To Her” released 1st May 2026 and marks a sharper, harder direction for an artist whose pop and indie instincts have always had an edge waiting to find the right moment to cut through. This feels like her time, it’s great.
Twenny bucks – Small Green Frog
Twenny bucks make an excellent racket: fast, loud, and cheerfully stupid in exactly the way guitar music occasionally needs to be.
Exeter’s Twenny bucks are not overthinking it. “Small Green Frog” runs on fast BPMs, big loud riffs, and what the band themselves describe as “stupid lyrics” – and there is real skill in pulling that combination off without it collapsing into a mess. The track sits somewhere between alt-rock and post-punk with a psychedelic edge, the kind of rock song that sounds like it was written quickly and recorded soon after. It’s compelling, driven stuff though and produced like a dream.
Based in Exeter, UK, Twenny bucks are one of those bands who lead with energy first and biography second, which is refreshing. The genres they span – alternative rock, post-punk, psychedelic, hard rock – suggest an artist keeping things direct and fun, rather than overthinking things. “Small Green Frog” dropped on in April and works precisely because it isn’t trying to be anything other than a loud, fast guitar song with a daft topic and a hook that doesn’t quit. Essential stuff.
Mosh Pit – No Returning
Mosh Pit deliver a brilliant alt-rock statement with “No Returning”: raw riffs, explosive dynamics, and an attitude that refuses to sit still or shut up.
“No Returning” runs on rocking refusal. The Tel Aviv trio build the track on raw, driving riffs and rhythms that just don’t ever let up, cycling through explosive dynamics with the kind of urgency that makes the subject – resistance to conformity, the cost of bending yourself to fit damaging social expectations – feel pretty damn visceral. The song earns its title: there’s very little in the way of winding down, no resolution into comfort, just the momentum of someone who has made a decision and isn’t looking back. Big guitars, a huge wonderfully dumb riff, a drummer who can barely keep up; all the elements of a alt-rock banger that I love.
Mosh Pit are a three-piece from Tel Aviv, Israel: a singer, a producer, and a drummer whose working dynamic began when the singer and producer first collaborated, before the drummer was brought in to complete the lineup. On record, it amounts to a fantastic, powerful combo and I’d absolutely love to see this live. A great single.