#MusicMonday Review - July 2025

[osornios]

#MusicMonday is the hashtag I've been using for quite a while to share music recommendations from up-and-coming artists. Always fresh, and always different, trying to look for trends before they become one. You can check June's review for more music.

The highs and lows of life take the spotlight on our trip. Let yourself explore the way different genres find a way to share experiences, and create a connection.  Give them a listen, with a word from the artists themselves.
🎧

Alex Cambridge – Brave Face

They say that it gets better with time
I think it's a tale we tell ourselves

I've been dragging my feet
'Cause I don't know what it all means

And the truth is time's been cruel
I'm half my scars and half my pain

The first stop in our journey is London, England, for an almost acoustic, piano driven ballad, where, even if you tell yourself it's all good, and act like everything's ok, you simply don't seem the same as before:

"It was written from my own experiences of masking pain and carrying on even when life felt overwhelming. There were many moments when I was struggling inside but still felt like I had to put on a smile for the rest of the world.

I wanted to capture the quiet strength and resilience it takes to keep going, and I hoped it would connect with anyone who’s ever had to wear a brave face, just like I have."

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Birdman Cult – Highs and Lows

All i know

Stands on shifting sands

N i Can't keep a hold

If this is real id rather live the lie 

if truth be told 

Dare to tread the razors edge

Cant lower heaven so i raise hell

Well, the dogs had its days and his ways are set 

We travel west, to Bristol, for an Indie Post Psych Punk Rock track about wanting it all, specially not getting stuck to a town:

"I started writing the lyrics for that song in 2012 around the time I left my family home, I think it was just the bridge that's the same "gimme highs gimme low give me fire and brimstone etc".

It's just about being young and having that wanderlust you have as a kid and embarking on a new adventure, meeting new people and the possibilities that come into focus when you take a leap of faith. i wanted to experience it all the peaks and troughs of a life ahead. Sentimental I suppose, but earnest at the time.

We couldn't get it to work at the time so I revisited it last year and it came together for the album. Most likely because I was in another flux of change."

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Damon Brock – A Different Light

3am on a winter’s night
Husband speeding down the road
His pregnant wife crying on the backseat
Screaming go go go

Policeman catches up with them
Pulls them over to a stop
When he sees what’s going on
Does he arrest or does he not?

We now go south to Worthing for an acoustic guitar led, singer-songwriter ballad about the blurriness of life, and how it all lies in the eye of the beholder:

"The chorus came first. Out of the blue. Fully formed. That’s all I had. And I knew what the song would be about from there. So then I imagined scenarios in which there are moral dilemmas for the characters. That came surprisingly quickly too. And the final verse is intentionally autobiographical and universal. I think deep down it comes from a place of self-growth, both intentional and accidental."

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Jenni Dale Lord – Dinner and a Heartbreak

I went through my whole closet

Found that special something

He was always asking me to just put on

Got that sexy shade of lipstick

He told me was his favorite

I’d been lookin’ forward to date night all day long

The doorbell rang, and I knew when our eyes met

That it would be a night I won’t forget

We leave England to land in Lubbock, TX, for a Modern Country song about feeling a vibe of change, but it ends up not being what you expected:

"I usually credit the idea for this song with a song swap that I did with some of my friends in the Texas Hill Country. Something about that show inspired me somehow. By the end of it, I had this concept “dinner in a heartbreak” and this little hooky melody for that one line.

I guess it’s stuck with me because I went home that night and dreamt it. I woke up the next morning and had to get it on paper and pulled out my guitar and wrote the music to go along with it. Sometimes I dream and that’s usually my favorite way to be inspired."

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The New Professionals – Suit and Tie

We all know
That these times are wild
But where are those moments
To make you smile?

And I’m losing sleep again
And sadness rains
Like cotton candy lingerie
Down the drain

We end our flight in New York, NY for a nightmarish Indie Rock, where the dream takes you to different places. In the end, you and I, suit and tie, will go for a ride:

"The song started as three separate song ideas that we pieced together. The lyrics are supposed to paint an abstract picture of two people in a spiral of self destruction and self discovery. I imagined two guys moving about a city at night, who by the end of the song have some sort of uneasy resolution to their adventures as they return to whatever separate places they came from, which is supposed to be captured by the “find the sword to put back in the stone, alone”, and then the dissonant semi eerie outro.

There are a lot of individual life experiences that went into the lyrics and the theme, and several different musical influences, from Dave Matthews to the Swans oddly enough."

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Listen to them and much more on the complete Playlist

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See you next month!