Bad Sounds, a Cotswolds duo made up of brothers Ewen and Callum Merrett, have dropped their first new music of 2024 in the form of ‘On The Ropes’. It’s a stylish track that continues to demonstrate the evolution of their sound, with twanging guitars colliding with warm, deep synth sounds and effervescent melodies. There’s a level of artistic poetry to their alt-pop, that fans of Everything Everything will surely appreciate. “It’s the most inaccurate description of our lives and experiences you could possibly imagine, but we’ve never let that get in the way of a good song before,” they say. “Two brothers who grew up in a small market town in the southwest of England singing a song about California.” The track is taken from their new EP, Escaping From A Violent Time Vol. 4, which is the fourth in a four-volume series and is due for release in March 2024. -Dan Peeke