Keyside

Keyside’s self-titled debut is a 12-track Liverpool guitar-pop album that pairs jangling guitars, buoyant rhythms, and big sing-along choruses with sharply observed stories from everyday life. Released by Modern Sky UK in August 2026, it was recorded at Liverpool’s Kempston Street Studios with producer Chris Taylor, whose previous work includes records by The Coral and Blossoms. The album moves briskly through “Runaway,” “Angeline,” “Down My Way,” “Lemon and Lime,” “Heaven,” “Comedown,” “Rock My Love,” “Cocodamol,” “Red Ruby Red,” “Nikita,” “Michael (What’s Your Call?),” and “Echoes,” displaying a sound that draws on Merseybeat, Britpop, and contemporary northern indie rock.

Underneath its bright, melodic surface, Keyside confronts much heavier subject matter: addiction, grief, isolation, unemployment, fractured families, mental health, masculinity, and the struggle to keep going in communities that often feel left behind. “Rock My Love” captures this contrast particularly clearly, setting frank social realism against hopeful, Johnny Marr-like guitar shimmer, while the closing “Echoes” was written from vocalist Parker’s experience of losing his uncle to drug dependency. That tension between melancholy and momentum is the record’s defining quality. Keyside is not merely a nostalgic guitar-band debut; it is a direct, compassionate collection in which warm hooks and local detail make difficult stories feel communal rather than bleak.