To say Westside Cowboy, the Manchester-based four-piece of Reuben Haycocks, Aoife Anson O'Connell, Jimmy Bradbury and Paddy Murphy, have enjoyed a meteoric rise in the indie music sphere would be something of an understatement. Formed just three years ago after meeting at the Royal Northern College of Music, the band released their debut EP This Better Be Something Great in 2025, followed by So Much Country ‘Till We Get There earlier this year. Now, just months later, their debut album It Goes On arrives, and sees the band more than live up to the considerable expectations heaped upon them by the music press. Intriguingly, their formation story calls to mind two of contemporary indie rock’s most compelling voices: New York’s Geese, whom Westside Cowboy recently supported on their UK tour, and the post-rock-leaning indie of British band Black Country, New Road. Like those two groups, Westside Cowboy offer deeply emotional, often beautiful songs imbued with an anxious, chaotic sense of contemporary existence, music constantly shifting between pensive tension, peculiar prettiness and glorious, ecstatic release.
Musically, the album draws heavily from that constantly mined quarry of eternal fascination for indie guitar bands: the catalogue of the Velvet Underground. Droning, chiming riffs, stripped-back instrumentation and raw, sung, spoken and mumbled vocals all point towards Lou Reed and co. Like the VU acolytes who preceded them – Jonathan Richman and The Modern Lovers, Spacemen 3 and Spiritualized, Galaxie 500, The Dream Syndicate, Nap Eyes and so on – Westside Cowboy make little attempt to hide this lineage. Indeed, they wear it proudly, disciples of a secular rock ‘n’ roll institution. The album's title, It Goes On, is itself a direct reference to the Velvet Underground’s 1969 track “What Goes On”, whose propulsive rush of strummed guitars seems to provide the seed for the brilliant opening track “Kick Stones (The Boys)”, and indeed more than a little of what follows. As blatant a tributary homage to Lou Reed perhaps hasn't been seen in indie music since Spacemen 3’s “Ode to Street Hassle” on 1987’s The Perfect Prescription. And like Peter ‘Sonic Boom’ Kember’s vocal stylings, primary singer Reuben Haycocks often deploys a deadpan calmness as explosive, joyous chaos erupts around him, though in decidedly more lucid fashion.
In interviews and press releases, Westside Cowboy have self-proclaimed their branch of indie rock as “Britainicana”, a slightly awkward, cumbersome term, perhaps, but one that highlights both their existence and their focus on things outside a London-centric sphere. Beyond It Goes On’s gloriously scratchy, needle-like guitars, there is more going on here than merely VU fandom. Traces of Modest Mouse, themselves lone rangers of the Pacific Northwest, appear in both “Paperchains” and “Well Done Kid, You Did It”. With Haycocks and Bradbury’s vocals frequently complemented by O'Connell’s fey accompaniment, and the music’s propensity to journey from something brittle towards thunderous, climactic, euphoric release, comparisons to Arcade Fire become unavoidable. Their acclaimed debut Funeral, as well as, it must be said, fellow Canadians Broken Social Scene’s You Forgot It in People, casts something of a sizeable shadow across much of It Goes On. Still, it remains remarkable how much the album manages to conjure something fresh, innovative and rapturous from such a familiar, fairly spare instrumental palette. Its lack of showiness or overt flamboyance is refreshing; at its heart these are simple, heartfelt and relatably honest songs that somehow puncture and permeate the emotional centre of the listener.
“Pin Up Boys” foregrounds an unsure vulnerability in its verses, bearing more than a passing resemblance to something written by BC,NR’s Isaac Wood, before ripping into the album’s catchiest chorus. It’s this dichotomy that permeates It Goes On and makes it so interesting. These are small, personal and intricate songs, but the band’s ability to place genuinely irresistible pop melodies atop their VU-indebted jangle is what helps them stand apart from the seemingly ever-growing crowd of buzz bands in the UK and Ireland. Even the quieter, more reserved tracks threaten, and often do, burn tentatively like the fuse of a firework, inevitably peaking and sparking into life. You hear it on the Big Thief-like “Coyote” and the excellent “Big Wheels”.
Closing the record, the brilliantly ramshackle, rhythmic new wave-esque pulse of “You Could Have Died There On The Dancefloor” evokes an infectious brew of Talking Heads’ arty angularity, the Velvet Underground’s pounding piano thuds and interchanging male and female vocals. It is a fitting end to an album that constantly seems to be teetering on the edge of falling apart, only to pull itself together and burst into something bigger, brighter and more emotionally resonant. It Goes On is a debut that wears its influences openly but never feels trapped by them, and in a musical landscape increasingly crowded with bands being told they are the next big thing, Westside Cowboy sound refreshingly unconcerned with what comes next. They are simply getting on with it. And, as the title suggests, It Goes On.
It Goes On is out now vinyl & CD
