Growing up there are certain triggers where you realise music is the greatest thing of all time. It might have been Lou Vega’s “aah!” at a school disco, or, preferably, when you switch on Kerrang! Radio to hear In Bloom. That ‘big riff’ is what it’s all about: what makes you start a deep dive into the best guitar licks committed to tape, and a whole teenagedom searching for what exactly makes rock’s best moments so delectable.
That feels more pronounced given how little levelling riffage you get in popular music and, for want of a better term, ‘alt’. The UK’s scene was rife with characteristic rock legends in the ‘00s, with the occasional flash in a pan later (who remembers Drenge?!). Today’s alt-rock tries to capture the same feel to diminishing returns, unless they’re trialling outlandish creative efforts––the pedalboard theatrics of Nova Twins, for instance, whose breakout festival slots speak for themselves. And not many have been more committed to the ‘big riff’ in the UK’s bubbling underground than False Advertising.
Over the past decade, Jen Hingley and Josh Sellers (and ex-drummer Chris Warr) have delivered indie-pop by way of grunge, always pushing catchiness and gnarly headbangers in equal measure. Hingley comes across like Manchester’s answer to Marissa Paternoster, juggling memorable power chord chunks with melodic vocal hooks riding along with them. Outside her OG group she’s played for the live band of the inimitable Jamie Lenman, and the group’s previous hits prove it; Brainfreeze’s Influence and Wasted Days, up to sporadic 2021 single Personal Space. The now-duo’s releases may have been sparing, but each has added new layers toward their first full-length in six years.
The Sorry Window feels a rejuvenated start into more ‘professional’ capacity, working at Church Studios with Luke Pickering to make songs shimmering with overdubs that branch away from their original formulas. Don’t Ask Me, originally released in 2024, has a brawny atmosphere to it, locking in to a swaying rhythm without forgetting fuzzy bass tones and sour-ringing leads. Even more caustic strings, biting vocals, and tantalising grooves ring across highlight You’ll Never too, and the build-ups in penultimate track Leave It Alone introduce strings to the formula across a wonderfully-constructed five minutes.
There’s still throttling rocky moments all over these tracks, and they rub against more subdued moments that are, perhaps intentionally, more cautious to cement a more dynamic album experience. That’s certainly true across the range of pre-releases: Acid Rain’s catchy punk also features an easycore-style synth lead (without needing to be played by a crabcore side member) that comes in sounding like a buzzsaw in its second verse. Next Big Thing’s meaty bass throughline channels Reuben’s Blamethower, and Hingley’s sprechgesang avoids feeling overdone like their South London post-punk counterparts, by mixing in gang vocals, snarls and a call-response chorus that shows off genuine frustrations of life in the music industry’s outer orbit. The Sorry Window on the other hand, referencing Curb Your Enthusiasm no less, is a languid indie cut that teases at a large pay-off that it doesn’t quite get to. But it fits as the album centrepiece for showcasing more of the band’s developed sound.
The world needs its Brudenell Social Clubs and its George Taverns, just like it needs the entertainers to fill them. False Advertising feel like perfect leaders in that space, true grafters and purveyors of a reclaimed big rock sound that should hit more nerves outside their DIY beginnings with The Sorry Window: the next logical step in getting the recognition they have been deserving of for a long while.
For fans of: Reuben, Lower Than Atlantis, goo
‘The Sorry Window’ by False Advertising is released on 1st May.
Words by Elliot Burr
