Sometimes I can’t put a finger on what it is that makes one band’s sound appealing to me while another might bore me, but in the case of London’s World News, I knew what it was immediately – they love the flanger. Or more importantly, they love it the right way – speed low, resonance low, and going for that shiny, liquid-y movement that’s so much more interesting than the jet plane sound effects that most people go for and makes that most misunderstood of guitar effects so unfairly dismissed. But I digress.

World News do post-punk in a vein that’s way underexplored these days, with clean, shimmering tension the way Sad Lovers & Giants or The Sound did it. “Sidestep” was released as a single back in April, but will also appear on the band’s debut album In Purgatory, which will be out October 16. Of the song, frontman Alex Evans says:

“Sidestep” is about watching someone you care about slowly avoid looking after themselves, drifting through life, wasting days on the wrong things, slipping into habits that only pull them further away from who they could be. It was written about a close family member, but I started to see how common it really is. At its heart, it’s about that helpless feeling of standing on the outside, seeing it all so clearly, wanting to help, and realising you can’t make the choice for them

Alex Evans, World News
20 Best Songs of the Week: Modern Woman, World News, Massive Attack, Kevin Morby, and More @ Under The Radar

The band are a relatively new discovery for me but I am quite keen on hearing more. Some of their already released material I’m ho-hum on but the tracks that hit, hit hard. The degree of impact may or many not be directly proportional to the amount of flange on the guitars.