Westside Cowboy’s debut album arrives with the kind of promise that can make an emerging band feel like the next big thing before it has even settled into its identity. The Manchester quartet has built its reputation on a curious blend of British indie rock and American roots music, a combination it has dubbed “Britainicana.” On It Goes On, that sound becomes more deliberate, with the band exploring the space between ragged, energetic rock and intimate folk songwriting. Rather than simply trying to recreate the loudness of its live performances, the group embraces restraint, allowing its melodies and emotional nuances to carry as much weight as its explosive moments. The result is a charming, frequently moving debut that captures the uncertainty of young adulthood while suggesting a band still figuring out what it can become.
Producer Loren Humphrey is essential to that evolution. Best known for his work with Geese, Humphrey encourages the quartet to move beyond the chaotic energy of its live shows and focus on space, clarity and subtle dynamic shifts. The guitars create warm, organic backdrops rather than competing for attention, giving the arrangements room to breathe. The production feels analog and tactile, preserving imperfections instead of sanding them away in pursuit of a pristine modern indie-rock sound. The band’s influences remain apparent, but Humphrey helps them function as ingredients rather than templates. The result is a record that can move from jangling British guitar pop to dusty Americana and post-punk tension without feeling as though it is constantly changing direction.
Aoife Anson-O’Connell is particularly important to the album’s instrumental palette. Beyond her bass playing, she contributes upright piano to “Patchwork” and keyboards and cello lines to “Big Wheels,” expanding the band’s sound without making the arrangements feel unnecessarily elaborate. Her versatility helps establish the contrast between the album’s muscular guitar passages and its quieter, more reflective moments. Reuben Haycocks and Jimmy Bradbury provide complementary guitar and vocal approaches, while Paddy Murphy’s drumming supplies the rhythmic momentum that keeps the more restrained material from drifting. Westside Cowboy succeeds when all four members feel equally essential, and Humphrey’s production gives their individual contributions room to register.
Thematically, It Goes On is concerned with what the band calls the “Worried Age”: the anxiety of growing older, recognizing that childhood is slipping away and realizing that becoming an adult rarely brings the certainty one expects. These songs examine evolving identities, relationships that no longer fit and the environmental and societal frustrations that make the future feel increasingly difficult to navigate. Rather than presenting growing up as a triumphant transition, Westside Cowboy treats it as an ongoing process of losing familiar versions of yourself while trying to understand what comes next. There is a tenderness to that perspective, even when the music becomes abrasive. The album recognizes that growing up can mean feeling simultaneously more capable and less certain about everything.
“Kick Stones (The Boys)” opens the album with an effective statement of intent. Its dynamic arrangement establishes the band’s Britainicana approach, pairing energetic guitar work with a restless rhythmic foundation driven by Murphy’s drumming. The song’s repeated refrain, “Have you heard that the boys, they are gone this time?” becomes increasingly insistent through the bridge and outro, turning repetition into a reflection of absence and change. Rather than relying on an immediate wall of sound, the arrangement builds its momentum through carefully controlled shifts in intensity. The track demonstrates how Westside Cowboy can make a song feel both casually ragged and meticulously constructed, setting the tone for an album that values movement as much as melody.
“Well Done Kid, You Did It” serves as the emotional anchor. Haycocks wrote the song during a period when the pressure of preparing an album had become overwhelming, challenging himself to write a song every day to break through his creative paralysis. The track emerged from that process as a conversation with his younger self, offering reassurance rather than judgment to the person he once was and the person he is still becoming. Acoustic and electric guitars intertwine beneath the vocal harmonies shared by Haycocks and Anson-O’Connell, creating a warm, understated arrangement that allows the sentiment to land naturally. The song never needs to explode into a grand rock climax. Its strength lies in its vulnerability, capturing the quiet realization that surviving difficult periods is an accomplishment in itself.
“Pin Up Boys” provides a welcome jolt of energy, showcasing the band’s ability to combine post-punk tension with melodic payoffs. The track is one of the album’s most muscular performances, propelled by jagged guitar interplay and percussion that gives the arrangement a rough, metallic edge. Its origins in a deliberately makeshift recording approach, including the use of screwdrivers as drumsticks, suit the song’s restless character. Haycocks’ gritty, almost spoken-word delivery contrasts with Anson-O’Connell’s more impassioned vocal outbursts, making their chemistry one of the track’s defining features. The song also demonstrates why the band has generated excitement through its live performances: beneath the unconventional textures and scrappy attitude is a strong instinct for dynamics and memorable hooks.
“Paperchains” extends the album’s examination of growing up through the experience of outgrowing old friendships and resisting the expectations imposed by peers. Its central tension comes from the difficulty of changing when the people around you continue to expect the same version of yourself. Meanwhile, “Worried Age” captures the record’s broader existential unease, transforming anxiety about the future into something restless and rhythmic. These songs are strongest when their emotional concerns emerge through the arrangements rather than being explained too directly. The band understands that the transition into adulthood is rarely defined by one decisive moment. More often, it is a series of uncomfortable realizations that accumulate until familiar relationships and assumptions no longer feel sustainable.
For all its strengths, It Goes On does not always distinguish itself from the indie-rock landscape it inhabits. Shades of Pavement’s slacker-rock looseness, Big Thief’s intimate songwriting and the broader tradition of guitar-driven alternative music are easy to recognize. Those influences are not inherently problematic, and Westside Cowboy has enough charm and instrumental personality to make the comparisons feel more like reference points than outright imitation. Still, the band’s most compelling qualities emerge when it pushes beyond those familiar touchstones. Anson-O’Connell’s vocals are an especially underused asset. Her performances bring a distinct emotional intensity to the songs, and there are moments when the album would benefit from placing her in the lead rather than limiting her to backing harmonies or brief outbursts. Giving her a more prominent role could help establish a more distinctive identity for the group.
Ultimately, It Goes On is a strong debut that captures the uncertainty of growing up without pretending to have answers. Humphrey’s production gives Westside Cowboy room to develop its sound, the arrangements balance scrappiness with sophistication and the songwriting finds genuine warmth in themes of change, regret and self-acceptance. The album is not particularly groundbreaking, and its influences may make its long-term legacy difficult to predict. Yet there is a sincerity to the performances that makes those shortcomings easier to overlook. Westside Cowboy has the charm, chemistry and songwriting instincts to become something special. Whether It Goes On ultimately proves to be a contender for album of the year or simply the first step toward a more distinctive future, it is an encouraging beginning for a band that understands the most important thing about growing up: the process never really stops.
For Fans Of
Pavement — Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
Big Thief — Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You
The Feelies — Crazy Rhythms