Cosplay follows the band’s 2022 release ‘Anywhere But Here’ and continues their evolution as one of the most distinctive acts in the UK’s alternative scene. Over the years, Sorry have carved out a reputation for their genre-defying approach, merging 90s grunge textures with jazz flourishes, trip-hop rhythms, and art-rock experimentation. The result is a sound that resists easy categorisation and keeps audiences guessing with every release.

Speaking about ‘Echoes’ in a press release, vocalist Asha Lorenz revealed the song’s roots in a poem “about the story of a boy shouting echo into a tunnel waiting for his reply.” As the track developed, Lorenz explained, it “blossomed into being about losing yourself in love and ‘echo’ becoming a third person in the middle.” Sonically, ‘Echoes’ pairs shimmering guitar work with moody percussion and the band’s trademark off-kilter melodies, hinting at the inventive direction ‘Cosplay’ may take.

The album announcement was accompanied by an irreverent Instagram post from the band, describing ‘Cosplay’ as “11 new sparkly songs” and their “much anticipated golden globes winning post Brit bop funky stinky baddy jazz album.” They closed with a rallying cry to fans to “Keep rockin in the free world. xxxx stay golden.”

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Sorry are currently in the midst of an extensive live schedule. This weekend sees them perform two nights in Dublin (August 17–18), before heading to Glasgow and Manchester for back-to-back shows. The summer festival season will also feature key appearances from the band, including London’s All Points East on August 24 and Dorset’s End of the Road Festival on August 31.

Later in the year, they will embark on a North American tour, kicking off on December 3 and running through to December 20, concluding with a show in Los Angeles. With Cosplay on the horizon, the band’s upcoming dates promise to showcase both their back catalogue and the first glimpses of their latest material – an enticing prospect for fans who have followed their unpredictable journey from the start.

The album can be pre-saved via the link here.

The event, on Saturday 2nd September, will see Manchester City Centre effectively transformed into a festival ground, with multiple live music venues, scattered up and down, being employed as stages. The Albert Hall, on Peter Street, will act as main stage, while other venues, such as YES, Gorilla, the 02 Ritz, Canvas, Manchester Academy 2 and Deaf Institute, will act as the other, smaller stages.

Headlining Manchester Psych Fest 2023 will be American psychedelic rock legends The Brian Jonestown Massacre, who will be the last band to perform on the night at the Albert Hall. Fans of the psychedelic rock genre will need no introduction to BJM and the great Anton Newcombe who fronts the group, a group who, to this day, continue to be an ever-evolving vehicle for musical experimentation, having released their 20th studio album, The Future Is Your Past, in February this year.

Another main act comes in the form of American singer-songwriter Ezra Furman, who has previously said this will be her last European tour for a while. As such, this will be one of the last chances British fans will get to see Furman live in the flesh for the time being, and will therefore be a show not to be missed. She will be playing at the 02 Ritz and will be the last act at that venue.

Other acts that will feature at this year’s Psych fest include The Kundalini Genie, Allah-Las, The Lovely Eggs and Flamingods, all of whom are psychedelic rock groups. English indie rock band Sorry will be in attendance, as will the predominantly instrumental Cumbia-inspired London group Los Bitchos. Noise punk outfit Benefits will raise pulses in the White Noise room at Canvas, while post-punk bands Deadletter and The Murder Capital will electrify elsewhere.

A rather late addition to the line-up are The Murlocs, an Australian rock band hailing from Melbourne. They will play at the 02 Ritz at 4.30pm. This will not be the only show, however, for Ambrose Kenny-Smith and Cook Craig, frontman and guitarist respectively, as the talented duo are also an integral part of fellow Australian group King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, another group who needs no introduction to the fan of the psychedelic rock genre. The latter group will also be performing in Manchester on the same night, with a headline midnight gig at the Manchester Academy. The show, unfortunately, is not technically part of the festival and separate tickets are required to see the Aussie psych rock heavyweights.

There will also be several film screenings in addition to the multitude of music options, including a UK festival exclusive screening of Chunky Scrapnel, a road movie featuring King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, and Dig!, a documentary on the love/hate relationship between American groups The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols.

You can purchase tickets here.

Stages and set times below:

Albert Hall
Sorry – 14.00 – 14.45
The Lovely Eggs – 15.15 – 16.00
Allah-Las – 16.30 – 17.30
Los Bitchos – 18.15 – 19.15
Snail Mail – 20.00 – 21.00
The Brian Jonestown Massacre – 21.45 – 23.15

The 02 Ritz
The Mysterines – 13.00 – 14.00
Jeffrey Lewis – 14.45 – 15.45
The Murlocs – 16.30  – 17.30
Bodega – 18.15 – 19.15
Loose Articles – 20.00 – 20.45
The Murder Capital – 21.30 – 22.45
Ezra Furman – 23.30 – 00.45

Ritz Basement
Atmos Bloom – 14.00 – 14.30
Lei Hope – 15.45 – 16.15
No Windows – 17.30 – 18.00
Cruush – 19.15 – 19.45
The Kundalini Genie – 20.45 – 21.15

Manchester Academy 2
Teke :: Teke – 15.15 – 16.00
The Underground Youth – 16.45 – 17.45
Panic Shack – 18.30 – 19.15
Flamingods – 20.00 – 21.00
Kokoko! – 21.45 – 22.45

Canvas Room 1
Viji – 14.15 – 14.45
Pray For Mojo – 15.30 – 16.15
University – 17.00 – 17.45
Benefits – 18.30 – 19.15
Say She She – 20.00 – 20.45
BDRMM – 21.30 – 22.45
Maruja – 23.30 – 00.15
Stealing Sheep – 01.00 – 02.00

Lead vocalist and guitar player Asha Lorenz said of the forthcoming LP; “Anywhere But Here! We approached the album differently from the first one, it was more of a live band process and the outcome has made it feel rawer and more sincere… we think. We wanted every song to have its own gravity but also have little snippets, or lyrical patterns that repeat, grow – metamorphosis. Everyone started to feel a bit alien in the last couple years with all that’s happened. It’s kind of weird being from London, growing up here, like anyone who’s been in the same place for ages. How all the landmarks, places, even people are the same, but it still feels different. I think we want things to change, or we think they will, but it kind of just happens again but in a different way. That sound is kind of the sound I imagine when you moan or cum or deep cry – it’s like rebirth. It’s the shedding of a skin!”

Check out the video for the new single; “Let The Light On” down below:

Discussing the inspiration behind this latest hit, the band stated; “It’s a fun love song for the club. A bittersweet track for us. It kinda touches on how you want to be honest and say things directly, but in the end that can also ruin them. If you’ve got a light don’t let it go out… sometimes you have to leave things behind but it’s hard to do. We tried to make it a bit ironic by saying things very plainly and direct. It’s the last song we wrote from the album and came out of us trying to find something more upbeat for the album. It started off as a dancey song with driving bass and drums and became more poppy when we played it with the band and recorded it.”

You can pre-order the new record at the band’s official website in a range of formats. You can find the tracklist here:

1.“Let The Lights On”
2. “Tell Me”
3. “Key To The City”
4. “Willow Tree”
5. “There’s So Many People That Want To Be Loved”
6. “I Miss The Fool”
7. “Step”
8. “Closer”
9. “Baltimore”
10. “Hem of the Fray”
11. “Quit While You’re Ahead”
12. “Screaming In The Rain”
13. “Again”

Whilst a cliché of music journalism, it must be said that Sorry’s music utterly defies genre conventions. The pair re-work ‘90s sounds, blending elements of alt rock and trip hop, but also draw from a host of other genres including art pop, indie rock, and psychedelia. ‘Twixtustwain’ provides merely another example of Sorry’s ability to not just simply evade any strict definition of genre, but to fuse elements of disparate genres together. For instance, ‘Things to Hold On To’ combines downtempo electronica production with rock guitar riffs, whilst ‘Cigarette Packet’ is a mellow indie pop track with a postpunk edge.

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Speaking about the new EP in a press release, the duo said, “The ‘Twixtustwain’ songs, shapes and forms are more odd and misshaped to fit around the mantra type lyrical lines. They are smaller ideas that we wanted to explore and put out between albums to follow from the ‘Home Demo/ns’ [two mixtapes they released in 2017]. Then we’ve wanted ‘Home Demons’ up for a while too, so more people can enjoy them now. They also show the songs / ideas that developed into ‘925’ [their debut album].”

The pair’s debut album ‘925’ was released last year to critical acclaim, almost universally acknowledged as a triumph. NME awarded the album five stars, DIY Mag awarded the album 4.5 stars, and The Line of Best Fit gave it a rating of 9.5 out 10. However, without the privilege of live performances due to COVID restrictions, the duo have not truly been able to gauge how their music has been received by their audience.

Louis O’Bryen, one half of the London duo, recently articulated this feeling in an interview with NME, stating, “It’s been super-strange. Playing live is how you assess how stuff is going – by seeing people’s reactions to it. But now we’ve only been able to figure on what’s going on with the album from the internet, which all seems fake. It’s been hard to figure out how it’s doing.”

Having already had to cancel a string of live performances that were scheduled for next month, Sorry will hopefully be able to remedy this problem later in the year. In turn, they will be given an opportunity to experience first-hand the impact that their music has had on the UK scene.

Sorry’s new EP ‘Twixtustwain’ is available to stream below:

The North London based band will be releasing 500 vinyls on Bandcamp, with all the proceeds going to The Windmill. Sorry have taken to Instagram to promote their new live album from their November show at the mentioned music venue. They said,  ‘We’re releasing this live show we did last Nov at the Windmill exclusively on Bandcamp this Bandcamp Friday! 500 vinyl copies only. All money goes to support the Windmill staying open, 2 new unreleased tracks on it – buy a copy at in bio x’

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The albums tracklist is from their debut album released in 2020, ‘925’, plus a further two bonus tracks as promised by the band. The album has been hailed as ‘unashamedly experimental and woozy, without having a bad track on it’ with added help and expertise from Gorillaz producer James Dring during production. Started by best friends Asha Lorenz and Louis O’Bryen, the experimental indie quartet will be charging £20 for the live album as well as donating £925 themselves to the worthy cause.

The Windmill has been described by Billboard as “a divey hangout for indie-spirited DIY musicians”, presenting a welcoming space for musicians to experiment with their sound to a music-fanatic audience. The Windmill have their own fundraiser set up too, which has raised up to £65,000 of the desired £72,000 target.

This is not the only time Sorry have participated in fundraising to save music venues from closure. During May 2020, they and other bands such as Shame and Porridge Radio, participated in a charity compilation, ‘Group Therapy Vol.1’, which raised funds for Music Venues Trust and NHS Charities Together. 

A Night At The Windmill’ will be released on 12th March 2021 but can be pre-ordered now via Bandcamp.

‘To spread some cheer before the end of a very difficult year, we are thrilled to reveal who’s joining Pixies, King Krule, Big Thief, Bright Eyes, Little Simz and Aldous Harding at End of the Road 2021’ the festival wrote in an Instagram statement ‘Feast your eyes on over 100 artists on the bill, some familiar from 2020, some not so much…’

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Like many festivals, this year’s event was cancelled due to the ongoing global pandemic. However, a number of the artists initially booked will still headline the 2021 event. In addition, the festival’s line-up also features some new additions, such as Perfume Genius, Arlo Parks, Sorry and Shygirl, who will all take to the festival stage come September.

The festival has been praised by fans and critics alike, with The Independent calling last years event a ‘weekend filled with unexpected thrills,’ and The Guardian stating it was full of ‘potent bacchanalia and mysticism’. With some if the best emerging artists from the UK and beyond set to grace the event, End Of The Road Festival 2021 is set to take the already beloved event to new heights.

You can buy tickets to End Of The Road 2021 here.