★★★★★

With the release of Westside Cowboy’s debut album ‘It Goes On’, Britain’s first truly revelatory Gen Z guitar group have arrived. The Manchester four-piece have crafted a brilliant collection of coming-of-age anthems that are simultaneously built to last and precisely representative of a moment in time in the band’s career.

With their rapid rise to indie stardom, fuelled by their prolific approach to releasing music. Their debut EP, ‘This Better Be Something Great’, was released a mere year ago in August 2025, while their second EP, ‘So Much Country ‘Till We Get There’, arrived this past January. Other bands might rest on their laurels for a while, but not Westside Cowboy. 

They’ve even coined their own genre: ‘Britainicana’, a take on indie rock and folk that is as influenced by American music and aesthetics as by the experience of growing up in contemporary Britain. And one need only look at their mostly sold-out EU and UK tour dates for this autumn to see that their sound and stage presence are already resonating with audiences.

‘It Goes On’ is Westside Cowboy’s second collaboration with producer Loren Humphrey, whose recent credits include Geese, Cameron Winter, and Wunderhorse. Listening to this album, it’s immediately apparent that this is a perfect match between artist and producer; Humphrey deeply understands the Westside Cowboy project and knows how to draw the best out of them. With Humphrey at the helm, ‘It Goes On’ feels utterly authentic to the band, their interests, and their influences. It doesn’t feel over-produced or tampered with in any way. 

The album’s opening track, ‘Kick Stones (The Boys)’, is an ideal introduction to Westside Cowboy. It has all the elements listeners have come to love and expect from the band: intertwining guitar riffs, punchy, unrelenting drums, striking lyrical imagery (“The rain sounds like bells / The plastic-covered cars swim totally fine”), stunning multi-part harmonies, impassioned vocal performances. It’s an instantly memorable track that sets the tone for the rest of the album.

That tone is ultimately characterised by authenticity and sincere artistic expression. In a recent interview, the band explained that they and Humphrey focused on the specific sound, tone, and texture of each instrument and voice rather than on technical perfection. That attitude shines through on every song. There’s also a vibrancy to the album that reflects the energy and dynamism of the band’s live performances. On ‘Pin Up Boys’, there’s an impressive immediacy to Reuben Haycocks and Aoife Anson-O’Connell’s vocal performances; they’re more focused on conveying and being carried by the emotion of the song rather than on creating a pristine, note-perfect version to be preserved for posterity. The same is true of ‘Well Done Kid, You Did It’, where the band speeds up during the final chorus, with the vocalists excitedly trying to keep up with Paddy Murphy’s fast-paced drumming, just as they might during a live performance. 

Like the best live sets, ‘It Goes On’ is sequenced beautifully and designed to take listeners on a journey through Westside Cowboy’s multifaceted sound. The second track, ‘Paperchains’, demonstrates that the band haven’t lost their knack for writing a straightforward indie rock banger after their breakout single ‘I’ve Never Met Anyone I Thought I Could Really Love (Until I Met You)’. It’s an incredibly catchy, guitar-forward song that would work as well in an arena as it would (and did) in a tiny sweatbox venue. It’s elevated by Murphy’s smooth, emphatic harmonies and his use of tambourine. 

Bassist and vocalist Anson-O’Connell takes the lead on ‘Coyote’, Westside Cowboy’s incisive take on a folk-influenced protest song, before guitarist and vocalist Jimmy Bradbury takes over with the stirring, Jeff Buckley-inspired rock ballad ‘Patchwork’. After the surprisingly stripped-back acoustic breakup song ‘Take My Leaving As I Love You’, the album closes with a burst of energy in the form of ‘You Could Have Died There On the Dancefloor’, an irresistible indie rock track with echoes of Pavement and The Hold Steady, featuring some fascinating out-of-time harmonies. 

Despite the variety of the individual songs, there’s a consistent theme of yearning throughout the record, whether for the past, lost love, a distinct identity, or an as-yet-undefined future. This sense of longing is conveyed most effectively on ‘Worried Age’, the band’s most emotional song yet. “We are a worried age / Where your panic feels more real than a thought,” they proclaim in melancholy harmony, later wondering whether “surely there’s more to me than everybody sees / Than this bitter man.” 

‘It Goes On’ is such a captivating snapshot of where Westside Cowboy are now in the development of their sound that it begs the question: where will they go next? “Please keep me around,” the band pleaded on ‘Dancefloor’. This album makes it certain we will.