The Wedding Present + more across Manchester Academy.
cheerbleederz: (prove me wrong)
(Alcopop!)
DL | ST
Released: 5 September, 2025
cheerbleederz return with long overdue new music. It’s a joy to welcome back such a smart, cool, witty indie-punk band who know how to write great songs.
cheerbleederz debut album, even in jest, which we reviewed here, was one of the smartest, coolest, fun indie-punk releases of 2022. It simply sparkled with wit and inventiveness. But things have been a little quiet on the releases front from the band since then. So, it’s good that finally we have four new songs from Pheobe Cross, Kathryn Woods and Sophie Mackenzie, on the EP (prove me wrong). And whilst the band members all have other creative music projects, appearing variously in the line ups of Fresh, ME REX, Felicette, and Happy Accidents, it doesn’t appear to have just been this other activity that has distracted them
“Releasing that album (even in jest) was one of our biggest achievements,” says guitarist Kathryn Woods. “Full stop. We’re so proud of it. I think we’ve grown up a lot since then. We’ve moved cities and started different jobs, new relationships, and travelled to a lot of different places.”
“Our personal lives have had pretty extreme periods of loss and grief, but through all this, you also get extreme feelings of hope and love, acceptance and new found appreciation,” drummer Phoebe Cross continues. “I think we’ve had a tough realisation that sometimes things don’t work out how you thought they would, or things happen that you never even anticipated. But you keep going anyway, because what choice do you have? We are at the mercy of cosmic forces and there’s nothing you can really control. I’m sure our sadness informed the record in many ways we might not even be aware of. It certainly made us give less of a fuck!”
Woods: “There’s also the fact that recording and releasing music together feels like we’ve already beat the odds. We’ve managed to come together and create despite what’s going on in our personal lives.”
“There have definitely been individual experiences in the last year with friendships that have been harmful, where a difficult change was needed,” says Phoebe of the themes on the EP. “I think there’s also the sense of things getting more serious. Everything—friendships, relationships, our relationship to our health and our bodies, work and other passions—has accelerated so quickly and we wanted to write songs that captured that kind of urgency.”
But whilst the themes of the songs may have a harder edge, the band haven’t lost any of their smarts and the songs, with quick changes of tempo and rhythm, are beautifully arranged and blessed with on point harmonies.
EP opener i deserved better kicks things off and is a song that would have fit perfectly on their album. The major chords slashing across the upbeat bass and drums combine with the perfectly delivered vocals, where every word sounds like it’s been thought out with such great care whilst appearing insouciant. It’s a song about breaking up and the chorus is a wop bop a lop da chant that is meant to raise morale or maybe block out thoughts.
passenger princess is saturated with guitar fuzz before slipping into muted strings for the verses and crashing into an Avril Lavigne pop chorus. It’s a sublime song about being one of life’s eternal passengers until taking charge of her own direction and taking the wheel.
Sleepwalking has a more muted, low key guitar sound over the subtle drum and bass rhythm. The music and vocals are wistful and yearning for something, youth maybe, that has slipped so quickly through the fingers.
EP closer you got it in for me has a Radiohead riff to open it and suckers you into a thoughtful verse before exploding into the chorus that’s infused with anger: psycho social hide and seek/searching for your honesty.
From the very first track it feels good to have this band back. They compliment each other perfectly, as Woods says, “I think cheerbleederz is more collaborative than any of our other products. Every part of our band is thought over together, there is no one person making the majority of the creative decisions. I think we feel less defined by our own sound than we do in our other bands, which leads to more risk-tasking.”
Amen to that and thank the muses for cheerbleederz.
~
You can find cheerbleederz on Linktree.
All words by Mark Ray. More writing by Mark Ray can be found at his author archive. And he can be found on Instagram.
A Plea From Louder Than War
Louder Than War is run by a small but dedicated independent team, and we rely on the small amount of money we generate to keep the site running smoothly. Any money we do get is not lining the pockets of oligarchs or mad-cap billionaires dictating what our journalists are allowed to think and write, or hungry shareholders. We know times are tough, and we want to continue bringing you news on the most interesting releases, the latest gigs and anything else that tickles our fancy. We are not driven by profit, just pure enthusiasm for a scene that each and every one of us is passionate about.
To us, music and culture are eveything, without them, our very souls shrivel and die. We do not charge artists for the exposure we give them and to many, what we do is absolutely vital. Subscribing to one of our paid tiers takes just a minute, and each sign-up makes a huge impact, helping to keep the flame of independent music burning! Please click the button below to help.
John Robb – Editor in Chief
