The year in Medway music

It's been a remarkable year for Medway music, so our music correspondent Stephen Morris has put together his list of the essential albums coming out of our towns this year. Further down, we hear about Oral History Medway and their efforts to keep Medway stories alive, we review Lupen Crook at the Three Sheets, and lots more.

The year in Medway music

2025 was a big year for Medway music. The year saw the reformation of Thee Headcoatees, a further re-imagining of The Singing Loins and a reappearance of The High Span. Alongside this came new releases from Dead Blood Cells, Theatre Royal, and The Spike Direction Effect, as well as exciting debut albums from The Penrose Web, The Dutch Embassy, and Cream Soda. A standard year in the Medway Towns, then. Here, in no particular order, our music correspondent Stephen Morris picks the ten albums that have particularly caught his ear over the last twelve months. 

The Singing Loins – Camber ‘87
The Singing Loins returned in 2025 with a collection of re-recordings of old songs alongside the addition of a brand new one: ‘Teeth and Eyes’. Now boasting an established larger line up including Richard Moore on violin and Oli Allen on percussion, Camber ’87 manages to preserve the essence of Singing Loins past while ever moving onwards. The new song captures this approach of juggling the past, present and future, looking back at perfectly imperfectly times gone by and gazing ahead to an unknown tomorrow. It’s beautiful.

Theatre Royal – A Change of Weather
Now onto album number six, Theatre Royal have long been recognised part of the Medway music scene, not least because the majority of the band used to be in The Long Weekend. Where that band were bold, brash lads determined to embrace the lifestyle of 20-somethings in a band, A Change of Weather sees Theatre Royal on reflective form, entirely happy to embrace and accept their position in early middle age – fathers, husbands and partners, people with Responsibilities (capital “R” very much intended). 
Speaking of ‘Welsh Coastal Towns’, which secured airplay courtesy of Steve Lamacq on BBC 6 Music, lead singer Oliver Burgess explains how ‘the song is about that realisation: looking around the house, thinking: “Am I my father? Is that who I am now? Do I like that? Do I like the fact I’m turning into my dad? Am I turning into him? Do I feel comfortable with it?”’ 
It's a beautiful indie pop album, packed full of soul. 

Cream Soda – Serving You…
It’s been a particularly busy time in the Page family this year. Not only has Glenn Page released Misty Medway Magick alongside his bandmates in The Len Price 3; son Tom Page has also released an album with his band, Cream Soda. As might be expected from a band whose lead singer’s father is a regular on the garage band scene, Serving You… is rooted in a love of no-frills rock and roll. 
It's a suitably back to basics affair, raw and unpolished, with pre-requisites references to Medway landmarks (The Tap n Tin appears in album opener ‘Victim of the Medway Towns’ and the Russian submarine U-475 Black Widow, rusting away near the Rochester Bridge, gets a reference on ‘Submerged Affair’).
Meanwhile, ‘Hey Hey Ray Ray’ could easily be an offcut from a Headcoatees album. Speaking of which…

Thee Headcoatees – Man Trap
Fronted by Holly Golightly, Kyra LaRubia, Ludella Black (whose splendid EP with The 5,6,7,8s also came out this year) and Bongo Debbie, Thee Headcoatees returned after an absence of some 26 years with Man Trap. It’s a collection of covers and Billy Childish penned songs with musical accompaniment from Childish and fellow Headcoats, Johnny Johnson and Bruce Brand (see below for more on Thee Headcoats). 
With each Headcoatee taking turns on lead vocals, stand out songs include the Golightly fronted cover of Thee Mighty Caesars’ ‘The Double Axe’, the gleeful thrash of the Childish penned title-track and a suitably grungy cover of Fang’s ‘The Money Will Roll Right In’ that boasts a vibrancy even Mudhoney’s version lacks.

The Dutch Embassy – Lighting the Beacons
If you’ve been to just a handful of gigs in Medway in the last fifteen or so years, it’s more than likely you’ll have seen Nick Rice on stage. Starting out with The Effectives and The Deccas, he has since played bass with Stuart Turner and the Flat Earth Society, The Treasures of Mexico, These Guilty Men and South Shore. He provided bass for the Pod album, The Earth’s Rotation and joined Stuart Turner on guitar for Chris Broderick penned song cycle …And One Red Mitten. On top of that, he’s been a regular feature on Groovy Uncle albums.
The Dutch Embassy sees Rice take to the front of the stage, singing songs he has penned himself alongside Noeleen (violin and vocals), Dave Sawicki (bass and vocals), Jimmy Moore (drums and percussion) and Stuart Turner (theremin and harmonica). Their debut album, Lighting the Beacons, is full of perfect jangly-indie pop moments with occasional dalliances with folk. 
It turns on a sixpence and bounces around with the kinds of melodies of which McCartney and Davies would be proud. Standout moments include ‘You Can’t Take the Best Away from Me, Yet’ and ‘Constantinople’ (so named after Rice’s AI aided phone misheard a voice note).

The Penrose Web – The Least of our Concern
Saturday 30 May saw The Penrose Web play both their first and second gigs, the latter being at the Rochester Masonic Hall, supporting The Masonics. They had, by this point, already released an EP (It’s…The Penrose Web EPcame out on New Year’s Day), but this gig provided an opportunity to glimpse some of the treats in store on their long player.
The Least of our Concern is a splendid affair. Inevitably, with Allan Crockford’s involvement, the psychedelic is never far away, but it is rather more understated than in his work with The 
Prisoners and The Galileo 7. The debut album documents a series of struggles and conflicts – some with others – but many with oneself. Highlights include the angst ridden ‘The Other Man Inside My House’, the pure pop perfection of ‘Geraldine’ and the Electric Prunes-ish ‘In Her Darkened Room’, a spectacular essay in Gothic restlessness.  

The Spike Direction Effect – Reclaimer
From the opening humming and harpsicord on ‘Be Here’, you know you’re going to be in safe hands with this underdog trash trio. 
Highlights include the garage band pilfering of the Lord of the Rings theme tune for ‘The Long Expected Party’ (“My love for you is as deep as Khazad-dûm”) and the riotous ‘Chatham Pocket’ whose title very efficiently also serves as the complete set of lyrics.
It’s a joy to behold. Listen to it now. Please.

Thee Headcoats – The Sherlock Holmes Rhythm ‘n’ Beat Vernacular 
A whole article could be written about Billy Childish Esquire’s musical endeavours in 2025 alone. We’ve already encountered one of them in the form of Thee Headcoatees’ reformation. There have been a clutch of releases from The Guy Hamper Trio (Featuring James Taylor), a single from CTMF (‘(I’m) Stranded’), further EPs from Thee Headcoatees, The Man-Trap Sessions Volumes 1 and 2 and a further single from CTMF, ‘Step Out’ to support the release of an album of the same name from the dying days of 2024. There will be one last hurrah for the year with a further CTMF single, ‘Searching from the Losing Place’ coming out on 31 December. 
The Sherlock Holmes Rhythm ‘n’ Beat Vernacular sees Childish continue in his reunion with fellow Headcoats Bruce Brand and Johnny Johnson, following on from 2023’s Irregularis (The Great Hiatus). While Childish has often sought to separate out his love of different music styles across different bands (or at lease band names), this record sees a blurring of his musical identities. 
The R n B and references to the inhabitant of 221b Baker Street may abound, but so too do references his old band, The Buff Medways – courtesy of an excellent song bearing the full name of that particular beat combo: ‘The Friends of the Buff Medways Fanciers Association’. See also the continued employment of the Dylan-ish drawl that Childish has adopted in recent years when releasing albums with The William Loveday Intention.
This latest Headcoats outing is frantic, fun and exhilarating.

Dead Blood Cells – Medwave
Every now and then, something emerges from these Towns which doesn’t easily match up with anything else available. Dead Blood Cells cannot be categorised as a garage band, a jangly indie band or a folk band. Not even close. 
Instead, they are an all guns blazing industrial darkwave band offering a blizzard of high octane beats, gloriously gothic squelches and a soaring – and slightly sinister sounding – vocal. 
Medwave is an intense exploration around the shadows of the human soul – where contradiction, self-loathing and inner turmoil rule the roost. It is nightmarishly brilliant. Put on a song like ‘We Play Industrial’. Set the volume to 11,000, sit back and don’t worry too much if your ears start to bleed. They’re probably supposed to do that.

The High Span – Blithering
By stark contrast with Dead Blood Cells, The High Span’s Blithering is a picture of understatement and splendid nonsense. Fear and self-doubt are on prominent display throughout the record, but hide behind the wit of Younger’s lyrics and the bounciness of the post-punk indie pop sound. 
From the whimsically presented tale of a French policeman investigating Parisian anarchy through to fever dream of ‘Ambrosine’ and the hidden torment behind the apparent naivety on ‘British Summer Time’ this is an exceptional album with new delights to be discovered upon every listen.

Oral History Medway captures Medway's voice for posterity

Oral History Medway (OHM) is a new Community Interest Company (CIC) set up to record the stories of people who aren’t typically represented in archives, including working-class and diaspora communities. We spoke to directors Rob Flood and Chris de Coulon Berthoud to find out more...

Archival spaces are often places where the top-level stories are told, not those covered in The Chatham Scandal. The voices of working people are often unheard when their actual presence is far from silent. OHM aims to rectify the silence of certain voices. This can’t be done with the historical record in quite the same way, but what OHM can do is try to make sure that the contemporary record is accurate. 

Oral history is different because it is from the people’s mouths. When you do oral history, what you're doing is getting an unmediated voice of the person themselves. They reflect on their own life and how they live it. It's not a third party observing and then constructing these things.

Chris and Rob have already been busy, becoming directors of the Short Brothers Aviation Heritage CIC, an organisation set up to further the work of others involved in keeping the story of Short Brothers alive. This included contributing objects for the display from their own collections and helping the curator select different items. They also produced a film that was shown in the crypt during an exhibition at Rochester Cathedral. 

Chris was with the exhibition throughout August, talking to residents and capturing more oral history about the Shorts Brothers. Shorts left the Medway Towns in the late 1940’s and were surprised to be talking to people with firsthand testimony of working there, people in their 90s who had worked at Shorts Brothers. This was often on written cards, due to the acoustics in the crypt, and they collated over 80,000 words. These will be available on the OHM website.

They have also produced a video about Gillingham Football Club supporters, interviewing people who have watched Gillingham play for over 30 years. The film is available on their website. They are now setting up a pop-up museum for Gillingham FC, with the support of owners Brad and Shannon Galinson, in a space at the football ground. Gillingham FC is the largest club in Kent, and its history goes back to the late 1800s. Football in the Medway Towns is relevant on a global scale because of the story of Isaac Newell taking football to Argentina, and of the Royal Engineers winning the FA Cup in 1875. 

They have launched a podcast, Made in Medway, with the first episode being about the Shorts Brothers, including an interview with Billy Childish, who lives in the former Shorts headquarters. Future episodes will be about the Pentagon Centre, which is now 50 years old, and they will produce an episode responding to the recent Rest is History podcast about Chatham High Street, which spent the minimal possible time on Chatham High Street.

Review: Lupen Crook and Dave Pickett at Three Sheets to the Wind

The intimate wood-panelled middle room of the Three Sheets has been candlelit to help create a cosy welcome for those who have ventured out on a chilly winter’s night to see these two interpreters of English folk traditions taking music in very different, but complementary directions.

Dave Pickett initially seems thrown by the near reverential silence which greets his opening numbers 'Squares' and 'Come Listen,' his dusty and controlled vocals conjuring dark, yet recognisable landscapes accompanied by his signature two-step clawhammer picking on acoustic guitar and banjo. Things become more folkloric and fantastical on 'The King,' and soon unsolicited audience participation breaks the hush and leads to enthusiastic cascades of approximate harmonies from approving listeners. Apparently a favourite of the Belgian police, 'Garden of England' rounds off the set as a rousing singalong, which Dave performs with a smile in honour of a request which speaks volumes for the enduring fondness for The Flowing amongst tonight’s crowd.

Where others may have been tempted to assemble a greatest hits package for a gig so close to Christmas, Lupen Crook instead delivers a set primarily comprising material from an as yet untitled new album. This already feels like a cohesive set of songs, and the performance is centred around the partnership with Willow Vincent, whose omnichord and synth add shimmering texture and brooding atmosphere without pulling focus from the broken supportive rhythms of Lupen Crook’s playing on the 9 strings of his 12 string guitar.  His lyrics are peppered with striking and memorable wordplay, often sparking images in the mind’s eye – the phrase “a Louis Wain cat in a Richard Dadd world” in 'A Fool and a Dream' being just one example of this. Elsewhere, we have “This could be a great depression if I could spend it with you.”  Few explicit explanations are provided for the themes or subjects of songs, but we get some insight into the process when 'Forever Winter' is described as being envisioned more as an animation than a song and that its main concern is “the illusion of hope,” both a welcome part and affliction of the human condition.

Humour and playfulness sit side by side with bleaker imagery – to offset 'Eerie England' with its appeal to the dark forces to overthrow the trappings of the modern world, we have 'Cats,' which may be a song about cats or about kink, but “never together.” The only exceptions to the rule of new material are three songs from 2023’s 'Wild Nature,' the empathetic 'Don’t Kill Yourself Today,' set closer 'Can’t Wait to be Cancelled,' and a positively jaunty 'Algorithm and Blues.' Warmth and respect for the new material ripple through the crowd. This is an assured, direct performance, brilliantly balancing the fragility and brutality of art, love and modern life. Having previously stepped back from live performance to focus on his visual arts, this show seems an unabashed reclamation of the identity of Lupen Crook as singer and songwriter and raises high expectations and anticipation for the new album. - Moira Mehaffey

Upcoming events

🥕 Sun 21 Dec - Rochester Farmers’ Market // Wide range of traders selling food and gifts. Blue Boar Lane car park, Rochester. Free.

🎭 Sat 3 Jan - Jaws: The Panto // From the team that brought you ‘Die Hard: the Panto,’ but don’t let that put you off. Spotlites Theatre, Chatham. Tickets £12, pay what you can.

Steven needs your help with the Medway Element

Steven has received UKSPF funding for a project about arts, culture and heritage in Medway. Part of this is conducting a survey to get a baseline understanding of residents and their engagement with local culture.

Could you help by taking the survey and sharing it?

Footnotes

Programming note: This will be our final briefing of the year unless anything dramatic happens over the Christmas period, so that we can take a short break until the new year. We still have a few pieces scheduled to fill the gap, but we won’t be publishing our usual briefing editions until we come back, hopefully fully refreshed, in the first week of January.

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