Back with the Bang of Drums: Gladboy release their first single in a year, ‘Doin’ Art Badly’

Leeds rockers Gladboy follow their gentle sophomore release ‘Johnny Come Lately’ (2024) and the sprawling ‘Karloff’ (2022) with a vivacious bite of fun. Yet, the first taste of their future debut album is unfilling, calling for another course.

Fresh from supporting English Teacher’s This Could Be Texas (2024) album-tour, the garage band are back in the studio and ready to create. They’ve set up the drums, plugged in the guitars, and written an anthem rejecting pretension and prescription – ‘Doin’ Art Badly’. Rebellious adolescence has been channelled into a palpable groove.

‘Doin’ Art Badly’ invites us to shake, jump, dance and forget our existence. The drums lead the party while guitars build and merge, both enticing us to follow them. A tambourine plays on top, heightening the groove. Our boogie is interrupted by a screeching sequence which follows the hook, “Well, I don’t mean to burst your bubble, but anything we do, yeah, we call it trouble”. A coy dismissal of expectation. We’re led off with a head-shaking, ricocheting twangy guitar solo – easily the apex of the record.

Gladboy free themselves of all inhibitions and reject the pressure of perfectionism – the song is catharsis, a release of tension, facilitated by its playful, oxymoronic title. Gladboy are unafraid of the contradiction. It gives them the space to experiment. However, this experimentation does not necessarily mean artistic breakthrough. There is something missing beneath Gladboy’s boisterousness. 

Singer George Orton likens the band’s new single to The Modern Lovers’ ‘Roadrunner’, a proto-punk jewel.  The driving guitars and Orton’s imperfect vocals on ‘Doin’ Art Badly’ are reminiscent of the 1976 track, but Gladboy’s new single lacks The Modern Lovers’ absurdity and sentimentality. The tangible life present in Orton’s vocals is markedly different from Jonathan Richman’s crawling rambling.

While the fresh and fun ‘Doin’ Art Badly’ is a clutching comeback record, it lacks depth and meaning, leaving a feeling of emptiness. The lyrical simplicity and repetition makes such a short single feel tired. Hopefully, Gladboy will mobilise the momentum of their freedom and create a project of astounding timelessness and feeling, of which ‘Doin’ Art Badly’ will be a diverting opener or sought-after shake-up. If not, their third release will be ultimately fragile and forgettable.

Words by Rosie Nowosielski