Manchester’s The Empty Page have always been good at naming the feeling you’re trying not to think about. Panic attacks, climate dread, nostalgia that hurts, the slow creep of disillusionment – it’s all there in their catalogue already. New single ‘Death On Our Side’ doesn’t so much expand that worldview as sharpen it, zeroing in on a grimly familiar truth: for a whole generation, retirement planning has basically become “hope it doesn’t come to that”.
Musically, this sits beautifully in the space the band have been carving out between punk urgency and shoegaze sprawl. Guitars crackle and smear, Kel’s bass anchors everything in something solid and human, and the whole thing carries that unmistakably Mancunian mix of grit and tenderness.
Recorded at Nave Studios with Matt Peel, ‘Death On Our Side’ sounds big without losing its intimacy. You can hear the Radiohead and Smashing Pumpkins references in the textures, but the heart of the track is pure The Empty Page: politically switched-on, emotionally raw, and quietly furious. It’s protest music for people who don’t have the energy to shout anymore, but still aren’t willing to accept the deal they’ve been handed.