The Tubs, Mopar Stars

Upon arriving in the United States for The Tubs’ first tour of the country, frontman Owen Williams told The New Yorker, “We’re here to unite the country. We’re gonna come, like, three times. By that point, I think this place will start healing.” Then, joyously, they did just that, piling into a van and criss-crossing the States, bringing their literary, bleary-eyed, world-weary, night-of-your-life highwire act to the masses when it was needed most. Along the way, they signed to Merge Records, who will release The Tubs’ third full-length album, Hard Life, on September 11, 2026. The Tubs have never lacked for ambition — on Hard Life, theirs is to complicate the Tub-ullar experience. Having perfected their sound across two albums and hundreds of shows, the London-based Celtic jangle boyband — Williams (vocals, guitar, keyboards, bass), Dan Lucas (guitar), Taylor Stewart (drums), and Max Warren (bass) — push themselves even further into the shimmering heart of virtuosic indie rock. They’re joined by frequent collaborators Lan McArdle (vocals), George Nicholls (guitar), and Rachel Kenedy (keyboards), all of whom have orbited various Tubs and Gob Nation-adjacent efforts dating back to Joanna Gruesome, but the secret to Hard Life’s lushness is the addition of fiddle player Chris Haigh, an instructor and session musician who left an indelible mark on British pop on Steps’ “5, 6, 7, 8.” Mirroring Williams' use of trilling on vocal melodies, Haigh’s fiddle shades the vocalist's rueful croon like a bruise. On “Stoop to Me,” the folkiest, jangliest pop song on the album, Haigh’s licks complement Williams at his most self-deprecating, the lopsided smile of a guy trying not to let on how wounded he is in unrequited love. On album opener and title track “Hard Life,” it’s the sweetness of the ascending fiddle lines in the mix that weds the harshness of Williams’ lyrics to The Tubs’ fist-pumping anthemics. The hard line Williams takes here and elsewhere on Hard Life further troubles one’s idea of a Tubs song. The persona familiar to listeners of Cotton Crown and Dead Meat — to quote Williams, “navel gazing about romantic abjection, London squalor, and the indignities of grief and OCD” — is still present, but so too is a second voice, steelier and more experienced. “The second persona doesn’t have much time for the first,” Williams explains, “often haranguing him for his self-indulgence and immaturity; sometimes fairly, sometimes unfairly.” It’s the scold who takes center stage on lead single “Who’s Gonna Love You Now?” His questions, from the titular one to more concrete concerns like “Who’s gonna pay the rent?” existing in mocking opposition to ideas like moving to the city and really starting to live. Though Williams plays the crank, the song is a raver, guitars ringing out over an organ-brightened horizon. “It’s your life,” Williams sings, the life chugging away beneath him sounding exceptionally keen. He wouldn’t have much sympathy for the lovelorn Williams of “If You Don’t Love Me” — hell, his whole existence seems like a warning that the kinds of romantic entanglements one suffers when they’re young will end in loneliness, failure, and an inbox choked with unread Substacks.On Hard Life, these voices argue, pester one another, merge into each other, and break apart, sometimes over the course of a single song. They’re two sides of the same coin, people who’ve experienced grief, disappointment, regret, and shame, emerging from the wreckage as changed men. “I’m interested in the way sympathy and patience for someone suffering always runs out eventually,” Williams says. “How this can be a good and liberating thing as well as a sad and brutal thing. But mostly they’re just pop songs.” Exquisite, irresistible pop songs. Spin them until the healing starts, then spin them again. Mopar Stars is the hooky, guitar-forward indie rock project from Philly artist Nao Demand (Poison Ruïn), joined by guitarist Bill Magerr (Zorn), bassist and vocalist Nneka Anyaoku (S-21), and drummer Evan Campbell (Sheer Mag). Since first surfacing in 2023 with the Shoot the Moon tape, the band has quietly built a catalog that rides the line of familiar (think Bob Mould, Teenage Fanclub, Big Star) while still landing outside any one clear reference point. The band’s forthcoming album Official Researchers Of The NJ Devil is out July 31, 2026 via beloved Olympia label K Records (Sharp Pins, early Modest Mouse & Built to Spill). Recorded and mixed by Trish Quigley at Studio North and mastered by Amy Dragon, the 11-song LP leans further into the band’s loose, melodic instincts. Across the record, Mopar Stars move effortlessly between power pop, 90s alt rock, and classic guitar songwriting without settling too cleanly into any one of them.