Mucksavage is a manic, melancholy collective from Belfast, Northern Ireland, spewing out bedroom-bop rock anthems that make you want to dance and cry. Their 2024 debut single ‘Dirty Chin’ introduced the world to Mucksavage. Follow up double A-side, ‘Watto’ and ‘Love Bomb’, was released on Valentine’s Day 2025. The releases were enough to make Hot Press, Golden Plec, and PureMzine sit up and take notice, as well as earning airtime on BBC Introducing with Taylor Johnson, who dubbed them “electricity in human form.” Live slots at Mandela Hall and supporting Derry heroes/heroines Parker and Cherym helped cement their reputation as formidable live act. The band now return with new single ‘Let Down’, their boldest offering yet, that finds the band sharpening their song writing and stepping up production. All at once radio friendly and draped in regret.
Formed in the bleak midwinter of 2022, the band began as frontman James Foy’s (Wynona Bleach) lockdown experiment following a burst of inspiration born of solitude. Yearning to bring those songs to life, Foy recruited bassist Cleo Greer and later drummer Aidan Rols (Slow Healer) and guitarist Gareth Murray (Hand Models), completing the lineup. The result is a sound that is both vulnerable and visceral. Gritty slacker-rock energy laced with earworm melodies and lyrics sung in a raw Belfast accent. Drawing influence from artists like Pixies, Jeff Rosenstock, and Bully, Mucksavage’s songs capture the tension between ennui and hope, heartbreak and humour.
Authenticity has always been at the heart of Mucksavage, from the stories they tell, to singing in their own accents and opting to capture how the band sounds in a room on record rather than aiming for an overly produced and polished product. It’s this sound we hear on new track ‘Let Down’. Written initially to help fill a set so the band could play live, it finds the band leaning into their more pop-punk influences. Don’t be fooled into thinking this is some vacuous Sum 41-esque vomit though, written during a period of time that found James having to move back home, which also coincided with him seeking professional help to ‘finally unscramble his brain’. Lyrically the song acts a therapy session, dealing with grief, feeling hopeless and some deep regrets James was feeling at the time. “Regret of past actions, past relationships, your past-self and the time you’ve lost, and also regret for a future you could have had.” Juxtaposition is a red thread that runs throughout the Mucksavage catalogue, deeply personal almost confessional lyrics over a bouncy up-tempo bop.
Production was handled by long time collaborator, Jonny Woods at his 1980something Studios in Belfast with James as co-producer. Splitting recording between the studio and James’s living room, allowed the band to make the most of the space in capturing drums and some guitars, then spending time dialling in tones at home. Jonny mixed the track before handing it off to Andy Bradfield (Spice Girls, The XX) who used varispeed to increase the tempo and pitch from his room in Battery Studios in London, and finally Jon Moorehead at Moosetronix mastered it.
Leaning into the pop-punk aesthetic of the track, the single art was based off an old Avril Lavinge magazine cover. The original image used was taken by Lee Anderson and cut up and defiled to make the ‘Let Down’ art. The video was shot in 3 hours by Eoin Bannon on location at a Belfast skatepark.