Westside Cowboy release their debut album It Goes On

Westside Cowboy have released their debut album, It Goes On, via Island Records, with NME reviewing it on August 14 and calling the band the newest guitar heroes to come out of Manchester. The quartet, bassist Aoife Anson O'Connell, guitarists Jimmy Bradbury and Reuben Haycocks, and drummer Paddy Murphy, all trade lead vocals on the record, which they recorded in Leeds with producer Loren Humphrey.

NME describes Westside Cowboy's self-proclaimed Britainicana sound as sitting between the alt-country, indie and rockabilly worlds that shaped them, following on from the singles Pin Up Boys and Kick Stones (The Boys), which the band had already road-tested live. It Goes On follows an earlier single from the same record, Dobro.

The band built momentum after winning Glastonbury's Emerging Talent Competition in April 2025 and packing out sets at The Great Escape that year, which led to a deal with Island Records and management from Wildlife Entertainment, whose roster includes Arctic Monkeys and Fontaines D.C. They have since toured with Black Country, New Road, Blondshell and Geese.

The album leans on plain, everyday imagery to sit with the uncertainty of early adulthood: rented movies on "Big Wheels," and paperchains and rocks that "have grown hands to reach out for each other" on "Coyote." "We are a worried age," the band sing, and they told NME their new lifestyle still "never feels quite certain and real."

That tension resolves on the closer, "You Could Have Died There On The Dancefloor," where the band make their peace with the panic: "I am everything but perfect, but I'm trying." NME calls It Goes On the record the band was always expected to make, one that lets their sound breathe rather than chase polish. The album is tracked on the release calendar as part of this week's new rock releases.