The Here And Now dropped “Riptide” and there’s this moment about thirty seconds in where Cherry Terzza’s voice cracks just slightly before she goes full volume, and that’s when I knew this wasn’t going to be another forgettable track.

This Brixton four piece has been gigging around London since 2020, and you can tell they’ve figured out who they are. The guitar work from Jason Bond doesn’t try to be clever. It just lands hard and stays there. Rich Sackey-Addo’s drums feel urgent without being showy, and Callum Lowe’s bass sits exactly where it should, holding everything together without demanding attention.

The song is about wanting something that’s obviously bad for you. Not in an abstract way, but in that specific feeling when you’re walking back to a situation you already know will hurt you. Cherry sings it like she’s lived it, which makes the whole thing feel less like a performance and more like she’s just telling you what happened.

I can hear a tension in the verses where everything pulls back, gets quieter, almost careful. Then it explodes. Not because it’s supposed to, but because it has to. That’s the part they get right. The quiet bits actually matter, which makes the loud parts hit differently.

You can hear Queens Of The Stone Age in there, some Paramore, definitely Royal Blood. But they’re not doing tribute acts. They took those influences and made something that sounds like them. Heavy when it needs to be, catchy enough that I’ve been humming it for two days without meaning to.

You can listen here.