Thought Bubble, hailing from Shropshire in England, are nothing if not prolific. Their new EP, Dark Shapes, comes hot on the heels of an album and EP in 2025, and another EP earlier this year (all have been reviewed on the website – simply enter Thought Bubble in the search bar). You can get this at Dark Shapes EP | Thought Bubble

So, four new pieces of music to unpick from a favourite of this website. Let’s get to it.

We kick off with A Complicated Place, lyrically interesting with the attitude of the youth, but a realisation that it is the society we built that makes them act with such bad grace (it’s a complicated place). There is a wonderful funk groove on this, the synths, effects, and drum beat warm, the vocal chants sort of gospel in their repetition, and the vocals out of synch with this, and the mood does then take a darker turn, emphasising just how complicated a place this all is before we get a psych-driven whirl of sound, with hand drums at the core, so, as ever with this outfit, a lot packed in, layers piled on top of each other.

Enemies rejects one who has let the subject down, and the lyrical passage I paste below is pure poetry:

‍“And if we had but time your modesty would still

Be foolish girl you know

Quick will lead to still in short or shorter band

And trappings slappings bitching are paint applied to sand

Do only what’s enriching”

The opening is a kind of pop-psych rich set of synths and effects, the bass then throbbing away, the guitar strumming along in a track which takes one right back to those early 1980’s new age pop rock acts which dominated the charts, the guitar asserting itself as it moves along with a beat heavy groove. It is embedded below.

Waiting on the Kill could be interpreted as a commentary on those old nature films showing death in the desert once shown as B-events at the cinema, or as a monologue on war in The Gulf, where God would appear to have abandoned his people, across the faith divide. This track is spartan as it starts and ends, and is not accessible in any shape, or form, a darkness at its heart, a stark contrast to the grooves which came before, and there is also an anger within these vocals. Fascinating in its change of mood.

The EP closes with Forgotten Worlds, a reflective track lyrically, a man who makes the peak of his vocation forgetting his sense of worth. The lonely piano that starts us off is hauntingly beautiful in its stark melody, accompanied by voice and synth, and the vocals are reminiscent of Hats Off Gentlemen, It’s Adequate on this track in its ability to emote starkly, with the added electronica sense of Gabriel on the final track of So, We Do What We’re Told, and there are some fascinating layers to this track which combines electronica with lonely progressive melodies, the close rather lovely.

Thought Bubble with this EP continue to fascinate and tickle the fancy of the discerning music fan, and I am interested in learning what, precisely, will come next.

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