Holly Head mark eight-date Westside Cowboy tour with NO COUNTRY IS AN ISLAND

Manchester punk-groove noiseniks, Holly Head, mark eight-date Westside Cowboy tour with compelling new single…

NO COUNTRY IS AN ISLAND

Holly Head – No Country Is An Island

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Akoustik Anarkhy

Exhilarating, vital, uncompromising. Holly Head’s credentials as purveyors of visceral, politico-punk founded on incessant grooves are underlined with the release of their first new music of 2026, No Country Is An Island, hours before picking up a run of eight, UK-wide dates with tipped indie-folk four-piece, Westside Cowboy. Conscience and unity, the will of the good and the strength of the willing unites the band and their switched-on counterparts in Britain’s most exciting music city as the four-piece’s latest release holds a flickering flame to anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Leaving few stages untouched, not only around their familiar stomping grounds in the north of England but nationwide (Holly Head’s latest London stint was at Sebright Arms last Saturday night), the band’s path to becoming the scene’s best-known cult concern has been beaten with the help of support slots with the lines of Sprints, Welly and Fuzz Lightyear. With No Country Is An Island also featuring Westside Cowboy’s Paddy Murphy as co-writer and guitarist, the reunion of the two, alternative future-facing guitar bands on a lengthy, January-February tour, opening at London’s Scala tomorrow (Wed 28 January 2026), turns peaceful, musical resistance into a family affair.

Building danceable agit-funk from the ground up, fomenting a patchwork of percussive patterns and indefatigable bass before razorwire guitars and frontman, guitarist and lyricist, Joe’s clarion call vocals, Holly Head’s rollcall of high-impact influences include Wu-Lu, Happy Mondays, Kokoroko, Fugazi, Fela Kuti and DJ Shadow.

Of their music released to date, their frenetic, live-favourite debut single, No Gain, has ascended to ‘if you know, you know’ underground classic status, securing them a debut BBC 6 Music ‘New Music Fix’ live session in late 2024.

On No Country Is An Island’s observational messaging, Joe explains: “The song is a reaction to the rise of anti-migrant and refugee views in England where news and debate are framed to divide and conquer. We seem to have come to this point through the underfunding of public services and higher living costs leaving people hanging on for their lives. We’re experiencing an acute ‘every person for themselves’ culture through media and political messaging that’s been present longer than all of us.

“The working title for the song was ‘Afrobeat’,” he continues. “Drawing from a lot of the Latin, Afro Cuban and Trip Hop music, which forms the basis of a lot of our writing, kicking off ideas from Liam’s basslines and Oscar’s drumming.”

With the departure of Murphy to take up drumming duties with Westside Cowboy full-time, Joe is joined in Holly Head by the band’s enduring, ever-present, infectious rhythm section, Liam (bass), Oscar (drums) and new guitarist, Josh. Dominated by dates in the company of their good friends and rounded off by a headline return to Manchester in mid-February, all upcoming Holly Head live dates are as follows:

Wed 28 January: London, Scala*

Thu 29 January: Manchester, Gorilla*

Sat 31 January: Leeds, Regtown

Mon 2 February: Glasgow, King Tuts*

Tue 3 February: Leeds, Brudenell*

Wed 4 February: Nottingham, Bodega*

Fri 6 February: Bristol, The Exchange*

Sat 7 February: Brighton, Hope & Ruin*

Sun 8 February: Oxford, The Bullingdon*

Thu 19 February: Manchester, Whip Round at Deaf Institute

*with Westside Cowboy