Northern Ireland continues to deliver exciting music, and Drew Makes Noise is another name worth keeping on your radar. His new single, “Boots,” brings together psych-pop, indie rock and experimental synths in a restless, unpredictable track that reflects the unease at the heart of its subject matter.
From the opening moments, “Boots” feels agitated, as though it’s searching for something without quite knowing where to look. The sounds shift and collide, creating a sense of movement that never fully settles. There are shades of Editors and Gorillaz in the mix, but Drew Makes Noise gives these influences an eccentric edge of his own. The track feels less like a carefully mapped journey and more like a mind working through several thoughts at once, each new idea interrupting the last.
Beneath that restless sound is a song about feeling something again after a period of emotional numbness. Written by Andrew Wilson, “Boots” explores desire, expectation and physical sensation without trying to turn the experience into a neat story of personal growth. Instead, it captures the awkwardness of discovering that something inside you is beginning to stir after a long stretch of feeling disconnected.
One of the song’s most striking images is a flower emerging “in the fields of anhedonia.” It’s a memorable way to describe the uneasy return of feeling when you’ve grown accustomed to its absence. There is hope in the image, but it isn’t uncomplicated. Rediscovering emotion can be disorientating, especially when you’re not entirely sure what to do with it. The song understands that recovery doesn’t always arrive gently. Sometimes, it comes stomping into your life.
The production reflects that tension. Ideas pile up, sounds pull in different directions, and the track occasionally threatens to buckle beneath its own ambition. Yet that sense of excess is also part of its appeal. Rather than smoothing every rough edge into a conventional indie-rock arrangement, Wilson allows the song to remain awkward, wiry and unpredictable. The shifting textures mirror the overactive mind behind the lyrics, keeping the listener on edge without sacrificing the track’s forward momentum.
“Boots” might not always know when to hold back, but its refusal to play things safe gives it character. There is enough melodic instinct beneath the experimentation to keep the song grounded, even when its ideas threaten to spill over. That balance between disorder and direction makes the track engaging, while its emotional core gives the sonic chaos a purpose beyond simply sounding different.
With “Boots,” Drew Makes Noise returns with renewed energy and his eccentricities firmly intact. It’s an imaginative, unsettled piece of indie music that finds something compelling in the messy process of feeling alive again. As the opening step into his next run of releases, it suggests an artist more interested in following his instincts than staying within familiar boundaries.
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