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MANDY, INDIANA
URGH(Sacred Bones)
Add date: 2.9.2026
Release date: 2.6.2026
Links:
Apple Music
Bandcamp
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Spotify
Tidal
YouTube
For Mandy, Indiana, the truth is the only way through. On their Sacred Bones debut URGH, the four-piece comprised of vocalist Valentine Caulfield, guitarist and producer Scott Fair, synth player Simon Catling, and drummer Alex Macdougall are a force of uncanny nature, grafting together a record that is as much a call to action as a parlay into oblivion and transcendence. Across the ten tracks, the band interpolate their own unconventional language into a mantra for self-determination and resilience, forging a template for a brighter future before it fades to black.
The group has expanded their far-reaching sound on URGH, emphasizing they feel more like a “proper band” than ever, with each member actively taking part in the songwriting process. Most of the lyrics remain in Caulfield’s native French, save for one track in English, but their emotional clarity cuts through regardless of language. Much of the album was written during an intense residency at an eerie studio house in the outskirts of Leeds, then recorded across Berlin and Greater Manchester. The process was shaped by physical adversity with both Caulfield and Macdougall undergoing multiple rounds of surgeries in the same time frame as the album was being written and recorded. Caufield was diagnosed with a rare eye issue which had caused her to lose the majority of vision in one eye. Macdougall also cites the intensity of playing drums as part of the “survival mode” during the three ten hour days of the recording process, where there were no tracks left on the cutting room floor.
Yet Mandy, Indiana remain uncompromising. Caulfield still uses her voice as a distorted instrument and a weapon, oscillating between equal parts playful and eviscerating on tracks like the throbbing siren-sound of “Magazine,” which the band debuted at Coachella 2024, and one of the first songs written for the album. The percussive and blistering “ist halt so” channels the urgency of protest movements, referencing resistance to the genocide in Gaza while speaking to struggles more broadly, while “try saying” is punchy and electric, with Caulfield’s cut up vocal fry providing an uncanny singalong. Final track “I'll Ask Her” is a succinct representation of this; its deliberate directness calling out toxic boy’s club culture is a tenacious reckoning that hangs over the album at large.
Although there are still undeniable “bangers” (like the frazzled rap of “Sicko!” featuring verses by billy woods), URGH often feels hewn with precise cinema. Fair and Macdougall explain that “a lot of the record is a remix of itself,” a cohesion of the band’s aptitude for collaging surreal sounds and ideas that could operate as a film score or an industrial club night. Within “Life Hex,” the repeating intonation “light as a feather / stiff as a board” is the band’s own version of a sample from the film “The Craft,” and a nod to “trashy ‘90s horror films” that garner their drama from the juxtaposition of quiet moments and explosive commotion. This contrasting palette is both a necessary aspect of the record as well as the underlying connective tissue. Songs recoil and unfurl, from bristling techno (“Cursive”) to the deconstructed feedback loops of the aforementioned “Life Hex.”
Though deeply personal, URGH also reflects the violent, fractured state of the wider world. Caulfield’s lyrics grapple with assault, systemic indifference, and the omnipresence of pain. The harrowing experience and the exhaustion of the recoveries following each of her surgeries bleed into the surreality that often slices through Caufield’s writing, blurring the line between inner turmoil and external chaos. While Mandy, Indiana’s critically revered debut i’ve seen a way drew from escapism, URGH (even from the visceral nature of the title alone) belongs in the physical world, and the artwork by the artist Carnovsky, featuring an anatomical illustration of Andreas Vesalius, underscores the record’s visceral confrontation with the body and its limits.
In 2025, the ability to make art that is seen and heard is its own form of protest, and directly addressing these issues is its own reclamation of power and strength in solidarity. URGH is both otherworldly, and physical and cathartic, both a first step toward healing and a refusal to let the conversation die.
Apple Music
Bandcamp
Spotify
Tidal
YouTube
For Mandy, Indiana, the truth is the only way through. On their Sacred Bones debut URGH, the four-piece comprised of vocalist Valentine Caulfield, guitarist and producer Scott Fair, synth player Simon Catling, and drummer Alex Macdougall are a force of uncanny nature, grafting together a record that is as much a call to action as a parlay into oblivion and transcendence. Across the ten tracks, the band interpolate their own unconventional language into a mantra for self-determination and resilience, forging a template for a brighter future before it fades to black.
The group has expanded their far-reaching sound on URGH, emphasizing they feel more like a “proper band” than ever, with each member actively taking part in the songwriting process. Most of the lyrics remain in Caulfield’s native French, save for one track in English, but their emotional clarity cuts through regardless of language. Much of the album was written during an intense residency at an eerie studio house in the outskirts of Leeds, then recorded across Berlin and Greater Manchester. The process was shaped by physical adversity with both Caulfield and Macdougall undergoing multiple rounds of surgeries in the same time frame as the album was being written and recorded. Caufield was diagnosed with a rare eye issue which had caused her to lose the majority of vision in one eye. Macdougall also cites the intensity of playing drums as part of the “survival mode” during the three ten hour days of the recording process, where there were no tracks left on the cutting room floor.
Yet Mandy, Indiana remain uncompromising. Caulfield still uses her voice as a distorted instrument and a weapon, oscillating between equal parts playful and eviscerating on tracks like the throbbing siren-sound of “Magazine,” which the band debuted at Coachella 2024, and one of the first songs written for the album. The percussive and blistering “ist halt so” channels the urgency of protest movements, referencing resistance to the genocide in Gaza while speaking to struggles more broadly, while “try saying” is punchy and electric, with Caulfield’s cut up vocal fry providing an uncanny singalong. Final track “I'll Ask Her” is a succinct representation of this; its deliberate directness calling out toxic boy’s club culture is a tenacious reckoning that hangs over the album at large.
Although there are still undeniable “bangers” (like the frazzled rap of “Sicko!” featuring verses by billy woods), URGH often feels hewn with precise cinema. Fair and Macdougall explain that “a lot of the record is a remix of itself,” a cohesion of the band’s aptitude for collaging surreal sounds and ideas that could operate as a film score or an industrial club night. Within “Life Hex,” the repeating intonation “light as a feather / stiff as a board” is the band’s own version of a sample from the film “The Craft,” and a nod to “trashy ‘90s horror films” that garner their drama from the juxtaposition of quiet moments and explosive commotion. This contrasting palette is both a necessary aspect of the record as well as the underlying connective tissue. Songs recoil and unfurl, from bristling techno (“Cursive”) to the deconstructed feedback loops of the aforementioned “Life Hex.”
Though deeply personal, URGH also reflects the violent, fractured state of the wider world. Caulfield’s lyrics grapple with assault, systemic indifference, and the omnipresence of pain. The harrowing experience and the exhaustion of the recoveries following each of her surgeries bleed into the surreality that often slices through Caufield’s writing, blurring the line between inner turmoil and external chaos. While Mandy, Indiana’s critically revered debut i’ve seen a way drew from escapism, URGH (even from the visceral nature of the title alone) belongs in the physical world, and the artwork by the artist Carnovsky, featuring an anatomical illustration of Andreas Vesalius, underscores the record’s visceral confrontation with the body and its limits.
In 2025, the ability to make art that is seen and heard is its own form of protest, and directly addressing these issues is its own reclamation of power and strength in solidarity. URGH is both otherworldly, and physical and cathartic, both a first step toward healing and a refusal to let the conversation die.