7/10

'Onward!' sounds exactly like its title suggests: not a clean escape from difficulty, but a decision to keep moving through it. The new EP from The Flashpot Moments takes the project's familiar mix of soaring rock hooks and darker lyrical currents and pushes both sides harder. Across four tracks, Tim Cawley turns a difficult year and a half into something loud, bruised and unexpectedly energising.

'World-Class Trouble' opens with maximum ambition. Recorded at EastWest Studios in Los Angeles, the track was conceived as an unapologetically huge rock anthem, with the artist aiming for the feeling of a live festival recording from the early 80s. But instead of disguising its scale, 'World-Class Trouble' truly embraces it, stacking guitars, drums, keyboards and backing vocals into something deliberately oversized.

While 'Don’t Die, It's Your Birthday' brings a different kind of energy. Inspired by that familiar friend who always takes a big night slightly too far, the song leans into humour and momentum, giving the EP some welcome looseness. Then 'Walloped' goes even further in that direction. Where 'World-Class Trouble' was carefully revised and obsessed over, this one was intentionally underthought, recorded quickly and built around the bluntest possible refrain.

The contrast in aesthetics is one of the EP's greatest strengths. The Flashpot Moments sound comfortable switching between meticulous construction and pure instinct, allowing each song to find the approach it needs rather than forcing the whole EP into one method.

But the most affecting moment comes with 'I Wanted to Believe'. The song began as melodies recorded during a lunch break at EastWest before taking on a much more personal meaning after Cawley was diagnosed with skin cancer and left a routine dermatology appointment with 28 stitches in his face. A friend's attempt to reassure him that the resulting scar looked "kinda badass" became the emotional spark.

In all, 'Onward! is about what happens when frustration, fear, humour and friendship all get folded into the same creative process. The Flashpot Moments have always known how to make darkness sound anthemic. And here, they make resilience sound enormous.