Every Single Muscle

Eighteen songs in just over 41 minutes tells you plenty about The Bug Club’s priorities. Every Single Muscle rarely waits for permission to move on. A guitar idea arrives, Sam Willmett or Tilly Harris worries at some small absurdity of being alive, the hook lands and the band are already halfway into the next thing. The speed gives the record a garage-punk snap, but underneath the jokes is an unexpectedly persistent concern with bodies, awkwardness and self-consciousness.

The Welsh band recorded the album at Rat Trap Studios in Cardiff with Tom Rees, who produced, engineered, mixed and played drums. Released through Sub Pop on 29 May 2026, it followed On the Intricate Inner Workings of the System and Very Human Features in quick succession, further evidence of a group whose prolific nature is part of its personality. “Watching the Omnibus” announced the record in February, followed by “Yours (If You Want Me)” and “A Good Day for Dying”.

The music is rooted in garage punk, but the middle of the album takes detours into twee pop and post-punk, preventing the short-song format from becoming one-dimensional.

Willmett wrote the lyrics, while he and Harris composed the music together, and their contrasting voices are central to the album’s charm. Titles such as “Miss Wales 2012”, “Full Range of Motion”, “All My Clothes Fell Off” and “My Uncle Warren Drives a Passat” suggest comic throwaway observations, yet the recurring fixation on the human form gives the record more coherence than its scattershot energy initially implies.

Critics generally responded warmly, often noting that vulnerability and mortality sit just beneath the band’s direct humour. “Yours (If You Want Me)” is particularly revealing because its harmonised duet briefly allows tenderness to step into the foreground. That balance is what makes Every Single Muscle stick. It is funny without being novelty music, scrappy without being careless and brisk without feeling slight. The songs keep running away from you, then leave oddly thoughtful little bruises behind.