Courting – Pause at You (Single Review)

Today’s Music Review features a British band getting radio airplay on US indie rock stations. The band: Courting, the new single “Pause at You” from the soon-to-be released album Lust for Life, Or: ‘How To Thread The Needle And Come Out The Other Side To Tell The Story’ (drops 3.14.25).

Courting is an electronic rock band based in Liverpool, England. The band is made up of Sean Murphy-O’Neill, lead vocalist, Sean Thomas, drummer, Joshua Cope, guitarist, and Connor McCann, bassist. The band first formed in 2018 and has released several singles, an EP Grand National (2021), and two studio albums: Guitar Music (2022) and New Last Name (2024). And soon, it’s third studio album “Lust for Life”. Courting is known for its clever singles “Football”, “Tennis”, playing on fun sports themes that caught on in the UK. This band reigns on the British Pub circuit and provided support for Circa Waves on their 2023 UK tour.

The band’s new post-punk single “Pause at You” was released on November 21, 2024. The song starts with heavy bass and drums, followed by a very-catchy fast funk guitar riff. Then the vocals kick in – heavily compressed in an indie rock talk-sing, but very rhythmic, catchy vocal melody.

Sean Murphy-O’Neill’s voice definitely reminds me of male version of the voice of popular indie rock artist Courtney Barnett. Exit stage left from the compelling verse vocals and you’re into the punchy and driving chorus “I’ll see you around, I’ll always see you around.”
Listen here:

On the new album’s liner notes posted by the band on their Bandcamp page, the band writes that the new album “is centered around duality. The intention is to bring together everything Courting have created thus far into a succinct, direct, record. Each song on the album is ‘twinned’, with another, existing within the same type of world.”  I can’t wait to hear the album and discover the twin for “Pause at You”. Vocalist Sean Murphy recently told Stereogum in a recent interview “‘Pause At You’ is a culmination of everything we’ve been working on over the last few years — an observation on night time paranoia mixed about with night out ecstasy. Light outing, floor filling, tie undressing, rock.” (Stereogum, Courting-Pause at You, 11.20.24). Whatever that means, LOL. Don’t you just love a good mystery?

SCORE/Excellent: Courting returns to continue to drop hot singles on the UK music scene. Their new single “Pause at You” is particularly nicely mixed and mastered. It has a very catchy sing-talk along melody and I really enjoyed the funk guitar riff. It contains all of the excellent points of their recent releases, leaving you with a work full of passion, intensity and soul. This single literally breaks the sound barrier and should be a definite add on your personal music playlist.

[We rank singles, EPs, and albums on a scale of Poor, Mediocre, Good, Excellent, and Outstanding]