With the release of their most recent two singles, South London six-piece Candy’s Room have shown a glorious evolution, making good on the promise suggested by their scattered early releases and 2023 debut album. On 2024 track ‘No Illusion’, we saw a new level of assurance in their sound, popping bass and clean-cut production propelling the song over effusive strings, while vocals soar above.
The vocal power of ‘No Illusion’ and their recent 2025 release ‘Blue Corduroy Skirt’ unlocked songwriter Natty Alltimes’ talent for melody, that certainly flourished in combination with the group’s new co-vocalist Galina Lukoyanova. The new Candy’s Room combine the influences of vintage disco and Northern Soul through a modern revisionist lens evocative of the more pop moments of artists like Conan Mockasin and Beck. It takes sheer boldness to pull off the huge choruses and wall of sound power of those classic recordings. Now with their twin vocal setup, Natty and Galina bring the requisite power to these melodies, with their choruses bursting through in all of their bold, singalong majesty.
With Galina’s joining the band, there has also been a development in the visual identity, which she has defined for the band, connecting and balancing the sound with the visuals. Both were distilled into something more distinct and explicitly modern than the band’s earlier DIY and ramshackle recordings, offhand photographs and irreverent cartoons. As the band have matured into this new, fuller sound, Galina has captured something more distinct and more modern. Her chaotic vocals and synths perfectly match the long-exposure images in the band’s visuals that feel just as abstract and intimate. The New Candy’s Room is bursting with experimentation which looks like a sign of something exclusively original being exhibited that a listener has not yet heard. Their oblique quality, at once artificial and deeply natural, anchors the modern veneer which the band put on the classic disco-soul sounds they are seeking to evolve.
With the band reportedly in the process of completing a new album, their newer singles offer a taste of a band that are clearly honing in on a more defined identity that marries the contemporary with the classic. Evidently, a big part of that shift is the introduction of the band’s newest member, Galina, who has given the music a fresh start that lives up to its pop promise while remaking the band’s aesthetic in a way that underscores their contemporary importance within the London scene.
