Kissing Gate are a London-born project whose debut Funny Dream (2025) introduces a band restless in spirit and uninterested in colouring inside the lines. The record’s seven tracks bend and buckle, moving from brittle quiet to ragged power, always carrying the sense of something handmade — full of tension, tenderness and a kind of deliberate imperfection. From the sprawling opener to the more concise tracks that follow, there’s a restless energy that threads the album together, a willingness to let songs breathe, falter, and recover in ways that feel entirely intentional.
Tracks like New Fires and Good People demonstrate a remarkable range: the former throbs with a raw, rootsy pulse, the latter drifts into a quieter, more reflective space, offering glimpses of vulnerability beneath the band’s rugged surface. Even in moments of chaos, the arrangements feel purposeful, each crash of percussion or burst of guitar accentuating rather than overwhelming the core of the song. Funny Dream is, in every sense, a record that thrives in contrasts — rough against refined, tension against release, unpredictability against careful construction.
Live, Kissing Gate have already begun establishing a presence that mirrors their recorded work. Their performances, including a recent date at The 100 Club, carry the sense of a band testing the elasticity of their own songs. Onstage, they embrace unpredictability, letting melodies stretch, falter, and reform, creating an experience that’s equal parts exhilarating and intimate. The energy and spontaneity that define their live shows only reinforce the album’s sense of immediacy, confirming the band as one for whom performance and recording exist in constant dialogue.
What’s compelling about Kissing Gate is the feeling that they are only just beginning to explore their possibilities. Funny Dream doesn’t aim for polish or cohesion in a conventional sense; it’s a snapshot of a band in motion, a study in contrasts and a testament to restless creativity. There’s an underlying curiosity about where they might go next — whether leaning further into the intimate and folk-infused, or exploring more abrasive, theatrical rock terrains. Either way, the promise is clear: Kissing Gate have carved a space that’s fully their own, and the journey they’ve begun with Funny Dream hints at something that will continue to evolve in thrilling and unpredictable ways.
