Otala – More Fire
London four-piece Otala open their account with “More Fire”, the debut single from their upcoming EP Better Than The End, due 22 April. The band — Oscar Thorpe on guitar and vocals, Rory Allen on bass, Charlotte Foulkes on sax, and Jacob Wing on drums — recorded the whole EP over a single weekend in early January at Premises Studios, with Louis Milburn producing and engineering. Shawn Joseph at Optimum Mastering handled the final pass.
Post-rock with a sax feels like it could go either way, but Otala keep things controlled. What catches my ear is the way the song holds its tension without releasing it cleanly — the lyric circles the same line, “whistling down the street”, losing the thread mid-phrase each time, and the arrangement follows suit. It doesn’t resolve so much as run out of road.
A London band with a touring base rooted in Nottingham and Sheffield — they’ve played The Bodega alone nine times — Otala arrive at this debut single with a live foundation most new acts spend years building. That comes through. It’s a focused introduction, and the EP date in April gives it somewhere to go. I’m adding it to the week for the way it earns its ending.
Tour Dates Europe:
- 27.03.2026 – London, UK – Elephant’s Head (with Folly Group)
- 29.04.2026 – Norwich, UK – Voodoo Daddy’s (Headline)
- 30.04.2026 – Nottingham, UK – The Bodega (Headline)
- 01.05.2026 – Bristol, UK – The Lanes (Headline)
- 02.05.2026 – London, UK – The Grace (Headline)
- 06.05.2026 – Paris, France – Supersonic (Headline)
