WHITEHORSE is the latest venture from Thomas Haywood, once the voice and firebrand presence of The Blinders, and already it feels less like a tentative new chapter and more like a statement of intent. Their new single Red Riptide (out September 2nd) doesn’t so much introduce itself as tear through the door — all serrated guitars flashing like unsheathed blades, basslines that prowl and dart, drums that scamper with nervous energy, and a vocal delivery that simmers, broods, and eventually breaks into something towering and unrestrained.
Lyrically, it speaks of clarity, of steel-edged certainty, of cutting through the white noise of doubt and chaos. It’s the sound of someone absolutely sure of where they’re heading, and daring everything else in their path to try and stop them. Or, in the band’s own words: “It’s as heavy as we go at the moment and to me describes desire in a tune — it screams ‘fucking come on then’ to anything thrown your way.”
The song’s origins are suitably tempestuous — written, Haywood recalls, as torrential rains burst a riverbank, sending floodwaters rushing, a natural fury that lit the fuse. That same elemental force runs through the track.
WHITEHORSE itself came together in Sheffield in late 2024, with Haywood joined by Bobby Bouché, John McCullagh (of John Lennon McCullagh, Vultures, and Children of the State), Nathan Keeble, and James Keith (Malcom). Experience and momentum have been on their side from the off. Their debut single Doesn’t Come Close found immediate champions in BBC Introducing Sheffield, earning both airplay and a festival slot, and a string of sold-out shows and early UK dates have already given them the feel of a band in full stride rather than just finding their feet.
What sets them apart is this balance: a sound that can be tender and intricate one moment, then utterly feral the next. Songs that channel swirls of emotion and vivid, poetic imagery before collapsing into torrents of noise and release. If Doesn’t Come Close was the opening spark, then Red Riptide is the first full detonation — proof that WHITEHORSE are less interested in slow-burn introductions than in kicking down the doors of 2024 with all guns blazing.