Westside Cowboy Keep Their Edge on Mighty New Single ‘Kick Stones (The Boys)’

Manchester’s Westside Cowboy aren’t interested in over-polishing what makes them great. Hot on the heels of their January EP, So Much Country ‘Till We Get There, the alt-rock quartet has just announced their debut full-length album, It Goes On, alongside a brilliant, driving lead single: “Kick Stones (The Boys)”.

For anyone who has watched them climb from sweaty grassroots rooms to sharing stages with Geese and Black Country, New Road, the new track—out via Island Records—feels like a massive statement of intent. It’s huge, but it still feels like it belongs to Manchester.

Capturing the Live Energy

“Kick Stones (The Boys)” starts quietly enough with a few tender guitar strums before Paddy Murphy’s propulsive drums take over. At the center of it all is the dual-vocal dynamic between Aoife Anson O’Connell and Reuben Haycocks—a tightly woven harmony style that has quickly become the band’s sonic signature.

What makes the track stick, though, is how it balances a big, festival-ready melody with a lean, unvarnished garage-rock production. The band openly admits they had to fight the urge to over-produce it.

“We loved the way it felt to play, but we thought we couldn’t record it like that or people would think we wanted to be a stadium rock band,” says bassist and vocalist Aoife Anson O’Connell.

To keep that raw edge, they linked up with producer Loren Humphrey (Wunderhorse, Geese), using the live, chugging rhythm of The Velvet Underground’s “What Goes On” as a sonic blueprint. The result is urgent, scrappy, and completely infectious.

Community-First Visuals

The track’s grounded, independent spirit carries over heavily into the official music video, which was filmed in collaboration with FC United of Manchester.

The fan-owned, grassroots football club was famously set up by supporters as a community-driven alternative after Manchester United’s corporate takeover. For Westside Cowboy, the partnership felt entirely natural.

“They’re very community-minded and they have a similar atmosphere to what we want to be,” notes guitarist and vocalist Reuben Haycocks. “Their ethos is ‘making friends, not millionaires.’“

Debut Album ‘It Goes On’ & 2026 Tour Dates

“Kick Stones (The Boys)” serves as the opening chapter for the band’s 11-track debut album, It Goes On, arriving on August 21, 2026. The band describes the record as a lean, honest collection of high-impact songs written to capture the exact feeling that made them fall in love with guitar music in the first place.

It Goes On Tracklist:

1. Kick Stones (The Boys)

2. Paperchains

3. Dobro

4. Well Done Kid, You Did It

5. Worried Age

6. Big Wheels

7. Pin Up Boys

8. Coyote

9. Patchwork

10. Take My Leaving As I Love You

11. You Could Have Died There On The Dancefloor

Headline Tour Dates

The band will hit the road this autumn for their biggest UK and European headline run to date. With home-turf shows in Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield already sold out, you’ll want to move fast on the remaining dates.