New Music: The Empty Page – Death On Our Side

Published On: January 24th, 2026|

Death On Our Side sparked off one of the more unusual association chains in my brain. For me, that’s a sign of a fantastic song.

The Empty Page operate within an indie-rock and post-punk sphere and take maximum advantage of the leeway that offers them. Death On Our Side has a brush of shoegaze – more often in the vein of Curve and Swervedriver – as well as the alt-rock of the 90s and 00s having a palpable presence, with Smashing Pumpkins and Deftones providing a ghostly shimmer of outsider rock.

I’ve seen The Empty Page live a few times, and their indefinable aura on stage, one that includes a kind of dark glamour and a multitude of themes in the arrangements, is captured wonderfully here. Death On Our Side was recorded in a converted church in Leeds, and what is a church but a stage?

The 2020s are not showing up to be a great decade so far, and if you’re young, with no memories of better days, that must be hard. That is a concept that the band encapsulates here, when alienation has become the norm, and options for young people are ever fewer. This is music for (unwilling) outsiders, finding their own way in an increasingly bleak world.

The songs it reminded me of? Dylan’s With God on Our Side and Dominic Behan’s The Patriot Game; two songs that, rather like Death On Our Side, provide insights into how damaging to others rigid thoughts and beliefs, like those shaping the planet right now, can be for those that suffer as a result. Here, The Empty Page look at how those beliefs can affect the young.

Says the band, “[Death On Our Side] is about realising that your only pension plan is to die young. Even though you have worked hard your whole life, you have barely any savings and are still only just able to afford your current outgoings without being able to put aside for the future. It’s a position that so many people of younger generations now find themselves in. And it’s an absolute disgrace, adding to an already heavy mental health load.”

“It’s written from a position of resignation and hedonism. We have no future, so let’s just get high or drunk or be in a band or whatever. The future’s overrated.”

Death On Our Side is out now, downloadable on Bandcamp and streaming on SoundCloud and Spotify. The Empty Page just played with Marky Ramone and have a hefty slate of gigs in the coming months – hit up their Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook feeds for venue details.