Young Knives

Formed in the mid-1990s in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, Young Knives originally coalesced around brothers Henry and Thomas Dartnall with drummer Oliver Askew, before continuing as a duo from 2015. Based in Oxford in the early 2000s, the band established itself in the wake of the British indie rock scene with a taut, nervous sound at the crossroads of post-punk revival, indie rock and an increasingly experimental strand that grows across their records. Young Knives drew attention with the EP The Young Knives... Are Dead in 2002, then with the single "The Decision" in 2005, ahead of the releases of Voices of Animals and Men (2006) and Superabundance (2008). The band followed with concerts and tours, notably alongside The Futureheads, Hot Hot Heat, The Rakes and Dirty Pretty Things, and appeared at SXSW. After Ornaments from the Silver Arcade (2011), recorded with Nick Launay, Young Knives emphasised dissonant textures and more oblique constructions on Sick Octave (2013), then returned with Barbarians (2020) and Landfill (2025). Their music remains marked by dry or abrasive guitars, angular rhythms, often contrapuntal vocals and a persistent taste for melodic displacement.