B-Side Guys

The primal growl that opens “So Much Better” signals exactly what kind of assault follows. Birmingham duo Phwoar—Helena on drums, Paul on guitar, both handling vocals—constructs a freight train specifically designed to flatten the false positivity economy. Their target is massive and deserving: the algorithmic manipulation machine that promises self-improvement while systematically extracting your attention, money, and agency. The song doesn’t critique gently or through metaphor. It bludgeons.

Helena and Paul’s DIY approach serves the material perfectly. Adrian Hall’s production experience with Tori Amos, Nova Twins, and Depeche Mode brings polish to their raw energy without domesticating it, the mix capturing their live ferocity while maintaining clarity. The duo’s Brummie banter and Northern grit manifests as snarling self-awareness, their vocal trade-offs adding conversational urgency to the condemnation. They address the reader directly as marks: join the dance, take the pills, revolutionize your life by surrendering control to platforms that monetize your desperation.

The lyrical progression tracks digital captivity with disturbing specificity. Opening with profile creation and the promise of going big, the song quickly descends into darker territory—live streaming violence against the poor, algorithms feeding you content while engineering poverty, the phone as refuge that simultaneously traps you. Phwoar understands that consumer manipulation works through manufactured comfort, the warm safety of your device masking the extraction happening beneath. Their repeated insistence that everything will be “so much better” becomes increasingly hollow, the promise itself revealed as the con.

The sick payoff arrives in that final admission of not feeling good, the inevitable collapse after accepting every fraudulent upgrade and pharmaceutical shortcut peddled through your feed. Phwoar captures their energetic live presence here, the kind of song designed for their upcoming UK headline tour spanning Liverpool, London, Newport, and beyond. This precedes their April EP Flowers Through the Concrete, a title that suggests resilience through hostile conditions. “So Much Better” documents those conditions with precision, a fizzy indie-alternative-rock exorcism of the systems that promise improvement while guaranteeing decay.