Bath trio Mute TV formed in 2025 and have wasted no time making their intentions clear. Their debut single “Drag Me Down” arrived in May via Medical Grade Music, and the circumstances of its recording say a lot about where the band’s head is at: recorded live at The Heavy’s studio inside Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios complex, engineered by Chris Ellul, mixed by Joe Mountain, and mastered by Jon Walker (Overmono, Warmduscher). Nothing was smoothed out by design. The band was explicit about it – they wanted the track to feel exactly like it does when they play it live, tense and loud and right on the edge.
The main sound and texture of the song is rebellion, and like so many greats before them, Mute TV chose a sizzling drum sound paired with a borderline mangled, fuzzy guitar signal – the kind of fuzz that would make Jack White proud. It’s abrasive without losing the melodic thread underneath, which is the difficult balance that separates noise pop that works from noise pop that just exhausts you. Tim James, Joe Mountain, and Ade Poole are three seasoned musicians, and it shows – the live recording format doesn’t flatter the underprepared, and “Drag Me Down” holds up under that pressure without breaking a sweat.
There’s a particular kind of band that chooses to record live on their debut not because it’s the easier path but because they know the song only fully exists in that format – where the mistakes are features and the tension is real rather than constructed in post. Mute TV is clearly that kind of band. The decision to release through Medical Grade Music and to track inside Real World Studios also suggests a team around them that takes the project seriously, which tends to matter at this stage. The live dates across April and May in the South West give them a circuit to build on, and if “Drag Me Down” is representative of where their catalogue is heading, there’s a lot of room to grow into.
