The UK’s longtime gloom-pop troubadour Brightr is back with Charles Petrescu, the first single from the long-awaited second album Year Two, out this summer via Sugar-Free Records. Released on April 17th, the song lands after nearly a decade of touring and recording that’s taken Laurie Cottingham—who performs under the Brightr moniker—from an abandoned train station in North Germany to 2000 Trees, The Fest, and Manchester Punk Festival.
With production from Matt O’Grady (You Me At Six, Don Broco, Deaf Havana), Charles Petrescu crams 2 minutes and 41 seconds of melodic pop-punk urgency into a deeply personal reflection on emotional collapse. It’s a continuation of themes first explored on “The Sunshine Coast,” addressing guilt, sadness, and a slow emotional departure. “It features the saddest reflective lyric I think I’ve ever written in ‘I’m not much to care about these days anyway,’” Laurie says.
The track, named after a robot in the film Brian and Charles, sets the tone for Year Two—a record Cottingham describes as “painful, poppy, deeply honest and brutally vulnerable. It’s joyfully crushing but it’s me.”
The record follows Year One, released in 2016, and reflects a long creative process shaped by personal upheaval, a pandemic, and emotional excavation. “I’ve been writing Year Two pretty much since I completed Year One, but it’s been a lengthy work in progress: with an EP, a pandemic and multiple split records in between,” Laurie explains. “It ultimately took a while to finish some of these songs and bring others to the surface because I’d buried the feelings and memories so far down, or maybe even morphed the true narrative of them to feel better than they were to somehow protect myself.”
Brightr began in late 2014 following the collapse of Laurie’s previous band. “I basically said I was done with music… but it didn’t work,” he recalls. “I became depressed and withdrawn trying to suppress my musical self… I lasted under a month before songs were spilling out of me.” From there came early tracks like “We,” “Pavement,” and “Like Paper,” and a quick return to playing live. By 2015, he was touring extensively across Europe and the UK, hitting the US for the first time a year later.
Live shows remain central to the Brightr ethos. “I’m planning to play as many shows as possible in 2025,” Laurie notes, with UK, Ireland and mainland European dates in the works. A US tour is set for 2026, coinciding with the 10-year anniversary of Year One. “I expect there will be some special releases alongside special shows to celebrate and link both Year One and Year Two together in some beautifully gloomy way.”
The local scene that shaped Brightr has also evolved over the years. “I’ve seen a lot of great bands and solo artists come and go, but tbh the scene now is thriving in an incredible way,” he says. “I’m loving seeing more and more brilliant ladies actively involved in the scene, in bands, at labels, at zines… as well as more minority representation. I know as a cis white male I have always had greater easier access to the music industry than others, so I am so pleased to see a better growing level of equality and inclusivity.”
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Laurie doesn’t hesitate to shout out his peers. “As my favourite tour partners (and now label mates) I would of course recommend h_ngm_n the highest of any recommendation,” he says. “They also make up ‘the awful gloom’ whenever I have the rare chance to go full band.” Other picks include Lockjaw Records, Little Low from the USA, and Hark! A Shark!—his wife’s band, recently reactivated after a 9-year break.
While reviews of earlier work point to a sound that blends melancholy with melody—Already Heard called Lanterns “very short but very sweet” and praised Cottingham’s “strong vocal abilities” on Like Paper, while Punktastic admired the balance of heavy themes and optimism—Brightr continues to keep things personal. “My songs lyrically tend to be very bleakly sad with little hints of hopefulness alongside pretty, almost poppy melodies at times,” Laurie explains.
Influences range from Owen, Into It. Over It., and City and Colour to Andy McKee and early Dashboard Confessional.
The upcoming release schedule includes singles Never Home, Never Mind on May 29th and Coffee on June 26th, leading to the full album Year Two on July 4th.
Brightr will also play live this spring and summer, including LMPF (April 11–12), The Village Pump in Trowbridge (June 28), and Herofest in Gravesend (July 26).
A full track-by-track commentary will follow soon, as Laurie returns to break down Year Two in detail.
