Keo Unearth the Light of Dead Stars on ‘Pistol’

Keo are building their debut out of ash and afterimage. The London quartet’s new single, ‘Pistol’, isn’t about fresh wounds but the dull ache of what remains. Where their previous track ‘That’s Me’ waded through guilt and shame, this one stares into the distance at things that should be gone but aren’t.

Driven by early-2000s alt-rock guitars and a chorus that lifts without cheapening the weight, ‘Pistol’ filters frontman Finn Keogh’s fixation on dead stars—objects whose light reaches us long after they’ve collapsed. “The idea of something having died years ago but only now seeing its light,” he says. “I think that imagery can be just as real with people.” The song doesn’t resolve that pull; it just rides it.

It’s a fitting primer for ‘Put A Smile On For Me’, the band’s self-produced first album out 25 September via Island Records. Keogh and guitarist Jimmy Lanwern handled production themselves to keep perfectionism at arm’s length and push for something more exposed. As Keogh puts it, the album’s honesty is uncomfortable: “I don’t want to see your true colours and you don’t want to see mine. You smile, I’ll smile, everything is fine.”

That tension—between what’s said and what’s burning underneath—runs through the tracklist. It’s not an album about easy catharsis, and ‘Pistol’ makes clear Keo aren’t offering any.