South London’s Starter Car stir up dust and defiant joy on their sophomore single “Kicking,” a radiant, fiddle-laced indie rock rallying cry from their forthcoming debut album ‘Afterlight’ that captures the messy thrill of getting knocked down, getting back up, and choosing forward motion anyway.

Stream: “Kicking” – Starter Car

Forward motion can be messy: A stumble, a scrape, a burst of dust, the body catching itself before charging ahead again.

Neither clean nor linear, the road back into yourself comes in jolts of nerve, flashes of trust, and the half-mad hope that the next step will hold. Even when life knocks the wind out of you, momentum can become its own kind of belief – the proof that you are still here, still trying, still moving.

Starter Car’s radiant, spirited song “Kicking” catches that flash of renewal, turning all of those bruises, the false starts, and that hard-won optimism into a jangling indie rock anthem full of sweat, sunlight, and soul-stirring release. The UK newcomers sound wide awake and wildly alive on their sophomore single, chasing the feeling of getting knocked down and finding, somewhere deep in the churn, the will to persevere.

Take it back in I’ve been on the train
But you saw what you did
Strangers looking all around the place
But I want back in
And ohh kicking up dust
Ohh bringing up trust

Chasing nothing I could use a break that’s
Two falls and one fat lip
Craving something to take away the pain
But I want back in
And ohh kicking up dust
Ohh bringing up trust

Atwood Magazine is proud to be premiering the Robyn Black-directed music video for “Kicking,” a smile-inducing eruption of raw emotion and charming energy that’s sure to help put South East London’s Starter Car on the map. Formed around Scottish songwriter Oisean Burnett after his 2024 move from Glasgow to London, Starter Car came together through homemade “Bandmates Wanted” posters in search of a new music scene. The old-school approach worked: Rounded out by Christie Gardner (lilo), fiddle player Sophia Bartlett (Tugboat Captain), and banjo player Michael Rhea (Symbol Soup), Starter Car have quickly established themselves as a rising force in the English capital’s grassroots scene, making warm, country-influenced indie rock for bruised hearts and restless bodies – or, as they like to cheekily call it, “music for race car drivers.”

Taken from their forthcoming debut album Afterlight (out August 28 via Tapete Records), “Kicking” follows March’s official debut single “Throwing Down” and pushes the band’s sound into brighter, harder-charging terrain – complete with cranked guitars, catchy harmonies, and a rousing fiddle solo all carrying one simple, potent promise: Keep on kicking.

For Burnett, “Kicking” came from a desire to make Starter Car’s next step feel bigger, louder, and more immediate than their first.

“If ‘Throwing Down’ is like, ‘Hey, we’re Starter Car and here’s a song we made,’ ‘Kicking’ busts through the door and says, ‘Did you f***in’ hear that, this is Starter Car!’” the band’s frontman tells Atwood Magazine. “It was one of the last songs I wrote for the album. I had this note in my phone which said, ‘write a more upbeat one,’ so that’s what I did. Before he died, my frail grandfather said, ‘Ach, I’m still kicking,’ but he sure wasn’t kicking anything. His optimism is where the concept came from.”

That origin story gives “Kicking” its beating heart. Beneath the song’s wind-whipped charge is a deeply human image: An older man, weakened by time, still meeting life with humor, grit, and a refusal to let defeat have the final word. Starter Car take that inherited spark and run with it, building a song that doesn’t pretend the road is easy so much as it insists the road is still worth taking.

The lyrics arrive in scattered flashes, as if Burnett is trying to make sense of himself while already in motion. “Take it back in I’ve been on the train / But you saw what you did,” he sings, before the song locks into one of its defining images: “And ohh kicking up dust / Ohh bringing up trust.” The pairing is telling. Dust suggests disruption – the mess left behind by impact, speed, and unfinished business – while trust becomes the thing raised alongside it, fragile but present, summoned through action rather than certainty.

“Kicking” thrives in that tension. “Chasing nothing I could use a break / That’s two falls and one fat lip,” Burnett sings, grounding the song’s lift in blunt, bodily detail. The line is funny, bruised, and beautifully unvarnished, a snapshot of someone who has taken the hits and kept going anyway. Later, when he admits, “It’s a rhyme I can’t make / It’s a feeling I can’t shake,” the song finds its emotional center: Not every ache can be resolved, named, or neatly sung into place. Some feelings have to be followed before they can be understood.

It’s a rhyme I can’t make
It’s a feeling I can’t shake
Ooh ooh I’ll follow
It’s a crime I can’t fake
It’s a ruin I can’t raise
Ooh ooh I’ll follow
I’ll be kicking…

The band meet that uncertainty with force. Twangy guitars flare and fray at the edges, harmonies rise like voices piling into the same car, and Sophia Bartlett’s fiddle work cuts through the track with a glorious, runaway streak. By the time Burnett repeats “I’ll be kicking” again and again, the phrase stops feeling like a lyric and starts to feel like a vow – plainspoken, breathless, and impossible to shake.

The ultimate goal, Burnett says, was for this song to sound like it’s on fire – sizzling slightly and super tense.

“We ran so much feedback in the studio,” he says. “It’s supposed to be invigorating and slightly fierce, but overall we wanted people to feel optimistic about life.”

That same spirit carries into the “Kicking” video, which transforms the song’s scrappy resilience into a physical comedy of persistence: Burnett running, falling, tumbling, and rising again, each wipeout becoming another reason to push onward.

“In a literal sense, the song is about not being disheartened when things go wrong,” Burnett explains. “So director Robyn Black and I took my camcorder to the countryside and filmed me falling over repeatedly, but always getting back up. Reflecting the song, there are parts where things get confusing and the camera is bundling across the ground, but other moments of total clarity where I’m just running in a straight line. I think the video captures this ‘keep on kicking’ mentality.”

The result is funny, kinetic, and genuinely endearing – a perfect visual match for a band whose songs seem to understand that hope rarely arrives polished. In Black’s hands, “Kicking” becomes a miniature odyssey of bruised optimism: One person against the open air, chasing balance, losing it, and choosing the next stride anyway. Its charm comes from that refusal to over-mythologize survival. Burnett falls, gets dirty, laughs it off, and keeps moving until the act itself begins to feel triumphant.

This alluring mix of vulnerability, humor, and emotional lift runs through Afterlight, Starter Car’s forthcoming debut album.

Recorded and produced by Joe Futák, the record widens the band’s world without sanding away any of its rough edges, bringing together the core group’s country and slacker-rock influences around Burnett’s open-hearted songwriting. Across its ten songs, Afterlight moves through anxiety, grief, recklessness, discomfort, and hope, framing life’s heavier weather in arrangements that feel communal, melodic, and alive.

“If you’re experiencing a little discomfort while writing something, it’s probably good,” Burnett says. “Music has that ability to elevate the cringey into something meaningful and pretty.”

This philosophy sits at Starter Car’s core, and “Kicking” feels like its most immediate expression: A song that takes discomfort, embarrassment, grief, and scraped-up perseverance and sends them flying forward at full speed. Its magic lies in the way it effortlessly refuses to separate pain from joy, letting the two crash together until resilience starts to sound less like a lesson and more like a release. For a band only two official singles in (you can find a few more tracks on Bandcamp as well), “Kicking” feels like a proper arrival – bright-eyed, rowdy, tender at the edges, and bursting with the kind of charm that makes you want to root for them long after the final chorus fades.

Atwood Magazine recently caught up with Oisean Burnett to talk about Starter Car’s homemade beginnings, the optimism at the heart of “Kicking,” and the messy, meaningful spark behind all their songs. Watch the Robyn Black-directed music video for “Kicking” below, and dive into our conversation with Burnett as he opens up about the beautiful mess of being alive – getting knocked down, getting back up, and kicking the whole way through.

It’s a rhyme I can’t make
It’s a dealer I can’t break
Ooh ooh I’ll follow
It’s a crime you can’t fake
It’s a ruin I can’t raise
Ooh ooh I’ll follow

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:: stream/purchase Kicking here ::

:: connect with Starter Car here ::

:: stream/purchase Afterlight here ::

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Stream: “Kicking” – Starter Car

A CONVERSATION WITH STARTER CAR

Starter Car (Oisean Burnett): Hey, thanks for having us. We’re a South East London band who make music for race car drivers. In August we release our first album on Tapete Records, it’s called Afterlight and we recorded it in South London.

Starter Car: When I moved from Scotland, the first thing I did was rake through all of the gig listings in London, then just started going to shows. I realised there were a few venues I found myself at more than others, so that’s where I put the posters. That first rehearsal was pretty weird. Five strangers in a boiling hot room in the middle of London summer. It felt like a real band pretty quickly though, and our friends supported by coming to shows – possibly out of curiosity more than anything else.

Starter Car: Like many musicians, I have this big list on my phone of band names. Starter Car wasn’t on it. But Starter Motor was, and Maggie, our drummer, suggested ‘Starter Car’ from that. For me, this is the first band I’ve ever had, so it really is my starter car.

Starter Car: I grew up listening to a lot of Sufjan Stevens, Wilco, Sparklehorse and The Band, since that’s what my dad listens to. I love the rough and raw country side of early Wilco (and pre-Wilco Uncle Tupelo), which is a huge influence. My love for harmonies definitely comes from fellow countrymen Teenage Fanclub, and The Band too.
 

Starter Car: It’s always good to start off by telling people that you like to drink double. “Throwing Down” is one we’ve played live for a little while, and we felt like it captured the scope of the album pretty well in one song.

Starter Car: If “Throwing Down” is like, “Hey, we’re Starter Car and here’s a song we made,” “Kicking” busts through the door and says, “Did you f***in’ hear that, this is Starter Car!” It was one of the last songs I wrote for the album. I had this note in my phone which said, “write a more upbeat one,” so that’s what I did. Before he died, my frail grandfather said, “ach, I’m still kicking,” but he sure wasn’t kicking anything. His optimism is where the concept came from.

Starter Car: Like it’s on fire, sizzling slightly and super tense. We ran so much feedback in the studio. It’s supposed to be invigorating and slightly fierce, but overall we wanted people to feel optimistic about life.

Starter Car: In a literal sense, the song is about not being disheartened when things go wrong. So director Robyn Black and I took my camcorder to the countryside and filmed me falling over repeatedly, but always getting back up. Reflecting the song, there are parts where things get confusing and the camera is bundling across the ground, but other moments of total clarity where I’m just running in a straight line. I think the video captures this “keep on kicking” mentality.

Starter Car: Sonically, these singles feature elements which carry across the album – harmonies, guitar riffs, fiddle and banjo. They set the thematic scene too. Much of the album is me taking an inward look, like in “Throwing Down,” but there are definitely moments on the album where I’m being even more honest with myself than in “Throwing Down.”

Starter Car: A lot of Americans. villagerrr are very comforting to me, their new album has been on heavy rotation. MJ Lenderman of course. If I want more country I go for Philadelphia band Florry, or there’s an incredible new track by Babehoven called Blue Around You. Great fiddle. One of the first bands I went to see in London was Bloody Death. From the name you’d think hardcore, but it’s actually just sweet indie rock.

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:: stream/purchase Kicking here ::

:: connect with Starter Car here ::

:: stream/purchase Afterlight here ::

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Stream: “Kicking” – Starter Car

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