Fresh from winning Glastonbury’s Emerging Talent Competition, Westside Cowboy tackle “acceptance” on harmonic new single ‘Shells’

Westside Cowboy, winners of Glastonbury‘s Emerging Talent Competition 2025, have released a new track, titled ‘Shells’.

• READ MORE: “It’s the ultimate battle of the bands!” – why Glastonbury’s Emerging Talent Competition is more vital than ever

The Manchester-based four-piece and NME 100 alumni were announced as the winners of the competition, which has gained them a performance slot at the festival. Now, Westside Cowboy have released ‘Shells’, via Nice Swan Recordings / Heist or Hit, which explores acceptance and the acknowledgement of change.

“‘Shells’ is broadly about acceptance,” the band said in a press statement. “Whether it is the acknowledgment of what you have, or the acknowledgment that change is inevitable. The song is loosely based on a film, in which the character masters this. We have yet to reach this point though. I suppose it’s a little more earnest, and it starts slow, but it kicks in soon enough.”

Yesterday (April 28), Westside Cowboy spoke to NME about how it feels to have won a slot at Worthy Farm this June. “It feels amazing but it’s really hard to process,” said vocalist Aoife Anson O’Connell.

“We’re so lucky, we’ve had the most insane luck for a year and it’s just happened again. We’re the most jammy people in the world, maybe I should start gambling! We’ve had so many achievements that mean so much to us in such a short space of time but this means the most,” she added. “It means so much to everyone in the band, I just vividly remember growing up watching the Glastonbury sets on the telly.”

She later said: “If today has taught us anything, it’s that despite the stature of Glastonbury it still feels very grassroots and family orientated. It’s amazing how something so big can still feel so intimate. It’s incredible they let the likes of us have a chance, it feels like it’s open to anyone.”

Westwide Cowboy were amongst the 100 acts featured in the NME 100 Essential Emerging Artists of 2025 list. It reads: “British bands enthralled by American cultural ephemera are nothing new, and Westside Cowboy – signed to Nice Swan Records, the former label of English Teacher and Sprints – are just one of the new acts heralding a gloriously ramshackle new era of ’90s-styled slacker rock.

“Cue the impossibly long song titles and whimsical parentheticals – they call it ‘Britainicana’ and really, who are we to argue?”

The Glastonbury Emerging Talent Competition was launched in 2004 and previous finalists include English Teacher, Flohio, Declan McKenna, She Drew The Gun, Scouting For Girls, The Subways and Izzy Bizu.

The post Fresh from winning Glastonbury’s Emerging Talent Competition, Westside Cowboy tackle “acceptance” on harmonic new single ‘Shells’ appeared first on NME.