Drew Thomas has been quietly becoming one of the more essential voices in UK alternative music since he released his debut single Soho in 2019. Raised on music channels, scratched CDs, and the glow of a television left on long after bedtime, he makes music about the things that are often left unsaid. His songs explore sexuality, emotional restraint, and the complicated process of learning how to accept yourself, and he does it with a directness that has connected with audiences well beyond the small UK bars where he first developed his craft.
The trajectory has been real. Appearances at Reading and Leeds, The Great Escape, and international showcase events. Sold out headline shows in London and Nottingham. His Watershed EP marked a significant chapter, establishing him as a modern LGBTQ+ artist capable of putting personal experience at the center of his work. Girls Like Girls clocked more than two million Instagram views. Do They Even Know You received support from BBC Radio 1 through Alyx Holcombe. He was named one of Dean Jackson’s BBC Introducing Most Played Artists of 2025.
The term he uses for what he makes is grit pop. It fits. His music carries the nostalgia of the noughties while using those memories as fuel for something new, combining coming-of-age storytelling with a modern perspective that feels specific rather than generic.
The Single
Soda Friends takes his storytelling somewhere different. The inspiration is New York nightlife and the particular magic that happens when strangers become central characters in your life for just a few hours. It is a song about connection, impermanence, and those nights that seem to exist outside of normal time, evenings that stretch into early mornings and encounters that feel profound despite being temporary.
The production matches the theme. Crashing drums and grooving guitars burst to life before Thomas’s vocals enter above steady percussion and a marching bass pulse. Stacked guitars inject a raucous energy into the verses before the track surges into a chorus where the infectious vocal leads ring out above a consuming arrangement. The dynamic between the moody verses and the cathartic release of the choruses is handled well, and an intricate breakdown in the middle, where brooding vocals and gentle guitar plucks gradually swell, gives the final eruption of riffs and pounding drums the weight it needs to land properly.
It balances intimacy with momentum throughout, capturing both the exhilaration of being surrounded by strangers and the emotional residue those encounters leave behind. That balance is the thing Thomas does best, and Soda Friends is a strong demonstration of it.
The Verdict
Drew Thomas keeps moving forward and Soda Friends is another confident step. The grit pop identity he has been building track by track is getting sharper with each release, and this one arrives with the kind of production and emotional specificity that makes you want to follow wherever he goes next.
Soda Friends is out now. Follow Drew Thomas on Instagram at @drewthomas.
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