Pearson, who will be the first disabled actor to play the role in a film, said: ‘I can think of no greater honour than to tell the true story of Joseph Carey Merrick’

Adam Pearson, the actor who appeared in Under the Skin and the Oscar-nominated A Different Man, is to play the lead role in a new adaptation of The Elephant Man.

According to Variety, Pearson will play Joseph Merrick, whose physical disfigurement led to him becoming a freak show exhibit and then a notable figure in late Victorian London, in a film based on the celebrated play by Bernard Pomerance that became a hit in London and New York after premiering in 1977. Pomerance’s son Moby is writing the screenplay, and shooting is due to begin in 2026.

Exclusive: Black Sabbath frontman details training he is doing to ensure he is fit to play all-star reunion gig in July

Amid concerns about his health, Ozzy Osbourne has insisted he will perform in July at what is being billed as his final concert, fronting the original lineup of Black Sabbath.

Speaking along with his bandmates to the Guardian’s Alexis Petridis in an interview to be published on Friday, he said: “I’ll be there, and I’ll do the best I can. So all I can do is turn up.”

The Wolves head coach on mingling with supporters, why he is ‘a man of the sea’ and the art of football management

‘Gold, like our club,” says Vítor Pereira, pointing towards his glass of Asahi. “This is the colour.” The charismatic Wolverhampton Wanderers head coach has just taken a sip of beer and something of a breather halfway through an hour-long conversation at the Inn at Shipley, a pub on the outskirts of the city, taking in everything from his days as a lifeguard in his hometown of Espinho, a fishing village south of Porto, to almost becoming Everton manager – on three occasions. He claims he once had job offers from Arsenal, before Mikel Arteta was appointed, Crystal Palace and Wolves’ arch-rivals West Brom, too.

This is his first visit to this watering hole but the perfect setting given Pereira’s “first the points, then the pints” mantra that has led to him celebrating wins by mingling with supporters in the local Wetherspoons and a fans’ group to launch a lager and IPA decorated with the slogan. There is only one place to start: joining supporters to drink in victory.

‘Non-askers’ can come across as selfish – but there might be personal and societal reasons for their lack of curiosity

A few months ago, I was at a bar and hoped I might be making a new friend. We were sitting next to each other in a booth with a bunch of people. In response to my questions she told me interesting anecdotes about growing up, her job, her husband. After she’d been talking for about twenty minutes, I began to get an unpleasant, familiar feeling: I bet if I stop asking her questions, she won’t ask me any.

Sure enough, she wrapped up one answer, then looked at me expectantly, like a dog waiting for a treat. Oh hell no, I thought. No way. I turned to the person next to me, a friend. “She’s a non-asker,” I said. “I’m done.”

$800,000 in coins were scattered on Texas highway, forcing closure for nearly 14 hours as clean-up crews worked

An avalanche of 8m freshly minted dimes spilled from an overturned truck and closed a Texas highway for almost 14 hours.

Witnesses described a sea of silver on US Route 287 in Alvord, 50 miles north of Fort Worth. Clean-up crews attempted to suck up the coins, worth $800,000, using vacuums more commonly used to unclog sewers and drains.

On 13 April 2024, two shots ended Sydney’s worst mass murder in more than a decade. As an inquest into the Bondi Junction stabbings continues, the question remains: what more could have been done?

When police inspector Amy Scott entered a Sydney shopping centre in pursuit of a man who was stabbing people with a large knife, she did so without a partner or a bullet-proof vest. Fear, she said, made way for nausea.

“Because, in my head, I had resigned myself to the fact that I was probably going to die”, she told the New South Wales coroner’s court on Tuesday.

This may be the best sex of your life thus far, says advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith, but does that mean it’s the best sex can possibly be?

• Read more Leading questions

Should I stop having sex with my ex? I recently broke up with someone who is fantastic in bed, and good at the fun stuff, but utterly incompatible with me as a partner. There was a lot of pain involved in finding this out.

I’m considering dating again, but haven’t managed to stop having sex with this person – it’s the best sex I’ve ever had, and we have agreed to be friends with benefits. Should I stop? Will it impede my progress in moving on to potential new partners? I don’t have any desire to rekindle a deeper relationship, but don’t want to give up the fun bits that bring me so much pleasure and joy. I’ve never done anything like this before – uncharted territory for me.

Twenty-five years after its first release, the horror franchise that made mundane life seem fraught with danger returns with a bloody but oddly moving fifth sequel

‘My inbox is filled with the most horrible ways people can die,” says Craig Perry, the producer – or, as he would prefer, “curator” – of the Final Destination franchise. Over 25 years, his films have punctured, skewered, crushed, flattened and decapitated men, women and children in a series of horrifying “accidents” and Perry has been a witness to them all. His friends clearly want him to witness many more.

But as we speak on video call, just a few weeks before the sixth instalment is released, he seems far from traumatised. Instead, he’s ebullient, buzzing infectiously about the many gory deaths he has overseen with the same enthusiasm other people might display when talking about their children (“If you’re not having fun, don’t do it!” he grins). He has every right to be proud. To date, the films have made more than $657m (£493m) worldwide and helped to terrify a generation of millennials about the dangers that arise not from entering a haunted house or swimming in shark-infested waters but from the mundanities of taking a shower or driving your car. In the Final Destination movies, death is everywhere.

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world including International Workers’ Day protests

The band’s rightwing critics are now cancel culture advocates, while defenders demand limitless free speech

• Dorian Lynskey is the author of 33 Revolutions Per Minute

Earlier this year, the Northern Irish hip-hop trio Kneecap appeared to be entering their respectable phase. Their self-titled film, a raucous semi-fictionalised biopic directed by Rich Peppiatt, won a Bafta for outstanding British debut, while Kemi Badenoch’s attempt to block a grant awarded by the British Phonographic Industry was overturned in court. As the film illustrates, Kneecap were accustomed to being denounced by unionist MPs but both sides reaped useful publicity. “We have a very dysfunctional, symbiotic relationship,” admitted rapper Naoise Ó Cairealláin.

This process was dramatically derailed last week when Kneecap touched the third rail of Gaza and accused Israel of genocide on stage at Coachella festival in California. Cue fury from Fox News, calls for their visas to be revoked and, according to their manager, death threats. The British press combed through old videos and found clips that appear to show two explosive onstage pronouncements from Kneecap’s November 2023 UK tour: “Up Hamas, up Hezbollah” and “The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP.”

Dorian Lynskey is a writer, podcaster and author of 33 Revolutions Per Minute and The Ministry of Truth

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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In a world of hyperbole, recency bias and superlatives that are more exhausted than Casemiro on a counterattack, it is still not a stretch to call Lamine Yamal the best male footballer on the planet. Some particularly cantankerous individuals in Madrid might object to that, and while their annual boycott of Football Daily’s Bank Holiday Barbecue continues to be a point of consternation across the footballing world, there is no denying that the Barcelona boy is bit special. We say boy, because that is legally what he is. Akin to mentioning Frank Lampard whenever anyone talks about Coventry City or helicopter rides whenever brings up Michael Owen, we are contractually obliged to remind you of Lamine Yamal’s age whenever we write about him. HE IS JUST 17, FOLKS.

It’s easy to mock Ange Postecoglou as Spurs have had a difficult season and are 16th in the Premier League (scroll down). But at least he’s in the semi-finals of Bigger Vase and all he has to do to get to the final is beat a small Norwegian team whose stadium only has a capacity of 8,270 over two legs. Surely he can do that can’t he? Oh … and double oh” – Noble Francis.

I can’t help thinking your reference to John Terry (yesterday’s Football Daily) is a little out of date. Especially when you could instead refer to Riqui Puig who knacked his ACL in the semi of last year’s MLS Cup and had to watch from the sidelines (in a very nice suit) as LA Galaxy won it all. That didn’t stop him from donning a full kit for their trophy presentation, in a move he surely picked up watching the 2012 Big Cup final” – Tom Dowler.

Everton have previous when it comes to local naming-based b@nter (yesterday’s Football Daily letters). My time as a student in Liverpool coincided with the opening of a sparkly new shopping centre, Liverpool One. The Toffees duly opened a megastore in it called Everton Two” – Isaac Proud.

This is an extract from our daily football email … Football Daily. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions.

Ade Adedeji, 21, from Manchester, served three years for a crime he did not commit before his conviction was quashed

On his release from prison earlier this year, after serving three years for a crime he didn’t commit, 21-year-old Ade Adedeji had only one thing on his mind – a trip to Burger King.

“The first thing I wanted to do was eat a Burger King. And hug my family, of course,” he said. “I thought I was getting out in 2027, so I had planned out the first three days. But then it happened so unexpectedly, and everything was just mad.”

Immigrants report moldy food, used underwear and ‘pandemonium’ as Trump dramatically expands detention

The US government has jailed hundreds of immigrants in notorious federal prisons in a dramatic escalation of its detention practices, cutting people off from their attorneys and families and subjecting them to brutal conditions, according to accounts from behind bars.

Since February, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) has increasingly used Bureau of Prisons (BoP) facilities to incarcerate immigrants facing deportation, records show. The partnership between BoP and Ice, two agencies that have generally operated separately, means people accused of civil immigration violations are being imprisoned in harsh environments of federal penitentiaries run by prison guards.

Ciro Pellegrino of Fanpage, who has been critical of Meloni government, says notification provoked ‘horrible feeling’

A second Italian journalist whose news organisation exposed young fascists within the prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s far-right party was targeted with sophisticated “mercenary spyware”, according to an Apple notification received by the reporter.

Ciro Pellegrino is the second reporter at the investigative news outlet Fanpage to fall victim to an alleged spyware attack, after his editor-in-chief, Francesco Cancellato.

Development may be indication China is softening on beginning negotiations over American 145% tariffs

• US politics live – latest updates

The US has approached China seeking talks over Donald Trump’s 145% tariffs, a social media account affiliated with Chinese state media has said, potentially signalling Beijing’s openness to negotiations.

“The US has proactively reached out to China through multiple channels, hoping to hold discussions on the tariff issue,” Yuyuan Tantian reported in a post published on its official Weibo social media account, citing anonymous sources.

Big signings arrived but recruitment of Sonia Bompastor was perhaps the key factor to club’s sixth straight title

This was a title win that has felt inevitable since December, at which point Chelsea had won their first nine Women’s Super League matches of the season. In truth, it had felt likely long before that, in a campaign where one squad has looked uncatchable and – unbeaten with just two more games to go – they may yet prove to be the 2024-25 invincibles.

It is Chelsea’s sixth WSL title in a row and eighth overall in terms of full-length campaigns, in addition to their triumph in the one-off, transitional “Spring Series” in 2017, meaning they have been crowned champions of England nine times since their first title in 2015. That represents more than just an era of dominance. They have built a dynasty and there are no signs to suggest their reign will be over anytime soon.

Ethel Caterham, who lives in a care home in Surrey and takes life in her stride, is first Briton to claim title since 1987

The secret of longevity is to do what you like, according to the 115-year-old British woman named the world’s oldest living person.

Ethel Caterham, born in 1909, is the first Briton to claim the title of world’s oldest person since 1987, when 114-year-old Anna Williams was the record holder.

Trump opted not to fire Waltz to avoid media backlash, sources tell Guardian

• Trump’s national security adviser to leave post

The Trump administration is seeking to strip collective bargaining rights from large swaths of federal employees in a test case union leaders argue is part of a broader attack on US labor unions that could land before the US Supreme Court.

A Trump win would deliver a severe blow to labor unions in the US. Some 29.9% of all federal workers were represented by labor unions in 2024 compared to 11.1% for all US workers.

The US justice department says it did not fire a former pardon attorney, Liz Oyer, after she refused to recommend reinstating Mel Gibson’s gun rights.

But Oyer tells Jonathan Freedland a different story, one she believes points to a wider crackdown by the Trump administration on the rule of law in America

Archive: ABC News, Face the Nation, CBS News, CNN, PBS, NBC News, Fox News, WHAS11

Firm was navigating ‘toughest of market conditions’ when Trump’s tariffs worsened wallet pressures on consumers

McDonald’s posted a surprise decline in first-quarter global sales on Thursday, as demand from cash-strapped diners in its key markets faltered on uncertainty sparked by chaotic tariffs.

The company was navigating the “toughest of market conditions”, the company’s CEO Chris Kempczinski said, as global comparable sales fell 1%, while analysts on average had estimated a 0.95% rise.

Lawyers for hundreds of survivors argue Gregory Aymond should be questioned under oath about role in the clergy abuse crisis

A group of attorneys representing clergy abuse survivors is ramping up pressure to get the archbishop of New Orleans, Gregory Aymond, under oath before a judge decides whether to kick the church out of bankruptcy.

Lawyers for hundreds of survivors filed a motion on Wednesday to end the church’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, a day before the fifth anniversary of a case that’s paid none of about 500 survivors but has cost the archdiocese around $45m in legal and professional fees.

Going back out on tour, the 13-time Grammy winner recalls stark inspirations and steamy studio sessions as she answers your questions

You’ve had a decades-long career. When did you first feel that you had “made it”? LondonLuvver
I wasn’t expecting to do music for a job. I was into social activism in college, and I just had music as a hobby. My boyfriend managed a bunch of blues artists and I asked if I could open for some of them – just to have fun and hang out with my heroes. Unbeknown to me, there really weren’t any women playing blues guitar and doing the mix of songs [I was], and I immediately got more offers of gigs and even a record company offer within about a year. That first gig I got under my own name, when I was 19, was a total surprise: that’s when I felt I had made it.

How was it growing up with a father [John Raitt] who was such a big Broadway star? Abbeyorchards7
He had hits in the 1940s with Carousel, and in the 50s with The Pajama Game. By the time I was 10 or 11, he was on the road touring in the summer – he loved taking Broadway shows out to the countryside. That influenced me a lot later when I decided to veer off from college and go into music: his love of travelling, of every night being opening night, and putting everything he had into every performance. And he was on tour basically until his mid-80s, so I think that had a tremendous influence on me: like, we can’t believe we get paid, and this is our job.

Countries from Canada to Japan must take steps to isolate the United States in world diplomacy

Donald Trump and his political allies in Washington have undertaken far-sweeping actions to undermine the foundations of American democracy, while simultaneously pursuing policies that erode and disrupt eight decades of trust and cooperation with democratic allies in Europe, North America and Asia.

While leaders in these countries grapple with what is happening in Trump’s America, they must now ask themselves a new and critical question of immense relevance – one that has never been asked before in the modern era:

Exclusive: Fathers planning protest with babies in London on 11 June to highlight UK’s ‘rubbish’ statutory leave, least generous in Europe

British fathers are being urged to join the world’s first “Dad strike” to protest about the UK’s statutory paternity leave, which campaigners say is the least generous in Europe.

Fathers are planning to protest with their babies outside the Department for Business and Trade in London on 11 June in an effort to force the government to improve leave for dads and non-birthing partners.

The Next Big Story competition, run by writing school The Novelry, is encouraging entries from would-be authors ‘historically overlooked by the publishing industry’

A new competition is offering £75,000 to an aspiring writer based on just three pages of their novel.

Actor Emma Roberts, Bridgerton author Julia Quinn and Booker-winning Life of Pi author Yann Martel are among the judges for The Next Big Story competition, run by online fiction writing school The Novelry.

After watching my father’s struggle in a system that values profit over compassion, I wonder: how much longer will we accept a future where most of us lose our sense of human worth in old age?

The last time I visited my father, I walked into his $11,000-a-month room in a posh assisted living residence and found him curled up on the floor. My sister Amy and I knelt down, touched him, and asked if he was okay.

“I don’t know,” mumbled Dad, 96, a retired physician and lifelong outdoorsman. “I fell about 20 minutes ago and no one has come.”

As big companies and informal miners blame each other for the damage to rivers and forests, mining risks long-term harm to those living nearby

The small town of Muzo, nestled deep in Colombia’s emerald-rich valleys of Boyacá province, is a place where the soil holds great wealth. Brick-red homes and tin-roof shacks cling to the mountainside, their bases resting on black sand and dark mud. Below, the Río Minero weaves through the valley, its waters tainted by the silt and debris of continuous excavation.

The region’s natural beauty is marred by scattered waste and discarded mining materials, evidence of an industry that supports the town’s economy – but also harms its environment.

As the wrestler turned action hero turns 53, we count down his best movies – from Baywatch to Jumanji to that time he played the Tooth Fairy

Dwayne Johnson is about to violently switch gears. His next films include a Benny Safdie drama about an MMA fighter battling addiction and a true-crime drama produced by Martin Scorsese. The reason for this abrupt handbrake turn towards grownup film-making seems to be Red One; a duff Christmas action film. During its production, tales of Johnson’s backstage behaviour leaked out: the star was said to frequently be late, and would habitually hand his assistant bottles of urine rather than walk to the toilet. It was the biggest knock to The Rock since his career began. But onwards and upwards.

Selecting a new pope has always been an arduous process, but some conclaves seemed to suffer more than others

Modern-day conclaves are steeped in mystery: cardinal electors swear an oath of secrecy – and so do the cooks, drivers, medics and others who support their deliberations. Before the conclave begins next week, the Sistine Chapel will be swept for electronic bugs, jamming devices will be installed, and special coatings will be placed on windows to stop laser scanners picking up anything audible.

It wasn’t always this way: in the past, letters, diaries and other writings by cardinals and their attendants gave revealing accounts of what happened in the meetings convened in order to choose a pope.

Decline in output and new orders in April allied with rising uncertainty is prompting layoffs, survey finds

• Business live – latest updates

Britain’s factories suffered a slump in export orders last month as Donald Trump’s globally unsettling tariff regime sent overseas demand for UK goods tumbling at the fastest pace in five years.

Manufacturers reported rising economic and trade uncertainties in April as some tariffs took effect and other threatened border taxes loomed, forcing them to lay off workers for a sixth consecutive month.

I support the Climate Paradox report from the Tony Blair Institute, but his foreword risks compromising what must be achieved

• David King was chief scientific adviser to the UK government under Tony Blair, and is founder and chair of the global Climate Crisis Advisory Group

I have always been proud of the progress the UK made between 2003 and 2007 in formulating a credible response to the climate change. Under Tony Blair’s leadership, the UK placed climate at the heart of global diplomacy. At the time, our understanding was based largely on scientific projections and models. Today, the crisis is in full view – faster and more devastating than many imagined. The world is now experiencing the daily impacts of climate breakdown, and our responses must reflect this escalating emergency. We need measured, strategic, sustained and, above all, urgent interventions to ensure a manageable future for humanity.

That is why I support much of the thrust of The Climate Paradox report from the Tony Blair Institute. It rightly recognised that the era of endless summits and slogans must give way to one of delivery and impact. But the comments I gave were prior to seeing the foreword, and while there has been some clear misinterpretation from elements of the media, I do believe it has removed the balance of the report in ways that risk undermining what still can – and must – be achieved.

The Lakers were thoroughly outmatched against the Timberwolves in this season’s playoffs. The team must now address the fixes that need to be made

Dorian Finney-Smith slams his hand in frustration against an empty chair on his way to the shower. The locker room is so silent you could hear a pin drop. In spite of every expert prediction, it was not “Lakers in five,” or, at least, not on the right end of five. The LeBron James, Luka Dončić, and JJ Redick-led Lakers were sent packing by the Minnesota Timberwolves on their home court in Los Angeles on Wednesday, in a five-game series whose final tally doesn’t tell the whole story.

Minnesota were decidedly the better team in the series, but with the exception of a decisive Timberwolves win in the opener, it was a sequence of games won on the margins. The final game between the two teams felt, for the most part, like a competition where neither opponent particularly felt like giving their all, which played into Minnesota’s hands as the roster with far more depth and, thus, margin for error. But, in all likelihood, the series was won and lost in Game 4, a classic, hard-fought battle that came down to the final buzzer. While it wasn’t technically the end of the series, it’s the kind of loss that’s almost impossible to come back from, both emotionally, and historically: teams who go up three games to one in a seven-game series go on to win 95% of the time.

The government’s claims against detainees were paper-thin and the process riddled with errors. Now history is repeating

Guantánamo is a horror Americans have tried to forget. But the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) deportation regime resembles so many of Guantánamo’s evils that it compels comparison. That comparison reveals significant differences but frightening similarities.

On 11 January 2002, the detention facility opened. The first detainees, in orange jumpsuits, hobbled along in a parade to show the press the success of the government in this battle of the “war on terror”.

The detainee admits he was a cook’s assistant for Taliban forces in Narim, Afghanistan under the command of Haji Mullah Baki.

Mark Denbeaux is professor emeritus at Seton Hall Law School and for 18 years represented four detainees held in Guantánamo who had endured torture by the CIA

For an estimated 30,000 Black people, the journey from enslavement in the US ended north of the border

Between the late 18th century and the end of the American civil war, tens of thousands of Black Americans escaped the bondage of slavery by fleeing plantations to go north. The Underground Railroad had stops in states in which slavery was illegal, such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York. But for an estimated 30,000 people, the journey continued beyond those states into Canada.

Early Black American settlers in Canada – people who became Black Canadians before Canada was a country – made an indelible mark on their new home. They created thriving communities across Ontario and Nova Scotia and as far west as the Manitoba border; they founded abolitionist newspapers and paved the way for waves of migration that would follow.

Wine snobs can be a bit sniffy about it, but New Zealand sauvignon blanc is one of the most widely drunk whites in the UK

Besides Provençal rosé (a column for another day), New Zealand sauvignon blanc has to be one of the most successfully marketed wines of the past century. This grape is, of course, planted around the world, and originally French, but it has become so wrapped up in the identity of New Zealand wine, and so at the forefront of our minds, that several people I know who have heard of New Zealand’s take didn’t know that sauvignon blanc also constitutes many appellation wines from the Loire and Bordeaux.

It was 1973 when the first sauvignon blanc vines were planted in Marlborough, and were initially intended to be blended with müller-thurgau, which at the time was one of the region’s more popular grape varieties. That’s almost unthinkable now, when Marlborough is by far the most famed region for sauvignon blanc, with about 25,000 hectares of vines, low rainfall and long, sunny days, as well as free-draining soil. In other words, ideal conditions for producing wine en masse.

Beijing suspected of putting pressure on Vatican to cut ties with Taipei

Next week, 135 cardinals will gather inside the Vatican for the conclave, a secretive meeting to decide who will succeed the late Pope Francis. Around the world, people are speculating: who will the next pontiff be? But in Taiwan, a more common discussion has been: who are we sending to the inauguration?

The former vice-president Chen Chien-jen recently returned from Vatican City, where he represented Taiwan at Francis’s funeral. But the committed Catholic hopes he won’t be asked to repeat the journey to welcome in the successor. Instead, he is pushing for it to be Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te.

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Lars Sivertsen, Mark Langdon and Sid Lowe to discuss all the big European action

Rate, review, share on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud, Acast and Stitcher, and join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and email.

On the podcast today: a brilliant semi-final in Barcelona as they draw 3-3 with Inter. Lots of brilliant goals and another world-class performance from the frighteningly young Lamine Yamal. Inter will take the draw, especially with the second leg at San Siro, but they were a small toe’s length away from a Henrikh Mkhitaryan winner.

The two best players of their generation suffered same-day disappointments that show the game is starting to move on

Not long ago, the results might have been seismic. Or at the very least, worthy of an eyebrows-raised remark. Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, the two leading lights of their generation, the dominant on-field forces for most of this century, both going out of continental competition in the semi-finals? Both in upsets? On the same day?

On Wednesday, it actually happened. Messi’s Inter Miami fell to Vancouver 5-1 on aggregate in the Concacaf Champions Cup, and Ronaldo’s Al-Nassr lost 3-2 to Kawasaki Frontale in the AFC Champions League Elite at a nominally neutral site in Saudi Arabia.

Most countries have no fossil fuel reserves, but no country in the world is without renewable energy resources. For a country such as Iceland, the world leader in renewables, this statement is clear to see. The island nation has made good use of its volcanoes and glaciers, which help provide 100% of its electricity and almost all its heat energy. But what about other countries that don't have Iceland's unique geology to rely on. Josh Toussaint-Strauss finds out how the world has managed to reach the impressive milestone of more than 40% of global electricity demand coming from clean power sources, and how other countries such as the UK are making this energy transition happen, despite a distinct lack of volcanoes

• Clean energy powered 40% of global electricity in 2024, report finds

(True Panther Sounds/Dirty Hit)
Inspired by Mariah and Kylie but full of jackhammer rhythms and noise, the quartet’s second album could attract a big following

You can see why Model/Actriz’s 2023 debut album Dogsbody attracted a lot of approving critical attention. In an era when rock music largely leans towards familiarity – where originality has essentially come to mean rearranging recognisable sounds from the past in a relatively fresh way – here was a band who genuinely didn’t seem to sound much like anyone else.

The Brooklyn quartet had released a handful of noisy singles pre-Covid, which attracted vague comparisons to the notoriously challenging clangour of the late 70s no wave movement or the frenetic dance-punk of Liars, an outlier band on the far left field of the early 00s New York scene that gave the world the Strokes and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. But on Dogsbody they honed their sound into something entirely their own.