Ahead of their debut LP, there was a time Irish five-piece Spies even wondered if they would keep the band going – ‘When making the album we kind of reached a breaking point where we questioned everything we were doing and whether we should continue at all’, says bassist Hugh O’Dwyer. Luckily, they held in there, which is good news because their new music is possibly their best ever. For the singles from the new record, and especially on the latest Ho Chi Minh, the band have embraced their natural flair for sounding big, diving head-first into grand, sweeping alt-rock. Ho Chi Minh uses a trip singer Michael Broderick took to Vietnam as its theatre, and spreads its wings as glorious, epic guitar pop. Their debut album Constancy is out on November 23.