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NME’s latest stars of The Cover, Florence Road, have created an exclusive playlist to accompany the story’s launch – check it out below.
The County Wicklow band are on this week’s (May 18) edition of The Cover, a manifestation of NME’s commitment to supporting emerging talent across the globe on a weekly basis. Every week, a rising artist will feature on The Cover – you can read Florence Road’s profile here, written by Georgia Evans and featuring photography by Marisa Bazan.
Alongside their The Cover story, Florence Road have curated an exclusive playlist, titled ‘Songs For A Road Trip’. The selection includes songs by several former NME Cover stars, including Sarah Kinsley, Nieve Ella and Balu Brigada, alongside tracks by Cameron Winter, MUNA, Wet Leg and more. Listen to the full playlist on Spotify below and on Apple Music.
In 2025, before the sold-out rooms and festival slots, and with just one original song out, Florence Road posted a cover of Paramore’s ‘Hard Times’, filmed in their now-mythologised shed on a 0.5 zoom setting, the phone flash flicking between faces. The video now has around 52million views and 7million likes – which, as is often the case, arrived by accident. “It was five minutes to film,” singer/guitarist Lily Aron shrugs. “We posted it, we didn’t think anything of it.” What followed was the double-edged reality of sudden visibility – a wealth of new listeners paired with the trepidation of being flattened into a single internet narrative, especially as they’d only released one song at that time.
Thankfully, “that fear of being perceived as a TikTok band has kind of dissipated,” drummer Hannah Kelly says. “We hadn’t done as many live shows [then]. Now we feel a lot more secure.” This sense of security is founded on something far less fickle than the online hype: real, long-term friendship. Florence Road formed in 2019, all four members pals at Coláiste Ráithín, an Irish-language secondary school on the street that gave the group their name.
They’re now in their early twenties, but they still have the adolescent gang energy you’d expect: they laugh over each other, throw out inside jokes, and speak to one another with an effortless rhythm. Aron and Kelly naturally take the lead, Alibhe Barry cuts in with sharp observations, while Emma Brandon quietly fires off jokes to the others beside her, each one setting the group off laughing again. It feels instinctive and stable – essential for surviving the speed of what’s happening to them now.
Read Florence Road’s full Cover story here and find out who else has been on The Cover here.
Every year, NME produces 50 Cover stories, showcasing the future of music via in-depth profiles and exclusive photoshoots. Check out our coffee table book NME The Cover 2024-2025, which features the likes of Kneecap, Lola Young, Amaarae, LE SSERAFIM, Oklou and many more.
