Hyde Out and the Cost of a Hook: How Two Self-Described Non-Musicians Built Moonfactory
The London Duo Swaps Hard Rock for Britpop Hooks and a Bookended Running Order
Hyde Out describe themselves as non-musicians. The London duo of Omar Merlo and Jaka Levstek said as much in 2020. At the time, they wanted untested ways to reboot the sounds they grew up on. Moonfactory, the Hyde Out album released on November 6, 2024, is the fullest answer so far: 13 songs, just under 50 minutes, and a running order that ends where it began.
Hyde Out have Dedicated to the ones who want me dead in the playlist below, and their full coverage history sits on the duo’s artist profile. Moonfactory reached this desk through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news sites. Put it on, then read on for how the record was built.
The Hook: What Hyde Out Lean On When Two People Make Moonfactory
The label is a constraint they chose for themselves. On paper, neither member is short of experience. According to a 2020 profile in Camden Monthly, Merlo has led several bands across Europe and Australia, while Levstek worked alongside popular and classical musicians around Europe. Merlo comes from Lugano, in the Italian-speaking south of Switzerland.
Still, their way of working has built up gradually. Their first album, Technicolour Ghost, was a self-produced demo recorded in 2018. In 2020 they made the Chiaraluna EP with Italian musicians. That session began a partnership with producers at Supreme Tracks, which carried into Smoke and Mirrors later the same year. Tunnel Vision followed in January 2022, and the band describes it as leaning harder into rock.
Moonfactory turns away from that. The duo’s own description points to 90s British indie rock, 70s folk and 80s pop rock, and the hooks follow that brief. First, they single out Dedicated to the ones who want me dead, a title long enough to work as a chorus on its own. Then there is Firefly, the track they call Britpop-infused. Both sit early in the running order, at two and six, where a first-time listener meets them quickly.
Some of those hooks had already been tested. Go high came out as a single in August 2022, and Another life followed in August 2023. Both made the album, so part of Moonfactory had reached listeners long before the full record arrived.
The Lyric: Everyday Moments and One Title Nobody Else Would Write
Back in 2020, the duo said their songs start from selected moments of everyday life, small realisations and decisions about the people and situations around them. Moonfactory keeps that approach. The band’s own notes call Games we play heartfelt and Only words a folk-pop ballad. Elsewhere, the titles read like pages from the same diary: On your way, Another life, Bring on, Go high.
Then there is Powder-coated penguin in undisclosed location, track seven, which reads like a line from a redacted police report. It is the one title on the record that refuses to explain itself, and it puts a dry sense of humour right next to the ballads.
For a duo, plain writing carries extra weight. With only two members, the words and the melody have to hold each song together. That is the cost of the hook here: every track has to stand up on its own terms.
The Structure: Why Moonfactory Ends Where It Begins
The clearest craft decision is the frame. Moonfactory opens with Oblivious, at four minutes and 25 seconds, and closes with Oblivious (reprise), which runs three minutes and 29 seconds. Returning to the opening song at the end turns 13 separate tracks into a loop. It also tells the listener the album was sequenced as one piece rather than gathered as a set of singles.
Inside that frame, the running times stay disciplined. The shortest song, Another life, lasts three minutes and five seconds. The longest, Games we play, runs to four minutes and 37 seconds. Nothing sprawls, which suits the pop rock side of the brief.
The sequencing does the rest. The songs the band itself highlights arrive early. Dedicated to the ones who want me dead, Only words and Games we play all sit inside the first four tracks. The older singles, Another life and Go high, sit in the second half, alongside Cityscape 49 and Kryptonite, before the reprise closes the loop.
The business side has stayed just as steady. Every Hyde Out release since Smoke and Mirrors has come out through Toxic Fumes Records. Meanwhile, the duo has kept releasing: Caught in a trap arrived in April 2025, followed by Starsighted in February 2026.
So who is Moonfactory for? It suits listeners who like British indie and pop rock with a folk streak, and who still play albums from the first track to the last. The reprise rewards exactly that habit.
The BestRock.News curator team: “The most telling decision on Moonfactory is the frame. Opening on Oblivious and closing on its reprise gives 13 songs from a two-person band a shape. It is a small, deliberate choice, and it makes the record read as one piece.”
Where to Stream Hyde Out and Moonfactory, Platform by Platform
The full album plays in the Spotify player at the top of the page, from Oblivious through to its reprise.
Keep up with Hyde Out here:
- Stream: Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer and Tidal
- Watch: the YouTube channel
- Follow: Instagram and Facebook
- Everything else: the official site
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