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Editors

Revel in the artfully crafted resonance of J.MYSTERY’s indie pop exploration of heartbreak, Reverie

The ethereal indie pop enigma, J.MYSTERY, struck again with the sublimity in his latest single, Reverie, which launched on August 9th and sonically delivered exactly what it says on the titular tin.

Diaphanous notes of the finger-picked guitars lead you into a séance of melancholic reflection which builds into a soundscape that crescendos through swells of reverb-drenched synths, enveloping the evocative Elbow-esque timbre of J.MYSTERY’s weighted with aching emotion harmonies.

The meditation on the heartache which follows a connection fraying at the seams epitomises hopeless romanticism while revolutionising the heartfelt indie ballad with a depiction of how yearning often entwines with fantasy as you attempt to reconcile with the isolation.

The Portuguese singer-songwriter’s cultivated approach to synthesising alt-rock, electronica and atmospheric pop has culminated in a loyal army of fans who revel in the artfully crafted resonance. In an oversaturated scene, he’s reigning supreme by weaving his heartstrings through his melodies. Even more reverence undoubtedly awaits the alt-indie pioneer as he charts a path through innovative, authentic expression.

Stream Reverie on Spotify now and follow J.MYSTERY on Facebook and Instagram.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Interpol meets Editors in The All Clear’s achingly angular indie debut, Northern Soul

If you affix any emerging indie outfit to your radar in 2024, make it The All Clear. With guitars which prove how scintillating it would be if Interpol’s Daniel Kessler lent his intricately angular notes to Editors, their debut single, Northern Soul, tears its way into the soul with aching precision and volition.

Northern Soul exhibited the Belfast-based architects, fronted by Joe O’Sullivan, of indie euphonia as an unrivalled entity, capable of conjuring arcanely poised post-punk alchemy which may show its roots, but only before the sonics blossom into a branch of sheer innovation. The seraphic synth-driven middle eight unfurls as a divine aural intervention; the transcendent melodicism will take you higher than any substance known to man.

After releasing three solo albums between 2015 and 2020, Joe O’Sullivan formed The All Clear in 2023, and their debut album, Harbour Songs, is already on its way, penned for release on September 21.

After hearing Northern Soul, which testifies to the fortitude of the working classes through a tenderly candid narrative, Harbour Songs has all the potential to become the indie album of the year.

Add some ‘Northern Soul’ to your Spotify playlists, or stream the official music video on YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Spotlight Feature: Run The Enemy filtered indie post-punk poetry through a pensive Americana lens with their sophomore single, Barbara Gray

For their second single, the cerebrally poetic Indie/Americana ensemble, Run the Enemy, unearthed the sublime from the serendipitous, immortalising the fleeting yet eternal encounter between Elvis and Barbara Gray in 1956.

Infused with samples of fervent Elvis fans within an Editors-esque post-punk framework, the Cambridge, UK-based band magnifies the tenderness of transient intimacy in a pop culture moment of pure connection, inviting listeners to inhabit that ephemeral instant and luxuriate in its synchronicity.

With vocals reminiscent of Elbow, choked with emotion and deftly illuminating the lyrical depths, and an atmosphere of sepia-toned nostalgia enveloping the hauntingly angular guitars, iridescent keys, and throbbing rhythm section, Barbara Gray lodges itself in the soul, simultaneously imparting the transcendent nature of a moment never to be lost to history.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a better entry into the UK indie scene in 2024. It’s only a matter of time before Run the Enemy tears its way into the mainstream.

Run the Enemy Said:

“The song is about randomly overlapping lives, inspired by the fleeting moments shared by Elvis and Barbara Gray, captured on film by Alfred Wertheimer in 1956 at the Jefferson Hotel in Virginia.

For over fifty years, the girl remained anonymous until she appeared on the Today Show to discuss the one day that her life crossed with Elvis’s, like a crossword clue; he was seven down, she was eight across. Despite the moment being so transient and their lives going in such different directions thereafter, their moment is preserved forever on film.”

Barbara Gray was officially released on June 28th; stream the single on Spotify.

Follow Run the Enemy on Instagram. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

The Doolallys augmented the tribulations of banality in the indie rock anthem of the year, How Long Will This Go On?

Imagine how affecting a synthesis of the most stirring elements of Editors, Audioslave, and Arcade Fire would be, amplify the infectious appeal of that amalgam to the nth degree, then you will get an idea of what awaits you when you hit play on the single, How Long Will This Go On? From The Doolallys.

If any guitar-based outfit with deadpan lyricism deserves to reach the same heights of success as The Reytons, it is this Brighton-based trio, which is already making all the right waves in the industry.

After winning over BBC Introducing in 2018 and snagging a live radio slot in 2019 before honing their sound into a cultivated augmented with anthemics sonic signature, The Doolallys got to work on their upcoming debut EP; months after wrapping up the recording, the band suffered the tragic loss of their founding member and bassist Connor Kilbane in October 2022. After a hiatus, the band decided to honour Connor by moving ahead with the EP; if How Long Will This Go On, is a taste of things to come, it won’t just be a part of the band’s legacy, but UK indie’s legacy. Between the aching relatability in the lyrics which speak of relentlessly monotonous banality and the kinetic chemistry that cuts through the release, How Long Will This Go On deserves a perpetual place in the indie charts.

How Long Will This Go On is now available to stream on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Run The Enemy brought even more tragedy to the legacy of Sylvia Plath with their Post-Punk vignette, She Writes Poetry

Poetry may be becoming a dying art form, but it lives and breathes through the hauntingly melodic introspection in the standout single, She Writes Poetry, from Run the Enemy’s hotly anticipated debut album, Trail of Tears.

After the post-punk-tinged and angularly cavernous lead guitar work in the prelude, the timbre of the melancholic indie vocal lines spectrally appears in the achingly pensive release which finds the monochrome middle ground between Editors earlier work and Interpol’s most affecting expositions of ennui.

With the final crescendo, She Writes Poetry, which gives Richey Edwards and Morrissey a run for their lyrical vignette money, builds into a massive all-encompassing production with strings carving through the post-punk atmosphere.

Written to allude to the abusive relationship between Plath and Ted Hughes, the Cambridge-based outfit succeeded in bringing even more tragedy to the legacy of Plath, given that she stuck her head in an oven in her final moments and penned some of the most pensively affecting works to date, that is some feat of ingenuity.

Stream She Writes Poetry as part of Run The Enemy’s debut LP, Trail of Tears, on Spotify now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Strange Cities bled a kaleidoscope of light and soul through the monochromatic prism of post-punk with ‘Where Stars Collide’

Just when I thought I’d seen every scene in the post-punk landscape, Strange Cities appeared on my radar and shattered my aurally jaded heart with Where Stars Collide from their debut album, Moments Stolen.

With the Interpol-esque angular guitar lines cutting through the warmth in the atmosphere that proves post-punk melancholy doesn’t always need to be monochromatic, the San Francisco-hailing visionaries amalgamated a soulful new trajectory of the genre, giving it a definitive place in the contemporary music industry.

As the palpitatingly sweet melodies in the dynamically sepia-tinged production evoke energy and give you kinetic rhythms to move to, the vocals make no bones about relaying the achingly raw lyricism and inciting bitter-sweet desolation in your soul. Versing about cheating death, watching your friends taking their final breath and seeing their faded faces framed in memories was always going to hit hard, but the impact in Where Stars Collide is a collision you’ll never forget.

Imagine if Editors in their An End Has a Start era hired Marin Hannett as a producer and radiated the hues of New Order’s Temptation, and you’ll get an idea of what Strange Cities constructed in Where Stars Collide. Or, you can get acquainted with the band renowned for their live performance, who have recently opened for Sisters of Mercy and Gene Loves Jezebel.

The Moments Stolen LP was officially released on February 2nd; stream the album on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Romantic Indie-Rock Raconteur Griffin Robillard is Electrifying in His Anthemically Rythmic Hit, Laws of Longing (LOL)

Griffin Robillard

For the exact same reasons I fell in love with Editors from the first hit, I felt my pulse quicken to the snappy electro-indie gravitas and vocal magnetism from the indie rock raconteur Griffin Robillard, in his single, Laws of Longing (LOL).

The production is as polished as it is colossal as it wraps around the die-hard romanticism in the lyrics and the dance-worthy rhythms evocatively heightened with every ardently pitch-perfect vocal stretch. With Grant Eppley (The National, Maggie Rogers, Spoon) in charge of production, it was never going to be lacklustre. Yet, clearly, the raw material already came with a scintillating sheen.

When most people endure a broken-off engagement, they fall into an insular vacuum of self-pity. Notably, it did little to quell Griffin Robillard’s intensely passionate drive, which puts a visceral amount of momentum into Laws of Longing. It is just one of the singles found on his upcoming debut album, Big Pieces Energy, penned-post-heartbreak and due for release on March 10th.

Laws of Longing will officially release on February 10th. Hear it on Griffin Robillard’s website.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

The Last Clouds epitaphed society in their debut LP, Illuminism

The Last Clouds

After a string of emotionally wrenching singles, The Last Clouds’ first album, Illuminism, has finally arrived. Bringing with it proclamative liberation from the idea that alienation makes you an outlier in 2023.

Short of being prescribed a trip to the seaside with a bottle of laudanum. I couldn’t think of a better way to find sanctity as our era is epitomised by the descent of truth, meaning, refuge, and connection.

With poetically forlorn lyrics that push the chill of modernity through light and dark malleable elements to reflect our increasingly arduous associations with our disunited society, the LP kicks off to a phenomenal start with track 1, Becoming.

Track 2, Origin, is instrumentally reminiscent of the latest LP offering from Editors. While Matt Schott endeavours with his harbingering vocal lines that effortlessly gel with the turbulently distorted bass around the scintillatingly futuristic synths.

Track 3, Empty Room, starts with a cinematically cavernous ambience to set a tone of Lynchian isolation before the interstellar lyricism drifts across the detachment-reflective instrumentals that are pushed far enough back in the mix to conceptualise the titular allusion.

Track 4, Earth’s Light, starts with an arcane neo-classic electronica score before bursting into a fervid outpour of future pop; the ardent backbeat rails through the reverb as the vocals and lyrics run through in a similar visceral vain to Nova by VNV Nation.

In the same way War of the Worlds is an apocalyptic narration of the end of the world, track 5, Turnpike, chronicles the uncertainty that perturbs even the most resilient minds as we anticipate the future after the everyday disasters we have numbed ourselves to through over-exposure.

Track 6, Another Way to Fall, is a ruminative masterpiece. Rich with romanticism and abjection in equal measure. Definitively proving that few things are true in this world without bitter-sweet duality.

The previously released single, Damage, is by far one of the most poetic accounts of the repercussions of living in a post-truth era I will probably ever hear. The Covenant-ESQUE synths give way to an exposition of how far the mainstream media is willing to let us sink under divisive propaganda.

The concluding single, Fog of Lies, is another sonically disassociated depiction of where we collectively lie in a society that is as glitchy as the artfully jarring orchestration. It’s the perfect continuation from Damage, which will undoubtedly be the most poignant aural memento of how we came to disaffectedly be.

Considering that protests are now effectively banned, this is as close was we are going to get to objection. The fear-encompassing LP is a boldly vulnerable dissent against the forces that are working together in perfect design to welcome us to our worse than Orwellian future. For your own sake, get your resonance fill from it.

Illuminism will officially release on January 20th. Hear it on all major platforms via this link.

Follow The Last Clouds on Facebook.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Krautrock goes pop in RV Escape’s sophomore single, View-Master

With a similar tonal gravitas to Editors’ earlier records, RV Escape is here with their chillingly morose sophomore single, View-Master, taken from their forthcoming LP, Songs for Failure & Decay. Based on that title, the debut album is set to be the timeliest one of this era of dystopia.

The ethereally atmospheric synths, delay-distorted guitars, ragged basslines and harmonically drawling vocals envelop you in the hazy nostalgia of Krautrock that is cut with poppier inclinations to ensure View-Master is a release that you feel endlessly compelled to return to.

For any disillusioned existentialists looking for the ultimate escapism music that vindicates ennui while absolving the omnipresent bitterness, this artfully murky cry into the void hits the spot with beguiling precision.

View-Master will officially release on September 30th. Hear it on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Ireland’s most experimental luminary ReHumanise has unleashed his monolithically surreal love song, Elemental

After a psychedelically soulful introduction to Irish multi-instrumentalist and producer, ReHumanise through his 2020 debut, our eyes and ears have been firmly affixed to the sonic maverick.

In his latest single, Elemental, he stormed in cooler and infinitely more visceral than Editors did when they unleashed Munich; it is a percussive electronic masterpiece with the acoustic snares snapping over the weight of the heavy electro beats. Juxtaposing-ly, every volatile fixture serves to contrast the soulful beckoning of the vocals as they project the canderous outpour of emotion in the celestial love song. It honestly wouldn’t surprise me if he had to travel to a parallel universe to write it.

Inspired by the likes of Depeche Mode, Radiohead and The Smiths, any true romantic with an affinity for unpretentiously humanistic experimental music will want to save space on their playlists.

Polished by the Grammy-award-winning mastering engineer, James Auwarter, Elemental is set to take ReHumanise to even greater heights after he released a top 5 hit in Ireland in 2017 under his real name, Damian Brady, and racked up over 90k streams on his seminal single 2020, Hu Man.

Check out Elemental on all major platforms via this link.

Review by Amelia Vandergast