Browsing Tag

Indie Alt Rock

Lie awake in the illusory land of Mindless Crowd’s new wave seminal release,  ‘Dreamscape’

Posted on 15 September 2024

With their desperately anticipated LP, Wanderlust, released on 30th August, Mindless Crowd stand as innovative new-wave indie architects; if you’re always looking for new ways to explore this vain of sonic nostalgia, let Mindless Crowd be your guide with the standout single, ‘Dreamscape’.

‘Dreamscape’ may not deliver your quintessential dreamy ambient aesthetic, but who decided dreamscapes are unanimous in tonality anyway? Mindless Crowd orchestrated their own chimaera with the reverie of angular jangle pop guitars that resonate with the perpetually influential rhythms of Johnny Marr and echoes of Iggy Pop through gruff, spoken-word style vocals that strikingly juxtapose the vibrant tones of the instrumentals.

As the track evolves, the guitars transition in the middle eight, creatively adorning the track in veritable rock n’ roll stripes. The vintage-toned lead work ascends to what can only be described as guitar porn, embodying the perfect melodic narrative switch for indie fans always on the lookout for boundary-pushing new-wave indie sounds.

Emerging from Geneva, Mindless Crowd has evolved from covering rock titans like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin to crafting their original material. Formed in 2012 by school friends and driven by a blend of nostalgia and innovation, the band—comprising Alex, Julien, Gaël, and Lucas—has grown a significant following, propelling them forward with over 150,000 listens on Spotify.

The album ‘Wanderlust’ encapsulates this growth and exploration, offering a mix of motivation, disillusionment, success, and failure, reflecting the winding journey of introspection the band describes.

Mindless Crowd’s LP, Wanderlust, is now available to stream on all major platforms, including 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

Posted on 18 March 2024

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

MYLO BYBEE painted a mindful melodic rock masterpiece with their exposition of tainted free will in Master & Machine

Posted on 25 June 2023

The Idaho aural assassins, MYLO BYBEE, fired all the right melodic rock shots in their heaviest single to date, Master & Machine.

The angst-driven title single from their forthcoming LP traverses the scarcely-spoken-of-subject of how everything we do societally, personally, professionally, and artistically is impacted by someone else pulling the strings to spark deep contemplation on the issue of free will.

Even Sam Harris would have a field day with the exposition on how every good intent is blighted by societally parasitic phenomena, such as greed, corruption and misogyny. Master & Machine may hit hard, but after getting the ennui out of the way, the rest of the LP allows hope to permeate the bleakness of our current global landscape.

The collision between alt-rock and indie unravels with a rhythmic magnetism that fans of Death Cab for Cutie, Manchester Orchestra and Silversun Pickups will be organically drawn to. Reminiscences aside, there are no parallels to how Tyler Schlagenhauf melodically commands his vocal lines and contorts them into compassion-sharpened hooks.

Stream Master & Machine, released via ZMI Arcadia Recordings, on SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

SOHLER philosophise their vexation in their cerebral alt-indie hit, More Blood Than Sweat or Tears

Posted on 11 January 2023

UK-based,  internationally-comprised indie alt-rock powerhouse SOHLER sparked an instantaneous obsession with their scathingly seminal single, More Blood Than Sweat or Tears. With one taste of those high-octane riffs, their superlative devil-may-care swagger and anthemic instrumental hooks, we knew we were onto a winner. They will never fall into the arena of indie filler.

“What is a priest without a whore, are we just circumstantial?” is one of the most philosophically-sharp lyrical expositions of the current state of our society that decides who is sacrificed depending on our proximity to the breadline.

Line after line, the A-side on the single, SOHLER I, allows you to sapiosexually fall for the four-piece who direct their anger with pinpoint precision through this sludgy melodic indie alt-rock masterpiece. It is easily the filthiest earworm you will accommodate all year. With their faint reminiscence of Biffy Clyro, Hundred Reasons, and Arcane Roots with a touch of post-punk in the monumental rancour, it’s only a matter of time before the underground can’t contain their ingenuity.

SOHLER I was officially released on January 6th. Check it out on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Pulse Park went sub-zero in their off-kilter new wave indie single, Sine Wave

Posted on 24 April 2022
Phonac Music by Pulse Park

Canadian alt-indie newcomers, Pulse Park, have sent us right back to the golden age of new wave indie with their latest release, Sine Wave. I’ve long been fascinated with the bleak tales of Shackleton and other Arctic explorers exposed to bitterly cold untold misery. To stumble on a three-piece that first met during an arctic expedition in Canada and started to learn their instruments under the unrelentingly dark skies, was nothing short of serendipitous bliss.

All of Pulse Park’s music is an effigy to the less than temperate expedition that led to the development of their morosely arresting take on off-kilter new wave indie rock. The sweeter than sweet vocals are just as melt worthy as the vocal timbre from Tiger Army, The Smiths and Slowdive while the instrumentals kick up a hypersonic storm around the emotion-driven harmonised vocals. As far as we are considered, Sine Wave is the epitome of the indie earworm.

You can check out Sine Wave for yourselves by heading over to Bandcamp.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

The Elegant Chasers created a high-IQ-sanctuary in his latest scuzzy alt-rock hit, Clowns

Posted on 15 April 2022
The Elegant Chasers

For anyone that finds themselves frequently in despair over just how deep the IQ-deprived antagonists drag us down into late-stage capitalist suffering, The Elegant Chasers’ latest scuzzy alt-rock single, Clowns, will bring a slight reprieve from the crushing weight.

The harbingering guitar solos, the sense of carnivalesque chaos and the distortedly enigmatic yet hooky alt-rock vocals pull together in the high-voltage protest to the idiocrasy that resounds more than most things these dystopic days. Here’s what The Elegant Chasers had to say about his latest release:

“It’s easy to dwell. To be angry and upset about situations that have conspired against you. To feel cheated. It’s even easier when this has happened more than once. Then paranoia kicks in, those who transpired against you will massage the paranoia and try and blame anyone but the culprits – i.e., themselves. The reality is it’s hard to shake off that feeling. Inevitably time is a healer, but it still feels that justice was never served. Clowns was written in 1st person but taking on the role of The Company Man for most of the song…The Clown! Lyrically I took inspiration from the people that hurt me most in the last 6 years. People who I thought I could trust. But it was just the same old story, just like many of you who have suffered under the corporate kings, rogues, rats, fools, the pretenders, the charlatans, the clowns. Call them what you like, they deliver the same outcome, a stab in the back, and quite often you’re thrown out to the wolves.”

Clowns will officially release on April 22nd. You can check it out for yourselves via Bandcamp and SoundCloud.

Follow The Elegant Chasers via Instagram and Twitter.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Post-punk meets jazz blues in The Illucid’s defiantly protestive single, Stone Cold Soldier

Posted on 2 March 2022

Taken from their debut EP, Somebody Else, The Illucid’s jazzy post-punk standout single, Stone Cold Soldier, couldn’t have fallen onto our radar at a more sobering time. The catchy rock hooks from the British Indie band almost feel like an act of defiance in today’s chilling geopolitical climate.

On the basis of the frantic bluesy piano keys, the theatrical vocal lines and their ability to squeeze euphoria from darkness, The Illucid almost becomes the thinking man’s Nekrogoblikon while they deliver their Magazine-style enigmatic energy in the single that shames the cold inhumanity behind the eyes of stone-cold soldiers.

Not many bands can convince me that they’re worthy of seeing live with just one single, but the Illucid are easily one of the best outfits to come around since Melt Yourself Down. Get them on your radar.

Stone Cold Soldier is now available to stream on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

The Schoolboys have released their very 2022 new-wave-meets-proto-punk love song, Think About It

Posted on 2 March 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjps0bKXZZ0

So many of the greatest songs have been written on hard and fast infatuation. The Schoolboys evaded all the usual tropes that have long since been outdated in their latest new-wave-meets-proto-punk single, Think About It.

If I told you the track itself was as sweet as the lyrics, “Isn’t this just what you asked for? I see you give up too fast, you should never walk away when there’s still something you want” would you even believe me?

The Schoolboys originally formed in 2021 as an alt-rock band in Reading, England, under the influence of the Strokes and the Smiths. Based on Think About It, the nostalgically-minded outfit had no trouble finding their own warmly overdriven sonic signature. Any fans of the Violent Femmes, Joy Division and Modest Mouse will undoubtedly want to pay attention.

Think About It is now available to stream on YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

London’s most ensnaring indie alt-rock outfit, The Lunar Keys, have dropped their compassionately sonic hit, Stop This.

Posted on 8 October 2021

Any fans of the National will find a similar level of affection for the latest single by the indie alt-rock outfit, The Lunar Keys. Stop This was mastered by John Davis (Royal Blood, the Killers, U2), who gave the soundscape the same sonic boost that he has become renowned for.

After a gorgeously melodic bass intro, Stop This moulds into a psychedelically tinged indie rock hit that leaves you higher than the intricately angular shoegazey guitar notes. The perfectly balanced mix allows the vocals to effortlessly breeze between the ascending progressions that seem to pull you in deeper with every scuzzy synth line and clean-cut guitar note. If you have ever felt something in the same vein as “stop the world, I want to get off” when it comes to your tumultuous emotions, the lyrics will undoubtedly resonate.

Stop This is due for release on October 8th, 2021. You can check it out for yourselves via YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Checkout Rhaina Yasmin’s sonic indie alt rock hit, Grocery Store

Posted on 13 August 2021
Rhaina Yasmin

‘Grocery Store’ is the latest single from 21-year-old indie alt-rock singer-songwriter, Rhaina Yasmin which captures just how small our lives became in the months preceding the release. Anyone who went solo through lockdown will find it all too easy to get caught up in the grips of the stunning shoegazy release that doctors in hints of jazz and 90s pop in the style of the Cranberries as it explores our innate fears of self-obsession and alienation.

From a Slowdive-Esque prelude, Grocery Store progresses through tumultuous sonic storms while offering nothing but sheer tonal bliss. Her defiant yearning lyrics dominate the release, and the hooky chorus gives the track plenty of earworm potential.

Grocery Store released on August 13th. Check it out by heading over to Rhaina Yasmin’s official website.

Review by Amelia Vandergast