Browsing Tag

Indie Psych Rock

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

Posted on 30 September 2022

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

Drift into the ether with Pinwheel Valley’s latest alt-indie-rock hit, Hot Air Balloon

Posted on 6 June 2022

The Canadian, Cyprus-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Pinwheel Valley, has released his metaphorical alt-indie rock masterpiece, Hot Air Balloon, which uses the slightly archaic mode of transport as a parable to reflect the importance of persevering our mental space.

It takes some serious reading between the anthemic uplifting lines to pull out the protestive fire that any establishment would be desperate to put out through fear of it cutting profit margins that are boosted by dull hiveminds. On the flip side of that, texturally, Hot Air Balloon is a dreamy, kaleidoscopic blister of bliss, which is all too welcome in these easy to lament times.

Every time, Pinwheel Valley breezes back even better than the last time we heard his exploratively introspective tracks, which still come with that A-list radio-ready appeal, despite the seemingly infinite depth.

Here is what he had to say about his latest release

“In some ways, Hot Air Balloon is a metaphor for pregnancy, inspired by the sequence of moving along and the process revealing itself, where a spirit permeates the boundless world, reflecting how a hot air balloon grows and rises into the ether, where our thoughts drift and amalgamate. The ether may be our final escape from those who manipulate us with vested interests in how we think and act.”

Hot Air Balloon will officially drop on June 6th, 2022. Hear it for yourselves on Spotify, SoundCloud and Bandcamp.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

James Gale sings the ‘Summer Blues’ in his resonantly seductive debut EP, Medicine

Posted on 1 March 2022

If James Gale’s debut 2021 EP, Medicine, passed you by, you missed a sweetly psychotropic slice of alt-rock that more than has what it takes to unite fans of Nick Cave, Nirvana, Elliott Smith and the Beatles.

The standout single, Summer Blues, which has now racked up over 14k streams on Spotify, is an indulgent cocktail of psych, blues, indie, and grunge. The dark narrative is delectably handled by the Bruges, Belgium-hailing singer-songwriter and artist. The way the accordant momentum picks up under Gale’s taunting vocals that question if you’re afraid to lose control before bluesily winding the soundscape back down into kaleidoscopically choral grooves is nothing short of arrestive.

We seriously hope that there’s a sophomore release in the pipeline.

Summer Blues is available to stream along with James Gale’s debut EP via Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Meet your new slide guitar hero in Forest Ray’s psych-folk single, Always

Posted on 22 January 2022

The notion of forever may be farfetched, but Forest Ray’s title-single from their upcoming album, Always, melodiously exhibits the beauty in love persisting. The folky psych rock soundscape carries the finger-picking influence of the late and great John Prine as the psychedelic nuances freshen the familiarity under the honeyed timbre of Forest Ray’s vocals.

The soaring guitar slides bring an absorbing dynamic to the release, entrenching Always next to the roots of Americana while simultaneously bringing in the future of psych-rock. Forest Ray deserves to be equally as revered as Kurt Vile for their hazy and cathartic sense of soul that leaves you with no question over their sincerity. For your sanity’s sake, delve in.

The single, Always, will release on January 22nd with the official music video.

Check out Forest Ray on SoundCloud, Facebook and Instagram.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Ger Lane indoctrinates us in ‘The New Revolution in Love’ in his stadium-worthy alt-rock track

Posted on 8 November 2021

Irish-born, London-based Avant Rock artist Ger Lane’s seminal single, The New Revolution in Love, carries enough soul to remind you that you’ve got one of your very own. While the lyrics prise affection, the instrumentals submerge you in a sonorous pool of psych-tinged, shoegazey alt-rock.

The sultry psychotropic track is an obsession-worthy nostalgia trip that will instantly transfix any alt 90s fans. Right from the intro, Zane Scott’s drums arrest your rhythmic pulses with the caustic hits that create visceral friction against the effect-laden angular guitars. With vocals as captivating in their stridency as Chris Cornell’s, abject apathy isn’t an option once you hit play, which may sound hyperbolic in our age of ennui, but if anyone can deliver aural salvation; it is Ger Lane.

As for Tim Bazell’s production, Kevin Shields couldn’t have pulled The New Revolution in Love together better. It should be a paradox for a single soundscape to unravel as visceral and hypnotic simultaneously, but the stadium-ready hit did just that and plenty more. It is enough to make Arcade Fire sound flat and pedestrian.

Check out The New Revolution in Love, featuring the London Brazilian Choir for yourselves by heading over to SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Indie rock pioneer COLUMBIA breaks new psychedelic ground with ‘Keys to the Kingdom’.

Posted on 20 October 2021

Cardiff’s most promising act since Catatonia, COLUMBIA, put a psychedelic spin on vintage rock tones in their latest indie rock n roll release, Keys to the Kingdom.

As the kaleidoscopic guitars glide through the chords, the snarling basslines work with the anthemic drums to send the energy of the release into overdrive. Any fans of Frankie Teardrop Dead, The Kundalini Genie and Corvus & the Morning Star will want to save space on their radar for the rhythmically blessed raucous powerhouse. They may not have sold out stadiums yet, but their sound is already built for them. We’re stoked to see where their sound takes them next.

The lyric video to Keys to the Kingdom is now available to stream on YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

The 90s indie rock icons Airbus return with their third studio album, ‘You’.

Posted on 13 July 2021

If you paid attention to the UK rock scene in the 90s, you might already be acquainted with Airbus who are set to release their psychedelically sweet third studio album, You, via Spira Records.

The album unleashes singles penned and recorded back in the 1990s; the band lifted the audio from master tapes using a 24-track 2-inch tape machine to keep the warm analogue glow of the original recordings. Short of hopping in a TARDIS and pushing your way to the front of the crowd when Mazzy Star performed at the Shoreline Amphitheatre, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better way to transport yourself back to the 90s.

If you can imagine what an aural cocktail of The Zombies, Elliott Smith and the Beatles would sound like, you’ll get an idea of the dreamy, colourful accordance that is weaved in the standout single ‘I’. Reminiscences aside, the band’s masterfully melodic presence on the airwaves once more is a breath of fresh kaleidoscopic air. The lead track carries that dreamy feel of wholesome wild abandon that most have forgotten how to offer in the 21st century.

Airbus’ upcoming album is due for release in September 2021. You can check out the band on Spotify, Facebook and YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Mantisgrove want to scare us in the ‘Ghost House’

Posted on 22 March 2021

The work of musician Seth Leininger, from Laramie, Wyoming, ‘Ghost House II’ – from Mantisgrove’s debut album ‘Our World’, is a dream of a track, a mixture of synthpop and mellow, full-band, beauty; chiming guitars, descending bell-like synths, and ethereal, soft vocals. Reminiscent at times of that gentle wave of British indie that included the Inspiral Carpets, the Chameleons, Ride, and the Stone Roses (think ‘She’s a Waterfall’ or ‘I Wanna Be Adored’), ‘Ghost House II’ spirals and twists around a central repeating guitar motif, mixing that indie vibe with psychedelia, surf rock, and chillwave to produce something alluring and fascinating in its winsomeness.

The follow-up to Mantisgrove’s well-received debut EP ‘Noon Blue’, you can check out the delicious ‘Ghost House II’, and the rest of ‘Our World’, on Spotify, and follow Mantsigrove on Facebook and via their website.

Review by Alex Holmes

Take a cruise with J. Moriarty’s reflectively smooth Indie single ‘Ride Side’

Posted on 16 November 2020

J. Morarty has, in recent years, lived in Morocco, the Maghrib, the West Bank, and Appalachia and now resides in Ohio. ‘Ride Side’ takes in this rootlessness and lack of stability, mixing it all up in a Covid Quarantine-induced haze into a transpositional, transportive piece which puts the listener into the time and place Moriarty occupied when composing.

Gently acoustic, beautiful strummed guitar chords pushing the melody along behind a vocal from Moriarty steeped in sixties or seventies Gram Parsons Americana mixed with Evan Dando’s ‘ All My Life’ or the quieter, chilled moments of the ‘It’s a Shame About Ray’ album – think ‘Hanna & Gabi’ or ‘My Drug Buddy’ and you’re pretty close – before the suddenly off-tempo slapped-percussive ‘ooh ooh ooh’ bridge catches you unaware, bringing in the full psychedelic Leslie-cabinet instrumentation and reminds you that this is a modern, thoroughly grown-up track that twists and turns stylistically through handclaps and bass-line led pop, but all held together masterfully by Moriarty’s soulful vocal delivery.

Hear ‘Ride Side’ on Spotify, and follow J. Moriarty on Instagram and Facebook.

Review by Alex Holmes

Soupcan and the Spaceman – Heartbreaker: Darkly Delectable Psych Blues

Posted on 1 February 2020

In recent years, I’ve heard Psychedelic tones revived under a plethora of different guises. But never have I encountered anything quite as darkly absorbing as the latest single to be released from Soupcan and the Spaceman.

The production may be lo-fi. Yet, considering that Heartbreaker resonates like they just pulled it from the deepest pungent depths of the Mississippi Delta, all will be forgiven as you ingest the raw unpolished caustic aural divination.

With some spacey cosmic Bowie vibes mixed into the viscerally ominous soundscape which should appease any fans of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and The Brian Jonestown Massacre, the distinction isn’t hard to find in Heartbreaker.

The instrumental progressions aren’t left to swim in a sea of reverb. Instead, the swampy Blues retain their organic winding serpentine charm. And the constant evolutions in vocal style will make sure that you’re as invested in the first verse as you were in the last.

You can check out the latest single from Soupcan and the Spaceman for yourselves by heading over to Spotify now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast