Browsing Tag

Indie Rock

The gloves are off in Tough on Fridays’ swaggeringly infectious indie alt-rock hit, The Awakening

Posted on 8 April 2023

Taken from their trailblazing alt-rock, indie, and grunge amalgam of an LP, The Encore You Didn’t Ask For, Tough on Fridays’ standout single, The Awakening, is a sure-fire hit of vindication for anyone who knows how bitter-sweet goodbyes can be when betrayal was the final parting shot.

With the same energy as Shitlist by L7, the grungy and Riot Grrrl to the core powerhouse lived up to the hype that has been brewing around them as they’ve taken the Texas music circuit by storm in the last six years.

The compellingly raw vocal lines add a demure touch to the swaggering power rock instrumental aesthetics of the track, which prove how much Tough on Fridays has honed their sound. Their infectious scream-the-chorus-from-the-top-of-your-lungs appeal is only getting more visceral with each new release.

It’s rare to find an outfit offering as much substance as style, but Tough on Fridays is anything but your run-of-the-mill paint-by-numbers outfit. Their soul, scorn and scuzzy riffs are just a few of the reasons you should reserve a place for them on your radar.

The Awakening is now available to stream on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

The Q-Days – Underboard: Alt-90s Nostalgia Has Never Been Kaleidoscopically Sweeter

Posted on 7 April 2023

The Brighton-based alt-rock outfit, The Q-Days, is driving nostalgia into the next generation of British guitar music with their dreamy kaleidoscopic 90s Britpop-kicked tones and cathartically honeyed vocal lines. Their latest single, Underboard, is sweeter than Sally Cinnamon under the duress of the choral progressions that lick anthemic soul into every honed note.

With escapism, freedom of expression and euphoria as their triadic ethos, they stand for everything we should be giving an ovation to in the UK right now. It’s the pits, but one thing is for sure, our polluted waters are the perfect breeding ground for prodigal sons of rock n roll that salvation seekers will want to flock to.

After spending their foundling days developing their craft before it reached the airwaves and live stages, The Q-Days were always going to be primed to make a killer debut. So far, they’ve opened for Youth Killed It, The Rifles, and Bilk, but if any breakthrough act is definitively headliner material, it’s The Q-Days.

Underboard will officially release on April 7th. Check it out on SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

The 60s and 70s have swung back with riotous force in At the Arcade’s scuzzed-up slice of garagey alt-rock, With You

Posted on 3 April 2023

At the Arcade served up a sleazily scuzzed slice of garagey alt-rock for their latest single, With You, which puts the emotion into as much overdrive as the riffs. Somewhere between the 60s and the 80s, the riotously eclectic outfit finds its distinctive-by-design prodigal edge that will leave you ricocheting between past eras while affirming that THIS is the sound of the future.

Ensuring that the bouncy and brashy chorus guitars are just as infectious as the salaciously sweet vocals, With You is a track you definitely won’t mind tattooed across your temporal lobe. The Rotherham indie rock aficionados have been revered for their superlatively high-energy shows since 2017. It is about time the airwaves got a taste of their harmony-heavy fervour.

With You was officially released on March 24th. Check it out on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Dolly Mavies – I’m All Sugar: Get Your indie Anthem Fix

Posted on 24 March 2023

Oxford, UK singer-songwriter, Dolly Mavies, set the indie anthem bar impossibly high with her latest single, I’m All Sugar, which surges with the same rhythmic and vocal energy of Somebody to Love by Boogie Pimps in spite of the folky flavour.

Taken from her debut album, The Calm & The Storm, the stellar single from the artist who takes influence from the likes of Patti Smith, The National and Daughter, created a uniquely exhilarating listening experience that makes no bones about pulling you through an ardently visceral arrangement where a curveball lies on the edge of every progression.

If Dolly Mavies isn’t as big as Mumford & Sons by the end of the year, someone may as well scorch the earth of the music industry so we can start again. It’s punk as fuck, yet, Mavies still maintains that ever-addictive girl-next-door appeal.

I’m All Sugar will officially release on March 24th. Hear it on SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Turncoat Billy looked through a ‘Kaleidoscope’ in their psychedelically vintage debut single

Posted on 18 March 2023

Indie nostalgia peddlers may have created a massive stink pile of indie landfill on the oversaturated airwaves after realising they can string a few chords together in a way that references the Strokes or Oasis; with their debut, Turncoat Billy is the refreshing soul-stirring antithesis. Familiar yet awash with endearing autonomy, anyone that wants to enliven their playlists with contemporary ingenuity can get a jump start from Turncoat Billy.

With their influence range casting a net over everyone from Big Thief to Chas n Dave to T.Rex to Warren Zevon, the outfit, born in a brewery in Tottenham, will pull you into vivid vintage colour with their debut single release, Kaleidoscope.

Their ruggedly sweet indie rock flavour is addictive from the first taste; with the 60s psychedelic kicks paired with the 70s renegade rock swagger and hints of the Maccabees, there’s no sweeter way to evade the malaise of modernity.

Kaleidoscope is now available to stream on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Lindsey Black came ‘Undone’ with superlative grace in her sublimely evocative indie rock record

Posted on 11 March 2023
flight by Lindsey Black

Indie rock siren of a songstress Lindsey Black borrowed a few shoegaze elements to amplify the arrestive beguile in her latest independently released single, Undone, which hit the airwaves on February 3rd. As the single progresses, tinges of Americana amplify the sincerity of the soul exhibited in the candourous serenade that features on her second studio album, flight.

Any fans of Desperate Journalist and The Twilight Sad will easily succumb to the pensively sublime orchestration of Undone, which also carries hints of the Manic Street Preachers’ more soulfully reaching records. With Graeme Young in the iconic Chamber Studios in Edinburgh in charge of the recording for the sophomore album, it was never going to fall flat, but only a voice as serenely vulnerable as Lindsey Black’s could reach so transcendently high.

Undone is now available to stream and purchase via Bandcamp.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Hungarian indie-pop-rock Dirty Slippers pioneers stole the show and our souls with ‘Honest Kid’

Posted on 8 March 2023

Dirty Slippers made history as the first Hungarian band invited to record in Abbey Road Studios with George Shilling (Oasis, Mike Oldfield) and Tim Palmer (U2, Bon Jovi). Just one hit of their latest single, Honest Kid, was enough to affirm why they are a multi-award-winning outfit with three charting albums under their belt in their home country. FYI, NOTHING is lost in translation.

The indie pop-rock outfit, fronted by singer and guitarist Lázár Lobó-Szalóky, who knows just how to put your heart in your throat as you feel the full force of the emotion projected through every facet of the arrangement, songwriting and lyricality, are unparalleled in their captivatingly evocative presence on the airwaves.

Reminiscent of the 00s indie-pop-rock legacy acts, yet intrinsically unique with their folky baroque beguile, Dirty Slippers stole my soul from the first hook in the single that looks back on childhood from middle age with nostalgia in the pensive rearview mirror.

Honest Kid was officially released on February 21st. Hear it on Spotify & Follow Dirty Slippers on Facebook.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Indie Soul Rock Raconteurs, Did I Hear Dare?, Peddled Sugared Sincerity in He Said/She Said

Posted on 8 March 2023

After a stint of silence following their 2021 debut LP, Runnin’ Late, the indie soul rock raconteurs, Did I Hear Dare?, are back on euphonic form in their latest single, He Said/She Said.

With the same mellow yet ardent vibe of Deep Blue Something in the intro, Interpol-ESQUE angular guitars thrown in for good measure and sugared with sincerity soaring vocals in the piano-laced hit; if you don’t feel emotion start to stir while the enthralling instrumental ensemble is progressing into an arrangement that will give you nostalgia for Chris Cornell’s cinematic panache, you might want to check your soul’s vital signs.

It isn’t every day that I will stumble on an ensemble capable of tightrope walking the line between endearing and elevated. Evidently, the outfit that took fledgling form before nationally scattering across the states is a razor-sharp cut above the rest. They even seem like the sort that would tend to your addicted wounds afterwards, given the resolving compassion going out to the broken-hearted in He Said/She Said.

Stream He Said/She Said via all major streaming platforms via this link.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Sheffield’s answer to Springsteen, Sam Scherdel, was born to soar in his latest single, Balloon

Posted on 6 March 2023

After the delicately spacey live rendition of Boy Who Fell to Earth, Sheffield’s hottest act since Arctic Monkeys, Sam Scherdel, is back on anthemic form in his latest single, Balloon, recorded between Doncaster in the UK and Nashville in the states. The former recording location may not be synonymous with the same artistic glamour as the latter, but the Yorkshire roots of the highly acclaimed singer-songwriter are a substantial part of his roguishly relatable appeal.

Lyrically he never aims to uphold the image of infallibility; his whole-hearted die-hard romanticism has left scars across his discography; tracing them allows you to track what it means to be unapologetically human. Bold indie-rock anthems were barely beyond Sam Scherdel’s sonic repertoire before, but the Springsteen-ESQUE maverick spirit runs deep in the progressively enthralling veins of Balloon.

From ornate orchestral swells to ardent horn stabs to frenetic R.E.M.-reminiscent vocal pacing disrupting Scherdel’s signature gruff rock n roll harmonies, the tensile nature of the fluctuating panache of Balloon is bound to uplift even the most world-weary. Even though there’s a fair amount of ambiguity in the lyrics, the underlying melancholic concept gravitating around the intense desire to escape the fray of your own mind hammers home in a profoundly poignant way.

Pairing such visceral pain with instrumentals to rival the wholesome sanctuary in the latest Manic Street Preachers album created a playlist staple I will need little convincing to return to.

Balloon officially released on March 3rd. Hear it on Spotify and YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Jake Kulak leaves nostalgia in the past with his stadium-filling Garage Rock/00s Indie Amalgam, Caution Tape

Posted on 24 February 2023

Garage rock and 00s indie converged in the latest radio-ready single from the breakthrough artist Jake Kulak & the Modern Vandals, who will undoubtedly reach even greater heights in their already accoladed career when this riff-soaked euphonic masterpiece hits the airwaves.

Attaching the word masterpiece to a review may sound like a hyperbolic stretch, but there’s no exaggerating the infectious energy in the vintage angular guitar melodies that pop even harder than when the Strokes hit the fretboard.

Caution Tape is the perfect introduction to Kulak’s signature stadium-filling guitar chops, which flood the track around the lyrics that lick resonance into the mix by alluding to the lengths we go to in a bid to evade stagnation.

So far in his career, the Connecticut-hailing artist has toured across the states and beyond, tearing up stages in Norway and Sydney, and picked up multiple awards and nominations along the way. On the basis of Caution Tape, it is all too easy to see why.

Caution Tape will officially release on February 24th. Hear it on SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast