Indie as a genre has been pretty well defined for a while now. Having evolved from its original musically political meaning within the music industry to become a genre label in its own right, it generally indicates pop aware melody and musical adroitness, that fine line between commerciality and underground cool, between accessibility and integrity. But what does the indie band of 2017 do to stand out from the pack?
One answer is to do what The White Lakes have done. Forget warping the genre or kicking down generic barricades, and cross-pollinating your sound with the tricks and trappings from elsewhere to gene-splice indie into some sort of modern musical Frankenstein’s monster isn’t the answer either. It isn’t about subverting expectations, it is about feeding them. It is about doing what the rest of the pack do but just doing it so much better. Underline – so much better. The result of such an attitude can be found on Live Wyre. It isn’t so much contemporary indie looking for a new direction or a change of musical trappings, it is instead the sound of indie just done a lot better than 99% of the competition. Why doesn’t every band realise that it is that simple?