Sometimes, you just have to let things go and while it can be uncomfortable, it can also be incredibly liberating – and the Embrace boys are championing this philosophy superbly in Avalanche, their ninth studio album and their first release in four years. When you stop anticipating the big moments and let it flow, the need to have your life figured out swiftly fades away. It becomes about the small things – the ones you’d otherwise miss. The name of the album is a metaphor for the force of feeling when the little moments all snowball together and how it’s important to celebrate those smaller imperfect moments of life as opposed to being laser focused on the ‘big picture’. It was conceived on the idea that life doesn’t pause for permission; it keeps on…
Category: indie
Remember when dubstep was good? Paris-born producer and DJ Beatrice M. certainly does: Their music calls back to the genre’s mid-2000s South London days, when dub implied reggae, Skream was a youthful prodigy, and Sonny Moore was the singer in a hardcore band.
It was probably inevitable that this sound would come round again, with music’s proverbial 20-year fashion cycle once again raising its head. But Sinking, Beatrice M.’s debut album, released on the none-more-cerebral dubstep label Tectonic, has more to it than simple revival. On the one hand, the record is full of the recognizable traits of classic dubstep — the reggae-inspired half-step beat; basslines that are warm and corporeal rather than dumb and abrasive; and…
Montreal’s BIG|BRAVE recorded in grief or in hope at producer Seth Manchester’s Machines with Magnets studio, with touring bassist Liam Andrews contributing to the group’s recording sessions for the first time. The result is the most texturally detailed, sonically overwhelming BIG|BRAVE record to date. Nearly every moment is bristling with blown-out distortion, yet it’s shaped so that there’s enough space for all the elements to breathe instead of cancel each other out.
On opener “what may be the kindest way to leave,” waves of doom-laden noise set in, with Robin Wattie’s manipulated vocals floating in the center, and when the bass pierces through towards the end, the impact is felt deeply. Then, “a shape of shame” gently rocks back and…
Working with guitars, drum machine, sampler, self-built electronics, and all manner of percussion, BASIC, the trio of Chris Forsyth, Mikel Patrick Avery, and Douglas McCombs, synthesize the vast influences and distinct histories of each member, producing a boundary-less, rhythm-forward amalgam of art rock, trance jazz, collective improvisation, and humming electronics on their new eponymous full-length for No Quarter.
Philadelphia’s Chris Forsyth, known for his lyrical guitar compositions and mercurial improvisations as leader of the Solar Motel Band, founded BASIC in 2022 naming the project in homage to the 1984 Robert Quine/Fred Maher album “Basic,” yes, but also to indicate a desire to get down to fundamentals rhythmically and musically.
When MONO recorded their previous album, OATH, with longtime production partner and friend, Steve Albini in 2023, they never fathomed that it would be the final studio album they made together. Albini tragically died the following year, and that loss left an incalculable void in the lives of not just everyone who ever knew Steve, but everyone with an attachment to any of the thousands of records he helped bring into world over the past four decades. He brought a clarity to the chaos, and a selfless sense of service to art and artists that was unrivaled. On both a personal and practical level, the loss left MONO faced with profound grief and uncertainty. Albini had become a fundamental part of MONO’s unmistakable sound, and the thought of replacing him was daunting…
Hit That Perfect Beat: The London Records Story is a double-CD companion to a podcast of the same name, charting the history of the label from the early 1980s, after the British branch of Decca Records was acquired by PolyGram. Though the label was reopened in the 2010s, the compilation stops in the early 2000s, bringing highlights from more than 20 years of hit releases.
The set starts out in the new wave era, with a few classics like Bananarama’s enduring “Cruel Summer” and Bronski Beat’s queer anthem “Smalltown Boy,” along with U.K. hits by acts drawing from folk (the Bluebells, Hothouse Flowers) and soul (Total Contrast, Carmel). Bronski Beat appear again with the compilation’s namesake tune, and leader Jimmy Somerville’s…
Having a solo project has been Josh Conway’s dream since he was a child. Between then and now, he has found international acclaim with The Marías, of which he is the drummer, primary producer and co-writer of nearly all of their material. With this outfit, Conway broadcast his distinctive production style, blurring bedroom-pop and dream-pop hallmarks with psychedelic undertones. There is an ethereal, understated and cohesive quality to The Marías, whilst still retaining a penchant for pop capacity and heterogeneous production. As many listeners of Conway will likely have come from The Marías’ fanbase, there will be trepidation about how similar it may sound, how far he will drift from the band sonically, or whether his production style works without his band.
Nicholas Krgovich and Joseph Shabason’s shared musical journey began in 2020 when, along with Chris Harris, they released Philadelphia, one of that year’s best and most highly acclaimed albums. In the six years since, the pair have joined forces with a series of other notable collaborators, including M. Sage and, most recently, Japanese avant-pop heroes Tenniscoats. Four Days in June, though a Shabason and Krogovich album by name, sees the pair enlist a wide range of musicians, including fiddle and banjo player Sam Amidon, guitarist Thom Gill, bassist/keyboardist Bram Gielen and drummer Phil Melanson. Krgovich sings and writes the lyrics, while Shabason plays synth, piano, sax and flute. The result is an album of subtle, often delicate layers, borrowing…
In addition to her delicate, spacious arrangements; gentle, articulate vocals; and affection for unusual melodies and harmonic progressions, Vermont singer/songwriter Ruth Garbus has become known over the years for her eclectic approach to assembling albums. The onetime member of acid folk group Feathers and indie pop outfit Happy Birthday — both of which also featured King Tuff’s Kyle Thomas — added quirky touches like finger cymbals, vocoder, synthesizer, and samples of a Rodgers & Hammerstein song to her mostly folk-oriented second solo LP, Kleinmeister. Her third album, the Thomas-produced Profound, navigates wistfully earnest material like “The Lost Soul” (“Everybody seems to want some…thing/Everybody seems to know”), the humorously…
Being in an independent punk rock band can be fun, but it can also be hard work without a guaranteed reward, and The Bobby Lees got to know that better than they hoped while on the road in support of 2022’s Bellevue. Long stretches of low-budget touring and recording albums without recouping their expenses put enormous stress on the group, and founder and leader Sam Quartin was beginning to buckle mentally and physically under the strain; the Bobby Lees went on hiatus in 2023. Fortunately, they had a fan who was willing to help and also happened to be rich and famous — actor Jason Momoa, who featured the band on his HBO series On the Roam, and offered to finance their next album. 2026’s New Self reflects the pain and frustration in the years leading up…
Our good-faith assumption that the slow placidity of part one of this ultimately 5-hour epic was a means of introduction turns out to have been wisely made. Year of the Monkey, the second part of Fucked Up‘s quintuple-album-length trilogy also comprising its second and third hours, takes the increased eventfulness of “Rivers and Lakes,” the closing track of Year of the Goat, and builds from there as the base. “Looking for Heaven and Not Finding It,” opens with the striking of a temple bowl, a common preface to Buddhist prayer, as all of the tracks of this cycle have thus far. The following half-hour is spent in the land of light charted by Yes, with major-key joy and brimming golden dewdrops sprinkled everywhere. This is fitting: the story at this point…
The four words no one thought they would ever see appeared last year. They were “GRAMMY nominee Jon Spencer.”
But that’s what happened when Samantha Fish and Jesse Dayton’s 2023 album Death Wish Blues was up for one of those iconic awards. And by extension, so was producer Jon Spencer.
It’s worth noting that his career spans over four decades crafting some of the edgiest, most frictional and at times discordant roots music ever appearing on major or indie labels. A variety of sonically boundary-pushing outfits such as Pussy Galore, Boss Hog, Heavy Trash, Jon Spencer & the HIT Makers and, probably the most popular one, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion were all helmed by Spencer.
Meltt is a psych-ish rock band from Canada that is set to drop its third album, Pathways, on June 12. The 13-song album is preceded by the release of no fewer than eight singles, the earliest of which, “Hesitate,” dropped almost a year ago, in July 2025. All eight were collected in the order of appearance on the “In Good Time” single, the last one released on May 28 of this year.
There’s a method here of giving each single the chance to capture the attention of the non-album-oriented public before releasing the complete album, a strategy the band began experimenting with for the rollout of Eternal Embers in 2023. If album-oriented folks tilt their heads in anti-climactic wonder, well, that’s too bad. They’re not a big part of the music-streaming…
Arguably the worst fallout of the American Democratic Party’s decade of humiliation and ineptitude was the 2016 release of Le Tigre’s “I’m With Her”. To fashion the aesthetic and soul of art-punk into an establishment worshipping, pro-Hillary Clinton ‘anthem’ has banished the genre into the deepest reaches of musical hell since; every set and record must now begin with an apology and a land acknowledgment. Like a trip to KFC after eating rotten chicken, even the sound of a punk timbre over a synth has given me nausea to this day. 2026 may be a year of rekindling, as La Sécurité joins Mandy, Indiana in going ornate and reckless with the genre.
Whereas the latter’s Urgh is a masterpiece of industrial sound design and ultra-propulsive…
Often, a single sentence can say more than a manifesto spanning several pages. Especially when it is repeated, rewritten, and allowed to take on a life of its own. A phrase written two centuries ago can suddenly sound like a commentary on the present. A handful of words can become a refrain, an axis around which entirely new meanings begin to accumulate.
Horse Lords’ new album begins with such a phrase. Drawn from the nineteenth-century hymn, published in The Sacred Harp – one of the most enduring traditions of American sacred music – the line “We seek a city yet to come” becomes the album’s conceptual and sonic centre of gravity. Sung by Nina Guo and Evelyn Saylor, it is looped, stretched, fragmented, and subjected…
Performing under the moniker Fruit Bats, Chicago’s Eric D. Johnson has managed to seamlessly slip in and out of genres throughout his 25-year career, from indie rock and pop to experimental folk. Following up last year’s Baby Man, a surprisingly intimate record with Johnson handling the entire album on his own, he is back with a full band on The Landfill, and the difference is obvious from the opening track.
“The Saddest Part of the Song” sounds like a classic Otis Redding tune before Johnson’s distinctive reedy tenor kicks in, occasionally reaching a falsetto. It’s a curious pick for an opening track, but a great song regardless, with layer upon layer of instruments. “All Wounds” is closer to the indie folk sound Fruit Bats is known for, but…
Slippers‘ cozy brand of indie pop is baked to perfection on their second album Slippers 08. Madeline BB is the writer and singer, and drummer too, and she’s got the whole thing figured out. It’s never a bad idea to mix together intimate C-86 noise pop, woolly Elephant 6-sounding indie, and hooky, pocket-sized power pop, especially when the songs are short and focused, the guitars are crisp and jangly, the rhythm section plays with economical punch, and the vocals have best friend warmth. BB’s lyrics feel like that same friend telling you about her hopes, dreams, problems, and feelings; it’s so small scale and intimate that it’s impossible not to be drawn in right away. She never overstays her welcome musically, keeping the songs very short and never…
Listening to Magazine feels like speedrunning a tour of the circles of hell. The band doesn’t even try to make these songs sum up to anything coherent: each song hits, fades, and the next introduces itself, just to fade again in record time. On each, synthesist Jack Tobias puts down ominous chords and motifs at the worst moments; guitarist-that-sounds-like-a-synthesist Saguiv Rosenstock plays what could very well be the transposed sheet music of a dying dog’s final whimpers; vocalist Zack Borzone moans against the beat in broken Revelations-inspired word association poetry; and drummer Sam Pickard works like the devil to hold the whole operation together. Right when you get accustomed to one song’s palate, it pauses, waits a few seconds,…
You know you’re listening to a hardcore album when the lyrics that most warm your heart are, “Sit the fuck down, get your guard down.” This intense desire for connection fuels Hammok’s latest album, When Does This Place Become Our Scene. Following their 2024 debut’s within-the-scene success, the Norwegian power trio now finds themselves on the verge of breaking internationally and expanding beyond the expected bounds of hardcore/punk/noise rock, leading to questions like, where are they and who’s with them? It’s good inspiration, as this album shows that the band thrives amidst raw, furious uncertainty.
Repeatedly asking “Is this us or am I alone?” over rampaging drums and guitars that will make you slam yourself into the nearest bystander,…
Much of the publicity surrounding Deadlights refers to it as Lauren Lakis’ debut, but surely her releases have been appearing fairly regularly since Ferocious in 2018, making this her fourth album? Whatever; the cover photo of Deadlights appears to be a messy, witty and possibly dark homage to the cover of the Cars’ 1978 debut.
There is sometimes a pop sensibility lurking at the heart of Lakis’ songs, but although powerful, it’s definitely not “power pop,” as its melodies are generally submerged in surging and ebbing distorted guitars. Deadlights is essentially a shoegaze record with some strong ‘90s alt-rock inflections, and much of it trudges along disconsolately with Lakis’ dreamy, reverb-masked voice riding the waves of guitar and…