With time and experience always comes a sense of knowing, and CASTLEBEAT built his new album around this idea. After releasing his debut album, CASTLEBEAT has spent the last decade working on his record label, spirit goth. CASTLEBEAT II feels like a landmark project he’s been leading up to, revisiting sketches of songs from his debut, and giving them a second life.
CASTLEBEAT, a.k.a. Josh Hwang, returns to his roots on this new record, but expands it further. The indie dream pop artist stays firmly rooted within the genre, with guitar riffs in “This Takes Time” feeling unmistakably 2016, while tracks like ‘Table and Chair’ add elements of electronic drums and layered production that bend far beyond the constraints of genre.
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It is almost 10 years that the trio of Adrian Blake Enscoe, Sydney Shepherd, and Regina Strayhorn, known to those that have already caught up with them as 
Congratulations, the new album from songwriter and multi-instrumentalist 
Pressing play on Spacemoth’s new album is like stepping into a ‘90s Magic Eye painting: Everything suddenly becomes 3D, jumping off the page in a blur of motion. Infectiously catchy from the get-go — all Day-Glo synth splodges, fuzzed-out guitar, boxy drum workouts, and strawberry bubblegum basslines — Inward Eye is both instantly gratifying and wrapped in deeper meaning. At its heart, it’s a paean to journeying — on the road, inside your mind’s eye, and to other cosmic dimensions, all while you ponder things like “Do We Exist?” and how to communicate through a paper cup.
“My Ice Queen” immediately makes its case. A mid-to-low tempo chugging rhythm underpins choppy guitar, a contemplative, distant vocal and a general air of disassociation. Brief sections of the song feature – albeit muted – guitar mangling and feedback. The lyrics tell of a “heartbreak machine, coolest girl you’ve ever seen.” Icy? Absolutely. Then take the similarly restrained “Life Goes on,” so hazy a rumination it seems to have materialised from the mists enveloping Venus.
Everything 
On her previous album, 
Yes, the new 
The iconic backdrop of California – from the Hollywood hills to its gnarly mountain trails – has always been a particularly evocative source of inspiration when it comes to art, so it’s not all too surprising to learn that Joe Newman, frontman of 
The spirit of Liz Phair, Fiona Apple and the late great Jill Sobule emanates from this fantastic first record, and these 11 songs show Emma Gerson (aka 
Modernism functions as both a companion piece to Chris Stamey’s 2025 LP 
Swim Deep’s evolution has been fascinating to watch. Since forming in 2011, the British indie band have zigged and zagged through different shades of alternative music, taking in everything from the dreamy indie-pop of 2013 debut Where the Heaven Are We and the synth-led psych wigout of follow-up ‘Mothers’, to third album 
…featuring 8 new tracks & reworks.
Following up on their expansive 2024 double album Stung!, the Western Australia-based psychedelic rock outfit Pond wanted to tighten things up. The result is the much more focused Terrestrials, a collection of synth-heavy rockers that shine with a neon gleam.