Category: indie rock

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: My Morning Jacket and Preservation Hall Jazz Band Team Up to Tackle Neil Young’s “Like A Hurricane”

https://youtu.be/NzgXx7Ol-Bg?si=D0leDjp8-5V7VLKD

Cinema Music Group and Killphonic Records recently announced that they’ll be releasing Heart of Gold: The Songs of Neil Young, Vol. 2 — Out of the Blue and Vol. 3 — Into the Black on November 6, 2026. Featuring contributions from King Princess, Draco Rosa, Lucinda Williams. Ann Wilson, Peter Frampton, LP, MJ Lendermann, Ben Gibbard, Cold War Kids, Kurt Vile and The Violators, Los Lobos and a lengthy and impressive list of others. these new volumes beautifully blend cherished classics with innovative interpretations that honor Neil Young‘s enduring and towering musical legacy.

Proceeds from the albums will benefit The Bridge School. Founded in 1986 by Neil and Pegi Young, The Bridge School to serve individuals with severe speech and physical impairments, much like their son Ben. The organization was built on a simple but powerful belief” every individual deserves the opportunity to communicate. Over the past 40 years, The Bridge School has helped transform the lives of thousands of individuals with complex communication and physical disabilities while helping shape the fields of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) and assistive technology (AT) through innovative education, research and professional development.

The Bridge School’s impact extends far beyond its campus. Its education model, professional training. and outreach and research programs have reached professionals, families and individuals around the globe. Through their Bridge to Life program, the organization now provides direct services, consultation, and training for individuals with communication and/or physical disabilities from infancy through adulthood. ensuring that people of all ages have access to th tools and support they need — and deserve — to communicate, participate, and thrive.

As the organization celebrates its 40th anniversary, it continues to advance the belief that communication is a fundaamental human right — and that every voice deserves to be heard.

And to support the international release of the complications. Cinema Music Group and Killiphonic Records partnered with City Slang, who will oversee physical distortion and marketing across the UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, expanding the reach of the Heart of Gold project while brining all three volumes to fans through its established retail and distribution networks.

Vol 2. — Out of The Blue’s latest single features My Morning Jacket teaming up with the iconic Preservation Hall Jazz Band to tackle “Like A Hurricane.” The My Morning Jacket and Preservation Hall Jazz Band cover, lovingly retains the drunken, wistful sway and aching longing of the original while adding some subtle NOLA soulfulness to the proceedings, before building up to a passionate frenzy for the song’s coda.

“We were so honored to get to be at several of the Bridge School Benefit concerts in the past, and are so honored to once again be a part of raising funds for this amazing school, with these amazing songs of Neil Young,” My Morning Jacket’s Jim James says. “We felt like teaming up with Preservation Hall Jazz Band would add some magic to this track, so we all got together with producer Ross Hogarth down in New Orleans and recorded it live at Marigny Studios. We hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed playing it!”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Toronto’s Wine Lips Shares Punchy “If You Don’t Know”

Over the past decade, the Toronto-based psych punk outfit Wine Lips — currently Cam Hilborn (vocals, guitar), Aurora Evans (drums), Jordan Sosensky (guitar) and Charlie Weare (bass) — have quietly become one of their homeland’s most successful indie acts: They’ve amassed over 50 million Spotify streams, while receiving praise from Iggy Pop on BBC Radio and landing material on film, television and video games. Adding to a growing globally recognized profile, the Toronto-based quartet have relentlessly toured a sweat-soaked, high energy live show across North America, the European Union, the UK, Hong Kong and China while sharing stages with the likes of Frankie and the Witch Fingers and Death From Above 1979. Throughout their history, the Canadian punk rockers have carved their own lane, where fuzz pedals, frantic energy and razor-sharp songwriting coexist in a perfect balance.

Wine Lips’ fifth album, TV Dinner was released last Friday through Stomp Records. Drawing from an The Hives, Osees, Frankie and the Witch Fingers, Bad Nerves and the melodic punch of Nirvana at their most immediate, the new album may arguably be their most observant, strangely relatable and complete statement to date while still rooted in their signature blend of garage punk, blown-out psychedelia and fuzzy rock.

TV Dinner superficially features 13 adrenaline-fueled, loud, hook-driven rock songs. But if you deeper, the album offers a snapshot of what it feels like to live right now in our dystopian, late-stage capitalist hellscape: Everyone and their mom and cousin are selling shortcuts. Everyone is an expert. Your phone constantly pings with updates. Your rent and grocery bills rocket skyward while the apartments somehow get smaller. Dopamine arrives in short bursts through nicotine, sugar, social media feeds, alcohol, dreams of escaping the rat race and whatever else gets you through another day. Somewhere between the doomscroll, another trip to the doctor, another dead-end job, and another microwaved meal, Cam Hilborn found thirteen songs hiding in plain sight. The songs are written from the perspective from someone who’s neck deep int the shit, like everyone else, desperately trying to make sense of a mad, mad, mad world.

Recorded at London Ontario‘s The Sugar Shack with longtime collaborator Simon Larochette, the new album captures the band trusting instinct over perfection. Mistake sand happy accidents stayed. So did strange noises. They left the edges and roughness because they believe that’s where the life lives. The album also sees the band’s Aurora Evens taking up lead vocal duties on album track “Projector.”

The album’s latest single “If You Don’t Know” is a punchy and anthemic blend of garage punk, glam rock and pub rock, showcasing the band’s unerring knack for crafting catchy hooks paired with fuzzy power chord-driven. shout- along-with-an upraised-beer-in-hand choruses. Arguably the most direct, in-your-face ripper the band has released to date, the song features a narrator wrestling with something familiar to me — and to most of y’all — growing older. Yes, there’s the tacit realization that time races by, but it’s rooted in something far deeper — that age is supposed to come with some earned wisdom, some sort of forward progression and a shit ton of nostalgia. But what if there isn’t much wisdom and no real forward progression? Is the dream of being a rock god childish? Who the fuck really knows?

The accompanying video follows a man-child living out his fantasy of being a superhero in a very real world, including his seemingly real super powers, which help him save lives and do good.

The band are currently in the middle of a rather extensive European tour. They’ll tour across North America to close out 2026 and their North American tour includes a December 4, 2026 stop at Warsaw. Check out the tour dates below.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Total Wife Teams Up with Full Body 2 on a Muscular and Noisy Interpretation of “make it last”

Over the past decade, the experimental Nashville-based duo Total Wife — Luna Kupper and Ash Richter — have firmly cemented as fixtures of both the Nashville and East Coast DIY scenes. Last year’s ten-song come back down, an immersive blend of breakbeats, techno influence, recycled homemade samples and cascading riffs, that pushed the boundaries of shoegaze wide open — while receiving praise from Stereogum, Nashville Scene, Paste Magazine, Vice, Consequence and a lengthy list of others.

The duo’s newest effort, come.back.down.x.recovery EP is slated for an October 9, 2026 release through Julia’s War Recordings. The EP sees the duo passing along lost album file demos to their peers to rework, reinterpret, and make something beautiful — and interesting — out of a mistakenly broken hard drive.

“Within the weeks leading up to come back down’s release, my hard drive got fried. The whole album was lost, along with half the one we’re currently working on and many other projects/bands I was recording,” Total Wife’s Luna Kupper explains. “We brought it to a data recovery service only to get back a flash drive with 25,000 unnamed WAV files. Almost every file was a rotted screaming mass of different sounds and tracks digi-melted together as if the hard drive did a harsh noise remix of itself. Any sort of remix would’ve been impossible until I discovered a dusty old drive containing half-finished versions of some come back down songs. 4 of them were recoverable and brought so beautifully back to life by some of our favorite artists of all time, something I couldn’t have imagined back when recording these songs. I am beyond grateful and now know I should be better at backing up my files.”

come.back.down.x.recovery EP’s first single “make.it,last.x.full.body.2.recovery” is a collaboration with Philadelphia’s Full Body 2 that retains the woozy guitar churn of the original album single but with an explosive coda that’s one-part industrial music, one part eardrum shattering noise. before closing out with a quick fadeout.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Glasgow’s The Marches Shares Brooding “The Habit”

Since their formation in 2024, Glasgow-based indie rock outfit The Marches — Katie Palmer (vocals, rhythm guitar), Nicola Singleton (bass), Jane Jenkins (lead guitar) and Kate Morrow (drums) — have quickly established a sound that blends emotional intensity, ambitious melodicism and razor-sharp storytelling.

And in that same time, they’ve also quickly built up a regional and internationally recognized profile: Their breakout single last year’s double A-side single “November“/”Don’t Fool Me Twice” received both international and national press attention/. Their previously released material received airplay from BBC Radio Scotland, BBC Introducing Scotland, Amazing Radio UK and Amazing Radio US.

Adding to a growing profile, the Scottish quartet have started to amass a reputation for an electrifying live show, which has led to a hometown headlining set at Glasgow’s The Garage Attic in November.

2026 has seen The Marches release a handful of singles, including the previously released “She” and “Struck To The Heart,” and their latest single “The Habit.” “The Habit” further cement the band’s growing reputation for unerring melodicism and crating catchy hooks paired featuring brooding arrangement of atmospheric guitars, forceful and pulsing drumming beneath Palmer’s delivery which throughout the song’s run moves from intimate confession to defiant and steely resolve.

Underneath the remarkably self-assured performances, is a song about dysfunction, touching upon feeling the pull of repetitive patterns you know too well, even when deep down you know better. Certainly, for anyone who has escaped dysfunctional and destructive patterns, the song captures something disturbingly familiar.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: RIP DUNES Shares Driving and Brooding “Living In Fear”

Matthew Iwanusa is best known for being a founding member and the frontman of acclaimed JOVM mainstay act Caveman. He’s also the creative mastermind behind the solo recording project RIP DUNES. Iwanusa’s sophomore RIP DUNES album Tales From The Ripped is slated for release this fall.

Tales From The Ripped reportedly plays like a soundtrack seen through the lens of late-night television, practical effects, unexplained phenomena and half-remembered imagery that somehow gets more difficult to separate from reality over time.

The Abe Seiferth and Matthew Iwanusa-co-produced “Living In Fear,” Tales From The Ripped‘s first single is a dark and brooding bit of post punk built around angular and slashing guitars, analog synths and muscular. reverb soaked drum machines paired with the firmly established melodic sensibilities and penchant for big hooks Iwanusa developed with Caveman.

Iwanusa directed and edited the accompanying video for “Living In Fear”is a mix of handmade and stop motion animation and live action footage which gives the visual a dreamy, late-night cartoon vibe.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Jonathan Personne Shares Shimmering and Dreamy “Je pense toi”

Initially known for his roles as co-founder, co-lead vocalist, guitarist, lyricist and songwriter in internationally acclaimed JOVM mainstay act Corridor, Montréal-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, animator and visual artist Jonathan Robert is by both necessity and nature, a prolific and versatile artist. He’s also the creative mastermind behind the solo recording project, Jonathan Personne, which derives its name from the French version of John Doe — or perhaps a bit more accurately, Jonathan Nobody. The project’s name reflects his determination to simultaneously not represent a specific person and to better reflect his multifaceted artistic identity.

Over the past seven years, he released four albums that saw him drawing from a wide range of influences including desert dream pop, Morriocone-esque Spaghetti Western rock, The Clean-like jangle pop, Latin-influeinced grooves, Galaxie 500 and Yo La Tengo-like indie rock, as well as sampling, sequencing and beatmaking. And he’s done this while working on albums with his primary gig, Corridor. 

Robert’s fifth Jonathan Personne album Répertoire officially drops today through Bonsound. The album’s material can trace its origins back to six years ago: When he began working on what would eventually become Repertoire, the Montréal-based artist sensed a significant change in direction and chose to focus on another set of songs instead. This lead to his acclaimed, self-titled third album. The new album sees Robert brining some light to his firmly established melancholic sound, with the album’s material drawing from yacht rock and dream pop to create something entirely unexpected. Anchored around melodic bass lines, looping figured and self-sampled guitars, the result is a sound that’s groovy yet contemplative, dreamlike yet noisy. 

Thematically, the 10-song album sees the French Canadian JOVM mainstay reflecting on his relationship with music, vacillating between moments of repulsion and ones that remind him why he chose — and loves — his career. Répertoire‘s will include the previously released, album opener “Rêve américain,” “Superstar,” and the album’s latest single “Je pense à toi.” “Je pense à toi” is an intricate and lush tune, built around a shimmering and looping guitar figure, some mysterious, dream-like samples and a laid back yet supple and propulsive groove beneath Robert’s equally dreamy and ethereal deliver. The song may make you want to go for the sort of walk in which you lose yourself in your thoughts, which is apparently what the song is actually about.

Robert is also an accomplished visual artist and graphic designer, and he designed the album’s cover art. But for the new album, he swapped illustrations for a small-scale model of an idyllic mountain village, which helps set the material’s overall tone and vibe. Fittingly, the accompanying video features the Montréal-based artist and his backing band in the cover art’s idyllic mountain village performing the song in a mix of stop-motion styled animation and real life.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Julia Jacklin Returns with Anthemic “The Hardest Thing”

Acclaimed Melbourne-based singer/songwriter and musician Julia Jacklin will be releasing her highly-anticipated fourth album, the Robert Muiños and Jacklin co-produced, 10-song album  The Gem through 4AD Records digitally and on CD, cassette and vinyl on September 25, 2026. Exclusive color vinyl editions with retailers will include turquoise, green opal, ruby and rose quartz. Pre-order information can be found here.

The album will include the previously released “Get Away From Me (I Think I’ll Love You),” the album’s closing track ” “I Wish” feat, Aussie folk sibling duo The Maes, and the album’s third single, “The Hardest Thing.” is a proudly heart-worn-on-sleeve anthemic ballad featuring a narrator, whose relationship on the brink, detailing a relationship at a crossroads — or about to peter out to an inevitable conclusion. Lyrically, the song is rooted in small, lived-in details that give the song a personal yet deeply universal touch.

Directed by Danny Cohen, the accompanying video was shot in one lengthy take and filmed from a helicopter winding through Melbourne’s skyline, gradually showcasing the acclaimed artist performing the song on top of skyscraper.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Sour Widows Share Hypnotic and Urgent “Lucky Star”

Bay Area-based duo Sour Widows — Maia Sinaiko and Susanna Thomson — will be releasing their highly-anticipated Melina Duterte-produced sophomore album Sigil on October 23, 2026 through Julia’s War Recordings.

Not long ago, Sour Widows’ Maia Sinaiko had a nightmare that morphed into an epiphany. While they slept, Sinaiko imagined that the world was ending, that the Earth itself was about to be swallowed by a black hole. From their perch in an old bedroom in a long-ago apartment, Sinaiko saw that physics itself was rupturing — water ran in reverse, doors locked and unlocked without a touch, traffic lights hung upside down. All traces of human civilization would soon be obliterated, our collective efforts lost forever; no one would ever know, Sinaiko realized in their nocturnal terror, about the films their sister had made. Sinaiko cried to their father, who responded to this looming end-of-everything scenario with an unexpected bit of sanguine wisdom: “But it could be amazing.” 

That dream is the premise of the album’s opener a title track “Sigil,” an album that derives its name from a dream that Susanna Thomson had about making an album called Sigil. The album’s material navigates a wasteland of human cruelty, brutality and loss to emerge with a defiant, hard-won hope. Throughout the album’s runtime, terrible things happen: A genocide leaves bodies rotting in the sun. Lovers subjugate their counterparts with empty promises, emotional abuse, and physical dominance. Parents are lost, leaving behind massive chasms emotionally and psychologically that continue to grow. And yet, the conflicts and crises described throughout the album’s songs alternately produce righteous rage, welcome solidarity and revelatory freedom. Thematically, the album touches on growth and persevering through hard shit — as we are right now — and as a result, the songs reportedly feel like deep, personal breakthroughs. In life, an end is always nearby. But what comes after can be fucking amazing.

Sonically, Sigil‘s material curves in unexpected directions and is anchored in a newfound immediacy that feels as though the duo have urgent findings and thoughts to share with the listener, making the album arguably the most magnetic they’ve written and recorded to date.

Sigil‘s latest single “Lucky Star” manages to be a hypnotic yet urgent, searing yet melodic tune that alternates between dreamily melodic verses and noisy, screeching electronics-driven hooks and anthemic, mosh pit friendly choruses — and it’s all underpinned by a shimmering, looping guitar line. The song twists, turns and morphs in odd, prismatic directions. “‘Lucky Star’ is a spell for achieving your dream. Sing the chorus to yourself before bed and maybe it’ll come true,” says Maia Sinaiko.

Directed by the band’s Maia Sinaiko and Susanna Thomson, the accompanying video for “Lucky Star” was shot on VHS tape — and accurately captures 120 Minutes-era MTV alt rock vibes.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Rival Sons’ Scott Holiday Fuzzy and Trippy Solo Project HOL1D4Y Shares Hook-Driven “AUTONOMATIC”

Scott Holiday is a singer/songwriter and guitarist, best known for his work with rock outfit Rival Sons. For more than three decades, Holiday has built a career by following his instincts. Before the idea of […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Jonas Davies Shares Shimmering and Earnest “My Dear”

Oregon-based singer/songwriter and musician Jonas Davies can trace the origins of his music career to a childhood love with music. With the release of his debut single, last year’s “Porchlight” and his full-length debut, Off Days, which was released earlier this year, Davies has quickly established a sound that blends hazy guitars with subtle and dreamy R&B-like textures. The result is material that exists in the uneasy space between warmth and tension.

His latest single “My Dear” is the first bit of new material since Off Days, and the single is a shimmering and introspective tune that’s one-part shoegaze, one-part indie pop while showcasing an artist, with an uncanny knack for a pairing a catchy hook with earnest, lived-in songwriting.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Halfway Up a Jagged Hill Share Sludgy and Expansive “Silver Sword”

Brooklyn-based indie duo Halfway Up a Jagged Hill (HUAJH) — longtime friends Devin Gilbert and Jeb Holstein — were walking in the woods one January night, looking for owls, when they can came across what could only […]