Tag: indie rock

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Always You Share Glistening and Breezy “Shadow Play”

Los Angeles-based duo Always You — twin brothers Christoph and Anton Hochheim –will be releasing their third album, the Jack Tatum-produced Against The World is slated for a Friday release through Hit The North Records.

With Jack Tatum at helm guiding production and mixing, he tirelessly broke down and then reconstructed all the elements of the material with the twins, pushing the album’s overall sonics to the absolute breaking point while still retaining their signature sophtisipop sheen. Throughout the album’s run time, heavy guitars and bending sheets of white noise clash over frenzied hi-hats and The Prodigy-like sub bass. Abrupt starts and stops seemingly crash down with the weight of the world. Drum ‘n’ bass and house beats thump over soaring melodies and chopped up vocal samples. The ballads seemingly sparkle with more heart and tension than anything in their previously released work.

Thematically speaking, Against The World is a statement for and against the times: a manic manifesto drawing a line in the sand, pointing out that love is the only resistance against the forces manufacturing distance and endless dissent between us. It’s a rallying cry pushing for something better, a staunch refusal of the status quo, fueled by the belief that we all deserve much better. The album’s material is rooted in the deep sense of longing for something, hell, anything else than this — a different reality, an alternate timeline, anything. Increasingly divorced from the world around us, the false promises of a new lover, a new leader, a quick and seemingly effortless salutation or a new savior become impossible to resist. That fantasy leads us further and further underground, leaving miles of rubble in its wake and keeping us all just out of reach.

Against The World will include”1994,” “Eye to Eye,” and the album’s final pre-release single “Shadow Play.” “Shadow Play” is the album’s most sophistipop-leaning tracks of the released singles. Featuring glistening synths, thumping electro pop-like beats, “Shadow Play” is a breezy tune that’s rooted in inquisitive themes.

“‘Shadow Play’ is about living for an imagined audience,” the duo explain. “We all do this to some extent in life and in love. Relationships are a type of performance, with specific roles that get cast and stories that get etched out and retold with time. It’s about love as a projection, as something very personal to a person rather than something created by two, and the dangers of copy and pasting that onto others.”
 

The accompanying video for “Shadow Play” follows a woman and one-half of the duo performing — in their own way– for an audience with concert strobe lights to emphasize the performative nature at the core of the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays GIFT Returns with Introspective and Woozy “Every Step”

Brooklyn-based JOVM mainstays GIFT — TJ Freda (vocals, guitar, production), Jessica Gurewitz (synths, vocals, guitar), Kallan Campbell (bass), Justin Hrabovsky (synths, guitar) and Gabe Camarano (drums) — will be releasing their third album, the TJ Freda and Teddy Mars co-produced Frenzy For The Thill on January 15, 2027 through Captured Tracks.

The JOVM mainstays began in earnest during the pandemic with the band’s Freda holed up in Brooklyn building the lush layers of what would become the band’s 2022 full-length debut, Momentary Presence. Both Momentary Presence and it’s follow-up, 2024’s Illuminator saw the band blending various strains of psychedelic music — krautrock, New Wave, electronic music and shoegaze — while cataloging Freda’s ongoing battles with panic attacks, frequently seeking to counter anxiety with transcendence. However, before the creation of GIFT’s third album, TJ Freda found that particular metaphorical drug wasn’t working.

The tours to support Illuminator had left Freda ragged and burned out. When a friend offered to let him stay at their Los Angeles home for two months, it seemed — at the time — to be a perfect way to decompress, to take time and write songs for other artists, and to put GIFT to the side for a bit. However, Freda arrived in Los Angeles as firefighters put out the final fires of early last year, to a house full of ash and not much else than the instruments he brought him. Moved by the renewal and resilience he saw in Angelenos coming together in the wake of the wildfires, the GIFT frontman suddenly felt a creative outpouring.

New GIFT songs arrived much more angst-ridden than in the past, yet not within their own sense of release. For the GIFT frontman, the songs were vehicles to ask the big, existential questions: Now, in his 30s, had watched friends settle down, but he found he was not doing searching. “Making Frenzy For The Thrill was partially about exploring the balance of living as an artist without disappearing into it,” Freda explains. From despondence, Freda emerged with a revitalized sense of creative purpose and direction.

Freda found himself gravitation towards grittier, angstier inspirations including 90s alt-rock, grunge and brasher iterations of electronic music. Combined with the band having become a tight, deeply connected unit honed by rigorous touring. Freda wanted to create something more visceral and collaborative. And as a result, Frenzy For The Thrill may arguably be the most-band orientated album of their catalog to date, anchored around the sound of five musicians diving into the madness together with an “one-for-all, all-for-one” sort of approach.

While adopting much of the ethos and structure of dance music, the album reportedly harnesses the energy the immediate energy the band cultivated onstage, while also incorporating more of their individual personalities and instincts in the overall arrangements and songwriting, Frenzy For The Thrill is anchored in far-seeing melodies and synth textures the band has become known for, while paired with what may be the most muscular performances to date.

Lessons are learned by the end of the album, including a soft of hard-won self-acceptance on the other side of the album’s violence, a healthier, more balanced life after staring into the void. “We’re always looking for resolutions, but life isn’t like that,” Freda concludes. “Frenzy For The Thrill is about still being in love with the chase knowing we might not find answers on the other side. This is the sound of us crashing headlong into the unknown.” 

Frenzy For The Thrill will include the previously released “Hand To The Flame” and the album’s second and latest single, “Every Step.” Arguably one of the most meditative and introspective songs the JOVM mainstays have released to date, “Every Step” is anchored around a grunge song structure featuring quiet, acoustic guitar-driven verses, woozy feedback and power chord-driven choruses and hooks beneath TJ Freda’s breathy crooning. Evening out the album’s feverish state, the song sonically — and thematically — offers flickers of clarity and perspective poking out of the haze of a scattered, frazzled mind.

“Everything comes down to perspective. There’s so much happening in the world that matters more than the small things we let upset us,” Freda says. “But when those small things feel just as big, guilt comes along with them, and it’s easy to feel disillusioned with yourself for not feeling the way you think you should. Perspective follows every step, whether you lean toward hope or toward heaviness. Beauty lives in the broken places, and something broken lives in every beautiful thing.”

Directed by TJ Freda and Crista Simiriglia, the accompanying video for “Every Step” brings Memento and Groundhog’s Day to mind as it follows Freda with an impressive shiner as he wanders around Chinatown, the West Village and Brooklyn with his actions and that of the world surrounding him going forward and backward — seemingly at will.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Bel Cardin Shares Lo-Fi, Earnest “Decoy”

22-year old Bel Cardin is an emerging, Raleigh-born and-based singer/songwriter. Coming from a family of music lovers, the young North Carolinian can trace the origins of their music career to when they picked up the guitar at 13. Raised on Smashing Pumpkins, Radiohead and Elliott Smith, Cardin later fell in love with a collection of artists that emerged in the 2010s, drawing from those artists’ penchant for melodic and crisp guitar, slightly ambiguous song structures and meticulous lyrical imagery. 

Cardin’s debut, 2023’s 10-song Petrify was a melancholy, guitar-driven batch of songs recorded at their college campus’ music studio. 

The North Carolina-based artist’s latest single “Decoy” is a bit of a lo-fi and grungier take on Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea-era PJ Harvey anchored around a classic grunge song structure — alternating quiet verses and loud, rousingly anthemic, power chord-driven choruses — paired with earnest, seemingly lived-in lyrics.

Cardin explains that “Decoy” is “about a sense of self that is defined solely by the relationships in your life. When those are fleeting, so is one’s self worth. But it also can create a lot of gratification all at once when those relationships are at their best, which is why it’s so hard to chance when you get into that cycle. This song explores the dimensions of that experience, specifically through the lens of grief. I wrote the lyrics a couple years ago and it’s been interesting creating the rest of the composition and reflecting on how I’ve changed since then when it comes to this way of living. I really enjoyed working on it and I’m super happy with how it turned out.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Sandhouse Shares Atmospheric “Into Nothing”

Rising London-based indie duo Sandhouse — Anna Sutherland and Casper Holloway — have developed a musical language that comes from a wide-ranging exchange: The duo first bonded over dance music, soul and Arthur Russell, and still spend much of their studio time playing music together. Their ambition is to make guitar music that carries the feelings they find in hyperpop, rap, soul, dance music and film soundtracks. “A lot of our process is creating a powerful sound and then trying to figure out how to make it human, or find the complexity within it,” they explain. “Or creating something very vulnerable and then adding the power to it.” 

Sandhouse’s debut EP, last year’s Circus has amassed over 5 million streams on Spotify while subsequent singles have received press from The Line of Best Fit, DIY Magazine, Rolling Stone UK, Dork Magazine, Under The Radar, The New Cue and others, as well as airplay from BBC Radio 1, BBC 6 Music and BBC Introducing, where they had a single named “Track of the Week,” Adding to a growing profile across the region, the band has built a reputation as a must-see live act, playing sold-out headlining shows at London’s Corsica Studios, The Lexington and Peckham Audio, along with opening slots and tours with Dove Ellis, PORIJ, she’s green, MOULD, swim school, Bleach Lab, and Panic Shack.

The rising London duo’s sophomore. Casper Holloway-produced EP Pollyanna was released today through Broke Records. The EP’s title is derived from Eleanor H. Porter’s optimistic heroine, while exploring the impulse to keep believing in someone despite mounting reasons not to. For the duo’s Anna Sutherland, writing became a way to take back control of experiences that had left her feeling powerless, shaping the material’s lyrics and her vocal performances. “Writing this music was part of a healing process and a way to untangle all the complicated feelings that arise from escaping from a terrible situation,” the duo’s Anna Sutherland explains.

She adds, “We often talk about the songs being spells or me having magical powers. For the vocal recording for parts of the EP, I imagined I was a giant monster that was part woman part crow when I stepped up to the microphone.” Reading Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Little Mermaid” and accounts of succubi and sirens, alongside conversations about Fullmetal Alchemist fed into that imagination. Across Pollyanna, the desire to disappear into romance sits alongside the urge to become something powerful enough to escape it.

Much of the EP was written and recorded across the last half of 2024 and early this year. EP title track “Pollyanna” and “Into Nothing” emerged during a writing retreat on an estuary in Suffolk, UK with Jay Flew with further sessions taking place at Sandhouse’s studios and alongside Ben Hillier in Lewes, UK. The EP features Joel Kovoor (drums) and Anthony Boatright (bass) on EP tracks “Snapdragon” and “Gasoline” while Ben Beed appears on “Pollyanna” and “Into Nothing.” Jake Burgess (lead guitar, tape machine and contact-mic experimentation) contributes to “Into Nothing.”

Sonically, the EP sees the band pairing warped indie rock with surreal, visceral imagery, grunge-inspired guitars, bleary trip-hop production, warped psychedelia and nocturnal alt-pop and Sutherland’s seductive yet darkly playful lyrics.

Pollyanna EP‘s latest single “Into Nothing” is a slow-burning tune that’s a woozy blend of trip hop, shoegazer textures and alt pop paired with Sutherland’s yearning delivery. Thematically, the song explores what can be lot in the pursuit of an idealized version of yourself. The duo’s Sutherland says, “‘Into Nothing’ is about the performance of modern beauty, and the self-reduction that occurs in order to conform.”

The duo has a handful of live dates, including an appearance at this year’s London Calling. Check out tour dates below.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Always You Returns with Breezy Yet Tense “Eye to Eye”

Los Angeles-based duo Always You — twin brothers Christoph and Anton Hochheim — have managed to forge their own path while working alongside a hive mind-like collection of musician friends, including Beach Fossils, Wild Nothing, The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, MGMT, Jerry Paper, The Depreciation Guild and a lengthy list of others, which has helped shaped the siblings sonic identity along the way. Formerly known as Ablebody, the Hochheim Brothers have spent their careers exploring lo fi hypnagogic laptop pop, sophisticated synth pop informed by 80s UK and Japanese New Wave, as well as kitsch-en sink lounge ballads inspired by the great chansons.

The Los Angeles-based duo’s third album, the Jack Tatum-produced Against The World is slated for a November 13, 2026 release through Hit The North Records. With Jack Tatum at helm guiding production and mixing, he tirelessly broke down and then reconstructed all the elements of the material with the twins, pushing the album’s overall sonics to the absolute breaking point while still retaining their signature sophtisipop sheen. Throughout the album’s run time, heavy guitars and bending sheets of white noise clash over frenzied hi-hats and The Prodigy-like sub bass. Abrupt starts and stops seemingly crash down with the weight of the world. Drum ‘n’ bass and house beats thump over soaring melodies and chopped up vocal samples. The ballads seemingly sparkle with more heart and tension than anything in their previously released work.

Thematically speaking, Against The World is a statement for and against the times: a manic manifesto drawing a line in the sand, pointing out that love is the only resistance against the forces manufacturing distance and endless dissent between us. It’s a rallying cry pushing for something better, a staunch refusal of the status quo, fueled by the belief that we all deserve much better. The album’s material is rooted in the deep sense of longing for something, hell, anything else than this — a different reality, an alternate timeline, anything. Increasingly divorced from the world around us, the false promises of a new lover, a new leader, a quick and seemingly effortless salutation or a new savior become impossible to resist. That fantasy leads us further and further underground, leaving miles of rubble in its wake and keeping us all just out of reach.

Against The World will include the previously released “1994” and the album’s latest single “Eye to Eye.” “Eye to Eye” features glistening synths and uptempo, footwork-like breakbeats paired with a supple baseline beneath ethereal vocals. But beneath the breezy atmosphere, the song possess a simmering anger, as the song explores the feeling of resentment on the brink of rage.

“I usually try to avoid writing from an angry perspective but ‘Eye To Eye’ is explicitly that,” the duo explain. “I suppose it’s about being in a pressure cooker of simmering resentment, where belittling comments stack up until you feel like the walls are closing in on you and efforts to self-soothe and self-centre are all in vain. The only moment of harmony is in impending separation which becomes a fantasy one wouldn’t dare act on. It’s draped in a somber atmosphere but propelled with aggressive breakbeats to help punctuate that frenetic headspace.

“The video by Skellyot portrays Anton dressed as Death chasing me through an abandoned mall,” the duo says of the accompanying video. “We, in turn, were running from security the entire video shoot, sneaking through backdoors and hidden passageways to remain out of view while Skellyot followed closely behind in a pair of bright orange roller skates with light-up wheels they bought from the one store still open in the mall.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Norway’s The Clumps Share Anthemic “Easy”

With the release of last year’s “Worthless,” Norwegian rock outfit The Clumps have quickly exploded into the European and global scenes. “Worthless” has amassed over 3.3 million streams and over 100,000 monthly listeners since its release. Adding to a growing profile, the band’s previously releases have received national radio airplay on NRK P3 and P13 and they’ve began to make a run of both the national and European festival circuits, playin sets at Norway’s Bergenfest and Tons of Rock, as well as Eurosonic and London’s Soho Calling.

The band recently signed to AWAL, who released their latest single “Easy.” “Easy” is a slick, arena rock friendly blend of grunge, shoegaze, and indie rock, anchored around a pop-leaning sensibility and earnest, seemingly lived-in lyricism. The band explains that the ne single explores the psychological toll that’s often behind pursing something you care about deeply — the pressure, the exhaustion and uncertainty that are often flattened into the the idea that following your passion should somehow feel effortless.

The band’s highly anticipated sophomore EP is currently slated for release next year. But in the meantime, the accompanying video, which was shot, edited and directed by Filip Glezgo set at a presumed training session that quickly goes awry when the trainer seems to completely lose his mind, while seemingly daring his trainee how badly they want the job.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Trinket Shares Woozy, Hook-Driven “If Not Soon Then Now”

Formed back in 2023. Brooklyn-based indie duo Trinket — Lightheaded‘s and Betty Brite‘s Madison Kate Profitt and S.C.A.B.’s Sean Carmargo — have quickly carved out their own corner of the local indie scene with their […]

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: On Le Ore Shares Punchy “Backroom Deal”

Split between NYC and Nashville, On Le Ore — Jon Moore (vocals, guitar), and longtime Guided by Voices producer and engineer Travis Harrison (drums) — specializes in what they dub mid-fi indie rock that’s unpolished and a bit damaged, anchored around grimy guitars, crooked, off-kilter hooks, blown out melodies and recordings that leave the seams and bolts showing.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the band cites Guided by Voices. Pavement, Sugar, MJ Lenderman, Hotline TNT and Weird Nightmare as influences and sonic references. I’ll leave that one up to y’all. Everyone’s ear is different. Their latest single “Backroom Deal” is a punchy tune that showcases their knack for punchy, off-kilter yet remarkably catchy hooks and rousingly, anthemic, shout-along worthy choruses paired with distorted guitars and equally punchy vocals. And at the core of the song is a soulful, heart-proudly-worn-on-sleeve earnestness.

The accompanying video by Dunkel features a slick collage of old-time stock footage, the digital binary code and fuzzy footage of the band’s Jon Moore playing and singing the song, further emphasizing the song’s gritty nature.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Lisa LeBlanc Shares Strutting and Funky “Too Many Cooks”

Acclaimed Rosaireville, NB-born, Montréal-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and Acadian icon Lisa LeBlanc will be releasing her sixth album Patchwork on February 5, 2027 through Bonsound. The roots of the album stretch from Moncton, New Brunswick to Lafayette, LA, two cities separated by about 2,200 miles/3,5000 kilometers, a distance that LeBlanc traveled in her van during a two month road trip. In the years leading up to the recording of Patchwork, Leblanc also spent time in Corsica, where she was struck by the rugged landscapes and in Ireland, where the cliffs and traditional music festivals brought her a new creative spark.

While nature plays a significant role for the album, LeBlanc channels her long-held love for 60s and 70s folk and rock to create a lush and rich tapestry of melodies, harmonies and grooves. The album also sees her drawing inspiration from traditional Cajun and Acadian music. The result is a sound that’s original, timeless — and singular. The album’s title is a nod to her grandmother, who, for over 50 years, has been making quilts meticulously from fabric scapes that weren’t originally meant to be sewn together.

Thematically, much like a travel journal, the new album offers observations of everyday life set to music with both sensitivity and humor.

Patchwork will include the previously released, rollicking “Whole Lotta Talkin‘” and the album’s second and latest single, the LeBlanc, Benoit Morier and Eric Heigle co-produced “Too Many Cooks.” A strutting and seamless blend of disco country, folk and Muscle Shoals-era soul “Too Many Cooks” may arguably the most playful and funky song LeBlanc has released to date, featuring contributions from Alabama Shakes‘ Ben Tanner and Dr. John‘s and Social Distortion‘s Ben Alleman on keys and piano; Sébastian Michaud on brass; Les Hôtesses d’Hilaire‘s Mico Roy on guitar; and Maxime Gosselin on drums. Based on the idiomatic phrase “too many cooks in the kitchen . . .,” “Too Many Cooks” points out what would happen when you’d have too many cooks in the kitchen: indecision, confusion, arguments, some sabotage, a wildly disgusting, poorly cooked meal and pissed off dinner guests.

“The music video for ‘Too Many Cooks’ is inspired by a reality cooking show where contestants host the other participants in their homes,” explains LeBlanc. “I’m competing against little mischievous puppets who are trying to sabotage my chances to win. Based on the turn of phrase ‘Too many cooks in the kitchen,’ it’s a quirky, kinda funky, kinda country fun tune!”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video Helena Deland Shares Shimmering “Tip of My Tongue”

2020’s debut studio album, Someone New, which was released by Luminelle Recordings introduced Montréal-based singer/songwriter and musician Helana Deland as a new and resonant voice to both the local and national indie scenes. She explored new soundscapes by teaming up with fellow Montréaler Ouri in the collaborative project Hildegard, which released two albums, 2021’s self-titled debut and 2024’s Jour 1596. And adding to a growing profile, Deland has collaborated with Men I Trust, JPEGMAFIA, Jonah Yano, Sam Evian, claire rousay and a lengthy list of others. During a remarkably busy period, Deland released her acclaimed sophomore solo album, 2024’s Goodnight Summerland through Chivi Chivi.

After opening for Weyes Blood, Andy Shauf, Connan Mockasin, Soccer Mommy and Iggy Pop, Deland supported her sophomore album with touring across North America and Europe.

Her highly anticipated third album, Eternity Shrugs is slated for a January 22, 2027 release through Chivi Chivi. Produced by Deland with longtime bandmates Francis Ledoux and Alexandre Larin, as well frequent collaborators Lysandre Ménard and Cedric Martel, Eternity Shrugs was recorded in rural Québec in bursts over four seasons. Piano, bass, organ, viola and woodwinds gather around her vocal and guitar in patient arrangements anchored by finely textured percussion. The result are songs that feel sparse one moment and subtly ornate the next. Deland imagines the album’s palette in browns — wood, leather, smoke. Warm and inhabited, the music never entirely settles.

Eternity Shrugs will include the previously released “How Do You Like Me Now,” and the album’s latest single “Tip of My Tongue.” “Tip of My Tongue” is a shimmering, dream pop-like tune featuring Deland’s breathy and expressive delivery floating over an vibey, autumnal arrangement of jangling acoustic guitar, bursts of shimmering synths, a gently chugging rhythm section driven by a simple yet propulsive drum pattern. But at its core is something left unsaid, an inner conversation between people with an intimate connection that has become a bit awkward yet still deeply familiar.

“I’m thinking of a long-awaited, momentous run-in, the kind that has kept a part of the mind alert,” Deland says. “Maybe you need to privately navigate how up-to-date on the other person’s life you’ve remained since the last time you spoke, or maybe you know a former version of them so well that the present-day one feels entirely, surprisingly familiar. The song was arranged with that feeling of familiarity in mind, like something that has been on the tip of my tongue for a long time.”

Directed by Jodi Heartz and Alex Blouin, the accompanying video for “Tip of My Tongue” is a dreamily surreal scenario that features Deland and her bandmates playing cards on a Montréal rooftop at a table set for 5. We see Deland as she delicately slides between both sides of the table, glancing at her hand of cards.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Warhaus Shares Thumping, Club Friendly “One Day”

Belgian singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Maarten Delvodere is the co-lead vocalist and one-half of the songwriting team behind the acclaimed JOVM mainstay outfit Balthazar — and he’s the creative mastermind behind the equally acclaimed JOVM mainstay project Warhaus.

Devoldere’s fifth Warhaus album The Donkey is slated for a January 15, 2027 release through Play It Again Sam. The Donkey is reportedly Belvedere’s most raw and instinctive Warhuas effort of his career to date. As the backstory to the album goes: Delvodere was at home with his girlfriend and his dog, happy, calm and super zen. Nothing but peace and quiet in his life. But an overdose of peace of mind can be dangerous too; that’s how much energy came pouring out when he started writing the material which would eventually comprise The Donkey.

The filter was gone, the anesthetic had worn off and suddenly he wanted something else — something rawer, something perhaps more real? For years, he had churned out a collection of dandyish pop with each song better than the last with an almost insulting ease. So he wondered: what if he threw those beautiful, golden melodies out the window and wrought the primal urges lurking inside his chest?

The Donkey will include the previously released “The Baby” and “Simple Pleasures,” as well as the album’s third and latests single “One Day.” “One Day” is a swaggering, industrial-leaning banger, built around tweeter and woofer rattling beats, twinkling keys, and arpeggiated synth breaks beneath Devoldere’s punchy yet melodic delivery. It may arguably be the most invigorated and primal tune of Devoldere’s growing catalog. At it score, the song sees the JOVM mainstay playing with contrasting moods. pairing the familiar tropes and language of a love song with an uneasy, tense soundscape.

Devoldere explains that “I wanted the band to sound like a DJ. I wanted the love song to sound like a threat.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: GOODTWIN Shares Breezy and Sultry “Roadside”

Led by Augusta “Gus” Alexander, indie pop project GOODTWIN derives its name as an ode to Alexander’s very good twin sister. And with the release of handful of singles over the past two years, the […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Sam Zalta Shares Shimmering “I Might Die Tonight”

Over the past decade, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Sam Zalta is best known as a touring member of JOVM mainstays Bambara, an act that has toured alongside the likes of Foo Fighters, IDLES, Gilla Band, fellow JOVM mainstays METZ and Algiers.

As a solo artist, Zalta’s work occupies a world entirely his own, one increasingly shaped by elaborate storytelling, recurring characters, dreams, devotion and the uneasy space where beauty and pain meet over the course of four albums, 2015’s Paraiso Terminal, 2017’s o, 2019’s It All Ends The Same and 2023’s Memento Mori. The Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist crafts songs that feel superficially soothing but underneath is something more unsettled and stranger that sonically draws from dream pop, shoegaze, indie pop and the likes of The Beach Boys, Spiritualized, Big Star and Swans.

Zalta’s latest releases finds him pushing further into orchestration, narrative and world-building while still being anchored around his penchant for melodicism.

His latest single “I Might Die Tonight” is a shimmering tune that sonically brings Caveman, Tunnel of Love-era Bruce Springsteen and Cocteau Twins to mind and while expressing an aching yearning, there’s a churning unease just under the surface.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: SAOL Shares Earnest and Rousingly Anthemic “Lines”

Irish singer/songwriter and musician Zoë Gough is the creative mastermind of the recording project SAOL, a project that showcases a genre-bending sound that weaves elements of shoegaze, indie rock and grunge paired with vivid lyricism, catchy hooks and an uncanny knack for melodicism. The project is rooted in Gough’s dedication to engaging with music as a social platform while documenting her journey to situating herself within an Ireland that has undergone rapid change while holding onto the strands of the past that tie together the future and finding a way forward.

Gough’s work with SAOL has been played on RTE, RTE 2xm, Galway City Flirt FM and has received national radio play on Ireland’s Radio Nova while drawing comparisons to Hole, The Cranberries, My Bloody Valentine, Sinead O’Connor, and Garbage.

The Irish artist’s latest single “Lines”is a hook-driven tune anchored around earnest songwriting and performances, rousingly anthemic sing along worthy hooks and choruses, fuzzy power chords paired with her powerhouse delivery. While drawing comparisons to Hole, The Cranberries, Smashing Pumpkins and contemporaries like Soccer Mommy and Snail Mail, “Lines” draws out the prolonged process of loss and reckons with being the one left alone.