Tag: indie rock

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Silver Relics Share Hook-Driven, Jangle Pop-like “Blood Is Blood”

Founded by singer/songwriter Alex Sepassi back in 2017, New York-based indie outfit Silver Relics quickly established a sound that effortlessly blended classic and modern rock influences that ranged from the likes of The Beatles, Pink Floyd and Nirvana on their full-length debut, 2019’s Generic.

The New York-based outfit’s latest single “Blood Is Blood” sees the band gently expanding their sound with the inclusion of jangle pop in a way that reminds me a bit of Montréal-based JOVM mainstays Elephant Stone. And much like Elephant Stone’s work, “Blood Is Blood” is anchored around an uncanny knack for razor sharp, remarkably catchy hooks and smart songwriting. The song’s effortless nature belies a slick yet workman-like craftsmanship.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Minneapolis’ The Rope Shares Anthemic “Nightbird”

Minneapolis-based outfit The Rope — Jesse Hagon (vocals), Mike Browning (guitar), Sam Richardson (bass) and Ben Rickel (drums) — formed back in 2009. Since their formation, the Minneapolis-based quartet have established a uniquely dark and […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Schande Shares Noisy and Rousingly Anthemic “Palimpsest”

California-born, London -based singer/songwriter and guitarist Jen Chochinov has been crafting catchy, propulsive rock in DIY circles since the 1990s as a solo artist and in full-bands. Solo and full adventures throughout her career have included a split 7″ with The Cribs and James Murphy’s pre-LCD Soundsystem band Speedking, playing the UK’s Indie Tracks Festival, playing Happy Birthday to Me‘s Athens Pop Festival.

Since relocating to London back in 2013, she has continued playing shows throughout the UK and US both solo and with her full band. In 2018 and 2019, Chochinov was a touring member of Thurston Moore‘s Guitar Ensemble, playing shows throughout the UK and Europe alongside Nøght‘s and Thurston Moore Group’s James Sedwards, My Bloody Valentine‘s and Thurston Moore Group’s Deb Googe, Sonic Youth‘s Steve Shelley, Thurston Moore Group’s and The Oscillation‘s Jim Doulton and Wobbly‘s Jonathan Leideker.

Chochinov is also the frontperson of the British-based noise rock outfit Schande. The outfit, which also features Italian-born Gio Vilaraut (bass) and Canadian-born Ryan Grieve (drums) will be releasing their full-length debut Once Around through Thurston and Eva Moore’s Ecstatic Peace Library’s The Daydream Library Series on September 27, 2024.

Inspired by the works of Hannah Arendt and Adriana Cavarero, One Around thematically focuses on notions of personal existence and subjectively. As Chochinov puts it, the record consists of “contemplations on the teh ways in which we do and do not disclose ourselves to each other, our responsibilities towards ourselves and others, and the ways we do or do not acknowledge the experience ion others. Mirrored by the band’s creative process, which often sees Chochinov writing the lyrics to instrumentals formed out of jams and group revisions, the album aims to explore the ways in which the most personal journeys depend on others, something the collective of expats navigate daily as they establish and reinvent themselves in their adoptive home of the UK.

Once Around‘s latest single “Palimpsest,” is a breakneck, New Wave-like ripper anchored around Chochinov’s angular guitar jangle, Villaraut’s driving bass lines and Grive’s forceful timekeeping. Chochinov’s insouciant delivery ethereally floats over the chaotic fray, seemingly emphasizing the indifference that the narrator’s expressing throughout. Sonically, “Palimpsest” recalls 120 Minutes MTV-era alt-rock, complete with rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses.

“I can’t help but hear the Siouxsie influence every time we play the song. Plus, let’s be honest, ‘palimpsest’ is just a great word,” Chochinov says. “I used a tuning I learned from my friend Darren who I had a recording project with years ago, forgot about it, and then when I started playing around with a 12 string guitar Thurston lent me it all came flooding back, like ‘oh yeaaaaaah. I wonder how this guitar would sound in that tuning?’ As it turns out, ‘rad’ is the answer to that question — just really dynamic and expansive and effortlessly creates a prismatic life of its own. Lyrically, the song reflects on patterns of behaviors that leave room for improvement.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Hello Mary Shares Brooding “Down My Life”

With the release of last year’s sophomore, self-titled album, New York-based indie rock trio Hello Mary — Helena Straight, Stella Wave and Mikaela Oppenheimer — received praise nationally from the likes of Rolling Stone, who wrote that the album was “one of 2023’s sharpest, nosiest debuts.”

Building upon a growing profile, the New York-based trio’s highly-anticipated, Alex Farrar and band co-produced third album Emita Ox will be released September 13, 2024 through Frenchkiss Records. Emita Ox sees the rising New York-based trio pushing harder into heavy dissertation and psychedelic dreamscapes, while they build out their singular universe rooted in a gusty strain of alternative rock. The album also reflects how the band’s musical tastes have expanded from Elliott Smith and Radiohead to encompass experimental post-rock acts like Black Midi and Swans. “This album encompasses a lot of our inspirations,” Hello Mary’s Mikaela Oppenheimer says. “It also shows what we’re like as a trio, collectively.” 

Recorded earlier this year, the album’s material reveals a band that’s boldly leveling up as musicians and composers. The trio’s contributions to the material’s creation and production bleed into each other, but the album is also a showcase of their individual strengths and abilities: Straight’s ethereal vocal melodies and gritty guitar riffs, Wave’s emotive vocals and knotty drum patterns, and Oppenheimer’s diabolical basslines and experimentation with electronic production. “We map out all the sections beforehand, we like to write intricate parts that complement each other,” Hello Mary’s Stella Wave says.

Featuring songs that span from 2018 to 2023, the album is also a document of the band’s past five years growing up as bandmates and their arrival into young adulthood. First meeting as teenagers in 2019, the band became fast friends through the pandemic – a global crisis atop a series of crises that made coming of age feel even more weighty and complicated. “This album represents a period of time that’s very meaningful to us. The songs are related to things that we all know about, even if it’s not out on the table for everyone else,” Wave explains. “The songwriting and recording process was a very heavy time that I will never forget.” Although the lyrics touch on serious topics, the band maintains a core sense of play and exploration” jamming is their way of working through difficult and heavy feelings in a way that’s “easy and fun,” Straight says.

Created amid emotions of frustrations and camaraderie, the album finds the trio fearlessly diving into catharsis.

The album’s first single “0%” features thunderously percussive, down-tuned bass, distortion pedaled guitar fuzz, forceful drumming and Stella Wave’s throaty, feral screams within a classic grunge song structure of alternating impossibly loud choruses, quieter verses and a mischievously dreamy breakdown with vibraphone and triangle.

Much like the rest of the album, the song emerged as the trio were jamming in their practice space. After quickly becoming a crowd favorite live, the song really came to live in the studio, becoming the first time that the band’s Stella Wave had screamed on the recording. When she hopped into the recording booth, she felt emboldened to draw out the vocal shouts the band had originally planned, turning them into much longer screams.

The new single emerged as the trio were jamming in their practice space. After quickly become a crowd favorite live, the song really came to life in the studio, becoming the first time that the band’s Stella Wave had ever screamed on a recording. But when she hopped into the recording booth, she felt emboldened to draw out the vocal shouts the band originally planned, turning them into much longer screams.

The song captures a young woman boldly and defiantly expressing existential frustrations — and getting a bit of joy out of the fact of what little she knows and how much she has left to learn.

Emita Ox‘s third and latest single, the brooding “Down My Life” features Helena Straight’s angelic delivery ethereally floating over a Tool-meets-OK Computer-era Radiohead like arrangement of forceful and menacing down-tuned bass, bursts of warped piano, shimmering strummed guitar within a slightly expansive yet classic grunge song structure.

“Down My Life,” is a song that Straight says she wrote after “one of the saddest experiences” of her life. She adds, that “‘Down My Life’ is possibly the most lyrically powerful song for me on the record. The lyrics are somewhat vague, so the meaning behind it is not totally obvious to the listener, which is how I’d like it to be considering the state I was in when I wrote it.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Mila Degray Shares Earnest and Anthemic “Masculine Charm”

Mila Degray is a Broward County, FL-born singer/songwriter and actor. Inspired by the likes of Pretty Sick, Alex G. and Melanie Martinez, Degray’s pairs brutally honest lyrics with a sound that blends elements of indie rock, alt rock, bubblegum grunge, streetgaze and pop rock. Her work reminds the listener that there’s power in self-discovery and vulnerability.

As an actor, she’s appeared in Re6ce’s “is suicide too much,” Charli XCX and Billie Eilish‘s “Guess (remix)” and in A24’s MaXXXine.

Degray’s latest single, “Masculine Charm” is anchored around a hazy, lo-fi production, dusty and skittering beats, a fuzzy New Order-like guitar hook and the Floridian’s coquettish yet achingly tender delivery. While seemingly nodding at Soccer Mommy and Pom Pom Squad, “Masculine Charm” reveals an artist, who can craft an earnest, lived-in song with big, rousingly anthemic and catchy choruses hooks and choruses.

“‘Masculine Charm’ is about an experience I had with an older famous singer when I was 18 in a nice NYC hotel… He said I had ‘Masculine Charm.’. Later, Harry Teardrop and I made the original demo in Brooklyn, just an iPhone voice memo, which is actually still used for the whole intro of the song – then we created a huge guitar hook. After going back and forth from different producers, Richard Orofino from Sex Week layed [sic] down drums and we all realized something special had been created. The rest was up to me. So I wrote the verses of the song and layed [sic] down vocals and harmonies!”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Night Swimming Shares Yearning and Heartbroken “Five-Year Plan”

Currently split between Bath and Bristol, Night Swimming — Meg Jones (vocals), Sam Allen (guitar), Jesse Roache (guitar), Josh Nottle (bass) and Torin Moore (drums) — are a rising British dream pop quintet, whose remarkably cinematic sound draws from their collective love of film and scores, Cocteau Twins, The Cure, Radiohead, Wolf Alice, Just Mustard, Warpaint and a lengthy list of others. Meg Jones’ lyrics are often semi-veiled autobiography that draw from her own experiences and those close to her while also being influenced by Joni Mitchell, Laura Marling, Ben Howard, Daughter‘s Elena Tonra, The Cure‘s Robert Smith and Lana Del Rey. 

Unlike their contemporaries, the rising British outfit has patiently taken the necessary steps to hone both their sound and live show, while landing support slots with acts like Coach Party, L’Objectif, JOVM mainstays The Orielles, The Blinders, Sad Night Dynamite, Automotion, Home Counties and a list of others. The rising British outfit played an opening set on the Dot To Dot Festival‘s SWX stage ahead of  Picture Parlor, Mary in the Junkyard, Hovvdy and Wunderhouse.

The members of Night Swimming have have also been covered by The Line of Best Fit, Dork Magazine, Rough Trade, The Rodeo and Notion Magazine while receiving airplay from BBC Radio 6’s Emily Pilbeam and landing on Radio X’s X-Posure playlist.

Adding to a ver busy year, Night Swimming’s debut EP No Place To Land is slated for a September 27, 2024 release. Recorded at Devon, UK‘s Middle Farm Studios last year, the Peter Miles-produced EP was recorded live to tape and features industrial rhythms set against an atmospheric soundscape, deeply influenced by Beach House‘s and Slowdive’s live shows, which the band noted combined sensory elements and a deep emotional response. 

Earlier this year, I wrote about EP single “Let That Be Enough,” a song that features propulsive and thumping percussion, shimmering and reverb soaked guitars and a rousingly anthemic and cathartic chorus as a lush and cinematic bed for Meg Jones’ bewitchingly ethereal delivery. Seemingly bridging Thank Your Lucky Stars and Depression Cherry-era Beach House with Once Twice Melody-era Beach House sonically, “Let That Be Enough” thematically touches on perfectionism and obsessive thoughts with the sort of novelistic attention to psychological detail of either someone who has lived it — or has personally seen it in others. Throughout there’s a sense of aching and vacillating doubt, confusion, bargaining and then a gradually begrudging acceptance and even a sort of trust. 

“‘Let That Be Enough’ is about moving on from past experiences,” Night Swimming’s Meg Jones explains, ” as well as learning to trust yourself and accepting the choices that you’ve made.”

The EP’s final single, EP closing track “Five-Year Plan” is a slow-burning and painterly-like shoegazer take on dream pop built around a shimmering wall of sound featuring swirling and shimmering guitar textures and thunderous drumming serving as a dreamily lush bed for Jones’ to sing about the loss of a close relationship with the bitterly yearning ache of someone who’s been unexpectedly dropped.

“‘Five-Year Plan’ is about the feeling of being dropped suddenly, without much explanation, by someone you were really close to,” Night Swimming’s Meg Jones explains. “The words were written quickly and without a lot of conscious thought, compared with our other songs. I think this captured the honesty of the difficult emotions I was experiencing at the time.”

“Like all of the tracks on the EP, ‘Five-Year Plan’ was recorded as a live performance to analogue tape,” Jones continues. “We recorded the songs this way to give them their own energy and movement akin to our live shows. There were minimal overdubs on ‘Five-Year Plan,’ however we did experiment with layers such as double tracked vocals/harmonies, a synth bass and even some acoustic guitar to thicken the mix. In terms of the writing process, the track was started by Jesse bringing an arpeggio melody to rehearsal that he’d be working on, and it was fleshed out by the rest of the band to create the wall of sound that is heard in the recording. A few of us were coincidentally experiencing similar life events at the same time, in the middle of winter, which definitely impacted the writing process. The song switches metre from 7/8 to 4/4 which we felt provided a cathartic release to end the song.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Boston’s Lanterne Shares Nostalgia-Inducing 80s-Inspired “Real”

Andres Gamero is a Central New Hampshire-born, Boston-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and creative mastermind behind the indie, solo recording project Lanterne. Central New Hampshire isn’t exactly known for a having a bustling music scene, so Gamero grew up listening to and being inspired by his older brothers’ CD collection, which included Three Days Grace, System of a Down, Blink-182, Daft Punk, Gorillaz and Arctic Monkeys. However, Gamero didn’t start making music until he attended Worcester, MA-based College of the Holy Cross, where he took multiple music courses and joined the choir in his senior year to help bolster his skills.

The Central New Hampshire-born, Boston-based artist’s Lanterne debut single “Real” is a hook-driven, post-punk bop with a decidedly nostalgia-inducing 80s feel anchored around glistening synths, reverb-soaked, angular guitar, a driving groove serving as a lush bed for Gamero’s plaintive and yearning delivery.

Thematically, the song as Gamero explains is “about finding love only once you’ve found yourself,” which adds to the 80s rom-com soundtrack-like vibe of the song.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Brighton’s Honeybadger Shares Rousingly Anthemic “Gone Cold”

Brighton-based trio Honeybadger — brothers Joe and Eddy, along with their schoolmate Luca — formed back in 2014. And since then, they’ve quickly established a sound that meshes elements of rock, punk and grunge that’s inspired by Drenge, Them Crooked Vultures, The White Stripes and others.

The Brighton-based trio have taken the UK by storm through live performances on BBC Introducing, BBC Live Lounge and Wyatt Wendel’s The New Rock Show on Planet Rock. Adding to a growing profile, the band has been featured in Clash Magazine, Music Week, Record Of The Day, New Noise and Earmilk. They’ve received airplay on BBC Radio 1’s Future Alternative — and they played a set at last year’s The Alternative Escape portion of The Great Escape.

Building upon a growing profile in the UK — and hopefully elsewhere — the Brighton-based trio’s latest single “Gone Cold” is an ebullient and breakneck Foo Fighters-like ripper built around enormous power chords, thunderous drumming, rousingly anthemic, shout-along-with-beer-raised-in-the-air-worthy hooks and choruses. It’s the sort of song you need to hear live and very loud with several hundred of your sweaty friends and a cold beer or eight.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Laura Carbone Shares Bittersweet “Silver Rain”

Berlin-based singer/songwriter, guitarist, photographer and JOVM mainstay Laura Carbone‘s third album The Cycle was released earlier this year. The album, which debuted on North American college radio at #19 on the NACC Top Adds Chart, is a concept […]

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Sunflower Bean Shares a Gritty, Grimy Ripper

Formed back in 2013, while they were still teenagers, New York-based trio Sunflower Bean — Julia Cumming (vocals, bass) Nick Kivlen (guitar, vocals) and Olive Faber (drums) — have become one of the area’s most acclaimed outfits. During that period, they’ve released three critically applauded full-length albums, 2016’s Human Ceremony, 2018’s Twentytwo in Blue and 2022’s Headful of Sugar, which have featured several chart topping releases. They’ve supported those albums with sold-out tour dates as headliners and as openers for the likes Beck, The Strokes, Cage the Elephant, Interpol, Courtney Barnett, The Pixies, The Kills, DIIV, Wolf Alice and more. They’ve also made their run across the international festival circuit, making stops at Glastonbury, Governor’s Ball, Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Reading Festival, Leeds Festival and others. And famously, they’ve opened for Bernie Sanders during this primary campaign rallies.

Adding to a growing profile, the band’s Julia Cumming had a guest spot on Yves Tumor‘s 2020 effort Heaven to a Tortured Mind. Kivlen and Faber collaborated with Frost Children on “SERPENT,” which appears on last year’s Speed Run.

The trio’s newest effort, Shake EP is slated for a September 27, 2024 release through Lucky Number. The self-produced and self-recorded effort will reportedly feature some of the band’s heaviest, most immediate and loudest material to date. Influenced by the doom-laden, riff-driven sound of Black Sabbath and others, the EP is an embrace of rock tropes and excess, while nodding to the band’s first two albums.

“SHAKE was inspired by our first years as a DIY band, the spirit that birthed us and gave us the chance to have this enduring journey together,” the band says of the EP. “We wrote, recorded, engineered, and produced these songs so nothing was filtered through anyone else’s idea of us. We always felt like rock and roll was a feeling, not a sound. But sometimes there is no subverting it or explaining it. We’re now offering it exactly as it occurred to us.” And as a result, the EP captures the band at its most raw, unfiltered and most natural state.

To further that theme, the band worked with rising Toronto-based director Isaac Roberts to create a 14-minute performance based video to showcase each track through an interpretation of the natural elements — earth, wind, water, fire and metal.

The EP’s lead single and title track, the grimy and gritty “Shake” is a scorching doom-laden, distorted pedaled power chord-driven ripper with thunderous drumming that captures the band at their loudest, hardest and meanest to date, and at their most inspired.

The accompanying video directed by Roberts performing the song in a torrential rain storm that created the sort of mud pit reminiscent of Nine Inch Nails‘ Woodstock 94 set. Fittingly, the video captures and emphasizes the grit and grime of its accompanying song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Sister Gemini Shares Anthemic “120 Minutes” MTV-like “One Room Apartment”

Bay Area-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and musician Remy Jean is the creative mastermind behind the rising indie project Sister Gemini. Much like countless other musicians, she came into music as a byproduct of teenage discomfort: After being shunned by the cheerleaders at her high school, the Bay Area-born, Los Angeles-based artist found herself taking up guitar and hanging out with the outsiders and weirdos in the music room. “At first I was, like, ‘Oh my god, really? I’m going to hang out with these people?’ And then I was, like, ‘Wait, these people are me,'” Remy Jean fondly recalls.

Embracing some of her genuine interests for the first time in her life, the Bay Area native began gigging in a Misfits over band and dreamt of a move to Southern California. Upon graduation, Remy Jean relocated to Los Angeles, where she harnesses the energy and encouragement of a circle of talented peers — and where she started her solo recording project Sister Gemini.

She describes Sister Gemini’s sound as “Heavy music for people who like soft music and vice versa.” Thematically, her lyrics grapple with the concept of forgiving yourself — and of coming terms with the reality that although you may sometimes hurt others, it doesn’t necessarily make you a terrible person. Frequently, the material focus on making mistakes, and as a narrator, she isn’t afraid to paint herself as a malevolent character — whether wittingly or unwittingly. “You’re always the villain in someone’s narrative,” she says.

As a self-described open book, Remy Jean’s work is anchored in the sort of unvarnished honesty of an older sister or older friend, giving the listener advice based on the embarrassing yet survivable missteps they’ve managed to navigate.

The Bay Area-born, Los Angeles-based artist’s first single of year, and third Sister Gemini single ever “One Room Apartment” is a 120 Minutes era MTV alt rock-like anthem featuring fuzzy and crunchy distortion pedaled power chords, rousingly anthemic hooks and chorus paired with Remy Jean’s saccharine sweet melody within a classic grunge-inspired song structure. The result is a song that sounds as though it could hav been

Initially conceived as a whispery acoustic demo, the grunge pop anthem “is about attempting to rely on external comforts to pull you up when you’re in a funk,” Remy Jean explains. “I start by calling my friends but when they aren’t available, I turn to casual sex to try to numb the loneliness. I wrote this song during the pandemic, when the world really did feel as small as my apartment at times. It’s a pretty vulnerable song for how upbeat it sounds, I love that contrast.”

She adds, “It took me a while to find my groove, in terms of who I wanted to work with and who actually understood the sound that I was going for.” Ultimately, she wound up working with Sam Plecker, because he had an intrinsic understanding of Remy Jean’s vision for the project. Along with Plecker, who also contributed bass, as well as engineering duties, the Bay Area native recruited Babehoven‘s and Runnner’s Ellington Peet (percussion) and Yunus Iyriboz (guitar) to flesh out the original demo.

Directed by Director Mia Gualtieri, the accompanying video for “One Room Apartment” captures the boredom, desperation and unease of pandemic related lockdowns, in which some people slowly lost their shit.

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Live Concert Photography: Silversun Pickups with Hello Mary at Brooklyn Steel 6/27/24

Live concert photography of SIlversun Pickups and Hello Mary at Brooklyn Steel last month.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Rising Dutch-born, British-based Artist Dutch Mustard Shares Cathartic and Urgent “Loser”

Dutch-born, London-based artist Sarah-Jayne “SJ” Riedel is the creative mastermind behind the rising indie recording project Dutch Mustard. And with Dutch Mustard, Riedel blends ethereal dream pop, 90s alt-rock with shoegaze touches to create a soundscape that features painterly and swirling guitar textures while the Dutch-born artist’s vocals drift between a near whisper and yearning, heavenly arching shouts.

Riedel and Dutch Mustard exploded into the British scene with the release of 2022’s debut EP An Interpretation of Depersonalisation, an effort that was featured by the BBC while receiving airplay on BBC Radio 1’s Future Artists with Jack Saunders and a co-sign from the legendary Iggy Pop. Last year’s sophomore EP, Beauty received airplay from BBC Radio 6’s Lauren Laverne and co-signs from Don Letts and Amy Lamé. Adding to a growing profile, The Independent, The Line of Best Fit, Clash, Dork and Notion have all covered her — and The Grammy Awards selected her a one of 6 Female Fronted Acts Reviving Rock, along with Wet Leg.

SJ’s latest single, the Bill Ryder-Jones and Riedel co-written and co-produced “Loser,” is a catharsis-inducing, 120 Minutes MTV alt rock-era anthem built around swirling shoegazer guitar textures, rousingly anthemic, shout along worthy hooks and chorus serving as a lush and downright perfect vehicle for the rising Dutch-born, London-based artist’s vulnerable, yet equally enormous vocal.

Creatively, the song was fueled by a bold tale of chutzpah: SJ dropped her demos into the DMs of big-name producers she admired with the hopes that they would be willing to work with her. But at its core, the song as the rising Dutch-born artist explains is about resilience: “‘Loser’ is about making peace with heartbreak. We move on by accepting our feelings and understanding that not everyone speaks the truth. This doesn’t mean we stop being truthful, just more careful with who we trust.”

“I love working with SJ….she’s fucking hard to keep up with like. She has this knack of coming up with great ideas when I’m still admiring the last one,” Bill Ryder-Jones adds.

Directed by Josiah Newbolt, the accompanying video for “Loser” is shot in black and white, and follows the rising Dutch-born, British-based artist in a dizzying close up that evokes the swooning urgency of the song.