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Alternative

Cupid and the Cowboy’s ‘Beer on My Tramp Stamp’ Is a Shot of Whiskey Spiked with Sarcasm

Posted on 18 March 2025

Evading the clichés of every scene and leaving no room for pretence or posturing, Cupid and the Cowboy delivered a satirically subversive and seductively salacious tour de force of literally and figuratively down-and-dirty Americana with Beer on My Tramp Stamp. With folk and alt-country drippings in the soulfully delivered, foot-stomping hit, they find rugged intersections of euphony while the lyrics prove that they’re so beyond pastiche they’ve reserved a spot for other pioneers in the alt-country pantheon. There’s something delicious in the way they go down old country roads, finding new thematic intersections to explore while taking playful shots at the culture they’re dissecting through sound.

This misfit NYC duo thrive on contradiction. Bronx-born Cupid, a sultry wallflower with songs of unrequited love, collides with Maynard, a Reno Casino Cowboy who delivers his raw energy like an open bar tab on the line. Together, they trade vocals and have a proclivity for pulling in everything from country, Americana, dance-pop, R&B, alt-rock, and folk-punk to craft a sound as unfiltered as their songwriting.

With their first full-length album, Misfit Sessions, set to drop in 2025, they’re proving that country can be taken apart and put back together in a way that pays ode without feeling old.

Beer on My Tramp Stamp is available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Katy Rae’s ‘New Girl’ Is a Middle Finger Wrapped in a Power Chord

Posted on 18 March 2025

Katy Rae has become an indomitable force on the alt-rock scene with a vocal presence that could make Courtney Love quake in her babydoll dresses. With a lo-fi, garagey take on pop-punk-pierced alt-rock, she snarls her way to the top of the scene, spitting venom in every note.

‘New Girl’ is a vindicating anthem, fuelled by swathes of rage hurled like a projectile at an ex who’s parading his latest conquest—one who will inevitably feel the same indignation. With a serrated-edge hook and a chorus built for bellowing, the track turns scorn into anthemic resolve. There’s no lamenting the past here, only the sound of someone stepping over the wreckage with an amp dialled up to vengeful. The fallout is all yours to scream along to.

Katy Rae’s songwriting is as sharp as her delivery. Pulling from personal experience, she turns life’s bruises into sonic bruisers, scuffing up the pop edges of her sound with raw production and riot-ready energy.

The single is available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

ShadowHart’s ‘Calcified’ Hits Like a Gothic Cathedral Crumbling Under the Weight of Time

Posted on 18 March 2025

ShadowHart, AKA Richard Nelson, redefines pop-punk with the weight of his orchestral motifs and baroque-leaning vocals. ‘Calcified’ commands attention with its colossal crescendos and atmospherically charged angst.

A lifetime of musical obsession and technical expertise bleeds through every note. Raised in a household where guitars were practically heirlooms, Nelson cut his teeth young, climbing the ranks as one of Tennessee’s top jazz musicians before taking his talent through Auburn University and a career in aerospace engineering. Now, armed with a Master’s in Music Technology, he’s sculpting sound with the precision of someone who understands its mechanics from the inside out.

‘Calcified’ is a haunting contradiction. It carries the visceral energy of early 2000s pop-punk but leans into a cinematic darkness that sets ShadowHart apart. The emotive riffs and orchestral undertones carve out space for his vocals to amplify every lyric’s weight, swelling with the kind of gothic grandeur rarely heard in the genre. The theatrics never overshadow the sincerity—his voice cuts through the production like an elegy for youth, delivered with wisdom most of his contemporaries lack.

For a genre oversaturated with imitators, ShadowHart’s approach is an anomaly. With his full-length debut album dropping on April 25th, 2025, he won’t be lingering in the shadows for much longer.

‘Calcified’ is available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Luxthereal Cast a Gothic Spell with Moments of Silence

Posted on 17 March 2025

Luxthereal has built a legacy channelling the spectral energy of new wave romanticism, and Moments of Silence is their most affecting séance to date. If Echo and the Bunnymen, The Cure, and Siouxsie and the Banshees still haunt your playlists, the sweeping, gothic glamour-tinged chords in this track will pull you under without resistance.

Angular guitar lines carve through the mist of atmospheric synths, giving the track an otherworldly edge that never leans into excess. The vocals command with a force that demands attention, leading you through the song’s moody corridors with a presence that defies material reality. There’s an ethereal pull to Moments of Silence, but it never floats too far into abstraction—this is alternative rock at its most tactile, driven by melody, tension, and an unshakable sense of purpose.

Hailing from Phoenix, Luxthereal have mastered the alchemy of melody and atmosphere, layering their sound with the echoes of decades past while refusing to be shackled by nostalgia.

Stream Moments of Silence on Spotify now: fans of atmospheric, hypnotic alt-rock—this one’s got your name on it.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Chelsea Lyn Meyer Fires Up the Future of Pop-Punk Nostalgia with ‘tease’

Posted on 15 March 2025

Chelsea Lyn Meyer slams the accelerator on early 2000s pop-punk nostalgia with tease, a track that revisits the era and rips through it with full-throttle energy. Over crunched, hyped, and gnarled guitar chords, she fuels the anthemic momentum with cannonball vocal lines, unleashing heavy emotive artillery. The hooks hit hard, the attitude is undeniable, and while the sound may spark memories of the genre’s golden days, Meyer is pushing it forward with visceral conviction.

Before launching her solo career, Meyer cut her teeth in the pop-punk outfit 2AM, where she built a reputation for crafting infectious, high-energy anthems. The band’s success led to music award wins, radio play, and slots supporting Capitol Records-signed artists. After 2AM disbanded, Meyer’s solo releases, including Between the Lies and This One’s On You, dominated indie radio charts, securing #1 spots on stations like Gaslight Radio in NYC and Indie Rock Radio in Nashville. Working with producer Michael Wuerth, she continued to amplify her presence with tracks that critics hailed as reinventions of the genre.

Now leading her debut EP, tease proves Meyer’s ability to reignite pop-punk’s essence while keeping it firmly planted in the present. With high-energy hooks and sharp, seductive confidence, this is a revival with teeth.

tease is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Beyond the Pale – Wayside’s Siren Call to the Void

Posted on 13 March 2025
Dusk to Dawn by Wayside

There’s nothing nostalgic about Wayside’s return—this is a band that never forgot how to bite. With Beyond the Pale, the Minneapolis rock veterans prove their alchemic chemistry hasn’t dulled in their years away; if anything, the formula has been refined into something even more potent.

Dripping in that alt-90s swagger—the kind that seeps into the synapses like a down-and-dirty aphrodisiac—Beyond the Pale pulls you under with primal rhythmic force. Pull away, and you’re left with a stark meditation on life’s only certainty: change. More often than not, those shifts pull us deeper into despair, a truth relayed through smoky, velvety vocal lines that ooze indie rock and roll charisma.

Imagine Velvet Revolver and The Black Keys stepping into uncharted sonic territory, and you’ll get an idea of what Wayside have delivered here. They aren’t just reviving the sound that landed them on the 2002 Vans Warped Tour—they’re letting the years since carve new depths into their songwriting. With their full-length LP, Dusk to Dawn, set to drop in April, it’s clear that their road-worn reflections have given them more to say than ever.

Wayside’s resurgence isn’t about reliving the past—it’s about proving they’ve still got the muscle to pull listeners into the undertow. And if Beyond the Pale is any indication, they’ve got plenty more where that came from.

Stream Beyond the Pale on Bandcamp now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Ramener’s ‘Anything & Everything’ Injects Visceral Emotion into Prog Rock Panache

Posted on 13 March 2025

Ramener, the veritable titans of Long Island’s alt-rock scene, flex their prog-rock muscles in Anything & Everything with an intro that wouldn’t be out of place in Tool’s discography. But it isn’t long before a high-octane melody locks into the monolithic tableau of viscerally expressive hard rock. The vocals don’t just cut through the mix—they soar beyond the riffs, injecting raw tendrils of emotion that twist around the instrumental intensity, making it clear that the aching lyrical delivery is the real driving force behind the crescendos.

Instead of using their technical chops as a means to showboat, Ramener channel their ability into something far more impactful—a sound that tightens around the soul with an iron grip. The sheer force of the track isn’t about volume or distortion; it’s about how much weight they pack into every note, every lyric, every calculated shift in dynamics. The instrumentals are wielded as artistic devices rather than the centrepiece, amplifying the tension until it reaches breaking point.

With a radio-ready sound that sacrifices none of its authenticity, Anything & Everything is a testament to Ramener’s ability to command attention without compromise. Their future couldn’t be much brighter.

Anything & Everything is available now on all major streaming platforms via this link.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Fleeting Paris’ ‘Movie Star Quality’ Stages a Reality Without a Curtain Call

Posted on 13 March 2025

Fleeting Paris may take an unconventional approach to songwriting, but even with the sonic rulebook ripped up and its ashes scattered, Movie Star Quality doesn’t sacrifice accessibility or affectability. The sticky-sweet vocals, unfeigned in their emotion, drift through the sting of unflinching staccato guitar rhythms, revealing a mastery of tension-building. There’s little rhythmic release in the track, and that’s exactly where its ingenuity lies—it subverts expectation, bypassing the cliché of a soaring chorus to stay true to reality, where we wait for breaks that never come.

Lyrically, the track dissects the Hollywood-glamorised human experience, exposing the diminishment of those who don’t don the façade, even as we acknowledge that our idols have long shed their autonomy. This lyrical meditation becomes even more immersive through Fleeting Paris’ Paul Simon-esque vocal lines, which know exactly how to lock emotion into melody.

The rejection of conventional song structure only strengthens the track’s impact. Instead of offering the instant gratification of predictability, Movie Star Quality forces listeners to sit in the discomfort of unresolved tension. It’s a soundtrack to disillusionment, but one that never alienates—because beneath the abstraction, there’s a raw sincerity that makes every note resonate.

Movie Star Quality is available now on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Jerrelle’s ‘Bluetooth’ Links Emotion to Strategy in a Hypnotic RnB Trap Pop Hit

Posted on 12 March 2025

You’ll have no problem connecting with Bluetooth, Jerrelle’s latest RnB trap pop single that ensnares with the beat and pulls you in deeper through his cultivated approach to lyrical storytelling. The track is a calculated and cultivated interplay of emotion and strategy, where every verse keeps you locked in.

As the single progresses, the full picture manifests through polished electro hooks and Jerrelle’s charismatically sharp vocal presence, which remains unflinchingly magnetic throughout the track. Adding an almost mind-bending dynamic is a carnivalesque polyphonic melody that cavorts around the bass-swathed beats, injecting unpredictability into the rhythm while the lyrics cut through with an awareness of modern connection as a game of moves and counter-moves. Who said romance was dead?

Jerrelle’s ability to hold the reins between vulnerability and control mirrors his diverse influences, spanning from Lauryn Hill to Brent Faiyaz. There’s a quiet intensity in his delivery, a balance of smoothness and sharp edges, reinforcing the complexity of human interaction that Bluetooth lays bare.

Bluetooth is available now on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

JNDJ Spun Reflections of Liberation into a Riff-Charged Pop Rock Anthem with ‘Mirrors’

Posted on 12 March 2025

JNDJ’s latest single Mirrors throws open the windows to let the light in while ripping through the airwaves with an unmistakable alt-90s edge. The track eases in with a dreamy jangle pop melody before slamming into full riff-charged momentum, intensifying the (literally and figuratively) reflective lyricism. The mix of heavy rock energy and Latin pop spirit adds an anthemic, emotionally raw quality, making every note hit with intention.

With its emancipating, bolstered with lyrical gold, Mirrors is the ultimate pick-me-up, freeing listeners from the toxic ties of negative perception. The bilingual vocals carve another layer into the liberating single, reinforcing its message of resilience and clarity.

For Julissa and Jesse Girardi, music has been a lifelong pursuit—one that led them through the highs of industry success before disillusionment pushed them to seek deeper meaning. After rediscovering their purpose, JNDJ returned with a sound that leans into their ability to create music that resonates far beyond surface-level appeal. Mirrors proves that when they step up to the mic, they ignite something transformative.

If JNDJ had risen alongside Garbage, Texas, and The Cranberries, they’d already be in the same breath of recognition. If you’re looking for a band that knows how to pull you from the depths and shake you back to life, this is the one to follow.

Stream the official video for Mirrors on YouTube now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast