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Music Blog for Indie Rock Fans

Vindication, Vintage Curves and Sonic Swagger Come Alive in Jimmy Stanfield’s Maybe I’m Doing Something Right By Me

Right Side of Time by Jimmy Stanfield

Jimmy Stanfield served a soul-affirming reminder to trust your own calibration with Maybe I’m Doing Something Right By Me, the third single from his forthcoming LP Right Side of Time, landing in full on July 25th. As a mash of alt-indie, rock, soul and psychedelic garage blues, the track unveils the Melbourne-based singer-songwriter as a troubadour who sees sonic lines as arbitrary barricades to pour rootsy rock colour across.

Already an icon at synthesising style, swagger, soul and substance, Stanfield shakes, rattles and rolls the new intersections right out of rock to deliver groove-led installations of euphoria. His vocals lift the track as much as the horn stabs from Joe Auckland that everyone can prise a little hedonic satisfaction from. If you’ve reached your people-pleasing limit and now it’s time to riff to your own strings, Maybe I’m Doing Something Right By Me needs to be locked and loaded into your vindicating rock playlists.

From the execution of the authentically timbered production to the way suspense grips before every vintage curveball is thrown to the liberating lyricism, the single proves that if anyone has the chops to push rock back into the mainstream spotlight, it’s Jimmy Stanfield.

Featuring players from Lana Del Rey, Elvis Costello, The Libertines and Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, this indie launch has major-label magnetism without compromise.

Maybe I’m Doing Something Right By Me is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Bandcamp. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

The Holidazed Let the Psyche Bloom in the Sun-Warped Escapism of ‘In My Garden’

When the vibes are as high as the instrumentals are hypnotic, carried by intricate time signatures that warp the mind before the feel-good euphoria seeps into the psyche, you know you’ve stumbled across a diamond in the rough. Case in point, The Holidazed’s latest single, In My Garden, is escapism in its purest form.

There may be nods to the pains of the human condition, but nothing that weighs heavy enough to pull the sheer infectious empowering sanctity of In My Garden down to earth. It remains a safe space on the airwaves to sink into and float within. Within the fabric of the prog rock, there are angular contortions of indie post-punk guitars that take the typical cold monochromatic chill, park it on a sun lounger and give it a sun tan.

The Holidazed, with More Better Band riding shotgun, are clearly on a mission to stretch the limits of sound and serenity. Their reggae-infused progressive rock isn’t manufactured to move units, it’s built to transport souls.

After relocating from Jacksonville Beach to South Florida, The Holidazed doubled down on the freedom in their sonic DNA. Whether they’re tearing through high-energy sets or folding saxophone textures into lush rhythmic psychedelia, they’re chasing moments that unchain the listener from the mundane. They channel the perseverance of underdogs, the hope of dreamers, and the spirit of sweat-soaked liberation with a sound that’s equally chaotic and calculated. Save your soul and get stuck in.

In My Garden is now available to stream on all major platforms via this link.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Ben Withers Poured Lyrical Grace into the Pressure Cooker of Modern Life with ‘Take It Easy’

The latest lyrical outpouring from Ben Withers takes the 00s indie pop rock aesthetic and translates it into an emotionally augmented ballad for the contemporary airwaves. With endless depth and weight, Take It Easy is literally and figuratively a force to be reckoned with. Beneath the euphonic arrangement of diaphanous orchestral notes and a grounding rhythm section lies a plea for softness; for the grace of pacing. This isn’t about nostalgia or superficial sentimentality. It’s about hitting the wall and needing the world to pause.

The lyrical underpinnings tear into the pain of being pushed by your limit, and honestly, that speaks to the collective emotional bandwidth of just about everyone right now. Brighton-based Ben Withers knew exactly where to strike. With a sound sculpted by influences that stretch from Celtic mysticism to cinematic folk to alternative rock’s rawer roots, he builds a space where escapism meets confrontation. His atmospheric touches bring levity without glossing over the emotional wreckage beneath.

Originally from Witney, Oxfordshire, Withers channels the introspective edge of folk with the expansive energy of pop rock and the intimacy of acoustic storytelling. He has crafted a sonic signature that isn’t interested in fleeting hooks. Take It Easy is built to linger, to pull you back in long after the final chord has faded.

Ben Withers may not be the most popular Withers the industry has seen… yet… but he has all the potential to be.

Take It Easy is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Inamorata Refracted Unspoken Reverence Through a Prism of Power Pop in ‘Rainbow’

True to its title, Inamorata’s latest single, Rainbow, is a kaleidoscope of colour, filtered through the prism of power pop nostalgia. Echoes of the Psychedelic Furs ripple through the verses before the choruses erupt in vibrant guitar-driven fervour. Even with its lo-fi aesthetic, nothing gets lost in translation. The textures may be frayed at the edges, but everything within the mix rings with clarity, framing singer-songwriter Ramses Bulsara as one of the most affectingly uplifting evocateurs of his generation. If your world is lacking colour, you know exactly where to find it with this release.

Beneath the punchy chords and fluorescent hues lies an emotional nucleus few would expect. Rainbow is not a romantic confession, it’s a secret sent out into the ether. A love letter without a name, written in solitude, addressed to Daniela Villarreal of The Warning. The admiration lives in the subtext, buried in the late-night recordings and the soaring refrains. Bulsara never dared to send her a message. Instead, he gave the world this track, hoping it might drift into the right ears.

It’s a bridge built between continents. A sonic thread stretched between Jakarta and Monterrey, wrapped in admiration and vulnerability, but never veering into self-indulgence. His longing never asks for reciprocation. It simply asks to be heard.

Rainbow is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify. Connect with the artist and find your preferred way to listen on Instagram.  

Review by Amelia Vandergast

steel. Gnashed Through Verbal Impositions with the Sonic Fangs of ‘DFTTM’

steel. ripped through the monotony of passive tolerance with DFTTM (don’t fucking talk to me), a protestive anthem that doesn’t flinch while delivering its seething sermon on self-preservation. The female-led trio, forged in Liverpool’s underground in 2023, have already honed their spoken word-soaked post-punk into a serrated art form, setting themselves apart with a snarling, moody aesthetic rooted in the lineage of Sonic Youth, Velvet Underground, and Pixies without rinsing their legacy for easy cool points.

With DFTTM, steel. launched a riptide of angular no-wave indie guitars and scathing lyrical defiance. It’s a full-bodied reaction to every dynamic and extension of condescension you’ve ever swallowed, loaded with the kind of vindication that leaves nothing but a scorched void in its wake. Cultdreams-esque spoken word discontent collides with a pulse that could tear right through the jugular of a juggernaut. It riles on every conceivable level, and never once pulls its punches.

This is the sound of a band that has outgrown the standard punk tantrum. They’ve turned frustration into a weapon. The kinetic energy bleeding from the instrumentation gives DFTTM a purpose beyond rebellion for the sake of noise. The morality running through it is sharp, unfeigned, and unapologetic. With support slots for Big Joanie, Skating Polly, and Lou Barlow’s Folk Implosion already behind them, steel. are fast becoming the sonic frontline of DIY queer punk, and they are far from finished.

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

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Paul James Project Translates the Afterlife into Atmosphere in the Alt-Indie Grief Anthem ‘Speak to Me in Silence’

With Speak to Me in Silence, UK singer-songwriter Paul James Project candidly cracks open the consuming complexity of grief after the loss of a parent and pours the bitter-sweet mourning into an anthemic synthesis of Britpop and shimmers of alt indie euphoria to lift listeners struggling with their own multifaceted pain into an atmosphere which can hold all of the pain personal nostalgia can carry.

More than just a lament of what we lose as we mature and meet all the pains of material reality, there’s a metaphysical power to the poetically titled track, which attests to how the lack of physical presence doesn’t have to mean total emotional absence. Sonically, thematically, and emotionally, it’s a stunningly rendered release of relief for anyone struggling to see the light in grief.

With industry heavyweights involved in the production, including Grammy-nominated Chris Potter (The Verve, The Rolling Stones), every instrumental, from the angular indie guitar notes to the cathartic pulse of the percussion, lends itself to the visualisation of this emotionally-charged tour de force.

Following collaborations with Billy Lawrie and praise from Will Champion of Coldplay, the project is gaining traction ahead of the debut album Book of Memories, due in autumn 2025.

Speak to Me in Silence is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Crooked Cranes Thaw Nostalgia in the Sonic Heatwave of ‘Mehico’ with Proto-Punk Sun-Stroked Intimacy

Mehico by Crooked Cranes

With their latest track, Crooked Cranes set a reel of vintage college radio static on fire with proto-punk soul and surf rock swagger. Hailing from Fuquay Varina, North Carolina, this group of lifelong friends, Josh Faw, Dylan Hornaday, Andrew Bateman, and Josh’s younger brother, Addison, on bass, didn’t hold back while laying their influences bare. You can feel the aftershocks of Dinosaur Jr., Built to Spill, and The White Stripes in their foundations, but this tape-deck bruiser refuses to sit neatly beside any one influence. It glows with its own baked-out fever.

‘Mehico’ spills out like a sun-bleached sojourn between DIY indie rock adolescence and late-night poetic abandon. The angular guitar lines flicker like mirages over asphalt, while the rallying vocal delivery scorches with the kind of imagery that sears itself into your synapses. It’s the kind of track you can picture driving the emotional undercurrents of a 00s cult classic like The OC, equal parts sonic catharsis and golden-hour haze.

The lo-fi charm isn’t a by-product—it’s a calculated choice that wraps you in the warmth of nostalgic radio waves. Crooked Cranes channel the spirit of The Psychedelic Furs on a beach retreat, lifting stylistic threads from R.E.M.’s most emotionally honest cuts without ever slipping into mimicry. There’s euphoria here, curated not with gloss, but grit sanded down to something oddly soothing.

‘Mehico’ is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Bandcamp.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

ExWife Stirs the Ashes of Rock Rebirth – An Interview with Ria

With her debut LP, ExWife’s frontwoman, Ria, throws open the windows on a decade’s worth of songwriting shaped by chaos, rebirth, and a hunger for the unvarnished truth. In this candid interview, Ria traces the arc from whispered phone demos—recorded amidst the daily reality of motherhood—to the raw, live-wire performances that define ExWife’s sound. The conversation explores the band’s commitment to authenticity in an era where perfection is polished and feeling often fades. Ria opens up about how personal upheaval, from religious restrictions to post-divorce liberation, set the stage for ExWife’s distinct voice, while also weighing in on the pitfalls of contemporary songwriting and the pulse of playing live around the Pacific Northwest. For those ready to step outside the formulaic, this is a debut—and a story—worth your full attention.

Welcome to A&R Factory, Ria – and congratulations on the release of Blow. It’s a pleasure to have you here to talk about ExWife’s debut and everything that brought it to life.

It is our pleasure to share the new record! Thank you for having us, Amelia.

Ten years is a long time to hold onto songs before releasing them into the world—how did your relationship with the material shift during that time, and what made now feel like the right moment to let Blow out?

The songs had a wild metamorphosis over these ten years. They started out as phone recordings while I was taking care of my at-the-time 2 and 3-year-old toddlers. In a lot of those early recordings, you can actually hear them singing along or asking for more crackers. But it was during the most chaotic time of my life that I felt compelled to write the majority of these songs. The band developed the sound above and beyond what I would have been able to do by myself. I enjoy bedroom recordings, but I was born to play rock and roll. The wait to release this music has been so long; most of the hangups have been around life just happening. 

You’ve mentioned that Blow was recorded almost completely live—what does capturing that kind of immediacy in the studio mean to you, and how does it affect your relationship with the songs when you take them to the stage?

For our band, it was important to be able to bring what we had made in the studio onto a live stage. This album really has very minimal overdubs, and even some of the vocals are from the live takes we did, which I feel amazing and proud about. More and more we are hearing recordings that are manipulated, comped, over-processed, and in my opinion, stray from the real thing. We’ve introduced AI into the field, and I think we are doing ourselves a disservice in the pursuit of a “perfect” album or single. I always want to strive to make our music sound like what it is – the sonic truth. Playing live is one of my favorite things in the world. Orchestrating an experience with these songs we have made is an unbelievable feeling. 

There’s clearly an emotional arc running through the 14 tracks on the record—can you talk us through the themes that tie it together and what you hope listeners take from the full record experience?

The arc I hear within the album is one of loneliness, frustration, and rebirth, but that is my interpretation. Our music is out in the world now, and I have no intention of trying to control the narrative of it. What someone feels while listening to our music is their experience alone. My entire life was wrapped up in these songs, and for me they have been a facilitator for healing and joy. I sincerely hope others might be affected in a similar way.

 Starting the band during a turning point in your relationship must have given the project a very personal core. How much of that original emotional foundation remains present in ExWife today?

ExWife will always be deeply personal for me. My bandmates are still some of the people I spend the most of my time with. 

The comparisons to artists like The Breeders and PJ Harvey are undoubtedly flattering, but you’ve said that you weren’t actively trying to sound like any era or artist. What were you chasing sonically and emotionally when shaping ExWife’s sound?

I grew up religious and was not allowed to listen to a lot of modern or classic rock, and still into my late 20s, had never listened to an AC/DC song or anything remotely heavy and dirty. After my divorce, I was free to listen to anything I wanted to, and I was always drawn to rock and roll. Any flavor, any year, I just adore rock music. This was something super new and exciting. I had started to pick up the electric guitar, and it felt like a beautiful marriage. Heavy beefy tone with the sometimes saccharine, sometimes sexy lyrics that I had been writing. The band never sat down together and said, ‘we should sound like this’, the magic just happened when we played together. We all come from different backgrounds with different musical tastes, and I think our combination sounds pretty delicious.

You’ve been open about how modern music often feels oversimplified to you. What do you think has been lost in contemporary songwriting, and what standards do you personally hold your lyrics and compositions to? 

Modern music has become more and more simplified over the years. They’ve done studies on this, and we use fewer words, limited vocabulary, sing less about love and more about pain, and even use more generic chord structure in our songs today. They say people want easy listening, but I’m not convinced this is actually what we want as individuals, but more as a society. Contemporary songwriting has become extraordinarily blunt and repetitive. For me, a good song has the ability to be vague but still evoke an emotional reaction from the lyrics. When I write songs, I am putting on different people and then viewing it from their perspective. It’s all about play and how we can shape a story within the song that is important to me.  

Gigging around the Pacific Northwest, what has stood out to you most about the live reception to your songs, and how have those shows shaped your vision for what ExWife can become?

Gigging can be very up and down. The venues are still recovering from the pandemic, and crowd attendance can be very unpredictable. I love playing live, and it’s my hope that we will be playing bigger shows down the road. Plans to add lighting and other little touches are in the works.  A lot of artists are chasing Spotify metrics, but to me, those don’t hold a candle to having a packed venue and getting to experience playing our music with a real-time reaction and response. My favorite show memory is probably playing Wild West, and the barback was standing against the back wall, absolutely locking into the groove. It’s those little moments I would play over and over again for. 

With this powerful debut now available, what’s next for ExWife creatively—and what do you feel this record has set in motion for you going forward?

We are just getting started. More music is in the works, and it is my intention to release another album very soon. Tits up, and let’s rock.

Stream ExWife on Spotify now, and connect with the artist via Instagram and TikTok. 

Interview by Amelia Vandergast

Conner Eko’s Indie Pop-Rock Panache Swaggers Through Protest and Funk in ‘A Farewell to Arms’

Conner Eko’s latest single, A Farewell to Arms, strides into indie pop with a funk-wrapped arrangement that lands like a gauntlet. The earworm will swagger its way right into your psyche, bringing with it an exuberance that almost defies aural science, attesting to the Cali pop artist’s alchemic approach to bringing his art to life, and in the process of doing so, giving his listeners a lust for their own lives.

This is a protest track that doesn’t flinch as it pushes the limits of what pop can be. Eko’s production turns sharp observation into music that compels action. Serpentine guitar riffs inject rock’s intensity as the track progresses, and his chameleonic vocals drive home the defiance that pulses through every line. The jaunty piano pop opening gives way to a full-scale protestive rock opera, confronting the fucked up state of America and the twisted priorities that have shaped it. Amidst the blistering commentary, Eko allows a sliver of hope to cut through for anyone searching for a semblence of sanity in the chaos.

With two decades behind him as a songwriter, educator, and astrophysicist in Vallejo, California, Eko channels lived experience and hard-won perspective into his sound. After fronting Falling Andes and pursuing science, he returns with music that’s both immediate and urgent. International collaborations with musicians from Japan, Brazil, and Portugal bring added force, but the message remains Eko’s: unfiltered, unwavering, and impossible to ignore.

A Farewell to Arms is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Calm Adore Found the Sweet Spot Between Commercial Appeal and Soul in Their Alt-Indie Debut, ‘Stranger’

‘Stranger’, the debut single from Calm Adore, is the perfect way to get acquainted with the indie rock newcomers who deliver the soul-soaring choruses of Sam Fender and the gruff vocal timbre of Richard Hawley, with tinges of Editors in the production that allows you to feel the melodies as they shimmer and blossom.

It’s safe to say that Calm Adore has done more than hit the ground running with their debut release; they’ve found the perfect formula—one which finds equilibrium between familiar radio-ready commercial appeal and authenticity that aches with the sincerity of an artist who would give their blood, sweat and tears for their career but keep hold of their soul, because that’s exactly what distinguishes Calm Adore from the indie landfill acts of 2025.

After years of writing, recording, and performing together under their former guise, The Penniless Wild, the US-based outfit has reemerged with a refined sound built on analog instrumentation and ambient textures. With layered guitar lines, taut rhythmic tension, and worn-in vocal gravitas.

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

Review by Amelia Vandergast