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Music Blog for Indie Rock Fans

Olle Schelin Reached Alt-Indie Alchemy Through the Reverb-Heavy Melancholy of ‘Wave in My Direction’

Posted on 7 July 2026

Olle Schelin reached the pinnacle of alt-indie alchemy in his latest single, Wave in My Direction. The 100% DIY 22-year-old Malmö-based independent artist and multi-instrumentalist wrote, recorded, produced and mixed the release himself over several months, and that labour of love paid off, leaving nothing to be desired when searching for ornate details in the emotional architecture.

Everything lies in perfect synergy within the atmosphere of the languidly lush, artful approach to shoegaze-oriented indie. The incidentally cinematic melodies sprawl as they endlessly ascend in the production, while Schelin commands the same kind of evocative gravity as Jeff Buckley through vocals which augment as much as the guitars, bleeding into overdrive before once again finding restraint within the melancholy of the scarred cathedral of sound.

Wave in My Direction centres on attaching to people too fast, dependency, and the loss of self that follows when affection starts to swallow identity. That theme moves through percussive verses and explosive choruses with the force of an artist pulling confession into widescreen guitar music.

As one of the most affecting singles I have heard this year, battling through the mesmerism to pay tribute to the release through words proved difficult. The crescendos are a landslide of emotion, but it is the moody alt-90s intersections of math rock-esque experimentalism and sludgy reverb-heavy accordance that catch you in Olle Schelin’s grip. He carries all the contemporary cultivation of Jaws and Peace while delivering the same world-class songwriting as Thom Yorke. Why isn’t he at the top of the charts yet?

Wave in My Direction is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

LYRA’s ‘English Weather’ Hits Like Alt-Indie Petrichor After the Worst Kind of Goodbye

Posted on 30 June 2026

Metaphorically, when it rains, it pours, leaving us in the damp, morose poetry of petrichor, and no one knows that more than the alt-indie trio, LYRA. In their latest single, English Weather, the breakthrough act summoned a monsoon of meaning, letting grief move through the song as both a weather system and emotional aftermath.

The reverberations from the cavernous piano and guitar textures could move mountains as the lead vocals seductively languish inside the melancholy of the release. Clouds break for moments of gratitude to shine into the vignette of loss and memory, then gather again in choruses commanded with the same dramatic authority as Garbage’s biggest hits. The alt-90s act as a weathervane for this stunning blueprint of emotional attrition, penned in poetry and pain, while LYRA’s soul-inflected indie rock core anthemises the rawest facets of the human experience.

If you know how it feels to want one more day with someone already gone, the resonance in this intimate triumph, which builds around the emotional architecture of Wolf Alice, will hit hard enough to bruise. Produced and mixed by Larry Hibbitt, whose work spans Nothing But Thieves, Marmozets, Boston Manor and Sea Girls, English Weather marks the third single from LYRA’s forthcoming EP.

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

Review by Amelia Vandergast

LOCO TRANQUILO injected psychedelia into the liminal space between dreams and reality with the alt-indie hit, SUËÑO

Posted on 25 June 2026

Indie psychedelia reached a new potency with LOCO TRANQUILO’s latest single, SUËÑO; just one hit of the intoxicating meditation on what it means to live in a landscape mapped out by desire, memory and the dissonance of living between dreams and reality and you’ll be hooked on the alt-indie triumph.

Written, composed, sung and co-produced by Julian Armando Gervasi, SUËÑO pairs hypnotic Spanish vocals with lush guitars and immersive textures, turning its emotional landscape into something lucid, feverish and full of strange gravity. Recorded at Different Fur Studios in San Francisco, the single draws Latin soul, psychedelia and modern art-rock into a cinematic frame that deserves to be hung on your playlists.

The track sets an atmosphere through post-punk and new wave echoes in the verses before rampaging as an earworm of an indie anthem in the chorus. As eclectic as the arrangement is, LOCO TRANQUILO never lets the arcane sense of spirituality slip; it is as though the artist summoned forces beyond this millennium to make SUËÑO as primally magnetic as possible. With its accompanying visual by Eber Bravo extending the dream logic of the release, SUËÑO becomes a sensual portal between memory, longing and waking life.

SUËÑO is now available to stream on all major platforms. For the full experience, watch the official music video on YouTube. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Harper – Anymore: A Distortion-Maimed Shoegaze Hymn of Bloody Valentine-Esque Static Haunted by the Melancholy of Thom Yorke

Posted on 23 June 2026

If Thom Yorke ever lent his voice and rhythmic tendencies to My Bloody Valentine, the alt-indie scene would have imploded through everyone collectively losing their minds; the idea of what that would sound like ripples through Anymore, one of the standout singles, Anymore, from harper’s debut album, Breach.

Languid vocal notes stretch through the arrangement, drifting around the walls of distortion-maimed shoegaze guitars; each time the scuzz slips away, it leaves room for the sublimity within the melody to shine through the production alongside the ethereal voice and timbres of acoustic strings, juxtaposing the no-wavey noise that constantly feeds back floods of caustic energy from the amps.

Anymore is the kind of single that could reach you even in the darkest pit of despair, entrenched in its own sense of cultivated darkness, the kind of darkness which can only belong to the painfully self-aware, which, we imagine, comprises the vast majority of harper’s international fanbase, which they should be taking as a badge of cerebral honour.

The Detroit four-piece spent three years recording Breach, threading hundreds of guitar layers through pipe organ, string octet, piano and harp arrangements until the record became a colossal act of atmosphere. Produced by Nick West under the mentorship of Chris Vrenna, founding drummer of Nine Inch Nails, the album reflects its meticulous orchestration and the band’s obsessive devotion to aural purification.

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

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Ana & Gene – See Me Smile: a Riffed Out Power Pop Anthem for Unapologetic Selfhood

Posted on 23 June 2026

Imagine a fusion of the hook in Smells Like Teen Spirit and Hanson’s iconic MMMBop with Pixies-esque distortion drifting through the guitars before Blondie and Morrissey enter the mix, and you’ll get a good idea of the euphoria which swells through the sticky-sweet hit See Me Smile by power pop powerhouse Ana & Gene.

Once there has been enough syrupy harmony, the award-winning duo unleashes raw-as-a-razorblade-cut riffs, leaving swathes of adrenaline to drink in while visualising what it means to be unapologetically happy in the skin of your authenticity instead of wearing the uniform of socially prescribed happiness. See Me Smile is as empowering as it is uplifting, and therein lies the beauty of the always infectiously high-voltage duo.

The Chicago duo’s cross-genre fingerprints remain unmistakable, with Gene Roberts’ gold-certified pop history and Anastacia Bella’s research-led songwriting perspective feeding the track’s bright bite without sanding down its sharper edges. Since forming during the strange stillness of 2020, Ana & Gene have built their own lane through award recognition, international nominations and indie chart success, but See Me Smile feels more personal than a résumé flex. It is a Machiavellian grin with rebellious resistance behind it.

See Me Smile is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Pierre Englebert’s Jesus Night at the Britestar’ Serves Salvation with a Side of Psychedelic Absurdity’

Posted on 9 June 2026

Pierre Englebert cuts right to the surrealist core of absurdity with his latest single, Jesus Night at the Britestar, a psychedelically twisted rock vignette of satirical salvation which swells with the kaleidoscopic ingenuity of The Beatles, harmonises to the nines of The Beach Boys and swaggers into style with Pavement-esque woozy, off-kilter experimentalism.

Nothing in the fusionist approach to this instant soul-tugger compares to the meta cerebralism behind the orchestration. With far too much wry wit to resound as a novelty hit, Pierre Englebert practically creates a new form of comedy through honky gospel hues, reggae warmth and spacey cosmic sublimity, nodding to Eno in a way that proves his influence can spiral into the most unlikely forms.

Englebert’s double life as a Southern California professor of Comparative Politics and International Relations and prolific singer-songwriter only sharpens the track’s strange intelligence. Across seven albums since 2019, he has built a world of pop-rock, classical sensibility, singer-songwriter intimacy, comedy, storytelling and sophisticated chord turns, and Jesus Night at the Britestar sits among his most gloriously peculiar works. It visualises the kind of transcendence you feel after finding redemption somewhere strange, neon and spiritually sticky.

Whatever Pierre Englebert does next, we’re convinced it will show us another kind of light we’ve never witnessed before.

Jesus Night at the Britestar is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Alley Eyes Mainlined Digital Exhaustion Through Stadium-Sized Indie Euphoria in ‘Punisher’

Posted on 6 June 2026

Alley Eyes are unrivalled when it comes to sticky-sweet supersonic indie hooks, and yes, that includes Sam Fender. In their latest single, Punisher, the band launch their own adrenalized-to-the-nines philosophical inquiry, digging into how nihilism has become the crux of the collective psyche, as our overstimulated minds try to keep pace with relentless stimuli, propaganda, and the digital pointlessness of modernity.

Born in the band’s home studio, Punisher captures the isolation-craving desire to escape it all while still turning that tension into a release built for live rooms. The chorus lands like a cathartic rupture, transforming modern dread into the kind of alternative anthem that feels engineered to open a set and detonate the room before anyone has time to brace themselves.

With sharp enough songwriting chops to slice their way to the top of the indie charts, the sheer force of the vocals sugars the serious swagger of the stadium-ready instrumentals. Alley Eyes are a rare band whose talent translates into pure euphoria-laced adrenaline, turning frustration, exhaustion, and existential static into something dangerously playable.

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

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Johnny spat out the poison of complacency in the Mediterranean alt-rock shadows of ‘This is Your Life’

Posted on 4 June 2026
https://soundcloud.com/johnnytheb/this-is-your-life?ref=clipboard&p=i&c=1&si=7D72A90A0ACA47559D995845CA070762&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Johnny B brought the Mediterranean’s scorched intensity into dark Americana with This is Your Life, a cinematic alt-rock release created in collaboration with Daniele Macchi. After the Greek alternative artist unleashed the track, a parallel world where Nick Cave soaked up the sun-dazed pressure of the coast and baked it into his dark, snarling sessions of alt-rock alchemy suddenly felt dangerously easy to picture.

Penned around the epiphany that we sleepwalk through stale days without awareness of the sands of time slipping around us, This is Your Life is a sobering full-frontal allegory that refuses to pull its lyrical punches. Instead, it amplifies them through the shadowy intensity falling over this revolutionised reckoning of rock, turning self-awareness into something sharp enough to bruise.

With artful textures pushing the single beyond classic rock territory while keeping the core direct enough for long-standing rock devotees, Johnny B delivers a track capable of carrying the results of ennui into a cross-generational audience. The crossover appeal is as fierce as the thematic core of this sermon on the poison of complacency.

This is Your Life is now available to stream on all major platforms, including SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

credits Pushed Alt-Country Away from Indie Landfill with the Rose-Tinted Sting of Evergreen

Posted on 1 June 2026

If any contemporary band is worthy of being the ambassador for Liverpool’s culturally rich indie scene, it’s credits, who turned their latest single, Evergreen, into a session in soul-deep sublimity, carried by quasi-prophetic grace in the lyrics and the way they are projected into the expanse of alt-country, 90s indie, and Americana.

Put an Americana twang against the soaring choruses of Gold Against the Soul-era Manic Street Preachers and the introspective candour of Mansun, and you arrive at the dusky alchemy of credits, a band paving their way away from indie landfill with pure sonic gold.

Nothing in the production is overblown, giving Evergreen the intimate lack of pretence that became synonymous with college radio rock, yet credits place each note in euphonic suspension, creating a cinematically visual, radio-ready feather in their cap. Pedal steel, jangly guitar chimes, and Jay Morris’ reflective storytelling turn the track into a rose-tinted reckoning with a past love that still rattles around the mind like an address you remember too well.

The Liverpudlian power-pop songsmiths wear the lineage of George Harrison, Tom Petty, Neil Young, James Taylor, and Laurel Canyon harmony with open devotion, while production from Ben Harper and mixing from JB Pilon keep the single rooted in the future of indie. Whoever said you can’t have the best of both worlds?

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

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Concealer Dragged Angular Guitars and Stone Roses Swagger into Shoegaze’s Next Burst Through the Alt-Indie Zeitgeist with their Debut, ‘Someone’

Posted on 30 May 2026

Alt-90s ear candy is sweeter than ever now that Concealer have entered the alt-indie circuit with their debut single, Someone. After hooking shoegaze fans hook, reel, and sinker with iconic Slowdive-esque angular guitar notes drifting into a kaleidoscope of choral saturation, the band pivots into vocal swagger possessed by Stone Roses and Fontaines D.C., with cadencing so hypnotic and kinetic it acts as a percussive instrument as much as a conduit for bittersweet longing.

Someone feels built from the residue of smoke-machined venues, scuffed pedals, overdriven youth, and the weary romance of guitars sounding half-awake and fully haunted. The production keeps its shoegaze haze lucid enough for the hooks to cut through, while the vocal line prowls across the track with the clipped bite of post-punk and the loose-limbed cool of 90s indie rock.

With just enough psychedelia to twist the atmosphere in a way we’re sure Bez would get high on, Concealer pushed indie shoegaze beyond its usual revivalist limits and landed on something far more affecting than genre nostalgia. Their debut carries the confidence of a band already aware of the room they can command and the cultural pressure they can apply. Someone is a masterstroke of a first strike, armed with exactly what is needed to keep the cultural zeitgeist in a chokehold until their next release.

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

 Review by Amelia Vandergast