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The term ‘indie’ in the music industry has become so ambiguous it has practically become as subjective as the meaning of life. Whichever way it is defined, it is still a massive part of the music industry in the UK and across the globe.

Originally, indie referred to how an artist distributed their music. Over the decades, it became a catch-all term for artists sharing the same sonic off-kilter edge; and, of course, the same moody yet inexplicably cool aesthetic. Indie, as a genre, only came around as the result of experimental artists in the 70s wanting to bring a new sound to the airwaves; instead of solely hoping for commercial success after appeasing one of the major record labels.

Indie artists adopted punk ethos they started to push the boundaries of pop. Instead of commercialising their sound, they pushed it into post-punk, shoegaze, synthpop, Britpop, avant-garde, noise rock and dream pop arenas. For all that separates bands such as Sonic Youth, the Cure, The Smiths, The Stone Roses, Joy Division, Elliott Smith and Radiohead, there is still so much that ties them together, namely their attitudes and the loud discordant style.

Along with the bands, iconic venues such as the 100 Club in London, the Hacienda in Manchester, and King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut in Glasgow had a pivotal part to play in the traction of independent artists and music. New Indie labels, such as Rough Trade and Factory Records, were amongst the first record labels to truly embrace and encourage experimentalism and authenticity in the artists they scouted and signed – taking New Order and Joy Division as a prime example.

It may have been a while since there was an indie breakthrough act as successful as the Arctic Monkeys, but indie music has far from lost its resonance. Besides, Monkeys won over 42 awards and sold over 20 million records, so that’s going to take some beating, and they’re certainly not the only indie artists currently thriving.

The Welsh indie rock icons, the Manic Street Preachers, celebrated their first number 1 album in 23 years with the release of Ultra Vivid Lament in 2021. The Tarantino-Esque Liverpool outfit, Red Rum Club, released their debut album in 2019, and got to number 14 in the official album sales chart with their album, How to Steal the World, in 2021. Perhaps most impressively, the world’s first CryptoPunk rapper, Spottie Wifi, made just under $200k in album NFT sales in 90 seconds this year.

Noah Nordman Constructed an Indie Pop Rock ‘Paradise’ with His Latest Raw Revelation of a Release

Posted on 1 April 2025

Noah Nordman perceptibly shares melodic DNA with Sam Fender, but within his sound lies far more than sonic assimilation; he delivers stridence twined seamlessly with indie sensibility. His latest single, ‘Paradise’, is cultivatedly twee, presenting Nordman as an artist who wears both his heart and his digressions openly on his guitar strings and soaring vocal lines.

As the rhythm section steadily feeds the track’s pulse, all peaks and valleys emerge courtesy of Nordman’s elastic vocal range, contracting and extending to flood the track with endless nuance. This melodic confession bursts with blistering emotion, subverting the stereotypical tranquillity of summery indie-pop-rock into an intimate canvas that vibrantly colours Nordman’s vulnerability and candour.

Based in Indianapolis, Nordman made his initial impact through the 2022 release of his debut, two-part album, SHIPWRECKED!. Following live performances across breweries and distilleries, he transformed his ambition into reality by diving headfirst into home production. With ‘Paradise’—the first of multiple planned 2025 releases—his powerful, clean vocals align effortlessly with impactful lyricism that blends indie-pop immediacy with singer-songwriter introspection.

Nordman’s music invites listeners into a world where emotional sincerity bursts free from indie-pop convention. ‘Paradise’ confidently positions him as an artist unafraid to colour outside the lines, providing listeners with a melodic outpouring as authentic as it is unforgettable.

‘Paradise’ is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Soundcloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Hayden Royal explores the pain of knowing no decision is a remedy in his Indietronic RnB release, ‘Side by Side’

Posted on 30 March 2025

Hit play on Hayden Royal’s latest single, ‘Side by Side’, and brace yourself as emotion makes a full-on collision. Like every accomplished songwriter, Royal understands that affecting expression requires moving beyond thinking in black and white; here, he skilfully navigates the grey areas of duality. The lyrical protagonist faces a familiar yet brutal paradox—the pain of leaving someone can often match the agony of staying. Decisions become unbearable when love persists despite toxic dynamics, creating a tension that Royal vividly portrays.

Instrumentally, ‘Side by Side’ is an authentic amalgamation of indietronica, pop, and RnB—delivering something you genuinely haven’t encountered elsewhere. It’s a raw yet harmoniously layered exploration of indecision and grief, anchored by moody melodies, introspective lyricism, and soul-infused harmonies. Royal boldly traverses the chaotic push and pull between vulnerability and bravado, embodying a voice which will resonate with anyone caught between resilience and emotional collapse.

With darkly atmospheric production underscoring introspective verses and haunting hooks, Royal channels both tenderness and emotional exhaustion. There’s no bitterness here—just an honest reflection from a narrator clinging desperately to fleeting moments of warmth, knowing they’re scarcely enough to hold onto. With fearless candour, ‘Side by Side’ captures the universal struggle of letting go when holding on feels equally destructive.

‘Side by Side’ is now available to stream on all major platforms, including SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Embrace Emotional Suspension with Daniel Liam Glyn’s Downtempo Dream ‘in this moment for days’

Posted on 29 March 2025

‘in this moment for days’, from Daniel Liam Glyn’s latest LP ‘WHEN THE DEVIL DRIVES’, is a slice of indie dream pop reverie that lifts the tones of retro-futurism to a plateau of pure euphonic bliss. Downtempo electronica, trip-hop, and synth-pop coalesce in distinctive flux, offering tranquillity as you’ve never experienced, yet a dreamy palette you’ll compel yourself to acquaint yourself with, time and time again.

Ethereal dream-pop vocals echo tenderness into the release, wrapping delicately around the beauty of preserving perfect moments. The single grasps these ephemeral instants tightly, praying the romance found within small details stays clear from memory’s obscurity. It’s a soundtrack to bliss in every true sense, gentle yet unshakably memorable.

Daniel Liam Glyn, a Manchester-born composer renowned for sinking synaesthesia into his compositions, channels his unique visual perception of colour and sound directly into ‘in this moment for days’. Influenced by the contemporary minimalist styles of composers like Erik Satie and Steve Reich, Glyn transforms abstract mental hues into tangible sonic landscapes. His latest album navigates themes of mental health, hazy recollections, and fleeting serenity, and nowhere is this balance clearer than in this dreamy soundscape—an invitation to pause, reflect, and remain in emotional suspension.

‘in this moment for days’ is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

White Picket Fences Are a Lie: Pillowprince Rewire Queer Disillusionment in ‘R the Straights OK’

Posted on 29 March 2025

With ‘R the Straights OK’, the Oakland indie gaze trio Pillowprince crack open heteronormativity with a switchblade grin and the simmering scorn of lived queer reality. What starts in alt-indie quiescence, all ethereal lilt and slowburn restraint, fractures with a scuzzy interlude that proves distortion isn’t just a sonic texture—it’s the emotional static that fuzzes over every moment spent being bent into someone else’s blueprint.

Crafted from the leather-creased, glitter-smeared spaces Pillowprince call home, the track flickers between fragility and defiant force. Olivia Lee’s vocals, feather-light but sharpened with conviction, echo through the mix like the ghost of a version of yourself you tried to edit out. As the instrumentation teases the hook with near-ritualistic patience, you’re pulled into a queer coming-of-age narrative where conformity is the real villain. The melodic breaks are more than sonic punctuation—they’re the spaces where all the unspoken things pool.

Lyrically, it’s a spicy satirical stab at the expectation to fall in line—white picket fences, 2.5 kids, dead-eyed suburbia—before it swerves back into the shadows of a different kind of fulfilment. This is queer unity under pressure. A noise-drenched consolation for anyone crushed under the weight of pretending that “normal” ever meant safe. With Sea Snyder on drums and Liza Stegall on bass locking in a rhythm section that holds its shape even as everything else implodes, the band embodies queer rebellion.

‘R the Straights OK’ is now available to stream on all major platforms via this link. 


Review by Amelia Vandergast.

Sebastian Graysen’s ‘Heartless Man’: A Raw Folk Confession in the Eye of the Existential Storm

Posted on 28 March 2025

The debut release from folk-adjacent singer-songwriter Sebastian Graysen taps into emotional pulses with neo-classic minor piano keys before vocals enter, caught compellingly between folk troubadourism and Broadway-style breathtaking visceralism.

The contrast between instrumental restraint and the raw outpouring of pain within the vocals intensifies the affecting propensities of this timelessly classic session of existential questioning. For anyone who knows how it feels to hold far more questions than answers or struggles to find affirmations beneath dark clouds, ‘Heartless Man’ stands as the ultimate reflection of psychological entropy.

Graysen’s songwriting is the unfiltered confessional of an artist who openly admits, “I write, I scream, I feel,” channelling personal hardship and emotional turbulence into music. Based in Limerick, Ireland, Graysen draws from a potent mix of folk honesty, classical refinement, and rock’s raw immediacy, orchestrating to make sense of life but also to heal through shared resonance.

‘Heartless Man’ serves as proof that music born from personal anguish can find universal connection. With its poignant minimalism and powerful vocals, Graysen offers a track which embraces vulnerability without apology. It reaches beyond mere introspection, delivering an anthem for anyone living under existential shadows, uncertain yet yearning for release.

‘Heartless Man’ is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Jack Kendrick and The Broken Wonders Cut to the Core with the Folk-Punk Candour in ‘Spoke to My Doctor’

Posted on 28 March 2025
Jack Kendrick and The Broken Wonders

With an evocative sting sharp enough to cut through the coldest souls, Spoke to My Doctor pulls all the right emotively bruising punches. Jack Kendrick and The Broken Wonders are void of pretence as they put melodies to the maladies of the modern age, distilling the agony of a system designed to manage, not mend. The alt-90s aura bleeds through every chord, carrying the weight of raw emotion as the instrumentals fuel the energy and the lyrics lay bare the disillusionment.

Emotionally, the track pivots on a knife-edge, striking with unfiltered honesty. If you’ve ever stared down the tunnel, squinting for a light that refuses to show, or placed your faith in a medical system too ill-equipped to salve the wounds it barely acknowledges, Spoke to My Doctor will hit like a gut punch. The emotion isn’t just in the words—it’s in the way every note aches, in the expressive vocals that never veer into performance for performance’s sake.

After years of relentless gigging, sharing stages with folk-punk legends like Gaz Brookfield and Ferocious Dog, Jack Kendrick has built a reputation for no-frills, high-impact storytelling. This single only cements that further, proving their ability to turn personal turmoil into a cathartic anthem.

For anyone who’s ever felt unheard, Spoke to My Doctor makes sure the message is loud and clear.

Spoke to My Doctor is now available on all major streaming platforms.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

OCEANS OF TEARS Delivered a Neon-Lit Lifeline with ‘LOSING MY WILL TO LIVE’

Posted on 27 March 2025

After starting with the iconic ‘snap out of it’ line by Cher in Moonstruck, which proves OCEANS OF TEARS has their finger on the pulse of the cultural zeitgeist, ‘LOSING MY WILL TO LIVE’ slides into a high-energy synthesis of 80s-spiked pop rock which serves an infectious chorus as the main sonic dish in this existential utopia.

With synth lines streaming neon lights into the production in place of a cliché rock riff, the track remains a seamless ride through synth-pop nostalgia while OCEANS OF TEARS maintains a firm grip on what brings distinctive panache to his sound.

Drawn from Steve W. Boily’s rock musical, Bullet in a Gun, ‘LOSING MY WILL TO LIVE’ confronts despair at its most unfiltered, capturing the raw agony of losing everything—love, work, pride. In a global climate weighed down by economic uncertainty, looming tariffs, and widespread job insecurity, the soul-stirring lyrics feel heartbreakingly real and strike harder than ever. Ian Hardwick’s guest vocals amplify the emotional intensity, channelling betrayal, failure, and isolation into a powerful anthem of desperation.

This is pop-rock sharpened to a neon-lit edge; honest, relentless, and emotionally charged.

‘LOSING MY WILL TO LIVE’ is now available to stream on all major platforms, including YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

The Sonic Prism Cracked: Damian Wolf Splits the Alt-Rock Spectrum on ‘Flying Colors’

Posted on 26 March 2025

Damian Wolf didn’t just carry the alt-rock flame into his debut LP—he set it ablaze with every saturated string. On the title single Flying Colors, the Maryland-born 20-year-old commands his solo project with the kind of DIY nerve that rarely finds this much cultivation. Entirely self-recorded, mixed, and mastered in his bedroom studio, the track stands as a defiant declaration: no one else engineers Wolf’s chaos—he shapes it into art with his own hands.

He carved his teeth on early ’90s grunge and hard rock, filtered that influence through the discord of noise rock and post-hardcore, then added his own commercial alt sensibility to the mix without sanding down the edges, resulting in a track that channels shoegaze and grunge into high-octane alt-rock visceral volition. When the overdriven guitars refrain from the production, the choral layers of reverb-soaked guitars are left to synergise with Wolf’s arcanely sweet vocals, which bleed into the mix that’s mercilessly blasted by punk’s percussive pulse.

It may often feel like there aren’t many more alt-rock intersections to explore, but Wolf didn’t just find one—he scorched a new route through a multitude of them with Flying Colors. The title track is the flashpoint, where texture becomes tension, and melody finds its way through the maelstrom. If you want to head back to the alt-90s, take this route. Just don’t expect nostalgia. Expect impact.

Flying Colors is now available to stream on all major platforms including Spotify and Apple Music.

Review by Amelia Vandergast.

Francesca Pichierri’s ‘Amen’ Strikes Alt-Pop Gold with a Groove-Soaked Rebuke

Posted on 25 March 2025

Francesca Pichierri never lets sentimentality get in the way of precision. With ‘Amen’, her fifth single and a pivotal chapter in her concept album Cellule Stronze, she lays a satirical yet razor-sharp lens on cancer ghosting—the social retreat of those who disappear when illness walks into the room. Rather than wallowing in the emotional wreckage, she chooses to let irony march straight to the dancefloor.

Musically, Amen firmly implants alt into pop. Retro-futurist synth lines and swathes of synthesised bass bring the funk, summoning a sound reminiscent of Depeche Mode warped through the lens of South American disco and gospel. But it’s Pichierri’s performance that overrides the energy of the release. Her vocal lines carry a seraphic sanctity, acting as a vocal exorcism of all the shallow well-wishers and their hollow “thoughts and prayers”.

You plug into Amen—not the other way around. It strips you of autonomy with its animatronic pull, transposing darkness into an earworm of euphoria. The lyrical sting doesn’t get lost in the groove. Instead, it’s accentuated by it. Her vocal delivery pivots from soulful sincerity to smirking irony with a deftness that makes every line land harder. It’s funk with bite. Gospel with gall. Dance music with a grudge.

With Amen, Pichierri soundtracks the uncomfortable silence left by those who recoil from pain—and she sets it to a beat they can’t ignore.

Amen is now available to stream on all major platforms, including SoundCloud and Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast.

Caught in the Current: The Manor Born Push Against the Tide in ‘Catch Up’

Posted on 24 March 2025

With their debut single, ‘Catch Up’, Tucson’s The Manor Born cement their stake in the indie rock soil with a release that thrums with urgency, yet never forgets to carry the melody. The verses pulse with pent-up tension, simmering beneath euphonic layers of saturation until the chorus tears through with cathartic clarity—each note a release valve for the emotional pressure that precedes it.

There’s a lo-fi warmth in the production that refuses to disguise itself as something it isn’t. It holds back from slickness and opts instead for truth—proving pretence, polish, and posturing have no place when the aim is to reach people, not impress them. Every line lands with weight, held together by panoramic progressions that refuse to sit still, and guitar tones as iridescent as the potential behind this project.

For anyone whose playlists are lined with Sam Fender or bands that know how to channel introspection without losing drive, ‘Catch Up’ won’t just resonate—it’ll leave a dent. The Manor Born understand how to translate emotional turbulence into something solid, tangible, and wildly listenable. The lyrics don’t beg for understanding—they offer it, through the universal disorientation that settles in when we try to find sense and self in a world always in flux.

There’s no promise of ease in their sound, but there is affirmation. And with this calibre of expression, The Manor Born have set a tone worth following.

Stream Catch Up on Spotify now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast