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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.

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

Ananda Murari – Desert in the Middle: A Mirage You’ll Want to Chase

Posted on 23 March 2025

There’s plenty of sanctuary to be found in the fluidity and flora of Ananda Murari’s spiritually expressive exploration of texture and tonality in ‘Desert in the Middle’; the instrumentals alone are enough to subdue you into its sublimity. When the call of Ananda Murari’s magnetically honed vocals enters and reverberates soul throughout the release as they melancholically spill poetica epiphanies, there comes an affirmation that natural-born singer-songwriters exist—exist in the form of Murari, who carries all of the grace(land) of Paul Simon.

As the single progresses, it transitions into a divine sonic expanse where catharsis is free to savour, to cling to as you envelop yourself in Murari’s ability to paint seraphic worlds through sonorous motifs that leave gilded imprints in the soul. 

Rooted in eclectic indie folk, Murari’s work weaves ancient storytelling, raw emotional introspection, and spiritual depth shaped by his years spent living as a monk. Through his time in devotional silence, he discovered the tonal nuance and lyrical sensitivity now central to his music. The result is a rare kind of songwriting that doesn’t chase impact—it emanates it.

Drawn from his No Coins Needed project, which folds fatherhood and spiritual reintegration into every measure, Desert in the Middle reflects a new era of introspection. It is a sojourn worth taking time and time again. Whether performing solo or with his full-band collaborators, Murari makes music that doesn’t ask for your attention—it earns your surrender.

Desert in the Middle is available to stream on all major platforms via this link.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Alpine Jubilee Inch Closer to the Indie Folk Pop Throne with ‘Fiver on the Favourite’

Posted on 19 March 2025

Alpine Jubilee won us over with their debut, but with Fiver on the Favourite, they well and truly conquered. Folk-tinged indie pop has rarely sounded this expansive, with flourishes tinged with psychedelia and melodies that seem to ascend endlessly. The single instrumentally invites you to a state of transcendence, while the abstract lyricism filters in, almost serving as another instrument, adding texture to the euphonic tonal masterpiece that progressively enthrals with each new nuanced transition.

Born from the creative partnership of brothers Trevor O’Neil and Glenn O’Neil, Alpine Jubilee stretches across continents, with Trevor based in Toowoomba, Queensland, and Glenn in Geneva, Switzerland. Their sound pulls together an eclectic mix of instrumentation, featuring acoustic guitar, violin, trumpet, harmonies, ukulele, mandolin, mando-cello, tin whistle, harmonica, bass, percussion, synthesisers, and even a zither. Their influences range from 80s new wave and darkwave to twee-jangle pop, contemporary nu-folk, and alt-country, and it shows in the depth of their arrangements. Joining them on the track are Flavia O’Neil on trumpet and backing vocals, Nelson O’Neil on drum programming, and Oliver Liang on violin.

If you’re sick of folk artists who bring the same old pale imitations to the table, Fiver on the Favourite is a surefire antidote to monotony.

Fiver on the Favourite is available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify. For the full experience, watch the official video on YouTube. 

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

Secondhand Smoke – Sinking Ships’ Twang-Soaked Hymn for the Wandering Soul

Posted on 14 March 2025
Sinking Ships by Sinking Ships

Sinking Ships doesn’t play Americana by the book—he stains it with Detroit’s garage rock grit and lets it linger in the air like Secondhand Smoke, which also happens to be the title of his latest single. With twangy, roots-reverent guitars cradling the intro, the track gently pulls you in before his gravelly, whiskey-soaked vocals take centre stage. Echoing the swagger of Dogs D’Amour and The Stones, his delivery balances rugged sincerity with a devil-may-care coolness.

The sepia-toned lull doesn’t last long. As the crescendo kicks in, the single shifts from dusky introspection to full-blown rock ‘n’ roll earworm. Winding guitar strings, steel guitar timbres, and brashy chords ensure the alt-country undercurrent never fades completely—it stays locked in, an uplifting presence coursing through the track’s folk storytelling heartbeat.

True to tradition, Secondhand Smoke paints a panorama of a portrait, tracing a beatnik attempt at self-discovery, where hope clings to the horizon like the last glow of a setting sun. Whether meaning is found or not seems almost secondary—the real story is in the search itself.

With this release, Sinking Ships proves he’s found his footing in the crossfire of alt-country, indie, and garage rock. His sound isn’t polished, it isn’t predictable, but it lands exactly where it needs to—right in the marrow of modern Americana’s restless spirit.

Stream Secondhand Smoke on all major platforms, including Bandcamp.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Why Do I? – Martin Reynolds’ Rock ‘n’ Roll Rebellion with a Side of Swagger

Posted on 14 March 2025

If you thought the golden age of riff-driven, rule-breaking rock ‘n’ roll was dead and buried, Martin Reynolds is here to prove you wrong. With Why Do I?, the Tamworth-based renegade doesn’t just tap into the past—he drags it into the present, kicking and screaming.

The brashy, upbeat momentum never falters as Reynolds plays devil’s advocate with playfully Machiavellian vocals, injecting roguish charm into an earworm built to rattle the rafters. Between the swanky piano licks, double bass lines, and horn stabs courtesy of jazz legend Tom “Bones” Malone, Why Do I? is a full-throttle aural pick-me-up for anyone who prefers to get high on their own terms.

Lyrically, Reynolds lays it all out—questioning self-sacrifice and the cost of putting others before yourself. But there’s no wallowing here; even when he’s grappling with life’s bruises, the defiance stays intact. It’s rock ‘n’ roll at its core—unapologetic, infectious, and utterly unshackled from the mundane.

Recorded at Sinewave Studios, mixed and produced by Reynolds himself, and mastered by Pete Maher (The Pixies, Jack White, The Rolling Stones), Why Do I? makes it clear that Reynolds and his band, The Minor Detours, are here to shake things up. If the past few years saw Reynolds step out from behind the drumkit, 2025 is the year he plants his flag firmly in the ground.

Stream Why Do I? on all major platforms, including Spotify.

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

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