Browsing Tag

Alt Indie Pop

Adam Loughran’s Be Okay Sits Inside the Spiral of Depression with Cinematic Alt-Indie Pop Grace

Posted on 28 June 2026

Adam Loughran penned one of the most definitive expositions on what it means to struggle with depression with his artful, achingly transcendent alt-indie pop ballad, Be Okay. The Irish singer-songwriter from Carlingford, County Louth, writes with the kind of emotional clarity that makes vulnerability feel less like a confession booth and more like a room finally given a door.

The piano-driven release contrasts raw emotion with the arcane atmosphere of the production, which feels infinitely expansive as the resonance wraps around you, drawing you deeper through dreamy synth lines that lend an air of purity to the pain. Be Okay becomes the ultimate voice for everyone exhausted by hollow reassurance while held captive in the isolation of depression, left at the mercy of ceaselessly spiralling thoughts.

Loughran’s gift lies in refusing to soften loneliness into something palatable. Instead, he lets anxiety, alienation and the need to be understood sit in full view, surrounded by acoustic textures and a cinematic build that never overpowers the intimacy of the writing.

As he develops his forthcoming album, Too Good at Goodbyes, through his independent imprint Clocktower Records, Be Okay stands as a piercing indication of the heartbreak, aftermath and emotional honesty at the core of his work. It may just be one of the most realistic accounts of the ennui and alienation of mental health I have ever heard.

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

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Glass Skin by Liliana de la Rosa Makes Dark Alternative Pop Feel Like a Mirror Cracking Under Patriarchal Capitalism

Posted on 16 May 2026

Liliana de la Rosa sonically visualised the clean girl aesthetic with Glass Skin, an ethereally spectral alt-indie pop single that runs delicate melodies through arcane harmonies while ragefully mourning the limitations imposed on women by the impermeable glass ceiling. In the dusky shades of the release, it dawns upon the listener that women are expected to be as diaphanous as what limits us; Liliana de la Rosa turns that cruel contradiction into a dark-pop reckoning.

As the perfected aesthetic keeps dragging young girls and women towards pore-less, practically ephemeral self-erasure, Glass Skin unveils a haunting recognition of the meaningless, futile pressure crushing self-esteem beneath beauty standards, patriarchy, capitalism, and industry corruption. Diaphanous to the last breath, the single delivers the kind of divine femininity that could never be packaged, marked up, and sold at a premium.

The Sydney-based alternative pop artist brings her background in film and theatre into the release with cinematic grace, pulling feminine rage, identity, and rebirth into a hyper-stylised, surreal world. Fans of Lana Del Rey, Melanie Martinez, BANKS, and Ethel Cain will feel the dramatic romanticism and emotional tension in the production, while Liliana’s own voice gives the track its ritualistic force.

Glass Skin opens the first part of a two-part visual narrative, with Blood Red Pearl set to follow.

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

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Lola Moore – Retro: A Stream-of-Consciousness Synth-Pop Transmission of Pure Inhibition

Posted on 26 February 2026

In the title track from her debut LP, Lola Moore sent Retro spiralling through a cosmos of analogue synth nostalgia. If Stranger Things left you craving that warm buzz of circuitry and mood-drenched atmosphere, Retro scratches the itch with moody, spacey, interstellar escapism. From the first swell, it’s clear she refused to fall into the fray of mainstream pop monotony. She built her progressions as cathedrals of uninhibited expression, free from the scaffolding of conventional pop structures, choosing instead to run Retro like a pure stream of consciousness that kicks with assertion and playful authenticity.

The experimental earworm doesn’t chase accessibility; it arrives fully formed, driven by tonal conviction and a refusal to dilute emotion for commercial ease. The synths fold and bloom with a kind of retro-futurist reverence, landing somewhere between starlit solitude and neon-lit dreamscape. As the track moves towards its outro, swathes of autotuning wash across her harmonies until the line between voice and instrumentation dissolves entirely. The effect is a transhumanist curtain call, a final blurred silhouette of human expression merging with sonic machinery, sealing Retro as an unforgettable entry into the contemporary synth-pop gene pool.

As a Long Island-raised DIY musician, Lola Moore built the foundations of her debut album with the same ethos that shapes her live sets at open mic nights. She writes, plays keys and guitar, and approaches her sonic signature with the raw joy of creation without an atom of pressure to mould herself around the expectations of the pop meat market. Retro is proof of what happens when someone creates without compromise: you hear the person, not the algorithm.

Retro is now available on all major streaming platforms, including YouTube. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

 

 

Cosmic Madness – Fine: Psychedelically Lush Alt-Indie Introspection from the Heart of an Existential Crux

Posted on 25 February 2026

Cosmic Madness’s latest single, Fine, taken from their LP Love in an Existential Crux, turns introspection into something close to a spiritual reflex. It’s poetry in motion, soaked in astral saturation, transmitted directly to the souls who know the strange comfort of crawling inward and sitting in the shadows of themselves. In a frenetically extroverted world where superficiality smothers nuance, it isn’t a cliché to say that Fine acts as a genuine breath of fresh air. It refuses the instant-gratification hooks clogging the alt-indie ecosystem, choosing instead to let the anticipation simmer. You wait, and wait, until the mid-way mark when the first true rush of momentum finally unfolds, carrying you into a haze of ELO-esque cosmic escapism that visualises the universes humming away inside every introverted mind. Is it any wonder that so many of us take refuge in our internal reverie rather than engage with the confines of reality? Probably not, and no one argues that case better than Cosmic Madness.

The psychedelic lushness never overwhelms the emotional core; the alt-indie pop palette becomes the perfect conduit for the introspective weight. Mateo’s vision for the project comes through clearly. Even without clinging to the lyrics, you can feel the existential rumination piercing through the arrangement. As the track expands, it almost resembles a gentle confrontation with the void, one softened by melody and colour.

The Barcelona-based artist has built Cosmic Madness as a philosophical alt-indie vessel, shaped around emotional candour and existential depth. Friction between raw analogue textures and digital elements defines the record’s sound, a tension that mirrors the constant push and pull between the human condition and the mechanised world pressing in around it.

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

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Candour became cataclysmic in R. Prenholato’s confessional alt-indie release, River of Hatred

Posted on 1 December 2025

Through the haunting vibrato in R. Prenholato’s vocals on River of Hatred, which emanates the arcane Americana air of Angel Olsen, they refused to let the emotion in their latest standout single sit at surface level. Every intimate confession of jadedness, rage and despair digs to where music rarely touches, moving with a bruised certainty that lingers as much as it stings.

Frustration was mainlined into the alt indie pop melodies which wrestle tones of transcendence and elements of space into the arrangement, delivering a catharsis that swells before the guitars grow gnarled following tension builds that speak in thematic volumes louder than the vocals that go beyond candour. River of Hatred is an outpour of all the rawness that convinces you to keep it concealed, but the resonance within the track is proof of how far from alienating the emotions spiked through it really are; it is almost as though we should all be screaming into pillows together, Midsommar style.

Behind that emotional immediacy sits a Brazilian alternative rock and pop rock artist whose path through music and writing has always been tethered to honesty. After performing in several bands throughout his early years, life pulled him away from his former bandmates, yet the music stayed lodged under his skin. His debut album gathers songs written two decades ago during intense personal chapters that later inspired his first published novel. Now working as a solo artist, he continues to explore vulnerability, resilience and the passage of time, stitching together the person he was with the artist he is becoming, while his published novels expand that storytelling into new territory.

River of Hatred is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

stevie spun a sticky sweet with existential pain earworm from her debut single, Too Good for You (Halloween)

Posted on 16 November 2025

Lola Young proved the appetite for razor-sharp pop hooks and lyricism that digs into the messiness of the emotional human experience, and alt indie pop singer songwriter stevie proves she is more than ready to sate it with her debut single, Too Good for You (Halloween).

After a quiescent intro which teases a Boy Genius-esque stylistically morose atmosphere into the confessional release, the energy starts to build, constructing the anatomy of a sticky sweet with existential pain earworm which thrives on its own contrasts between self-flagellation and epiphanies of resistance against those who drag you down before chastising you for being in the gutter they placed you in.

As the progressions carry you through the expansively styled track, stevie throws in echoes of a myriad of heart-string twanging artists, everyone from Grandaddy to icons of the Midwest emo scene, while never putting her debut in danger of being anything but the perfect indie pop earworm to dig into every time your fortitude falters. The way the choruses swell feels tailor-made for pensive indie kids who write drafts in their notes app they will never send, and the Halloween hue grounds the release in an imagery that’s hard to shake after the outro.

Before stepping into the spotlight with Too Good for You (Halloween), stevie spent years lurking in the shadows of the industry, playing piano in orchestras and jazz bands, engineering records, producing, and quietly shaping projects from publishing and A&R corners. From a cold English beach to time spent in New York and London, she stockpiled tragedy, loss, resilience and new love, then knotted it all into this alt indie pop therapy session.

Too Good for You (Halloween) is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Amelia McLean Bled the Beauty from Pain in the Dusky Alt Indie Pop Single ‘Dark Days’

Posted on 24 August 2025

With her dusky with melancholy vocals, meta lyrics, and ethereally cinematic sonic palette, Amelia McLean reached cathartic depths in her latest single, Dark Days. Rather than deliver an archetypal pop release, she unravelled a refuge for anyone wearied by the performance of positivity in a world that rewards emotional suppression.

The artful flourishes in the piano progressions as they push through the moody reverb affirm that Dark Days isn’t a soundscape for salvation; it’s a microcosm of sanctuary. One that lets listeners prise the beauty from pain, just as McLean did while constructing the mournfully tender architecture of this alt indie pop ballad that transcends the grasp of trends. It’s the kind of release that will grip the coquette crowd while haunting the hearts of anyone drawn to the dark academia aesthetic.

Dark Days is the second single to be released from McLean’s forthcoming debut album, Frowned Upon Daughter, a stream-of-consciousness reflection on an absurd upbringing shaped over two years of self-funded recording and emotional excavation. With production support from Justin Glasco and David Levita, the layered sound design accentuates the intimacy in the lyricism without overshadowing the pensive poetry she penned for anyone clawing their way through the cracks.

Catch McLean live at Sofar Sounds in Los Angeles on 19th September as she performs more tear-stained laments from her upcoming LP.

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

Dark Days is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.
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Review by Amelia Vandergast

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

Posted on 24 May 2025

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

Stephan Folkes Synthesised Alt Rock & Avant Garde RnB in His Sonic Séance, ‘Somebody out there?’

Posted on 18 May 2025

Stephan Folkes has never been one to play it safe, but with his spectrally cinematic latest installation of unbridled, unflinching and unapologetically daring alchemy, ‘Somebody out there?’, he orchestrated the Thriller of his discography so far. With the heavy, caustic and unsettlingly ensnaring guitar riffs tearing through the carnivalesque indie pop-rock soundscape, it’s impossible not to get sucked into the mind-melting intensity of the track that Folkes uses as a sinister playground with his falsetto vocal lines breaching the limits of what you’d expect RnB-adjacent pop vox to be capable of.

Based on the true story of a group of British teens whose flirtation with the supernatural during an abandoned-building Ouija session left more than existential questions hanging in the air, Somebody out there? cuts deeper than speculative horror. With its fusion of alt-indie rock, R&B and soul, Folkes turns curiosity into chaos, and cinematic intimacy into disquieting confession in the dream pop record.

Growing up with special needs and surviving hospitalisation at just five years old, Folkes funnels his lived experience and unwavering commitment to individuality into tracks that resonate far beyond the surface. His genre-fluid creativity, already carving him a singular path through the industry, finds sharpest form in this release, where haunting narratives and raw empowerment entwine in an avant-garde soundscape.

Tracks like this make a mockery of the desperation for mainstream appeal, which rings through when artists meekly tread on repeatedly razed ground. With this release, Folkes ventured to unhallowed territory to create a striking meditation on metaphysics – it’s enough to wake the dead.

Somebody out there? is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Connect with Stephan Folkes on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube & X. 

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