Browsing Tag

Alt Indie Rock

Mondrian’s Alt Indie Rock Instrumental, B1, Slashes Through Post-Rock Psychedelia, Tension and Cathartic Euphoria

Posted on 11 May 2026

Alt indie rock scintillation awaits anyone who hits play on the seminal release, B1, by Mondrian. The metronomic beat in the intro might have you bracing for an amateur lo-fi earache, but what follows in the first verse is a synthesis of classic rock guitar chops slashing their way through Pixies-esque atmospheric euphoria, hints of Grandaddy in the keys, and the Beatles in their psychedelic era with the sitars. Mondrian knits it all together in this homage to rock and indie history.

Though it may be void of lyricism and vocal evocation, B1 isn’t lacking in emotional expression, especially when the instrumental piece arrives at a sermonic sequence of progressive post-rock, but it’s not long before the independent artist switches gear once again, with fret mastery a major part of the alchemy in this medley. If you love hearing how gifted artists can efficaciously manipulate tension, catharsis and emotional transpositions, Mondrian is more than deserving of a spot on your radar.

Founded in Buenos Aires in 2020 by Matias Jimenez, Mondrian operates as an indie electronica project with Jimenez writing, performing, producing and engineering the material from his own De Stijl Studios.

B1 arrived ahead of the January 2026 debut album, 2020–2025, a five-track set shaped by obsessions with drones, minimalism, pop art, musical organisation, world music and krautrock.

B1 is now available to stream on all major platforms, including YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Strawberry Milk made pop punk subversively sticky-sweet in ‘Katherine the Great’

Posted on 8 October 2025

Strawberry Milk reimagined pop punk through a quaint and quirky lens with their latest single Katherine the Great; a track that tastes like someone turned Neutral Milk Hotel’s lo-fi earnestness into a strawberry shake and laced it with sticky-sweet stridency. There’s a strange sense of reverence and rebellion braided through the sound; nothing in Katherine the Great feels untouched by irony or heart. It’s the sound of a band that understands how to turn cutesy capriciousness into something meaningful without ever losing its edge.

Who would expect a rising college rock outfit, already cementing their name across the New Jersey circuit, to pen a compassionate, surrealist track through the imagined soul of a royal icon? Yet, from the tender inflexions of vulnerability in the vocals to the restrained euphony of the instrumentals, which only crescendo into a woozy alt-indie-rock swell, the single thrives in that tension between eccentricity and emotional sincerity. It’s as theatrical as it is disarmingly intimate.

Since forming in Princeton in 2022, Strawberry Milk have become local favourites for good reason. Their sound dips into the prog-psychedelic legacies of Genesis and Rush, pulls threads from the rhythmic wanderlust of Sting and Dave Matthews Band, and then dusts it all with the melodic polish of REM and The Killers. Yet, it’s the “uniquely Strawberry Milk” synthesis that makes them such an irresistible anomaly. With Katherine the Great leading the charge, their forthcoming releases Social Damselfly and Messy Masterpiece promise to paint even more curious colours across their debut album, In the Zoo.

Katherine the Great is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

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

Posted on 31 May 2025

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

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

Park National Spilled the Soul-Spiked Ache of Loving Through Self-Loathing in the Shoegazed Emo Anthem, ‘Your Mom’s House’

Posted on 15 May 2025

It took a few decades for Midwest emo to grow up, but that long-awaited maturity resounds in the sludgy shoegazed guitar tones of Your Mom’s House by Park National, which still delivers the visceral ache of emotions pouring out into a world that is all too ready to distort them with dissonance. But the cultivation on display that carves its way through the locked-on emotive target overdriven guitar tones elevates this anthem of ennui to the nth degree.

With one of the strongest guitar solos I’ve ever heard in emo-adjacent territory paired with the sheer striking sensibility of Your Mom’s House, which delivers the pained refrain of “just because I can’t love myself, doesn’t mean I can’t love you”, it is no surprise that Park National is amassing followers like there’s no tomorrow with the smorgasbord of resonance he distills into his vignettes.

Park National is the project of Chicago’s Liam Fagan, who broke through in 2020 with the self-produced The Big Glad, a record soaked in coming-of-age angst and serrated emo-pop textures. He’s now barrelling into new sonic territory with You Have to Keep Searching, a lo-fi-flecked, fuzz-soaked, genre-warping body of work that serves as a conduit for catharsis and chaos in equal measure. Guided by a DIY ethos and unflinching introspection, Fagan’s evolution is anything but obscure.

Your Mom’s House is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Title: WD-HAN Punch Their Passport to Liberation in the Indie Rock Anthem ‘Chile’

Posted on 17 April 2025

Chile is one of the strongest exhibitions of WD-HAN’s versatility as they veer into sonic South American territory to bring the sardonically sweet context of the track to life. They flipped the script on the “I’ll follow you wherever you go” trope, as the protagonist stamps his passport to get as much geographical distance between an ex whose indiscretions and false promises led beyond spite to the sheer exhilaration of freedom.

With the vibrant Latin flavours popping through the kaleidoscope of the production, your synapses will flood with colour as you soak in the South American percussion and staccato guitar rhythms. This is an indie rock anthem to scream from the top of your lungs, to forget the spite with and lean into the euphoria of cutting ties from people whose sole mission seems to be psychological degradation.

Produced by Alex Arias at Fab Factory Studios and released via Red Slushy Records, Chile sees the Floridian alt-rock trio leaving no emotional punches unthrown. Vocalist Spencer Barnes keeps it tongue-in-cheek but razor-sharp as guitarist Cal Henry and drummer Lea Campbell inject every aural atom with augmented rapture. Known for emotionally charged anthems, WD-HAN may have made a departure with this release, but the international lyricality more than suits their status as they amass more acclaim from all corners of the globe. Why are we sleeping on making WD-HAN one of the biggest names in alt-rock is beyond beyond me.

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

Review by Amelia Vandergast.

FHMY – my blue heaven, featuring AQL; a shoegaze invitation to tonal nirvana

Posted on 23 November 2024

The Cairo-born artist, FHMY’s latest single ‘my blue heaven’, featuring AQL, fuses the tonal sublimity of shoegaze with the rhythmic intricacy of math rock, giving listeners a double dose of melancholic alchemy.

The undercurrents surge with an immense force of gravity, dragging you under the progressions as the vocal outpours of emotion oscillate and bleed into the production, allowing the evocative edge of the single to belie the abstract nature of the lyricism. Tumultuous yet as mellifluous as waves crashing onto the shore, ‘my blue heaven’ is the definition of a juxtaposing masterpiece.

FHMY could easily have entered the Hall of Fame pantheon alongside Smashing Pumpkins and My Bloody Valentine if he had entered the scene in the epoch when indie luminaries capable of tearing down the barriers to the soul while building immense walls of sound reigned supreme.

my blue heaven was officially released on November 15; stream the single on Spotify now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

The renegades of shoegaze revolution, interail, emerged as an unreckonable outfit in their debut single, red

Posted on 3 October 2024

With their debut single, red, the independent alt-rock outfit interail went beyond dropping the first track in their repertoire. The Northwest UK-hailing four-piece collective established themselves as the renegades of rock’s impending revolution, impending under their juggernautical volution.

Undercurrents of grungy shoegaze permeate the artfully chaotic tour de force, guaranteeing that getting swept up in the tides of red is non-optional as piercingly tumultuous percussion punctuates the laments of the distorted guitars beneath the vox, which oscillate between emulating everyone from Julian Casablancas to Thom Yorke to Orlando Weeks before heightening the evocative sting of the unique inflexions as the track gears towards its viscerally intense hardcore-tinged outro.

Not one moment of red allows you to feel comfortable within the progressions; the dynamic chameleon shifts in pace and tone are enough to leave your nerves frayed and your rhythmic pulses in knots.

The bar couldn’t have been set higher with their debut track; if you’re sick of assimilation-driven shoegaze, prepare to be adrenalised by the walls of sound in red.

Stream red on Spotify now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

The 60s and 70s have swung back with riotous force in At the Arcade’s scuzzed-up slice of garagey alt-rock, With You

Posted on 3 April 2023

At the Arcade served up a sleazily scuzzed slice of garagey alt-rock for their latest single, With You, which puts the emotion into as much overdrive as the riffs. Somewhere between the 60s and the 80s, the riotously eclectic outfit finds its distinctive-by-design prodigal edge that will leave you ricocheting between past eras while affirming that THIS is the sound of the future.

Ensuring that the bouncy and brashy chorus guitars are just as infectious as the salaciously sweet vocals, With You is a track you definitely won’t mind tattooed across your temporal lobe. The Rotherham indie rock aficionados have been revered for their superlatively high-energy shows since 2017. It is about time the airwaves got a taste of their harmony-heavy fervour.

With You was officially released on March 24th. Check it out on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Alt-rock thespian Lucifers Beard worked his histrionic magic in the conceptual sequel single, Lady Loser

Posted on 18 December 2022

After we rolled with the punches in Lucifers Beard’s single, The Guy with a Black Eye, we’re stoked to sink our teeth into the conceptual follow-up, Lady Loser, which takes place years after the antihero’s skirmish, where the arrogance has subsided to themes of loss, regret, forgiveness, and hope.

Until the outro, the brashy tumultuousness has been dialled back to give way to the crooned vocals that envelop you over the theatrically psychedelic rock opera-Esque score that still emits electrifying energy, but there’s a remorsefulness spilling from the thespian rock arrangement, mastered by Ed Ripley (NOFX, Frank Turner, Goat Girl).

As the song concludes, after the swan song-ish ensemble, we hear Lucifers Beard’s maniacal charisma get a last burst of juggernautical creativity. It is enough to make you desperate for the story to become a trilogy.

Lady Loser will officially release on December 15th. Hear it on SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast