Browsing Tag

Alt Indie

Miss Terious exhibited the power and pain of alter-egos in ‘Misty’

Posted on 26 July 2024

Miss Terious’ latest single, Misty, bridges the gap between the tender indie pop magnetism of boygenius, the artful expression of Kate Bush, and the gothic sombre glamour reminiscent of Evanescence. This coalescence is perfectly interwoven in the arcane atmosphere of the indie piano pop ballad, where the sparse instrumentals allow Miss Terious’ emotionally heightened vocals to spectrally overpower the production.

Each verse tightens the heartstrings as you become consumed by the raw emotion conveyed through the confession of how pseudonyms can deliver confidence while concealing the person behind the greatness. The deeply felt pain of being wanted through association rather than true connection resonates throughout Misty; anyone who has experienced this pain will find the ultimate consolation within the candour.

Miss Terious is a British-born alternative musician from the West Midlands, known for her originated mix of electronic and classical instruments. Since debuting with her EP Bleeding Green in 2020, she has tackled topics such as abuse, mental health, and her separation from the ballet industry. In 2022, she was honoured as BBC Introducing’s Artist of the Month for Coventry and Warwickshire and performed at the Backyard Festival in Leamington Spa. Her contribution to the music scene earned her the Local Hero Award for AIM Awards 2022.

After hearing Misty, there isn’t an industry accolade we wouldn’t see her as fit for.

Misty was officially released on July 19; stream the single on Spotify now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Bang emotional ambiguity cascades into Bang’s alt-indie lullaby, HOLD ON

Posted on 24 July 2024

In his latest single, HOLD ON, the alt-indie visionary, Bang, plunged his eternally expanding following into a pool of lush reverb-swathed ambience, intersected by sharp, reverberant trap beats that push momentum into the hazy lullaby which envelops the senses with wavy dream-like soul.

With this seminal release, bang captured the essence of affection as the harbinger of comfort and the precursor to uncertainty and confusion. The exposition of the dangers of letting down your walls is intricately crafted into the thematic visualisations of the introspective lyrics that are filled with late-night longing.  The sensory expedition into the heart of emotional ambiguity is an irresistible invitation to escape into the delicious delirium.

The seraphically disorientating release marks the Michigan-raised Asian-American artist as the Thom Yorke of his generation while becoming a milestone stride in his set-to-be illustrious sonic journey which was chartered after early exposure to Bollywood rhythms and 00s hip-hop beats.

As the architect of hits that pulsate with modern indie rhythm and find superlative equilibrium between evocative and innovative cultivation, Bang is elevating the airwaves with his solo work and his role in the genre-defying collective, Rarehearted.

HOLD ON will be available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify, from July 24th.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Spotlight Feature: The Immaculate Crows charted a journey through self-rediscovery through the post-punk-meets alt-country single, Van Gogh

Posted on 18 July 2024

With their seminal single, Van Gogh, the mesmeric Brisbane alternative outfit, The Immaculate Crows, led by the philosophically profound Bruce Neilsen, reflected the fractures in the torn soul of the tortured namesake artist while exhibiting an exposition of the complexities of self-discovery and the ease with which autonomy can become obscured.

Bruce Neilsen’s guitar work lights up the track, scintillating the dark alt-country aesthetic established by Jessica Shipley’s commanding vocals and Daphne Mae’s ethereal harmonies; Wayne Harvey’s garagey guitar licks introduce an additional dynamic to the arcanely genre-fluid tour de evocative force, which will be euphony to the ears of fans of Echo and the Bunnymen and Jefferson Airplane.

As a band that has navigated the highs and lows of the music scene since the early ’80s, The Immaculate Crows have continually evolved. Neilsen’s return to the scene in 2019 marked a revival of their creative output, now characterised by a collaborative dynamic within the collective which has released two albums to date with a third on the way.

The Immaculate Crows Said:

“The single was inspired by the tortured artist Vincent Van Gogh; as the single came to fruition, I integrated disparate themes of ageism, false friends and charlatans. The single is completely open to personal interpretation, but the main underpinning is a narrative of attempting to rediscover yourself through finding spirituality, a special someone or something and eventually ‘coming out of the wilderness’.”

Van Gogh is available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.

Follow The Immaculate Crows on Instagram and Facebook.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Self-actualise with the debut single, Superhero from the alt-indie originator, The Black Holes Philosophy

Posted on 16 July 2024

For the standout single in their eponymous debut album, The Black Holes Philosophy filtered a folky 70s pop twang into the cosmically expansive production style of ELO while poetically narrating the internal conflict of grappling with personal desire and external expectation.

While the introspective protagonist cherishes authenticity and simplicity over grandiosity and superficiality in Superhero, the beauty and the solace in the little things in life profoundly resonate through the prism of kaleidoscopic colour that spills from the piano pop-rock progressions.

Superhero is enough to make you contemplate every aspect of idealism reverberating through your psyche to ensure it derives from within instead of the confluence of cultural demands. The softly and soulfully rendered release reaches the pinnacle of liberation as it guides through a journey of self-actualisation while establishing The Black Holes Philosophy as one of the most artistically unbound artists on the airwaves.

Superhero was officially released on June 14th; stream the single on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

In Our Sea electrified the airwaves with their rhapsodically eclectic alt-indie single, When You Kissed Me I Went Numb

Posted on 15 July 2024

The third album, Flowers! Swallow Me!, from the inimitably rhapsodic and harmonically euphonic outfit, In Our Sea, has landed, introducing one of the most infectious singles to date from the architects of unpretentious alt-indie.

If you took the jangle pop guitars of Johnny Marr, the sticky-sweet synthy sensibilities of Yo La Tengo, the kaleidoscopic colour of the Beatles and the innovatively rhythmic flair of The Violent Femmes, you’d be left with a soundscape as electrifying as the standout single, When You Kissed Me I Went Numb. The lyrically avant-garde celebration of pure and innocent passion hits as hard as any of the tracks on Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea LP. With the unbridled self-effacing energy that’s poured into the single by the smorgasbord, it is impossible not to fall for In Our Sea, melodic hook, line, and sinker.

When You Kissed Me I Went Numb was officially released on July 5th with the Flowers! Swallow Me! LP; stream it on Spotify now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Chicago’s Sleeps While Walking made their kinetically affecting shoegaze debut with ‘One Trick Pony’

Posted on 14 July 2024

Sleeps While Walking, one of the most promising DIY alt/indie rock outfits to crawl from the underbelly of the Chicago scene has unleashed their kinetically affecting, obsession-worthy debut single, One Trick Pony.

Quite honestly, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Paul Banks has forged a new supergroup to sit alongside Muzz and Interpol for the way the achingly emotional vocal lines cut through the discordant atmosphere of shoegaze synthesised with the sludge of grunge.

As the rough rings of choppy acoustic guitar strings from the intro evolve into windingly hypnotic distorted guitars and start laying the foundation to build an insurmountable wall of sound that is constructed in the middle ground of Deftones and My Bloody Valentine, prepare for heart-in-throat immersion from the soundscape which is underpinned by forlorn grit and gyrating gravitas.

The deeply emotional inflections in the piano-decorated melodies are enough to render your heartstrings raw; with the vocals centrally placed in the chaos of the production pulsating further heartbreak into the debut, Sleeps While Walking became one of the strongest and the most original shoegaze outfits of 2024.

They cut straight through the static of indie landfill with intense precision and challenged my jaded-by-endless-assimilation view of the alt-indie scene. It may be cliché to declare they’re the real deal, but they’re unmistakenly authentic conduits of resonant revolution. Join them at the vanguard.

One Trick Pony was officially released on July 1; stream the single on Spotify and await the debut album which will drop on July 19.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Midnight Affairs unleashed their infectiously erratic alt-indie earworm, Blame It on You

Posted on 1 July 2024

For their sophomore release, Blame It on You, the Auckland pop/rock trio, Midnight Affairs, launched a hyper-frenetic hit that affronts the senses with a glitchwavey saturated in delay electro-pop intro before bringing in sticky-sweet neon-lit synth carved melodies which transcend the new wave indie pop trends to implant the independent artist’s sound in unchartered territory few would be bold enough to sonically roam in.

The lamentation of how memories of infatuation can become unescapable haunting spectres which could lead the sanest of minds to the brink of madness anchors the high-octane anthem of mental disquietude in visceral resonance to vindicate the romantically scorned and attest to the independent artist’s ability to render raw emotions into their superlative sound.

The intensity of the production, how deep the hooks sink in, and the infectiously erratic earworm appeal of Blame It on You will undoubtedly see Midnight Affairs go far. With a 5-track EP due for release later this year, Midnight Affairs becoming New Zealand’s premier indie pop rock band isn’t out of the realm of possibility.

Blame It on You is now available to stream on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Spotlight Feature: Run The Enemy filtered indie post-punk poetry through a pensive Americana lens with their sophomore single, Barbara Gray

Posted on 28 June 2024

For their second single, the cerebrally poetic Indie/Americana ensemble, Run the Enemy, unearthed the sublime from the serendipitous, immortalising the fleeting yet eternal encounter between Elvis and Barbara Gray in 1956.

Infused with samples of fervent Elvis fans within an Editors-esque post-punk framework, the Cambridge, UK-based band magnifies the tenderness of transient intimacy in a pop culture moment of pure connection, inviting listeners to inhabit that ephemeral instant and luxuriate in its synchronicity.

With vocals reminiscent of Elbow, choked with emotion and deftly illuminating the lyrical depths, and an atmosphere of sepia-toned nostalgia enveloping the hauntingly angular guitars, iridescent keys, and throbbing rhythm section, Barbara Gray lodges itself in the soul, simultaneously imparting the transcendent nature of a moment never to be lost to history.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a better entry into the UK indie scene in 2024. It’s only a matter of time before Run the Enemy tears its way into the mainstream.

Run the Enemy Said:

“The song is about randomly overlapping lives, inspired by the fleeting moments shared by Elvis and Barbara Gray, captured on film by Alfred Wertheimer in 1956 at the Jefferson Hotel in Virginia.

For over fifty years, the girl remained anonymous until she appeared on the Today Show to discuss the one day that her life crossed with Elvis’s, like a crossword clue; he was seven down, she was eight across. Despite the moment being so transient and their lives going in such different directions thereafter, their moment is preserved forever on film.”

Barbara Gray was officially released on June 28th; stream the single on Spotify.

Follow Run the Enemy on Instagram. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Ludvik Langholm orchestrated an installation of anachronistically opulent alt indie reverie with ‘A Parody’

Posted on 25 June 2024

For their latest release, A Parody, the eclectic Leeds-based sound sculptor, Ludvik Langholm, emerged as a polymath producer and vividly histrionic narrator of burning desire to give fans of Roar, Vunderbar and Sir Chloe a perennial playlist staple.

The latest baroquely alt-indie single is a parallel universe and a few centuries away from the preceding release, Empty Parking Lot, which painted an intimate portrayal of a psyche torn between reaching and retreating in tender lo-fi brushstrokes. The Jane Austen-esque lyricism captures intense yearning as the intentional abstractions make room for personal reflection; the score gives the listener the freedom to implant their own melodramatic coveting affections into the superlative release.

Langholm tears through space and time by allowing A Parody to open on an installation of old-school Hollywood filmic reverie with their chanteuse-esque vocal lines lighting up the production until the lush layers of instrumentation deliver swathes of anachronistic opulence, which is perfectly balanced and moderately modernised with their signature introspective alt-indie warmth filled melodies that we’ll never tire of hearing.

A Parody was officially released on June 20; stream the single on YouTube now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Post-Punk Pulsates Through Dissolved Girl’s Latest Alt-90s Spectral Sonic Shadow, I’m a Beast

Posted on 22 June 2024

Dissolved Girl is back for round three; the gloves are off, and teeth are bared in their latest single, I’m a Beast, which blasts past alt-90s pastiche and scathes the rhythmic pulses with killer hooks, sharp enough to tear through the monochromatically cold atmosphere of the release which aches for redemption.

Ornate gothic instrumentation carves its way through the production while the basslines pulsate with post-punk volition under the vocal lines which blend raw power with haunting vulnerability. If Garbage released this single at the zenith of their career, the spectrally sensuous soundscape would have darkened the top of the charts for weeks. We may be living in a new sonic epoch, but the London-based four-piece is unflinching in their determination to keep bands relevant in the modern music industry.

With their refined approach to bending minds through esoteric alchemy and their ability to linger in the psyche for long after the final shadowy note, it’s only a matter of time before they take the alt-music underground by storm.

I’m a Beast was officially released on June 14; stream the single on Spotify now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast