Browsing Tag

dark pop

Tori Lord – Conman: a Neo-Noir Pop Takedown of Men Who Weaponise Illusion

Posted on 29 May 2026
Tori Lord

In a post-truth world, where reality is easily skewed to deceive and exploit, Tori Lord exemplifies how the malleability of perception is being used far beyond politics with her latest single, Conman. By sonically donning a seductive neo-noir femme fatale aura in a smooth, smoky, melodically temperate pop hit, which flits between balladlike intimacy and moody anthemic crescendos, Lord makes the production swim in scathing conviction.

Without losing her sense of poise, Tori Lord goes straight for the jugular of the men who use facades to gain what their authenticity would never deserve. Written with Marty Martino, Conman feels demurely lethal, tracing the moment recognition hardens into certainty. The song carries the narrative precision she has been sharpening since Never Be and Love Me Over You, building towards an upcoming debut EP rooted in real-life clarity, self-possession, and emotional strategy.

Canadian-born and now based in New York, Lord brings lifelong performance history, from the Canadian Children’s Opera Company to touring with Celine Dion, into a modern pop identity shaped by discipline and narrative intent. Conman is a sensation of a single, a breath of fresh air against hook-chasing pop. The luxe-with-style release will be the catalyst in many ‘baddie’ eras. How telling that women receive that label when they stop tolerating misogyny and manipulation.

Conman is now available to stream on all major platforms. To find your preferred way of listening, head over to Tori Lord’s official website.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Starleen Turn Evolution // Rebirth: A Lynchian Alt-Pop Ritual for Souls Surviving the Machine

Posted on 29 May 2026

Starleen, the electronic alt-pop duo based in Dallas, Texas, opened Evolution // Rebirth like a forgotten piece of Lynchian cinema, with an official music video that feels almost macabre in its dystopian disquiet. From the first frame, the single establishes a world where rebirth arrives through unease, metallic pressure, and bodies moving against the architecture of control.

Tension keeps creeping into the production as ethereal tones collide with harsh industrial-adjacent electronic motifs. Droning reverberations enmesh with scintillating sources of sonic light while the duo assert a hymnal, arcane vocal presence into the single, turning the track into an altar for transformation with cinematic severity. The arrangement feels ceremonial, bruised by the machinery of modern life, yet its ethereal centre keeps reaching towards catharsis.

The music video reimagines the aesthetics of The Matrix through an arthouse lens; delicate dance choreography juxtaposes cold, harsh cityscapes with grace as the ultimate exposition on what it means to keep your soul alive in the harsh reality of our world. Through its noir-lit futurism, industrial ache, and spectral alt-pop intensity, Evolution // Rebirth becomes a statement on survival, growth, evolution, and the spiritual act of respawning with more light than the world tried to leave you with.

Starleen Said:

“This song paired with its visuals really sets the tone for the full-length coming out later this year. After years of working together, we believe we have finally found the sound for us. Visually, we are leaning more towards having other artists tell the story through their talents. We were amazed by what Evelyn Phan brought on set that day, and during the rain! Keanu Cordero directed while Ryan Ritchie handled the cinematography.

Both Zachary and I feel that this song, along with the rest of the album, is finally telling a story we’ve been trying to tell for some time now. We feel optimistic about the future and are grateful for the experience of creating art with amazing people.”

–

Evolution // Rebirth is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify. For the full experience, watch the official music video on YouTube.

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

MODISTE Turned Synth-Pop into a Strobe-Lit Fever of Longing in Shadows

Posted on 27 April 2026

MODISTE injected the intensity back into synth-pop with their sophomore single, Shadows; a strobe-lit spell of longing, hunger, and surrender, which rejects the cloying trend of saccharine etherealism by adopting the visceral spellbinding veracity of Siouxsie Sioux while maintaining an irrefutable mainstream crossover appeal.

The Louisville trio pulled from the dark glamour of cold, cavernous 80s post-punk aesthetics and the seductive tension of 80s analogue pop to inject into the monolith of a production, all the while allowing the single to feel fiercely alive in the present, as though the track has been dragged from some midnight theatre of obsession and wired straight into the bloodstream.

In the same way that White Lies take the conventions of the darker, synth-heavy corners of aural history to write the future of alt-pop, MODISTE has a distinctly infectious way of drawing you into the thematic core of their evocatively heightened sound, helmed by Sydney Sleadd’s vocals, which command the centre with a magnetic intensity. There is desire in the delivery, but also steel, poise, and a cinematic sense of scale that turns the single into something far bigger than a stylish throwback. Beneath that, the synth work seethes and glows with tactile depth, while the guitar cuts through with surgical precision.

There is also a Lynchian streak running through Shadows, not as aesthetic window dressing, but as a feverish undercurrent in the pulsing swirl of longing, forbidden love, and surrender. Industrial tones tighten the tension, while the analogue instrumentation gives the single a living, breathing voltage. With Sydney Sleadd’s award-winning presence at the helm, Dennis Stein’s decades-deep synth obsession, and Kyle Stallings’ psych-punk and left-field electronics pedigree sharpening the edges, MODISTE feel built for obsession.

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

Review by Amelia Vandergast

AUTOTAPINOSI Pulled Tamta Beyond EDM Pop and Into the Theatre of Gothic Avant-Garde Provocation

Posted on 12 April 2026

With an aesthetic as unsettling as the mise en scène in The Platform, dressed in gothic couture and avant-garde kink, Tamta arrives in AUTOTAPINOSI with the kind of force that makes the whole release feel bigger than a single. The official video pulling in close to 200k YouTube streams shortly after its debut says plenty, but the real charge comes from the track itself. Produced by TEO.x3 and written with Anastasios Tsordas and Barbara Argyrou, AUTOTAPINOSI lands as an EBM protest hit that lashes out against subjugation and society’s inclination to diminish the self-worth of women.

The retro analogue synths share Tamta’s sirening energy as they become a livewire current in a track built on industrial, electronic and post-punk tension. It’s a riotous reckoning of a hit that transcends the usual confines of pop, pulling the phenomenon of a cultural force into the orbit of performance art in its purest sense. Tamta places erotic agency, ownership and self-definition right at the centre, and she does it with a stare so unwavering it could make half the pop landscape buckle.

Her legacy already towers, from major fashion editorials to Pride stages and headline shows, yet AUTOTAPINOSI feels like another sharp ascent. She’s built the brand, she’s built the legacy, and frankly, if she started a cult, I’d be one of the first in line.

AUTOTAPINOSI is now available on all major streaming platforms. For the full experience, you’re going to want to head over to YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

High Like Heaven Leaves Liliana de la Rosa Suspended in Seduction, Sublimity and Full-Force Atmosphere

Posted on 5 April 2026

Ribcage-quaking reverberation tears through the moody indie RnB pop tour de force, High Like Heaven by the visionary of soul, Liliana de la Rosa, whose sound sets a transcendentally high bar in production quality. Based in Sydney, de la Rosa brings a fully formed cinematic sensibility to her music, shaped by her work across film, theatre, photography and creative direction, and that command over atmosphere runs right through this release. The cinematic depth of the track, featuring Corrj, lands with full force; its intensity meets atmospheric sublimity in a way that demands full mind, body and soul attention, leaving you transfixed by her femme fatale aura drifting around salaciously siren-esque old-school chanteuse vocals.

That magnetic pull deepens through Corrj, whose equally seductive, indie-cool vocals add another current of heat to the track. Bringing him into the mix was an act of pure genius, sharpening the sensual voltage and giving the arrangement even greater dimensionality. de la Rosa already introduced a darker, unapologetically feminine presence through her debut Haunted by Roses, and High Like Heaven pushes further into that world of dangerous romance and emotionally charged alt-pop. She has the kind of presence that could send a track flying across platforms, then keep it lodged in the hearts of listeners who want their pop wicked and voracious.

High Like Heaven is now available on all major streaming platforms via this link. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Childhood Tramua Charged the Debut Single, ‘I won’t talk back’ by the Alt-Pop Icon in the Making, riyuli

Posted on 31 March 2026

Riyuli lit a fire under art pop with her debut single, I won’t talk back. The piano-led prelude teases a classical piano pop ballad, but riyuli uses her chameleonic talents to shift pace seamlessly, bringing crunched guitar chords into the haunting candour of the release.

On the surface, it may register as heartbroken scorn in the wake of a breakup, but I won’t talk back tears into a far more visceral wound, the attempt to find your feet independently after growing up under the tyranny of controlling parents, following the degradation of relentless character assassinations that cut so close to the bone they become part of us. Musing on how it may have been better if she had never been born is a brutal lyrical line, and one that will hit hard for anyone who has ever felt like a burden inside the familial bond. The synthesis of classical pop, electronica, rock, and the vulnerability on show makes I won’t talk back a release that will either break or heal your heart.

Toronto-based riyuli, a self-taught singer with a background in classical piano and performance, already has early radio support behind her, but this track speaks loudest on its own terms, raw, bruised, and dead certain of what it needs to say.

I won’t talk back is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Liliana de la Rosa – haunted by roses: Melancholic Fantasia in Dark-Pop Form

Posted on 13 February 2026
Liliana de la Rosa

Liliana de la Rosa opens haunted by roses with the same arcane pull that shapes her wider creative world, letting the cinematic sweep breathe through a sound that leans into shadow and soft ruin. In haunted by roses, she scores cinematic etherealism which transcends trends, and material reality to boot; drifting away from the monotony that bites on our souls to veer into the weightlessness of melancholic fantasy. The track feels like a quiet slip into where desire glows at the edges and pain turns strangely luminous, guided by her hypnotic siren presence.

Her non-lexical harmonies rise with that arcane power she channels so naturally, creating the sense of a portal being held open. The lyrical burn ignited by a love turned toxic carries its own sting, especially as she sketches out corsets catching fire, a heart torn apart, and a love slipping into ghostly territory. Through her unique vision, emotion lands in the liminal space where hopeless romantics and poetry-soaked souls tend to linger. It sweeps through the darker corners of longing, yet it offers relief in the same breath, giving listeners a route out of their emotional weight rather than leaving them drowning in it.

Her background as an actress and visual creator shapes the world around the track; she has spent years moulding an aesthetic and choreographed tension build a universe that pulls you in with ease. As she continues expanding her catalogue for a full 2026 reveal, it is clear that her approach to dark-alternative pop is grounded in instinct and imagery. This debut serves as a doorway into the world she has been quietly constructing, one where beauty, fantasy, and danger circle each other without losing momentum.

haunted by roses is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

ZKIN smoked through the shadows of lust in the artfully hypnotic single, Temptation

Posted on 8 January 2026

ZKIN closed out another year of leaving an indelible mark on the underground indietronica scene with the seductive standout single, Temptation, taken from their latest EP, Alibi. PJ Harvey fans will want to eat their rhythmic pulses out to the deliciously moody cut that captures the lasciviousness of lust when it curls its way around a habit that should have been buried years ago. The titular temptation isn’t brushed aside or resisted here; it’s indulged, smoked through, and sung into a haze.

ZKIN translated the shadowplay of desire into a session of pure hypnosis, with flurries of neo-classic piano keys dancing over swooning 80s pop-rock guitars, all winding into a trip-hopped diorama of longing. The groove coils slowly, but never aimlessly, weaving Malin’s rich vocals through the brooding textures. The emotional weight is there in every breath..

Since 2023, ZKIN has swerved away from conventional paths, building their own terrain of sonic and visual experimentation. The collaboration with Simon Söderberg as producer opened new dimensions, and the mixing and mastering from industry heavyweights elevated their instinctively underground instincts to cinematic heights. Jonas’s roots in sleaze-punk, jazz, and 60s psychedelia flicker through the edges, while Malin’s grounding in soul and raw vocal emotiveness carries the band’s sonic disobedience into something far more vulnerable and corporeal.

We were already circling their orbit, but Temptation pulled us straight into the gravitational centre of ZKIN.

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

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Discordant desire glows at the core of suscie’s alt-electro trap earworm, NICE

Posted on 17 December 2025

suscie has dropped the demo of NICE, yet it already feels like any studio polish would scour the soul from this emo trap electronica release. The grimy intimacy is the cornerstone of what makes it infectiously exhilarant; the scratchy beats twitch under the mix while the vocals howl into discordance, used as an emotive device. NICE hits with the charge of an authentically electric anthem, the kind the underground will want to devour and keep on loop.

Instead of locking himself into the cultural zeitgeist, suscie picks the meat off the bones of contemporary artists and cooks it into a raw revelation of desire that swerves the banality of lust-centric tropes. There is purity and vulnerability woven into his energy, electrifyingly juxtaposed against the dark and dominant earworm that glows at the core of the track.

Behind the alias is an independent artist and photographer who has treated music as a lifeline since his early days producing under the name Fishy Beats. Nine years of self-schooled growth feed into NICE, shaped by a constellation of influences ranging from nothing, nowhere. and Crystal Castles to The Postal Service, Gorillaz and Clams Casino. Across that landscape he has spent years pouring emotion into beats and vocals, tightening the thread between electronica, emo trap and lo-fi melancholia.

NICE is now available on all major streaming platforms via this link. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast