Browsing Tag

Emo Rock

Tokyo Alt-Rock Project Solo Ronin Hit an Immediate Chest-Swelling Force on 10,000 Miles

Posted on 3 July 2026

Emo has reached peak maturity through the debut single, 10,000 Miles, by Solo Ronin. Created by Tokyo-based artist Kris Thiesen, born in Japan and raised in California, the alternative rock project came in hot with a debut that already sounds fully inhabited and emotionally exposed.

After a prelude that instantly throws you back to when you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls, the track rips into melodic 00s rock in the vein of Breaking Benjamin 10,000 Miles builds from acoustic-driven intimacy into a full-band alt-rock climax that feels cinematically pit-worthy. Produced and mixed by Aaron Johnson, whose credits include Secondhand Serenade and The Fray, the polish on the single heightens its thematic impact to the nth degree.

There’s no sense of Solo Ronin finding their feet with this debut release or hesitantly approaching the industry; they came in with their soul wide open, exuding the same magnetic resonance as Chris Cornell. Lyrically, the single explores distance, timing and the relationships that keep living inside you long after the practical ending.

With early support from Amazing Radio, Raw Radio, Nova Hits Radio and The Fix on Totally Wired Radio, plus clear appeal for fans of Dashboard Confessional, Jimmy Eat World, Secondhand Serenade and Cory Wells, the visceral impact of this debut landing will stay lodged.

10,000 Miles is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

London’s Chaidura Fires Hypersonic Glitchy Metalcore at Synthetic Superficiality in the Theatrically Surreal Hit, Plastic Beauty

Posted on 10 April 2026

Genre-fusionism becomes a hypersonic missile in the latest drop from Chaidura, Plastic Beauty, an Avant-Garde glitchy metalcore riot incited against society’s surreal obsession with synthetic superficiality, which now masquerades as beauty. The London-based artist has been building a world where visual kei drama, emo candour, alt-rock weight and raw emotional exposure all converge, and in the artist’s LIMINAL chapter, that vision feels darker, heavier and more grounded in the psychic damage of comparison, control and self-reckoning.

Following a Pendulum-esque intro, mechanical metalcore intensity consumes you, and the arrangement, as it keeps throwing subversive symphonic pop and industrial aesthetics into the mix, keeping it off the keel to hold you inside the explosive yet seamlessly natural progressions. Beneath the sonic violence, the lyrics cut with blunt force, taking aim at beauty standards, self-rejection, and the kind of shame that festers when appearance gets treated as currency.

As undoubtedly one of the most talented bands in the UK alt underground, Chaidura delivers head-spinning panoramic production quality, almost beyond conceivable instrumental talent, vocal magnetism that pulls you into the core of the emotion, and, polishing it off, a savant-level imagination to envision such a hit. While too many artists are painting by numbers to stitch together reincarnations of tried and tested formulas, Chaidura is building chaotic cathedrals of noise that rain society’s rubble down on you when you step inside. It’s fucking phenomenal.

The London-based artist has already drawn attention across tastemaker platforms, and this latest release pushes further into the harsher emotional terrain of their LIMINAL era, where self-acceptance, image, and psychic fracture all scrape against each other.

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

Follow Chaidura on Instagram.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Topdown – I Feel Everything: An Intense Alt-Rock Odyssey Through Empathetic Angst

Posted on 17 November 2024

Topdown’s eponymous debut LP is a hit-after-hit tour de rancorously evocative force, starting with the scathed opening salvo, I Feel Everything, which will make a bruisingly vindicating impact on anyone who knows how much of a curse empathy can be.

With frenetic frustration coursing through every hook-decorated progression of volition, I Feel Everything is a candid outpour of the desperation to chemically numb yourself to the weight of the world that bears down on the psyche as it conflates with introspective scars.

It’s impossible not to draw thematic comparisons to Dinosaur Jr’s ‘Feel the Pain’, but there is no refuting that Topdown are blazing their own trail through their eagerly anticipated LP which fuses the ferocity of post-hardcore, the emotive intensity of pop-punk and the aesthetics of 00s rock anthems.

I Feel Everything is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Fosh. Gazed Into the Void with Their New Wave Indie Release, Staring Into the Dark

Posted on 13 August 2023

Ahead of the release of their debut 15-track LP, Up with the Sun, the New Wave Indie brother trio, Fosh., teased the blissful tones to come with the release of Staring Into the Dark.

With 90s emo inclinations brushing up against the cruising guitar chords and angular lead work, Staring Into the Dark sonically strides across familiar territory while facilitating your arrival at a brand-new destination. Their honeyed brand of melancholy is instantly palatable as it oozes from the harmonised vocal lines that sugar coat ennui with soul while the melodies easily make an earworm out of the single.

If you can’t get enough of Staring Into the Dark, you won’t have long to wait for the release of the debut album, which is set to drop this fall.

Staring Into the Dark was officially released on August 4th; you can stream it on Spotify and follow the band on Instagram and TikTok.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Just Pathetic are wondering just what happened ‘Since College’

Posted on 18 May 2021

Describing themselves as ‘a band specialising in substandard music and haphazard melodies’, Just Pathetic’s ‘Since College’ is a poppy-punk number, with elements of Bowling For Soup, The Police, Sum-41, and Journey all mixed up with a Blink 182 tongue-in-cheek bouncy, upbeat ode to time since…well, you guessed it, since college.

There’s a nice little break-down mid-song, a nice flanged-and-octaved guitar-line throughout, and lyrically there’s some not-too-serious digs at teen entitlement, angst, and ‘emo-days’ mixed up with underage drinking and ‘interesting’ cigarettes. It’s fun, it’s vaguely silly, and it’s catchy, energetic, and exuberant mixed in with laid-back ‘stoner’ vocals (there’s a tiny hint at ‘Superfuzz’-era Mudhoney to the delivery), with the fuzziest guitar tone we’ve heard in a long time. It’s the age-old question: ‘Where have the days gone since college?’

You can hear ‘Since College’ on YouTube; check out Just Pathetic here.

Review by Alex Holmes

Cxldface – Better Off Alone: The infectiously anthemic pop punk soundtrack to your solidarity

Posted on 18 February 2021

‘Better Off Alone’ is the latest feat of pop punk from Las Vegas artist, Cxldface, which will throw you right back to the 00s era of alt-rock while implanting a viscerally modernistic perennial earworm which ensures that there’s little chance of forgetting the infectiously hyped melodies.

Considering we’re all spending a little more time alone than usual, it’s easy to see how Better Off Alone could be a sanity-saving playlist staple for many. With reminders that there’s plenty of worse things than solidarity, euphorically sonic synth lines and the punchy hook-laden guitars, Better Off Alone practically spoon feeds serotonin.

At just 18 years old, Cxldface, is able to boast a maturity to his sound and a potent enough amount of distinction through his tendency to meld elements of electronica, hip hop and indie into his empoweringly scathing anthems. Get him on your radar.

Better Off Alone is now available to stream via Spotify

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Get acquainted with La Roma’s sonic sophomore single ‘Strangers’

Posted on 17 February 2021

After a successful debut with their single, ‘So Long, Adieu’, in 2020 Alt-Rock artist, La Roma, delivered their evocatively iron-wrought single ‘Strangers’ which captures the agony of social tethers tearing.

With sharp lyrics which reflect commonly thought but rarely spoken sentiments such as ‘what have I done to disturb you, it’s like I no longer fill the void in your day’, your soul’s capacity to feel will be well and truly be tested. If Strangers was released in 2019 it would be a raw hard-hitting release, but as it dropped in January 2021, while plenty of people were locked away in their rooms re-evaluating their relationships, it’s overwhelmingly resonant.

Any fans of Thrice, All Time Low, Taking Back Sunday and Jimmy Eat World will definitely want La Roma on their radar. Their nuanced take on Hard Rock comes complete with cuttingly angular guitars, intense percussion, viscerally restraint-less vocals and the sense that La Roma is going to take the scene by storm once COVID has finished destroying it.

Strangers is now available to stream via Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

IGGYC shares their introspection in the darkly theatrical post rock hit ‘Thoughts’

Posted on 2 February 2021

Moscow-hailing Bay-Area-residing artist, IGGYC, has recently released their latest darkly theatrical progressive post-rock single ‘Thoughts’ which allows sonic symphonic rock to meld with 00s emo and cataclysmic increments of hard rock.

Starting with a piano-led prelude, Thoughts gently eases you into the raw embittered soundscape which quickly amasses momentum until you’re in the midst of a fervent whirlwind that carries frenetic reminiscences to the likes of Dir En Grey. IGGYC delivered so much more than a senselessly momentous release, expect your heartstrings to get caught in the wrenching choruses which carry the same weight as the entirety of MCR’s Black Parade album – all in the space of 4:29-minutes.

Thoughts is available to stream via Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

ourfathers. added nuanced maturity to the progressive post-rock genre with their colossally evocative single ‘an offering.’

Posted on 12 January 2021
Movements II by ourfathers.

It was only a matter of time until an alt-rock artist simultaneously exuding influence from Sigur Ros and At the Drive caught our distinction-seeking-attention. The latest progressive post-rock hit ‘an offering.’ from ourfarthers. has left us ensnared.

Admitting that tracks by emo artists appease your angsty soul may be met with all manner of snobby pretension from insufferable aficionados, but an offering. isn’t a track easily torn apart. Maturity can be hard to find in tracks which deliver burning unbridled emotion, but discernibly, an offering. is the needle in the evocative haystack.

With quiescently melodic increments sidled next to rip-roaring breakdowns when all restraint is thrown away with visceral abandon in sonically anthemic style, an offering. is enough to make your soul quiver.

an offering. is available to stream and download via Bandcamp.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

jain – kneading: Eccentrically Volatile Alt Garage Rock

Posted on 20 August 2020
https://jaintn.bandcamp.com/track/kneading

Nashville, Tennessee artist jain released their noisy Garage Rock EP ‘the end of June’ at… the end of June. The track which caught our attention was the discord-spilling riotously angsty single ‘kneading’.

The short and distortedly sweet track incorporates elements of Punk, No Wave, Post Hardcore and Indie and throws in some sonically psychedelic lead guitar work to ensure that you’ve never heard anything quite like this eccentrically volatile release before.

In short, kneading is utter chaos and it can even make artists such as Pavement and Daughters seem middle-of-the-road.

You can check out kneading for yourselves by heading over to Bandcamp where you’ll be able to download and stream the rest of the EP.

Review by Amelia Vandergast