Browsing Tag

Paramore

Rachel DeeLynn – Gut Feeling: Histironic Pop-Punk for Anyone Who Mistook Red Flags for Butterflies

With her latest infectious pop-punk anthem, Gut Feeling, Rachel DeeLynn injects the eccentric accessibility of Chappell Roan into a high-voltage hit that is enough to make the Paramore discography sound like it needs to be put on life support. The alternative pop-rock artist has already earned Grammy consideration, major radio play across BBC and KISS FM, and back-to-back number one singles on the World Indie Music Charts, but Gut Feeling leaves the icon standing on top of a fresh detonation point.

Every progression has a way of finding new means to broadside adrenaline into you through chameleonic shifts, whether DeeLynn is snarling as though possessed by hindsight and refusing to silence her intuition, or spiralling through artful, avant-garde, camp-pop phrasing.

If you have ever been gaslit, waved away the red flags, chased the butterflies and come out the other side scathed, Gut Feeling is the ultimate vindicating alt-pop-punk anthem. DeeLynn’s biting rock instrumentation and pop hooks land with the force of someone who has already proved her commercial pull while refusing to sand down her edges. There is a live wire of vitality and conviction running through the hit; it is pop-punk without the stain of mainstream pandering, as raw and revolutionary as it always should have been. We need to protect her seminal originality at all costs.

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

Review by Amelia Vandergast

LYRA’s ‘English Weather’ Hits Like Alt-Indie Petrichor After the Worst Kind of Goodbye

Metaphorically, when it rains, it pours, leaving us in the damp, morose poetry of petrichor, and no one knows that more than the alt-indie trio, LYRA. In their latest single, English Weather, the breakthrough act summoned a monsoon of meaning, letting grief move through the song as both a weather system and emotional aftermath.

The reverberations from the cavernous piano and guitar textures could move mountains as the lead vocals seductively languish inside the melancholy of the release. Clouds break for moments of gratitude to shine into the vignette of loss and memory, then gather again in choruses commanded with the same dramatic authority as Garbage’s biggest hits. The alt-90s act as a weathervane for this stunning blueprint of emotional attrition, penned in poetry and pain, while LYRA’s soul-inflected indie rock core anthemises the rawest facets of the human experience.

If you know how it feels to want one more day with someone already gone, the resonance in this intimate triumph, which builds around the emotional architecture of Wolf Alice, will hit hard enough to bruise. Produced and mixed by Larry Hibbitt, whose work spans Nothing But Thieves, Marmozets, Boston Manor and Sea Girls, English Weather marks the third single from LYRA’s forthcoming EP.

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

Review by Amelia Vandergast

The New Tropics augmented introspection in their indie-rock anthem, Street Parking

Proving that razor-sharp pop hooks have a place in indie rock and introspection hits even sweeter when it is infectiously augmented is the Nashville-hailing powerhouse, The New Tropics with their recently released sophomore single, Street Parking.

The sweeping guitar chords, vocal lines which harmonise with almost endless sustain, and the pulsative rhythm section combine to synthesise a sound which doesn’t break the mould but polishes it with scarcely heard cultivation.

The sticky-sweet coming-of-age ode to growing pains ticks all the right boxes while inventing a few more for their sonic signature to scribe through. You just can’t help but feel The New Tropics hype when you sink into the expansively vivacious atmosphere; whatever the trio turn to next under the influence of The Cardigans, Paramore, and The Beaches, it’s bound to be a riotous ride through reimagined indie nostalgia.

Street Parking was officially released on July 12 and is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Oceandvst cured nihilism with their hooked-up juggernaut of an emo post-hardcore anthem, Dead End Hope

‘Dead End Hope’ is so much more than the sum of its parts; a savant polymath wouldn’t know where to start breaking the latest expansively affecting single from Oceandvst down.

The only true way to do the augmented with raw volition alt anthem any justice is by alluding to the visceral impact of the release that covers the entire emo spectrum while extending an olive branch of empathy to anyone who has ever known the claustrophobia of being trapped within their own mind.

From Paramore-esque vocal hooks to the heart-in-throat vindication of MCR to the hell-hath-no-fury like a post-hardcore breakdown of blast beats, ferociously distorted guitars and snarled basslines, Dead End Hope delivers it all while keeping the emotion of the single at its core.

Since forming in 2017, the Greek trio has lived up to their mission of becoming architects of sonic sanctuaries to the disillusioned, the lost, and the outliers with the candour in their lyrics and the intensity of their melodies. Messages of solidarity and hope underscore each of their releases which have been lauded by Billboard Magazine and Alternative Press.

If any outfit is capable of curing nihilism while simultaneously perfecting the formula for a pop-punk-post-hardcore anthemic hybrid, it is Oceandvst.

Dead End Hope was officially released on June 7th; stream the single on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Jenna Louise started a riot of affectionate fervour in her pop-rock hit, You’re Still the One

Harmonising in the middle ground between Kelly Clarkson, Avril Lavigne and Paramore, Jenna Louise’s latest fire-branded pop-punk anthem, You’re Still the One, is a riot of affectionate fervour, which proves that few people love harder or are as uninhibited with their candour as the UK-based singer-songwriter.

Released ahead of her debut LP, My Journey, which had been five years in the making before its launch on March 4th, You’re Still the One is the perfect introduction to Jenna Louise’s hook-rife sonic signature that will be scribing through your mind for long after the high-octane hit has faded to a close following the augmented magnetic energy that she keeps a tight rhythmic leash on throughout the production.

The Springsteen-esque riffs that frequently decorate the track with rock-licked euphoria tie the earworm together and bring even more power to the release which reveres romantic connections that prove even after you’ve weathered storms and hit the rocks, passion doesn’t need to falter.

You’re Still the One is now available to stream on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Isla de Luca redefined the femme fatale archetype in her provocatively liberating alt-pop hit, I Already Am One

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Isla de Luca riotously fucked the gender binary with the launch of her debut alt-pop single, I Already Am One. With the rock licks augmenting the pop hooks and injecting them with adrenaline, the NYC icon staked a serious claim in the pop domain. After ensnaring just about everyone who crosses her on TikTok and Instagram, she’s more than ready to demurely dominate the airwaves with her scintillating synthesis of electronica, pop and rock.

While trad wives are falling over themselves to appease the male gaze as their sole aim in life, Isla de Luca has asserted herself as an indomitable queer pop icon with the refrain “I don’t need a rich man, I already am one”. It’s a subversive twist to die for and to live for. Through her mission to rip up the exploitative tropes around desire and empower others to embrace their provocative power, she stands just as tall as Kathleen Hanna in the feminist landscape.

If you thought femme fatales were all about seduction, feel the vindication cascading from Isla de Luca’s flawlessly electrifying vocal lines and realise the liberation of living as the archetype in their villain era.

For fans of MARINA, Paramore and Sophie, this single isn’t one you want to sleep on.

I Already Am One will be available to stream from February 16. Stream it and follow Isla de Luca on all major platforms via this link.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Clear the cobwebs of contempt with Laura Musgrave’s pop-rock hit, Rent Free

As rock ‘n’ roll as Joan Jett, as infectious as Taylor Momsen, as authentically captivating as conceivably possible, Laura Musgrave has the talent, charisma and songwriting chops to put the music industry at her feet after she released her latest single, Rent Free.

The track efficaciously alludes to how cutting ties with someone is only the first stage of letting go, making sure that they’re no longer living rent-free inside your mind and unshackling yourself from the anger which only serves to hurt you is a far harder feat. With this electrifyingly unforgettable track on your playlists, you’ll find all the motivation you need to clear the cobwebs of contempt.

We can’t wait to hear the latest installation of confessional guitar-driven pop-rock from the award-winning artist who picked up the International Female Singer of the Year award at the 2023 International Singer Songwriter Association Awards in Atlanta.

Rent Free was officially released on October 13; get your kicks from it on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Glenna Jane released the most cerebral indie pop hit of the summer with ‘Late Bloomer’

Indie rock got into the sheets of hook-filled bedroom pop with Glenna Jane’s latest single, Late Bloomer. With the high-octane energy of Paramore, the intimacy of Mitski and the absorbing gravitas of Phoebe Bridgers, Late Bloomer is set to take Glenna Jane’s career to stratospheric new heights.

Late Bloomer lyrically delivers a fatal shot to the kinds of fuckboys who use words as a means to an end instead of an expression of the truth to deliver visceral resonance to anyone who can relate to the line “I don’t like you as much when we talk, and you say you’re in love, I know you’re just lying to get inside me”.

And that is just the tip of the crucifying iceberg in Late Bloomer, which Glenna Jane used to embolden herself and her audience through vindicatingly honest candour. The poetically meta propensities of Late Bloomer made the single the most cerebral hit of the summer. We can’t wait to hear where the Brooklyn-based storyteller takes her sharp wit next as she continues to embody the complexity of identity, intimacy and attachment.

Stream Late Bloomer from July 7th on SoundCloud and Spotify

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Pop-Punk trailblazer, Brooklyn Belton, unveiled the ultimate adversity aftercare anthem, Just Fine

Starting with an instant hook that sounds like it came straight out of the Bowling for Soup arsenal, the debut single, Just Fine, from the Ohio pop-punk trailblazer, Brooklyn Belton, effortlessly became one of our favourite alt-rock earworms of 2023 so far.

With an instrumental arrangement so tight it is practically corseted, Brooklyn Belton polished the punk rock genre with her anthemic slice of stellar songwriting, which won’t fail to leave you galvanised for the way the exhilarant guitars wrap around her lyrics that compel you to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and deal with the cards of adversity your autonomy has dealt you.

When the chorus comes around, you’ll lose yourselves in the euphoric energy while simultaneously finding yourself in the candid introspection that perceptibly oozes from the wounds of a personal battle.

Just Fine hit the airwaves on April 14. Check it out on YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Make Rachael Wood’s latest single, Be Mine, your summer pop-rock playlist staple

Rachael Wood

‘Be Mine’ is the latest pop-rock earworm released by up and coming artist Rachael Wood, she may have only made her debut during the 2020 lockdown, but her sound readily oozes sonic finesse.

After the Paramore and Pale Waves-Esque choruses, Rachael Wood finds space to exhibit the versatility of her style through Slash-style soaring guitar solos that won’t fail to leave you arrested as you appreciate the bluesy sleazy grit in the otherwise sticky sweet-soundscape.

With her distinctive voice bringing an intimate indie feel to the release paired with the powerful melodic hooks, Be Mine is a radio-ready track that easily sets itself apart from the rest.

You can check out Be Mine via Spotify; for more ways to listen, head over to her official website.

Review by Amelia Vandergast