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Rooftop Screamers

Rooftop Screamers delivered a melancholic rush of cosmic power pop euphoria with ‘Our Story’, featuring Royston Langdon

Posted on 5 March 2026
Rooftop Screamers - Our Story (feat. Royston Langdon) by Rooftop Screamers

The melancholically euphoric rush of Rooftop Screamers’ Our Story could only have been fully realised through the quasi-cosmic harmonic timbre of Royston Langdon. The single lands as a spacy iteration of retro power pop, brushed with hues from the indie-pop palette that pull you into its kaleidoscopic colour. From the first moments, the track settles into a weightless atmosphere that feels oddly familiar, as though you’ve always belonged inside its sonic horizon.

There’s a natural ease in the arrangement that delivers a scintillating aura around the brashier textures. Swaggering-with-nostalgia guitars strike the production like bell tolls, ringing through the mix to keep the emotional gravity intact while the melody floats skyward. The sensation lands somewhere between melancholic reflection and full-bodied elation.

As a meditation on the bliss of recognising the one person who salves the existential ache, few artists have paid a more fitting ode to the sensation of longing being sated in the most absolute way possible. The way this is mirrored with the segue into psychedelic 60s pop before the track builds back up in a radio-ready rock opera-esque way that Rooftop Screamers triumphs with affirms that Mike Collins is one of the most accomplished songwriters out there. You may not see him at the Grammys, but you probably wouldn’t see anyone at the Grammys capable of orchestrating a feat like this either.

Supported by the instrumental flourishes of Dirk Sullivan and the pristine studio shaping by Kevin Hahn, the release moves with a clear understanding of melody, texture and atmosphere,

Our Story is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Bandcamp. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Rooftop Screamers found euphoria in the ruins of reality with ‘Forsaken’

Posted on 9 November 2025

If I were given the option of living in a utopia filled with hollow, soulless sound or enduring this drenched-in-dejection reality, I’d still choose the latter if it meant I could feel the raw euphoria of resonating with protestive cultural expositions like Forsaken by Rooftop Screamers featuring Stephen McSwain. Opening with a pure pop-punk riff, the nostalgia rush hits instantly before the band tears through any threat of predictability. There’s a harbingeringly histrionic edge that flickers between the contours of Green Day-esque pop-punk and raucous alt-rock, fuelled by enough existential angst to shake the dust off the genre’s complacency.

The single feels like an urgent act of rebellion against a world that keeps demanding submission. Each lyric cuts through with a sense of disillusionment that transcends performance; it’s a howl from the collective psyche of modern consciousness, demanding to know how we ended up in this loop of degradation. Yet, amid the hopelessness, the soaring choruses sell sanctuary, an echo of shared resistance. Rooftop Screamers channel that pain into melody with unfeigned volition, turning despair into something almost euphoric. Even as the lyrics confess there’s nothing left to say, their sound proves otherwise, bleeding consolation into an apathetic age.

Spearheaded by Mike Collins, Rooftop Screamers is less a conventional project and more a creative experiment in unity. Collins’ passion for collaboration draws in both local and international talent, shaping tracks with a layered intricacy that hints at his musical lineage—Bowie, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Steven Wilson, and Jeff Lynne all hum faintly beneath the surface. Yet Forsaken stands wholly in the present, a blistering outcry for those still wrestling with meaning in the modern wreckage and trying not to slip into full blown nihilism.

Forsaken is now available on all major streaming platforms; for the full experience, watch the official music video on YouTube. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Rooftop Screamers Burn the Illusion of Permanence with Glammed-Up Psych Rock Redemption in ‘Blink of an Eye’

Posted on 15 May 2025

Like a whirling dervish of harbingering psychedelia, Blink of an Eye by Rooftop Screamers featuring Royston Langdon uses nostalgically sinister synth lines to juxtapose the soul of the soaring vocals, which of the impermanence of circumstance.

The way we allow bitterness to intercept our ability to appreciate the moment is one of the greatest tragedies of perception. When everything feels like a given, we fool ourselves that there’s nothing to lose – but there’s no chance of letting that insidious sense of entitlement creep in with Blink of an Eye on your playlists. It leaves you compelled to crank the swaggering 80s glam rock crescendos louder, join along with the infectious chorus vox and take any opportunity to pull what you love closer into an orbit of gratitude.

The chameleonic skill of Rooftop Screamers in their high-profile collaborations is one thing; the talent that allows them to strike all the right epiphanous chords with their lyricism is another. While everyone knows change and death are the only certainties, their ability to etch that fatalism into a cathartic outpouring is what lodges beneath the skin long after the final note.

With Langdon’s unmistakable vocal command steeped in sincerity and urgency, and Mark Plati (David Bowie, The Cure) sculpting the sharp cinematic sonics, Blink of an Eye simmers as much as it stings. Power pop hooks, new wave pulses, and glam rock swagger are folded into the mix without ever becoming contrived.

Blink of an Eye is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Rooftop Screamers Rip the Mask Off Manipulation with ‘My Sanity’

Posted on 4 February 2025

Gaslighting isn’t a new affliction, but Rooftop Screamers extended the conversation around the sociopathic phenomenon by throwing a searing light on its suffocating grip in their latest pop-rock earworm, My Sanity. With the haunting vocals of Randy McStine—best known for his work with Porcupine Tree—spilling across a backdrop of 80s-tinged synths, the track takes a razor-sharp dive into the turmoil of emotional manipulation and the reclamation of self-worth.

Mike Collins, the driving force behind Rooftop Screamers, penned My Sanity as an unflinching account of breaking free from a toxic dynamic. The lyrics don’t just skim the surface—they cut through the noise, articulating the psychological warfare of being gaslit before surging into an anthemic declaration of liberation.

Mark Plati, whose studio credentials include working with David Bowie and The Cure, ensures the production is as striking as the subject matter, layering sweeping synths over infectiously anthemic guitar work to build an atmosphere that feels both cinematically urgent, resulting in a track that nestles into the psyche as much as it does the soul.

The nostalgic synth textures could have been lifted straight from a John Carpenter score, while the soaring choruses inject the kind of raw, unshackled energy that gives My Sanity its gut-punching impact. Those who’ve ever fought to reclaim their own sense of reality will find a bittersweet sense of vindication in the euphoric release.

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

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Rooftop Screamers & Randy McStine – Souvenirs: A Mesmeric Prog-Pop-Rock Keepsake of Nostalgia and Emotion

Posted on 20 October 2024

In Souvenirs, Rooftop Screamers, the passion project of Mike Collins, pulled from his well of diverse musical influences and delivered a sonic experience that echoes through the past and present. With Randy McStine (Porcupine Tree) and Mark Plati (David Bowie) lending their talents, the track captures the bitter-sweetness of nostalgic reflection to transmit an affecting ode to the beauty of mementoes and the sorrow of losing touch with people who have shaped your soul.

The choral pop-rock energy of the song, tinged with prog-rock guitar motifs, rises and falls like waves of memories rushing through the psyche. Shimmering 80s chords lift the track into an almost celestial realm, while the melancholic lyrics drag you back to Earth with a gravity that’s hard to shake. You’ll find yourself torn between the elation of the instrumentals and the heaviness of the message which we can all relate to. We’ve all been there as protagonists in the universally resonant vignette after loving in losing, whether that person is no longer with us, or we’ve just shifted with different tides.

Every Rooftop Screamers release reveals a new avenue of Collins’ ingenuity, and Souvenirs is no different. Much like every other triumph in his discography, you’re still led to the same emotionally scintillating destination with the single that hits just as hard as the Christmas song that always knows which evocative triggers to pull. There really is no overstating the impact of this stellar slice of proggy 80s pop rock.

Souvenirs was officially released on October 11; stream the single on Spotify now.

Keep up to date with all the latest Rooftop Screamers singles via Facebook.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Rooftop Screamers metamorphosed nihilism into euphoria with their power pop hit, Dead in the Water

Posted on 23 December 2023

With angular echoes of Interpol-esque lines feeding into the palpitatingly anticipation-rife instrumental arrangement, the prelude and opening verse in Rooftop Screamers‘ latest single, Dead in the Water, throws you into the depth of the earworm headfirst before the subsequent verses veer from Placebo reminiscence to exuding the fervid electricity found within the Manic Street Preacher tracks that know exactly how to melodically ignite the soul.

It is a significant sonic shift from the sound Rooftop Screamers used to gain our attention earlier this year. They’ve left the dreaminess and romanticism of Another Life behind the anthemic 90s Britpop adrenaline, but you’ll still be enveloped by the scintillating synths as they add colour to the guitar lines which may as well have been riffed by James Dean Bradfield himself.

The track featuring Rob Daiker is an impossible-to-ignore attestation to the cultivated gravitas of the Portland-hailing award-winning singer-songwriter who alchemically metamorphosed nihilism into euphoria for superlative power pop catharsis.

Dead in the Water was officially released on December 15; stream it on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Reality is fiction in Rooftop Screamers cosmic pop odyssey, Another Life, featuring Tim Smith

Posted on 27 September 2023

After celebrating critical acclaim in his power-pop band, Throwback Suburbia, the Portland-based drummer and songwriter Mike Collins created his studio project, Rooftop Screamers to showcase his original tracks and create an opportunity to work with local and world-renowned vocalists, musicians, and producers.

Swapping guitar solos for the far more euphonic timbres of synth lines, he orchestrated an interstellar sonic fantasy in his latest single, Another Life, featuring Tim Smith, but those power pop proclivities still worked their way into the sticky-sweet synthesis that will enamour any fans of Butch Walker and Father John Misty.

It is all too easy to affix an ELO reference onto any track that could be branded as a cosmic pop odyssey, but the fusion of Beatle-esque pop, classical arrangements, and futuristic iconography necessitated the reminiscence reference regardless.

Something tells me that Another Life will be an earworm that doesn’t quit until you have pandered to it repeatedly.

Stream Another Life on Spotify now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast