Browsing Tag

Synth Pop

Emilie Thorsby Poured Pop-Rock Fuel in the Fire of Empowerment with ‘Amazing as Hell’

Posted on 25 April 2025

For anyone familiar with the pressure of contorting into a distortion until all that remains visible is a hollow façade, only to find acceptance still painfully elusive, Emilie Thorsby’s single ‘Amazing as Hell’ is your alt-pop rebellion wrapped in compassion. The track delivers a powerful cascade of empathy, injecting fuel into weary hearts desperate for empowerment.

With theatrical flair, Thorsby effortlessly navigates a myriad of styles—synth-pop hooks dissolve fluidly into baroque pop motifs before surging into bold, Prince-esque rock riffs. Each stylistic shift visually manifests the many masks we don to gain approval from the shifting gaze of those around us. Yet at the centre remains Thorsby’s unapologetically striking vocals, soaring confidently over an infectious nostalgia-inducing production, reminiscent of pop’s golden decades, the 80s and 90s.

Drawing deeply from her personal narrative of resilience, Thorsby confronts past betrayals and abuses—relationships that diminished her worth, leaving emotional scars she transforms into powerful affirmations. Her anthem insists fiercely that inadequacy lies not within ourselves but in the eyes of those incapable of truly seeing us. ‘Amazing as Hell’ holds a mirror to our self-doubt, boldly declaring it baseless and invalid.

Thorsby’s single is a declaration of independence from societal expectations, confidently crafted and passionately performed.

‘Amazing as Hell’ is now available to stream on all major platforms, including SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Blue Violence. Became the Definitive Sad Boi of Synth Pop with ‘My Feet Are Sad on the Dancefloor’

Posted on 22 April 2025

Blue Violence. turned the emotional weight of disconnection into a dancefloor confession with ‘My Feet Are Sad on the Dancefloor’, the keystone single from his 3-track EP, ‘Ugh…’. With synths set to shimmer and sardonic melancholy laced through the beat, this melancholic indietronica lament spins the disco ball on its axis to reflect a darker spectrum of inner turmoil.

Through anthropomorphised sorrow, Daniel Fischetti—writing and producing as Blue Violence.—exposes the paradox of internal desolation amidst external euphoria. While glitter rains and basslines throb in euphoric unison, his feet remain heavy with the weight of unshakable emotional inertia. There’s funk in the Depeche Mode-esque rhythm and pain in the lyricism, stitched together with the same magnetic gloom found in the works of John Grant.

Hailing from Southern California, Fischetti started Blue Violence in 2019 during a collaboration with producer and engineer Chris Caccamise of CJE Productions. Their work on the debut album Modern Love cemented Blue Violence. as a name worth noting in the shadowy corners of synth pop. Since then, Fischetti has remained self-contained in his sonic pursuits, refining his signature style without sanding away the raw emotional contours.

‘My Feet Are Sad on the Dancefloor’ doesn’t fake the catharsis—it coils around it, examining every nuance of numbness through neon-soaked textures and darkly sweet tones. Blue Violence delivered the funked-up synth pop hit we never knew we needed. He’s the definitive sad boi of synth pop.

‘My Feet Are Sad on the Dancefloor’ is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Ian McFarland Used Pop Punk to Augment Optimism in His Latest Single, You Are So Loved

Posted on 18 April 2025

If there’s any justice left in indie’s distorted underbelly, Ian McFarland will be recognised as the artist who gave serotonin back to pop-punk. The Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter has already earned a presence across regional charts and NYC live haunts, but You Are So Loved deserves to break much further beyond.

Following a sticky-sweet synth-pop intro, the single throws the genre right back to the golden era of visceral expression with its pop-punk crescendo of unfiltered optimism. But the stylistic transgressions don’t end there. Jangly new wave indie-pop nestles into the volition of the punk-tinged foundations, allowing McFarland to exhibit one of the most distinctive sonic signatures we’ve heard this year.

It’s not just the sound design that makes You Are So Loved cut through the cynicism often used as a crutch in alt scenes. McFarland weaponises sincerity as if it’s a subversive act. There’s bravery in broadcasting this much raw affection, especially within a genre known for self-deprecation and detached irony. But McFarland knew what he was risking—being written off as cloying or sentimental. He bypasses that pitfall entirely with his unshakable authenticity.

Born from a need to pull joy from bleakness, You Are So Loved is an adrenaline shot of altruism for anyone who needs to remember that the world can still look beautiful through a cracked lens.

You Are So Loved is now available to stream on all major platforms, including YouTube. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast.

Paradise Drive’s ‘The Phenomenon’: Alt-Rock’s Interstellar Ride into Sonic Rapture

Posted on 5 April 2025
Paradise Drive

Paradise Drive is an alt-rock powerhouse delivering orbital euphoria through razor-sharp songwriting chops, interstellar production stylings, and a seamless transcendence beyond simply presenting as a talented act. Throughout their latest album, The Phenomenon, you won’t merely marvel at the evident virtuosity; instead, you’ll become locked into every emotional nuance as it ebbs and flows through kaleidoscopically alchemic progressions.

The opening track pulls you into a riff-raw reverie reminiscent of 00s indie rock—yet propelled further by spacey pedal-to-the-metal momentum, allowing oscillations to move effortlessly via sonic osmosis from airwaves into emotion. Bridging anthemic resonance with introspective quiescence, Paradise Drive taps uncharted intersections within alt-rock, confidently steering innovation towards one of the most dynamic albums of 2025.

From 80s new-wave synth-pop ballads like the standout single, ‘Girl on the Plane’, which fans of The Midnight will undoubtedly devour, to the cathartic rancour of ‘Let’s Be Clear’, The Phenomenon exceeds the promise implied by its title, leaving nothing to be viscerally or evocatively desired.

Led by guitarist and vocalist Hugo De Bernardo, Paradise Drive creates meteoric, immersive experiences, fusing the soulful ambition of Coldplay, U2’s ethereal expansiveness, and the contemporary zest of The Band Camino. Their songs, anchored by themes of love, heartbreak, and personal evolution, resonate affectingly through soaring melodies and lush, electronic-tinged rock landscapes, proving their powerhouse reputation is well-deserved.

The Phenomenon is now available to stream on all major platforms. Discover your preferred way to listen via the artist’s website.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

ZKIN Expose the Sociopathic Script in ‘Breaking Me Down’ – A Synth-Pop Autopsy of Emotional Erosion

Posted on 2 April 2025

ZKIN’s latest single, Breaking Me Down, tears through the surface with haunting synth-pop stylings that shimmer with trip-hop unease and indietronica nuances. The Swedish duo, formed in Linköping by Jonas Gustafsson and Malin Jeraeus, have crafted their own genre by refusing to compromise their vision to fit a template. Their self-styled descriptors—Dessert Soul, Bristol Blues, Cinematic Industrial Synth Rock—speak to their obsession with pushing past the expected.

The production operates like strobe lighting through fog—illuminating the disorientation of psychological warfare in toxic dynamics. The synth arrangements soundtrack a spiral, while the lyrical plot is paced like a psychological thriller. Jeraeus delivers each line with measured cadence, capturing the ache of recognition and the slow-burn clarity that comes from realising you’ve been pulled into someone else’s constructed reality. Her voice, shaped by years of singing through soul, funk, blues and rock, holds nothing back in its precision.

Thematically, Breaking Me Down resonates as a cautionary tale written for anyone who’s felt reality rewritten by someone more concerned with control than connection. Gustafsson’s lifelong grounding in jazz, blues, and punk bleeds into the track’s rhythmic structure—firm, unrelenting, and laced with menace. Together, they reconstruct the power balance that emotional manipulation seeks to dismantle.

ZKIN’s strength lies in their refusal to simplify or soften. Every element of Breaking Me Down is sharpened to expose what it means to reclaim your voice after it’s been strategically unravelled.

Breaking Me Down is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

OCEANS OF TEARS Delivered a Neon-Lit Lifeline with ‘LOSING MY WILL TO LIVE’

Posted on 27 March 2025

After starting with the iconic ‘snap out of it’ line by Cher in Moonstruck, which proves OCEANS OF TEARS has their finger on the pulse of the cultural zeitgeist, ‘LOSING MY WILL TO LIVE’ slides into a high-energy synthesis of 80s-spiked pop rock which serves an infectious chorus as the main sonic dish in this existential utopia.

With synth lines streaming neon lights into the production in place of a cliché rock riff, the track remains a seamless ride through synth-pop nostalgia while OCEANS OF TEARS maintains a firm grip on what brings distinctive panache to his sound.

Drawn from Steve W. Boily’s rock musical, Bullet in a Gun, ‘LOSING MY WILL TO LIVE’ confronts despair at its most unfiltered, capturing the raw agony of losing everything—love, work, pride. In a global climate weighed down by economic uncertainty, looming tariffs, and widespread job insecurity, the soul-stirring lyrics feel heartbreakingly real and strike harder than ever. Ian Hardwick’s guest vocals amplify the emotional intensity, channelling betrayal, failure, and isolation into a powerful anthem of desperation.

This is pop-rock sharpened to a neon-lit edge; honest, relentless, and emotionally charged.

‘LOSING MY WILL TO LIVE’ is now available to stream on all major platforms, including YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Francesca Pichierri’s ‘Amen’ Strikes Alt-Pop Gold with a Groove-Soaked Rebuke

Posted on 25 March 2025

Francesca Pichierri never lets sentimentality get in the way of precision. With ‘Amen’, her fifth single and a pivotal chapter in her concept album Cellule Stronze, she lays a satirical yet razor-sharp lens on cancer ghosting—the social retreat of those who disappear when illness walks into the room. Rather than wallowing in the emotional wreckage, she chooses to let irony march straight to the dancefloor.

Musically, Amen firmly implants alt into pop. Retro-futurist synth lines and swathes of synthesised bass bring the funk, summoning a sound reminiscent of Depeche Mode warped through the lens of South American disco and gospel. But it’s Pichierri’s performance that overrides the energy of the release. Her vocal lines carry a seraphic sanctity, acting as a vocal exorcism of all the shallow well-wishers and their hollow “thoughts and prayers”.

You plug into Amen—not the other way around. It strips you of autonomy with its animatronic pull, transposing darkness into an earworm of euphoria. The lyrical sting doesn’t get lost in the groove. Instead, it’s accentuated by it. Her vocal delivery pivots from soulful sincerity to smirking irony with a deftness that makes every line land harder. It’s funk with bite. Gospel with gall. Dance music with a grudge.

With Amen, Pichierri soundtracks the uncomfortable silence left by those who recoil from pain—and she sets it to a beat they can’t ignore.

Amen is now available to stream on all major platforms, including SoundCloud and Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast.

Specyal T & Chasing Sunday Plug into Electro-Pop with ‘Automatic’

Posted on 5 March 2025

Specyal T and Chasing Sunday didn’t come to play it safe with ‘Automatic’. The neon-stroked electro-pop earworm grips with an irresistible bassline and the illusion of what The Doors might have been if Jim Morrison had stumbled into the synth-pop era with his seductive vocal swagger. Sticky-sweet in all the right places yet sharp enough to cut through the usual pop formula, it’s a track built to cling to the subconscious.

Specyal T, the Toronto-based Caribbean-Canadian musician, composer, and producer, has spent years making waves across North America and Europe. With tracks rotating on CBC Radio 1 and placements in TV and film, she’s made a name for herself by stepping outside comfort zones. ‘Automatic’ keeps that tradition alive. It’s more than a drenched-out dose of euphony—it flips the script on image-based prejudice while celebrating diversity with an eccentric edge that few dare to take on.

In a world as fractured as ours, ‘Automatic’ isn’t just another pop hit—it’s an essential earworm capable of filling the empathy void that has become a global endemic.

‘Automatic’ is out now on all major streaming platforms, including SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Megan Wheeler Leaves the Monotonous Plastic Pop Mould in Ruins with ‘Now That I’m Gone’

Posted on 28 February 2025
Megan Wheeler

Megan Wheeler has long since blown the doors to the pop pantheon open, but with her new single, Now That I’m Gone, she’s taken the throne within it. Moodily fiery and enveloped in ethereal textures that swirl around the four-to-the-floor beat, the single is a blast beyond the contemporary curve. New wave synth pop motifs inject a touch of nostalgia into the future-forward production, while glitchy vocal distortions and constant tonal shifts round out the emotionally charged anthem of self-reclamation.

Since the release of Replaced at just 16, Wheeler has distinguished herself as a pop phenomenon with songwriting that cuts through the noise. Compared to Taylor Swift, Avril Lavigne, and Dolores O’Riordan, she’s built a reputation for songs that walk the fine line between relatability and raw emotional depth. With Now That I’m Gone, she leans into confidence rather than heartbreak, proving she’s just as potent when asserting independence as she is when pouring vulnerability into her verses.

Her time at Belmont University in Nashville sharpened her talent, but it was the return home to St. Petersburg, Florida, that crystallised her resolve. Now That I’m Gone is the sound of that clarity, shattering any lingering doubt about her direction. As a dual citizen of Ireland and the U.S., a Philadelphia Eagles devotee, and someone unafraid to engage with social issues, Wheeler refuses to settle in life or music. Now That I’m Gone is just further proof that she’s pushing forward without hesitation.

Now That I’m Gone is now available on all major streaming platforms. Find your preferred way to listen via this link.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Julia Powell Resurrected the Esoteric with Her Art-Pop Earworm, ‘LAZARUS’

Posted on 27 February 2025

In a world where mannequin heads and hypnotic light shows serve as the set dressing for Julia Powell’s sonic exorcisms, ‘LAZARUS’ arrives as the latest séance. Since her 2022 debut EP, Ephyra, fans have been left suspended in Powell’s void—unsure whether to dance, dissolve, or do both at once. With her upcoming album alchemically stirring for a late 2025 release, she’s already made it clear that her dominion over the avant-garde is absolute.

Between the stabbing ache of the piano keys, the chamber strings that oscillate beyond recognition, and the trip-hop-tinged middle-eight teetering on the edge of total chaos, ‘LAZARUS’ doesn’t just transcend—it disorients. Powell’s teasingly arcane vocal lines slither through the arrangement, twisting through histrionic motifs that claw at the psyche. The track is as much a fever dream as it is a statement: Powell has reached the epitome of art pop and staked her claim to supremacy.

If her live shows—described by fans as out-of-body experiences—are any indication, ‘LAZARUS’ is only the beginning of the next rupture in Powell’s hauntingly immersive world. The esoteric earworm is a sign of the seismic shifts to come.

‘LAZARUS’ is available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast