#indie-rock

#indie-rock

"It's really just a dumb song, isn't it?" Jansson said about the track in a press release. "A dumb guitar riff, dumb lyrics and a dumb beat, and we love it just the way it is. I have no idea where the inspiration behind the lyrics came from, I have no relationship to switchboard operators and they haven't been around since before I was born. But wouldn't it be fun if they were still around and they sounded really hot over the phone?"

the mandolin riff wrapped around "Afterlife" like a well-worn flannel will inevitably recall R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion." It's a typically self-aware move for our preeminent alt-rock revivalist, who made the jump to a major label this year. But there's a deeper link to the heartbeat of the whole Alex G project, which has always been about breathing new life into old sounds, and at its best pulls off the trick of making indie rock feel ephemeral and eternal.

Montana indie rock greats Silkworm (Tim Midyett, Joel RL Phelps, Andrew Cohen and Jeff Panall) reunited for their first official shows in nearly 20 years back in September, and they've now announced a spring run of Midwest / East Coast dates that mark their most extensive tour in two decades. Dates kick off May 6 in Berwyn, IL and from there the band head to Columbus and Pittsburgh (with The Gotobeds), followed by East Coast shows with Come.

Indie trio Valley Onda is set to release their debut album, Middle Way, spotlighting the track 'Seraph' on October 31, 2025, via Valley Onda Records. The album features previously released singles 'Minacious' and 'Reebok Fantasy,' which premiered on CLASH Magazine and EARMILK, respectively, with the latter gaining radio support from NPR Music-hinting at the album's promise. Since their debut in 2019, the trio has amassed over 350,000 streams, earning acclaim from publications like triple j and touring nationally with acts such as The Money War.

A new band for fans of headstrong, tender Americana, Alabama twins Katie and Allison Crutchfield (of Waxahatchee and Swearin' respectively) are in a new band together for the first time since scrappy, beloved PS Eliot retired in 2011. Backed by indie guitar star MJ Lenderman and storied alt-rock producer Brad Cook, Snocaps is a family record in more ways than one: the four have a tangled history of making music together, giving this one-off collection the lived-in feel of a band five albums deep.

The second single from Amand Hammer and The Alchemist's upcoming collaborative LP, Mercy, "Calypso Gene" is yet another hard-hitting, jazz-tinged, smoky hip-hop track that manages to feel urgent despite its laid-back vibe. After billy woods and E L U C I D trade verses over spicy piano chords and shuffling percussion, Silka and Cleo Reed sing a final refrain as the track takes a psychedelic turn. It's as effective as it is wonderful on the ears.

Again, one of the year's best indie rock albums, comes courtesy of the Belair Lip Bombs, a Melbourne four-piece who write with a precision and attention to melody that could put hired-gun pop songwriters to shame. Their second album, which follows their 2023 debut, Lush Life, looks set to establish the Lip Bombs guitarist and vocalist Maisie Everett, bass player Jimmy Droughton, drummer Daniel Devlin and guitarist Mike Bradvica as rising stars in Australia and far beyond.

The Fiery Furnaces had no expectations for their second album, 2004's Blueberry Boat. The sibling duo recorded it before their debut had even come out, and so had no idea that 2003's Gallowsbird's Bark would receive such wild acclaim: in an 8.4 review, Pitchfork called its shambolic rock'n'roll and frontwoman Eleanor Friedberger's arcane lyricism a a mess of weird, undulating musical bits that are hugely intriguing despite not always making a whole shitload of sense.

For a prolific auteur bent on creating a cultlike fanbase, it's essential to the sort of world-building that breeds obsession. What would the Guided by Voices discography be without its slight montages of moth-eaten ephemera; Belle and Sebastian without their early hot streak of loosies? While the streaming era has made it easy to tack bonus tracks onto a "deluxe" release or pad a record with a skippable song that might not fit into its intended vision, Joseph Stevens' lounge-pop project Peel Dream Magazine recognizes the importance of the curated yet fleeting drop.

We were trying to regroup and lick our wounds by throwing parties. We lived in Islington Mill Studios in Salford, a rundown cotton mill where students would create their textile designs. We only had three songs That's Not My Name, Shut Up and Let Me Go and Great DJ so we'd perform on stage, DJ CDs badly and pump out music. I'd jump on the drums with a loop pedal, Katie would throw on my Strat, we'd art punk it out and it felt amazing.

Listening to Snooper, the American rock band that started up in 2020 and has since rocketed to indie rock stardom, you get the impression that the band is made up of pranksters. The genre is "egg-punk", which feels like a joke in of itself - characterised in the 2010s it's defined by a satirical tone, wry lyrics, cheapo sound and use of internet memes. But the unabashed fun of Snooper is what has garnered them such a dedicated fanbase.

Perhaps it was our collective ages (millennials and Gen-X'ers who once naively thought George W. Bush would be the worst president of our lifetime) or the fact that it was a Monday evening, but the energy was less a frenzied electricity and more a grounded glow-radiating from bodies softer than the ones we squeezed into American Apparel bodysuits twenty years ago.

Wry indie rockers Wet Leg brought a raucous show to the Brooklyn Paramount in New York on September 18th. Our former CoSign are touring on behalf of their excellent new album, moisturizer, and the Brooklyn Paramount hosted some fun theatrics from the increasingly-confident group. There was also lots of flexing, figuratively and literally. Check out photos by Dan Leathers below. Tickets to upcoming Wet Leg shows are available here. Wet Leg 2025 Photo Gallery (click to expand):

Like other Midwest rockers before them- The Replacements, Hüsker Dü, and Guided By Voices all come to mind-Liquid Mike like their runtimes short, their guitars loud, and their hooks easy to sing along to no matter how many beers you've had. The band's first five albums were mostly inspired by Maple's time driving the mail truck around Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and the small-town shenanigans he and his friends got up to off the clock.

If you're at all interested in power-pop, Guided by Voices-esque indie rock, or melodic bangers with big guitars and even bigger choruses, you've likely already helped yourself to a nice, tall glass of Liquid Mike. Their back catalog and last year's breakthrough album, Paul Bunyan's Slingshot, speak for themselves. And if you haven't yet quenched your thirst for rock 'n' roll with Liquid Mike, now's as good a time as ever to take that first sip.

So many artists, so many songs, so little time. Each week we review a handful of new albums (of all genres), round up even more new music that we'd call "indie," and talk about what metal is coming out. We post music news, track premieres, and more all day. We update a playlist weekly of some of our current favorite tracks.

The Frank O'Hara poem "Katy" features seven lines of self-assessing declarations. It is the fifth line that I get the most mileage out of: "I am never quiet, I mean silent." When I am teaching writing workshops, specifically with young writers, teen-agers who-in many cases-have not let their sense of wonder be battered by waves of irony or cynicism, I ask them what distinctions they see between "quiet" and "silent."

Three-quarters of the way through Hand Habits ' 2021 album , Meg Duffy let loose an unexpected wail on "Concrete & Feathers," their voice twisting to an anguished howl. On their first few releases, Duffy had mostly sung in a hushed voice over intimate, introspective indie rock. But on their third album, they took bolder turns, occasionally bursting into instrumental catharsis-and pushing their singing to newly commanding territory.