Toronto-based indie rock outfit Arenas are gearing up to the release of their debut full-length Truth Come Alive this spring, and new single ‘Quitting’ gives an indication of what to expect. Described by the band as “a snapshot of the fear associated with giving up on something,” the track uses a blend of playful energy and tangible weight to celebrate the cathartic joy of throwing in the towel. The result owes as much to acts like Pixies as it does contemporary post-punk, and packs a real punch with its sardonic charm. In a world of productivity and parasitic middle managers, giving up might be one of the last radical acts left available to us.

Brown Horse – Corduroy Couch

We featured Brown Horse‘s debut album Reservoir when writing about our favourite releases of 2024, praising their sometimes nostalgic, sometimes Gothic brand of folk rock. Maintaining the sense of momentum, the band are wasting no time with their second full-length, All the Right Weakness, which will be released this spring via Loose Music. Lead single ‘Corduroy Couch’ is available to listen to right now, a song which melds alt country and slacker rock to offer the same sense of sincerity, urgency, specificity and strangeness which marked the previous release.

We watched The Matrix on a corduroy couch
The smell of the ocean was drying on your skin
Your big retriever’s name was Hank
And I know I’ll miss him

The Burning Hell – Bottle of Chianti, Cheese And Charcuterie Board

Writing of the album Garbage Island back in 2023, we described how The Burning Hell lived up to their name, making “everything from tongue-in-cheek anti-folk to racing indie rock,” to offer “a bright and mischievous ode to a pre-apocalyptic world.” Coming soon via You’ve Changed Records and BB*ISLAND, the new Burning Hell album Ghost Palace continues this mission, albeit with the requisite correction that the world it is being released into is now comfortably mid-apocalypse. Single ‘Bottle of Chianti, Cheese And Charcuterie Board’ finds Mathias Kom, Ariel Sharratt and Jake Nicoll in a familiarly impish mood, pouring scorn on materialist bourgeois distractions with an oddball lyrical journey. Strangers named Jason, collectors of medieval swords, a Buddhist book club in the sky frequented by long-haired former tennis pros and part-time Rabbis. No, it’s not a new Pynchon novel. The Burning Hell are back.

Watch the video directed by Graeme Patterson below:

Ghost Palace is out on the 7th March via You’ve Changed Records and BB*ISLAND and you can pre-order it now.

Byland & The Bones of J.R. Jones – Jubilee

“Trac[es] the disappointment and exasperation loaded into any search for belonging, while arcing towards a sense of acceptance.” That’s how we described Heavy For A While, last year’s album by Albuquerque-born, Seattle-based artist Alie Renee Byland, AKA Byland, praising the release for its willing to allow “competing and seemingly contradictory emotions to occupy the same space.” With a tour with Deep Sea Diver on the horizon, Byland has teamed up The Bones of J.R. Jones for new single, ‘Jubilee’. It’s a duet that utilises the chemistry between the vocals to great effect, mining a sense of hushed intimacy in its slow bloom before the poignant drama of the weighty finale.

Constant Follower – Almost Time To Go

Towards the end of 2024, we introduced The Smile You Send Out Returns To You, the forthcoming album from Glasgow‘s Constant Follower, singles like ‘Whole Be‘ and ‘All Is Well‘ highlighting how the band have adopted a newly ethereal sound to explore a myriad of themes from parenthood to addiction and recovery. With the album’s spring release fast approaching, Constant Follower have unveiled new single, ‘Almost Time to Go’. Berlin’s Andy Aquarius adds harp, crafting a sound shadowy yet shot through with light, carrying a message of endurance in a typically compassionate manner.

The Coral Gables – Heavy Load

New York-based trio The Coral Gables have made a name combining country twang with good old fashioned rock and roll, not to mention a distinctively smart lyrical style. Latest single ‘Heavy Load’ is the perfect introduction for the uninitiated, bringing to life an existential wander around the streets of Washington DC by riffing on the Bob Dylan classic ‘Mississippi’. I’ve been through the wringer / I’ve been through hell,” lead Kenny Hoffman sings in the opening lines. “I’m walking through a city / That I used to know well.” The sound itself is full of warm country tones and easy-going confidence, yet Hoffman’s vocals carry a tangible edge. Something which sits at the intersection of desperation and wry fatalism, the voice of a man baffled by the world occurring all around him.

I’m doing what I can
Doing what I must
I’m serving my sentence
And the sentence was just
It’s not an undue burden
I’m reaping what I sowed
I’m carrying a heavy heavy heavy load

Dayydream – Fucked Up

Led by Glasgow-based visual artist and musician Chloe Trappes and featuring Loup Havenith (drums), Samuel Rafanell-Williams (lead guitar) and Dillon Salvi (bass guitar), Dayydream is a project which straddles shoegaze, slowcore and indie rock to create a sound both hazy and deep. Latest single ‘Fucked Up’ embodies this style, its title perhaps belying the song’s inviting warmth but describing its confessional tone to a tee, the sound suspended with a light mist yet not without its own internal force. The drums lead a gradual build across the track’s length, but any expectation of a shoegaze crescendo is unfounded, instead allowing a more understated, emotive air to be the lasting impression.

Molto Ohm – Sponsored #1

Molto Ohm is the new project from Italy-born, Brooklyn-based artist and composer Matteo Liberatore which examines the contemporary moment—where the rise of digital connection seems inversely proportional to relations within the physical world, and the fabric of society is changing if not disintegrating altogether. The electronic sound combines dance beats and shimmering melodies with vocal samples and environmental sounds, leading to something ostensibly intimate but ultimately alienating in its synthetic form. Ahead of debut album FEED on New Focus Recordings, single ‘Sponsored #1’ introduces the style. A track which “delves into the commodification of self-care,” as Liberatore describes, “where the quest for mental well-being is shaped by algorithms and consumer-driven promises of a better you.”

FEED is out on the 21st March via New Focus Recordings and you can pre-order it now.

Pink Must – Morphe Sun

Based on mutual genre-bending inclinations and a deepening chemistry, Pink Must is the new recording project of Brooklyn-based sound artists and musicians Mari ‘More Eaze’ Rubio and Lynn Avery. Forthcoming via 15 love, their self-titled debut is both something of an introduction and mission statement. It establishes an interplay between polish and dissonance, as well as an often wryly sardonic vocal style and conscious resistance to easy labelling at every turn. Take opening track ‘Morphe Sun’, a glitchy song Avery describes as “almost a remix of itself” which presents a vainglorious figure from the perspective of a friend who can’t help but find some part of their personality charming. “u hated the sunset / didn’t match the shade of the palette / u wore that day / could have been worse,” as the second verse goes. “reignited / the taste of smoke in teeth / gotta confess i kinda found it sweet.”

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US-born, Sydney-based songwriter Ainsley Farrell is set to release her album Dirt later this year, and new single ‘The Way Back’ gives an indication of what is to come. With its careful yet constant rhythm, the song faces up to suffering with a steely determination, urging anyone struggling to hold on a little longer until the clouds begin to break. Farrell wrote the song while a close friend experienced a difficult period, channelling her feelings of futility at being unable to help from a distance into a kind of promise. An insistence that things will not always be this way. “This song is metaphorically holding her in the light, holding some of that pain for her,” as Farrell puts it. “Until she’s ready to put one foot in front of the other and realize it’s worth sticking it out in this world.”

Attia Taylor – S/T

Out next month via Lame-O Records, Space Ghost is the debut album of songwriter and activist Attia Taylor. Taking it’s name from the absurd Hanna-Barbera cartoon, the record draws upon childhood memories within its psych-inflected style, taking the best and worst of the past in order to craft the possibility of healing in the present. The title track is a great entry point, its lush 60s aesthetic populated by Taylor’s confident delivery, though beneath the florid surface lies something more uncertain as she explores her relationship with her mother and their hit-and-miss attempts at connection.

The Burning Hell – The Last Normal Day

Garbage Island. No, it’s not the new official title of the United Kingdom but the forthcoming album by Canadian outfit The Burning Hell on BB*Island. Led by songwriter Mathias Kom along with with multi-instrumentalists Ariel Sharratt and Jake Nicoll and a variety of rotating guests, the band make everything from tongue-in-cheek anti-folk to racing indie rock. Latest single ‘The Last Normal Day’ sees the likes of Nick Ferrio join the gang to weave a bright and mischievous ode to a pre-apocalyptic world. A track which might be terrifying if it wasn’t so much fun.

Watching things get destroyed, a
Brand new schadenfreude
Crept into our conversations
And our dreams

Garbage Island is out on the 24th June via BB Island and you can pre-order it now.

dampsquib – a new slice of pie

The moniker of Brighton born multi-instrumentalist Matt Farrugia, dampsquib takes a heap of experience working in ambient, art rock and pop styles and combines into its own singular entity. His forthcoming EP is described as a “smorgasbord of musical ideas,” refusing to sit still in any one genre in its quest for experimental and improvisational sounds, and single ‘a new slice of piece’ gives one example of what such a process might sound like. Ambient Rhodes and piano lines coalesce with Farrugia’s vocals, the looping Wurlitzer supported by drums run through a tape machine to achieve that trademark 90s texture.

Doll Spirit Vessel – Train Brain Rot

“Write another half song / Grief under a summer sun,” opens ‘Train Brain Rot by Kati Malison’s Doll Spirit Vessel project. “Dead flies in the candle crater / Promised that I’d call you later / But I’m not me, this is a shell of someone.” The lead single from debut album What Stays which is coming later this summer on Disposable America, the song hints at both the band’s wry humour and questioning tone, the slacker-esque sound refusing to settle for easy comforts even as it invites identity crises to the door. Check out the video directed by Jon Cox and Kati Malison below:

What Stays is out on the 12th August via Disposable America and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

elison – Covered Me

Writing about single ‘Hopes & Horoscopes‘ back in January, we described the work of Des Moines duo Elison as “distinctive balance between tender emotion and gauzy soundscapes” which the band used to “confront bad habits and vices, from mourning unrealised dreams to becoming lost in superstition or introspection.” New single ‘Covered Me’ adds a sense of momentum to the style, the insistent drums evoking a certain tension as elison chart a troubled relationship with a narcissistic partner.

You’re the reason I don’t trust myself
With me you’re someone else
Nothing you say is true
Cause you want everyone to love you

Frank Meadows – Dead Weight

To call Frank Meadows’s forthcoming record Dead Weight a country album is both entirely fitting and slightly reductive, drawing as it does from a rich array of influences scattered across the American continent. Out next month on Ruination Record Co., the release sees the Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist look to the various stops of his past in order to more fully realise the current moment, stringing the pearls together with a palpable momentum which gives the whole thing an affirming air. The title track is as good an introduction as any, full of the warmth and self-reflection with marks the record thanks to Meadows’s piano-led style and contributions from the likes of Michael Cormier O’Leary, Oliver Kalb and Winston Cook-Wilson.

Maja Lena – No More Flowers

Ahead of forthcoming album Pluto on Chiverin Records, Maja Lena has shared brand new single, ‘No More Flowers’. With bucolic folk and cosmic synth sounds, the song explores the way in which friendships can change or end, and acknowledges that sometimes it is better to walk away rather than try to resuscitate something outside of your control. Like much of the record, imagery and ideas are drawn from fictional sources, in this case a particular branch of animation. “I’d been re-watching Studio Ghibli films at the time and fell in love with some of the earlier heavily synth driven soundtracks,” Lena explains. “I liked the idea of some the parts sounding like creatures from another world in conversation with each other, which Rob [Pemberton] managed to emulate better than I could imagine.” Check out Martha Webb’s video below:

Pluto is out via Chiverin Records on the 18th November. You can buy the single via Bandcamp.

Maya Lucia – sleepy baby club

We first covered Maya Lucia with the release of lashing out back in 2019, an EP which signalled a pivot from love ballads into rambunctious garage rock. New record miss girl world builds upon these foundations, again channelling the mischief and exaggerated pain of youth into something full of both fun and heart. Described as “an internal dialogue of growing up and moving on,” single ‘sleepy baby club’ song faces a decidedly pessimistic present without losing hope of something better just over the hill, all delivered with an infectious pop rock bounce.

Touch the Clouds – Feeling Light

With members of Few and Far Between, King For A Day, Lovesick, and others, Touch the Clouds is something of a Detroit scene supergroup. With equal parts pop and punk, the band combine the energy of post-hardcore with the invention of space rock, allowing infectious harmonies and vast ambient textures to coexist with the same song. Take ‘Feeling Light’, the first track from a forthcoming Touch the Clouds album, a song full of impassioned energy and left-field turns which combines emo earnestness with a transportive atmosphere.

I’m feeling light
floating right
in tune with ultraviolet I’m set free

TOLEDO – L-Train

New York‘s TOLEDO have released brand new single ‘L-Train’ with Grand Jury Music, a track which finds Dan Álvarez de Toledo and Jordan Dunn-Pilz confront the struggles of living and creating within the contemporary moment. ‘L-Train’ was “written at a low point for the both of us,” the band explain. “We had just moved to Bushwick and started playing shows every week. We were drinking and partying and losing sight of ourselves.” The age-old paradox of the touring musician, where a career expressing yourself can turn upside down, pushing the truth further away.

each morning I wake up
the headache
the shape of release still far from my doorbell
and I don’t wanna do this anymore
i wanna know me better

Check out the animated video by Kohana Wilson below:

‘L-Train’ is out now via Grand Jury Music and is available from the TOLEDO Bandcamp page.

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First single ‘Coyote’ makes good on this in itself, dedicated to folk singer, actress and environmental activist Katie Lee. It’s a song that’s stark and powerful, Larrabee’s voice ringing around slashes of guitar and mournful strings. Again, the emotional range is wide, the tone possessing both a bluesy swagger and burning anger, ferocity born of an intimate understanding of the fragility of things.

Lyrically, the focus is on Lee’s campaign to protect the natural world, in particular her stance opposing the damming of the Colorado River. “Carved by rain, by rivers, by streams,” Larrabee sings, “Flood the canyons, drown everything, ignore the rules of balance.” If there is a futility to the words then it is balanced by fury, Larrabee like some harbinger of doom whose warning far surpasses any single dam.

The accompanying video collects footage of Lee shot by filmmaker Natalie Gignoux and held in the Cline Library Special Collections and Archives, making for a fitting companion.

Kinship will be released on the 10th May via Ba Da Bing (USA) and BB*Island (Europe).

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A new volume will be posted every few weeks and will offer a collection of really great songs that we’re determined not to let slip past our radar.

Sleep Movies – ‘Paper Hat’

Skyler Brimmierer from Pittsburgh, PA records invitingly hazy pop as Sleep Movies. If you like your vocals distorted and your instrumentation something akin to fog-like sedation, then his latest release, EDG will be right up your alley. ‘Paper Hat’ is one such example, playing like a tropical scene projected onto your bedroom ceiling as your sink down into the sheets and imagine the sun’s rays.

EDG is out now via Crafted Sounds on a pay-what-you-want basis, though unfortunately the cassettes have sold out.

Katie Von Schleicher – ‘Paranoia’

The beady-eyed (or eared) amongst you will recognise the voice of Katie Von Schleicher from our recent post on Wilder Maker, though the Brooklynite has a burgeoning solo career. The lead single from Shitty Hits, her debut album out later this summer, ‘Paranoia’ is a lush, woozy song straight out of some earlier, grander time. However, beneath the decadent production and sweet country-pop vibe lies a strange neurotic edge, as though the expansive sound is compensating for something, or else signalling the begin of a weird spiral somewhere altogether darker.

Shitty Hits is set for release on the 28th July via Ba Da Bing and Full Time Hobby (UK/EU), and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Pip Hall – James

We first wrote about Pip Hall back in November, praising her style of rich pop with added synths. March saw the release of her debut EP, James, building on the above formula to craft a haunting, atmospheric sound that also ticks all the boxes of a potential mainstream radio favourite. The title track displays this perfectly, the subtle synths and half-paced clatter of drums supporting Hall’s vocals as they wax and wane with great emotion.

James is out now on My Little Empire and you can grab it from Bandcamp.

Bradford Loomis – Bravery and the Bell

Washington’s Bradford Loomis creates evocative, earnest music concerned with the classic folk themes―love, death, memories―essentially digging down into what it means to be human. Written in the aftermath of his father’s Early Onset Alzheimers diagnosis, Loomis’ latest album is more personal and heartfelt than ever, the shock and subsequent sense of purpose serving to eradicate trivialities. As Loomis explains, “Bravery and the Bell… is about legacy, both the lineage we are born into and that which we pass on. Whether burdened or buoyed by our generational inheritance, this album confronts the drudgery of simply surviving and sounds a call to stand up to the things that stand in the way of us truly passionately pursuing that which we were made to be.”

Bravery and the Bell is out now and you can get it from Bandcamp.

Lord Youth – Blue Yodel #156

The songwriting project of Queens’ Micah Blaichman, Lord Youth makes music too cinematic for bedroom pop and too gloomy for garage rock, a murky, midnight noir to soundtrack your black and white dreams. Taken from the Lord Youth EP released last year, ‘Blue Yodel #156’ is something of a signature track for the band, slightly discordant and populated by wispy moans, as though behind Blaichman’s dejected lyrics lurk sad spirits of previously blue beings.

Lord Youth EP is out now via BB*ISLAND and you can get it on vinyl or digitally via Bandcamp.

Kazyak – ‘Sundial’

Written during a trip to Alaska as frontman Peter Frey prepared for his upcoming wedding, the themes of facing challenges and the natural world run through Happy Camping, the new album from Minneapolis band Kazyak. But this is achieved not in the harsh and difficult way such topics are usually broached. “It’s after you’ve put your pack on your back and set out walking down an unexplored trail, but before you’ve arrived to the foot of the mountain,” Frey says. “This album is the long walk through the open field to the base of the mountain.” As single ‘Sundial’ shows, Happy Camping is a spring album, where life is in a clear forward motion, the clean optimism of progressive snuffing out any signs of death and decay.

Happy Camping, is set for release on the 21st July and you can stay tuned to the Kazyak website for details.

Dama Scout – Paper Boy

The third single from the London/Glasgow three-piece Dama Scout, ‘Paper Boy’ is varied, hard-to-pin track that starts out woozy dream-pop and ends up somewhere far heavier. Indeed, such a shift is the band’s forte, with us describing a previous single as a “stylistic mutant ” and “a surreal ride through a many-eyed storm.” The languorous opening sees Eva Liu’s dreamy vocals float over choppy instrumentation before both coalesce into something more fluid, though the acceleration continues right through the other side, the song breaking down into chaotic disorder by the second half of the track. Imagine a slowly-rotating kaleidoscope gathering pace minute by minute, clicking into the perfect pattern for just a moment before eventually unravelling or exploding in a burst of coloured shards which rain down around your head.

‘Paper Boy’, and the band’s previous singles, can be found now on the Dama Scout Bandcamp page.

Why a fox – Solstice / ‘Young Trees’

The brainchild of Adelaide native, Fukushima resident Hayden Marks, Why a fox blends folk, pop, punk and emo to create heartfelt songs somewhere between Nana Grizol, Camp Cope and The Hotelier. This spring saw the release of Solstice, a verbose album of ramshackle lo-fi tunes notable for their energetic sincerity and bittersweet spirit. As a follow-up, Marks has also put out a new single ‘Young Trees’, taken from the forthcoming album Old Forest. Young Trees. A piano-driven instrumental, the track is something of a departure from the previous sound, though fits right in to the Why a fox aesthetic with its sincere positivity and emotional weight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CauidHQbkxY

Solstice is out now and available from the Why a fox Bandcamp page. Old Forest. Young Trees is set for release this July, so keep an eye out for that too.

Alanna Eileen – ‘Knowledge’

New Zealand-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Alanna Eileen makes lush music that draws upon both traditional and contemporary folk. With Eileen’s soft vocals and warm guitar backed by country ambience and modest piano, new single ‘Knowledge’ is a gauzy number that envelops you slowly. The possibility of sadness or heartbreak lingers just out of focus, neither the lyrics or instrumentation ever quite slipping from their agreeable vibe.

Alanna Eileen is currently working on a debut full-length album with Adam Selzer. In the meantime, check out her previous releases on Bandcamp.

Coastal Clouds – ‘Wanna Come Down’

California’s Roberto Rodriguez certainly choose an apt moniker when naming his new project, Coastal Clouds. As the latest single ‘Wanna Come Down’ attests, the sound is moulded out of the West Coast spirit of sun and surf, an early evening top-down drive where the clear skies and cool breeze conjure a sentimental edge, as though the knowledge such a carefree existence cannot last. Indeed, the lyrics push this further, dealing with the realisation that we must grow up and move on from even our most golden of days.

Keep up with Coastal Clouds via his Facebook page.

For more posts like this, head to the Best of the Rest tag!

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