New album: Red Devil Ryders || Is It Love?

Cleveland's scrappy trio deliver a jangly, soulful garage power pop record that rewards both casual listening and deep dives

By / / Alternative Rock, Garage Rock, Indie Rock, Jangle Pop, Power Pop / Leave a Comment

Cleveland’s Red Devil Ryders play the kind of jangly, soulful, slightly scuffed-up power pop that makes you want to dig through their record collections just to confirm your suspicions about their impeccable taste. Is It Love? is scrappy in all the right ways—melodic but never polished to a shine, energetic but never trying too hard, the kind of college rock that sounds like it was recorded in someone’s basement because it probably was.

The comparisons that come to mind—Laika’s Orbit’s DIY charm, Royal Headache’s emotional punch, and a whole lotta classic rock bands—are helpful but don’t tell the whole story. It’s the kind of music I’d put forward when someone asks what I listen to after they’re disappointed I don’t like those major rock acts they name when they discover I like guitar music.

For a trio, Is It Love? is rich in its instrumentation and variety. Don’t be shocked when they drop a 7-minute instrumental, and do be surprised when horns pop up mid-song. This unit definitely plays like a tight group that builds on each other’s energy, and we’re blessed to be made a part of that. Red Devil Ryders have made a record that feels spontaneous and utterly sincere—the kind of album that rewards both casual listening and deep dives.

Out now on LP at Feral Kid Records.



Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New album: Payphones || Wrong Number

"Grab somebody and dance"

By / / Garage Rock, Punk / Leave a Comment

Payphones is a garage rock & roll band from Norway, featuring Eirik Slinning Korsnes (guitar, vocals, piano), Rigmor Hanken (bass), and Kjartan Magerøy Aarseth (drums)—you might know them from last year’s Garage Punk Bergen compilation (its opener, Mind Control, is included here in a live version as the closing track). Wrong Number is their full-length debut album, born from the idea of ​​playing fast and noisy music you can dance to. They succeed with flying colors, like a souped-up version of The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.

The nine original songs here tap into a warped world of misfired connections, unhinged desire, and the chaotic thrill of chasing someone who probably shouldn’t pick up the phone: “Well I dialed and you picked up // And that’s where we’re at now.” Across tales of head-losing infatuation, creepy cold calls, swaggering ego trips, and toxic power plays, the musicians lean into dark humor and groovy grit to expose obsession at its most unromantic. And yet, it’s wild and delightfully off-kilter boogie & blues that will shake any venue.



Wrong Number, recorded and mixed by Dan Cox, is out now digitally through Møllendal Records.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

EP review: Adult Learners || Demo 25

Budget garage-pop-punk’n’roll done right

By / / Garage Rock, Punk / Leave a Comment

Boston quartet Adult Learners are gearing up to release a 7″ single sometime soon, but until then, Demo 25 should do plenty to raise your anticipation. And when I say demo, I mean DEMO — this thing sounds like it was recorded through a toaster in a basement shared with a running washing machine. But that’s part of the charm.

Despite (or because of) its scrappy fidelity, the songs shine. It’s budget garage-pop-punk’n’roll done right — catchy, raw, and full of personality, with the synths and keys adding a neat twist. Definitely a band to watch!


Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

Album review: Marc With a C || Steamed Hams

A playful, messy, and moving journey through the human condition

By / / Indie Pop / Leave a Comment

Twenty-five years into their career, Marc With a C returns with a quirky follow-up to last year’s Flowers For Analog LP. As expected, the umpteenth new album, Steamed Hams, is a wonderfully strange, personal, and moving detour through pop deconstruction and genderfluid self-reflection. Like the Simpsons sketch that inspired its title, the album stretches a premise until it becomes something absurd, honest, confusing, revealing, and strangely illuminating.

The sixteen songs were created while battling chronic health issues and were stitched together with a healthy dose of chaos, yet there are plenty of funny and catchy moments. For the most part, this is acoustic indie pop, but it fans out in all sorts of idiosyncratic directions and emotions. And yet it feels comforting, if only the message that ends the record: Someone’s Always Watching You.

If you can’t get enough, you can also check out a four-track bonus EP called Steamed Clams.



Steamed Hams—performed, recorded, mixed, and mastered by Marc With a C—is out now digitally, on cassette, CD and vinyl LP, through Needlejuice Records.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New album: Tony Molina || On This Day

Tony Molina proves less is more, then proves it twenty times more

By / / Country & Folk, Indie Pop, Jangle Pop, Power Pop, Psych / Leave a Comment

Twenty-one songs. Twenty-three minutes. Tony Molina just made the most deceptively simple record you’ll hear all year and it’s going to ruin you in the best way possible.

Look, most of these songs don’t even crack the one-minute mark, which will either make you think parts are missing from your copy or make you realize Molina is operating on a completely different wavelength than the rest of us. The man writes guitar pop like he’s rationing hooks for the apocalypse—every note counts, nothing overstays its welcome, and by the time you realize how good a song is, it’s already over and the next one is punching you in the heart.

If you’re looking for the buzzsawy alt-pop of years past, you won’t find it here—well, except for Have Your Way, a song I’ve played about twelve times today. Instead, Molina offers a masterclass in writing timeless guitar pop melodies for attention spans too short to sit through a three-minute song. One of the longer and most accomplished tracks is Livin’ Wrong, and even that stays well under the two-minute mark. The only song that exceeds it is Violets of Dawn, coincidentally a cover of an Eric Andersen tune—and what an amazing version it is.

Recorded at home on 8-track analog tape, On This Day has a warm quality enhanced by Mellotron, trumpet, Hammond organ, piano, and bells that never feel cluttered. It is an extremely rewarding and addictive record. You finish it, you hit repeat, you notice things you missed the first three times through. It’s like eating the world’s best cookie one tiny bite at a time just to make it last. LP out now on Slumberland Records.



Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Slumberland

New album: Diet Lite || Double Wide Yukon

Keeping momentum in a world that never stops tilting

By / / Alternative Rock, Garage Rock, Punk / Leave a Comment

While many long-running bands have shown a more restrained side over the years, Milwaukee-based rock ‘n’ roll trio Diet Lite—Max Niemann (guitar, bass, vocals), Kelson Kuzdas (guitar, bass, vocals), and Evan Marsalli (drums)—adds a bit of grit and pace. Their fifth full-lengther, Double Wide Yukon, which follows up 2023’s successful Into The Pudding LP, offers thirteen new songs at the intersection of garage rock, power pop, and art punk, with some psych freakout moments and hardcore breakdowns.

The record spins a wild, sharp-edged world where existential dread, creative exhaustion, and chaotic self-reinvention all collide in surreal imagery, mythic detours, and gutter-poetic reflections. The lyrics jump between reckless escapism, tongue-in-cheek storytelling, and genuine flashes of vulnerability, painting a portrait of modern life as a frantic, funny, and often overwhelming ride: “Desolation’s calling me // For the world spins crookedly // When one and one and one is three // I bite off more than I can chew” (from I Know).

Everything positive I wrote about their previous album still holds, but the new one is louder and wilder.



Double Wide Yukon—produced by Doug Malone and Diet Lite—is out now digitally and on vinyl LP via Lifehouse.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Echo Base

New album: Killer Hearts || Unchained & Bloodstained

Killer Hearts (members of The Wrong Ones) double down on the glam attack

By / / Garage Rock, Glam Rock, Punk / Leave a Comment

Killer Hearts reside in Houston, Texas, but sound like they’d rather be on the left coast (the Sunset Strip, to be precise), or on the East Coast (Max’s Kansas City, for example), preferably in another era. We covered their 2021 debut album Unchained & Bloodstained, and its follow-up came out late October on Screaming Crow Records with some pretty spectacular vinyl variants. Relative to Unchained & Bloodstained, Skintight Electric feels like Killer Hearts moving even further into hard rock territory. They don’t just look the part (a whole lot of black leather? Check! Singer wearing high-heeled boots? Check!), they play the part. Scratch that—this doesn’t sound like acting at all, even though the second half of a song like Demolition Love has so much Mötley Crüe in it, it has to be intentional. This is the sound of a punk band who studied the glam rock playbook front to back, then decided the only way to honor it was to play it louder, harder, and meaner.

Of the ten-song tracklist, High Temptress is my jam. It’s glam rock ‘n’ roll with sharp hooks, killer guitar licks, and an anthemic chorus that demands to be screamed along to from the backseat of a Trans Am you don’t own yet.

Out now on Screaming Crow Records.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Discogs

New album: Intac || God is Time, Time is Money, and the Money’s Long Gone

Late-capitalist heartbreak set to lo-fi comedy and cosmic truth

By / / Country & Folk, Indie Pop / Leave a Comment

OK, back to business. We head to Massachusetts, where Intac International, Inc.—self-proclaimed world’s first independent music corporation—tries to tempt us into Sound Investment. The twelve  songs on God Is Time, Time Is Money, and the Money’s Long Gone form a crooked, poetic map of modern disillusionment, where heartbreak, absurdity, and late-capitalist burnout collide with humor and ramshackle DIY charm. Across surreal vignettes of deadbeat dads, doomed romances, and talking dogs, the album skewers the grind of trying to stay sincere in a world that feels like a running joke.

While it may be irony set on a lo-fi foundation of acoustic guitars and functional rhythms, the emotional core is startlingly earnest. Beneath the wit and weirdness lies a quietly devastating truth: being human these days means hustling for hope while knowing that finances have dried up. Anti-folk packaged as corporate pop isn’t something you hear very often, but this kind of music has value, especially in a world obsessed with profit.



God is Time, Time is Money, and the Money’s Long Gone is out digitally (self-released). Featuring Bill Restivo, Lucas Restivo, Josh Rosenberg, Peter Debarros, Jake DeRosa, and Nick Morrone.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New album: Lone Wolf || Dark Thoughts

Indie punk therapy from Rotterdam's finest

By / / Alternative Rock, Indie Rock, Punk / Leave a Comment

Four albums in, Rotterdam’s finest indie punk quartet know exactly what they are and exactly where they want to be. Dark Thoughts offers few surprises for fans of the band, and yet it feels like they’re still finding ways to become better—something that’s especially clear if you’ve seen them perform recently.

The core ingredients on Dark Thoughts? Total synchronicity between Ox (who writes the songs, plays bass, and sings damn near every word) and Merel (who plays guitar, handles the arrangements, and also sings damn near every word). Backing them up: Rotterdam’s own Ivo Backbreaker, who clockwork drumming is as punchy and energetic as ever, and the trustworthy rhythm guitar of Damian. This band is a tight unit that clearly enjoys each other’s company, and that chemistry doesn’t just show—it punches through your speakers and demands attention.

But don’t mistake all that comfort and familiarity for complacency. There’s a reason this record is called Dark Thoughts. Ox and co. aren’t blind to what’s happening around them and the struggles of modern life. They face those thoughts and emotions head-on, turning existential dread into fuel for some of the most cathartic punk anthems you’ll hear this year. Rather than let the darkness drag you down, Lone Wolf have created ten songs that work like a friend grabbing you by the shoulders and reminding you that you’re not alone—and that sometimes the best way forward is to scream it out and keep moving, one step at a time. Dark Thoughts is as angsty as it is excellent. This is indie punk as emotional armor, and it fits like a battle-worn leather jacket.

Out now on CD and LP through Stardumb Records.



Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Stardumb

Album review: Anthony Ruptak || Tourist

Finding grace in grief, and beauty in the wreckage

By / / Country & Folk, Indie Pop / Leave a Comment

Colorado singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Anthony Ruptak returns with Tourist, a sweeping, soul-baring album that peers into the heart of modern uncertainty with passion and precision. These ten indie-folk songs mingle fragility with force, and cinematic arrangements with raw, lyrical honesty—delivered by unique, heartfelt vocals.

In almost an hour of music we undergo a powerful emotional and philosophical journey through crisis, compassion, and connection. Written between wilderness trails, city streets, and ambulance shifts—the artist worked late-night shifts as a paramedic—it explores what it means to stay human in an age of chaos. The repeated question hits hard: “Is this real life?”



Tourist—produced by Rich G—is out now digitally, on CD and vinyl LP. Featuring Anthony Ruptak (vocals, guitar, keys), Matt Tanner (drums, percussion), Daniel Stephenson (bass), Caleb Tardio (electric guitar, keys), Jakey Wherry (synths, keys, guitar), Katy Wherry (flutes), Joe Engel (cello), Eric Estrada (trumpet), and Jacob Russo (backing vocals).

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Anthony Ruptak

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