Alternative Rock

New single: Little Grandad || Sleepwalking / Unmasked

A long-awaited debut that switches between fragility and noise

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London’s Little Grandad arrive with a debut 45 that feels both overdue and oddly elusive, capturing a band that’s already built serious word-of-mouth through their live shows, yet still resists easy definition. A-side Sleepwalking drifts on dynamic guitars, warm harmonies, and hazy introspection, while its flip Unmasked is more restrained, slowly unfolding with a delicate, almost weightless touch, atmospheric thanks to the beautiful trumpet playing, but not shying away from a powerful tempo change.

The video below says a lot: it smells like teen spirit (searching, just like the lyrics: “I wanna try a life // But not by the book // Don’t wanna get it right // Or care about how I look // In the mirror today”), yet at the same time it is quite solid, structured, and controlled. The approaching hype might actually be justified.

Sleepwalking b/w Unmasked—produced by Kev Jones—is out on 7″ vinyl trough Communion. Featuring Jack Lower (lead vocals, bass), his brother Harry Lower (guitar, bass, vocals), Ned Ashcroft (guitar, trumpet, vocals), and James “Jimmy” Brennan (drums, vocals).

Add to wantlist: Communion || Rough Trade

Gimme 5! Lanny Durbin (Local Drags) Shares Five Records That Never Fail to Brighten Things Up

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

With ‘Gimme 5!’ we take a peek into the collections of artists we admire. The premise is simple: artists WE like share five records THEY love.

Best mark May 29 on your calendar, because that’s when Cool If We Split? drops. It’s already the fifth Local Drags record from Lanny Durbin, one of our favorite contemporary songwriters from the Midwest, and someone who has steadily carved out his own lane with a distinct kind of power pop. Cool If We Split? looks set to be another W in Durbin’s songbook. Plenty of reason to have Lanny over for a feature on the site.

One of the things that keeps pulling me back to Local Drags is the balance between dark and light. Not to go all Darth Vader and Yoda about it, but Lanny has a knack for finding an uplifting hook or a line that sticks, even when the songs are circling heavier stuff. The first phrase that always comes to mind is Shit’s Looking Up, the title of his first album back in 2019 and the line repeated throughout its opening track.

So it makes perfect sense that Lanny went vibes-only for this Gimme 5.

Start by checking out Novellete, the first song on the new LP which comes with a Replacements-like video. After that, keep scrolling and enjoy discovering Lanny’s picks. And go pre-order Cool If We Split? from Stardumb (NL/EU), Brassneck (UK), Endless Detention (AU), or The Machine Shop Rocks (US). Trust me, it’s really great.

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New EP: The Level || Technocrats

Soft-focus songs for an over-optimized age

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Technocrats, the debut EP from Brooklyn-via-Pittsburgh alt-rock project The Level, feels gently unraveled in the best way. Across eight tracks (actually seven, if you don’t count the brief soundscape opening), it tackles hyper-optimized modern malaise without getting lost in it, favoring cracked introspection and fuzzy, mid-tempo drift with atmospheric clarity.

When asked, frontman Ian Abels is happy to explain how the songs came about: “I was thinking a lot about the texture that memories bring to life and how so much of daily life feels void of real feeling. (…) Much of the modern age is defined by technology—the hyper-optimization of advertising, the claustrophobia of choice, etc. I found myself continually torn between accepting the world as it is and being overly nostalgic for a past that isn’t coming back. There was a lot of reflection and draw to memory and the permanence of the past—trying to both escape nostalgia while also being deeply moved by the emotion of those memories. At the same time, I had also been reading a lot of Carl Jung and Mark Fisher and so their ideas were floating around a lot for me at this time.”

The theme is solidly packaged, with a heart of wistful melodies and assertive vocals, recalling slacker rock’s softer edges while carving its own inward gaze. Lead single Fate Insurgency, an earworm with a killer hook and irresistible chorus, could easily become a big hit, but actually there are no fillers in these 25 minutes of captivating music. A little comfort in a collapsing world.



Technocrats—engineered, mixed, and mastered by Matt Poirier—is out digitally via Montague Records. Featuring Ian Abels (vocals, guitars), Samuel Nobles (bass, keys), and Shane Luckenbaugh (drums, percussion), backed by Max Kulicke (additional guitars).

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New album: Drakulas || Midnight City

Third installment of this Rise Against & Riverboat Gamblers sideshow is another fun one!

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

A co-release between Dirtnap and Wild Honey is always good news. And a return of Drakulas, the concept band featuring Rise Against’s Zach Blair and Riverboat Gamblers’ Mike Wiebe, Rob Marchant, and Ian Walling, is one to greet with ears wide open. What started as a concept clearly took on a life of its own. On Midnight City, their third album, the band sound like a punk outfit dipping into early new wave, like they got a new haircut and picked up a few turtlenecks.

There’s a smoothness to the sound that goes beyond the usual scrappy feel of their labels’ rosters. Sure, there are straight-up pop punk hits here, like Singin’ With My Tongue Cut Out, Is It Enough?, and Guys Like Me, Girls Like You. But there’s also a groove and a slightly angular edge running through the record, like the band is nudging you toward the dancefloor if you dare. And if you don’t, that’s fine too, this thing still lands.

Midnight City might not click with everyone, but it’s easy to see people latching onto this hard. Worth diving into.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Dirtnap

New album: Micah and the Mirrors || Liars Chair

A rough-edged reckoning with everything that fell apart

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Micah and the Mirrors’ debut full-length Liars Chair eases in with the cinematic sweep of Opus, then pivot to You’ll See and the title track, both of which start like hushed folk ballads but quietly bare their teeth. It feels restrained, almost cautious, but then the record kicks the door in and shifts into full-on rock mode, although with the foot close to the brake.

What’s the play here? It turns out to be a new project by Micah Morris, whom we know from Fast Eddy, but here trades their barroom swagger for something rawer, lonelier, and oddly clear-eyed. Written between the band breaking up, a collapsed marriage, and some other losses, these ten new songs feel lived-in rather than labored over, to great effect.

There’s still grit (grooving riffs, ragged hooks), but it’s tempered by reflection and a sense of hard-won forward motion. Recorded quickly in Atlanta with a tight crew, the album builds on instinct over polish. Starting over rarely sounds this rough-edged, and it hits all the harder for it.



Liars Chair is out now digitally and on vinyl LP through Beluga Records (EU) and Spaghetty Town Records (US).

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Beluga || Spaghetty Town

New EP: No Peeling || EP2

Indie awesomeness for the understimulated

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In 2026 it is all too easy to get overstimulated. Doomscrolling, always online, always having your earbuds in, always people around you. If that sounds familiar, I’m not even sure if you need No Peeling (Nottingham) in your life. Because they cram a ridiculous amount of hyperactivity into nine minutes.

They already did it on their first EP, featuring one of my favorite songs of last year, and they do it again here. This is indie awesomeness pushed into overdrive, insanely restless, from a band that sounds like it’s operating right at the edge of something. Luckily, they turn that into a strength. These seven songs hit like a full-on, fun kind of ass kicking. If a band can do this much in this little time, that’s a bar.

This synth indie post-punk chaos, it works. No Peeling is one killer band. After each spin I found myself singing Superchunk’s “I think I’m hyper enough as it is!”, catching my breath, and gearing up for another round.

EP2 is out on, of course, Wrong Speed Records and Feel it Records. It all checks out.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New album: I Before E || I Before E

Chasing the ’90s and catching it

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Born too late to catch ’90s pop punk and punk rock in real time, I Before E (Brennan Buzinkai & Walt Staszewski out of Chattanooga, Tennessee) are busy building their own version of it in the 2020s. That’s pretty much their whole deal, and we are here for it. When we first came across them on 2024’s Criminal Record, we heard a sweet mix Green Day, Lemonheads, and Big Drill Car. On this debut full-length, you can throw Blink-182 into the mix as well, especially on opener Bring Me Down.

If you’re here for innovation or left turns, you’re in the wrong place. That’s not what this band is about. But within those well-worn lanes, I Before E stand out for how pure these songs feel. There’s an innocence and youthful energy running through the record that’s hard to fake. They know when to stack harmonies, when to switch gears, and how to keep things moving without everything blurring together. The run of IOU into Toxic Sand, both early singles, is a perfect example of how sweet they can get without losing momentum.

No rulebook rewrites here, just a band nailing that ’90s sweet spot and riding it all the way through. I mean, they even have Mark deSalvo, who provided the art for many NOFX, Lagwagon, NUFAN and Pulley records, doing the art for their record cover. These kids are more than alright!



Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New album: Brett Newski & the Bad Inventions || Have a Thing, Miss Your Moment, Wait for the Revival

Grit, wit, and the long road of staying in the game

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Wisconsin’s folk-punk troubadour Brett Newski follows last year’s ameriCONa Pt. 1 LP with a new record that bears the telling motto Have a Thing, Miss Your Moment, Wait for the Revival. In eleven new songs he doubles down on his beautifully scrappy DIY ethos, landing somewhere between alt-country confession and fuzzed-out basement rock. Recorded straight to tape, the album embraces imperfection as rebellion: against polish, against AI sheen, against anything too clean.

The influence is so obvious that it would be strange not to mention it: the versatile artist has climbed onto the shoulders of Bob Dylan in his acoustic 1960s era, but wavering at that height, he cannot help but remain his idiosyncratic and sincere self. And so we get a witty, worn, and oddly uplifting performance, propelled by a lifer’s persistent heartbeat. These are lo-fi anthems for the appealingly out-of-step, with words, melodies, and vocals that stumble, wobble, and land just right.



Have a Thing, Miss Your Moment, Wait for the Revival—written, performed, recorded, mixed, and engineered by Brett Newski—is out now digitally, on CD and vinyl LP, through Nomad Union. The title track won’t be available on streaming services.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Discogs || Brett Newski

New album: First Boy On The Moon || Demons

Echoes of loneliness with a pulse of hope

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After a blue debut (self-titled, 2021) and a red follow-up (Cybergirl, 2024), First Boy On The Moon returns to earth with Demons, a third LP dressed in green, featuring legendary drag queen Divine as the fluorescent cover star. Across the ten new songs, David Pedroza (vocals, guitars, bass) sings about isolation, inner conflict, and the push-pull between self-destruction and self-determination. Characters such as single parents, lost dreamers, and drifting antiheroes grapple with “demons” both literal and metaphorical, often caught between apathy and the urge to break free. I guess Divine’s face represents the album’s lonely, strange, theatrical, and defiantly ugly world, and the kind of larger-than-life, grotesque, and oddly liberating forces that the 1970s/80s icon embodied.

The sound here is solid, much less excessive than the foregoing suggests, but upbeat guitars, melancholic synths, and inviting vocals keep things compelling for the entire 38 minutes. The Malmö, Sweden-based musician blends wiry alt-rock with glossy pop hooks, which makes us dance on the edge of doubt and desire: “Hey get out and find the answer // You are the captain of the ship // In a port of fire.”



Demons—written, performed, and produced by David Pedroza—is out now digitally and on vinyl LP through Manic Records. Also featuring Phil Maturano (drums), Greg Kuehn (keyboards), and Derek O’Brien (drums).

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

Dusted || The Best New Cover Songs Of April 2026

By / / Alternative Rock, Blues & Roots, Country & Folk, Funk & Soul, Garage Rock, Indie Pop, Indie Rock, Jangle Pop, Power Pop, Punk, Surf / Leave a Comment

Not all new music is really new, as many artists cover songs. Sometimes these are songs by their favorite artists, e.g. as a tribute to such a musical hero for a special reason, or they simply feel that a song deserves to be dusted and polished to reacquaint fans with great songs from the past. Other times, bands cover songs as a parody. Regardless of intent, some of those cover versions are so good or so much fun, we’d like to put a spotlight on them. Chosen from a wide range, here are—in a kind of random order—a bunch of successful covers from last month—links to pages where you can add them to your wantlist included.

Fade To Black (Metallica) by The Tubs — digital track (Merge Records)

Don’t Look Back (The Remains) by The Peawees — from More Scraps LP (Wild Honey Records)

Problem Child (AC/DC) by Neo-Magics — from Leaving on a Jet Plane EP (Half A Cow Records)

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