Indie Pop

New EP: Parlor Hour || Personal Best Club

By / / Indie Pop, Indie Rock / Leave a Comment

Dennis posted his favorite singles and EPs of 2022 this Wednesday, and while working on mine I unintentionally stumbled upon new(ish) releases by single of the year contenders. Here is the latest EP by a self proclaimed slacker tweeish heartfelt noise outfit from Portland: Parlor Hour. Their previous single – which may or may not make my top 50 of the year, only had two songs, but the Personal Best Club EP has five. More important than the increase in quantity is the consistent quality of the songs. Parlor Hour are perfectly capable in balancing a rough around the edges slacker indie rock sound, a twee/underground pop vibe and a vulnerable side. In a just world, Parlor Hour would be destined for indie stardom.



Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

Music Year-End List || Dennis’ Favorite Singles and EPs of 2022

By / / Alternative Rock, Blues & Roots, Country & Folk, Funk & Soul, Garage Rock, Glam Rock, Indie Pop, Indie Rock, Jangle Pop, Power Pop, Psych, Punk / 3 Comments

We previously shared our lists of favorite albums – here‘s Niek’s and there‘s mine – but there were also some shorter format releases that I noted as wantlist worthy. Below you can listen to the Top 50 singles and EPs that I enjoyed the most last year – quite an eclectic selection, but imho all pretty cool. I’ve excluded releases with songs that also appear on my AOTY overview, and also left out individual songs. Links point to Discogs or Bandcamp (the headings), and to previously posted reviews (in the body text) – add to your wantlist (or collection) what you like!

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New album: The Roves || Needle Factory

By / / Indie Pop, Indie Rock, Jangle Pop / Leave a Comment

After a successful self-titled debut LP (2018) and equally good successor All Those Freaks ‎(2019), The Roves are back with their third full-length: Needle Factory. What stands out: the UK indie collective, consisting of James Wing (vocals, acoustic guitar), Rhys Kempley (vocals, guitars, keyboards), Tom Wing (vocals, guitars, keyboards, percussion), Luke Evans (bass) and Oli Booker (drums, percussion), play with the eagerness of young dogs but with the quality of experienced hands. You’ll hear eleven new original guitar songs, spaced in a Venn diagram where jangle pop, indie rock and Beatlesque psych overlap. For the lyrics they found inspiration in their neighborhood – “Well I roam around, and I roam uptown // Looking for any place // Where trouble can be found” (from lead single I Am The Flood) – encountering noteworthy figures such as Alberto Zi & The Uptown Three, Big Jimmy, Wally Pine, Mr White and Joanna & Miguel, to name a few. But even if you can’t follow that either, this again is a very enjoyable record.

Needle Factory is out now digitally and on CD through Discotif Records / The state51 Conspiracy.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New EP: Galore || Blush

By / / Indie Pop, Jangle Pop / Leave a Comment

December is kind of nice for blog runners. The onslaught of new music finally quiets down and there is time to reflect on the great music the year has brought. That of course doesn’t mean our appetite for new music is satiated yet. So thank you Paisley Shirt Records and Safe Suburban Home Recordings for sneakily dropping a wonderful new EP by Bay Area indie poppers Galore.

On the 5-song Blush EP, Galore lost some of the punk feathers they showed on their 2020 debut LP. The band (Ava Rosen, Britta Leijonflycht, Griffin Jones and Hannah Smith) sounds more jangly, more strummy and more relaxed. There is not a weak song on the Blush EP. New Living is a gorgeous melancholic jangle pop track. Jackpot and Ladders have immediate appeal and hit potential, and Fire and Second Moon show a more moody and restrained part of the band’s sound. It’s a joy to witness Galore expanding their horizons.


Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

Music Year-End List || Niek’s Favorite Albums of 2022

By / / Alternative Rock, Garage Rock, Glam Rock, Indie Pop, Indie Rock, Jangle Pop, Power Pop, Psych, Punk / 6 Comments

While walking and wandering through the streets of my hometown a couple of weeks ago, I had an inner dialogue questioning the tradition of creating these end of the year lists. You see, when you are busy at work (as I was), it can almost start to feel like a chore (it kinda did); just another line on your to-do list. But then I started shuffling and cutting my longlist down to a Top 50. That became a reward in itself.  I had a blast revisiting and rediscovering all the great music that’s been released in 2022. Hindsight’s 20/20, but the process offered a reminder how initial scepticism can turn into an eternal spot in a record collection. And vice versa, how love at first sight ultimately was a crush at best. 

Below, you’ll find the 50 records that meant the most to me in 2022 (with 50 additional recommendations). They are the records that made my head bop, fueled my battery, and made me feel things. Above all, these are the records that fill me with gratitude to all the bands and labels involved. Thank you all for keeping underground music alive and kicking!

Looking for a quick way to check out the list? Check out this Spotify playlist. Also make sure to check out Dennis’ AOTY list – spoiler, my top 50 has 40+ different picks, which I think perfectly reflects the different sides of our site. Reminder: More lists are on their way.

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Music Year-End List || Dennis’ Favorite Albums of 2022

By / / Alternative Rock, Blues & Roots, Country & Folk, Funk & Soul, Garage Rock, Indie Pop, Indie Rock, Jangle Pop, Power Pop, Psych, Punk, Surf Music / 3 Comments

What to say about 2022? It was a year when the world emerged from a pandemic, only to be quickly knocked down again by other crises. Inevitably, it also affected music: an explosive cocktail of hope and fear, of light and dark, of anger and newfound party spirit. Either way, there were plenty of comforting and entertaining tunes to discover (I mainly searched the crates with indie rock, power pop, garage rock, jangle pop, country, and soul).

I checked out 2,400+ new albums – sometimes moving on to the next one after a few minutes, sometimes all songs on repeat – adding 135 of them to my longlist of wantlist-worthy releases. The Top 50 that emerged after long deliberation, is independent of sales figures, number of streams, expert reviews, or snobbish pretensions. It is simply a matter of what I liked and played the most – records that made 2022 more than worthwhile despite everything. Looking at the result, my choices are more folky and mature and less garagy and raucous than I expected beforehand – getting older daddy? – but with a relatively large number of debuting artists and only a handful of veterans.

So here’s my year-end list (you can also find most of it in a playlist on Spotify). Links point to Discogs or Bandcamp (the headings), and to previously posted reviews (in the body text) – add to your wantlist (or better: your collection) what you like!

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New album: Magon || Enter By The Narrow Gate

By / / Indie Pop / 1 Comment

Here’s album number five from Israeli and long time Parisian singer-songwriter Magon, his second this year. How does he do that? I think we can hear the answer in the poetic lyrics of the ten new songs on Enter By The Narrow Gate. “Listen to what I’m gonna do // You’ll give me one, I’ll give you two” (from One Step At A Time). “The things that you seek // They are now in the past” (Under The Trees). And: “Give me A, I’m alive // Give me B to be me” (from the title track). I guess we can also consider Another Song, Another Day as another day, another song. That’s not a bad thing at all, because you can never have enough of these relaxed vibes. Magon (vocals, backing vocals, guitars, bass, percussions), along with Ferdinand de Fournoux (drums and percussions), infuse their indie-pop foundation with influences from alternative rock, surf, psych and country. As I listen with my eyes closed, it’s summer vacation again.

Enter By The Narrow Gate is out now digitally via December Square. Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

Dusted || The 10 Best Cover Songs Of November 2022

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

Not all new music is really new, as many artists cover songs. Sometimes these are songs by their favorite artists, eg 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 random order – ten of our favorite covers from last month – links to the pages where you can add them to your wantlist included.

In November, a bizarre number of new cover releases saw the light of day, including tributes to Billy Joe Shaver, Pavement and Jack Terricloth by various artists, Seth Avett singing Greg Brown, also William Fitzsimmons doing his whisper rock thing, Phil Wolff honoring Tom Waits and Bruce Springsteen interpreting soul music. We listed about 40 covers that would be worth sharing (apart from the countless alternative versions of Christmas classics; if you had to listen to one, choose Drummer Boy by Titus Andronicus adapted from Billy Joel’s Piano Man, or Vista Blue’s We Practiced All Year Long including a cover of a Kmart ad from 1979). Here are the 10 covers – X-mas free – we liked the most.

Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again || Cover: Dune Rats & Friends || Original: The Angels
Now this is fun in every way. For triple j’s Like A Version feature, Australian garage punk trio Dune Rats cover Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again, from the self-titled debut LP (1977) by their compatriots The Angels. To add to the party, they are joined by their friends Ruby Fields, Jackson Van Issue (Beddy Rays), Anna Ryan (Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers) and Kelly Jansch (TOTTY), as well as The Angels’ Brewster brothers themselves. Nice to see how they are all enjoying themselves, and so are we. If you want to hear more from this band: their most recent album Real Rare Whale is just as entertaining.

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New album: Farewell Horizontal || Tales Of Woah

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This is the third time we we write about Melbourne duo Farewell Horizontal. In part, this is due to the prolific nature of the band. Anytime they have recorded ten songs they are content with, they drop a new album. Tales Of Woah is the latest – their fourth in two years. There are a lot of reasons why I feel Farewell Horizontal needs more listeners. Their integrity is one: the band prefers an old school website over social media and donate about all of their proceeds to good cases. Their sense of humour’s another. The band’s blogpost with track-by-track commentary on the new album is recommended reading, full of lines like: “My mum is from rural Ireland. Long story short, I have an accordion.”

But I don’t just write about this band because they are good and funny human beings. Their music is simply too good to ignore. Tales Of Woah is 28 minutes of indie rock goodness. Ten mostly upbeat songs “about existential crises, old computer games, cynicism, voyeur landlords, sellouts, having a cold in summer, the struggles of the DIY artist, and arseholes who live by the sea.” That last part refers to Brighton’s Full Of Arseholes, the first of several standouts on the record. My favorite part of the record is the hit dense sequence of The System Works, I Don’t Understand Anything Anymore and Never Give Up (Unless You’re an Asshole).

According to the band, Tales Of Woah is their best record yet. They are not wrong.




Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New album: MICH || Nuts

By / / Indie Pop, Jangle Pop / Leave a Comment

Amsterdam-based indie pop band MICH is back with their third album, simply called Nuts, just as short and sweet as their tunes. In less than half an hour, the five-piece delivers twelve bouncy songs with cheerful melodies and gloomy lyrics. The music has a melancholic 1980s feel, with rhythmic synths, jangly guitars and dreamy vocals. The sound is more summery than autumnal, but I guess this would also work very well at an illegal dance party in a barely lit warehouse in the middle of the night.

Nuts is out now digitally, on CD and vinyl LP (picture disc) through Excelsior Recordings. On the record you hear Pieter Janssen aka Piet Parra (you also may recognize his artwork), Sofie Winterson, Bastiaan Bosma (Aux Raus), Rimer London and Mick Johan. Live on stage the band consists of Sofie Winterson, Bastiaan Bosma, Mick Johan, Benny Komala, Marc Kniphorst and Barend Brieffies.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Discogs || Excelsior

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