Jangle Pop

New album: The Maureens || Don’t Give Up

Warm-hearted guitar pop from a band aging beautifully

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

If your appetite for quality guitar pop is endless, The Maureens should already be on your radar. Today the Dutch quartet release Don’t Give Up, album number five in a 15-year run built on craft, consistency, and a genuine love for the perfect pop song. The band remain true to their instincts, still chasing the magic of classic touchstones like The Byrds and later heirs to that tradition such as Nada Surf and Teenage Fanclub.

The Maureens sound more poised than ever here, and recording the album in a remote wooden cottage in the Belgian Ardennes clearly did something good for the atmosphere. Don’t Give Up feels calm, warm, and deeply considered, the kind of record that quietly pushes back against the permanently distracted state of modern life.

Because these songs go down so easily, it would be a mistake to overlook just how carefully constructed they are. Tracks like Oceans Apart and Never Learn reveal more detail with each spin, while the warm production from legendary Dutch producer Frans Hagenaars (Bettie Serveert, Darryll-Ann, Johan, Moss) suits the material perfectly.

Available now on Meritorio.



Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Meritorio

New album: The Laughing Chimes || Behind Your Blue Fields

Lo-fi archival gems capture the beauty of unfinished transformation

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In time, Behind Your Blue Fields is the successor to last year’s sophomore full-length Whispers in the Speech Machine, but actually the latest from The Laughing Chimes is a collection of demos and stray recordings that preceded it, capturing the moment their bright-eyed jangle pop instincts began drifting toward murkier post-punk shadows. Band leader Evan Seurkamp explains that the concept of a “wow unreleased Chimes demo compilation!” developed quickly after dusting off his Tascam 4-track and digging through his desk drawer of old tapes (“It’s great to share them with you now as a glimpse into a “what could have been” second album that never fully came to fruition”), also considering the lo-fi rock resurgence among their peers.

There’s a bittersweet charm to hearing songs in this unfinished state: all tape hiss, bedroom melancholy, and unrealized possibility, as captivating as the one they eventually made. Whether Ohio’s prodigies show their light or dark side, whether they sound polished or raw, their knack for a good song with a good melody always wins.



Behind Your Blue Fields is out digitally and on cassette through Slumberland Records.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Slumberland

New album: Touch Girl Apple Blossom || Graceful

Austin quartet nail the sweet-and-scrappy balance

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Now that I’ve spent some real time with Graceful, I fully stand by my initial assessment of Austin quartet Touch Girl Apple Blossom: this is heavenly indie pop nostalgia done right.

The band plays with an energy that is totally infectious, all looseness, momentum, and scrappy charm. There is sweetness here for sure, but it is balanced by a ragged edge that almost pushes things into punk territory at times (not in sonics, but in vibes). Touch Girl Apple Blossom sound like true believers, like the kind of band whose members genuinely love this stuff to death and grew up chasing down dusty compilations and obscure seven-inches.

C86, twee, jangly noise pop, the lines between those worlds get pleasantly blurry here. The songs tumble forward with enough hooks and heart to make Graceful feel like a classic in the making, while still carrying the excitement of a young band figuring out just how good they can become. There is a real warmth to this record, as well as fuzz and basement-show spirit. A debut absolutely worth repeated plays and aggressively recommending to your friends.

Graceful is out now on K and Perennial.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Discogs

New album: The Kind Hills || Little Epiphanies

Jangly reflections on heartbreak, friendship and simple pleasures

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It is nothing short of a miracle that we now can listen to Little Epiphanies. For the third album by slacker-pop collective The Kind Hills, the band members’ ideas and contributions had to cross the borders and time zones of four continents, but Martin (Brisbane), Roman (Lucerne), Brett (Perth), Jess (London), Bea (Los Angeles), and Chase (Hong Kong) managed to pull it off. In no less than fourteen tracks (including a cover of Pavement’s I Love Perth), they add introspective storytelling and sun-faded warmth to jangly guitars and dreamy synths, with variation in male and female vocals that complete it.

In essence, the lyrics here are about finding comfort and meaning in life’s small, ordinary moments, such as bike rides, seaside views, late-night dancing, breakfast with friends, or simply escaping the noise of modern life (and the man flu). Beneath the record’s breezy surface runs a gentle tension between reminiscence and growth, reflecting on heartbreak, anxiety, burnout and digital overstimulation, while implying that joy, friendship, and simplicity remain the best antidotes: “I don’t understand // half the things you say // I do it my way” (from closer Vegemite). This is soft-focus indie pop full of humor, healing, and heart.



Little Epiphanies, written by Roman Gabriel and Martin Brabec, is out digitally and on CD through Subjangle.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New album: The Lemon Twigs || Look For Your Mind!

The D'Addario brothers, Reza Matin and Danny Ayala leave you plenty to obsess about on latest Lemon Twigs masterclass

By / / Jangle Pop, Power Pop, Psych / Leave a Comment

Listen, I’m fully aware The Lemon Twigs do not exactly need the support push from the Add to Wantlist blogging division. This record has already received, and will continue to receive, rave reviews from the Shindig!s and Uncuts of the world. Of course, Pitchfork hasn’t weighed in yet, apparently too busy raving about a reissue of the Super Mario gaming soundtrack and burning down a new Chris Brown record. But I digress.

The reason I still wanted to write about the new Lemon Twigs LP, briefly, is because I was pretty indifferent to the band before 2023’s Everything Harmony. One year later, A Dream Is All We Know is where things really clicked for me. I saw them perform on their tour for that record and realized these guys are not just studio perfectionists, they can actually pull this stuff off on stage too. So if there’s one takeaway here: go see this band live. You’ll probably come away hearing the records differently afterwards. And honestly, that’s why I’m writing about them here. For that one person who has spent years shrugging at this band and might actually be missing out.

The hype around The Lemon Twigs is not just about talent. The D’Addario brothers clearly live and breathe this stuff, and the level of care poured into their new album Look For Your Mind! is ridiculous. Really, it sounds incredible. And if you care about the three big B’s, Beach Boys, Beatles, and Big Star, you’re in very good hands here.

There are layers upon layers of goodness packed into this thing: harmonies sweet as honey, immaculate instrumentation, and production warm enough to make you cancel your streaming services and listen to vinyl records exlusively. There’s bubblegum pop on 2 or 3, psych pop on Gather Round, proper rockers like Bring You Down, and full-blown ’70s power pop romanticism on You’re Still My Girl. Meanwhile Nothin’ But You reaches for Big Star, Mean To Me drifts into Beach Boys bliss, and I Just Can’t Get Over Losing You is pure Beatles-brained pop craftsmanship.

I also love that the band openly admits that in contrast to their earlier records, they are now writing only the kind of songs they themselves want to hear. Honestly, that makes me feel less bad about becoming a fan later in the(ir) game. Because talented, obsessive musicians with impeccable taste making exactly the music they love is still a pretty hard formula to beat.

With bigger hype comes bigger expectations. To my ears, they meet them completely. Look For Your Mind! is out now on Captured Tracks.



Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Discogs

New EP: Blimps || Over The Moon

From a storage unit to our hearts, meet Blimps!

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

You may recall us writing about Tom Lawns earlier this year, a sneaky-good collection of unpolished slacker alt rock and power pop, hiss and tape noise proudly intact. Turns out the guy behind Tom Lawns, Colin Musolf, also has a brand new band called Blimps with his best friend Rocky Mercer. The pair out of Charleston (South Carolina) met in theater class as kids and have apparently been making music together for eight years already.

Blimps is a fully DIY operation, with the duo handling all the recording and playing themselves. Two songwriters bouncing ideas off each other. The seven songs on their debut EP Over The Moon were recorded on an 8-track cassette machine in their storage unit. Listen closely and you might hear some terrible metal band rehearsing in the background, though chances are you’ll be too locked into the songs to notice.

This is another band operating somewhere in the Guided by Voices, Superdrag, and Teenage Fanclub universe, which suits us just fine. Blimps throws Neil Young and Cheap Trick into the mix too. In a local scene apparently filled with bands carrying giant egos and not enough hooks, Blimps go the other way. They keep things raw, loose, on a bare-bones production, but never lose sight of the melodies. These jangly, power-poppin’, alt-rockin’ songs about feeling out of step in a small town hit with sincerity instead of posture.

Definitely a band to keep tabs on. And apparently they’re already writing the next record. We’ll be listening! Limited tape run available through their own Terminal Releases label.


Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New album: The Young Sinclairs || Cycles Turning

A low-key comeback that sneaks up on you

By / / Garage Rock, Jangle Pop, Psych / Leave a Comment

In what almost feels like a different life, I was a major fanboy of The Young Sinclairs (Roanoke, Virginia). Then again, I can’t recall when I last listened to them, let alone thought about the band. Then, last (Bandcamp) Friday, I suddenly received a notification that they had just released… a new record? SURPRISE!

After a prolific period between 2007–2014 and going quiet following 2019’s Out of the Box, The Young Sinclairs didn’t so much return as gradually find their way back. The reboot started in late 2023, with a reshuffled lineup built around longtime core members Samuel Jones Lunsford, Daniel Cundiff, and Seanmichael Poff, now joined by friends and fellow scene regulars Ben Hudson and John Pence. What began as low-key attic recordings by Lunsford turned into a full band effort, with ideas passed around and fleshed out across different spaces and setups.

The result is Cycles Turning, a loose, homespun take on guitar pop that hangs together on melody and an unpolished DIY feel. The 13 songs are rooted in garage, psych, and power pop but constantly drifting — jangly twelve-string bits and haze slip in. A GBV-esque take on The Byrds, if you will. The 2026 version of The Young Sinclairs is sure a good one!



Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New album: The Goobs & My Friend Cowboy || Happy Loving Couples

Your latest sugar (c)rush has arrived

By / / Garage Rock, Indie Pop, Jangle Pop, Power Pop, Psych / 3 Comments

If you’re not already in the loop, Sims Hardin’s monthly Bandcamp roundup of the best new punk releases is required reading. April’s edition tipped us off to a new label we somehow missed: Painty Pot, started by Good Flying Birds guitarist Kellen Baker. One of its first releases is this collab between The Goobs & My Friend Cowboy, which Hardin called “a tender bedroom punk masterpiece.” That checks out.

Happy Loving Couples is written by Logan Adam and Carson Brom, who clearly also had fun tipping their hat to pop history with the song titles. What you get is nine lo-fi pop hits that land somewhere between jangle, psych, glam, and bubblegum. The guitars sparkle, the hooks come quick, and it all feels a little giddy in the best way.

Or, as Sims Hardin puts it: “it’s like stepping into an anachronistic timeline where The Beatles opted for ecstasy over acid.” Not entirely sure what that means either, but it sounds about right. This thing is a blast. And honestly, Big Shot (a killer power pop hit) alone makes me an instant fan.



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)

…

Dusted || The Best New Cover Songs Of April 2026Read More »

New album: Robertson || Robertson

Sun-soaked psych-pop with a familial spark

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

We already knew the Scottish father-son duo Kevin and Scott Robertson from The Vapor Trails and their solo work, but apparently they still had time and inspiration left for another project, which recently saw the light of day under the moniker of Robertson. Joined by producer/drummer Nick Bertling, they focus on melodic psych-pop (reminiscent of long-gone times, when The Byrds and The Kinks invented the wheel, or at least developed it further), now and then leaning towards folk rock.

The thirteen songs on their self-titled debut album switch between jangle and twang, but excursions into horns, strings, and pedal steel contribute to the feeling that we are wandering in a kaleidoscopic dream. This is a richly melodic record, ageless perfection with relatable lyrics, charming harmonies, and sun-drenched warmth.



Robertson, produced by Nick Bertling, is out digitally and on CD (self-released). Featuring Kevin Robertson (vocals, guitars, keys, harmonica), Scott Robertson (vocals, bass, guitars, keys), and Nick Bertling (drums, keys, backing vocals), with Arash Torabi (bass), Marco Pescosolido (cello), Tali Trow (organ, backing vocals), Ahren Buchheister (pedal steel), Kateryna Mytrofanova (strings), Alexey Zavgorodny (strings), Patricio Bottcher (horns), and Jim Shepherd (guitar) guesting on select tracks.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

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