There are more wantlist-worthy releases than time to cover them all. Starting this year, Loose Ends is our monthly fix for the great records that slipped through the cracks. Expect a key track and quick take on each release (35 this month!), and a link to add it to your shelves.
Gomez Addams || Let’s Blow Up The World
Fun album title, fun album art! Gomez Addams make their dystopian indie rock sound surprisingly jangly and upbeat on their latest.
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Three and a half years after their Antartica LP, Mallorca, Spain-based twee pop quartet Marlovers return with Sixteen Sunrises from the Soyuz, a concept album that wears its premise lightly and lets feeling do the heavy lifting (as the band puts it: “Astronauts aboard the Soyuz orbit Earth roughly every 90 minutes, witnessing about 16 sunrises and sunsets in a single 24-hour period; our album uses the metaphor of 16 daily sunrises witnessed from a drifting spacecraft and explores how love, identity, and healing evolve [while] being far away from everything”).
The 16 new songs specialize in bright guitars shadowed by poetic doubt, turning slacker pop nostalgia into something oddly life-affirming. There’s a homespun charm to the earnest, slightly scruffy, and disarmingly sincere performances, supported by effective vocal variation and a rocking rhythm section. Emotional gravity and psychedelic comfort hold the entire 50-minute flight, like sunshine through thin clouds: warm, familiar, and just melancholic enough to remain after the last ellipse fades.
Sixteen Sunrises From The Soyuz is out now digitally via Lilystars Records. Featuring Marina Mullor Morata, Simó Reus Mestre, Guillermo Bauzá Muñoz, and Alberto Santolaria de Hevia.
Add to wantlist: Bandcamp
Bullseye started as a lo-fi bedroom slacker power pop project by Jake Barczak of Brooklyn post-punk/Yes-Wave band Patti, but has since leveled up into a full band. We jumped aboard the Bullseye hype train on their self-titled 2024 EP, but this new six-song EP, again self-titled, already sounds like a band skipping the “promising” phase entirely. This is dialed in, self-assured stuff.
At times it feels like Guided by Voices expanded the lineup with Paul W., Elvis C., Jeff T., and Stephen M., all egos checked at the door, chasing that first jolt of why making music mattered in the first place. There is a shared sense of purpose here that keeps things loose without ever slipping.
The result is a sweet spot between alt rock, slacker charm, jangly and slightly twangy indie rock, all punched up with garage power pop energy. Compared to their previous EP, Bullseye let these songs breathe more and add extra layers without sanding off the rough edges. Dangers of the Heart makes a return in a new version, stretched out to twice its length, but that chorus hook still lands just as hard. There is a bit more intention in the arrangements this time, but don’t mistake that for restraint and a lack of urgency.
Really great stuff from Bullseye, and another strong release from Ever/Never Records. Dig into their roster if you want more bands that make guitar music feel this alive again.
Add to wantlist: Bandcamp
Austin quartet The Love Variants emerge onto the underground indie pop scene as subtle as their music. Their eight-song debut cassette, Life of Riley (released by Keeper Records), is one of those records where one spin in, you already know they are not your average jangle dream pop band.
Take Golden Age, where it becomes clear how much this band values letting melodies linger and shimmer rather than rush past you. The vocals match that mood, romantic and dreamy, but with enough melancholy underneath to keep things grounded.
The Love Variants feel like peers of Bay Area acts like The Reds, Pinks & Purples and Chime School, but there is also a strong ’80s UK current running through this. At times, it sounds like they are auditioning for a spot on a John Hughes soundtrack. They even throw in an instrumental, Red Moon, which plays like a strange but effective hybrid of surf and spaghetti western.
Life of Riley is a joy to spend time with.
Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Keeper Records
From the bountiful San Francisco jangle pop scene comes The Kitchenettes, who share members with The Umbrellas and The Snogs, but sport a more Pacific Northwest sensibility. Their inaugural single (though not their first release) Sunday Best finds a home on storied indie labels Slumberland, Meritorio, and Galaxy Train. In comparison to their 2024 demos collection, which boasted a slightly caffeinated take on the K Records sound, the ambience here is soft and dusky—think The Softies, not Tiger Trap.
Lead tune Sunday Best is the jaunty one: a winning number held together by charming vocal interplay and an insistent snare. Mood Ring and Hummingbird are equally joyful but forgo the use of percussion entirely, instead relying on the gentle strum of acoustic guitar and occasional lift of violin. The trio demonstrate a deft hand for arrangement throughout, managing a sound both ethereal and earthbound, intentional and off-the-cuff.
Here are three sweet, irresistible songs that envelope you briefly before dissolving into the afterglow, leaving you wanting more—just as a good single should.
Sunday Best is out now on 7″ on Slumberland, Meritorio, and Galaxy Train.
Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Meritorio || Slumberland
Here’s a sweet and tasty treat from Research Vessel, another growing-out-of-hand project from Danny Rowland (Seapony, Transmittens, Space Daze). After two cassette releases, Research Vessel finally becomes available on vinyl and CD. If you missed the first two releases, I’m kinda jealous because there’s a special pleasure in discovering this band for the first time. Research Vessel songs have a way of releasing the tension in your shoulders with their gentle and humble nature. Doctors may want to include it in their prescriptions because this may outperform any prescription drug.
Press play on Wish I Knew and let its jangly guitars tickle your brain and the hushed warmth of Rowland’s voice soothe your soul. Surely it’s one of the finest twee pop songs this year will bring. I would buy this EP for that one alone, but there are four additional songs which together open a portal to spring.
7″ vinyl and CD EP out through Sunday Records (US), Vinyl Exchange (UK), Hands and Arms Records (EU), and The Stone Records (Japan).
Add to wantlist: Bandcamp
There are more wantlist-worthy releases than time to cover them all. Starting this year, Loose Ends is our monthly fix for the great records that slipped through the cracks. Expect a key track and quick take on each release, and a link to add it to your shelves.
Aswan Dam || In the Playpen of the Damned
Cool new band featuring Harry Wohl of Uranium Club. Jangly guitars, post punk wireness and pop sensibilities complement each other well on their 10-song debut album.
Atlanter || Clock
The pioneers of “viddeblues” sound revitalized, blending their signature Norwegian folk-desert blues fusion with renewed chemistry, intuitive interplay, and a confident push into fresh sonic territory.
Bait Bag || Cut Fruit
Punky garage pop trio Bait Bag (North Haven, Carolina) can sing, really sing well, and while they play their songs with a punk urgency, it is the POP that lingers.
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“Putting out music right now feels like handing out your resume at a funeral” and “things in Minneapolis are really shitty right now,” yet that situation doesn’t stop Dan Hornsby and Tailer Ransom from releasing a sophomore album with their indie folk project True Green. It only makes the meaning of the thirteen new tracks on Hail Disaster even greater, I guess. The lo-fi haze of their debut LP My Lost Decade—we called it wobbly bedroom pop at the time—has been exchanged for something fuller, warmer, and quietly devastating.
Dan Hornsby writes like a novelist because he is one; his songs read as short stories about cruelty, obsession, and loss. His voice stays soft, but the weight behind it has shifted; these are hard-earned reflections. The organ, banjo, synthesizers, concertina, and guitar by multi-instrumentalist Tailer Ransom wrap everything in a fragile glow, at times somewhat reminiscent of The Velvet Underground, equal parts homespun and haunted. It led to a beautiful and impressive soundtrack for the current context; outside the world burns, inside this music documents the turmoil with unsettling grace.
Hail Disaster—mixed and mastered by Matt Castore—is out now digitally and on vinyl LP through Spacecase Records. Also featuring Dustin James, John Goddard, Zach Mitchell, Kent Peterson, Curtis Arnett, Nik Eskola, Scott Kiefner, Isaac Butler, and Jared Bartman.
Please meet Brody Londrigan, a 17-year-old singer-songwriter/guitarist from Phoenix, Arizona with a sensitive pen and a unique voice. He makes his debut with Isle Of Swine, a 10-track album driven by jangly guitars and those distinctive vocals, reminiscent of The Smiths and Tobias Jesso Jr.
The music and lyrics evoke a melancholic atmosphere (“The shadows have their day // Your dreams don’t have to end”), fitting the cover photo that could be a poster for a new coming-of-age series. There’s a disarming sincerity and an understated charm in this sound, brimming with promise.
Isle Of Swine is out now digitally via Au Soleil.
Add to wantlist: Bandcamp
Let’s head over to Manchester for a new band by the name The Anoraks. They’re actually a duo: Louis Singleton (guitar, keyboard, drums, vocals) and Frankie Webb (guitar, bass, vocals, backup vocals). They clearly like their power pop and Britpop jangly, twee, and lo-fi, although the latter may also be a decision of convenience. The eleven cuts here are home recordings from the past five months, tagged as Demo, as if to say: this is who we are, we’re just getting started, don’t be too critical of the production quality or the songs themselves.
Well, I’m not accusing Singleton and Webb of false modesty, but this Demo is a clear case of underpromise and overdeliver. There are plenty of wonderful underground guitar pop moments here, like the double-hit sequence of Seeing You Again and Untitled. The Anoraks know their way around a melody and aren’t making you work particularly hard to enjoy them. The familiarity of their sound is a feature, not a bug. At the very least, this Demo makes you hit the follow button on their Bandcamp page in anticipation of what they’ll cook up next.
Add to wantlist: Bandcamp