Psych

New album: Rob Clarke || Opiope

Melodic songwriting with a psychedelic heart

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

Liverpool singer-songwriter Rob Clarke returns with yet another album, entitled Opiope, an expansive and deeply personal one. It concerns ten idiosyncratic but fascinating pop songs drenched in psychedelics and folk, packed with melodic warmth, rich harmonies, and thoughtful lyrics that reward repeat listens.

The record spins with the confidence you would expect from a seasoned craftsman, but there’s an easy chemistry between the fellow musicians that elevates it to a higher level. From jangly guitars and magnetic vocals to gripping piano work and samples from everyday life, the lush arrangements shift effortlessly between intimate and widescreen. This is an atmospheric journey with plenty of surprises.



Opiope—produced by Fran Ashcroft—is out digitally and on CD via Aldora Britain Records.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New album: Casual Technicians || Well Once There Was a King

Twenty-four songs and not a safe choice in sight on this underground gem

By / / Country & Folk, Indie Rock, Psych, Uncategorized / Leave a Comment

Of all the underground bands we cover, Casual Technicians are a special breed. Not just in output, but in process as well. The trio of Tyler Keene (And And And, Log Across the Washer), Boone Howard (The We Shared Milk and the Boone Howard band), and Nathan Baumgartner (And And And) operate strictly as a recording project. Spread across New Jersey, Upstate New York, and the Oregon coast, they get together once a year for marathon recording sessions while passing ideas back and forth remotely the rest of the time.

Judging by their third album, ideas are clearly not in short supply. Well Once There Was a King comes in hot at 24 tracks and nearly an hour of music. It’s a bit much for us bloggers scraping for time. But I went for a walk, and put this record on. I kept walking.

The record, not their first concept record by the way, follows an unnamed protagonist who knows exactly what he should do to straighten his life out and consistently chooses chaos instead. Across those 24 songs, the band pinballs through folk, doom metal, smooth jazz, psych, slacker rock, outlaw country and ’60s pop without ever completely losing the thread. This is outsider music for people who see straight lines as a personal attack.

Even on music alone, Well Once There Was a King gives you plenty to chew on. These songs creep under your skin slowly, full of emotional knots, rough edges, and dissonant little details left proudly intact. The vocals arrive without polish but with plenty of honesty and vulnerability. And then there are the lyrics. Power City, USA, Part 1 reads like a beautifully fried notebook page set to music. First line: “The boiling water is an asshole.” Later on: “I steal casino quarters from my best friend’s mom. The thrill of the scam doesn’t last too long.” Incredible stuff.

And then there’s The Golden Rule, which captures the current moment with a kind of exhausted clarity, right down to its devastating chorus:”Learn about who you should hate // In books you read at school // Drop the bomb and never wonder why // Life is so much simpler // if you follow the golden rule // You live // You grow // You die.”

Casual Technicians operate in a niche within a niche. These guys are not trying to “make it.” They are just making something weird, human, and genuinely worth your time. More people should notice.



Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New album: Beefheart & McQuinn || Midtown Downtime

Cosmic folk reflections with a breeze of melancholy

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Reportedly, 2026 marks the 50th anniversary of yacht rock, but anniversary or not, smooth soft-rock grooves and nostalgia-soaked folk music seem to be riding a serious wave of renewed affection right now. Midtown Downtime fits seamlessly into that trend, although this is by no means a pursuit of effect, as this sound runs in the bloodstream of the musicians responsible. We are talking about a collaboration of British singer-songwriter Moby Beefheart aka William Murray (Fur) with Australian singer-songwriter Winter McQuinn (Sunfruits), born from a chance meeting.

Their first joint record drifts through soft-focus indie folk with the ease of a half-remembered summer. Drawing from the gentler corners of the psychedelic 1970s without slipping into imitation or antiquation, the two musicians weave honeyed harmonies, warm acoustic textures, and understated grooves into a mesmerizing listen. At times, the songwriting even feels distinctly contemporary, but just look at the titles of the ten songs and you know that timeless is a better label.



Midtown Downtime—recorded, produced and performed by Beefheart & McQuinn—is out digitally and on vinyl LP through Rainflower Records and We Are Busy Bodies.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

Album review: The Escape Society || The Escape Society

Fuzzed-out hooks and glam-soaked optimism on a psychedelic joyride

By / / Alternative Rock, Glam Rock, Psych / Leave a Comment

The Teletubbies are hardly the poster children for hazardous riffs and hard-hitting drums, although after a few mind-altering substances, those wide-eyed colors might start making a strange kind of sense. Still, the toddler’s icons take center stage in the video for Derelicts in the Fungus Shed, a 2024 single from The Escape Society. The track appears on the Ottawa band’s self-titled debut full-length, a nine-song collection that now gathers the standout singles from the past three years into something that plays less like an introduction and more like a greatest hits set.

Bandcamp lists The Escape Society as progressive rock, alternative rock, garage rock, glam, power pop, and psychedelic rock, and miraculously the band lives up to all those tags, turning big hooks and crazy ideas into kaleidoscopic dancefloor-ready anthems with genuine heart. Theatrical and over-the-top, surreal and infectious? Yes, actually, but it is anything but childish, with fun above all.



The Escape Society’s eponymous debut album—produced by Troy Huizinga and Dean Watson—is out digitally (self-released), Featuring Troy Huizinga (vocals, guitars, bass, synths, drum machine, percussion, handclaps, toy guns), Scott Norris (guitar, bass, backing vocals), Dean Watson (bass, backing vocals, drum machine, percussion, handclaps), and Jay Watts (drums, bass, percussion, backing vocals), with Jacob Elgin (guitar) and Stacy DuBois (backing vocals) guesting on select tracks.

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 single: The Giant Robots || Spooky Signs

Two-minute anthems for broken hearts and burned-out dancefloors

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There’s something gloriously out of time about The Giant Robots. Thirty years deep into their fuzz-soaked mission, the Lausanne, Switzerland-based garage rock lifers still sound like they’ve just staggered out of a smoke-filled basement club with blown amps. This new 45 is classic Giant Robots, as cool as it should be. A-side Spooky Signs offers graveyard romance, eerie Farfisa shimmer, warming harmonies, and enough distorted swagger to wake the dead. Flip it over for Goodbye, a softer, jangling slice of mid-sixties melancholy that hits the mark with mod-pop sweetness without losing the band’s crooked edge. Produced in style, uplifting in impact; somehow, against all odds, this out of time sound is still very easy to embrace in 2026.

Spooky Signs b/w Goodbye is out digitally and on vinyl 7″ through Rogue Records.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New album: The Haunted Youth || Boys Cry Too

From dreamy sorrow to total destruction and back

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

How to follow up a debut album that was received as a perfectly constructed masterpiece? On Boys Cry Too, The Haunted Youth trade the dreamy fragility of 2022’s Dawn Of The Freak for something heavier, louder, and more emotionally unfiltered. Across eleven tracks, Joachim Liebens pushes his shoegaze-meets-indie formula into darker territory, where grunge riffs, towering walls of reverb, and whispered confessions collide with outright screams. Once again the knack for a hypnotic melody is omnipresent, but captured in a bigger sound, more mature and confident. In that regard, the eight-minute opener In My Head alone feels like a statement of intent, as cinematic, suffocating, and eventually explosive as it is.

What makes this record hit so hard, is its refusal to hide behind cool detachment. The Flemish genius writes openly about loneliness, self-destruction, addiction, and the chaos inside his own head—to be honest, the lyrics on “all the mistakes a boy makes when his heart breaks” are quite upsetting. Tellingly titled tracks like Deathwish and Murder Me inject flashes of emo-punk and 90s alt-rock into the band’s hazy atmospherics, while the instrumental Falling To Pieces stretches grief into something almost transcendent. All in all, we can only experience this 53-minute trip as a massive, bruised, and immersive performance that proves The Haunted Youth are truly unique.



Boys Cry Too is out digitally, on CD and vinyl LP, through Play It Again Sam.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Discogs || The Haunted Youth || PIAS

New album: Thee Seizures || Introducing…

A lo-fi whirlwind of organ-driven chaos

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Thee Seizures are an “anti-fascist acid punk” duo from Lisbon, Portugal, who needed just two wild days to cut their debut album Introducing… (they already shared the eight tracks digitally themselves last November, but have since signed with Groovie Records, who fired up the vinyl press and threw in alternative cover art, so we can safely consider this a new release). The record takes us us from The 13th Floor—it must be a hell of a party there—to My Mind, a fascinating trip.

It’s all grooving organ grind and drum thunder; proving guitars are superfluous when the energy is this feral. Equal parts garage punk grit and psychedelic rock swirl, the two musicians lure the ghost of the 1960s into something raw, sweaty, and out of step with the trends yet defiantly present. It’s chaotic, rebellious, and impossible to ignore, exactly how rock ‘n’ roll should feel right now.



Introducing Thee Seizures—recorded and mixed by Ulpiano Capalbo—is out digitally and on vinyl LP through Groovie Records. Featuring Alex Aspin (organ) and André Martins (drums).

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

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