With her music recently proclaimed by Rolling Stone as, “Brilliant,” by The New York Times as “Phenomenal,” and by The Huffington Post as “Electrifying,” Grace McLean has found her moment. Her debut full-length album My Lovely Enemy is out May 10th on Meridian/ECR Music Group (Sony), following three single releases which have won her an international audience and press coverage on five continents.
The Giant Low (think Editors & Interpol) is a rising band from Nijmegen, NL. The quartet has released a new 2 track single, “We Fall”. Driving and melodic bass lines, jagged and haunting guitars, while drums maintain a tight & propulsive beat with passionate and emotive vocals bringing poetic lyrics.
“Gimme a minute” is the third extract from Santa Claws next album So live and let lie recorded 6 years after the first Life is a lie that was produced by Greg Gordon (Oasis, Supergrass, Nick Cave) It’s the story of a rather whimsical girl called Sally. A young woman in love with life, very eccentric, on whom time never has a grip. Always very cool, never punctual, she has the gift of irritating those around her who are always waiting for her.
French blues rockers Reynald N’Trio release their new single. Pin Up.
Karyn Kuhl first received national acclaim for her early bands Gut Bank and Sexpod, growing out of the vibrant Hoboken music scene and the legendary club Maxwell’s. Over the past 20 years, she has released nine LPs, EPs and singles under her own name and with her band. With her solo material, Karyn lets the unexpected and the familiar take shape into sculptures of melody and noise, sensual, ethereal and heavy. With her alluring mix of different rock styles, she continues to push the boundaries with “No Traces”’ retro and modern sound, finding the enigmatic in the everyday.
Panther Style is a rock band from Chicago, IL USA.
Started by veterans Jeanne McClure, Al Rodis, Dan Lutger, & Melissa Koehl (Mary Tyler Morphine, Siderunners*, Dyslexic Apaches, Reptoids) out of a mutual desire to make some beautifully catchy songs that also rocked. Loudly.
Influences from The Cult, early Van Halen, Fugazi, Failure, The Posies, Big Star, and New Order, blending sweet melodies, thick distorted guitars, and screaming tube amps, held together with an air-tight rhythm.
John Beckmann’s latest contribution to the genre, HANUSSEN: The Enigmatic Clairvoyant, encompasses all three aspects, especially the nuance of labor, which places the body at the center of the human experience. As both the giver and receiver of energies, the body is a conduit between the seen and the unseen. Like this album’s namesake, Erik Jan Hanussen (1889-1933), the Vienna-born Jewish mystic who became a psychic advisor of sorts to Adolf Hitler, the music puts its finger on the pulse of something always within in plain sight yet rarely articulated.
After last year’s introspective “Yay For Effort” vinyl LP and tour, Greg Hoy and The Boys return to the catchy punk pop sound of their earlier albums. “Holy Mother of God”, which is now available on Bandcamp with a planned release to Spotify and hard hitting music video that’s about to drop, is three and half minutes of guitar riff catchy rock n roll.
The Chameleons are back with their first new music in 11 years. The brand new 3-track “Where Are You? EP” covers all the important bases, featuring a rousing lead track, a cool revisit to a long-lost track, and a foray into the band’s occasional elegiac quiet side. I asked frontman, Mark Burgess, to tell us more about the new music, and the upcoming North American tour that kicks off in San Diego on May 30th.
George Marinelli was Bonnie Raitt’s right hand man on guitar for 30 years. Before that he was a founding member of the Grammy winning band Bruce Hornsby and the Range. He’s always been a sideman, band guy, and a session player, but constantly writing, recording, and releasing his own solo albums. He was born on Staten Island, New York, into a blue collar Italian-Catholic family, surrounded by diversity in both people, food, and most importantly music. His parents and older sisters instilled a love of a variety of music, from Big Band, Afro-Cuban, Rock & Roll, and Reggae, all of which find their way into his playing and his music. Most recently he’s been producing and mixing for other artists in his studio, WingDing, and recording and readying his latest album, Except Always. It’s a two CD set of nine new songs and a seventeen song retrospective of past albums to be released on Loud Folk Records on May 17, 2024.
The Twins of Franklin second and newest album, This Life, mixes hard and soft like only one thing can — American girl rock. It’s both powerful and birdsong sweet — like taking your 70s convertible out for a rage cruise on a sunny spring day.
This is the second full-length album Habitat by DEEP DIVE SPECIES, the NY-based virtual band of Vadim Militsin, an electronic producer of many projects and Sergiy Popovich, a guitarists with a long resume of playing in bands. This is a comfortable electronic/guitar mixture that can be a great background or a full-dive sonic trip.
Repeat is a stoner rock/punk band from Sweden who last fall released their debut album “Repeat”. The hard working and energetic trio received many praises from media both in Sweden and internationally for the debut and in June the sequel “Rat Race” is out. On May 3rd, the band released the second single “Man On The Moon” and a video.
Progressive shoegaze stalwarts A Shoreline Dream are back with flair as they present their new single ‘Everything Turns’, featuring Ride frontman Mark Gardener. This is the first taste of ‘Whitelined’, the band’s eighth full-length record, following their 2022 critically acclaimed ‘Loveblind’ album. Out on July 19, this new offering will be released as a limited edition of 180g white vinyl LP and digitally via Latenight Weeknight Records.
Beguiling genre-blending ingenue Taylor Kelly has announced the May 17 release of “Take Me,” the soul-nourishing, life-affirming lead single from her forthcoming Ep, The Spins, which arrives July 19 via Head Bitch Music.
Austin’s folk-rock duo Jim Patton & Sherry Brokus will release their third album since the pandemic, “Harbortowne”, arrives September 20, 2024.
Patton’s new songs, while not directly addressing the pandemic, explore relevant themes of loneliness and dreams gone bad, and plans gone wrong, and how hard it is for two people to get along even when they love each other and have each other’s best interest at heart.
The Silver Doors – the Appalachian-psych-rock outfit from the mountains of Asheville, NC – announced their self-titled album release of April 15th, 2024. This debut album was recorded, mixed, and mastered by Alex Farrar at Drop of Sun Studios with additional recording and overdubs by Lawson Alderson; a succinct 8-song arc that swings from sub-2-minute punk tracks to 5-minute-plus rock anthems, all with splashes of psychedelia and layers of electric violin.
Meet Ryan O’Connell, a one-man band and multi-instrumentalist ready to take you on a journey with his new single, “Easy.” This track is the ultimate chill-out anthem, recorded at Glow Studios in Athens, Georgia, and produced alongside Jesse Mangum. With influences from Kurt Vile to Pavement and Neil Young, O’Connell’s sound is a laid-back blend of slacker rock and 90s indie infused with a healthy dose of humor.
Less than six months after releasing their acclaimed second studio album ‘The Release’, London’s psychedelic rock’ n ’soul superheroes Near Death Experience (NDX for short) launched a brand new single ‘Soul’ on 3 May 2024 – a thrilling, fun, infectious, rollercoaster ride, brimming with sassy 60s and 70s cool.
Hot on the tracks of his recent Spotify hit ‘California Smile’, the hit songwriter Tom Tikka releases another single off his upcoming album titled ‘Wrecking Ball’ that features two of his mates from the Sony-BMG signed Carmen Gray .
Influenced by such artists as Faust, Coil, Zoviet France and NEU, Pas Musique was launched in 1995 Brooklyn as a solo abstract-sound project of founder Robert L. Pepper, having since evolved through different lineups and variations of experimental electronic iterations.
Kallai celebrates the sounds of places that never were, and futures that may never be. Reverb-soaked guitars, synthesized haze, melodic bass lines, and flowing rhythms. Kallai was formed in the fall of 2023 by members of Trance to the Sun, Luscious Apparatus & Lost Echoes.
Seasonal Falls is the new recording project of Switzerland based songwriter Roman Gabriel (The Kind Hills, The Dentals), whose indie folk/pop songs are refined by Andrew Pelletier’s emotive vocals (Fur Trader). The heart-warming tracks capture the band’s passion for indie music in general and of the 90s in particular.
The sound of Seasonal Falls is inspired by artists like Elliott Smith, Pavement, Wilco, Sufjan Stevens, The Lucksmiths etc.
Hailing from Brussels, Belgium, Lovelorn Dolls is made up of Kristell Lowagie (lyrics, vocals, arrangements) and Bernard Daubresse (music, programming, guitars, production). With an underbelly of gothic rock, their sound resembles a mix of Theatre of Tragedy, Lacuna Coil and The Birthday Massacre.
On the new Stephen’s Shore ”Neptune (EP)” , the California beach, sun, and surf are distilled into three- and four-minute jangle-pop goodness.
Renowned one-man project Shockpowder, a musical endeavour that intricately blends post-metal with a 90s rock vibe, is thrilled to announce the release of its second album, Dreaming from Elsewhere, slated to hit the airwaves and digital platforms in May 2024.
MorningBird is an acoustic trio featuring Rob Wheeler (guitar, mandolin, harmonica, stomp box), Jill Burkes (violin, guitar), and Josh Palmi (upright bass, guitar). The trio offer haunting harmonies and eclectic mix of traditional tunes and original music along with powerful string arrangements. Their new album, Echoes in the Meadow, is a result of the magic that happened when the group spent 3 weeks together traveling, writing, and playing gigs across the Western US in the fall of 2023.
The band Avery and Ella is now Lud Roes. They have been garnering some turbulence through their electrifying live shows and the release of their new album, Dear IV. Still a very new band, this name change honors the evolution of the trio. This spring they deliver a one-two punch by also dropping a well crafted music video for their song “Waiting for B”, directed by Mitchel Worley
DEEP DIVE SPECIES were formed during (and basically because of) the 2020 lockdown in New York. One part of the duo is Vadim Militsin, an electronic scene veteran who stands behind numerous projects like AUTiSM, Logica Abstracta and Robotov-Millentrop. The other component of this unlikely mixture is Sergey Popovich, a guitarist and vocalist with a string of projects, like Vopli Vodoplyasova, famous in and beyond his native Ukraine, Hey! Lubo!, and the NY-based Goodswan.
Art-rock indie-pop collective The Pull of Autumn presents their new single ‘Opening / Closing’ featuring Kraig Jordan. Born from the reflective period as the world began to emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic. Crafted by the songwriting duo of Kraig Jordan and Guy Benoit, and recorded at Plan of a Boy studio in Providence, Rhode Island, this track is a poignant exploration of reentry into a transformed society.
Tarantula Bill is a Denver based psych rock band that blends creamy vibes with the tonality of a space wizard jam sesh. Much of the magic comes out live, featuring 2 mops, one corporate sellout, and a guy from craigslist penetrating the ethereal plane with heavy riffs.
The brainchild of musician Bruno Sobral, Tsunamiz brings a genre-defying sound to the masses. Sonically energizing and infectious, his music traipses between rock, electronic and pop creating something unique and entirely Tsunamiz.
Marky Wildtype is an Edinburgh based songwriter/musician/producer who has been plying his trade and honing his craft under various guises for many years. Most recently, he has been providing the buzzsaw guitar backbone of the vibrant heavy-rock-meets-trad instrumental alt-folk band The Jig Show.
Recorded by Jörgen Wall (Jay-Jay Johanson, The Hellacopters) over three days at Stockholm’s Kapsylen Studio and mixed by Tom van Heesch8 (*Rammstein, Apocalyptica, Backyard Babies), this album was mastered by Svante Forsbäck / Chartmakers (Rammstein, Amaranthe, Ville Valo, The Rasmus, Apocalyptica). Ahead of the album’s release, Then Comes Silence released the singles ‘Like a Hammer’ and ‘Ride or Die’.
San Francisco post-punk outfit Octavian Winters has teamed up with Mark Pistel (Consolidate, Meat Beat Manifesto8) on their new two-track single. Out April 30 via *Stratis Capta Records, the A-side ‘Nebula’, which underscores the inevitable impermanence of all that is seen and unseen, known and unknown, is complemented by Pistel’s infectious pulsating remix of ‘Velveteen’.
Expect the feel of a Wim Wenders film with Bjork popping up to provide musical interludes. From darkness and loss, hangovers were left behind for the peace of sobriety for folktronica duo Victoria Bourne and Chris Harper. In the last year the duo became sober and bounced back from two close friends suicides and Victoria’s own depression. Confronted with so much existential angst. Last year became a springboard for change going back to their roots of electronica and acoustic sounds. “We’re doing what we love best, creating sad, romantic, cinematic music”
The Pulltops is a Milwaukee based duo delivering a hooky mix of Indie Rock, Power Pop, and Album Rock. Drummer Mark Pierret and guitarist Tom Crowell were both eclectic record collectors, so they immediately clicked when they joined their first band together. While Mark always leaned heavier on old country and soul music, Tom drew stronger influences from the experimental and underground scene.
Emerging Irish Rockers Colm O’Mahony & The Hot Touches present their debut single “Damage”, available now on Spotify and all the major music services, with a companion video on YouTube. The full album is out soon.
Life is full of “Desire Paths” and King In Yellow is cutting their desire path straight through the New York underground with every new single they release. Their new single desire paths is rooted in the conventional and the abstract.Twisting and squelching like a screaming fire. Dive in and let it overtake you.
The Shop Window has just released its third—and by far best—album. Building on a solid foundation of jangle-pop and shoegaze, along with superb harmonies characteristic of their prior albums, the band has pushed through a global pandemic with an epically rousing and rich double LP, ”Daysdream”.
Leah Callahan made DIY waves in the underground music scene starting as front woman for the bands Turkish Delight US, Betwixt & The Glass Set. She is set to release her 4th album this decade on April 29.
The Silent Era are a London-based, alt.rock four-piece blending industrial, goth rock, shoegaze, and post-punk to create heavy, dreamy soundscapes, woven through with introspective lyrics which explore the darker side of human nature.
Vocalist Bri Macanas (Black Palms, The Midnight Vortex, Silhouettes), guitarist Chris Schwarten (Ghost Wives) and multi-instrumentalist but mostly bassist Nicolas Zappa (also Ghost Wives) started the band during the pandemic. They were later joined by drummer Jo Eiffes (Silhouettes, Perfect Flaws).
With a little bit of hybrid alternative Americana style, an abundance of emotive passion, and an undeniable level of quality lyricism, MatAre has crash landed to the scene in a new way.
Born and bred in Blackpool, and taking inspiration from a wide and eclectic pool of influences, Jekyll’s music is known for its expansive, melancholic soundscapes, dynamic mood shifts and visceral intensity.
NYC-based post-punk duo Frenchy and the Punk present ‘Hypnotized’, a seductive dance floor romp. This is the first taste of their eighth album Midnight Garden, released via EA Recordings, which follows their critically-acclaimed Zen Ghost album and Siouxsie tribute ‘Cities In Dust’.
Post-punk outfit Clone – a Brooklyn-based supergroup featuring members of The Veldt, Dead Leaf Echo, Namesake and Pilot to Gunner – announces their debut record CL. 1 and presents the lead track ‘Dividing Line’, a song about how Donald Trump tried to start a class war within the USA.
UK electro-goth post-punk band History Of Guns presents ‘No Longer Earthbound’, previewing their new Half Light album – their eighth record to date – to be released via the Liquid Len Recording Company. Serving up their unique meta-modernist Industrial sound, this song is about leaving the planet (through space travel, virtual reality or death) and about recalibrating our thoughts awayfrom our own problems and looking at a more global and cosmic picture.
The Star Prairie Project’s new album is a concept album dealing with the mysteries of the antediluvian secret priesthood known as The Shining Ones. Named after the priesthood, this is the group’s seventh studio album since they emerged out of nowhere in 2019.
Nestled in the fine territory between post-punk and shoegaze with a surf vibe, 9-Volt Velvet is made up of Mark Cross (lead vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards, percussion), Donnie Robertson (drums, percussion, keyboards) and Kevin Robinson (guitar, bass, keyboards, vocals).
Boulder Fields revolves around Scottish singer-songwriter Cam Fraser, formerly of Borrowed Books and 80s punk legends The Cateran8, who joined *Nirvana on the 1989 UK tour that broke the band, as well as touring or sharing the stage with The Proclaimers, Tad and Grant Hart (Husker Du).
