Seattle garage pop/psych band Black Nite Crash have unleashed the video for their newest single "Wrong".
The song, "a simple and direct comment on the surveillance state and our leadership in general," is taken from the EP 'Colony Drive', set to be released on 4 September through Neon Sigh. Pre-order it here.
The EP commenced recording at the end of 2016 as this current world devolution began in earnest, with lead single "Wrong" a simple yet scathing indictment of the surveillance state and a government that, even then, did not speak for the people, and has only worsened in that regard over the ensuing years.
Brooklyn post punk/cold wave/new wave band Bootblacks have dropped a live video performing "Traveling Light".
The song is part of our current playlist and is taken from their forthcoming new album 'Thin Skies', out on September 20 via Artoffact Records. Pre-order your copy here.
The video was shot in quarantine at Brooklyn's famed Saint Vitus, Bootblacks first and only live performance of 2020. This was the live premiere of Traveling Light during INFEST Festival's "Stay-In" Fest.
Philadelphia minimal wave/electronic/cold wave artist Plastic Ivy has announced the released of her new album 'Spots of Time'.
The 8-track record will be out on 18 September 2020 via Kraftjerkz. Pre-order your copy here.
Spots of time is as much a lyrical treasure as it is an analog synth dream, brought to life through abundant melodies and arpeggiations, alluring vocals, and a somber emotional tone that courses through the veins of the album.
Plastic Ivy’s influences are wide ranging; sonically, the nod to cold wave, the new romantics, and early indie is clear. Lyrically, the album draws influence from William Wordsworth to historian Timothy Snyder to jazz composer Billy Strayhorn.
Check out the album's tracklist and listen to new single "Too Deep for Tears", below.
Spots of TimeTracklist:
01. Ode: In Advance of Loss
02. Images
03. Too Deep for Tears
04. Whispers of the Heart
05. Spots of Time
06. New Eyes
07. Today, 9 May
08. There I'll be
San Francisco, CA dream pop/noise pop band Lavender Blush have unveiled their new single "I'm In Love".
The song is the first taken from their forthcoming debut album 'The Garden of Inescapable Pleasure', which will be November 20 through Shelflife Records. Recorded at home and self-produced by the band, the album constitutes a deeper dive into their c86 influences than their other records do. Pre-order your copy here.
Brighton post punk/alt band Public Body have revealed their new single "Ask Me Later".
The song, produced by the band’s guitarist Theo Verney, is out now. Get it here.
UPDATE 31/08/2020: "Ask Me Later" is our new Single of the Week!
“Labour-oppressive wellness initiatives; machinic lubricants. Half a decade of unprocessed bitterness, constricted by social norms as corporate structures. The Program fails through successive firmware updates while, in the background, slideshow graphics show that rage tends towards infinity. The face of a destabilised workforce in a society that secretes symbolic concessions as a defence reflex against meaningful change. Your positive attitude is keeping us all in line.” - Emil Mniszko
Los Angeles darkwave/post-punk band ASHRR have aired the video for their latest single "Waves".
Speking about it, the band said: “Since our formation, Ashrr’s sound has been in a constant state of flux as we continually draw inspiration from the creative forces that surround us. Our musical journey led us to a style that explores elements of sound from across the spectrum of rock, from adrenaline fueled post-punk and brooding dark wave to futuristic analog synth and primal guitar driven rock, with all roads leading to our new single ‘WAVES’.”
“’WAVES’ is about life’s struggles, redemption, and the guttural instinct for survival against impossible odds and the realization that by letting anxiety wash over you and pass, you can free yourself.”
Brighton-based indie/dance-punk/alt band Thrillhouse have unleashed their new single "2045".
The song is out today (August 28th) via Seymour Butz Records. Grab it here.
As is probably fairly clear, the members of Thrillhouse don't take their image too seriously; a refreshingly drab look in a notoriously vain industry. The songs, the music, the lyrics; the stuff that matters (to them anyway), has a real sincerity to it that is cleverly juxtaposed with joyful instrumentation. The story is clear, and real, and personal, but it's not inviting sympathy; it's inviting you to share in the crushingly ordinary joy of everyday life as it passes by.
Taking inspiration from old favourites Bowie, Talking Heads among many others, 2045 is part old-school, part new-wave, part the future.
“The song touches on themes of people’s experiences in toxic relationships,” the band explain. “No matter how hard you try to work for that relationship or mold it, the relationship remains the same and sometimes it’s best you find your own path to walk and let what holds you back, go.”
Boston, MA post punk/new wave/synth pop House Of Harm have unveiled the video for their new single "Always".
The song is taken from the band's forthcoming debut album 'Vicious Pastimes', set to be released on September 4th via Avant! Records. Pre-order your copy here.
We have already heard their previous single "Behind You".
The video was directed by Caroline Bailey. Take a look below.
Yorkshire fuzzed-up indie-rockers The Receivers have released their new single "Only Human".
Recorded at Sugar House Music in St Helens, the single was written by lead singer Nick Aldous about wanting to be the best version of himself: "I’ve always felt a bit like I’m putting on an act when I’m on stage and I’d rather just be myself about it. The lead lyric, “I don’t want to be myself, but I don’t want to be anyone else” is inspired by not wanting to be a character and wanting to be a better version of myself when on stage and in the studio".
The track is out today (August 28) and it’s an anthemic song, harnessing self-belief and new-found confidence, in the vein of the likes of The Jesus & Mary Chain, The Cribs, Elastica and more.
German krautrock/lo-fi duo AUA have aired the video for their new single "I Don’t Want It Darker".
The song is taken from their debut album “I Don’t Want It Darker”, which will be out on September 4th through Crazysane Records. Pre-order your copy here.
The album delivers an eclectic mix of explosive Krautrock-driven beats, Carpenter-esque arpeggios and Surf guitar sounds, embedded in the aesthetics of a darker version of a 60s Lo-Fi Pop record. If you enjoy Beak, Autolux, Broadcast, Suuns or early Caribou records, you might fall in love with this one.
St. Louis-based funk pop trio Starwolf have revealed the video for their new single "Bad Feeling".
The song is out today (August 26) a\via Moon Castle Records and is taken from the upcoming release 'Astro Lobo', set to arrive on October 16 Get your copy here.
The video was animated by Kam Szewczuk. Watch it below.
Brooklyn post punk/cold wave/new wave band Bootblacks have premiered the video for their new single "Nostalgia Void".
The song is taken from their forthcoming new album 'Thin Skies', produced by Jason Corbett from ACTORS, out on September 20 via Artoffact Records. Pre-order your copy here.
"The person we were in the past often seems unrecognizable. Memories can often seem like scenes from another person's life. There are moments however when we see ourselves in the present and that we realize that we are summation of the experiences of the past and maybe we haven't changed as much as we think we have.” - Panther
Our new Single of the Week is "Hunt With Us" by Ukraine cold wave/post punk duo Cold Comfort.
The song is taken from their brand new EP 'The Submerging', out now through Worn Pop. The record will include 4 previously unreleased tracks, which had previously been heard only a few times at concerts.
LA-based post punk/coldwave/synthwave artist Vince Grant aka The Sea At Midnight has dropped the video for his latest single "We Share The Same Stars".
The song (produced and mixed by Chris King of Cold Showers and with Brandon Pierce of Glaare on drums) is part of our current playlist and is out today (August 21). Get it here.
The video was directed by Paige Emery. Take a look below.
Liverpool-based indie pop/folktronic trio Stealing Sheep have aired the video for their cover version of Heart's classic "Barracuda".
The song will be out next Friday (August 27) and is the first single to be released digitally from the 'Instant Replay' album, a lovingly curated record with covers from 1971-1981 - including some of the finest funk, folk, punk, pop and ballads of the time. Pre-order your copy here.
Brooklyn punkers Brandy have premiered their new single "UFO's To Heaven".
The song is taken from their sophomore LP 'The Gift of Repetition', out next month through Total Punk Records. Get it here.
It's so heavy it will drop the stereo right through your floor. "The Gift of Repetition" is an eight track study in just that. Loud plodding and rhythmic. It will have you bobbing your head till it breaks off your neck. They all share vocal duties often chanting over each other and the lyrics are singular in vision. Bleak with a grin. They add synth on a few tracks with mind-melting results. When the only other bands that come to mind are A-Frames, Lamps and Mayyors your are obviously doing something right. Pulsing, throbbing, and 100% TOTAL PUNK!!!"
Las Vegas indie rock band The Killers have dropped a second video for their song “My Own Soul's Warning”.
The track is part of our current playlist and is taken from their sixth studio album 'Imploding The Mirage', out tomorrow, August 21st via Island Records. Get your copy here.
Philadelphia-based psych-rockers Pine Barons have announced the release of their sophomore album 'Mirage on the Meadow.'
The follow-up to their 2017's debut The Acchin Book, will be out on October 9th via Grind Select. Pre-order your copy here.
Mirage on the Meadow is a record consisting of ten of the band’s most honest and emotionally evocative songs. Written by frontman and multi-instrumentalist, Keith Abrams, the album explores themes of feeling like time is running out, longing for love and death’s inevitability. A psychedelic amalgamation of graveyard shifting indie rock, Mirage on the Meadow is full of the dread we all experience living our daily lives while retaining a cautious optimism that propels its rich, colorful sound towards a brighter future.
The band have also shared the video for their new single "Sputter". Check out below the album,'s tracklist.
Mirage On The Meadow tracklist:
01. Fearest The Night
02. Keeping Off The Road
03. Colette
04. Clique Bait
05. Little Spain
06. Sputter
07. The Adult
08. Meadowsong
09. Reaper
10. Paralysis Rex
Swedish shoegaze/alt band Spunsugar have unleashed the video for their current single "Run".
The song is taken from their upcoming debut album 'Drive-Through Chapel' out on Adrian Recordings. Pre-order it here.
Don’t get fooled by the angry riffs in Run, this songs has a positive thing to say; while we’re busy running away from something bad, we might miss that we’re running into something a lot better. However, getting rid of scary doomsday stories you’ve been fed in the church bench since infancy, is hard. Run is full with blink and you’ll miss them-bible references paired with small town trash imagery. That makes a lot of sense for the most personal song on an album that will be titled Drive-Through Chapel.
Musically, this song might bring to mind Swedish indie darlings Broder Daniel, and a hint of Swervedriver. Some inspiration was garnered from The Chipmunks 1988 song “The Wall” to evoke the right kind of bitter sweet. The limit of how high the BPM of a Shoegaze song is aptly pushed to leave the listener with a taste of blood in their mouth. Like running too fast does.
– Spunsugar
English-American rock band The Pretenders (led by Chrissie Hynde) have unveiled the video for their latest single "Maybe Love is in NYC".
The song is taken from the recent album 'Hate For Sale', produced by the revered Stephen Street (The Smiths, Blur), released last month (July 17) via BMG. Get it here.
Brooklyn post punk/new wave/synth-pop outfit Nation Of Language have shared their cover version of Pixies' "Gouge Away".
The song is available now on all streaming platforms, and the 7" vinyl will be out on November 11 featuring an original b-side "One More Try". Pre-order it here.
“When Aidan suggested ‘Gouge Away’ I was immediately struck by how badly I wanted to rework it in our style, and the whole song mapped itself out in my head right away,” vocalist Ian Devaney says. “I didn’t let myself listen to the original from then until it was fully recorded so I might forget certain details about it, leaving only my impression of it’s foundational elements – the way the quiet, unsettling verses give way to the savage choruses, the way the big transitional guitar line overwhelms you every time it happens.”
The band released their highly-anticipated debut album 'Introduction, Presence', in May this year. Get it here if you haven't already.
South Yorkshire indie rock band Civic Green have released their debut single "There Is Always A Light".
The song has the feel of a summer festival anthem, it's driven with intent to supply countless melodies to your ears that makes your soul yearn for more and your body come to life.
For fans of: Courteeners, Arctic Monkeys, Blossoms, 90's/00's Indie.
London post punk/punk band TV Priest have announced the release of their debut full length album 'UPPERS'.
Posing as many questions as it answers, Uppers, which comes out on February 5th via Hand In Hive Records, is a thunderous opening statement that continues the UK’s recent resurgence of grubby, furious post-punk music. It says something very different though – something completely its own. Pre-order your copy here.
According to the band's Nic Smith, 'Uppers' sees TV Priest "explicitly and outwardly" trying to avoid narrowmindedness and avoiding conflicting points of view. "There will never be a solution if it's just heads banging together," he adds. 'Uppers' sees TV Priest taking musical and personal risks, reaching outside of themselves and trying to make sense of this increasingly messy world. It's a band and a record that couldn’t arrive at a more perfect time.
The band have also shared their new single "This Island", frontman Charlie Drinkwater says the following about the song: "This Island is about incoherence and inarticulate responses, both personal and political, in a time and place you don’t fully understand anymore. It’s an unrequited love letter, and a howl of frustration; a mea culpa and a call to arms. We wrote this to an increasingly nationalistic and isolationist drum beat playing out at home and abroad, and frankly we are scared and appalled. As artists we aren’t offering up solutions for living, but maybe we can extend a hand and let someone know that you aren’t alone in feeling under prepared in your responses yet powerful in your convictions.
That small boats can still make big waves. That we have a world to win."
Check out the albums tracklist and listen to "The Island", below.
UPPERS tracklist:
01. The Big Curve
02. Press Gang
03. Leg Room
04. Journal of a Plague Year
05. History Week
06. Decoration
07. Slideshow
08. Fathers and Sons
09. The ref
10. Powers of Ten
11. This Island
12. Saintlessss
Sheffield’s pioneering industrial electronic band Cabaret Voltaire have announced the release of their new album 'Shadow Of Fear', their first in 26 years.
Set for release on 20 November via Mute, the follow-up to 1994’s The Conversation, is unmistakably Cabaret Voltaire with it’s mix of house, dub, techno and German electronic music of the 1970s weaving through the grooves. Pre-order your copy here.
Richard H. Kirk is the sole remaining member, with Stephen Mallinder having left after their last album. There is a potent mix of sounds to be found on this record. The shadowy atmospheres, dubbed-out textures and generally ominous air which hangs over some of these tracks puts Shadow Of Fear in dialogue with acts who have emerged in Cabaret Voltaire's wake. The record’s driving techno numbers do something similar, forging a link between Kirk’s Roxy Music era Eno influenced experiments in early Cabaret Voltaire, bleep-techno innovations in Sweet Exorcist and post-EBM outfits like Silent Servant and Phase Fatale whilst remaining an alluring fly in the ointment of modern musical innovation. Some tunes also push on into the most vibrant, boundary-pushing end of industrialism - closer ‘What’s Goin’ On’ blends a brassy sample with distorted beats and Kirk’s grinding vocals to land somewhere between This Heat, Andrew Weatherall and Nurse With Wound.
“The album was finished just as all the weirdness was starting to kick in,” Kirk says. “Shadow Of Fear feels like a strangely appropriate title. The current situation didn’t have much of an influence on what I was doing – all the vocal content was already in place before the panic set in – but maybe due to my nature of being a bit paranoid there are hints in there about stuff going a bit weird and capturing the current state of affairs.” Although, as with a lot of Kirk’s work, concrete meaning and narrative is ripe for interpretation rather than being spelled out. “Surrealism has always been really important to Cabaret Voltaire,” says Kirk. “And that’s still present too.”
Check out the album's tracklist and listen to the new single "Vasto", below.
Shadow of Fear Tracklist:
01. Be Free
02. The Power (Of Their Knowledge)
03. Night Of The Jackal
04. Microscopic Flesh Fragment
05. Papa Nine Zero Delta United
06. Universal Energy
07. Vasto
08. What’s Goin’ On
Montreal doomgazer/dream pop project No Joy (lead by Jasamine White-Gluz) have unleashed the video for their latest single "Dream Rats (feat. Alissa White-Gluz)".
The song is taken from their forthcoming new album 'Motherhood', which came out last month (July 21) via through Joyful Noise Recordings. Get your copy here.
L.A. glam rock/punk garage band Death Valley Girls have dropped the video for their new single "Hold My Hand".
The song is taken from their forthcoming new album 'Under the Spell of Joy', set to arrive on October 2 through Suicide Squeeze Records. Pre-order your copy here.
Cologne based electro-pop singer, songwriter and producer Marius Lauber aka Roosevelt, has premiered his new single "Echoes".
The song is out today (August 19) via Greco-Roman / City Slang. Get it here.
Roosevelt caused a stir in June with ‘Sign’, his first new studio recording since 2018, a deep dive into ice cold drum machine emotion which is already streaming in the millions. Follow-up ‘Echoes’ shows a totally different side to the acclaimed artist and producer - a space disco opus with layers of vocals revealing a wide narrative arc. All made even more impressive by the fact that everything here is played, recorded, produced and mixed by Marius himself.
Athens, GA post-punk/goth/new wave band Vision Video have unveiled their cover version of Ski Patrol's classic "Agent Orange".
Originally released in 1980 by the UK band Ski Patrol, "Agent Orange" has taken on new flesh, as Vision Video projects the song (originally about the Vietnam conflict) into modernity. The song is in outright protest of the current state of America and it's regime, with it's obvious connotations. The song maintains it's original post-punk escalation, but with a new darker veneer. Get it here.
Vocalist and guitarist, Dustin Gannon, describes his band's connection to the song: "Agent Orange was a song that I stumbled across a couple years ago when I was writing the initial material that would eventually become Vision Video. I remember the bass line and atonal guitar dissonance immediately drawing me into this bleak and familiar theme of the horror of warfare, which was something I had been acquainted with myself in Afghanistan a few years prior. The song perfectly captured the visceral gut-punched feeling of foreboding doom that I very much felt when I was involved in that war myself. Once Vision Video had formed, we had talked about trying a couple covers, and this Ski Patrol classic just immediately drew into mind. By this time we were a couple of years into the Trump administration and it dawned upon me that this living nightmare was also paralleled (albeit in a different way) in the current American political landscape. The pointed lyrical allegory of 'Agent Orange' , as the chemical weapon used in Vietnam connected well to the current U.S. President undeniably; a caustic, disease causing agent that has destroyed lives and will continue to do so long after it is gone.
"Recording the track with Tom Ashton (of the March Violets, Clan of Xymox, Danse Society) at his Sub Von Studio was especially a treat for us, because his producer's ear really amplified the thematic elements of anger, despair and hopelessness that the song imparts."
