The BVs – Taking Pictures Of Taking Pictures  building slowly, churning and turning in upon itself… Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the 2:40 moment hits and the exuberant nature of the band begins to shine through; lyrics are delivered more quickly and the drums seem to have a bit more snap, shifting the tune ever so slightly, naturally creating this feeling of longing that I hope you’ll love austintownhall

The Umbrellas – Goodbye every so often, a band releases a truly magical work. Currently, this is Fairweather Friend… The record is a perfect example of jangle-pop, showcasing the band’s style, ethos, and emotional intelligence. It demonstrates The Umbrellas’ growth since their self-titled album in 2021. They have improved their formula tenfold and created something that can only be described as special.

Throughout repeated listens … comes the realization that it is the perfect album in many ways. It is the perfect album to drink a cup of coffee with before work. It is perfect for looking outside as the rain falls, for taking a walk, for telling someone you love that you do, in fact, love them, for lounging with your pet, for riding the bus home, for finally dusting the shelves that you have been neglecting. Fairweather Friend can be the soundtrack to all the pleasant things in life, to all the simple things. It is in these little moments that The Umbrellas can remind us just how important they are. post-trash

It’s always exciting to hear a young band make the leap from “promising” to “awesome.”… towards the end of “Three Cheers!,” … a noisy guitar solo kicks up out of nowhere as a counterpoint to the last chorus, lifting an already hyper-energetic pop song to new heights. Subtle touches like that always elevate a song, and Fairweather Friend is absolutely full of them.

The Umbrellas’ three-minute songs aren’t rooted in any particular indie-pop era… the album’s secret weapon is drummer Keith Frerichs, whose tendency toward unapologetic overplaying energizes songs like Alice’s winsome “Goodbye” and the organ-driven workout “When You Find Out.” With a more sedate drummer, Fairweather Friend would be a pleasant way to spend a half hour. Now it’s an invitation for 30 minutes’ worth of impromptu living room idiot dancing medium

Mammoth Penguins – Species a jagged, explosive firework of a song from vocalist Emma Kupa about finding a place in the world shemakesmusic

Murder Club – Shots?! a song about new friendship set entirely in a nightclub women’s toilet. Because why not? sweepingthenation

Library Card – Sunflower oozes with sardonic angst… manages to encapsulate the quite frankly overwhelming sensation of being a person. Their bluntly tongue in cheek lyrics, “all these memories are resurfacing and I don’t really know what to do with them so I’ll just light another cigarette”, are delivered matter of fact, above crushing instrumentals. whenthehornblows

Dancer – When I Was A Teenage Horse raw, rattly bass… chirpy guitar sounds… punchy drums… matter-of-fact vocals… it’s kind of impossible not to be intrigued by this off-kilter bunch theskinny

Waxahatchee – Right Back To It (feat. M J Lenderman) Love doesn’t always feel like being swept off your feet… “Right Back to It,” is an anthem for the anxiously attached… “about the ebb and flow of a longtime love story,” and hers begins with memories of nervously holding her tongue in front of someone… Even as this partnership settles into place, Crutchfield is still fighting her own baseless worries; hell, even the metaphorical eggshells she’s tippy-toeing around are ones she’s laid out herself… Maybe your soulmate isn’t the person who makes those worries go away entirely, but the person who’s eager to get right back to to you in spite of them all consequence

J Mascis – Right Behind You I have a confession to make: I have this aversion to men singing. Not always, mind. But generally, as a rule, I would prefer they didn’t. There’s a whole bit in Seinfeld where Jerry gets invited to go see Mel Tormé (“the velvet fog”) sing at a benefit dinner. “I can’t watch a man sing a song,” Jerry recoils with a grimace. “They get all emotional, they sway. It’s embarrassing.” He’s right. It is. But not, for some reason, J Mascis.

Look, I know. It’s ridiculous. By any fair standard, Mascis’s voice should surely be judged up there with the most embarrassing of all time. This weird sort of squawk, like a cartoon bird in terrible pain. The guy sounds out of tune even when he’s not. But the ear is a capricious organ.

If I’m honest I don’t really like rock music very much either. I mean, obviously not the whole of the “rock/pop” section of the record shop (though that’s rarely the first place I look). But that kind of rockin’ rock music. You know. Rock music that rocks. Guitar solos, in particular, I can’t abide. And again, Mascis does all that stuff…

But there has always been something kind of off about the kind of rock you get from Mascis. You can’t quite imagine it blasting out of a truck or playing over the credits in a Tom Cruise picture. No tubs are thumped. No fists are pumped. No-one is going to fly into a war zone blasting this. You would lose. Even the guitar solos conjure less the cliff-edge and stiff breeze of Slash’s bit in the Guns ‘n’ Roses videos; more like someone in a confined space wrangling with something. Like a man in a cupboard with a raccoon and a live wire.

… Meanwhile, he just sort of carries on, writing these neat little songs the way a carpenter makes chairs. Which isn’t very rock at all, when you think about it thequietus

David Nance & Mowed Sound – Mock The Hours There’s a certain magic to his songwriting that gives his homegrown approach an instantaneous “classic” feel and yet there’s a divergence that keeps it from pastiche. From the strength and warmth in his voice to the welcoming charm of his signature bruised twang, there’s something so inherently familiar about it, his music like a balm of hard-worn comfort… His music shares a reverence for a time long before his birth, but Nance feels very much a product of modern times, his crate digging influences merely a piece of the larger puzzle post-trash

The Decemberists – Burial Ground  a paean to hanging out in graveyards. The melody hook came to me in a dream and I hummed it into my phone on waking. Most dream-songs are bad; this was the exception ColinMeloy

theCatherines – I Don’t Wanna Hear You Whining Hamburg’s Heiko Schneider (aka theCatherines) has been a ‘Bandcamp darling’ in the hearts of ‘road less travelled jangly indie-pop connoisseurs’ for over seven+ years now… Despite my 50+ advancing years, a fashion sense that can only be described as being at the unintentionally scruffy end of grunge, and a lifelong predilection towards being anything but cool, I have somehow become cyber-mates with Heiko (you see, gushing hero worship does pay dividends sometimes!?) and I have acquired inside knowledge that the 2024 album he is working on now is likely to be his jangliest yet janglepophub

Gruff Rhys – Bad Friend ruminating on the push and pull of modern life, how our daily lives affect our relationships with those around us, but always with the ultimate eye on positivity, that we will always be there for each other at the end louderthanwar

Y Dail – My Baby’s In The FBI another of those enigmatic jangle-pop visionaries from south Wales, everybody! This one’s twenty year old Huw Griffiths from Pontypridd, who has the right people in his corner – Gruff Rhys, Marc Riley, Huw Stephens, Adam Walton – has a bilingual debut album Teigr… and on this double A-side channels classic summery surf-pop in his own image with nods to Gorky’s and Joe Meek sweepingthenation

En Attendant Ana – Magical Lies  few bands have this much winsome charm backed up by serious chops and muscle… “Magical Lies” is all jazzy chords and sunny horns but then in comes a hypnotic bassline that makes for an imagined team-up between The Cardigans and Stereolab brooklynvegan

Bibi Club – L’île Aux Bleuet located on a lake in the middle of the Laurentides in Quebec. A secret lair that you can only reach by swimming there, by surpassing your limits. The song was written in a London park, amongst the trees. Just guitar, vocals and a drum machine, inspired by the minimalism of our main influence, Suicide. It’s about love, obstacles, forging ahead, jumping off cliffs, being authentic, doubt, and the strength someone can give you Bibi Club

The Reds Pinks & Purples- Learning To Love A Band a track from both sides, as a fan fawning over their favorite act or as a person stepping into a new musical project. Either way, the subject matter is spot on and the musical element…the smooth softness of Glenn’s voice, the understated melody…you’ve been here before, and you loved the coziness, so feel free to learn to love this band all over austintownhall

Yea-Ming and The Rumours – I Can’t Have it All sweet, swooning lament… Yea-Ming has alluded to a love of Camera Obscura, and it’s a good touchstone for the kind of confessional, intimate tone that’s attached to the track. Like Obscura, though, she also embraces the panoramic heartbreak of ‘60s productions from Spector to Clarence Johnson… Drape the lamps and let this one spin in the background while the rain streaks the panes

Camera Obscura – We’re Going To Make It In a Man’s World It is a bit tongue-in-cheek with a serious message at its core. As middle-aged women in the music industry, are we relevant? Who is interested in us? Where’s our place in an industry where women are so underrepresented? Tracyanne Campbell

Dehd – Light On This song is like a candle in the window, a light guiding someone back home if they were trying to find it Jason from Dehd

Liam Gallagher & John Squire – Mars To Liverpool “Here comes that feeling, here it comes again.” That is indeed the feeling you get… Let’s just get this out of the way: Liam Gallagher John Squire is the best thing either have done since the ’90s… anyone who has followed their respective careers knows that’s not saying all that much. Still! This album is good, full-stop, no qualifiers. Squire, who gets sole writing credit on every song here, still has some tunes in his back pocket, and there are flashes of their old brilliance not to mention that cocky Northern attitude brooklynvegan

The Shop Window – Blues the jangle-pop/shoegaze outfit adeptly mines a seemingly endless well of catchy melodies, soaring vocal harmonies, and heartfelt lyrics bigtakeover

Phosphorescent – Impossible House a gorgeous sound and finds Houck reflecting on a relationship: “I took a look at the cards/ And then laid em out for you/ Just a captain doomed to drown.” It also contains a shoutout to Home Alone: “Like that McCallister kid, you have been left at home alone.” stereogum

Iron & Wine, Fiona Apple – All In Good Time In classic duet fashion, Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam and Fiona Apple trade stanzas and couplets throughout, occasionally meeting to sing the refrain in unison. The pair of singers embrace their folk tradition by offering rugged descriptions of the past, narrating their triumphs and failures with humor and ease. Of Apple’s contribution to the song, Sam Beam shared in a statement, “Her voice is a miracle that sounds like both a sacrifice and a weapon at the same time” consequence

Pale Lights – Twisting The Knife The name of the game here is melody. Jangly guitars, warm organs, supple rhythms, and on top of it all, the cherry on top as it were, is Sutton’s casual, inviting vocals. Oh, and most of the songs on here are flat-out terrific. daggerzine

Red Sleeping Beauty –  Caroline (I Found Love) We suppose that artists search for their own personal way to find inspiration and motivation (we need to “suppose” because there seems to be a — at least temporary — gap between true artistic talent and our “talents”). Our beloved Swedish band Red Sleeping Beauty has decided to release a song every month in 2024 whenyoumotoraway

Voxtrot – My Peace Early last year when I was visiting Los Angeles, I had dinner with Rostam Batmanglij, who is of course known for his work with Vampire Weekend… Rostam and I have written together on several songs – including “Now I’m In It” by Haim – and we have been friends since the early days of Voxtrot. After dinner he offered to give me a ride back to where I was staying, on the condition that I play him the new Voxtrot demos en route.

He had largely positive feedback but gave one criticism: as I understood it, he wished he could get a firmer sense of the “Ramesh behind the songs”… a place name, a timestamp … anything to indicate that it was me singing about my life. I thought about this when writing “My Peace,” and decided to be very direct about my early experiences as a young hyped musician, the heartbreak of losing that hype, and the subsequent years of hard work and ego battling that have brought me home to a place of truly loving music and being utterly committed to it.

Normally I would be shy about telling that story so directly in song form, primarily because it feels self-indulgent in comparison to the world’s bigger problems. But nonetheless it is my story, and it has become one of my favorite songs to sing live – a fact that I attribute to the simple joy of being able to stand onstage and proclaim, “this is who I am.” Ramesh Srivastava

Isobel Campbell – 4316 halfway between Motown bop and LA strut, a wavy piece of psych-speckled pop music with a killer chorus clashmusic

Dumbo Tracks – Daughter Of Flood (feat. Rubee Fegan) Dumbo Tracks is Cologne-based producer and former Stephen Malkmus and Owen Pallett drummer Jan Philipp Janzen… this new track utilises Fegan, dark conversationalist from SMiLE… and here sounds absoutely at home amid Janzen’s laser electro-motorik sweepingthenation

Walt Disco – You Make Me Feel So Dumb a self-proclaimed “cynical disco banger”. There’s an added sense of muscle to their music, while the lyrics were prompted by a period of heavy touring, and the social burnout that can follow clashmusic

New Labour – Crime & Punishment funeral dirges and dance…I wanted to title it “Thank Fucking Christ the G-string Didn’t Snap Off whilst Recording This” but Susan said no NewLabour

Bolis Pupil – Spicy Crab a driving instrumental of part-Moroder part-Glass shifting electronic loops and glissando keyboard patterns towards an acid breakdown sweepingthenation

The Jesus And Mary Chain – Girl 71 strips back the years and has us searching for our boots and leather jacket whenyoumotoraway

Kindsight – Tomorrow The band’s sharply honed and thoughtful guitar pop never fails to satisfy…. With hooks, dynamics that pull and stretch your heartstrings, and vocals that bring to mind the best of The Sundays and Popguns whenyoumotoraway

Memory Drawers – Hart Philippines dream pop band… delivering … heartbreak odes… whose self-titled debut is full of melodies that linger nme

Bambootown – Dia Formed in 2020 in the corner of the small town of Tasikmalaya, Indonesia… offers very simple but harmonious music with a vintage-y pop music style, mainly influenced by the indie pop music scene from the legendary Sarah Records UK and Indonesian 90’s to early 00’s alternative/indie pop music janglepophub

Pantomine Horses – Lily Molita Old friendships rekindled for unfinished business, psychedelia-dappled effervescent guitar pop, jangling 12-strings and fairground organs, bouncing bass and rolling drums, kitchen sink drama meets garden shed production… come join the parade bandcamp

Kate Nash – Millions of Heartbeats The latest Kate Nash single is really nice @Emmas_House

Bored at My Grandmas House – Show & Tell quite a tongue-in-cheek song about me being the opposite of an open book and all the little specific things about me that I sometimes wish were different. Overall, it’s about me being a guarded person and fearing the possibility of having to be vulnerable, and realizing that vulnerability is actually a beautiful thing and something I shouldn’t be so scared of Amber Strawbridge

Girl And Girl – Hello too jittery for power-pop, too classically melodic for post-punk sounds that seems closest to the more direct elements of mid-00s blog-rock sweepingthenation

English Teacher – Albert Road this single is them in contemplative mode narrating small town life slowly building in intensity towards something beatific. This band might just be becoming the best of us all sweepingthenation

Flowertown – The Ring doesn’t rock you with volume or dazzle you with pyrotechnics (although we absolutely love the tones of the guitars that seem to live inside our chests). No, it hits deeper. Like a treasured conversation with your past lover, or maybe your next lover. We wouldn’t want to live without this one whenyoumotoraway

Grids And Dots – Imposter Friends Trying to capture the sound of their busy inner-city lives with snippets of melody and romance… trying to find visual smidgens of life in a jumble of fruit-salad poetry and quirky observations about the everyday janglepophub

The Courettes – Shake! Crooked girl group love songs fed on a diet of bathtub amphetamines Shindig!

a sensation. One of the purest expressions of rock ‘n’ soul left standing, the band’s live show is outstanding, a sweat drippin’ extravaganza of riffs and pure, unadulterated adrenalin clashmusic

Vampire Weekend – Mary Boone the band’s most overtly self-referential release, a collage of signature sounds and motifs dotted with allusions. It feels new and comfortable, regularly elegant and charming, calm and comforting, and, at times, foreboding. And just a bit worried. This is to say that Only God Was Above Us is also the most honest album Vampire Weekend have made, an encapsulation of what the band does best, melodic and obstruse in Koenig’s own masterful way pitchfork