Mt Misery – Hey! introduces the band’s deepening pop sound, pushing layered harmonies and double guitar strums to the forefront. The song melts its melancholy heart all over the speakers, begging the listener to stop and let it simmer for two and half minutes before life snaps you back into motion ravensingstheblues

2nd Grade – Made Up My Own Mind Get on the subway, maybe your bicycle. Put your earbuds in. A pop song only lasts a couple minutes, but can create a universe… Scheduled Explosions repeatedly asks “what else can a pop song do?” Put your earbuds in and find out thefirenote

The Courettes – Run Run Runaway even the most hardened of purists would have difficulty calling their sixties sound anything other than authentic… As if the girl group cake wasn’t already baked to perfection, the ultimate frosting of authenticity is then added by the contribution of vocals from La La Brookes, of the legendary Crystals louderthanwar

Geoffrey O’Connor – Let’s Make Love Feel Good Again another swooning pop track I adore. Casually shimmying into the verses, he works the track like a singer controlling his audience; you can almost feel him moving across the stage as he locks into that connection. But, the big winner is the chorus, as longtime ATH hero Emma Russack lends her voice, effortlessly lifting the melody that rains upon the listener with each falling note austintownhall

Father John Misty – I Guess Time Just Makes Fools Of Us All When Father John Misty debuted “I Guess Time Makes Fools of Us All” in 2019, it sounded like Various Positions Leonard Cohen. When he released it this year … it sounded like Death of a Ladies’ Man Leonard Cohen— and a lot better. It’s as if he spent the half-decade gestation period internalizing the song’s sinister meaning, transforming it from something synthy and devotional into a funky, rocking, paranoid behemoth… it is obsessed with the decay of man and the mirrors we stare at as the world around us crumbles. Of course it needs saxophones, bongos, Hammond organ, and a vocal performance that would make Phil Spector stash away his guns pitchfork

The Hard Quartet – Hey Stephen Malkmus has so thoroughly mastered the arch observation and the bitchy retort you forget that when he calms down he can knock you over with a feather. The queasy, drawn-out exhale “Hey”… disarmingly tender—the guitars creak and groan like bedsprings forming a cradle as a light splash of cymbals imparts a gentle mist. As Malkmus lands upon yet another perfect melody and sings in a whisper about a kiss that feels like a quaalude, you can’t help but lean in and listen close pitchfork

The Gentle Town – Sugartown  lilting and affecting… Michael was a founding member of The Field Mice… mines a similar vein of heartfelt indie… there’s something timeless about “Sugartown“ apessimistisneverdisappointed

Love, Burns – Hard To Fall It is not as if Phillip Sutton needs to prove himself. His time with and fronting acts such as Comet Gain, Kicker, The Soft City, Velocette, Pale Lights, and Cinema Red and Blue should already have his name engraved on even the most jangle-pop adverse hearts…. An absolute jangle-pop legend continues in typically wondrous form janglepophub

The Laughing Chimes – High Beams Everyone’s been raving about the return of the Cure this year, and sure, that record is pretty solid, if not because I’m constantly drenched in nostalgia, but, have you heard the Laughing Chimes? austintownhall Get lost in the decadent euphoria of “High Beams” ravensingstheblues

Humdrum – Eternal Blue a tune which soars, and yet seems like an intimate confession of sorts. The best material here on this record has that same quality… Loren Vanderbilt, the whiz behind Humdrum, smartly and deftly channels things he’s loved as a listener here. Every Heaven shines with a famililar kind of promise, and the sleek surfaces of the tunes don’t diminish the heart within the grooves. As such, this is an album of warm appeal, full of the kind of spirit that made indie seem like a better kind of pop way back when. The compositions of Humdrum deliver a consistent brand of jangle-pop that has an accessiblity about it that’s very appealing. It helps too that the songs are all just spectacularly enjoyable apessimistisneverdisappointed

Club 8 – All I Know on their latest bop, the group… allow the vocals to control the tune’s narrative. You’ll find moments in this track where they feel as if they’re nearing old school Camera Obscura methodology, operating with that high melody, with the backbeat just giving the song a bit of life and springiness austintownhall

Roller Derby – Ready To Forget assured, polished and sometimes dreamy indiepop that features a hands in the air chorus for that mosh pit moment recordsilike

Fievel Is Glauque – Love Weapon sweet abundance of flourishes and flavors, sounding a bit like a bubbly love affair between Steely Dan and Julia Holter theneedledrop

CIAO MALZ – Two Feet Tall the kind of song that tries to skip sunnily along its guitar-pop way while covered by the visible dark cloud of confusion, introspection and self-worth sweepingthenation

Jessica Pratt – Life Is like a pocket of yesteryear that’s opened up before your very ears, a song you’ve known forever even if you’re hearing it for the first time. Every detail is meant to evoke the sounds of a bygone era: the natural reverb, the tube-warmed strum, the blocky bongos, the midrange boost to her voice, as though the extremes of bass and treble had both been sanded down with an emery board. Behind every careful nuance lurks an even subtler detail—a splash of Wurlizter, a Christmassy bell—as though each element were competing to be quieter than the rest. No matter how many times you’ve listened to the song, you find yourself hearing new details, discovering new dimensions in her music’s luminous time capsule pitchfork

Laura Marling – Caroline an unlikely masterpiece, using a half-remembered song as a metaphor for a lost love attempting to re-establish contact, years after breaking off the relationship. Writing out its ostensibly childlike chorus cannot do it justice, but a whole world exists in those two hundred seconds; “I’d like you not to call again, I’d like to keep you off my mind,” radiates the feeling of denying yourself possible happiness because you cannot risk the pitfalls clashmusic

Adrianne Lenker – Sadness As A Gift Leave it to Adrianne to break our hearts in the most life-affirming of ways… she parts ways with a lover, and envisions the day that she’ll be able to look back on their time together with gratitude. “You could write me someday, and I think you will,” she sings in the first refrain; “and I hope you will,” in the last. Owing in no small part to the gorgeous violin threaded through it, it’s a song that makes your chest a little tight and your eyes a little misty stereogum

Jennifer Castle – Lucky #8 sumptuously romantic and delivered with a fuzzy, sepia warmth of heartfelt nostalgia goldflakepaint

The Psych Fi’s – Alone In a Room Of Mirrors / James Cagney a Canadian collective playing psychedelic indie rock/country rock that is intriguing and peaceful…This project is helmed by Jerry Leger and 18 musicians contributed to the recording of Can Con. To use a term from our youth, these songs are a head trip whenyoumotoraway

Bon Iver – SPEYSIDE camouflages its inventiveness with a feeling of familiarity… The big, boxy strums and fireside finger picks are as comforting as a two-decade-old cardigan. Yet Justin Vernon betrays the traditional folk feel by rejecting a verse-chorus structure for short, biting lyrics that speak of regret and sorrow, his voice floating and fragile. “Nothing’s really happened like I thought it would,” he laments, a man who believes he can be destroyed and rebuilt pitchfork

Billie Eilish – BIRDS OF A FEATHER There’s not a single note wasted or a lyric delivered without the full catharsis of all-consuming love. Time, she recognizes, passes just as quickly when you’re watching sand drain into the bottom of an hourglass as it does when you’re sinking your feet into those same grains at the beach. It’s better spent living and loving rollingstone

Julia-Sophie – Wishful Thinking hauntingly vulnerable lyrics which are informed by past breakdowns, relationships, motherhood, grief and self-discovery godisinthetvzine

Alvilda – Angoisse a bouncy blast of late 70’s inspired power pop/new wave with the sound, cover art and clothes to match recordsilike

Ex-Vöid – Swansea McArdle and Williams sound heavenly together even when they’re singing about heartbreak and resentment brooklynvegan

Fontaines DC – Favourite Happy and hopeful, alive, pointing at someone across a room and seeing their eyes answer back saidthegramophone

The Tubs – Freak Mode Even when Owen Williams is singing “I know it’s over,” the tune rushes forward with infectiousness and instead feels like the beginning of something great and promising stereogum

The Jesus and Mary Chain – Pop Seeds If you’re a fan of their 1994 single “Sometimes Always” with Hope Sandoval, this is very much in that mold, with strummed acoustic guitars and a warm melody, and a chorus of “Don’t let those grey skies get you down.” Plus, with frontman Jim Reid reminiscing about the band’s formative years, it’s an origin story and pop song wrapped up into one brooklynvegan

EggS – Head In Flames Today’s the day you’re going to run out that door with purpose, you’re going to march into whatever you’re doing with a sense that you’re going to accomplish everything you need to do… Just love the energy this awoke in me, and I immediately had to share it austintownhall

Healees – White Room Healees’ self-titled 2022 debut furnished a rough blueprint for what… we prefer to call ‘power pop-gaze’: a dynamic, more energetic strain of classic shoegaze… the chiming, mesmerizing “White Room” preserves the mood with a Pale Saints-style background wash, except steadier and far more disciplined popmatters

Sea Lions – Out Alive after 14 years away. It’s a cracking C86 inspired indiepop single that is full of jangling guitars that hook the listener whilst the words, and single style, are catchy as feck. A stunning return and if it’s not in my top 10 (er 5) come the end of the year I will be amazed! recordsilike

Cinéma Lumière – Write Your Name Manila-based quintet… infectious hooks and dreamy soundscapes… The lyrics hint at a possible romance which really fits well into the overall tone of the album start-track

Hidden Eyes – Sleepless as soft, demure, and controlled as this act can be. Here, perfectly disinterested female vocals that are akin to Blake Babies era Juliana Hatfield guide a laconic indie-pop towards a juxtaposition of all things Snail Mail dulcet. It is as pretty as they have ever been, without ever threatening to surrender their signature bite janglepophub

Persimmon – Public Transport plainly in thrall to all things Melbourne dolewave, as well as having obviously been engulfed by the Dunedin Sound acts that are so much a part of their New Zealand indie-pop heritage… If Londoners were embracing metrosexuality decades before the rest of us Poms even discovered aftershave, Kiwis with an indie bias have been exploring the wonders of the downplayed, lo-fi production that is becoming so important these days janglepophub

EGOISM – Melbourne This song is for everyone who’d rather move cities than take any accountability whatsoever 🏢💋 “You say you’re welcome When you screw me over You moved to Melbourne
Cause we all got sober But you know that you’re a Scumbag, lazy, fucked-up, shady Washed-up baby And I’m done being a Some chick, crazy Done-wrong, flaky Shy crybaby” egoism.bandcamp

Colatura – do you miss her they come at the shimmering melodies from the shadows, letting the twist and turns free from the darkness like the first glimmer of the sun creeping up on a new day austintownhall

Kim Gordon – Bye Bye she’s been making freaky, brilliant noise since before much of today’s streaming audience was born, and she’s still got it. On “Bye Bye,” she talk-raps a packing list for a trip (“Blue jeans, cardigan, purse, passport”) in the same killer monotone she’s been using since Sonic Youth’s Confusion Is Sex, only this time it’s over a deconstructed club banger from producers Jeremiah and Justin Raisen. Your favorite avant-garde twentysomething wishes they sounded this cool rollingstone

Porridge Radio – God Of Everything Else The bitter, acoustic verses are what allow for the release of angry energy to hit so hard in the refrain… We’re all falling apart all of the time. Then we build ourselves and our surroundings back up piece by piece, maybe this time with a bit more knowledge about how to avoid slippage and falling back down all over again. As we climb and sweat and dodge avalanches, often of our own making, we have to keep looking up toward the clouds in the sky and forge ahead, or else the abyss below swallows us up…. this is my attempt at articulating the kind of cathartic devastation, of Sisyphean yet nevertheless relentless optimism, inherent on the fourth (and, yes, absolute best) LP by Brighton quartet Porridge Radio post-trash

Horsegirl – 2468 historically minded young indie-rock group enters college, and, accordingly, its Raincoats phase; a deliciously off-kilter alternate-universe playground chant ensues nytimes

The Innocence Mission – This Thread is a Green Street friends since high school, they’ve been making perfect songs that date back to the mid-1980s, trickling on through the decades and finding a new burst of life over the past few years…. What I’d like to think is that they make these perfect songs in perfect harmony, in their own time and space, then retreat to nature, to tend to a garden, to watch the world grow around them before quietly wandering back into modernity to release whatever it is they’ve been cooking up in that time between. The truth is surely something altogether less whimsical but such is the power of their gentle magic you can almost believe such things are possible. goldflakepaint

Broadcast – Follow The Light Keenan’s tragic early death leaves a hint of “what if?” hanging over Broadcast’s story. It’s amplified by the tracks from Spell Blanket, a collection of demos for a new album they never made. With its muted synth tones and intimate, overlapping vocals, Follow the Light suggests it would have been amazing theguardian

Ducks Ltd. – Grim Symmetry a twangy, careening indie pop ditty exclaim

Prism Shoes – Tourniquet The band hits the power pop touch points pretty well, giving things a Fanclub strum with a wash of Sugar on the way down. With a slippery veneer of tape hiss, the band lets the listener in to their confessional aura ravensingstheblues

Little Oso – Metaphorical Ohio that combination of vivid imagery and woozy confusion creates a wonderful mood… its abstract but oddly tangible imagery. Lingering feelings illuminated by the faint afterglow of summer start-track

Attic Ocean – Young Again hail from Düsseldorf, Germany… The guitars shimmer and glisten with translucence beauty whilst the vocals of lead singer Hanni add an ethereal edge to the songs recordsilike

 La Sécurité – Detour pokes fun at pop psychology while advocating free-will thelineofbestfit

Mo Dotti – Whirling Sad streaked with all the best smudges from the Shoegaze palette, yet dazzlingly bright in tone ravensingstheblues