Rosy Overdrive’s Top 25 EPs of 2023

We’re still only a week out from the music world-shattering publication of Rosy Overdrive’s Top 100 Albums of 2023, but now it is time to take a look at a shorter but still very substantial list/release format. 2023 was another great year for EPs, and I’ve done my hardest to narrow my favorites down to a top twenty-five. There are a lot of wildly overlooked records and bands here; I know you’ll find something new to you and very good on this list.

Here are links to the EPs on this list that are on streaming services: Spotify, Tidal. Look for a Best Compilations/Reissues of 2023 list and at least two (possibly three!) more Pressing Concerns before the year’s out. To read about much more music beyond what’s on this list, check out the site directory, and if you’d like to support Rosy Overdrive, you can share this (or another) post, or donate here. Thank you for reading, and, last but not least: don’t forget to vote in the 2023 Rosy Overdrive Reader’s Poll!

25. Touch Girl Apple Blossom – EP

Release date: August 29^th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Jangle pop, indie pop, power pop, twee
Formats: Digital

Touch Girl Apple Blossom are a new Austin-based group (with a great name) who have been playing around their home city for a while, but only just put out their debut release. The Touch Girl Apple Blossom EP is vintage C86-inspired jangly guitar pop through and through–there’s just a bit of dreaminess, but it’s pretty peppy and uptempo as well. Opening track “Sidewalk” is the kind of song that instantly puts a smile on my face, and the pop music found throughout the EP as a whole is punched-up by an impressive full-band energy, one that suggests Touch Girl Apple Blossom are already in lockstep with each other.

24. Charles the Obtuse – Charles the Obtuse

Release date: May 15^th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Synthpop, indie pop
Formats: Digital

The five song Charles the Obtuse EP is Charlie Wilmoth’s first work as a solo artist, and his first entirely electronic project. It picks up the more synth-based thread that Wilmoth had been exploring on his last two records with Oblivz (the Uplifts and Managers EPs), but he doesn’t have guitarist Andrew Slater to lean on here. Charles the Obtuse’s songs are brief, and Wilmoth’s stated influence of The Magnetic Fields’ The Wayward Bus is borne out here–these are not dense psychedelic soundscapes so much as discreet synth-based pop songs that get busy, but not overwhelmingly so, and the EP is thematically packed with classic Wilmoth subjects (soulless capitalism, suburban decay, paranoia, horror movies). (Read more)

23. Mulva – Seer

Release date: January 20^th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Noise rock, alt-rock, post-rock, sludge metal
Formats: CD, cassette, digital

Mulva is a new Providence-based band led by Christina Puerto, guitarist in Kal Marks and Bethlehem Steel, and also featuring Carl Shane (of the former of Puerto’s bands), Patrick Ronayne (of the latter), and Adam Berkowiz (of Ex-Breathers). Based on their lineup, it’s no surprise that their debut EP, Seer, is an intriguing record of heavy-leaning alt-rock. There’s an impressive range on the EP, with the first two songs presenting this sound in an accessible, hook-featuring package, before “Futuremind” and (especially) “Melpomene” dive headfirst into lumbering, wandering drone. Looking forward to seeing where Mulva goes from Seer.

22. The Reds, Pinks & Purples – Unloveable Losers

Release date: June 16^th
Record label: Burundi Cloud
Genre: Indie pop, jangle pop
Formats: Digital

Glenn Donaldson had a great year in long-players in 2023 (both Helpful People and The Reds, Pinks & Purples made my year-end list), but what his EP output this year actually rivals it. The subdued Build Love, the more collaborative Murder, Oral Sex & Cigarettes, and the covers-only You Know You’re Burning Someone all merit a mention, but my personal favorite is Unloveable Losers, which contains a high percentage of the best songs Donaldson put out this year in its six tracks. The title track and “Cleaner City Streets” are gigantic guitar pop songs that are impressive as anything else he’s done, and “Richard in the Age of the Corporation” is something that I wouldn’t expect from anyone but Donaldson at this point.

21. Amanda X – Keepsake

Release date: April 21^st
Record label: Self Aware
Genre: Alt-rock, indie punk
Formats: Digital

Philadelphia’s Amanda X were one of the more underappreciated practitioners of the punky, 90s-influenced indie rock that populated the second half of the 2010s, but they’d been fairly silent since 2017’s solid Giant. Keepsake is their triumphant return, and it’s a record that shows that the group still have plenty of hooky rock songs left in them. Amanda X sounds like a real power trio on Keepsake, with all of these tracks utilizing a tough rhythm section and pleasing guitar play to sound fully-developed. Having Amanda X back in general is worth celebrating, let alone the fact that they’ve returned with a release as strong as Keepsake. (Read more)

20. Wish Kit – Guitars Take Flight

Release date: November 17^th
Record label: Chillwavve
Genre: Power pop, pop punk
Formats: Digital

Denton, Texas’ Wish Kit are a band that have been slowly growing in my esteem–late last year, I stumbled upon their solid Hot Gold EP, they upstaged established Rosy Overdrive favorites Mo Troper, New You, and Gnawing on the Rock Against Bush split EP at the beginning of this year, and just last month they put out Guitars Take Flight, their strongest record yet. Wish Kit combine laid-back 90s alt-pop-rock energy with hard-charging power pop on the EP’s first two songs, and even closing track “Yesterdayman” with its contemplative, restrained opening eventually builds to a big finish with guitars, indeed, taking flight. 

19. The 3 Clubmen – The 3 Clubmen

Release date: June 30^th
Record label: Lighterthief/Burning Shed
Genre: Psychedelic pop, psychedelic folk
Formats: CD, digital

The post-XTC music career of Andy Partridge is vast, nonlinear, and full of detours, but through it all, two regular Partridge collaborators have been Swindon producer/multi-instrumentalist Stu Rowe and Albuquerque-based singer-songwriter Jen Olive. The idea for the three of them to form a band together dates back over a decade, finally becoming realized in the self-titled, four-song 3 Clubmen CD EP. The three clearly work well together, as they explore pastoral folk-pop and groovy, trippy electric psychedelia over these four disparate but unified tracks. (Read more)

18. Thanks for Coming – What Is My Capacity to Love?

Release date: September 29^th
Record label: Danger Collective
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, singer-songwriter, bedroom pop
Formats: Digital

Rachel Brown is, these days, pretty well-known for fronting hit indie rock group Water from Your Eyes, but I’ve always had a particular affinity for their lo-fi pop solo project, Thanks for Coming. Thanks for Coming has slowed down a bit as Water from Your Eyes has taken off (peruse their extensive Bandcamp back catalog if you’ve been missing them), but we did get the eight-song, twenty-one minute What Is My Capacity to Love? this year. I’m pleased and unsurprised to say that the immediacy and casual-yet-substantial feel of the project hasn’t been lost in the interim. What Is My Capacity to Love? is a “working things out” record from someone who seems to always be on the move; thankfully, they put a pause on things long enough to put these songs together. (Read more)

17. Shredded Sun – Translucent Eyes

Release date: August 4^th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Garage rock, psychedelic pop
Formats: Digital

The Chicago-based trio of Sarah Ammerman, Nick Ammerman, and Ben Bilow have played together a long time (in Fake Fiction in the 2000s, as Shredded Sun for the better part of the past decade), a chemistry that’s apparent both on Each Dot and Each Line (one of my favorite albums of 2023) and its follow-up, the four song Translucent Eyes EP. Nick Ammerman described the record as “one psychedelic summer ballad, three trashy stompers”, and the EP does indeed continue to reflect the dexterity of Shredded Sun in this fashion–garage-punk, surf-punk, power pop, and floating psychedelia all mark this brief dispatch. (Read more)

16. Ted Leo – Heaven’s Off

Release date: April 7^th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Power pop, punk, singer-songwriter
Formats: Digital

Although Ted Leo didn’t quite release Bandcamp-only EPs at the same clip he did in 2022, April’s Heaven’s Off is more than enough to get the power pop/punk icon back on this list for the second straight year. Heaven’s Off mixes new Leo and old; the title track and “Coming Back to Bloom” were written days before the EP came out and show that the singer-songwriter is still in peak form, while the two songs resuscitated from out-of-print B-sides and one pledge-drive only tune are certainly welcome additions as well (Leo’s The Both bandmate Aimee Mann even pops up on “Gideon Gray”).

15. Mt. Worry – A Mountain of Fucking Worry

Release date: February 3^rd
Record label: Mountain of Worry
Genre: Fuzz rock, noise pop, shoegaze
Formats: Cassette, digital

Mt. Worry is a Philadelphia four-piece band featuring some recognizable names to Rosy Overdrive readers–Noah Roth, Bad Heaven Ltd.’s John Galm, Hell Trash’s Rowan Horton, and No Thank You’s Nick Holdorf. They’ve all released a ton of impressive music on their own (some even this year), and, pleasingly, they excel just as well together. A Mountain of Fucking Worry is a glorious mess of fuzz rock, shoegaze, and noise pop–glimpses of, say, Roth’s solo records or Bad Heaven Ltd. occasionally peak through, but the band is, on the whole, making a unique racket.

14. Mopar Stars – Shoot the Moon

Release date: July 19^th
Record label: Furo Bungy
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, power pop, fuzz rock
Formats: Digital

Philadelphia’s Mopar Stars began as the project of Nao Demand, who plays in garage rock/post-punk group Poison Ruïn and metal band Zorn, although they’ve since morphed into a full band. Mopar Stars is decidedly different than Demand’s heavier fare in that their four-song debut EP is pure, catchy power pop. There are traces of some garage rock, fuzz rock, and alt-rock in Shoot the Moon, to be sure, although these songs sound more similar to The Replacements and The Lemonheads than anything else. Hopefully Shoot the Moon augurs more for Mopar Stars than just a one-off side project, as there’s clearly something potent here. (Read more)

13. The Croaks – Croakus Pokus

Release date: July 28^th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Folk rock, progressive folk, baroque folk
Formats: CD, digital

The Croaks are a Boston-based prog-folk-rock band led by the duo of Anna Reidister and Haley Wood, who have been making music together since 2017–the nine-song, thirty-minute Croakus Pokus is their first record, following a couple of single. One of the most fascinating-sounding releases of the year, The Croaks are quite serious about incorporating the baroque and medieval into their music (armed with dulcimer, flute, harp–the works), but they’re just as likely to emphasize the rock end of folk rock, with some guitar soloing, feedback, and a sharp rhythm section characterizing more than a bit of Croakus Pokus. (Read more)

12. Blues Lawyer – Sight Gags on the Radio

Release date: September 29^th
Record label: Dark Entries
Genre: Noise pop, power pop, indie pop, fuzz pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital

2023 was the year of Blues Lawyer. In addition to their third album, All in Good Time (one of the best LPs of the year), coming out in February, the Oakland power pop group got back together a few months later to put out the four-song Sight Gags on the Radio seven-inch EP.  On their latest record, Blues Lawyer are as catchy as ever, but they’re also louder than ever–the band embrace distortion and fuzz in their pop songs in a way that even the more rock-based power pop of All in Good Time hadn’t quite suggested. Twee and jangle pop collide with amplifier fuzz and a shoegaze level of reverb in a short, strong punctuation mark to Blues Lawyer’s 2023. (Read more)

11. Dagwood – Everything Turned Out Alright

Release date: August 2^nd
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Power pop, pop punk
Formats: Digital

New Haven power-pop-punk quartet Dagwood were busy churning singles out throughout 2023 (including a few that came out after the release of this EP). Back in August, however, they gathered up the three singles they’d released this year up to that point, tacked on three brand-new songs, and, viola, the Everything Turned Out Alright EP was born. “Sheep on Mars” is genuinely one of my favorite songs this year, and the rest of the EP offers up a similar fuzzy 90s alt-rock energy. A dozen minutes, a half-dozen songs, energy and pop smarts everywhere–Everything Turned Out Alright, indeed. (Read more)

10. Downhaul – Squall

Release date: May 10^th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Alt-rock, emo
Formats: Cassette, digital

Squall constitutes the most substantial release from Richmond’s Downhaul since 2021’s PROOF. The four-song EP was released without any advance singles–the songs are all in the same key, bleed into each other, and can be thought of as “one 12-minute song with four suites”, according to the band. I personally think the tracks are distinct enough to be considered on their own, but either way, it’s a dozen minutes of Downhaul doing what they do best (putting forth rising and falling emo-tinged alt-rock–or alt-rock tinged emo–guided by frontperson Gordon M. Phillips’ distinct vocals) without sounding complacent at all. (Read more)

9. Perennial – The Leaves of Autumn Symmetry

Release date: September 1^st
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Post-hardcore, art punk, dance punk
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Last year’s In the Midnight Hour was a revelation from Perennial–a fiery mix of garage rock, thrashing post-hardcore, and sassy dance punk, captured in a full, clear recording by producer Chris Teti. Their follow-up, The Leaves of Autumn Symmetry is a five-song EP containing “reworkings” of select songs from their 2017 debut, The Symmetry of Autumn Leaves. It seems to exist to both give the band a chance to redo these songs after growing as a group, and to re-present these songs with Teti’s production. It succeeds on both counts–Perennial have clearly taken leaps forward since 2017, and it comes through on these spirited, full-steam-ahead readings. (Read more)

8. Cal Rifkin – Better Luck Next Year

Release date: May 30^th
Record label: Really Rad
Genre: Power pop, pop punk, jangle pop
Formats: Cassette, digital

Cal Rifkin is a Washington, D.C. power pop trio who’ve been kicking around since 2018–Better Luck Next Year is their second EP, following a self-titled one in 2020. Their latest five-track record serves as an excellent introduction to the intriguing style of guitar pop that the group makes. Better Luck Next Year strikes a balance between the music–which cranks up the amps to evoke the fuzzier, louder end of the power pop spectrum–and lead singer Erik Grimm’s vocals, which are gentle, melodic, and frequently harmonized, sitting on the “quietly pretty” end. In a short amount of time, Cal Rifkin recall the best of Teenage Fanclub, Superdrag, 2nd Grade, and Matthew Sweet. (Read more)

7. Stoner Control – Glad You Made It

Release date: June 2^nd
Record label: Sound Judgement
Genre: Power pop
Formats: Digital

Glad You Made It is Stoner Control’s first new original material since 2021’s Sparkle Endlessly (one of my favorites from that year), and this five-song EP finds the Portland trio putting together songs that hold up against their previous best work, even as it has its own personality separate from their last full-length. Stoner Control sound a bit looser and less polished here, with producer Matt Thomson letting the band’s slacker, 90s alt-rock side shine through a bit more, but they’re no less catchy here. (Read more)

6. Cel Ray – Cellular Raymond

Release date: February 20^th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Garage punk, egg punk
Formats: Cassette, digital

Cellular Raymond is the debut release from Chicago’s Cel Ray, and this six-song cassette EP is fifteen minutes of full-force Windy City punk rock at its finest. The sound of the quartet certainly has traces of the egg-punk, Devo-core sound that the band’s name, album title, and cover art all would suggest, but one should definitely file Cellular Raymond first and foremost under “ripping, guitar-forward garage punk”. Maddie Daviss’ vocals are the work of an instantly compelling punk frontperson, while the rest of Cel Ray are crisp and tight, playing as fun or as heavy as best fits each song with the ease of a band far beyond its debut EP.​​ (Read more)

5. Dancer – Dancer

Release date: February 10^th
Record label: GoldMold
Genre: Post-punk, indie pop
Formats: Cassette, digital

Glasgow’s Dancer are a new group featuring members of bands like Order of the Toad, Nightshift, and Robert Sotelo, and their first record together, a self-titled EP, came out in February (followed mere months later by the just-missing-this-list As Well). The Dancer EP is a half-dozen tracks that straddle bright indie pop and sharp post-punk; I certainly hear traces of the members’ other bands on these songs, as well as fellow Glasgow band Life Without Buildings and indie pop godfathers XTC, but Dancer takes its various building blocks to make a distinct “Dancer sound” that sounds fresh and snappy over its six songs. (Read more)

4. Fox Japan – Cannibals

Release date: October 16^th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Power pop, post-punk
Formats: Digital

West Virginia-originating quartet Fox Japan began in the late 2000s making sharp, nervous-sounding post-punk revival-ish music, but have aged gracefully into a classic guitar pop sound in recent years. Cannibals picks up where the quartet left off with 2020’s What We’re Not–sort of.  If anything, Fox Japan sound looser here than they have of late–almost like, after a couple years experimenting away from indie rock with his Oblivz and Charles the Obtuse side projects, vocalist Charlie Wilmoth (and subsequently the rest of the band) are enthused to be inhabiting this skin yet again. (Read more)

3. Deady – Deady

Release date: September 29^th
Record label: Never Nervous
Genre: Post-punk, math rock, post-hardcore
Formats: Cassette, digital

Louisville, Kentucky’s Deady roared to life this year, with guitarists Sam Goblin and Chyppe Crosby joining forces with rhythm section Clayton Ray and KJ Bechtloff and vocalist Mandy Keathley to create one of the most exciting new bands of 2023. On their debut cassette EP, the quintet make weirdo, blaring, catchy egg punk that’s a potent Brainiac-ian mix of post-punk and post-hardcore noisiness. Sometimes new wave-y and playful, sometimes loud and crushing, and even with a little bit of slowcore mixed in with “Sad Sack”, Deady captures what the band do best and hints at where more long-form Deady material might go. (Read more)

2. Negative Glow – Volume 1

Release date: April 20^th (digital)
Record label: Let’s Pretend/RTR Tapes
Genre: Fuzz rock, punk rock, 90s indie rock
Formats: Cassette, digital

Negative Glow is a Bloomington, Indiana four-piece group led by singer-songwriter-guitarists Tina Lou Vines and Tommy Beresky, and their first record together is five songs and 13 minutes of no-fat, incredibly catchy fuzz rock by way of 90s indie rock, power pop, and pop punk. Volume 1 takes me back a bit to the mid-2010s era of punk-y indie rock revivalists–bands like Swearin’, Chumped, and Screaming Females–but with a bit of a tougher alt-rock edge. As new as they are, Negative Glow already sound great on Volume 1–urgent but cool, loud but catchy as anything, aware of the past but very much alive in the present tense. (Read more)

1. Emperor X – Suggested Improvements to Transportation Infrastructure in the Northeast Corridor

Release date: March 9^th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, folk punk, electro-folk, experimental rock
Formats: Digital

Emperor X’s six-song Suggested Improvements to Transportation Infrastructure in the Northeast Corridor EP is, more or less, what its title suggests–each of the half-dozen tracks is rooted in the transit systems of one of a city in the American Northeast, and all of them are, as Emperor X mastermind Chad Matheny says, pulled from “transit policy and 30 years of public infrastructure memories” from an American expat currently living in Berlin. If anyone could write emotionally-resonating songs grounded in transit policy, it’s Matheny, who’s rung pathos out of and achieved universality with everything from air conditioners to Facebook statues. Eschewing the relative polish of his last album, The Lakes of Zones B and C, Suggested Improvements… was recorded via four-track, aiding its feeling of scribbled observations by Matheny made while riding the mobile town halls of the American Northeast. It’s a dispatch from somebody who’s lived and experienced what’s he’s singing about–he’s right there, riding the rails. (Read more)

Honorable mentions:

• Affiliate Links – Grave Desecrator
• Dancer – As Well
• Hell Trash – Live at Home
• Jordan Holtz – Not Close for Comfort
• Ironic Hill – Ironic Hill
• Lightheaded – Good Good Great!
• Neil Jung – Infinity Is Whenever
• Outwest – All the Wild Horses
• Pacing – Snake Facts
• The Reds, Pinks & Purples – Build Love
• Teen Driver – Learner’s Permit
• Victory Peach – Victory Peach