The August 2025 Playlist is here, featuring a bunch of great new music! Check it out below, of course. There won’t be a Tuesday blog post this week, so see you again on Thursday and enjoy this in the meantime!
Retirement Party, Pile, and Tullycraft have two songs on this playlist.
Here is where you can listen to the playlist on various streaming services: Spotify, Tidal. Be sure to check out previous playlist posts if you’ve enjoyed this one, or visit the site directory. If you’d like to support Rosy Overdrive, you can share this (or another) post, or donate here.
“Straight Line Was a Lie”, The Beths
From Straight Line Was a Lie (2025, Anti-)
The Beths make it sound like Straight Line Was a Lie was their most difficult record to make, and I can believe it based on how it sounds: the melancholy that’s always been at the periphery of the New Zealand power pop/indie pop institution’s sound is explored more thoroughly here than ever before, and it’s easy to imagine a band as tight and well-sculpted as The Beths struggling to let some of these songs sit as unadorned as they ended up sounding on-record. In terms of bittersweet flag-waving anthems, the phrase “Straight Line Was a Lie” is right up there with 2022’s “Expert in a Dying Field” (probably my favorite song of theirs if I had to choose), and the album’s opening title track is as huge and “power pop” as anything else in The Beths’ arsenal. Read more about Straight Line Was a Lie here.
“Black Sand”, Ganser
From Animal Hospital (2025, Felte)
Chicago post-punk group Ganser are a boring band–I mean, in the sense that their music drills and bores intensely and incessantly into anything and anyone that happens to be nearby. Pretty much every instrument takes up this task throughout Animal Hospital–the rhythm section is pounding, of course, the guitars are an assault, and the synths whir and seethe at the base of it all. Sometimes, the vocals match this cacophony, but they’re just as likely to go against the grain–like on my favorite song on the album, opening track “Black Sand”. Instead of mechanically mimicking the instrumental, co-frontperson Sophie Sputnik’s performance is sneering and taunting (if you’ve ever seen Ganser live, you know just what Sputnik is capable of). Read more about Animal Hospital here.
“The Ledge”, Tullycraft
From Shoot the Point (2025, HHBTM)
I’m not sure I would’ve pegged Tullycraft as the 90s indie pop band to still be going strong in the year 2025, but here we are with Shoot the Point, a very sturdy collection of pop music that might be “mature” in some ways but without “slowing down” in any. Bouncing power pop hooks, tambourine-shaking barebones 60s throwbacks, two wisened but still animated personalities at the reins–it’s hard to find any fault with where Tullycraft are at these days. “The Ledge” opens Shoot the Point with a well-timed wink, but it’s easy to miss between Sean Tollefson and Jenny Mears’ vocal tradeoffs and that eagerly slapdash rhythm section. Needless to say, it’s one of the best pop songs I’ve heard in quite some time. Read more about Shoot the Point here.
“Residual”, Retirement Party
From Nothing to Hear Without a Sound (2025, Rat Poison)
The “original lineup” of Chicago group Retirement Party may have ended in 2022, but bandleader Avery Springer has kept the project alive and Nothing to Hear Without a Sound is here to formally usher in a new era of the band (but one that’s still pursuing a muscular, full band-evoking power pop sound). The combination of big melodic guitar lines and Springer’s earnest Midwestern vocals both help this iteration of Retirement Party keep their place among the best of the current crop of bands arising from the punk/indie rock underground with a firm grip on “guitar pop”. “Residual” might be Springer’s best yet–nobody this side of Carmen Perry is as good at making “bummer pop” sound as euphoric as Springer does, and the immaculately-executed jangly power pop instrumental showcases her skills as an arranger, too. Read more about Nothing to Hear Without a Sound here.
“1978, Smiling Politely”, Martha
From Standing Where It All Began (Singles and B-Sides 2012-2025) (2025, Specialist Subject)
There’s nothing like a good Martha song. While we haven’t got any “new” new Martha songs this year, we did get Standing Where It All Began (Singles and B-Sides 2012-2025), a helpful compilation pulling from across the Durham power pop legends’ career and featuring tracks both familiar and unfamiliar to me beforehand. “1978, Smiling Politely” opens this collection by going all the way back to Martha’s 2012 self-titled debut EP–I don’t remember ever hearing this one before, and I feel like I’d remember this one. It’s hard to believe that this band came fully-formed right-out-of-the-gate with these huge pop instincts, band-centric presentation, and boundless energy. But here we are.
“Arms Fall Off”, K9
From Thrills (2025, Who Ya Know)
The Richmond quintet K9 isn’t shy at all about their love of classic college rock and jangle pop, but they carry themselves like a bunch of garage rockers (or even, at time, punks)–on their debut album, Thrills, the final product is somewhere around the midpoint between Lame-O and Feel It Records. I hear everything from the rootsy Texas power pop of Cast of Thousands, the sloppy, tinny college rock revivalism of Silicone Prairie, and countless casual-pop K Records alumni in Thrills’ opening track, “Arms Fall Off”, a garage rock runaway train. Read more about Thrills here.
“Now Now Now Now Now”, Robbie Fulks
From Now Then (2025, Compass)
Oh, man. It’s so nice to have a new classic grab-bag Robbie Fulks album. Not that I disliked the exactly-what-it-says-on-the-tin Bluegrass Vacation, but the alt-country firebrand wasn’t doing anything like “Now Now Now Now Now” on that one. It’s an exhilarating, delirious country rocker whose writing is brilliant enough to keep up with the insane pace. Fulks explains the song better than I could: it’s a jumble of “actual memories of [his]” mixed with “signals of mistrust, self-doubt, shakiness”. The unreliability, grandiosity, and offbeat, unsettling raving aren’t just fun wrinkles of the song–they’re, quite literally, the point.
“Mooncar”, Les Duck
From Love Is the Dirt (2025, Anything Bagel)
Haha, I love this song. It’s just a really sweet, simple, humble guitar pop song about the moon and skipping rocks and Avatar: The Way of Water and whatnot. I’ve got Butte, Montana label Anything Bagel to thank for bringing Les Duck in my life–they put out Love Is the Dirt, for one, and I believe both of the label’s co-founders (Sanders Smith and Jon Cardiello, also of The Pond) are part of the band, too. Lukas Phelan (a Missoula-based painter according to his website) is the lead vocalist and lyricist of “Mooncar”, a bright, sparkling guitar pop tune that is almost aggressively lackadaisical and infectious.
“An Offering”, Lake Ruth
From Hawking Radiation (2025, Feral Child/Dell’Orso)
After releasing two albums in the late 2010s, New York’s Lake Ruth had been pretty quiet this decade, but Hawking Radiation is a great reintroduction to a high-quality indie rock band. Recorded by the band themselves with help from Savak’s Sohrab Habibion & Michael Jaworski, among others, Hawking Radiation is a sparkling example of adventurous, psychedelic, synth-led “space pop” with debts to Stereolab and many of the 60s pop albums from which Stereolab drew. Lake Ruth differentiate themselves from their like-minded peers on Hawking Radiation via a palpably-embraced jazz side. Plenty of bands like this dabble in “jazz-pop”, yes, but rarely is it so thoroughly a part of a record’s makeup as this; it’s the stopping and starting of “An Offering”, the second song on Hawking Radiation, that sets the tone for the album and starts the building of something intricate and long-lasting. Read more about Hawking Radiation here.
“College Radio Static”, Friend’s House
From Farewell Skylines (2025)
MyVeronica and Friend’s House are a pair of intertwined Los Angeles indie rock bands–Tristin Souvannarath, who leads the latter act, also plays guitar in the former. Both acts draw influence from 1990s emo, slowcore, and indie rock with traces of emo and/or slowcore, and (perhaps unsurprisingly), their four-song split EP Farewell Skylines hangs together as a coherent release. Friend’s House may be the slower and less “band”-like of the acts, but they get the biggest chorus on Farewell Skylines, and everyone made the right choice to have “College Radio Static” lead off the EP. For over a minute, “College Radio Static” is a steady, subtly beautiful slowcore tune, but the electric guitars take off like a rocket around the ninety-second mark and Souvannarath delivers a really passionate couple of lines with the platform. Read more about Farewell Skylines here.
“Born at Night”, Pile
From Sunshine and Balance Beams (2025, Sooper)
It’s really nice to have Pile back and rocking again. Rick Maguire and company never lost me during their most experimental years (Hot Air Balloon was quite good, and All Fiction, while not my favorite Pile album, is still fascinating in its own way). Still, Sunshine and Balance Beams hits in a way that Pile haven’t quite hit since Green and Gray, even if you can hear the spacier moments of their recent material all over the album too. Much of Pile’s best material can be described as “building up towards absolutely insane moments”, and “Born at Night” fits in this category quite well: “If there’s no room for cowards now / Then who the fuck are you?”
“Lip”, Shaki Tavi
From Minor Slip (2025, Felte)
Minor Slip doesn’t abandon the hard-hitting wall-of-sound of 2022’s Shaki Tavi, precisely, but the melodic and pop undercurrents of the Los Angeles band’s first LP are closer than ever to the surface now. With dream pop, psychedelia, and electronica all sitting next to the blasts of guitars, bandleader Leon Mosburg and company are now ready to explore an exciting style of “pop music”. Minor Slip starts on a mountain called “Lip”–Mosburg’s vocals glide steadily over a giant monolithic instrumental that pummels without detracting from the blooming melody at its core. Read more about Minor Slip here.
“Nightmare”, Jobber
From Jobber to the Stars (2025, Exploding in Sound)
Jobber to the Stars is the first Jobber record featuring all four of its members, their first full-length record at all, and it took over two and a half years to make; there are a lot of unknowns going into this record, but the quartet pull off the challenge admirably. Jobber are a band that really know how to put a bigger stage to use, keeping the smart hooks intact but adding heavy lumbering alternative rock moments and zippy, jagged Exploding in Sound-style underground rock into their sound. The biggest pop moments on Jobber to the Stars seem to take full advantage of Michael Julius’ ability to pull out huge, Rentals-like keyboard hooks–the melodic meltdown of “Nightmare” is perhaps the best example on-record. Read more about Jobber to the Stars here.
“Earthbound”, Moviola
From Earthbound (2025, Dromedary)
Moviola are a Columbus-based group who’ve been players in the Ohio indie rock world to the tune of thirty-plus years and eleven albums, recently returning from a hiatus of sorts with three albums in the past half-dozen years. I get the impression that Moviola have long existed in the realms of Midwestern alt-country and “Americana”, and Earthbound is a laid-back and leisurely roots rock album that does indeed sound like the work of a band with plenty of experience in those genres. The steady alt-country mid-tempo rocking of the title track is my favorite song on Earthbound, a timeless tribute to the “low life” (planetarily speaking) in vintage No Depression getup. Read more about Earthbound here.
“Just Like a Flower”, Winter
From Adult Romantix (2025, Winspear)
Samira Winter’s shoegaze-touched indie/dream pop feels ahead of the curve, as plenty of festival-tier “indie” musicians have found great success making some version of this sound in recent years, and it feels just that Winter’s been able to experience some success in its wake. Her first album for Anti-, Adult Romantix, is an odd but undeniably strong pop reintroduction album. The first proper track on Adult Romantix, “Just Like a Flower”, affirms the Brazil-originating, New York-based artist’s ability to pen and perform a monster truck of a jangly guitar pop anthem which is absolutely dripping with melodies, hooks, and exuberance. Read more about Adult Romantix here.
“Part of the Problem, Baby”, Fortitude Valley
From Part of the Problem, Baby (2025, Specialist Subject)
Nothing wrong with some good British indie-power-pop, and Fortitude Valley’s “Part of the Problem, Baby” very much fits the bill. Bandleader Laura Kovic references The Beths (who also appear in this playlist) as an influence, and the band also features members of Martha (who also appear in this playlist). It shouldn’t be surprising that “Part of the Problem, Baby” sounds a bit like both of those bands, nor should it be that I quite enjoy it!
“Landscapes”, Wavers
From Look What I Found (2025, Salinas/Musical Fanzine/Reach Around)
Olympia, Washington’s Wavers eagerly name the likes of Discount, J Church, and “Numero Group-core” 90s indie rock as influences, but the pop side of the band can’t be overstated. Like their sibling band Pigeon Pit does with folk punk, Wavers merge their chosen genre(s) with lo-fi pop from Olympia and wider Cascadia. Look What I Found basically expands the sound of Wavers’ debut EP (my favorite of last year) to thirteen songs and twenty-eight minutes, to the point where a few of the songs from their last record are presented re-recorded here. “Landscapes” is a new one, though, a sneakily-grand sweeping, heartland pop track featuring some classic emo-worthy bass playing. Read more about Look What I Found here.
“The Source”, Google Earth
From for Mac OS X 10.11 (2025, Tiny Telephone)
First of all, I do have to admire Google Earth’s commitment to their thematic naming conventions–their sophomore album, for Mac OS X 10.11, follows last year’s Street View. I’ve followed John Vanderslice since he was an analog-devoted baroque pop musician into his current mind-boggling journey into glitchy electronics; Google Earth is his project with multi-instrumentalist Jamie Riotto and lyricist Maria Vanderslice, and there are some gorgeous pop songs buried in the confusing synthetic pile-up. “The Source” is a vintage haunting Vanderslice melody grafted onto low-key, slightly glitched-out synthpop. Sounds like nothing else.
“Felt a Little Left”, Bottomless Pit
From Shade Perennial (2013, Comedy Minus One)
and
“Bar Ice”, Silkworm
From Chokes! (2006, 12XU/Comedy Minus One)
Order Lay it Down In Full View: Collected Writings On Silkworm And Their Music, featuring an essay written by me about the EP Chokes! here, and read more about “Felt a Little Left” by some of the members’ successor band, Bottomless Pit here. Please and thank you.
“Kingdom Crime”, Upper Narrows
From Over the Prairie (2025, Repeating Cloud)
Upper Narrows, the Portland, Maine-based synthpop project of one Tyler Jackson, debuted on Repeating Cloud Records in 2023 with an LP called While We’re Warm. Jackson’s second release as Upper Narrows (mostly self-recorded, with some aid from Tyler Quist) is a six-song EP called Over the Prairie, and while this cassette does see Jackson pushing the project into odder synth exploration territory, there’s still plenty of good pop music on it, not the least of which is “Kingdom Crime”. It’s a mid-tempo, almost slacker rock-ish take on synthpop, digital strings and keys swooning lazily over a simple but effective hook.
“All Grown Up”, The Unknowns
From Looking from the Outside (2025, Bargain Bin)
The Unknowns got onto my radar back in 2023 with a great record of knucklehead Australian garage rock/power pop called East Coast Low. The The Chats-affiliated group are back two years later with another album called Looking from the Outside, and I mean it as a compliment to say that it’s much of the same this time around, too. When you can rattle off an effortlessly tough, swaggering punk-pop classic like “All Grown Up”, there’s no reason to mess with that.
“Pharaoh”, Modern Nature
From The Heat Warps (2025, Bella Union)
After getting more abstract and post-rock/chamber music-influenced over the course of four records, British art rock group Modern Nature decided it was time to start from scratch with The Heat Warps. The vast blank space of previous Modern Nature LPs hasn’t completely dissipated, but the quartet have allowed more of it than ever to fill with Jeff Tobias and Jim Wallis’ steady rhythms and Tara Cunningham and Jack Cooper’s snaking guitars. Even the album’s cover art–a warm yellow, depicting the four players–indicates a change to something more approachable and evenly-split. “Pharaoh” is a mesmerizing streamlined-psychedelic opening piece, chugging along in a groove only enhanced by what Cooper and Cunningham are doing over top of it–it kind of sounds like sophisti-pop The Feelies, if you can imagine that. Read more about The Heat Warps here.
“Eatin’ Big Time”, Tyler Childers
From Snipe Hunter (2025, RCA/Hickman Holler)
Maybe I was a bit too quick to subconsciously dismiss Tyler Childers after Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven? (which I “respected more than liked”) and Rustin’ in the Rain (which, hand to God, I swear, I completely forgot existed until I went to write this song entry). Do I like all of Snipe Hunter on first blush (after finally getting around to listening to it)? Not quite, no–but I love the opening track, “Eatin’ Big Time”. Yes, this is what good country rock music sounds like, and it’s a great reminder of just why Childers cut through the noise and the bullshit when he broke through in the first place. I’m not entirely sure what “Eatin’ Big Time” is about–if it’s even “about” anything–but Childers is a clever and rich writer here, weaving together a surreal but down-to-earth collection of images about class, wealth, culture, and tradition (from the EBT joke of the song title on down).
“Maybe Later”, DÄÄCHT
From Crying Houses (2025, Beta Cult)
German group DÄÄCHT make a triumphant return with Crying Houses, a garage punk album that puts its foot on the gas and balances heaviness with a commitment to fun rock and roll much like the late, great Hot Snakes. It’s psychedelic rock made by a punk rock band, or a punk album with a heavier, metallic shadow cast over it. Post-punk and goth are in Crying Houses’ mix too, but it’s a more subtle, attitudinal addition to the limber, dark, and loud sound the album hones in on for a nice clean ten tracks and twenty-nine minutes. “Maybe Later” is a dance song if you squint, an excellent garage rock hook in the refrain and a galloping drumbeat carrying the entire thing. Read more about Crying Houses here.
“Orange Julius”, Laminate
From Kiss Unltd. (2025, Den Tapes/Sifter Grim)
Ferocious post-hardcore rockers with bits of shoegaze, noise pop, and even straight-up alternative rock percolate throughout Kiss Unltd., and the occasional but very real hooks Laminate sneak into a few of these songs are just as jarring as the sudden drop-outs. Ironically, the second half of the album is where everything I would consider “pop songs” lie (or maybe that’s just par for the course with Seattle rock bands); the somewhat triumphant-sounding slacker rock of “Orange Julius” is arguably the biggest hook-fest on Kiss Unltd., but it has a surprising number of rivals for this kind of music. Read more about Kiss Unltd. here.
“Fintech Vest”, Peter Peter Hughes
From Half-Staff Blues (2025, Tired Media)
I’m quite enjoying this arc from Peter Peter Hughes, former Shrimper Records stalwart and longtime bassist for the Mountain Goats who decided to go to Australia and make one of them Aussie indie pop/post-punk kinda albums. Recorded with members of The Ocean Party, Pop Filter, and Partner Look, Half-Staff Blues translates Hughes’ propensity for unflinching left-wing commentary and melancholy meandering into the realms of snappy rhythms and bright and garish pop get-ups. I still think single “The End of Your Empire” is my favorite from the album, but “Fintech Vest” is quite fun too, a fairly goofy tribute to the titular article of clothing that’s become synonymous with a certain subset of Guys. A menagerie of bizarre sound effects and post-punk choppiness can’t derail what’s at its core a really great pop song, though.
“Grey Girl”, The Croaks
From Menagerie (2025, Cretin)
I wrote about The Croaks’ prog-folk “wench rock” back in 2023 with Croakus Pocus, an EP I quite enjoyed, and while the Boston group’s latest release, Menagerie, is a bit shorter than the last one, there’s still plenty of that increasingly-recognizable “Croaks sound” in these four songs and twelve minutes. “Grey Girl” is probably my favorite song on Menagerie, as it’s got a bit of everything–a sweeping folk-rock chorus, rustic instrumentation poking around the edges, and just a bit of prog-esque musical change-ups and unintuitive choices.
“Superstar 666”, Bunnygrunt
From Action Pants (Expanded 30th Anniversary Edition) (1995/2025, HHBTM/No Life/Silly Moo/Jigsaw)
Bunnygrunt’s longevity and consistency would be enough reasons to look back at their debut album, 1995’s Action Pants, on their own, but this thirtieth anniversary of the cult indie pop band’s first LP also restores the original intended tracklist for the album. This album is indie rock for people who like “indie rock” and all that entailed in 1995: there are bits of twee indie pop, scrappy indie punk, and even “motorik” moments here. There’s an oddly droning, humming quality to songs like opening track “Superstar 666”, even as it’s clearly an indie/power pop song at its core. Read more about Action Pants here.
“Out of Every Night”, The Chop
From It’s the Chop (2025, Wrong Speed)
From (some of) the minds who brought you Dancer, It’s the Chop! Specifically, these minds are Gemma Fleet and Andrew Doig (aka Robert Sotelo), one-half of that scrappy Scottish indie pop/post-punk quartet. Even compared to the more streamlined side of Dancer’s art pop, It’s the Chop is a minimal affair, with simple drum machines, bass riffs, and synth interjections all used fairly sparingly. Fleet’s vocals are much less inclined to go “off the rails” here; she’s still doing that conversational thing she does very well, but it’s less “mile a minute” and more “pensive”. Still, Gemma Fleet’s vocals and Andrew Doig’s basslines are two of the most important (perhaps the two most important) ingredients of Dancer, and they’re both right up front in It’s the Chop’s opening track, “Out of Every Night”. Read more about It’s the Chop here.
“Everybody Dies”, Superchunk
From Songs in the Key of Yikes (2025, Merge)
New Superchunk album’s pretty good. I don’t instantly love it, but it sounds a lot like Wild Loneliness, an album that steadily grew on me throughout 2022. There’s some great Superchunk-punk-pop moments on Songs in the Key of Yikes nonetheless–opening track “Is It Making You Feel Something” and “Stuck in a Dream” are both winners, but single “Everybody Dies” is still my favorite one. It’s their first album since the departure of longtime drummer Jon Wurster, but as long as Mac McCaughan and Jim Wilbur keep intertwining their guitars like this, I’m not too worried.
“My Heart”, TTTTURBO
From Modern Music (2025, It’s Eleven)
If you like your pop music to be shrill, tinny, and sounding like absolute shit, then Modern Music is the brief, murky punk record for you. TTTTURBO exist in a realm where nervous egg punk, lo-fi, drum machine one-man-band synthpunk, and muddled but gripping hooks all get equal playing time (It reminds me a bit of those Power Pants cassettes, but even more sonically fucked up). My favorite one on this record might be “My Heart”, a surprisingly full-sounding power pop/punk rock song that only needs about forty-five seconds to do everything it needs to do. Read more about Modern Music here.
“Sixth Sense”, Retirement Party
From Nothing to Hear Without a Sound (2025, Rat Poison)
At around eleven minutes in length, Retirement Party’s Nothing to Hear Without a Sound is short and sweet, a no-filler reintroduction to a power pop band I didn’t realize I was missing. Both of the songs that make up the EP’s first half have a strong claim to be the record’s “hit”–in the first slot, we have “Sixth Sense”, which wields a dangerously-catchy power pop guitar riff in its hand at the starting bell and only lives up to its potential when Avery Springer steps into the ring as a vocalist. Read more about Nothing to Hear Without a Sound here.
“King Bidgood’s in the Bathtub (and he won’t get out of there)”, The Smashing Times
From Split (2025, Upset the Rhythm)
There’s no new Smashing Times album in 2025 (yet), but the prolific Baltimore jangle pop institution will finish the year with no less than two new songs thanks to a four-song split EP with fellow Baltimore indie pop artist Linda Smith. Both of these new Smashing Times songs are awesome–I wanted to put the sixty-second pop charmer of “Alfie” on here too, but in the end I went with the four-minute psychedelic freakbeat odyssey of “King Bidgood’s in the Bathtub (and he won’t get out of there)”. Noodly jangly guitars, droll and droning vocals, stop-start rhythms, and flutes–pretty much all of The Smashing Times’ best qualities are on full display here.
“An Opening”, Pile
From Sunshine and Balance Beams (2025, Sooper)
Let’s do another Pile song because I’m quite enjoying Sunshine and Balance Beams. “An Opening” is (appropriately, I guess) the album’s first song, and it jumps into the thick of things with ugly, blunt guitars and Rick Maguire doing classic haunted Rick Maguire things. Given that “An Opening” basically starts at 110%, it doesn’t seem like Pile have anywhere to go at first, but they’re up to their usual tricks here: drawing back, surging forward, exploding into a fiery post-hardcore finale. Great band.
“Street Hassle Plays on Repeat”, Tullycraft
From Shoot the Point (2025, HHBTM)
It wouldn’t be a Tullycraft record without songs with titles like “Street Hassle Plays on the Repeat”, “Jeanine’s Up Again and Blaring Faith by The Cure”, and “Modern Lovers”–the chilly, undersold melodies of the former make it the big winner for me and quite possibly the best song on all of Shoot the Point. The pop hooks are the most important part, but what Sean Tollefson does with this blank canvas can’t be understated, either. The refrain: “Not so much for calling us friends, still I love you”. Yes, that’s definitely the guy from Crayon in there. Read more about Shoot the Point here.
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