This is the Rosy Overdrive October 2025 playlist. Most of you know the drill already, but if you’re new here, here’s the deal: there’s a lot of good music below.
Joel Cusumano, Alex Orange Drink, and Guitar have two songs on this playlist.
Here is where you can listen to the playlist on various streaming services: Spotify (missing a song), 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.
“Telephone Numbers Theme”, The Telephone Numbers
From Scarecrow II (2025, Slumberland)
The Telephone Numbers’ Thomas Rubenstein is a remarkable singer-songwriter, and it’s worth noting that, for his band’s long-awaited sophomore album, the group has now rounded out into a solid quartet. The Telephone Numbers save one of their best tricks for Scarecrow II’s penultimate slot, giving guitarist Morgan Stanley (also of The Umbrellas) the lead to sing “Telephone Numbers Theme”, a triumphant indie-power-pop track that’s every bit good enough to be the group’s theme song. Stanley’s voice is pretty far removed from Rubenstein’s vocals, but the trick of Scarecrow II, like all the Telephone Numbers numbers before it, is that it hangs together. Read more about Scarecrow II here.
“Ain’t That a Daisy?”, Stay Inside
From Lunger (2025, Tiny Engines)
I enjoyed last year’s Ferried Away, but it now feels like it was a warm-up for Lunger, Stay Inside’s third and best LP. Lunger is fourteen songs of the New York quartet delivering a emo-rock blow informed by heavy-gravity groups like mewithouYou and The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die, only chiseled down to punchy, poppy emo-rock songs. Stay Inside do their best to outrun a sense of decay through sweeping rockers like “Ain’t That a Daisy?”, which is, incidentally, one of the catchiest songs I’ve heard this year in any genre. Read more about Lunger here.
“Akimbo”, Possible Humans
From Standing Around Alive (2025, Hobbies Galore)
Possible Humans’ 2019 album Everybody Split (released in the United States by the recently-defunct and already-sorely-missed Trouble in Mind) was one of my favorite albums of that year, establishing the Melbourne-based group as one of the best garage-tinged jangle pop groups currently active. It took a half-dozen years to get another Possible Humans album, but Standing Around Alive sounds just like that band that grabbed me at the end of last decade. “Akimbo” is the final track on Standing Around Alive and it’s also my favorite–apparently the group saved their catchiest (and most effective, on a per-note basis) guitar riff for last.
“Two Arrows”, Joel Cusumano
From Waxworld (2025, Dandy Boy)
Power pop fans who read this blog may have heard Oakland musician Joel Cusumano via his work as the guitarist in R.E. Seraphin, or maybe they’re familiar with him as the frontperson of Sob Stories. His debut solo album, Waxworld, is a great spotlight-earning debut for a consistent indie pop practitioner, confirming that Cusumano can write jangle pop as well as his associates but revealing he has his own distinct take on this kind of music as well. The mythology, art history, and religious references dotted throughout Waxworld reflect somebody alight with the kind of inspiration that, while far removed from Cusumano’s direct musical influences, has historically resulted in some of the most interesting “college rock” and/or indie pop music. Just try and keep up with the images dotted throughout “Two Arrows”–or don’t, and just enjoy a killer power pop song. Read more about Waxworld here.
“Gimme Coherence”, Jeff Tobias
From One Hundredfold Now in This Age (2025, Repeating Cloud)
Musically speaking, One Hundredfold Now in This Age is more orchestral and jazz-indebted that 2022’s Recurring Dream was, but if you enjoyed that album’s smooth yet dense take on pop music, Brooklyn multi-talented artist Jeff Tobias does it again here, more or less. In “Gimme Coherence”, the exhilarating, deteriorating “hit” of One Hundredfold Now in This Age, Tobias conjures up a blunt and bright pop instrumental to declare, soberly, “No one gets to go home” (although “What’s the paperwork I gotta sign so I don’t die?”, just as straight and to the point, might be an even more telling line). Read more about One Hundredfold Now in This Age here.
“In the Glass Shell”, Buddie
From Glass (2025, Crafted Sounds/Placeholder)
Two years after Agitator (one of my favorite albums of 2023), we’ve gotten Glass, the third Buddie album and the first recorded with the band’s new Canadian lineup. Buddie start Glass by literally cowering: opening track and advance single “In the Glass Shell” is a monster truck of a fuzz pop song about hiding in the midst of creature comforts (“I can forget that / Out there in the world / I’m a fish / And there’s grizzlies”). I’ll have more to say about Glass soon.
“Go Away”, The Manic Standstill
From Moving (2025, Wiretap/Double Helix)
Rosy Overdrive runs on finding brilliant, buried songs like this one, simple as that! If you like Juliana Hatfield or Tanya Donelly or “pop music” played by capable rock bands, “Go Away” by The Manic Standstill is exactly what you need. It’s the project of a Los Angeles pop punk/alt-rock ringer named Adam Bones, but it’s guest vocalist Nicolette Vilar (Go Betty Go) who elevates Moving’s final and best song. The two of them trade off lead vocals, adding one final flourish to a monster power pop song that’s one of the most exciting things I’ve heard this year.
“O.D. (3am)”, Alex Orange Drink
From Future 86 (2025, Million Stars)
In September, Alex Orange Drink (aka Alex Zarou Levine of The So So Glos) announced plans to release four albums by the end of this year. Add May’s Victory Lap (#23) to that, and you get five LPs in 2025, each apparently based on the five stages of grief (written and recorded parallel to Levine’s battle against cancer). As of this writing, three of the five have been released, but I’m still stuck on the second one, Future 86, a “power pop album about the bargaining stage”. Levine does a great Elvis Costello-Kinks-Clash-Ramones synthesis on this entire album, and nowhere is this more apparent than the anti-drug (well, anti-O.D.) anthem “O.D. (3am)”.
“A+ for the Rotting Team”, Guitar
From We’re Headed to the Lake (2025, Julia’s War)
After dabbling in shoegaze-infused noise-fuzz and lo-fi post-punk, Portland, Oregon project Guitar are now making exquisite 90s-influenced indie rock that reminds me quite a bit of Guided by Voices, Pavement, and Silkworm. These elements were there in Guitar’s earlier, more chaotic material, but it’s still a shock to the system when their third record, We’re Headed to the Lake, opens with tinny but otherwise clearly-delivered Robert Pollard-level guitar pop in “A+ for the Rotting Team” (and if the instrumental veers into a weird ditch at one point–well, it’s not like Guided by Voices never did that, either). Read more about We’re Headed to the Lake here.
“Me Time”, Fanclubwallet
From Living While Dying (2025, Lauren)
The title of Living While Dying refers to Hannah Judge’s experience being diagnosed and living with chronic illness, and the vehicle with which her band Fanclubwallet tackle this hurdle is with their by-now-recognizable dreamy, vibrant, but somewhat chilly kind of indie pop. After a few diversions into stranger synth-scape territory, Fanclubwallet regroup for one last pounding indie pop closer in “Me Time”. “Me Time” is an abrupt ending, both musically and thematically–Judge is “setting up for…a little downtime”, but it’s clear from the rest of the song that she hasn’t done it yet. And so it (it being life, death, various struggles, Fanclubwallet, a growing list of indie pop bangers) continues. Read more about Living While Dying here.
“I Don’t Wanna Think About the Money”, Dazy
From Bad Penny (2025, Lame-O)
Every time Dazy puts out something that sounds like Dazy, I’m once again forced to marvel at how obvious James Goodson makes mixing power pop, pop punk, Madchester/alt-dance, Britpop, and fuzzed-out garage rock together seem. Who knew there was a huge vacancy right at the midpoint of Green Day and Primal Scream? Bad Penny is their latest, a surprise-released twenty-two-minute EP that manages to be both low-key and the most substantial Dazy record in two years. My favorite song is probably “I Don’t Wanna Think About the Money”–I’m not sure what’s making the hook (a synth?), but it sounds like a dolphin to me. Read more about Bad Penny here.
“Green Drag”, Verity Den
From Wet Glass (2025, Amish)
Wet Glass picks up where Verity Den’s 2024 self-titled debut album left off, more or less, merging odder instrumental turns with catchy Yo La Tengo/Sonic Youth-esque fuzz rock and dream pop, once again taking a journey ranging from pop-forward shoegaze to post-rock and ambient territory. The underwater fuzz-pop of “Green Drag” is perhaps the North Carolina quartet’s catchiest individual song yet, although it still fits nicely among Wet Glass’ trickier material. Read more about Wet Glass here.
“No T-Shirts”, Good Luck
From Big Dreams, Mister (2025, Lauren/Specialist Subject)
The Bloomington, Indiana trio Good Luck released two albums before breaking up in 2012, quietly bowing out of the indie rock/punk underground right before the “scene” began to be dotted with bands making some similar combination of earnest Midwestern indie rock, pop punk, and power pop. I’ve only seen the band grow in stature in their absence, but the first Good Luck album in fourteen years doesn’t really feel burdened with that (admittedly still relatively niche) weight. The lean power pop of the Ginger Alford-sung “No T-Shirts” is my favorite song on Big Dreams, Mister, but there are no letdowns on this return. Read more about Big Dreams, Mister here.
“Don’t Turn Off the Lights”, Missed Cues
From Don’t Turn Off the Lights (2025)
I’ve got good news for those of you who enjoy the more haggard side of pop punk. It’s called Missed Cues, a new quartet from New Haven and Middleton, Connecticut who’ve just put out their debut album, Don’t Turn Off the Lights. Words like “workmanlike” and “unassuming” come to mind with regards to Missed Cues, but don’t let that fool you–they’re very good at bashing out frayed power-pop-punk hits. It takes true devotees to rip through stuff like the album’s bouncy 90s gruff-punk opening title track, among other hits. Read more about Don’t Turn Off the Lights here.
“Tin Fish”, David Robert Pollock
From Under the Stone (2025, Anxiety Blanket)
David Robert Pollock is a singer-songwriter and variety show host based out of Los Angeles who’s linked up with Anxiety Blanket (Daniel Brouns, La Bonte, Michael Robert Chadwick) for his debut album, Under the Stone. The song on the album that caught my attention immediately is called “Tin Fish”, a heart-on-sleeve alt-country/folk-rock-tinged song that sounds kind of like the Conor Oberst songs that I actually like. There’s banjo, pedal steel, and country desperation in “Tin Fish”; it’s probably the earnest, broken indie pop vocals that prevent it from sounding like anything “traditional”, but what David Robert Pollock ends up with is something quite potent in its mismatched way.
“Others”, Matthew Smith Group
From Matthew Smith Group (2025, Tall Texan)
Cult Detroit group Outrageous Cherry put out over a dozen records of psychedelic pop, power pop, and all the detours entailed within those genres before the death of lead guitarist Larry Ray put an end to the band in 2017. Thankfully, vocalist/guitarist Matthew Smith has continued on via the aptly-named Matthew Smith Group; if Matthew Smith Group still sounds quite a bit like Outrageous Cherry, that’s hardly a bad thing. Opening track “Others” is perfect guitar pop no matter what you call it, calling to mind the lighter side of The New Pornographers (who, it should be noted, once recorded a 7” of Outrageous Cherry covers). Read more about Matthew Smith Group here.
“Mean Girls”, Time Thief
From Time Thief (2025, Musical Fanzine/Lost Sound Tapes)
Time Thief are a new band from Providence, Rhode Island made up of two familiar faces in Zoë Wyner (Zowy) and James Walsh (Musical Fanzine Records). The first Time Thief release is a self-titled 10” record and cassette tape that introduces an even-keeled duo with a clear, wide-ranging love of lo-fi indie rock and pop music. Over the course of fourteen minutes, Time Thief masters several styles of music contained within the aforementioned genres, including but not limited to melancholic but wired Pacific Northwestern-style indie rock like that of highlight “Mean Girls”. Read more about Time Thief here.
“Time Won’t Bring Me Down”, Radioactivity
From Time Won’t Bring Me Down (2025, Dirtnap/Wild Honey)
Austin musician Jeff Burke has consistently pursued an incredibly pleasing mixture of garage rock, power pop, and punk rock over the course of multiple bands and twenty-odd years now. It’s been a decade since the last album from his group Radioactivity, but Burke and his team of fellow longtime Texas garage rockers pick things up effortlessly on Time Won’t Bring Me Down, their long-awaited third LP. There’s a workmanlike quality to this eleven-track album, the band playing these songs in a straightforward manner and letting them speak for themselves. The title track has the propulsion and energy of punk rock to be sure, but there’s something a little more reserved about it, too. Read more about Time Won’t Bring Me Down here.
“I’m Gone”, Left Tracks
From LT2 (2025)
The appropriately-titled LT2 is the second release from California duo Left Tracks (Kabir Kumar and Phil Di Leo), following a five-song EP in 2023 called End Times Hauling, and the record contains plenty of the vibrant, colorful indie pop that I’ve enjoyed via Kumar’s solo project Sun Kin. LT2 is both streamlined and weird, hopping from dream folk to spoken word to “I’m Gone”, a bright, sunny two-minute guitar pop song. Read more about LT2 here.
“Breaking Point”, Dom Mariani
From Apple of Life (2025, Alive Naturalsound)
Western Australia musician Dom Mariani has been making guitar pop since the late 1980s in groups like The Stems, DM3, and Datura4, so Apple of Life is just the latest in a long, sprawling discography. Nonetheless, my favorite song on Apple of Life, “Breaking Point”, doesn’t sound like anybody who’s run out of steam or ideas as the years have dragged on: it’s classic, desperate, crumbling-relationship power pop with a massive synth hook arising just in time.
“In Between the Distance”, Why Bother?
From Case Studies (2025, Feel It)
Mason, City Iowa basement rockers Why Bother? have been on a tear lately–Case Studies is the group’s third release in under twelve months, and all of them have been quality rock and roll records. Believe it or not, Case Studies contains some of Why Bother?’s most outwardly pop moments yet–“In Between the Distance” is straight-up tinny, hissing, lo-fi jangly/power pop (or, at least, as close to it as these dark, horror-infused garage-punks could reasonably ever get). Read more about Case Studies here.
“Washed Up”, Marni
From fml era (2025)
The Palm Springs-originating, Los Angeles-based band Marni has settled in nicely with West Coast groups playing some mixture of slowcore, shoegaze, and fuzz-punk (they opened for Idaho last year, if that helps), and that’s what you’ll hear on their latest EP, fml era. Bandleader Nicolas Lara namechecks the late great Ohioan Jason Molina in “Washed Up”, although the wide-open, star-filled indie rock of the track in question betrays Marni’s southwestern desert origins; maybe you’ll find a band seeing how their heroes play in new environments as worthwhile as I do. Read more about fml era here.
“Bigger Better Drug”, Camp Trash
From Two Hundred Thousand Dollars (2025, Count Your Lucky Stars)
On their second album, Two Hundred Thousand Dollars, Florida pop punk/power pop/etc band Camp Trash continue to steer their ship into the familiar waters of “indie rock” with bits of poppy alt-rock and guitar pop of several stripes. If Two Hundred Thousand Dollars differs from its predecessors, it probably has to do with cohesion; supposedly, it’s a “loosely connected collection of stories” about “hapless con men, gamblers, low level mobsters, and cult members”, (this is a band with a love of Mountain Goats and Hold Steady-style storytelling, if you couldn’t tell). The Sugar-flavored “Bigger Better Drug” sticks out as an immediate highlight for me, although for the most part Two Hundred Thousand Dollars flows together neatly and consistently. Read more about Two Hundred Thousand Dollars here.
“No North Star”, Massage
From Coaster (2025, Mt.St.Mtn./Bobo Integral/Prefect)
Los Angeles group Massage fit right into the current West Coast jangle pop revival, but they’ve gotten there by doing their own thing, one that pulls together pastoral folk rock, New Order-influenced melodicism, and plenty of “college rock”. On their third LP, Coaster, it’s apparent that the group (vocalist/guitarists Alex Naidus and Andrew Romano, vocalist/keyboardist Gabrielle Ferrer, bassist David Rager, and drummer Natalie de Almeida) have yet to miss a beat, and the sprawling jangle pop “No North Star” is the perfect opening hook. Read more about Coaster here.
“Give Up Your Garden”, Cusp
From What I Want Doesn’t Want Me Back (2025, Exploding in Sound)
It’s been a steady progression, but jumping into What I Want Doesn’t Want Me Back (the first album made entirely by the Chicago iteration of Cusp) reveals a different band entirely than the math-y, noisy group of their first records–this Cusp has immersed themselves in the world of kind-of-“poppy”, kind-of-“arty” Windy City indie rock. The breezy folk rock of “Give Up Your Garden” is maybe my favorite song on What I Want Doesn’t Want Me Back–as odd as it is in comparison to the rest of the album, it fits on a disparate but very solid LP. Read more about What I Want Doesn’t Want Me Back here.
“Out Now”, Free Pony
From Blackout / Out Now (2025, F I R S T I N H U M A N)
Free Pony are a new-to-me band from Charlottesville, Virginia who make “noisy and melodic post-punk”, according to themselves; they released a debut EP in late 2023, and the two song “Blackout”/“Out Now” single is the quartet’s first release since then. I like the single’s (digital) B-side the best–I see why they call themselves a post-punk group with their emphasis on rhythms, but between the lead singer’s high, melodic vocals and the steadily-unfolding studio-pop instrumental, it reminds me more of progressive power pop groups like Curling, or a nervier version of the likes of Jellyfish or Jon Brion. Pretty solid if you ask me.
“Memory Light”, Creative Writing
From Baby Did This (2025, Meritorio)
Meritorio Records’ latest guitar pop procurement is a quartet from western Massachusetts made up of a bunch of indie rock veterans. Creative Writing’s Baby Did This continues a strong start that owes as much to the psychedelic and more classic rock-focused sides of “college rock” as the light and jangly ones. Fans of bands like The Vulgar Boatmen and fellow New Englanders Miracle Legion (not to mention the Paisley Underground) will find plenty to enjoy on Baby Did This; not everything is as “sunny power pop” as highlight “Memory Light”, but the more greyscale moments are very catchy as well. Read more about Baby Did This here.
“Future 86”, Alex Orange Drink
From Future 86 (2025, Million Stars)
I still haven’t even really dug into Alex Orange Drink’s Good Old Days (released October 31st) yet; maybe once the excitement of hearing Alex Zarou Levine tearing through pop/punk-tinged power pop songs like the title track of Future 86 (released October 3rd) wears off, I’ll get to it. For now, though, we’re going to keep dialing up “Future 86”, a sub-two-minute mod-punk tune with early Ted Leo energy to it.
“Yung Yeller”, Maneka
From bathes and listens (2025, Topshelf)
Devin McKnight’s newest album as Maneka, bathes and listens, was recorded with modern slowcore and/or shoegaze go-to producer Alex Farrar, and it subsequently finds the unclassifiable Philadelphia musician making a renewal of vows with distorted, 90s-influenced indie rock. After a few “rockers” to open up the album, bathes and listens gets a little more reserved, but the harmonics in the mid-tempo “Yung Yeller” are some of the most pleasing sounds I’ve heard this year regardless. Read more about bathes and listens here.
“Leeches (Play Dead!)”, Suzie True
From How I Learned to Love What’s Gone (2025, Get Better)
Los Angeles pop punk group Suzie True (bassist/lead vocalist Lexi McCoy, guitarist/vocalist G Leonardo, drummer Sarah Pineapple) are just as likely to mention The Powerpuff Girls or Sailor Moon as influences as they are “alt-rock” acts like Hole and The Breeders; as one might expect, their latest album, How I Learned to Love What’s Gone, is marked by a dogged pursuit of pop hooks and a boundless energy. Suzie True are refreshingly unconstrained by their various influences’ orthodoxies, as this album jumps from post-hardcore to twee to 60s girl group with ease; the cheerleader backing vocals proclaiming “Leeches!” is perhaps the most attention-grabbing moment in highlight “Leeches (Play Dead!)”, but the writing found in the rest of the song lives up to this high as well. Read more about How I Learned to Love What’s Gone here.
“Spring Break Reagan II”, Brat Curse
From Rock & Roll Freaks (2025)
Columbus, Ohio quartet Brat Curse (guitarist/vocalist Brian Baker, bassist Justin Baker, guitarist Joe Camerlengo, and drummer Chris Mengerink) have been around for a bit, but the three-song Rock & Roll Freaks single is the group’s first release since 2019, I believe. They’re a very “Ohio” group, fitting in with bands like Smug Brothers, Brian Damage, and Connections who add a Guided by Voices basement pop element to fuzzy garage rock and power pop. Judging by the title, “Spring Break Reagan II” is a sequel to a noisy garage instrumental from 2019’s Brat Curse LP, but the lo-fi power pop of this one (it’s really Connections-esque!) is in a pretty different universe.
“Mary Katherine”, Joel Cusumano
From Waxworld (2025, Dandy Boy)
The more immediate songs on Waxworld are some of the best guitar pop I’ve heard this year, and that certainly includes the triumphant Martin Newell-worthy jangle of “Mary Katharine”. Joel Cusumano’s writing is perhaps a bit more skewed and (sigh) “challenging” than most of his Bay Area power pop contemporaries, but there’s nothing to qualify about “Mary Katherine”. It’s quite impressive to hear Cusumano and his band land a somewhat unwieldy refrain, ending with “All I want is to dazzle in the eyes / Of Mary Katherine” and then smoothly sail into the main hook in the form of an all-time jangly guitar riff. Read more about Waxworld here.
“Back Then”, Sam Woodring
From Mechanical Bull (2025, Pretzle)
After putting out some of the best albums of the 2020s as Mister Goblin, Sam Woodring announced he was retiring the name earlier this year. Mechanical Bull is the first record Woodring has ever put out under his own name (well, first and middle name, apparently), and it’s certainly the furthest he’s wandered yet from his punk/math rock/Exploding in Sound-core roots. It’s five stark songs, recorded by Woodring’s Deady bandmate Chyppe Crosby and featuring nothing but Woodring’s voice and acoustic guitar. Mechanical Bull takes us on a flatly un-nostalgic trip down memory lane in highlight “Back Then”, Woodring plainly stating that “Back then they didn’t want me / Now I’m old / … / I don’t want them either now / It’s just a circle jerk of jerk offs anyhow”. Read more about Mechanical Bull here.
“(You Can’t Go Back to) Oxford Talawanda”, Guided by Voices
From Thick Rich and Delicious (2025, Guided by Voices, Inc.)
There should be more songs about not being able to go back to Oxford Talawanda. Guided by Voices have that covered on their second album of 2025, Thick Rich and Delicious (the song’s titular location appears to be a southwestern Ohio reference, because of course it is). There’s some good stuff on Thick Rich and Delicious–for instance, there’s a new song built from “At Odds with Dr. Genesis” (aka the “Jimmy was a fly / Got sucked in by an actor” bit from the beginning of “Ester’s Day”), and that’s pretty good, but I’m going with this one. It keeps things simple (for later-day Guided by Voices, at least), and the refrain is just the title flogged to anthem status.
“Busted Fire Hydrant”, Strange Magic
From Effervescent (2025, Mama Mañana)
New Mexico musician Javier Romero has been toiling away making homespun power pop as Strange Magic since at least the early 2010s, but the prolific artist’s latest record is something of a departure for him. Romero declares Effervescent to be inspired by “New Jack Swing, the golden age of hip-hop, and early, true alternative stylings”–I wouldn’t say that Strange Magic is now closer to those aforementioned genres than the Elvis Costello-ish guitar pop of his past records, but there’s definitely some fun and unusual things going on in these songs. “Busted Fire Hydrant” manages to be both “dreamy” and grounded in a sturdy backbeat at the same time, and it’s as catchy as anything that Romero has recorded in the past, too.
“James St”, People Mover
From Cane Trash (2025, Little Lunch)
They’ve still got good indie pop down in Australia! People Mover’s record label, Little Lunch, refers to the Brisbane trio as “nonchalant Australian indie-punk”, which is accurate enough that I’m reprinting here; Lu Sergiacomi’s vocals are droll but melodic, the instrumentals are capable, barebones, and just a little roughed-up, and the songwriting is subtle but sneakily quite strong. Opening track “James St” is People Mover at their cleanest and most buttoned-up, but there’s still a bit of the charming slapdash energy that marks most of Cane Trash. Read more about Cane Trash here.
“Chance to Win”, Guitar
From We’re Headed to the Lake (2025, Julia’s War)
Maybe the relative clarity of We’re Headed to the Lake will finally get Portland musician Saia Kuli and his difficultly-named project Guitar the notoriety he’s been due for a hot minute. Frequent Kuli collaborator Jontajshae Smith sings “Chance to Win”, an awesome dreamy jangle-rock song that keeps the momentum of guitar pop opener “A+ for the Rotting Team” going strong in the album’s second slot. Read more about We’re Headed to the Lake here.
“Jigsawy Causeway”, Novelty Island
From Jigsaw Causeway (2025, 9×9/Ripe)
Liverpool group Novelty Island is the project of Tom McConnell, who seems to be a fan of meticulous but subtle artistry. The foundation of Novelty Island’s latest record, Jigsaw Causeway, is British guitar pop, but bits of tasteful glam, synthetic touches, jangle pop, and folk rock are all baked into the mix in a very natural manner. The opening title track more or less pulls all of the above together into one pop song, and incredibly smoothly to boot. Read more about Jigsaw Causeway here.
“East Coast Comebacks”, Teenage Tom Petties
From Rally the Tropes (2025, Repeating Cloud/Safe Suburban Home)
It may seem like there’s a steady stream of new power pop music from Teenage Tom Petties mastermind Tom Brown that he just can’t turn off, but he specifically wrote the songs of Rally the Tropes with a full-band recording session in mind–after a pair of self-recorded albums last year, Brown is ready to once again put his songs in his friends’ hands to elevate them. The album’s final song, “East Coast Comebacks”, really sells Rally the Tropes as a mini-masterpiece–it starts with some arena rock-style Guided by Voices chords and pumped-in cheers (and Brown soaks the lyrics in beer to boot). It’s about as “indulgent” as a group like the Teenage Tom Petties can get–and though it may be Brown’s pen to paper, it’s the rest of his band giving him the freedom to fly on Rally the Tropes. Read more about Rally the Tropes here.
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