Hey there! In this Monday Pressing Concerns, we’ve got new (or new-ish) albums from The Greenberry Woods, Fastener, Ben Auld, and Morningstar. Check them out below!
If you’re looking for more new music, you can visit the site directory to see what else we’ve written about lately. If you’d like to support Rosy Overdrive, you can share this (or another) post, or donate here.
The Greenberry Woods – It’s All Good, Sugar…
Release date: May 29th Record label: Big Stir Genre: Power pop, jangle pop Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital Pull Track: Very Good Year
Who doesn’t love 1990s power pop? If you’re reading Rosy Overdrive, you probably at the very least enjoy some of it. The Greenberry Woods didn’t reach the commercial heights of, say, Matthew Sweet or Fountains of Wayne, but they had their moment in the limelight, releasing two albums on Sire Records in the mid-90s, opening for Debbie Harry and Squeeze, and playing on Late Night with Conan O’Brien before getting stuck in major label purgatory and disbanding in 1996. The University of Maryland-originating quartet (vocalist/guitarists Matt Huseman and Ira Katz, vocalist/bassist Brandt Huseman, and drummer Miles Rosen) were silent for a while after that, but the two Husemans and Katz continued on in the band Splitsville with multi-instrumentalist Paul Krysiak in the 2000s, and 2018 saw an archival Greenberry Woods release called House. A couple of years ago, though, The Greenberry Woods announced a reformed lineup featuring the Husemans, Katz, Krysiak, and new drummer Joe Parsons, and the five of them recorded the first Greenberry Woods album in over thirty years, It’s All Good, Sugar…, out via modern power pop purveyors Big Stir Records.
A 90s-originating power pop band with three main songwriters (the Husemans and Katz) with similar but discernible styles and a love of Beatlesesque harmonies–the Sloan comparisons practically write themselves. The only song on It’s All Good, Sugar… that I’d say very explicitly sounds like Sloan is “Very Good Year”, though (fans of losing the state of California and waking up covered in Coke fizz will enjoy that one). The Greenberry Woods don’t always embrace the “alt-rock”-indebted sound I associate with the power pop of their original scene, but the nice riff anchoring “The One That Makes You Happy” makes its foray into that arena count. The jangle-ish “Whenever You Want Me Too” and the desperate, Matthew Sweet-evoking “All I Want Is You” are both “electric”, to be sure, but The Greenberry Woods pull from a wider array of guitar pop history to make these effective, economical, hefty (“powerful”?) pop songs. I wouldn’t expect It’s All Good, Sugar… to reinvent the sound that put The Greenberry Woods on the map all those years ago, but it’s an album made by a group of people still excited and still exploring the different possibilities contained therein. (Bandcamp link)
Fastener – Card Suit Song
Release date: March 20th Record label: Self-released Genre: 90s indie rock, emo, post-hardcore Formats: Digital Pull Track: Beach I
There’ve been a slew of good bands out of Olympia, Washington over the past few years, not the least of which have been the excellent 90s indie rock revivalists Wavers and the self-described “country/punk maximalist” folk punk act Pigeon Pit. It should be big news in Rosy Overdrive world, then, that there’s also another Olympia act with ties to both of those bands. That would be Fastener, a quartet marrying vintage Pacific Northwest indie rock with 90s emo and featuring Jim Rhian (who plays in Pigeon Pit) and Josh Hoey (Pigeon Pit and Wavers). The four of them (Rhian sharing guitar/vocal/songwriting duties with Sam Costello, Hoey on bass, and Ian Francis on drums) put out their self-titled debut on Anything Bagel in late 2023, and they quietly released a follow-up called Card Suit Song earlier this year. Hoey appears to not have played on this one, but Wavers’ Rosie Shaw guests on vocals on a couple of tracks, so there’s still some kind of Wavers connection on this LP.
I called Fastener “messy, all-over-the-place emo-rock” back in 2023, and Anything Bagel name-dropped canonical second-wave emo acts Braid and The Promise Ring as influences on that one. That’s a decent starting place for Card Suit Song, a dozen-track, twenty-eight minute punk album that also brings the spunkier side of The Lonesome Crowded West-era Modest Mouse into the fray. Fastener bash out a couple of emo-punk tracks in “Club Soda” and “Fresh” to welcome us before getting a little bit more comfortable with the riff-based “Beach I” and K Records-indie pop-curious “Hearts”. Card Suit Song has plenty more loud ones (check out “Spades” and “Beach II”), but Fastener are a band for people who also can appreciate the slow-build of “t.m.t.n.t.” and “Surface Tension”. They’re a band that makes difficult and cathartic music for, as one of Card Suit Song’s tracks puts it, the “Love of the Game”. (Bandcamp link)
Ben Auld – Loserdom
Release date: April 1st Record label: Repeating Cloud/Safe Suburban Home Genre: Power pop, pop punk, indie pop, jangle pop Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Red Bandana
The Norwich, UK-originating singer-songwriter Ben Auld arrived on the scene in 2022 with an Earth Libraries-released debut album called Lemongrass, a humble solo outing of 1960s-influenced jangle pop, folk rock, and psychedelia that begged for the descriptors “Byrdsian” and “Beatlesque”. Auld released Lemongrass while living in Bristol, but soon after he returned to his hometown and recruited a few local musicians (bassist George Witty, drummer Duncan Baker, and guitarist Conor Etteridge) to be his backing band. His new collaborators seem to have given Auld the power to explore the more electric power pop side that only existed on Lemongrass as an undercurrent; classic early guitar-hero-era Tony Molina is the most obvious influence I hear on Loserdom, but there’s also plenty of Teenage Fanclub and even Weezer (it’s more 90s than 60s, if you hadn’t yet gathered).
Like Lemongrass, Loserdom is a brief twenty-four-minute listen, and it takes about a half of one of those minutes before the ascending Molina-style electric guitars to announce what Ben Auld is doing this time around. The first song (just barely) over two minutes is “Red Bandana”, a brilliant power pop track featuring power chords and distortion in the verses colliding with a vintage Teenage Fanclub chorus, which I would call the “most Gerard Love moment on the LP” if “From Now On” didn’t exist just two tracks later. Loserdom doesn’t “settle” into anything, but it’s easy enough to start expecting Auld to jump between squealing guitars to gorgeous melodies with lightning speed as he and his band rip through one song after another. It might’ve taken a move back home and a new band to get there, but Loserdom makes it sound like Ben Auld was always made for this kind of music. (Bandcamp link)
Morningstar – Juvenalia
Release date: February 23rd Record label: Self-released Genre: Alt-country, 90s indie rock, Crazy Horse stuff, folk rock, garage rock Formats: Digital Pull Track: Hair of the Dog
I can’t tell you that much about the band Morningstar. You can learn about other bands called Morningstar from a Google search, but seemingly not this one. They’re from Maine, I know that, and their debut album was recorded last February at Prism Analog by Joni Elfers, who described the sound of Juvenalia as “like [if] Neil Young ran a post punk band”. I don’t take any issue with that, although it doesn’t quite do justice for this massive eight-song, fifty-four minute rock journey. Morningstar have absolutely inherited a disregard for punctuality from Crazy Horse, both in terms of song length (every track is at least five minutes long, with a couple well beyond that) and in tempo (a leisurely stroll, more often than not). There are a few indie rock bands Juvenalia reminds me of from time to time–Silkworm, Lungfish, and, of course Magnolia Electric Co.–although Morningstar’s sprawling, messy, occasionally rootsy electric sound isn’t overly indebted to anyone in particular. I think what I’m trying to say is–we think of “post-punk”, “noise rock”, and “indie rock” as sounding a certain way, but sometimes bands come along that clearly hover around these worlds without making a recognizable version of it. Rosy Overdrive is nonetheless all about whatever it is you’d call what Morningstar is making, and hopefully they decide to come out of the shadows again with another record sooner or later. (Bandcamp link)
It’s a Thursday Pressing Concerns! We have four new albums coming out tomorrow below: new ones from Guided by Voices, The Thirsty Giants, Chaepter, and Patois Counselors. Check them out, and if you missed Tuesday’s blog post (featuring Christina’s Trip / Mox / Natasha Sandworms, Chevreuil, Casual Technicians, and Jack Shields & The Mojave Rush), check that one too.
If you’re looking for more new music, you can visit the site directory to see what else we’ve written about lately. If you’d like to support Rosy Overdrive, you can share this (or another) post, or donate here.
Guided by Voices – Crawlspace of the Pantheon
Release date: May 29th Record label: GBV, Inc. Genre: 90s indie rock, post-punk, power pop, college rock, Guided by Voices Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Out with a Theory
They sent me the new Guided by Voices album, and I liked it, so here I am writing about it in Pressing Concerns. Considering that there’ve been periods of my life where I’ve listened exclusively to Guided by Voices and Robert Pollard’s assortment of side projects, Rosy Overdrive giving a thumbs up to GBV LP number 44, Crawlspace of the Pantheon, was probably very foreseeable. For whatever reason, though, the last few albums haven’t stuck with me as much–the last one I’ve really appreciated was Welshpool Frillies, three years and four albums ago (though I actually really liked the debut LP from Pollard’s Rip Van Winkle side project from last year). I attribute this less to a decrease in quality than personal interest gravitating toward other things; that being said, the beginning of Crawlspace of the Pantheon is the strongest opening to a Guided by Voices album in…well, more than four albums.
The choppy, descending guitar chords and triumphant Pollard vocals that open “Lost in the Sun” greet us with this iteration of Guided by Voices doing what they do best–warped arena rock anthems with muscular hooks. “Out with a Theory”, track two, is even better–it’s a surprising, bouncy mid-tempo pop rock track in which the drums don’t kick in until halfway through. It reminds me of “Make a Record for Lo-Life” in how Pollard just pulls a song that sounds like it must’ve always existed somewhere out of nowhere, and, like that song, it’s a track about the act of making music itself. It’s semi-autobiographical per Pollard himself, but I want the song’s title and reference to Mitch Easter in the lyrics to be references to Game Theory, a known favorite of GBV guitarist Doug Gillard (at the very least, it fits with the college rock landscape about which Pollard sings here). Lead single “We Outlast Them All” (just a beautiful Guided by Voices-sounding song, no notes), “Advance Without Dropping” (a surging, energetic rocker), and “Arthur Square” (the requisite “I have no idea how Robert Pollard stitched this thing together, but it rules” one) are the other obvious highlights, although there are plenty more successes among these dozen tracks. Maybe this is the new Guided by Voices album you’ll dive right into, maybe it’ll stay on the shelf until the moment is right, but Crawlspace of the Pantheon will be there to appreciate even after the band that created it has moved onto the next one. (Bandcamp link)
The Thirsty Giants – Escape the Junkyard
Release date: May 29th Record label: Round Bale Recordings Genre: Punk rock, garage punk, hardcore punk Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: No Future
It’s always nice to hear that Minnesota punk rock is alive and well. One sterling example of the art form is The Thirsty Giants, a Mankato-originating “inter-generational basement punk” trio initially founded by the younger Holden Perron (guitar/vocals) and elder David Perron (drums) during the pandemic and soon joined by bassist/vocalist Hunter Theisen. Their releases (such as last year’s Thirst A.D. EP and Southern Minnesota Discomfort live album) have largely been put out by Round Bale Recordings, David’s own record label, and that’s who’s responsible for Escape the Junkyard, the first “proper” Thirsty Giants LP. Escape the Junkyard was recorded by Mark Krogmann at Average Grum when the trio (now spread out between Mankato and Duluth) convened for a “long weekend” in October of last year, and it captures a band in the process of evolving from a pandemic-era Black Flag/Stooges/Circle Jerks cover band to something more wide-ranging.
This thirteen-song, thirty-minute vinyl LP ranges from early hardcore punk rock-and-roll rave-ups to more meditative, less-easily-categorizable rock music. The thrashing, hardcore-informed garage punk of the first three proper songs on the record (“This Thing Called Junk”, “Read the Room”, and “F.R.F.A.”) is entertaining and furious enough on its own to turn one’s attention to The Thirsty Giants, but it’s the mid-tempo punk rock brooding of “No Future” that suggests that the trio is looking beyond their genre of origin on Escape the Junkyard. Tracks like “Disperse” (which sounds like something from a forgotten math-influenced emo album that would’ve been recently unearthed by The Numero Group) continue to surprise, and “Abandon All Hope” (a dread-fueled punk crawl) and “Wake” (which closes the LP on a metallic note) show that The Thirsty Giants can still be “heavy” while pushing their own boundaries. Not much more one could ask for from an upper Midwestern punk debut. (Bandcamp link)
Chaepter – Dragon of Shame
Release date: May 29th Record label: Candlepin/Flesh & Bone Genre: Post-punk, noise rock, lo-fi indie rock, art rock Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Spook the Market
Chicago has a proud history of weird and noisy indie rock, and Chaepter Negro is a proper heir to the throne. Distorted records of post-punk and jagged art rock like 2023’s Naked Era and last year’s Companion Musicfound the freewheeling musician steadily honing a signature sound, and somewhere along the line “Chaepter” became a three-piece group also featuring drummer John Golden and bassist Ayethaw Tun. When Chaepter put out Companion Music last November, they hinted that they already had another LP ready to go; six months later, we’ve gotten Dragon of Shame, released by the band’s occasional home of Candlepin Records along with new partner Flesh & Bone (Marni, Cashier, Miners). Recorded by the band themselves at Jamdek Studios, Dragon of Shame continues Companion Music’s foray into a tougher, more “rocking” sound, although there’s more polish to these fourteen songs than its immediate predecessor.
“Swimming” and “Spook the Market” are classic Chaepter rockers, the former smooth and rolling in the vein of their “shoegaze-influenced” peers and the latter in the realm of choppy, frenetic post-punk. Even the more pensive moments on Dragon of Shame, like opening track “Anhedonia, Island in the Clouds” and “Teflon”, have a nice power-trio heft to them, and “TV Town” and “Miracle Worker” ensure that “rippers” continue well into the LP’s second half. Fans of Chaepter’s weirder side don’t have to worry about it being gone, though–the freak folk-y “Icebox” and the (especially) bizarre psychedelic dream pop odyssey “Hydra Economies” see to that, and the band stick a couple of burned-out ballads towards the end of the album with “The Well of St. Anthony” and “Stages”. It might’ve been a relatively quick turnaround from Companion Music, but with Dragon of Shame Chaepter have once again given us a complete-feeling experience. (Bandcamp link)
Patois Counselors – Protection Racket
Release date: May 29th Record label: Ever/Never Genre: Art rock, post-punk, avant-garage, psychedelia Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Generational Riffs
The intriguingly-named Charlotte group Patois Counselors have been flying under the radar for over a decade now: their first show was in 2015, and they put out three studio albums and a “live-in-the-studio” LP on Ever/Never from 2018 to 2024. Protection Racket is the fourth album of new material from the quintet (currently comprised of vocalist Bo White, guitarist Lenny Muckle, bassist Robin Doermann, synthesist Krizia Torres, and drummer Taylor Knox), and it finds them knee-deep in their particular strain of hypnotic avant-garde agitprop post-punk. The album’s Bandcamp page names some familiar canonical post-punk acts as influences (Pere Ubu, Devo, Wire, etc.) but the inspiration is primarily attitudinal; Protection Racket hardly sounds like any of those groups, and it hardly even sounds “punk rock” at all in a recognizable way for the most part.
Protection Racket is defined by White’s conversational, impossible-to-nail down vocals rambling over confusing soundscapes trending towards synth-heavy, prog-informed art rock. That description does make them sound like Pere Ubu or even a less troglodyte Lungfish, but the trick is that White never sounds like he’s trying to be anyone but himself. It’s how Patois Counselors are able to stitch together “Cop City” (a wonky psychedelic take on “Paint It Black” about the titular fascist project), “Generational Riffs” (“power pop” if you squint), and “Flat No” (a wild, disintegrating art-punk/post-punk journey) into one statement. Bands like Patois Counselors don’t come around all that often (and you do often have to look in unexpected places, such as Charlotte, North Carolina, to find them). It’s even rarer for one to make it to a second decade, but the results are invariably some of the most unique rock music one can find. (Bandcamp link)
Welcome to a “Monday” Pressing Concerns, this time actually on a Tuesday due to the U.S. holiday weekend (hope everyone in the States had a nice Memorial Day, and a nice Monday to the rest of us). Today we have new albums from Chevreuil, Casual Technicians, and Jack Shields & The Mojave Rush, plus a split EP between Christina’s Trip, Mox, and Natasha Sandworms. Check them out below!
If you’re looking for more new music, you can visit the site directory to see what else we’ve written about lately. If you’d like to support Rosy Overdrive, you can share this (or another) post, or donate here.
Christina’s Trip / Mox / Natasha Sandworms – Lucky Three
Release date: April 3rd Record label: Cherub Dream Genre: Fuzz pop, dream pop, lo-fi indie rock, shoegaze, indie pop, noise pop Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Bird of My Life
One of my favorite debut albums of 2024 was Forever After, the first LP from the Oakland fuzzy indie pop group Christina’s Trip; it was one of the more pop-forward albums I’d heard from San Francisco experimental shoegaze label Cherub Dream Records, and I mentioned The Spinanes, Velocity Girl, and K Records as influences. Two years after Forever After, Christina’s Trip has teamed up with two like-minded north/central California groups in Mox (a Merced-based project led by Mox Hamright) and Natasha Sandworms (led by San Jose’s Natasha Sandborn) to release a six-song split EP called Lucky Three. The three acts share a fair bit of overlap in their sounds–all of them can be described as distorted pop music inspired by 90s indie rock, more or less–but these six tracks are more than enough to get a picture of three distinct emerging artists.
For their part, Christina’s Trip offers up a sugary fuzz-pop song that could’ve fit right on Forever After (“F.B.A.T.”) and one song that looks beyond their debut (“Sweep Me”, a clearer embrace of shoegaze walls of sound without dropping the pop hooks). If you’re a fan of the greyscale, slowcore/shoegaze-indebted “bedroom lo-fi indie rock” records that populated the 2010s, then you’ll appreciate Mox’s first contribution, “Scared”, but “Leaving” (which closes the EP) shows a softer, acoustic-based lo-fi pop side to the project, as well. Natasha Sandworms might be the hardest of the three to get a handle on, but that’s a compliment in this case–“Bird of My Life”, with its propulsive drumbeat, Liz Phair frontperson performance, and shimmering guitars, might be the most brilliant pop song on Lucky Three, but “Perfect Feeling” is a more restrained version of their sound, putting the vocals a little further back in the mix. In both songs, though, Sandborn’s vocals are the star of the show no matter where they’re placed in comparison to the instruments. I feel fairly confident that all three of these acts are worth watching after Lucky Three. (Bandcamp link)
Chevreuil – Stadium
Release date: April 24th Record label: Computer Students Genre: Math rock, post-rock, experimental rock Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital Pull Track: Mortalis
The French duo Chevreuil is guitarist Tony Chauvin and drummer Julien Fernandez, who came together in 1998 and went on to release several records’ worth of instrumental math and noise rock over the next decade (three of which were recorded by Steve Albini at his Electrical Audio studio). After 2006’s Capoëira, though, Chevreuil stopped putting out new music, and when Chauvin and Fernandez reconvened in early 2025 to plan reissuing their older material on the latter’s Computer Students record label, they hadn’t played together in fifteen years. Quickly, however, the duo fell back into their old chemistry and instead made a brand new hour-long double album called Stadium. Recorded live in January of last year at Chauvin’s Nantes-based Retroengineering studio, Stadium is a towering instrumental rock record that introduces Chauvin’s new “reconfigured guitar” with a “hybrid electro-acoustic engine capable of generating electronic timbres”.
At its heaviest, Stadium is in line with math rock/noise rock groups that Computer Students has reissued in recent years like Cheval de Frise, Big’n, and Lynx (not to mention Shellac, clearly an influence on Chevreuil both as musicians and engineers). Chevreuil work hard to fill in all the empty space as a duo; Fernandez’s drumming is frenetic, erratic, and vying with the guitar for the centerpiece of the record more often than not. The two make so much noise that introducing the electronic capabilities of Chauvin’s guitar almost seems unfair–leading to moments where Stadium is about as far away from “rock duo” as Chevreuil can get with their tools. “Plexus” and “Magnus” are more or less “math rock songs” with electronic elements, while it’s hard to imagine what “Theorus Macrocosmus” or “Atoll II” would’ve even sounded like in a more traditional arrangement. Chauvin and Fernandez may have been able to plug back into Chevreuil after a decade and a half away, but Stadium is not so much a straight-up continuation of their previous work as something more expansive and entirely new. (Computer Students link)
Casual Technicians – Well Once There Was a King
Release date: May 15th Record label: Historic New Jersey Genre: Psychedelic pop, folk pop, psychedelic folk Formats: Digital Pull Track: A Higher Power
Back in 2024, a strange psychedelic folk-pop trio named the Casual Technicians released two albums on blog favorite Repeating Cloud Records–a self-titled one in March, and Deeply Unworthyin November. Those albums had more than their fair share of Elephant 6-style “warped Beach Boys” pop music, but it was delivered in the casual package of three geographically far-flung friends meeting up to create something together. Nathan Baumgartner, Boone Howard and Tyler Keene (aka Log Across the Washer) have returned after a year and a half with a third Casual Technicians LP called Well Once There Was a King, recorded between the band members’ stations of southwest Oregon and Essex County, New Jersey and released on their new label home of Historic New Jersey (Star Moles, Thank You Thank You, Rubber Band Gun).
Well Once There Was a King continues the strong streak that Casual Technicians began with their first two albums; all three members take their turns in the spotlight as they practice a folky, homespun, laid-back version of indie pop. If anything, Well Once There Was a King is the Casual Technicians at their most “chill” yet; not that new age and soft rock haven’t been part of their sound before, but it’s a bit closer to the forefront in these tracks. At twenty-four songs and nearly an hour in length, it’s easy to get lost in Well Once There Was a King, especially as one conjures up a remote Pacific Northwestern outpost like the one suggested by the album artwork. Casual Technicians have been greater than the sum of their parts for a while now, but it’s still very heartening to hear how committed Howard, Keene, and Baumgartner remain to building their weird little world several albums into it. (Bandcamp link)
Jack Shields & The Mojave Rush – Avalanche Hour
Release date: May 13th Record label: Self-released Genre: Country rock, alt-country, fuzz rock, Americana Formats: Digital Pull Track: In the Alpine
Jack Shields is a ringer–the Los Angeles-based musician plays guitar in the Montana-originating folk rock group Richy Mitch & The Coal Miners, and he’s spent time in Nashville doing the “aspiring country music singer-songwriter” thing. Shields also had a collection of songs lying around for a while that didn’t quite fit with his other pursuits, the origins of which go back to his time working in central California as a ski lift operator during the pandemic. Recorded “quickly in the gaps between tours”, Avalanche Hour is an intriguing album that was clearly made by a country musician, but one who’s channeled his songwriting into distorted guitars and a gritty, electric sound (it’s almost like an…“alternative” kind of country?). Avalanche Hour’s opening trio of rockers lean heavily on fuzzed-out instrumentation and ragged performances–my favorite moment on the album, “In the Alpine”, is an atmospheric, dark alt-country song with a massive hook nonetheless. There’s a desperation as Avalanche Hour advances into fumbling, distorted country-rock songs like “Eat the Blame” and “Cull the Fleet”, and even the relatively bright music of “My Poor Mind” is clouded by despair. I hear a lot of music that could be described as “distorted indie rock band messing around with country”; I think part of why I like Avalanche Hour is because it’s effectively the other way around, and this leads to some unique moments. (Bandcamp link)
Welcome to the Thursday Pressing Concerns! We have an album from Phosphene that came out earlier this week, plus three new records coming out this Friday, May 22nd (new LPs from Radhika and Trevor Sloan and a new EP from Marbled Eye). Check them out below, and if you missed Monday’s blog post (featuring Me at the Zoo, Rob & Ellen, Avery Island BCE, and FOND), check that out too.
If you’re looking for more new music, you can visit the site directory to see what else we’ve written about lately. If you’d like to support Rosy Overdrive, you can share this (or another) post, or donate here.
Phosphene – Velveteen
Release date: May 19th Record label: Self-released Genre: Dream pop, indie pop, shoegaze, piano pop Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Heaven
A nice little album you might’ve heard if you were reading Rosy Overdrive in 2023 was Transmute, the third album from Portland, Oregon duo Phosphene. Rachel Frankel and Matt Hemmerich named dream pop acts as the main influences for that LP, but I myself was drawn to its “surprisingly muscular” sound (that nonetheless didn’t fit neatly under “shoegaze” as the duo declined to bury Frankel’s vocals). They’re back now with their fourth album, Velveteen, which Phopshene describe as coming out of “a period of intense personal adversity informed by abandonment and uncertainty”. There’s a notable sonic shift in the duo’s sound here too–the electric, fuzzy, dreamy indie rock is still present on about half of the album, but the other half of the LP explores different realms of indie pop. Pianos, slower tempos, and an overall pensiveness pervade some very strong pop songs on Velveteen, trending towards chamber pop and even the “soft rock/sophisti-pop” axis.
Opening track “Heaven” is as loud and hard-changing as anything on Transmute, but it’s a bit of a red herring as only “Lupo”, “Everyone”, and arguably “Black Ring” rock as hard as this one does. Second song “Warding” breaks out the “piano pop” instincts, but its propulsive beat and Frankel’s strong melodic vocals ensure that the “pop” half is strongly represented here. “Wire” also combines the more delicate musical palette with an unquestionably pop-forward attitude, and even the quietest piano song on the record, “Too Late”, is carried by Frankel’s voice. Velveteen is a “beauty in pain” album if I’ve heard one; Frankel’s voice tackles lyrics that do indeed sound uncertain, abandoned, and occasionally despondent, counterbalanced by a firm musical foundation that sounds like it couldn’t be further from crumbling. It’s as impressive as it is enjoyable to listen to. (Bandcamp link)
Marbled Eye – Forever
Release date: May 22nd Record label: Digital Regress Genre: Post-punk, garage rock Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: The Guest
In 2024, the Oakland post-punk quartet Marbled Eye came roaring back after a six-year gap between releases with their sophomore album, Read the Air. It was a constant barrage of music equally at home in the realms of Australian punk rock, British post-punk, and American garage rock; it’s a treat to have them back relatively quickly after that LP, despite guitarist/vocalist Chris Natividad also being busy with a host of other bands (Blue Zero, Aluminum, Tanukichan, Public Interest). Marbled Eye recorded the six-song Forever EP earlier this year with their former bassist Andrew Oswald, and their latest record finds the group (Natividad, guitarist/vocalist Michael Lucero, drummer Alex Shen, and bassist Ronnie Portugal) picking up right where Read the Air left off.
If anything, Forever cements Marbled Eye as a band operating at their peak in the present tense, as their 2020s output has now more or less matched their initial mid-to-late 2010s run. Natividad and Lucero each sing three songs according to the credits, but their voices are similar enough that I wouldn’t have known who was doing what otherwise. There’s a catchiness to most of Forever that takes a bit to come into focus–the guitars and rhythms in “Something’s Different” and “Stubborn Mind” are actually pretty enjoyable in the record’s first half, for one. Despite the overall pessimism of “Negative Outlook” and “The Guest”, the EP’s final two songs nonetheless find Marbled Eye at their strongest and most natural-sounding. If gloominess is the fuel on which Marbled Eye runs, their future ironically looks quite bright. (Bandcamp link)
Radhika – Cine-Pop
Release date: May 22nd Record label: Glass Modern Genre: Dream pop, indie pop, psychedelic pop Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital Pull Track: Since Yesterday
Radhika Meera Dade is a second-generation Scottish indie pop artist; her father, Sushil K. Dade, played in groups like The Soup Dragons, BMX Bandits, and Telstar Ponies as well as making music as Future Pilot A.K.A.. The Future Pilot notably brought the influence of Indian music to the Glasgow indie rock scene, and the younger Dade’s debut solo album under the name Radhika does indeed continue her father’s lineage both in its foundational indie pop and in these extra wrinkles. Cine-Pop is out through Glass Modern, the “resurrected” version of Glass Records (The Vaselines, Matthew Sweet, The Jazz Butcher) and apparently features contributions from current or former members of Teenage Fanclub, Camera Obscura, and The Pastels.
The album’s indie pop pedigree is unquestionable, but I didn’t know most of this when I first listened to Cine-Pop–and it sounded like a strong song-forward, guitar-based dream pop album in its own right. Compared to the last indie pop album I heard that incorporated Indian pop music as an influence, Forest Bees’ Between the Lines, Radhika’s dream pop is less electronic and could even be described as “folky” in some places. The non-rock elements are still here (listen to that nice trip hop beat on “Sleep”, for instance), but Cine-Pop is just as likely to offer up strong guitar-centric indie pop like “Starry Eyes” and “Since Yesterday”. Now that I know more about Cine-Pop, I can easily say that this breezy first statement doesn’t feel burdened by its weighty background at all. (Bandcamp link)
Trevor Sloan – Sparrows Sing While Leaves Decay
Release date: May 22nd Record label: Self-released Genre: Baroque pop, soft rock, chamber pop, folk-pop, twee, indie pop Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Barcelona
Trevor Sloan is a musician from Toronto who’s been quietly and steadily making music in the realms of folk-pop, soft rock, and indie pop for over a decade now (first as Phono d’enfant, now under his own name). I first heard Sloan in 2024 when he released his sixth solo album, A Room by the Green Sea, which I compared to Belle & Sebastian, “the lighter side of Stereolab”, and tropicalia-era Peel Dream Magazine at the time. Back again with Sparrows Sing While Leaves Decay, Sloan continues his pursuit of ornate, polished pop music recorded in his home studio with his seventh LP. If you aren’t charmed by an underground musician who lists Donovan and Piero Piccioni as his main influences, Sparrows Sing While Leaves Decay is unlikely to convert you, but for those open to such possibilities, this album contains quite a few strong examples of the craft. It’s not until the fourth song on the LP, “Graffiti on the Dam”, that Sloan stretches a song longer than three minutes–perhaps the clearest example of Sloan’s “indie” side is his willingness to let a short song stay as short as it wants to be. Sparrows Sing While Leaves Decay confirms Sloan still has the ability to nail the wintry, chilly niche of folky chamber pop/twee pop, and there’s always a place on Rosy Overdrive for forays into it as strong as this LP. (Pre-order link)
The first Pressing Concerns of the week features a new album from Avery Island BCE, as well as new EPs from Me at the Zoo, Rob & Ellen, and FOND. Check them out below!
If you’re looking for more new music, you can visit the site directory to see what else we’ve written about lately. If you’d like to support Rosy Overdrive, you can share this (or another) post, or donate here.
Me at the Zoo / Rob & Ellen – Vol. 1 / In on It
Release date: April 17th / May 1st Record label: Vacant Stare / Take a Turn Genre: Fuzz pop, power pop, indie pop, jangle pop, college rock Formats: Cassette (In on It), digital Pull Track: Cicadas / So Many Californias
Of the many bands from the San Francisco Bay Area I’ve written about over the past half-decade, few if any come close to the run that Oakland quartet Blues Lawyer had in 2023: that year, they released one of the best albumsand one of the best EPs of that year, as well as guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Rob I. Miller releasing a strong solo album. It felt like Blues Lawyer was primed to take over the world of modern indie/power pop at that point, but it hasn’t quite shaken out that way–soon after, vocalist/drummer/songwriter Elyse Schrock moved to Portland and Miller moved to the East Coast, leaving the quartet’s future in jeopardy. Blues Lawyer haven’t broken up (they played a show last year in San Francisco, in fact), but it’s not surprising that the first new music we’ve heard from their members comes via different projects. In Easton, Pennsylvania, Miller started a new band called Me at the Zoo (also featuring guitarist Zach Baransky, bassist Derrek Wismer, and drummer Kevin Hudson), while his Rob & Ellen project reunites Miller with Blues Lawyer guitarist Ellen Matthews; both projects have released a debut EP in the past month or so.
Me at the Zoo’s Vol. 1–recorded by the Pennsylvanian quartet over last winter and released by Miller’s Vacant Stare label–revels in fuzzed-out power pop, cranking the amps a bit louder than Blues Lawyer did (at least not until their most recent record, Sight Gags on the Radio) without drowning out Miller’s otherworldly pop songwriting. In a dozen minutes, Me at the Zoo rip through some wall-of-sound power pop fuzz in “Cicadas” and “New Colors”, update what’s possibly my favorite solo Miller song in “Wedge”, and toss out a couple of more offbeat but still fairly distorted pop rock songs in “Party at E’s” and “Shelly’s Turn”. It reminds me more of Companion Piece (Miller’s solo album) than anything else he’s done so far; this time, however, Miller has found a backing band in Eastern Pennsylvania every bit as understanding of his songs as his California collaborators were.
Rob & Ellen’s In on It, meanwhile, is a full-on embrace of the jangly indie pop side of Miller’s songwriting. Released on cassette via Take a Turn Records (R.E. Seraphin’s label), these seven songs conjure up a more laid-back, “couple of friends making low-key pop music” informal setting. That doesn’t mean it’s slapdash or “slacker”-y, though–the songs Miller brings to this one are just as strong as his Me at the Zoo material, and Matthews’ intricate, melodic guitar lines are a helpful reminder that Blues Lawyer wasn’t “just” a vessel for two talented songwriters’ solo output. Take a Turn references Paul Westerberg, Bill Fox, Tony Molina, Bob Mould, and The Lemonheads as touchpoints–none of them as completely “right” as to how In on It sounds, but I ended up listing all of them here because I do hear a little bit of all of them in this twenty-minute tape. “So Many Californias” is West Coast jangle pop perfection, “Penny Fountain” finds Miller cooking up some interesting aural layers to add to a chugging college rock foundation, “Edge of Spring” (co-written by Matthews) is a nice little Alex Chilton/Scott Miller acoustic pop piece, and “Scene Report” and “Cosmic Error” confirm that Rob & Ellen can fuzz-rock too. Whether it’s with Me at the Zoo, Blues Lawyer, Rob & Ellen, or on his own, more Rob I. Miller music is always welcome, and nothing in the past three years has diminished its impact. (Bandcamp link for Me at the Zoo) (Bandcamp link for Rob & Ellen)
Avery Island BCE – Dom Pump
Release date: April 20th Record label: Tough Gum Genre: Art rock, math rock, prog-pop Formats: Cassette, digital Pull Track: Fear of Difference
It’s been a strong couple of months for Louisiana underground music: first, Tough Gum put out the latest from Baton Rouge-originating garage punk/lo-fi pop act Timeout Room in February, and Exploding in Sound released the debut album from Urq (aka half of New Orleans avant-punk duo Spllit) in late April. Would you believe, however, that there’s another exciting New Orleans debut album that came out in the past month, from an artist on the same label as Timeout Room and who joined the bill for Urq’s album release show? I’m talking about Avery Legendre, who records as Avery Island BCE. Legendre has played in the New Orleans groups STEEF, Jess Joy, and Butte, and added a couple of solo singles to her repertoire over the past couple of years. All this has led to the first Avery Island BCE, Dom Pump, which reveals an interesting and (in Tough Gum’s own words) “hard to pin down” art rock project.
Dom Pump is less wedded to “punk rock” than either of Legendre’s aforementioned contemporaries–in fact, I’d go as far as to say that it’s hardly a punk record at all. Opening track “Fear of Difference” is, at the very least, math rock-influenced, but it owes just as much to progressive rock, chamber rock, or even jazz-pop. Like the most recent Urq album, Dom Pump is an omnivorous experimental rock record, but it wanders even further away from basement garage rock in thorny, headscratching compositions like “Throgs Neck” and “Dame Commander”. “In Coppet” takes its time, but eventually becomes a driving rocker, while “1984” is a clearer embrace of 80s post-punk, in a way. Dom Pump feels larger than its nine tracks and thirty minutes–half the songs feel like mini-epics, and even the relative respites (like the soft-pop “Shiva”) work as standalone pieces. If it didn’t already, Louisiana should fully have your attention now. (Bandcamp link)
FOND – We Can Hang
Release date: May 1st Record label: Slepping In Genre: Punk rock, pop punk, emo-punk, power pop Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Loserville
I first heard the Alexandria, Virginia punk quartet FOND last year thanks to their debut EP, Complacent; after a pair of “demo” releases, that six song EP found the band (guitarist/vocalists Chris Issa and Steve Grosso, bassist Matt Carrier, and drummer Rob Seaver) knee-deep in 90s alternative rock, power pop, and pop punk with the skill and weariness of scene veterans (which the members are, of Richmond and D.C.). We only had to wait a few months for a new FOND release, as they’re already back with a four-song 7” EP called We Can Hang. Coming in at under ten minutes in total length, We Can Hang is a briefer affair than Complacent was, but it’s still a welcome drop-in from a band seemingly on a roll. At the very least, lead-off track “Loserville” is very likely FOND’s best song yet, a massive song comparable with the best of blog-favorite power-pop-punk acts like Dagwood and The Pretty Flowers. And the rest of We Can Hang is pretty good too! “Peregrine” is a sixty-second blink-and-you’ll-miss-it slice of melodic punk, while the messy power pop of “No One Can Laugh” certainly sounds like a band who claims both Teenage Fanclub and Fiddlehead as influences. Perhaps FOND will get a full album together somewhere down the line, but in the meantime, they’re operating very well in these short bursts. (Bandcamp link)
Welcome to the Thursday blog post! It features new albums from Touch Girl Apple Blossom, Tall Friend, and U.S. Highball, and a new compilation from Smug Brothers. Also, the April 2026 playlist went up on Monday, so check that out too if you haven’t yet.
If you’re looking for more new music, you can visit the site directory to see what else we’ve written about lately. If you’d like to support Rosy Overdrive, you can share this (or another) post, or donate here.
Smug Brothers – Gravity Is Just a Way to Fall
Release date: May 15th Record label: Best Brother/Anyway Genre: Power pop, 90s indie rock, lo-fi indie rock, post-punk Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital Pull Track: Hang Up
I’ve enjoyed writing about the long-running Dayton, Ohio indie rock group Smug Brothers for the majority of this blog’s existence–I’ve featured one of their records on this blog every year since 2022, and I expect them to have another new one out before this year is over. However, the band (led by vocalist/guitarist Kyle Melton and currently featuring drummer Don Thrasher, bassist Kyle Sowash, and guitarist Ryan Shaffer) has been around for much longer than Rosy Overdrive has, initially emerging in the mid-2000s with their sometimes lo-fi, sometimes post-punk take on Guided by Voices-esque guitar pop. They’ve amassed quite the discography in two decades, and a new compilation called Gravity Is Just a Way to Fall does an admirable job of taking us through the world of Smug Brothers.
The vinyl version of Gravity Is Just a Way to Fall is a clean thirteen-song survey of the band’s oeuvre, from recent highlights I’ve written about previously (“Javelina Nowhere” from 2024’s Another Bar Behind the Night EP, “Let Me Know When It’s Yes” from 2023’s In the Book of Bad Ideas) to songs from the earliest days of Smug Brothers like “Interior Magnets” (from the 2011 album Fortune Rumors) and “It Was Hard to Be a Team Last Night” (from 2014’s On the Way to the Punchline). It’s hardly surprising that Gravity Is Just a Way to Fall is uniformly comprised of very strong power pop-adjacent indie rock, given that Smug Brothers’ non-“best of” LPs can also be described that way, but that doesn’t make the digging up of mid-to-late 2010s hits like “It Was Hard to Be a Team Last Night” and “Hang Up” (from Disco Maroon, the first Smug Brothers album I ever heard) any less worthwhile. I haven’t even really delved into the thirty-one song CD edition of Gravity Is Just a Way to Fall (using every bit of those eighty minutes), but I recognize several more great ones from the tracklist. For any new bands out there looking for inspiration: here’s a band who methodically and humbly built something massive, to the point where their retrospective has to leave out plenty of worthy material. Something to strive for! (Bandcamp link)
Touch Girl Apple Blossom – Graceful
Release date: May 15th Record label: K/Perennial Genre: Jangle pop, indie pop, twee Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital Pull Track: Heart-Go
A couple of years ago, a quartet from Austin called Touch Girl Apple Blossom started gaining some buzz on the strength of their debut record; it made my list of favorite EPs from 2023, where I called it “vintage C86-inspired jangly guitar pop through and through”. Plenty of others took notice–perhaps it was due to the Beat Happening reference in their name, but K Records (alongside their sibling label Perennial) signed the band to put out their debut LP, Graceful. Combine that with a recent tour alongside fellow jangly buzz band Good Flying Birds and there are plenty of reasons for the wider indie rock world to start paying attention to Olivia Garner, John Morales, Dustin Pilkington, and Daniel Charles Powell. I’ve long since given up on trying to guess whether or not any given act will get that level of notoriety, but those who do check them out will find a confident, infectious, and more-than-ready-for-primetime collection of indie pop songs.
As opening track “Tell” chimes along, I’m already prepared to declare Graceful heavenly–by that, I mean that the combination of jangly guitars and twee, centered vocals from Garner reminds me of indie pop legends and K Records alumni Heavenly. Like a lot of the best of these kinds of records, Graceful is a whirlwind that only kind of slows down in the midsection (with the pastoral/lightly psychedelic “You Made Me Do It” and the Pilkington-sung “Moon Was Gone”) before revving its engines once again as the B-side begins (hit it, “Heart-Go”!). The whole thing is rock solid, but I feel the need to applaud the closing stretch of Graceful; penultimate track “I’m Lucky I Found You”, with its Beatlesy melody and lackadaisical attitude, will appeal to those who enjoy the stylings of Sharp Pins (another K band!), while closing track “Big Star” takes its jangle on a fast and propulsive journey at which the rest of the LP didn’t really hint. And they’re off into the sunset with pedal firmly pressed down. (Bandcamp link)
Tall Friend – Fossil
Release date: May 15th Record label: Window Sill Genre: Folk rock, bedroom rock, singer-songwriter Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Laughing Gull
The Bandcamp page for their new album, Fossil, says that the Boston group Tall Friend “has never been driven by industry momentum or ambition”. I’m sure plenty of bands say that, but the nine year gap in between the first and second Tall Friend albums is pretty undeniable proof that they’re moving on their own time. To be sure, though, Tall Friend frontperson River Pfaff had his reasons for disappearing for a bit–namely, he began medically transitioning shortly after 2017’s Exploding in Sound-released Safely Nobody’s, an undertaking he decided to undergo “privately”. Fossil was actually recorded mostly in 2018 before Pfaff’s transition, but the complexity of such a huge personal shift led him to shelve the album for nearly a decade. After testosterone began to affect his voice, Pfaff added some backing vocals to these songs, an interesting wrinkle for an album that feels drawn from a different time in more ways than one.
Fossil sounds very much like 2018, feeling at home in that era’s folky, lo-fi, twee indie rock movement led by the likes of Frankie Cosmos, Free Cake for Every Creature, and Gabby’s World. Like Safely Nobody’s, it’s a short listen, wrapping up eleven songs in under a half-hour. It’s a rock album in which Pfaff, multi-instrumentalist Jesse Paller, bassist Cale Cuellar, and guitarist Jeremy Ray do indeed get loud on occasion, but never to the point of taking away the intimacy of Pfaff’s writing. “83” and “Rock Collection” are clear enough to let the key lines sink in (I do want to see your rock collection, thank you for asking). “Going to Hell” and the sixty-second lead single “Laughing Gall” could both genuinely be called “jaunty”, and the title track is a math/emo-y (mostly) instrumental. Tall Friend’s decision to preserve and eventually display Fossil out of time is one that’s paid off; it might be even stronger today. (Bandcamp link)
U.S. Highball – God Save the Kelvin Wheelies
Release date: May 15th Record label: Lame-O Genre: Indie pop, jangle pop Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Peter’s Parade
I believe that God Save the Kelvin Wheelies is the fifth album from Glasgow indie pop duo U.S. Highball. James Hindle and Calvin Halliday have been a reliable source for the stuff since 2019, always zipping through quick-tempoed but bittersweet, drum machine-led guitar pop. Lame-O Records pointed out that it’s their first LP in three years–that surprised me, I didn’t realize that No Thievery, Just Cool came out back in 2023–but the uncharacteristic time away hasn’t dampened U.S. Highball’s pop songwriting. Featuring vocal harmonies from members of The Ladybug Transistor, Slaughter Beach, Dog, Sassyhiya, and Hurry (whose Matt Scottoline also contributes some bass), God Save the Kelvin Wheelies nonetheless keeps the focus on Hindle and Halliday’s simple melodies. Titular phrases like “Copenhagen Chemistry” and “A Parkhead Cross of the Mind” (no, I’m not sure why it shares a title with a 2022 U.S. Highball album that doesn’t feature that particular song) become unavoidable earworms, and little details like the harpsichord in “Topsy-Turvey”, the synth-leaning “Falling Out of Favor”, and whatever that cartoonish sound effect is in the opening track stick out among the relatively barebones indie pop backgrounds. It’s always nice to hear new U.S. Highball music, and God Save the Kelvin Wheelies keeps their standard high.
A bit later than I would’ve liked (so it goes), the April 2026 playlist has landed! Featuring a bunch of good music from the past month or so as well as some miscellaneous older songs I’ve also been enjoying lately.
Cape Crush, Prism Shores, Teen Suicide, and Sacred Heart Academy have two songs on this playlist. The Blackburns have three.
Here is where you can listen to the playlist on various streaming services: Spotify (missing four songs), Tidal (missing three). 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.
“New Music”, The Blackburns From Alternative Rock (2026, Sell the Heart)
Everything on the honestly-titled Alternative Rock is written like it could be the focal point of the entire album, and The Blackburns are rewarded for their ambition with a transcendent record that juggles nostalgia and pastiche and develops its own style in defiance of all of that. “I wanna hear new music / Come on, I’m trying to do this,” goes the chorus of “New Music”, the opening track to Alternative Rock, a surging power pop song that takes its grappling with losing touch with the present and makes sharp, catchy art with it (the vocal trade-offs are a really nice touch). Read more about Alternative Rock here.
“Calm & Delivered”, Cape Crush From Place Memory (2026, Wanna Hear It)
A self-described “power-emo” band from Massachusetts, the quartet Cape Crush first showed up in 2023 with an EP called San Souci, and they released a split record with the bands Impossible Dog and Good June early last year. Place Memory is the group’s first full-length album, as well as their first release with new drummer Mike O’Toole joining vocalist/guitarist Ali Lipman, guitarist James Christopher, and bassist Jake Letitiza. Cape Crush throw one of the best pop songs I’ve heard this year at us in Place Memory’s first half with “Calm & Delivered”, an archetypal emo-power-pop anthem carried by an instantly-engrossing performance from Lipman as frontperson. Read more about Place Memory here.
“I Didn’t Mean to Change My Mind”, Prism Shores From Softest Attack (2026, Meritorio)
With last year’s Out from Underneath, Prism Shores claimed a spot for themselves at a Montreal guitar pop table that’s been impressively crowded as of late. Merely a year later, Softest Attack is a classic leveling-up moment, taking the spirited energy of Out from Underneath and marrying it with larger, more confident hooks and a studio polish designed to accentuate them. ”I Didn’t Mean to Change My Mind”, my favorite song on the album, is a massive-sounding, achingly earnest, top-of-the-mountain guitar pop anthem that sounds like a larger version of the most recent (also Meritorio-released) Fazed on a Pony album. Read more about Softest Attack here.
“Suffering (Mike’s Way)”, Teen Suicide From Nude descending staircase headless (2026, Run for Cover)
With Nude descending staircase headless, Teen Suicide make a bid to join their more polished peers, the ones against which bandleader Sam Ray had been content to position himself as a scrappy underdog in his past “lo-fi indie” days. The effort that Sam and Kitty Ray put into sharpening up Nude descending staircase headless (title comes from a David Berman poem, of course) is quite impressive, and it’ll probably be one of my most listened-to Ray-related records for this reason. It’s when we get to track three, “Suffering (Mike’s Way)”, when it becomes apparent just how successful Teen Suicide can be at making straight-up power pop. Read more about Nude descending staircase headless here.
“One Small Step”, High Back Chairs From Curiosity and Relief (1992, Dischord)
I’ve been digging into 1990s Dischord albums recently (instead of keeping up with the blog’s inbox, I guess), and they really had some good things going on in 1992. Landmark records from Jawbox, Shudder to Think, Lungfish (more on them later), Nation of Ulysses, Circus Lupus…and these guys. Notably featuring Minor Threat drummer Jeff Nelson and Velocity Girl’s Jim Spellman, the High Back Chairs decided they wanted to use the iconic Washington, D.C. hardcore label to release their power pop and Smiths worship. This doesn’t sound like “Dischord” at all! But it rules! Especially “One Small Step”, probably the song I’ve listened to the most over the past month. This is perfect power pop–irreverent, esoteric, confusing, but always finding its way right back to the hook.
“Give It a Little More Time”, Sacred Heart Academy From Oh Good! Sacred Heart Academy Made an EP (2026)
Eilee and Evren Centeno are a sibling duo from North Carolina who’ve appeared on the blog before thanks to their record label, Trash Tape Records, which has released albums from Tombstone Poetry, Hill View #73, and Rain Recordings. Lately, both of them have moved from Chapel Hill to Chicago, where they started making music together as Sacred Heart Academy sometime around late 2024, leading to the group’s first record. I was lucky enough to catch one of those early Sacred Heart Academy shows, and I came away from it looking forward to hear the alt-country/power pop anthem of “Give It a Little More Time” on-record; it doesn’t disappoint, ending up one of the best pop songs I’ve heard this year. Read more about Oh Good! Sacred Heart Academy Made an EP here.
“Angel’s Share”, Bullseye From Bullseye (2026, Ever/Never)
Bullseye are a Brooklyn band with roots in Minnesota and Texas who’ve followed up four-song EPs in 2024 and 2025 with a self-titled six-song EP. Bullseye is a compelling mix of power pop, garage rock, roots rock, college rock, and 90s indie rock that sounds like a band still in touch with Texas and Minnesota alt-rock/punk history. Jangly guitars, “slacker rock” vocals, and a winning power pop chorus greet us in opening track “Angel’s Share”, a declaration that Bullseye isn’t beating around the bush when it comes to crafting guitar pop hooks. Read more about Bullseye here.
“The Tiny Wave”, Ceylon Sailor From The Tiny Wave (2026, Stunning Models on Display/Ghost Types)
Ceylon Sailor is a sextet from Brooklyn led by one KM Sigel on guitar and vocals and also featuring keyboardist Andrew Wood, drummer Kieran Kelly, guitarist/trumpet player Dave Long, trombonist Paul Broadhead, and bassist Seth Ondracek. They claim Elephant 6 and Chapel Hill 90s indie rock as influences–the title track to their newest EP The Tiny Wave reminds me of The Wrens, Hallelujah the Hills, and the recently-defunct, similarly-minded Brooklyn group Fixtures. It’s maximalist, horn-aided pop music made by clear “indie rockers”; it’s incidentally “power pop”, but not particularly dogmatic about it. I like the whole EP; listen to it if any of this sounds relevant to you.
“Reality Cheque”, TV Star From Music for Heads (2026, Father/Daughter)
TV Star’s first album is the latest example of the strong shoegaze/dream pop-inspired indie rock scene in the band’s home cities of Seattle and Tacoma. Compared to some of their noisier peers, TV Star’s take on the genre is more crystal-clear and pop-forward, with a psychedelic and even “alt-country” bent that claims Mojave 3 and The Brian Jonestown Massacre as influences. Music for Heads doesn’t hide its penchant for jangly, dreamy, often acoustic-heavy indie pop, but fans of more electric, perhaps even “power pop”-curious indie pop will also enjoy early highlight “Reality Cheque”. Read more about Music for Heads here.
“Hooked”, Josephine Network From Hooked (2026, Lolipop)
Hooked is, I believe, the third Josephine Network album, and it’s an all-too-brief jolt of classic, retro power pop piecing together Cheap Trick, 60s girl groups, Sparks, The Beach Boys, and Thin Lizzy. Fans of Sheer Mag, Romero, and recent Diners will find plenty to enjoy in these ten songs and twenty-six minutes; most of Hooked qualifies as a “highlight”, but the Big Riff that ensnares us in the title track might be my favorite moment on the album. Read more about Hooked here.
“Friend to Friend in Endtime”, Lungfish From Talking Songs for Walking (1992, Dischord)
Another selection from my time sifting through the Dischord Records archives. Unlike High Back Chairs, Lungfish are hardly a new discovery for me–I don’t think I’ve heard all of their albums, but I’ve spent a good deal with them, and this wasn’t my first time listening to Talking Songs for Walking. This time, though, it sounded like one of the best rock records I’ve ever heard when I listened to it. Not sure why I found myself more receptive to Lungfish’s whole deal than ever before last month, but “Friend to Friend in Endtime” now feels like a sleeper cell calling me to do things I’m better off not writing about on this blog. Damn, this sounds so cool.
“Saving My Life Every Day”, Doug Gillard From Parallel Stride (2026, Dromedary)
With Guided by Voices’ touring schedule finally slowing down, the band’s longtime guitarist Doug Gillard apparently had time to return to solo act mode. Parallel Stride, the fourth Gillard solo album, is unmistakably him, a strong collection of songs that emphasize his pop songwriting, art rock fluency, and, of course, renowned guitar playing. Gillard is low-key vocalist; maybe he sounds like somebody who’s more used to the sideman role than the spotlight, but it’s the right tone for the subtle, workmanlike beauty of Parallel Stride. Second half standout “Saving My Life Every Day” has a propulsion and tension to it that very few people who haven’t been in Guided by Voices can pull off. Read more about Parallel Stride here.
“Same Mistakes”, Cashier From The Weight (2026, Julia’s War)
Julia’s War has, in recent years, established themselves as the vanguard of the abrasive, confrontational, and experimental extremes of what can still be called “shoegaze”, so it’s nice to see that they can still appreciate a good shoegaze-pop group when they hear them. Lafayette, Louisiana grunge-gaze quartet Cashier have more in common with mainstream 90s alt-rock like The Smashing Pumpkins or even punky indie rock like Dinosaur Jr. than they do with the “ethereal”–check out the grunge-pop anthem “Same Mistakes” for proof of their chops in this department. Read more about The Weight here.
“Who Told Mary?”, Josey Wails From Sweetheart Darling (2026)
I’m not sure I have all that much to say about “Who Told Mary?”; it’s just a really great pop song. Josey Wails is a power pop/garage rock kind of guy from Baltimore, and this is the second song on a three-track EP called Sweetheart Darling. Maybe you can clock it just based on that title, but Mr. Wails is a dead ringer for a certain kind of punk musician, a retro-fetishist with a Westerberg/Morrisey-fluent smirking sensitive side (check out the Bones Shredder album from last year to see more of what I mean). The moment it’s clear that Wails has pulled it off on “Who Told Mary?” is when his voice goes ragged repeating the title line in the chorus.
“Ripoff”, Goodwill Suck Machine From TV for Dogs (2026, Club)
I wasn’t familiar with Charlie Sills before now, but he’s pretty active in the Ontario indie rock world–he plays guitar in the Royal Mountain group Madfolk, and his new solo project Goodwill Suck Machine just put out its second EP (the three-track TV for Dogs) on Ottawa’s Club Records (founded by members of Fanclubwallet). TV for Dogs is solid overall, but I really like “Ripoff”, a captivating song that takes emo-y pop punk like PUP and Snow Ellet and runs it through a glossy, dreamy filter. Goodwill Suck Machine is probably worth watching if “Ripoff” is any kind of indication of their future.
“Where Our Rivers Meet”, Big Bluestem From Take Care, Stay Warm (2026, Midewin)
Mike Fox is one-half of the Chicago folk rock/studio pop duo Coventry, and after a detour into electronica in 2024, his new solo project Big Bluestem is a return to folk-based songwriting. Take Care, Stay Warm pretty different from Coventry, and in fact can be seen as a reaction to the polish of that band’s debut album: it was recorded “on a handheld recorder with a hard three-take limit”, and the songs themselves are hushed and intimate in a way that clearly benefits from the recording style. Opening track “Where Our Rivers Meet” does actually feel Coventry-like in its comfortable, jazzy piano playing, but that instrumental is slowed to a crawl and accompanied only by Fox’s whispered vocals, welcoming us into the world of Take Care, Stay Warm while giving us a realistic picture of where Fox is at on this record. Read more about Take Care, Stay Warm here.
“Solace”, FakeYou From Promise to Disappear (2026, 59 X)
Hailing from Montreal, the punk quartet FakeYou take us back to the world of late-1990s emo-tinged melodic punk rock for an entire LP of the “orgcore” experience: raspy melodies, bursting, anthemic guitars, a palpable earnestness that will be an immediate turnoff to some and the core of FakeYou’s appeal for others. Recorded with Max Lajoie of Spite House, Promise to Disappear is one dire-feeling pop punk song after another; take your pick as to which example of it is the best, but “Solace” is a particularly strong place to start. Read more about Promise to Disappear here.
“Alternative Rock”, The Blackburns From Alternative Rock (2026, Sell the Heart)
“Thousands of years before the mainstream Earth / Twelve poseur composers went over and over the cycle of death and rebirth”. I didn’t even talk about the title track to Alternative Rock when I wrote about that album because there were a lot of other things to get to, but The Blackburns’ grand finale is one of the best things on the LP. Nick Palmer and Joel Tannenbaum trade off vocals again on this one, which as best as I can tell is some kind of epic mythical poem about a character named “Rattail” who practices the titular art of Alternative Rock. It’s very catchy. Read more about Alternative Rock here.
“Tracing”, Golden Tiles From Set Up on the Leaves (2026, Antiquated Future)
Led by vocalist/guitarist Oliver Stafford and also featuring bassist Joshua James Amberson and drummer Justin Hocking, Golden Tiles practice a religious devotion to familiar, fuzzy, vaguely Pacific Northwestern indie rock throughout Set Up on the Chairs. The chords and drumbeats are kept simple, Stafford’s vocals are relatively clear for this kind of thing, and there are unmistakable pop melodies–yet there’s something about Set Up on the Chairs that keeps it at a slight distance. The Portland trio’s debut LP is the kind of record that invites you to listen again just to see if the picture starts to come more into focus this time. Read more about Set Up on the Leaves here.
“Wish I Were Here”, The Lives of Famous Men From End Times Elevator Music (2026)
The Lives of Famous Men, a Portland, Oregon act with Alaskan roots, are survivors of 2000s “alternative” music. Their biography is littered with references to forgotten, often Christian rock-adjacent names like Shiny Toy Guns, Anarbor, and We Shot the Moon (as well as the very much not-forgotten fellow Alaskans Portugal. The Man). And yet here they are twenty years later, making synth-y Death Cab for Cutie-esque indie pop. Acquired-taste high-pitched vocals, a brisk, skipping tempo, and a giant power pop chorus–you could almost convince me that it’s 2009 again, and “Jack Antonoff” is just a backing musician in a second-tier Fueled by Ramen band.
“Place Memory”, Cape Crush From Place Memory (2026, Wanna Hear It)
Recorded with frequent collaborator and prolific producer Zach Weeks (Cowboy Boy, Really From, Friendship Commanders), Cape Crush’s Place Memory is a strong and confident debut of emo-tinged power pop and pop punk songwriting. The Massachusetts band arguably top the previously-discussed “Calm & Delivered” just one song later on the LP’s tracklist with the title track. We get a heroic guitar riff at the center of the song, some nice choppy power chords in the verses, and the first line of the refrain is an instant classic (“Ain’t it funny how the wrong kind of night…”). Read more about Place Memory here.
“High School”, Winston Hightower From 100 Acre Wood (2026, K/Perennial)
Winston Hightower spent a decade in the background of the Columbus indie rock scene before K and Perennial Records signed him in 2024 and put out Winston Hytwr, a compilation of songs from across his discography. 100 Acre Wood is the first album of new material of Hightower’s K/Perennial era, and while it certainly sounds like the eclectic artist of Winston Hytwr, this album finds the musician honing in on a more cohesive set of post-punk and lo-fi pop-influenced indie rock. The extra-lo-fi charm of “High School” in particular sticks out in its surprising guitar pop sweetness. Read more about 100 Acre Wood here.
“Undercover Lover”, Softjaw From Softjaw (2026, Dandy Boy/Bachelor)
Softjaw are a quartet from Long Beach co-led by singer-songwriters Dustin Lovelis and Tanner Duffy, and their debut for Bay Area indie pop label Dandy Boy Records collects all nine tracks they’ve released thus far in one handy vinyl and/or CD package. Softjaw is a twenty-five-minute tribute to classic 1970s power pop–hooks, harmonies, and guitars, not “punk” or “garage rock” precisely but certainly knowledgeable about “rock and roll” enough to give these songs an extra kick. “Undercover Lover” is a really fun rave-up–and, given that it’s one of the two newest original Softjaw songs, suggests they’re hitting some kind of stride. Read more about Softjaw here.
“Urban Myth”, The Chop From Third Window (2026, Lost Sound Tapes)
Gemma Fleet and Andrew Doig have put out a lot of music in recent years as one half of Dancer, and they debuted a new project called The Chop just last year. Third Window, a six-song “mini-album” coming less than a year after The Chop’s debut LP, continues the duo’s journey into more subdued indie pop; combine the brief length, sparse arrangements, and the creators’ ever-expanding discography, and you’ve got a recipe for a record destined to be “unfairly overlooked”. Personal disorientation and uncertainty shade these half dozen-songs (Doig’s recent health issues having perhaps altered his relationship to music), although this doesn’t mean that Fleet hasn’t remained an engrossing yarn-spinner. “Urban Myth”, the record’s opening track, satisfyingly elaborates on its title. Read more about Third Window here.
“You Will Never Be That Free”, Sacred Heart Academy From Oh Good! Sacred Heart Academy Made an EP (2026)
Oh Good! Sacred Heart Academy Made an EP is an instantly likeable six-song introduction; these songs are all great, and Evren and Eilee Centeno both establish themselves as compelling bandleaders. Evren is the “slacker”-adjacent alt-country/folk rocker, and they’re countered nicely by a more openly expressive/heart-on-sleeve performance from Eilee (they both get three songs, and they both establish impressive range within them). Sacred Heart Academy don’t come off as guitar pop-history nerds like some of their Chicago peers, but there’s a Hallogallo/New Now-like power pop undercurrent on some of the material, particularly the Eilee-sung “You Will Never Be That Free”. Read more about Oh Good! Sacred Heart Academy Made an EP here.
“Water Drops”, Above Me From Soften the Blows (2026, Dandy Boy)
The second Above Me record and debut LP, Soften the Blows, was once again recorded almost entirely by Rick Altieri himself. Above Me seems to be Altieri’s place to play around with non-rock influences, specifically electronica (Autechre and Oneohtrix Point Never are listed as inspiration by their label, Dandy Boy), but Soften the Blows is still primarily dreamy indie pop with plenty of guitars. “Water Drops” is one of the strongest pop songs on the album, a lilting one with a bit of the modern alternative-dance-influenced sound practiced by the likes of Dummy and Aluminum. Read more about Soften the Blows here.
“Big-Box Store Heart”, Prince Daddy & The Hyena From Hotwire Trip Switch (2026, Counter Intuitive)
I’ve never had much of an opinion on “Prince Daddy & The Hyena” one way or another, believe it or not–heard a song here and there, understood the appeal, never felt called to investigate them much further than that. This is all to say that I liked Hotwire Trip Switch a lot more than I thought I would–although I don’t think it’s any mystery as to why I like it to anyone who’s heard it. It’s really fun Weezer-y power pop/pop punk worship type stuff. “Big-Box Store Heart” is one of those bowling ball-style songs; I have to imagine it emerged fully-formed with “lead single” stamped on it. It sounds like if Oso Oso wasn’t wimpy (but was still, you know, in touch with their emotions and shit).
“Theoretical”, Special Friend From Clipping (2026, Skep Wax/Howlin’ Banana/Hidden Bay)
The French indie pop duo Special Friend got on my radar back in 2023 when they released their sophomore album, Wait Until the Flames Come Rushing In, a pleasing mixture of 90s indie rock, dream pop, shoegaze, C86, and slowcore. Guitarist/vocalist Guillaume Siracusa and drummer/vocalist Erica Ashleson returned this year with an album simply titled Clipping, and my favorite track on it is the smooth-gliding chamber-pop-by-way-of-Stereolab “Theoretical”. It hits all the high notes–a propulsive tempo, intertwined vocals from both band members, tastefully catchy guitar lines–in under two-point-five minutes.
“Spiders”, Teen Suicide From Nude descending staircase headless (2026, Run for Cover)
The exhilarating power pop of the previously-discussed “Suffering (Mike’s Way)” is the most immediately head-turning moment on Nude descending staircase headless, but the (relatively) gentler pop music of “Spider” is arguably even more impressive and important in how itestablishes a more sustainable way for an “accessible Teen Suicide album” to sound. Kitty Ray’s vocals contort themselves exactly how “Spider” needs them to be–angelic and dreamy in the verses, ferocious and dramatic in the chorus. Read more about Nude descending staircase headless here.
“The Browns”, Pile From Dripping (2012, Exploding in Sound)
Pile! A good band! I got to see them live recently, something I’ve wanted to do for a long time but the realization of which would always end up getting foiled by some nefarious outside force when they came to town. They didn’t play this one when I saw them, but it did stick out to me when I found myself cycling through their discography (which I do from time to time). Even though it’s probably their most popular album, I’ve never been as into Dripping as I was the records immediately surrounding it, but the thing about Pile records is that they’re constantly rearranging themselves (I swear the music changes in between listens sometimes). Maybe Dripping is their best album. Maybe “The Browns” is a perfect distillation of this “era” of Pile, wonky, asymmetrical, and explosive.
“A Home Until Something Better Comes Up”, Loto From _____ (2026)
Montreal musician Lautaro Akira Martinez-Satoh (aka Loto) and a rotating cast of guests throw themselves headfirst into art pop, chamber pop, and soft rock on their latest album, bravely looking beyond “Bandcamp experimentalism” to “60s/70s studio-pop wizardry” for inspiration. “A Home Until Something Better Comes Up” starts with a subdued two-minute opening before letting a little more “rock” creep into the “soft” in its second half (it’s not quite as electric as their similarly-minded peers in Curling, but it’s in that direction). Read more about _____ here.
“Precarity”, Prism Shores From Softest Attack (2026, Meritorio)
If you’re familiar with last year’s Out from Underneath(or with any number of Prism Shores’ Meritorio labelmates), you won’t be surprised to learn that Softest Attack is stuffed with C86 and Flying Nun-influenced power pop and “fuzz pop”; even with that in mind, I was still surprised by how many of these tracks immediately jumped out at me as top-notch examples of the form. The aforementioned “I Didn’t Mean to Change My Mind” is certainly one of them, as is the note-perfect jangle pop/college rock tribute of “Precarity”. Read more about Softest Attack here.
“Sunset Provisions”, Dipper Grande From Sunset Provisions (2026)
Georgian “alt-cosmic bootgaze” quintet Dipper Grande pull together several strains of “alt-country” and “Americana” on Sunset Provisions; there’s undoubtedly the Rust Belt country rock traditionalism of Magnolia Electric Co. here, with a Deep South molasses-slowness and, indeed, a cosmic side reminiscent of the spacier aspects of their hometown of Athens’ college rock. “Well, they shut down the power plant / Guess they couldn’t keep the lights on,” goes the first line of the opening title track; Dipper Grande effectively survey an expanse of industrial decay and decide to take their time with their art. Read more about Sunset Provisions here.
“Blow Up the Outside World”, Soundgarden From Down on the Upside (1996, A&M)
I revisited Soundgarden recently, partially spurred on by this song being significantly better than I remembered it being. This was a single from Down on the Upside, and it was a sizable hit at the time (it topped the Mainstream Rock chart), but I don’t ever hear it on the radio now. I made a crack that it “kind of sounds like if The Beatles were straight” on Bluesky, which I genuinely think is the key to understanding “Blow Up the Outside World”. There’s a Kim Thayil quote acknowledging the influence on Wikipedia–there’s an interesting “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” thing going on here, the tension between the pop and more straightforward hard rock/quote unquote grunge. I still don’t know how much I like this song, but I like chewing on it.
“A Reunion Show”, The Blackburns From Alternative Rock (2026, Sell the Heart)
“A Reunion Show” can’t help being self-effacing (it hits close to home, as band co-leader Joel Tannenbaum’s old group, Plow United, does indeed have a reunion show on the books for later this year); like a lot of Alternative Rock, it could’ve stopped once it made its “point”, but “A Reunion Show” is way too well-written and -executed to be constrained by that. “They say you can’t duplicate the magic from back in the day / They say there’s something that’s mildly tragic about trying to anyway,” The Blackburns observe as “A Reunion Show” catches a breath, only to plow forward anyway. “Mild” or not, tragedy has been one of the most enduring forms of art throughout civilization for a reason. Read more about Alternative Rock here.
“Heat Lightning”, Gawshock From Leaves to the Sun (2026, Patchwork)
Gawshock began in 2021 as the bedroom pop/lo-fi indie rock project of Huntsville, Alabama musician David Broome, quickly releasing three albums of chilly, greyscale indie rock in four years . Broome cites classic 90s folk/slowcore acts like Idaho and Acetone as well as the delicate underground pop music of Sparklehorse as influences, and the fourth Gawshock LP, Leaves to the Sun, bears this out. It’s a brief record, around twenty-five minutes long, but Gawshock don’t hurry through these eleven songs. “Heat Lightning”, probably my favorite song on the record, is Gawshock’s turn at electric, crawling, empty-space slowcore a la Bedhead. Read more about Leaves to the Sun here.
“We Don’t Need This Song”, Urq From This Dismal Village (2026, Exploding in Sound)
Matthew Urquhart may be known to blog readers and general music weirdos as one-half of Spllit, the New Orleans-based avant-post-punk duo who put out an album on Feel It Records in 2023. Now known simply as Urq, the Louisiana artist has entered the “solo project” sweepstakes with This Dismal Village, an art punk/psychedelic concept album (of a sorts) recorded entirely on cassette Portastudio. The whole thing is over in a mere twenty-three minutes; before we know it, Urq is waving goodbye from This Dismal Village via the tape-warped guitar pop finale “We Don’t Need This Song”, straight out of the Bee Thousand cutting room floor. Read more about This Dismal Village here.
Welcome to the Thursday Pressing Concerns! We’ve new albums from Rural France, The Sleeves, Cola, and Unwed Sailor in this one. Check them out below, and if you missed Monday’s blog post (featuring Northeast Regional, Comprador, Josephine Network, and Lirra Skirra), check that out too.
If you’re looking for more new music, you can visit the site directory to see what else we’ve written about lately. If you’d like to support Rosy Overdrive, you can share this (or another) post, or donate here.
Rural France – SLOTHS
Release date: May 8th Record label: Meritorio Genre: Power pop, jangle pop, indie pop, folk pop Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: High Hopes (Ballad of Rural France)
I’ll try to keep this brief: Tom Brown is a British singer-songwriter who’s released fourpowerpopalbums (of varying fidelity) under the name Teenage Tom Petties since 2022, as well as an indie pop album as Lone Striker last year. He’s also one-half of Wiltshire’s Rural France, a duo he started with his ex-roommate Rob Fawkes in the mid-to-late 2010s. Brown writes and sings the songs, Fawkes adds his signature guitar lines (and, occasionally, another instrument of some kind)–it’s a collaboration that’s worked well on records like the 2024 LP Exactamondo!. Brown’s trademark fuzzed-out, 90s lo-fi power pop sound took on a bit of a melancholic streak on that album, and SLOTHS, the latest Rural France LP, seems to lean into that terrain as well. Deciding to make something “a little slower and a little more melancholy”, the duo cleaned up their sound from “early Pavement” to “mid-period Pavement”, invited John Hare to play horns on a couple songs, and even enlisted a full-time drummer (Teenage Tom Petties’ Jeff Hamm, in fact).
The result is an intriguing entry in the ever-expanding Tom Brown universe. “Thirty Seven Forever” would be given a beer-raising heft to it on his previous albums; here, it’s somewhat jaunty slacker pop. “Lonely Heart Pyramid Scheme” is perhaps the most immediately infectious song on SLOTHS; instead of slowing this one down, Rural France decide to indulge in some “Carrot Rope”-like keyboards as a way of putting a unique stamp on it. The manipulated vocals in the chorus of opening track “Slab” are the closest Brown’s gotten yet to returning to the cut-and-paste pop music of the Lone Striker LP, keys and Malkmus-style guitar noodling mark “Soulseeker”, and “Casio” is underscored by, well, perhaps you can figure that one out. I think my favorite song on SLOTHS is “High Hopes (Ballad of Rural France)”, a slowly-unfurling anthem that embraces a bit of the worldbuilding of the most recent Teenage Tom Petties album as the LP draws to a close. It takes no small amount of patience for Rural France to get to the key-change and energy-releasing final verse; for once, patience is what Fawkes and Brown have in spades. (Bandcamp link)
The Sleeves – The Sleeves
Release date: May 8th Record label: 12XU Genre: Post-rock, slowcore, folk Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Rip It Up
London musician Jack Cooper has spent the better part of the last decade leading Modern Nature, a group who’ve explored post-rock, psychedelic folk, and chamber music over the course of several LPs. On their most recent album, last year’s The Heat Warps, Modern Nature became a quartet with new member Tara Cunningham joining Cooper on guitar, and the four of them made something warmer and more propulsive than Modern Nature’s previous work. The Heat Warps is only one piece of Cunningham and Cooper’s burgeoning musical partnership, however: they put out an instrumental album as a duo last year called Pond Life, and this year they’re debuting a new project called The Sleeves. The Sleeves’ self-titled debut album is, loosely speaking, a song-based folk album; Cunningham and Cooper both sing and play guitar.
Although Cunningham’s arrival in Modern Nature resulted in a more vibrant record, The Sleeves is proof that both she and Cooper can thrive in a more glacial, stark, wide-open emptiness, too. Of course, the unique trick that The Sleeves pulls is that it’s all done with just the two members’ guitars and vocals: they’ve got their “minimalism” locked and loaded. Previous Cooper touchpoints like early Low and later Talk Talk are reached with the barest of ingredients, and, just as impressively, he and Cunningham are able to create distinct song units with them, too. Not that it won’t take a few listens to really get a handle on what The Sleeves are doing here, but the duo are able to make themselves sound insistent on tracks like “Rip It Up” and “You, Now, Again”–just because The Sleeves are slow doesn’t mean they’re leisurely. Bits and pieces of its authors’ previous work are certainly present, but The Sleeves serves to show that Cunningham and Cooper’s current hot streak is taking them to novel places, too. (Bandcamp link)
Cola – Cost of Living Adjustment
Release date: May 8th Record label: Fire Talk Genre: Post-punk, art rock, 2000s indie rock Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital Pull Track: Hedgesitting
I really enjoyed The Gloss, the sophomore album from Montreal trio Cola, back when it came out in 2024. A couple of former members of the post-punk group Ought (vocalist/guitarist Tim Darcy and bassist Ben Stidworthy) and drummer Evan Cartwright made a compelling indie rock album evoking everything from Flying Nun to Television to 2000s groups like The Strokes and Spoon (I called it “post-post-punk”). Cost of Living Adjustment follows a little under two years later (if you refer to it by its acronym, it’s sort of a self-titled album), finding the band taking an uneasy step ever so slightly out of their comfort zone.
Of course, The Gloss was such a smooth experience than any amount of deviation from it would naturally feel less “comfortable”, so I don’t want to overstate the effect that these wrinkles (more emphasis on vocal melodies, a healthy amount of studio layering and experimentation, just a bit more Feelies nervousness) have on Cola’s overall sound. The warped early highlight “Hedgesitting” and the late-record (sort-of) ballad “Conflagration Mindset” are new terrain for Cola, but “Haveluck Country” and “Much of a Muchness” more dominantly display the band that made The Gloss in their DNA. Time will tell if Cost of Living Adjustment lives up to its predecessor–it can feel like splitting hairs writing about differences in sound when it comes to bands like this, but it’s a credit to Cola that I continue to want to dig into their finely-hammered-out details. (Bandcamp link)
Unwed Sailor – High Remembrance
Release date: May 8th Record label: Current Taste Genre: Post-punk, post-rock, dream pop, new wave Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: West Coast Prism
The Tulsa-based bassist Johnathon Ford has led the instrumental project Unwed Sailor since 1998, but the band has hit a career high in productivity in the past few years–High Remembrance, the eleventh Unwed Sailor album, is their fourth LP in as many years. Like last year’s Cruel Entertainment, it features Matt Putman on drums and David Swatzell on guitar (Patrick McGill, also on drums, is credited on this album as well), and it once again finds Unwed Sailor following Ford’s melodic basslines into realms of instrumental new wave, post-punk, and dream pop. Single “West Coast Prism” is Unwed Sailor at their 80s-evoking best with its bass-led, New Order-influenced charm, and penultimate track “Three Jewels” also takes us to that particular decade with a dreamy, synth-y streak. Not everything on High Remembrance is as easily classifiable as those, of course–“Cinnamon” is inspired by country music and the American Southwest and “Punk Broke” nods to the grunge movement that started in Unwed Sailor’s city of origin, Seattle. I wouldn’t call the latter “punk” at all and the former is only “country” in the loosest sense of the word, but the dimensions they add to High Remembrance are welcome nonetheless (not to mention the layers added by opening track “Truest Sentence”, a strange mixture of shimmering indie rock and brisk rhythms). High Remembrance already feels like it’ll sit nicely next to Cruel Entertainment as part of Unwed Sailor’s current renaissance. (Bandcamp link)
New albums from Northeast Regional, Comprador, Josephine Network, and Lirra Skirra. Simple enough for a Monday Pressing Concerns, right? Perhaps. You can be the judge after reading and listening below.
The April 2026 playlist is on hold until (probably) next week. The blog will be back on Thursday!
If you’re looking for more new music, you can visit the site directory to see what else we’ve written about lately. If you’d like to support Rosy Overdrive, you can share this (or another) post, or donate here.
Northeast Regional – In the Desert
Release date: April 10th Record label: Tor Johnson Genre: Post-hardcore, garage punk, 90s indie rock, power pop Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital Pull Track: Meander
Northeast Regional are a rock band from Richmond, Virginia founded by vocalist/guitarist Jeff Byers and congealing into a quintet rounded out by vocalist/guitarist Mike Morris, guitarist James Doubek, bassist Tyler Worley, and drummer Tyler Worley over the course of a few singles, an EP, and an LP from 2022 to 2024. They’re back this year with In the Desert, their second album and first made with a firm lineup; the five of them plus percussionist/vocalist Dana Morris recorded the album with Ricky Olson at Spacebomb Studios and have linked up with Rhode Island punk/heavy label Tor Johnson (Late Bloomer, Leopard Print Taser, Aneurysm) to release it. When I first listened to In the Desert, I thought I had a handle on them after the first three songs: a garage-y post-hardcore punk band from the D.C. area, inspired by the punk history surrounding them and inflamed by Byers’ Rick Froberg yelp.
However, as Northeast Regional have grown into a proper band, Morris has started to sing and contribute songs to the project as well, and his contributions take In the Desert in a different, more power pop-friendly direction. After the grinding noise rock/post-punk of “Deconstructive Surgery”, the fiery garage rock of “MR”, and the Dischord choppiness of “Indulgence”, it’s positively whiplash-inducing for Northeast Regional to hand us over to “Alt Bounce” and “Meander”, two songs that owe more to Superdrag, The Lemonheads, and even Teenage Fanclub than Fugazi or Hot Snakes. The two sides of Northeast Regional are still pretty disparate, but the middle of the record attempts a connection with “Sick Days” and “Long Live the Dullness”, which are both “sprawling” in their writers’ different ways. I like plenty of Froberg/Swami John Reis-inspired punk bands, and I like plenty of 90s alt-rock/power pop revival groups, and I even like a few groups that land somewhere in between, but I can’t recall a band that pingponged between the two so casually as Northeast Regional do on In the Desert. That’s one way to have a new take on some well-worn styles. (Bandcamp link)
Comprador – Please Stay Off My Ass
Release date: April 25th Record label: Baggy Genre: Power pop, alt-rock, art rock Formats: Digital Pull Track: Reduce Your Motion Blur
Comprador’s Please Stay Off the Statuewas one of the more refreshing and inspired albums I heard in 2024. It’s the long-running project of Philadelphia-based musician Charlie D’Ardenne (who also plays in Humilitarian), and Please Stay Off the Statue found an unlikely mid-point between Jon Brion/Brian Wilson-esque power pop/indie pop, heavier alt-rock and post-grunge, and even a bit of “prog/math” rock (in attitude, at least). A little under two years since that album, Comprador are back with a similarly-titled album that once again combines pop brilliance with a vague unease, perhaps more hand-in-hand now than before. The music of Please Stay Off My Ass is largely played by D’Ardenne, recorded in a bunch of different locations from 2022 to 2025 and featuring a few guest contributors including Lung’s Kate Wakefield (cello/vocals), Karl Blau (saxophone/synth), and Parker Drew (bass/guitar).
Intense, intricate pop music is the name of the game in the opening salvo of Please Stay Off My Ass– the atmospheric beginning of “Having Fun” gives way to a confused, nervous, and fuzzed-out mid-tempo pop song, and “Reduce Your Motion Blur” walks an interesting tightrope between “grand, sweeping anthem” and “apologetic”. “Constant State of Shock” flirts with “jaunty”; it’s Comprador’s foray into the realm of 60s-ish folk-pop, I think. After the hard-charging rocker “Bleed & Crawl” (not too hard to figure out what that one’s about for anyone who cares to read the lyrics), Please Stay Off My Ass commits to a noticeably quieter second half–not that “U Got the Dud” and “Now Is a CIA Psyop” aren’t powerful in their own ways, of course. “Party Buzz”, the record’s grand finale, does an excellent job of summing up Please Stay Off My Ass–buzzing, twinkling, crescendoing, and swerving orchestral (in mindset, and, in this case, instrumentation) indie rock music that raises questions as compellingly as possible. (Bandcamp link)
Josephine Network – Hooked
Release date: March 12th Record label: Lolipop Genre: Power pop, glam rock, indie pop Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital Pull Track: Hooked
The power pop contingent of Rosy Overdrive’s readership (which, I must assume, is effectively all of you) have hit the jackpot with this one. Josephine Network, led by the titular singer and songwriter, have been turning heads in their home of New York City and elsewhere with a regular live show regimen (including with the likes of Sheer Mag, The Lemon Twigs, and Geese) and a steady stream of rock and roll records (including the 2020 and 2023 LPs Music Is Easy and No One’s Rose). Hooked is, I believe, the third Josephine Network album (featuring the lineup of Josephine with help on the drums from Nat Brower and “Hershguy”), and it’s an all-too-brief jolt of classic, retro power pop piecing together Cheap Trick, 60s girl groups, Sparks, The Beach Boys, and Thin Lizzy.
Fans of the aforementioned Sheer Mag as well as Romero and recent Diners will find plenty to enjoy in these ten songs and twenty-six minutes–opening and closing your record with twin bar-rock songs about rock and roll (“Rock & Roll Singer” and “The Rockers”) is a Bat Signal for a certain kind of guitar pop fan. Most of Hooked qualifies as a “highlight”–the Big Riff that ensnares us in the title track might be my favorite moment on the album, but the exuberant “Mary Jane Girls” (the requisite Song About The Concept of Girls), the silky-smooth-sigh of “All I’ll Do”, the toe-tapping, crushed-out “Babbling Fool”, and the groovy 70s rock throwback “Revved Up Things” all merit mentions too. Like I alluded to earlier, I would’ve been happy to take another twenty minutes of Hooked, but there’s something to be said about Josephine Network’s surgically-precise journey to the heart of “power pop” on her latest LP. (Bandcamp link)
Lirra Skirra – On Chemical Lawns
Release date: April 17th Record label: Dead Definition Genre: Post-rock, experimental, slowcore, ambient, electronic, folk rock Formats: Cassette, digital Pull Track: Swamp Thing
Chrystine Rayburn and Patrick Glennon are Lirra Skirra, an experimental duo who have been putting out music on their label Dead Definition for a decade now (their debut release, a split with New England ambient act Moves, was in fact also the imprint’s debut release). From 2016 to 2021, Lirra Skirra was based in Philadelphia and putting out a record a year; now they’re in Richmond, Virginia, and On Chemical Lawns represents their first new release after a half-decade away. The duo claim Mark Hollis as an influence, and while I certainly hear Talk Talk-like empty-space chamber-post-rock on this album, Lirra Skirra’s compositions can more cleanly be divided into “electro-acoustic ambience” and “slowcore-esque folk rock beauty”. Opening track “Grimrock” decidedly falls into the former camp, and I’d slot the woodwind-touched “Plant Engineering” and the sleepy “Cargloumic” on that end of the spectrum, too. Blog readers who hew towards the “indie rock” side of things will more likely gravitate to the other four songs on On Chemical Lawns, particularly the slightly electronic but mostly guitar-based slowcore of “Swamp Thing” and the very nearly “breezy” folk attitude of the title track. Throw the brief but compelling jazz-folk of “Four” and the downcast chamber music of “Two”, and you’re left with an album that covers a lot of ground while being pretty quiet about it. (Bandcamp link)
Thursday Pressing Concerns! New albums from Above Me, Cape Crush, and Golden Tiles! A new EP from No Peeling! Check out the Monday post (TV Star, Urq, Dipper Grande, and Lupo Citta) if you missed it! Also check out the Tuesday post (Big Bluestem, Softjaw, Loto, and Shapes Like People) if you missed it!
If you’re looking for more new music, you can visit the site directory to see what else we’ve written about lately. If you’d like to support Rosy Overdrive, you can share this (or another) post, or donate here.
Above Me – Soften the Blows
Release date: May 1st Record label: Dandy Boy Genre: Dream pop, shoegaze, electronica, psychedelia Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Water Drops
The San Francisco musician Rick Altieri currently drums in a couple of Rosy Overdrive-approved indie rock groups (Aluminum and Blue Zero) and he also played in the now-defunct Slumberland group Blue Ocean. Shortly after Blue Ocean dissolved, Altieri debuted a new solo project called Above Me, putting out a self-titled CD EP early last year on Bay Area fixture Dandy Boy Records. I called Above Me “heavily fuzzed-out, psychedelic pop music” with a “drum-machine-heavy palette” as it took Blue Ocean’s experimental shoegaze into a home-recorded indie pop setting. The second Above Me record and debut LP, Soften the Blows, was once again recorded almost entirely by Altieri himself, with guest vocals from Lauren Matsui (Rhymies, Seablite, Neutrals) the only outside contribution. Above Me seems to be Altieri’s place to play around with non-rock influences, specifically electronica (Autechre and Oneohtrix Point Never are listed as influences by Dandy Boy), but Soften the Blows is still primarily dreamy indie pop (when it’s not outright “dream pop”) with plenty of guitars.
Soften the Blows commits to the bold opening with one of the clearest forays into electronica in the soundscape “Feelsee” (oh, I see what Above Me’s doing with the title to that one). “Water Drops” follows it up with the first real pop song on the album, a lilting one with a bit of the modern alternative sound practiced by the likes of Dummy and the aforementioned Aluminum. “Monolith” is pretty much the only thing on Soften the Blows that I’d designated a straight-up shoegaze-rocker; it’s nice to know that Altieri can still pull those off even if his mind seems to be largely elsewhere here. It’s not all trending linearly to “more computer” necessarily, as the acoustic-favoring “Dissolving Charms” and (especially) “Windmill” prove (there are plenty of different ways to dream your pop music, you know). Subdued, perky, ambient, electronic, folky, distorted, glitchy…the “pop” part is the common thread on Soften the Blows. (Bandcamp link)
Cape Crush – Place Memory
Release date: May 1st Record label: Wanna Hear It Genre: Emo-punk, power pop, pop punk Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Calm & Delivered
A self-described “power-emo” band from Massachusetts, the quartet Cape Crush first showed up in 2023 with an EP called San Souci, and they released a split record with the bands Impossible Dog and Good June early last year. Place Memory is the group’s first full-length album, as well as their first release with new drummer Mike O’Toole, joining vocalist/guitarist Ali Lipman, guitarist James Christopher, and bassist Jake Letitiza (former drummer Cody Rico, who left the band for health reasons, is credited with co-writing these songs). Recorded with frequent collaborator and prolific producer Zach Weeks (Cowboy Boy, Really From, Friendship Commanders), Place Memory is a strong and confident debut of emo-tinged power pop and pop punk songwriting.
Cape Crush throw two of the best pop songs I’ve heard this year at us in Place Memory’s first half with “Calm & Delivered” and the title track; both tracks are archetypal emo-power-pop anthems carried by instantly-engrossing performances from Lipman as frontperson. Even if the rest of Place Memory was kind of a dud, those two would be worth the price of admission, but the rest of the LP is Cape Crush’s bid to establish themselves as a “long-player” kind of group, too. The bookends are a rainy-day emo-pop-punk track called “I Don’t Care About Anything” and then a leave-it-all-out-there finale called “I Care Too Much About Everything”; “Come Shed Your Light on Me” and “North Street” demonstrate Cape Crush’s ability to hold back just a little bit to let the eventual wrecking ball swing effectively, while “Train in Motion” and “Also-Ran” are slick emo-rockers from the get-go. Cape Crush came more than ready to fill an album’s worth of space with their ideas on Place Memory. (Bandcamp link)
No Peeling – EP2
Release date: May 1st Record label: Feel It Genre: Egg punk, synthpunk, post-punk, new wave Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull Track: Night Idea
The British quintet No Peeling brought together “five friends in the fertile Nottingham DIY underground” last year, and their self-titled debut EP was released last September on Feel It Records before the group (Dom Durkin on synths, Dan Sheen on bass, Nick Oakden of Plaids and Without Maps on drums, JT Soar studio-runner Phil Booth on guitar, and Sophie Diver on vocals) had even played live together. Featuring seven songs in eight minutes, No Peeling was a torrent and clatter that established the group at the forefront of British egg punk, synthpunk, no wave, or whatever they call it over “across the pond”. The once-again seven-song, eight-minute EP2 was recorded immediately after the group’s first tour of the United Kingdom; it’s recognizably the same band from their still-young debut record, but the tougher backbone and more easily-flowing journey of their sophomore EP shows off what No Peeling have learned in the interim. I’m not sure if 2025 No Peeling would’ve had the patience to pull off “Night Idea”, a droning synth-punk tune that’s as much Stereolab as it is Devo, and I’m also impressed by just how tuned into “power pop” they’re able to make their more new wave/jerky sound in “Stationery”. They still kick up plenty of synth-whirring dust, don’t worry– “Campaign for a Nice Time” and “HGV Ted” start EP2 by refusing to let anyone catch their breath, for instance. EP2 catches a band moving quickly and purposefully. (Bandcamp link)
Golden Tiles – Set Up on the Chairs
Release date: May 1st Record label: Antiquated Future Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, 90s indie rock, fuzz pop Formats: CD, cassette, digital Pull Track: Tracing
I first heard the Portland, Oregon trio Golden Tiles in late 2024–they’d just released their first record, a six-song collection appropriately titled The First EP, and I used phrases like “basement rock”, “fairly lo-fi”, and “low-key pop music” to describe it. Needless to say, Golden Tiles’ whole deal is very much up Rosy Overdrive’s alley (and, I’d imagine, plenty of its readers’ alleys, too), so a debut LP from the group is more than welcome. Led by vocalist/guitarist Oliver Stafford and also featuring bassist Joshua James Amberson (who runs the band’s label, Antiquated Future) and drummer Justin Hocking, Golden Tiles practice a religious devotion to familiar, fuzzy, vaguely Pacific Northwestern indie rock throughout Set Up on the Chairs. The chords and drumbeats are kept simple, Stafford’s vocals are relatively clear for this kind of thing, and there are unmistakable pop melodies–yet there’s something about Set Up on the Chairs that keeps it at a slight distance. Pick your favorite 90s underground event–Elephant 6, K Records, Guided by Voices–and you can hear a bit of it in Golden Tiles’ music, which feels like a long-buried cassette that’s been newly unearthed. Set Up on the Chairs is the kind of record that invites you to listen again just to see if the picture starts to come more into focus this time. (Bandcamp link)
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