Rosy Overdrive’s Favorite Reissues and Compilations of 2024

Today, we’re closing out Rosy Overdrive’s 2024 editorial lists with my favorite reissues and compilations from this year. As this list encompasses a fairly wide range of releases, it is unranked, unlike my Top Albums and Top EPs lists. This isn’t the end of all year-end lists on the site, however: the results of the 2024 Rosy Overdrive Reader’s Poll will go up next week (you have until midnight EST tomorrow to get your ballot in if you haven’t already!). Plus, there’ll be one last Pressing Concerns before the New Year.

Here are links to stream this list on various services: Spotify, Tidal. To read about much more music beyond what’s on this list, check out the site directory, and if you’d like to support Rosy Overdrive, you can share this (or another) post, or donate here. Thanks again for reading.

American Football – American Football (25th Anniversary)

Release date: October 18th
Record label: Polyvinyl
Genre: Midwest emo, jazz-rock, math rock, post-rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Hey, have you listened to the American Football album recently? It still sounds very good! It’s hard to believe, but it’s still a very fresh-feeling LP, legions of imitators be damned. Actually sitting down with this one for the purposes of putting this list together, it’s clearer than ever to me that all the bands who’ve attempted to use this record as a blueprint (some of which have ended up with something quite good in their own right, mind you) miss the deft aimlessness, the lost quality to American Football that makes it sound so timeless. It’s, like, barely an emo album, right? Even two and a half decades of newer bands attempting to shift the Emoverton Window in its direction haven’t really changed that. So, yeah, American Football–check ‘em out!

Big Ups – Eighteen Hours of Static

Release date: September 20th
Record label: Dead Labour
Genre: Post-hardcore, noise rock, punk rock, garage rock, experimental
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Big Ups were indisputably key figures in a specific era of 2010s East Coast DIY indie rock/punk. Drummer Brendan Finn, vocalist Joe Galarraga, guitarist Amar Lal, and bassist Carlos Salguero Jr. were already a whirlwind of a band on the twenty-eight minute original version of Eighteen Hours of Static, a live-wire record that slams together meaty noise rock, sinewy, claustrophobic 90s post-hardcore/post-rock, and Black Flag-like self-combusting punk rock. The liner notes for the tenth anniversary reissue, written by Dayna Evans, do (knowingly) contain the phrase “man, you just had to be there”, but even those who came to Big Ups later don’t have to close our eyes and imagine that we’re in Brooklyn’s Shea Stadium to get rocked by Eighteen Hours of Static ten years later. (Read more)

The Cat’s Miaow – Skipping Stones: The Cassette Years ‘92-’93

Release date: May 3rd
Record label: World of Echo
Genre: Indie pop, dream pop, lo-fi pop, twee
Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital

Another collection of early music from the great Australian indie pop group The Cat’s Miaow? Don’t mind if I do! Two years after the Songs ‘94-’98 compilation pulled from songs from the mid-to-late era of the Melbourne band’s run (and one year after Selected Songs 1997-2003, a compilation from three of the members’ post Cat’s Miaow band, Hydroplane), World of Echo has returned to this fertile soil with Skipping Stones: The Cassette Years ‘92-’93. This may comprise some of The Cat’s Miaow’s earliest recordings, but there are no signs of growing pains on this thirty-three-track, hour-long release; the band’s ability to turn brief, minimal snippets of indie rock into charmed, amber-frozen pop music was apparent from the get-go.

Cloud Nothings – Here and Nowhere Else (10th Anniversary)

Release date: October 2nd
Record label: Pure Noise
Genre: Post-hardcore, noise rock, punk rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

What’s your favorite Cloud Nothings album? Push comes to shove, I’d probably have to go with 2012’s Attack on Memory, but I’m not going to look at you askance if you ride for Here and Nowhere Else, Dylan Baldi’s seemingly-Sisiphian attempt to recreate the lightning-in-a-bottle conditions of their breakthrough album and more or less succeeding. I do my best to not take the humming consistency of the modern version of the band (as seen on this year’s Final Summer) for granted, and listening to Cloud Nothings hammer out the contours of their desperate, pounding pop music as they had to do on Here and Nowhere Else only confirms just how impressive the whole Cloud Nothings “thing” is. Oh, and “I’m Not Part of Me” is maybe the best rock song of the 2010s, so it has that going for it, too.

Drive-By Truckers – Southern Rock Opera (Deluxe)

Release date: July 26th
Record label: New West
Genre: Alt-country, country rock, southern rock
Formats: Vinyl

With an appreciative nod towards the Jason Isbell-featuring winning streak on which they’d embark immediately afterwards, Southern Rock Opera is nonetheless my favorite Drive-By Truckers album some twenty-odd years after its initial release. The ugliness, the ambition, the mythology, the lightning-rod writing, and, of course, the rock and roll are all high water marks for what “southern rock” or “alt-country” or “country rock” (pick your flag to wave) can and should be. And for all the band’s understandable seeking to distance themselves from “The Southern Thing” (or more accurately, what “The Southern Thing” became for a certain subset), there’s no shortage of more prescient and nuanced moments (plus there’s “Wallace”, the other end of the spectrum). And even if Southern Rock Opera didn’t hold up in that regard, a cemetery full of songs like “Women Without Whiskey”, “Zip City”, and “72 (This Highway’s Mean)” (and those are just the Cooley ones!) would be a great haunting indeed.

Willie Dunn – Son of the Sun

Release date: August 14th
Record label: Light in the Attic
Genre: Folk, country, singer-songwriter
Formats: Digital

Light in the Attic’s work resurfacing the catalog of Mi’kmaq folk singer Willie Dunn has been one of the most vital reissue campaigns that anybody’s done thus far this decade, from the career-spanning Creation Never Sleeps, Creation Never Dies compilation in 2021 to the streaming availability of his 1970s albums to the crown jewel of this year, a digital reissue of his hour-long 2004 album Son of the Sun. Every newly-available Willie Dunn record confirms that the singer-songwriter was too large of a figure to be captured by a single release, and this album, which contains then-contemporary recordings, decades-old takes from the 1980s, and a couple of live tracks from Berlin, is a huge piece of the puzzle. Whether Dunn is helming sparse, meandering folk diatribes or relatively polished-up country songs, he’s always a commanding voice.

Elf Power – When the Red King Comes

Release date: May 3rd
Record label: Orange Twin/Elephant 6
Genre: Psychedelic pop, 90s indie rock, fuzz rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

This year in Elephant 6 and associated acts included the debut of a new project from The Olivia Tremor Control’s Derek Almstead, a deluxe reissue of The Ladybug Transistor’s The Albemarle Sound, and the first new OTC songs in a decade (and, sadly, the last to be released before co-founder Will Cullen Hart passed away in November). I want to focus on the often-underappreciated Elf Power here, whose second album, 1997’s When the Red King Comes, saw a remixed and remastered re-release this year. I’ve come to think of it as one of the great indie rock “transitional” albums, midway between the lo-fi bedroom rock of 1995’s Vainly Clutching at Phantom Limbs and the polished pop-rock of 1999’s A Dream in Sound. Neutral Milk Hotel-esque acoustic adventurousness combines with Apples in Stereo-like 60s-inspired pop songwriting, creating a forty-minute blast of an LP.

Fust – Songs of the Rail

Release date: January 5th
Record label: Dear Life
Genre: Alt-country, folk rock, lo-fi folk, singer-songwriter
Formats: Digital

Before North Carolina alt-country band Fust became one of the best practitioners of the genre in the early 2020s, bandleader Aaron Dowdy put out seven EPs (featuring four songs each) on his own in 2017 and 2018. When Fust became more than Dowdy and his computer, Dowdy began writing for a full band and decided to “leave the computer songs alone”, shelving his initial desire to expand these twenty-eight songs beyond their initial, raw forms. After 2023’s Genevieve brought a certain amount of spotlight on the band, however, Fust and Dear Life put together Songs of the Rail, a digital compilation of all seven EPs–nearly 90 minutes of music–in one place. Dowdy’s intimate, lo-fi bedroom pop take on alt-country here results in a blurry picture, with songs running into each other as Fust moves from one sleepy-sounding idea to the next. (Read more)

Heavenly – The Decline and Fall of Heavenly

Release date: February 2nd
Record label: Skep Wax
Genre: Indie pop, twee, jangle pop, power pop, pop punk
Formats: Vinyl

After their first two records, 1991’s Vs. Satan and 1992’s Le Jardin de Heavenly, saw vinyl re-pressings in 2022 and 2023, respectively, Skep Wax has moved onto the twee legends’ 1994 album The Decline and Fall of Heavenly this year. Even for a Heavenly album, the proper The Decline and Fall of Heavenly is a short one (about twenty-five minutes), but the band’s momentum hadn’t slowed down a bit on the original eight songs. Although all the Heavenly vinyl reissues have featured bonus tracks drawn from non-album singles released concurrently, this reissue’s extra material is particularly notable. 1993’s “P.U.N.K. Girl” and “Atta Girl” singles and their B-sides both appear on side two of The Decline and Fall of Heavenly, ensuring that those five songs–regarded as some of the best the band ever put to tape–aren’t left out of this reissue series. (Read more)

Hell Trash – SMASH HITS! Early Tracks 2021-2024

Release date: October 4th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Experimental rock, art pop, psych pop, folktronica, synthpop, lo-fi pop
Formats: CD, digital

The rollout of Philadelphia-originating, Chicago-based duo (now a quartet) Hell Trash has been decidedly unorthodox. After a two-song single and a live EP, 2024 has brought SMASH HITS! Early Tracks 2021-2024, the most complete picture of Hell Trash thus far. The Hell Trash found here contains bits of the folkiness of their previous releases, but this isn’t even the primary mode of SMASH HITS! (and similarly, the experimental folk-pop of Noah Roth’s solo career and the fuzz rock of their other band, Mt. Worry, aren’t really all that close to these songs, either). It reminds me of a more “folk”-based version of late 90s indie pop, incorporating electronic and psychedelic touches and even some trip hop-esque beats into Rowan Roth’s songwriting. (Read more)

The Long Winters – The Worst You Can Do Is Harm / When I Pretend to Fall / Ultimatum / Putting the Days to Bed / So Good at Waiting (Rarities 2000-2017)

Release date: February 23rd
Record label: Barsuk
Genre: 2000s indie rock, folk rock, psychedelic pop, singer-songwriter
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

The Long Winters hovered around the periphery of Pacific Northwest indie and alternative rock music, recording three great albums and plenty of supplemental material in their heyday of the 2000s. This year, Barsuk reissued it all–all three albums plus the Ultimatum EP and a digital rarities compilation called So Good at Waiting. The three records are all distinct from one another–The Worst You Can Do Is Harm is the dark, uncertain post-90s debut, When I Pretend to Fall is the gorgeous orchestrated indie-pop-rock debutante ball, Putting the Days to Bed the streamlined, whittled-down final Hail Mary–but the unintuitive, singular writing of John Roderick connects all of them together. When I Pretend to Fall should’ve been the hit, yes, but it’s also the tip of an iceberg best examined as a whole.

Hannah Marcus – The Hannah Marcus Years: 1993-2004

Release date: April 5th
Record label: Bar None
Genre: Slowcore, sadcore, folk rock, singer-songwriter, jazzy/noire-y indie rock, lo-fi indie rock
Formats: Digital

New York-originating singer-songwriter Hannah Marcus is a lifelong musician, but it wasn’t until she ended up in the Bay Area in the 1990s that she found the kind of music she’d end up making in her solo career–long, dramatic, drawn-out folk-indie-rock in the vein of American Music Club and Red House Painters (slowcore, or, as the micro-genre is even more specifically referred to, “sadcore”). From 1994 to 2004, Marcus released five albums and an EP recorded in San Francisco and Montreal. Bar None (who handled the American release for a couple of her albums) put together The Hannah Marcus Years: 1993-2004, a career-spanning digital compilation featuring selections from both the Bar None albums and her earlier, still-unavailable-in-full discography (as well as one previously-unreleased track). (Read more)

Mclusky – The Difference Between Me and You Is That I’m Not on Fire

Release date: October 4th
Record label: Beggars/Too Pure
Genre: Noise rock, post-punk, post-hardcore
Formats: Vinyl, digital

We all know that 2002’s Mclusky Do Dallas is a masterpiece (write that one down if you don’t), but I will now use my admittedly small platform of this blog to proclaim that the third and (for now, at least) final album from the Welsh/English noise punks is just as good as that one, if not, perhaps, even better. Revisiting The Difference Between Me and You Is That I’m Not on Fire twenty years later, it’s remarkable how white-hot and weird it still sounds. As abrasive and mean as Mclusky Do Dallas is, at the very least it makes sense, but The Difference Between Me and You… is a headscratcher. From the irresistible oddness of “She Will Only Bring You Happiness” to the creepy moments of silence of “Slay!” to the noise-punk thrashers that are as noisy and punk-like (and thrashing) as anything else the band put out–it’s all just as overwhelming to visit in 2024.

Rose Melberg – Things We Tried to Hide (Selected Songs, 1993-2023)

Release date: August 2nd
Record label: Antiquated Future/Two Plum Press
Genre: Twee, indie pop, indie punk, lo-fi indie folk
Formats: Cassette, digital

Portland-based Antiquated Future Records has a series of cassettes called “Selected Songs” where they compile music from across an artist’s career in one cassette tape. Indie pop troubadour Rose Melberg, who has a sprawling discography stretched across several projects of varying notoriety, is a great choice for this kind of compilation–and it’s all laid out in one place as Things We Tried to Hide (Selected Songs, 1993-2023). Per the Bandcamp page, the twenty-five-song cassette comes from ten different projects, twenty different records, and a dozen different labels, ranging from Melberg’s most well-known 1990s acts (Tiger Trap, The Softies, Go Sailor) to perhaps more overlooked bands from the 2010s (Knife Pleats, PUPS, Imaginary Pants). There’s more to Rose Melberg than Things We Tried to Hide, true, but if you’re unsure where to start with one of the greatest indie pop artists of all-time, it’s pretty perfect. (Read more)

The Mountain Goats – The Coroner’s Gambit

Release date: June 28th
Record label: Merge
Genre: Lo-fi indie folk, singer-songwriter
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

My favorite era of the Mountain Goats is the late 1990s up until 2000–after the super early southern California duo-era recordings, before All Hail West Texas and Tallahassee (slowly but surely) became the earliest mile-markers for most fans of the band. The Coroner’s Gambit is the dark, breathtaking capstone of this era–after an uncharacteristic three year LP absence populated by strong EPs like New Asian Cinema and Isopanisad Radio Hour, John Darnielle returned with a mid-fi indie folk masterpiece that faced death outright, gasping through “Shadow Song” and “Bluejays and Cardinals” and ruminating on the title track and “Elijah”. “Baboon”, “Family Happiness”, and “Jaipur” are angrier and scarier than anything the Mountain Goats had done up until that point, and given the loss of these frayed edges in their music not long afterwards, they haven’t really been reached since, too.

The Mountain Goats & John Vanderslice – Moon Colony Bloodbath

Release date: May 31st
Record label: Cadmean Dawn
Genre: Folk rock, singer-songwriter
Formats: Vinyl, digital

There are days when Moon Colony Bloodbath is my favorite “studio-era” Mountain Goats-related release. The sub-twenty minute collaborative with John Vanderslice holds a unique place in both of their discographies, marrying the low-stakes (breezy singer-songwriter-y folk rock, at a time when both John Darnielle and Vanderslice were moving away from it in their respective works) and high-stakes (an absurd prog-level concept about organ-harvesting colonies on the moon, of which the record’s album art only gives us a small taste). It works in no small part due to the fact that both Darnielle and Vanderslice bring way too strong material for a tour-only vinyl EP (which is what it was in 2009); “Surrounded” is a Mountain Goats classic, “Sudden Oak Death” shouldn’t be far behind, and Vanderslice (whose solo material I also love, just to be clear) hasn’t written many more songs greater than “Lucifer Rising”.

Pulsars – Pulsars

Release date: September 13th
Record label: Tiny Global Productions/Damaged Disco
Genre: Power pop, new wave, alt-rock, synthpop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

Dave Trumfio is perhaps most well-known as a producer and engineer; as a frontperson and songwriter, however, his most beloved work is with The Pulsars, the 1990s technologically-minded new wave revival duo he led with only his brother Harry on drums. Chewed up and spat out by the post-grunge major label industry, The Pulsars managed to release one album in 1997 before their upstart label folded. However, Pulsars have resurfaced in recent years, with this year bringing a vinyl reissue of Pulsars a quarter-century later. Pulsars doesn’t sound like the late 1990s, but it’s undoubtedly a product of its time in an odd way; The Cars-y new wave/synthpop homage baked into the record’s sound is still laced with some irreverent Chicago 90s power pop/alt-rock. (Read more)

Skeet – Simple Reality

Release date: August 16th
Record label: Efficient Space
Genre: Post-punk
Formats: Vinyl, digital

It’s hard to believe that there are still excellent, unknown first-wave British post-punk bands to be unearthed, but that’s exactly what we have with Coventry trio Skeet and the band’s first ever officially-released music, the eight-song Simple Reality collection. Although it took some Australians to help Skeet’s discography see light of day (the prolific Mikey Young mastered it, and Melbourne’s Efficient Space put it out), Simple Reality indeed sounds like it was pulled straight from the minimal end of Britain’s post-punk scene (the Young Marble Giants comparison in the album’s bio is more than warranted, although Skeet were a bit more jammy). Skeet may have been a small part of this era of history (they played “as few as” ten shows and, guitarist Gary Meffen’s stint in early Oi! band Criminal Class aside, none of them went on to greater heights), but that doesn’t mean they didn’t create something strong enough to reverberate far beyond that with Simple Reality. 

Strange Magic – Slightest of Hands

Release date: May 3rd
Record label: Mama Mañana
Genre: Power pop, lo-fi pop, college rock
Formats: Cassette, digital

An underappreciated member of the current power pop revival, one can’t say that Albuquerque, New Mexico’s Javier Romero hasn’t been busy as of late. Arising from a self-imposed mission to write, record, and mix one song a week for all of 2022, the following year saw the release of four different albums from his project Strange Magic. Admittedly, these initially slipped by me–but not to worry, as Romero teamed up with Mama Mañana Records to put together a cassette of twenty-two highlights from these albums called Slightest of Hands. There’s a lot to love on this hour-long treasure-trove of a tape–distorted, darkly-clouded guitars, delicately melodic vocals, a charmingly Elvis Costello-esque “toying with power pop” writing style, a southwestern desert-evoking expansiveness, to name a few of the qualities Slightest of Hands reveals over time.

Swervedriver – 99th Dream

Release date: January 19th
Record label: Outer Battery
Genre: Shoegaze, noise pop, psychedelic pop, alt-rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

When we talk about how Swervedriver is the most underrated band of the original wave of shoegaze (“we” being me, yes, but I know that there are others out there), this is usually in the context of their gargantuan 1993 masterpiece Mezcal Head (and, to a lesser degree, its rough-sketch prequel Raise from 1991). But, perhaps just as remarkably, Swervedriver was able to weather the years after the shoegaze explosion subsided in a way that most of their peers weren’t–for a while, at least. The excellent 99th Dream was the band’s fourth album, originally released in 1998, and it links their noisier, revved-up past with the expansive psychedelic pop of the then-present with a remarkable deftness. One must wonder what 99th Dream’s legacy would’ve been if it hadn’t come from the minds of a band who were regarded as second-level on a genre that was yesterday’s news; this comprehensive re-release is an especially gregarious invitation to revisit it nonetheless.

Various Artists – From Far It All Seems Small: A Compilation from Seattle’s Underground

Release date: May 24th
Record label: KR
Genre: Fuzz rock, shoegaze, power pop, punk rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital

There’s been a lot of talk about San Francisco, Philadelphia, even Cincinnati as of late, but a new compilation presents a strong argument that “Seattle, the major hub for indie and alternative rock” isn’t something that should be relegated to Sub Pop retrospectives. From Far It All Seems Small is a collection of fourteen new songs from fourteen Seattle-hailing bands which all pull from a few pleasingly-varied strains of modern indie rock. There’s a bit of the Bay Area’s foggy indie pop to this new “Seattle sound”, but it’s louder, more distorted, and blown-out in classic Washington state fashion. Big pop hooks abound, delivered in everything from shoegaze to fuzzy garage punk to 90s-style indie rock. (Read more)

Various Artists – Tales of a Kitchen Porter: A Tribute to Cleaners from Venus 

Release date: September 27th
Record label: Dandy Boy
Genre: Jangle pop, lo-fi pop, power pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Assembled by Oakland’s Dandy Boy Records and featuring fifteen bands’ takes on songs from the Cleaners from Venus discography stretched across two sides of a vinyl record and a “special edition” extra 7″, Tales from a Kitchen Porter attempts to right a cosmic wrong (a deep underappreciation of its tribute subject and the project’s ringleader, Martin Newell). I’ve written extensively about the Bay Area indie pop scene from which many of these bands have originated, so it’s not exactly a huge surprise that I enjoy Tales from a Kitchen Porter front-to-back. It’s also not shocking that, given the amount of Newell in these bands’ DNA, that these covers are largely fairly faithful. That doesn’t mean that the acts don’t put their own unique stamps on them, however–some are dreamier, some are noisier, some are more polished, some are more ramshackle-sounding. (Read more)

Winston Hightower – Winston Hytwr

Release date: May 31st
Record label: K/Perennial
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, experimental rock, post-punk
Formats: Vinyl, digital

The Columbus, Ohio-based Winston Hightower has been making lo-fi indie rock since the mid-2010s, sometimes just via uploading songs to his Bandcamp and other times via cassettes and CDRs on small labels. Hightower has never released a vinyl record and is still fairly unknown outside of his local region–two problems that K and Perennial Records sought to fix this year with Winston Hytwr, a vinyl compilation of a dozen Winston Hightower songs selected from across his career thus far. Hightower clearly deserves to be considered as an essential part of Ohio’s modern lo-fi pop scene, but Winston Hytwr paints a picture of a musician who isn’t constrained to power pop and 90s-style indie rock either. Plenty of that is there, of course, but Hightower also incorporates more experimental usage of synths and a bit of offbeat jazz sensibilities, among other influences. (Read more)

Workers Comp – Workers Comp

Release date: May 31st
Record label: Ever/Never
Genre: Garage rock, fuzz rock, alt-country, lo-fi rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Between 2022 and 2023, three different four-song cassette EPs and a 7” single from power trio Workers Comp (singer/guitarist Joshua Gillis, drummer Ryan McKeever, bassist Luke Reddick) surfaced on the Baltimore-based Gillis’ own label, Glad Fact, all of which displayed a strong grasp of distorted, blustery lo-fi garage rock. Their first long-player is a compilation of this previously-released material, put out through Ever/Never Records with the addition of one new song (“Basic Values”). Taken as a whole, Workers Comp evokes a specifically blown-out, ragged version of Americana and rock and roll practiced by the likes of Omaha’s David Nance (with whom the Nebraska-originating McKeever is associated). Wherever Workers Comp go from here, it seems likely they’ll be fuzz-fried and ramshackle to the end. (Read more)

Honorable mentions:

Pressing Concerns: John’s Black Dirt, Distant Reader, Jose Israel, Hunger Anthem

Hey there, readers! It’s a big holiday week, but Rosy Overdrive is sending you to your various family gatherings and festivities with four more good records in tow. We have a vinyl release of a shelved mid-90s album from John’s Black Dirt, plus new albums from Distant Reader, Jose Israel, and Hunger Anthem for you to check out below. There won’t be a post tomorrow, but there should be something up on the day after Christmas (if I get the reissues/compilations list done by then, it’ll be that; it’ll be a Pressing Concerns if not).

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. And last but not least: don’t forget to vote in the 2024 Rosy Overdrive Reader’s Poll (deadline is this Friday, 12/27)!

John’s Black Dirt – Horrible Moments of Upness (Vinyl Release)

Release date: November 25th
Record label: Belligerent/Sullen Teen
Genre: 90s indie rock, fuzz rock, garage rock, noise rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Bushwacker

If you’re tuned in enough to what’s left of “the indie music press”, you might’ve seen a story from earlier this month about how Conor Oberst told his record label at the time, Wind-Up, not to release the debut album from post-grunge detritus Creed. It’s bad enough that Grass Records (as they were known then, pre-rebrand) inflicted My Own Prison on us in their successful bid for a mainstream rock breakthrough, but it also came at the expense of smaller (and actually good) bands like John’s Black Dirt, who were lost in the shuffle. After releasing Perpetual Optimism Is A Force Multiplier on Grass in 1994, the Minneapolis trio met up with Mercury Rev’s Dave Fridmann the following year to record a second album called Horrible Moments of Upness, but due to the aforementioned record label shenanigans, it never saw the light of day until a quarter-century after its completion. With help from Steve Albini and Taylor Hales (Paper Mice), John’s Black Dirt transferred the recordings from DAT to digital in 2017, made it available to stream in 2020 and, finally, released it on vinyl last month via Belligerent Records. So, what does what turned out to be the final album from bassist Brett Mizelle (who played in Unrest), drummer Mike Huber (who drums on Mercury Rev’s Yerself Is Steam), and guitarist Seth Mindel (apparently the only one of the three who played in another notable Minneapolis band–Mother’s Day) sound like?

Well, to put it reductively–it sounds like the mid-90s indie rock record that its bargain-bin-friendly album artwork (provided by Matt Franzen) hints at. It’s not as angry as the Archers of Loaf, not as heavy as Arcwelder, not as deconstructed as The Grifters, not as poppy as (later) Unrest–but these are the bands I think of when listening to Horrible Moments of Upness. It’s pure blustery Midwestern basement rock music–even in the wild, wild west of mid-90s alternative rock radio, there wasn’t really room for something as earnestly sloppy as “Bushwacker”, the record’s scene-setting opening track. And that’s probably the most accessible thing on Horrible Moments of Upness! John’s Black Dirt aren’t an outwardly abrasive band on this record, but that just means that Horrible Moments of Upness’ inherent oddness is of a more subtle variety. I’m way too deep down the rabbit hole to engage with an album like this normally; to me, the post-grunge Minutemen punk of “In a Dark Room” and the Quarterstick Records-like “My Heart & the Real World” are potential hit singles. The explosive, ugly “How to Destroy Art” is the fiery rock and roll mission statement, the burnt-out slow swayers “Gimme Some Time” and “Carl C. Reep” gorgeous power ballads. That’s what Horrible Moments of Upness sounds like to me–and who are you going to trust, Rosy Overdrive or Alan and Diana Meltzer? (Bandcamp link)

Distant Reader – Place of Words Now Gone

Release date: November 8th
Record label: Lily Tapes & Discs
Genre: Folk, slowcore, singer-songwriter
Formats: CD, digital
Pull Track: Emergency

Emmerich Anklam is a singer-songwriter from northern California–born in Santa Rosa, currently based in Berkeley–who has been making music as Distant Reader since 2017. Sometimes Distant Reader treads into the worlds of ambient and drone music, other times towards a more song-based slowcore and folk sound, but there appear to be threads connecting Anklam’s work–like the intersection of nature, man-made climate change, and the mythological nature of “California”, which Anklam has explored in albums like Six Fires in Northern California, Sea Level, and Home Power. The latter of those three was released on Rochester experimental folk imprint Lily Tapes & Discs (Ylayali, Hour, Michael Cormier-O’Leary), and after a period of self-released records, Place of Words Now Gone marks Distant Reader’s return to their roster. Anklam’s latest is a gorgeous slow-folk record–even though his writing is still linked to California, Place of Words Now Gone does remind me of the quieter side of upstate New York folk rock acts like Another Michael, Ben Seretan, and Blue Ranger, so Lily Tapes & Discs feels like a natural place for this record. Anklam recorded Place of Words Now Gone with multi-instrumentalist Andrew Weathers last year at Wind Tide in Littlefield, Texas, and the two of them balance the intimate, quiet nature of Anklam’s writing with a full sound including pedal steel, saxophone, and field recordings from Weathers.

Lily Tapes & Discs describes Place of Words Now Gone as a “fully-realized narrative suite” that “describes an eerie spell of silence that spreads through a remote community”. In this way, it’s in the same vein as Advance Base’s recent album Horrible Occurrences, which also uses silence and hushed tones to mirror the unspoken darkness of small-town America. Anklam doesn’t clearly unspool an obvious story throughout Place of Words Now Gone; the physical CD comes with a lyric booklet so you can try to piece the events together if you’re so inclined, landing on key lines and depictions like the “suffocating smoke” in “Outpost”, or the ten houses “drifting on planks so close to the shore…where one could feel at home once, but never more” in “Ten Houses” (with the striking sound of seagulls present in the background). Weathers and Anklam do dress these seven songs up with the aforementioned instrumentation, but Place of Words Now Gone is unmistakably a folk album at its core; every track centers Anklam’s voice and lyrics, the ambient instrumental side of Distant Reader used as a (nonetheless potent) way to connect these central pieces. It feels right that I’m writing about this album in the no-man’s-land of late December; this is the kind of album that should be stumbled onto unsuspectingly, only to stick with you long after this initial moment. (Bandcamp link)

Jose Israel – To Live in Brief Wonder

Release date: October 31st
Record label: 7Songs
Genre: Experimental rock, post-punk, art rock, math rock, lo-fi indie rock
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: Bring Me Back 2 Life

At the beginning of this year, I heard an EP called Fragments by Chicago quartet Rotundos. The four-song EP (as seen on Rosy Overdrive’s Top 25 EPs of 2024) covered everything from garage rock to post-punk to post-hardcore to pop punk in its brief runtime, and it was more than enough for me to be interested in any future records from the band. The new Rotundos album isn’t out yet (sources tell me it may appear early next year), but in the meantime I was happy to find out that one of the band’s members, Jose Israel, has put together a solo album called To Live in Brief Wonder. The record (whose tracklist appears to be different on streaming services than it is on Bandcamp) reflects the adventurousness seen in Israel’s band–To Live in Brief Wonder is a brief but electric collection of everything from polished-up indie rock to lo-fi garage punk to experimental, math-y guitar pop, among several other genres. Israel clearly has enough talent to pull off this kind of jumping around–there are moments in To Live in Brief Wonder so disparate as to be nearly aurally whiplash-inducing, but it’s not like there’s one “truer” part of Israel’s sound than another. Israel’s decided to put it all out there for us to take in on To Live in Brief Wonder, and it’s a good enough album to command the attention it requires.

To Live in Brief Wonder may traverse a lot of ground in a short amount of time, but Jose Israel still takes pains to roll out the red carpet with the attention-grabbing, shined-up indie rock of “Bring Me Back 2 Life” at the start of the record (at least, the version I’ve been listening to). Not that the next few tracks aren’t catchy in their own ways, too, but they’re more muddied, with “Make Me” exploring a distorted, punk-tinged sound in under two minutes and “Yo Voy Con Ti” tempering its bounciness with some moments of rage. To Live in Brief Wonder really goes off the beaten path towards the middle of the record–“Stars in My Eyes” is part mid-tempo indie rock ballad, part jazz-pop, and “Waiting in the Sitting Room” similarly combines fine-edged rock music with outside influences to intriguing ends. If you’re expecting To Live in Brief Wonder to clear things up as it draws to a close, you’ll be left disappointed, as the album finishes with a sixty-second garage punk ripper (the appropriately-titled “Corto!”), a wild post-hardcore track (“Permanent”), and a brief, quiet jazzy benediction called “I Can’t Tell”. This is To Live in Brief Wonder, and we have to either take it or leave it as is. I’ll take it. (Bandcamp link)

Hunger Anthem – Lift

Release date: December 6th
Record label: Cornelius Chapel
Genre: Power pop, pop punk, college rock, punk rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Pull Track: Lift

Hunger Anthem began in the early 2010s as a solo project for singer/guitarist Brendan Vaganek in Buffalo, New York; Vaganek eventually relocated to Athens, Georgia and added drummer Cameron Kelly and drummer Margo for a tight power trio lineup. Hunger Anthem’s output has been pretty sporadic–a self-titled album in 2011, an EP in 2015, a few scattered singles–but their long-in-the-making second LP, Lift, sounds like the band attempting to make up for lost time. Released via notable southern punk rock label Cornelius Chapel, Lift zips through a dozen tracks that range between a snotty, garage-y flag-waving pop punk sound and the catchy college rock in which Hunger Anthem’s hometown is steeped. Pretty much every ingredient for a classic pop punk record is here–a bunch of hooks, Vaganek’s anthemic bleat of a lead vocal, a firing-on-all-cylinders instrumental trio, Margo’s sparingly-used but expertly-deployed backing vocals. It’s all over in a little over a half-hour, but there’s more than enough on Lift for us to sit with for however long it takes Hunger Anthem to make some more tunes.

Lift starts with nothing less than the “Sun”, a song that begins with a clean electric guitar and eventually congeals into a utilitarian but still potent mid-tempo power pop introduction. Hunger Anthem’s punk side first shows up in the slightly mussed up southern punk of “Remedy” (and then again not long afterwards in the vaguely threatening “Ways”), while the bright, jangly “Patron” warps Hunger Anthem’s sound into a slightly more on-edge sounding version of classic college rock (rivaled only by excellent penultimate track “Pattern” in this regard). I think my favorite version of Hunger Anthem’s sound is when the trio stretch things out and get a bit more ambitious–the first indication of this on Lift is on “Soul of Clay”, which is a far-reaching power-punk-ballad that’s nearly twice as long as anything else on the record up until that point. My overall favorite moment on Lift is the title track, though–it doesn’t quite sound like anything else on the record, and the refrain is slowly pieced together rather than mercilessly flogged. “Lift” is a desperate-sounding track, with the guitar chords frantically bashed out; the bass does the melodic heavy lifting, which is the most “pop punk” thing about it. Or maybe it’s the vocal trade-off between Margo and Vaganek that slowly takes shape over the course of the track, which only adds to the eventual catharsis. Most records like this don’t have something like “Lift” on them, but thankfully Hunger Anthem either don’t know that or don’t care. (Bandcamp link)

Also notable:

Pressing Concerns: Poem Rocket, Loose Koozies, Daydream Three, Dead Senses

Hey there, everyone! It’s a Thursday Pressing Concerns; usually, I’d be looking at new albums coming out tomorrow in this column, but because there isn’t anything coming out this Friday that I want to write about (that I’ve heard yet, at least), we’re instead looking at some records from November and earlier this month I’ve been meaning to get to: a “lost EP” from Poem Rocket, and new albums from Loose Koozies, Daydream Three, and Dead Senses. It’s been a busy week, so if you missed either Monday’s Pressing Concerns (featuring Mystery Fix, Yussa-Exide, Possum in My Room, and Schande) or Rosy Overdrive’s Top 25 EPs of 2024 (which went up Tuesday), check those 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. And last but not least: don’t forget to vote in the 2024 Rosy Overdrive Reader’s Poll!

Poem Rocket – Lend-Lease

Release date: November 15th
Record label: Silver Girl
Genre: Art rock, post-rock, post-punk, noise rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Depth Charge

Poem Rocket are a New York indie rock band that formed in the 1990s, and they do indeed sound like a New York indie rock band from the 1990s. Husband and wife duo Michael Peters (vocals/guitar) and Sandra Gardner (vocals/bass) co-founded the band in 1992, eventually adding guitarist Mike Knowlton (who has recently started making music as Unlettered) and drummer Peter Gordon, both previously of the band Gapeseed, in the late 90s. The bulk of the band’s output (two albums and two EPs) came out between 1995 and 2000, with 2007’s double album Invasion! being the only new Poem Rocket material since that point. This year brought an unexpected Poem Rocket resurgence, however–new live shows, talk of new material in 2025, and the unearthing of Lend-Lease, the band’s “lost EP”. These four songs were recorded in 1999 but shelved until last month, when Silver Girl Records (Dewey Defeats Truman, The Summer Hits, Spare Snare) put the record out on vinyl. Lend-Lease is a portrait of a band tapping into a long line of New York art rock groups from Sonic Youth to Live Skull to Blonde Redhead, but it’s also a document of a group in its own prime and speaking a unique, self-cultivated language.

Lend-Lease is a sprawling record–it takes twenty-six minutes to wind its way through these four songs. The music of Poem Rocket is a bit hard to describe; it’s almost easier to say what they don’t sound like on Lend-Lease. They aren’t low-end-worshipping Unsane-ish cavemen noise rock, nor are they clear-cut Sonic Youth distortion/fuzz architects–and they’re not comparable to any of the main “post-rock” bands either. Poem Rocket’s version of rock music is deliberately moving, fully-sketched out but not overwhelming, and lengthy without being “jammy” or drone-y. Lend-Lease is a marvel of well-orchestrated indie rock made with a utilitarian toolkit–every surprising acoustic bit, every piano accent, every confident step taken forward by the electric guitars feels like the result of much deliberation and mapping. The first half of the EP is Poem Rocket at their purest, with “Depth Charge” and “Vera Shore” both largely digging into the soil of post-punk and experimental rock steadily and skillfully. On the flipside of Lend-Lease, it’s time for some relative extremes: the acoustic guitar that grounds “Black Freighter Contraband” helps Poem Rocket hold back just enough to pull off the folk and blues phantoms injected into the track, while eight-minute closing track “A.R.P. (Air Raid Protection)” is Poem Rocket at their most urgent, indeed sounding like an air raid siren for parts of the song. This only applies to parts of “A.R.P.”, though, not all of it–like the rest of Lend-Lease, Poem Rocket are running a marathon, not a sprint. (Bandcamp link)

Loose Koozies – Passing Through You

Release date: December 6th
Record label: Tall Texan
Genre: Country rock, alt-country
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital
Pull Track: The Butterfly

California label Tall Texan’s underappreciated discography as of late has included everything from Houston alt-country to Bay Area jangle pop to Pittsburgh post-punk; the imprint got its foot in the door in the world of Michigan indie rock by releasing a 7” from Idle Ray last year, and they’ve reaffirmed their commitment to the Mitten this year by putting out Passing Through You, the second LP from Detroit quintet Loose Koozies. Guitarist/vocalist/songwriter E.M. Allen, pedal steel guitarist Pete Ballard, bassist Erin Davis, drummer Nick German, and guitarist Audrey Moran are a group of Michigan ringers (German’s played in the band Don’t with Interior Geometry’s Jared Sparkes, Davis in Failed Flowers with Fred Thomas and Anna Burch) who came together to make rollicking country rock in the late 2010s, with a string of singles culminating in their debut, 2020’s Feel a Bit Free. Passing Through You might’ve taken four more years to materialize, but Loose Koozies’ follow-up statement is a solid and thorough one; these fourteen songs are impeccably written and presented, sounding polished but loose and automatic but thoughtful. There are a few surprises to be found across the forty-odd minute LP, but for the most part the five Koozies lock in and play their parts to their best abilities, turning in a very smooth journey.

Even on Passing Through You’s quietest moments, the songs still bear the mark of a five-piece band–and, by the same token, even Loose Koozies at their most “rock” is a bit more reserved and clever than your Replacements-level alt-country group. “Haworthia” opens the curtains on the record with the platonic ideal of mid-tempo country-infused rock music, while the bass-forward rock and roll of “Stuntman” (“I’m a stuntman / Give me something stupid to do and I’ll do it for you”) gets the train rolling and the charming duet between Allen and Kelly Jean Caldwell in “I Won’t Be Leaving Here (Unless It’s With You)” is accented by Moran’s guitar leads. A record as substantial as Passing Through You can be broken up into several distinct sections–there’s a laid-back stretch after the opening gunshot, followed by a resurgence in the run from “Highways Gone” to “Wobbly Wheel”. This time around, though, the rousing country rock of the band flirts with new ideas in the former track’s almost psychedelic embrace of kraut-y rhythms and with the surprising synth accents found in the song immediately after it, “The Butterfly”. There’s plenty more to absorb and dissect throughout Passing Through You; thankfully Loose Koozies have built up the record in a way that welcomes us back to the well as many times as we need to do so. (Bandcamp link)

Daydream Three – Stop Making Noise

Release date: November 8th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Fuzz rock, noise rock, garage rock, 90s indie rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Death Makes Fun of Us

Sicilian musician Enzo Pepi has played in local groups Twig Infection, The Pepiband, and Carmelo Amenta’s band, and at the end of last decade he started a solo project called Daydream Three. Stop Making Noise is the third Daydream Three album (following 2019’s Daydream and 2021’s The Lazy Revolution), and it was recorded live by Carlo Barbagallo at the Arsonica concert hall in Syracuse, with the goal being to capture the sound of the Daydream Three live band (Pepi, bassist Alessandro Formica, and drummer Vincenzo Arisco) as accurately as possible. Both the ironic album title and the (presumably less ironic) name of the band paint an accurate picture of what Daydream Three sound like at their most plugged-in–a loud, fuzzed-out indie rock group in the vain of the more straightforward side of Sonic Youth, Crazy Horse, and other groups who favor blunt, stoic, and noisy rock music. Even with the setup favoring maximum rock and roll, however, Stop Making Noise has plenty of subtler moments, and Pepi’s performance as a frontperson (a particularly European mix of blasé, nostalgic, sarcastic, and nihilistic) is as key to the feel of the album as the buzzing six-strings.

Stop Making Noise opens with “Death Makes Fun of Us”, which is a quite fitting introduction to Daydream Three–it’s loud, it’s catchy, Pepi sounds like he’s shrugging in his vocals, and the lyrics will probably make you feel bad. It’s hardly the only real rocker on the record–Stop Making Noise is full of lumbering walls of sound, from the twitching “We Are Not Guilty” to the windswept “Flow” to the almost-glam “Mad Dog” to the big riff of “You Can’t Deceive Me Anymore”. Daydream Three are so committed to seeing out this side of their music that the exceptions stick out even more strongly; for one, the decision to put the half-asleep, acoustic guitar-led “Meat Sauce” second in the album’s sequence is a bold one (ah, a Sicilian band with a song called “Meat Sauce”; can’t make this stuff up). There’s a bit of fuzz in mid-record highlight “Only Sweet Words”, but it’s in the service of a cavernous, subdued mid-tempo slowcore-influenced song that shows a lot more restraint than Daydream Three bother with elsewhere on the album. And then of course there’s “You Have No Control”, the album’s closing dirge, which ends Stop Making Noise with that cheery message about life. Let’s, uh, turn the amplifiers back up rather than dwell on that for too long, shall we? (Bandcamp link)

Dead Senses – DREAMLESS

Release date: November 1st
Record label: Record Heads
Genre: Noise rock, post-hardcore, post-punk
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: That’s Amoré

There’s no mistaking it; Dead Senses are a noise rock band. Bassist/vocalist Michael Siciliano, guitarist Sal Lorenzana, and drummer Scott Werren have all played in “punk, hardcore, metal, noise rock, and power violence bands in LA, Chicago, and Pittsburgh” before meeting in the former of those three cities to form Dead Senses in 2022 and getting to work by putting out two demo EPs and a full-length (via Already Dead Tapes) over the next year and a half. Their second album is called DREAMLESS, and while the trio may have wide-ranging musical backgrounds, they’re locked in on that classic noise rock sound for the entirety of the nineteen-minute LP. Sure, they mention all the right names in their biography–Chat Pile, The Jesus Lizard, Pissed Jeans–but it takes more than that to make something vital-sounding in this subgenre. DREAMLESS is pulverizing, angry, and hopeless–Siciliano, Lorenzana, and Werren all seem to be on the same dismal page with regards to this sound. Siciliano is a classic rant-yeller, and the rhythm section is just as rock-solid as one could possibly want in a noise rock record–there’s nothing fancy to be found on DREAMLESS, of course.

Dead Senses make the inspired decision to open up DREAMLESS by beating us all into submission with “Writhe”–Siciliano wields the titular word like a giant club, both commanding us to do what it suggests and describing what the band themselves do throughout the song. The drain-circling gives way to the unhinged “Fake”, a more limber rocker featuring a particularly wild Siciliano vocal (“So wipe those tears away / We’re fake / And no one cares!” is Dead Senses’ positive message this time around). The electric, hot-to-the-touch garage punk instrumental of “That’s Amoré” is oddly catchy, but rest assured that Siciliano’s “That’s love!” is delivered with the bluntest sarcasm. The gray fireworks simply don’t stop as DREAMLESS roars into its second half–the noisy flare-ups in the title track are a nice touch, and Dead Senses practically sum up their entire record with the pointed noise-punk of “It Just Gets Worse” (Siciliano oscillating between raging against the titular fact and dejectedly accepting it). I wouldn’t call Dead Senses a “neat” band, but they wrap up their business in clean fashion–all eight songs on the record are between a minute and a half and three minutes, and the LP itself is done in under twenty. Dead Senses respect the mercy rule, even if the world they depict in their music decidedly doesn’t. (Bandcamp link)

Also notable:

Rosy Overdrive’s Top 25 EPs of 2024

Hot on the heels of Rosy Overdrive’s Top 100 Albums of 2024 last week, the next year-end list on the blog gives the little guy some attention. And by “little guy”, I mean EPs, obviously. This is the EP list. Putting together 100 LPs is the most time-consuming part of the year-end list season for me, so I’m probably most “proud of” that list, but the EP list might be my favorite one to do for the blog, because it typically results in highlighting the smallest and least-praised acts of any of RO’s lists.

Here are links to the EPs on this list that are on streaming services: Spotify, Tidal. Look for a Best Compilations/Reissues of 2024 list and a couple more Pressing Concerns before the year’s out. To read about much more music beyond what’s on this list, check out the site directory, and if you’d like to support Rosy Overdrive, you can share this (or another) post, or donate here. Thank you for reading, and, last but not least: don’t forget to vote in the 2024 Rosy Overdrive Reader’s Poll!

25. Mei Semones – Kabutomushi

Release date: April 5th
Record label: Bayonet
Genre: Jazz-pop, indie pop, bossa nova, orchestral pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital

I hadn’t been familiar with Mei Semones before hearing Kabutomushi, but the Michigan-originating, Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter has been putting out singles and EPs for a couple of years and seems to have gotten a bit of buzz despite no full-length albums as of yet. It’s hard not to like her after hearing her latest five-song EP, however–Kabutomushi offers up superb indie pop music with bits of jazz, J-pop, bossa nova, folk, indie rock, and orchestral pop. It’s certainly “pop music from somebody who studied guitar at Berklee”, but the writing of Semones (who sings in both English and Japanese) is simply too warm and vibrant to fall into the potential pitfalls that come with such a designation.

24. Fold Paper – 4TO

Release date: July 12th
Record label: Royal Mountain
Genre: Math rock, post-punk, noise rock
Formats: Digital

Recorded by Electrical Audio’s Greg Norman and mastered by Stuck’s Greg Obis, 4TO finds Winnipeg’s Fold Paper declaring themselves to be part of the burgeoning scene of noisy North American post-punk and math rock made up of bands like Pardoner and their tourmates Pile. Although 4TO only has four tracks, each of them stretches past four minutes, and they all contain intriguing and kinetic moments of inspired experimental rock music, ensuring that it’s a memorable first statement from Fold Paper. 4TO does a lot in its brief runtime (from hypnotic instrumental math rock to fiery garage rock to blunt-object post-punk), hinting at several exciting directions in which Fold Paper could expand themselves from here. (Read more)

23. Rotundos – Fragments

Release date: January 12th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Garage rock, post-punk, art punk
Formats: Digital

Chicago group Rotundos have been pretty active as of late (not to mention a recent solo album from one of their members, Jose Israel), but I’m going all the way back to January for their four-song EP Fragments. Fragments introduces the band in a brief but quite variable package–it covers art punk, garage rock, post-punk, and maybe even a bit of mathy post-hardcore, all in under a dozen minutes. It’s hard to get a handle on Rotundos here; one minute, they’re firing off the ragged power poppy-punk rock of “Maybe”, another one and they’re plowing through the furious garage punk of “I’m on the Run from Your Heart”. It’s certainly exciting to try and figure them out on Fragments, though.

22. Dazy – IT’S ONLY A SECRET (If You Repeat It) / I GET LOST (When I Try to Get Found)

Release date: October 25th/December 5th
Record label: Lame-O
Genre: Power pop, fuzz rock, fuzz pop, pop punk, alt-dance, Madchester
Formats: Digital

I have no problem combining these two Dazy EPs, since they’re still only fifteen minutes long (and thus shorter than several other entries on this list) when taken together. Brief three-song EPs were important in the early days of James Goodson’s one-man fuzzy-power-pop project, and he’s returned to the format for the most substantial new Dazy music since 2022’s OUTOFBODY and its companion EP OTHERBODY. The trick that Dazy pulls on IT’S ONLY A SECRET (If You Repeat It) and I GET LOST (When I Try to Get Found) is remarkable–it’s a clear sonic evolution, leaning more than ever on electronic and dance music, but it still only sounds like Dazy. (Read more – IT’S ONLY A SECRET)

21. Citric Dummies – Trapped in a Parking Garage

Release date: August 9th
Record label: Feel It/Saalepower 2
Genre: Garage punk, punk rock, hardcore punk
Formats: Vinyl, digital

“I’m driving a piece of shit, because I’m a piece of shit”. “Look out world, I’m eating Arby’s”. And, of course, “I’m trapped in a parking garage”. These are but a few of the Citric Dummies’ proclamations on Trapped in a Parking Garage. Just a few months after the Minneapolis trio bravely took on their hometown heroes in Zen and the Arcade of Beating Your Ass, the Wesley Willises of Midwestern garage punk returned with a four-song 7” assault that continues their steamrolling balance of raw rock aggression and an irreverent, charmingly goofy side. There’s hardly a shortage of hardcore and garage-infused punk bands across these United States at the moment, but few are doing it with as much personality as the Citric Dummies.

20. Various – CYLS Split Series #5

Release date: November 22nd
Record label: Count Your Lucky Stars
Genre: Power pop, pop punk, emo, alt-rock, indie pop, slowcore
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Nearly a decade after the fourth entry in their split 7” series, key fourth-wave emo label Count Your Lucky Stars Records is experiencing a renaissance of its own, with both new bands and familiar faces releasing great music on the label over the past few years. It seemed like a perfect time to renew the series, and label head Keith Latinen didn’t have to look far to find worthy contributors. The four bands on CYLS Split Series #5 have all released great albums on Count Your Lucky Stars within the past two years and change, and the exclusive tracks they bring to this EP are all just-as-strong entries into these acts’ relative discographies. Regardless of one’s previous relationship (or lack thereof) with Camp Trash, Expert Timing, Mt. Oriander, and Thank You, I’m Sorry, this is a great place to begin familiarizing one’s self with them. (Read more)

19. Podcasts – Supreme Auctions

Release date: September 13th
Record label: Omegn Plateproduksjon
Genre: Jangle pop, post-punk, power pop
Formats: Digital

The first Podcasts release since their 2023 self-titled debut LP is a brief but welcome EP called Supreme Auctions, which zips through “3.5 songs” in about eight minutes. It’s the Oslo quartet at their most laconic yet–nothing on this EP is longer than three minutes, and the first song (an instrumental introduction that I’ll assume is the “.5” track) comes in at under a minute. More than just the song lengths, though, Supreme Auctions contains some of the band’s most unvarnished pop songwriting yet–the odd, tricky detours in Podcasts’ jangly power pop haven’t vanished exactly, but with little time to spare, they’re kept more towards the margins, giving these tracks a bit more runway with which to take off. (Read more)

18. Tulpa – Dismantler

Release date: February 7th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Indie pop, fuzz pop, power pop, dream pop
Formats: Cassette, digital

Leeds’ Tulpa have already played shows with some bands I like (Lightheaded, 2nd Grade), so I suppose it’s not a huge surprise that the band’s debut EP, Dismantler, is right up my alley. It’s a very strong indie pop record of several stripes–the polished side of Tulpa is up front via the slick power pop group of the title track and the punchy twee-punk of “Danse Macabre”, while the other four tracks on Dismantler show off Tulpa’s ability to make noisier, more mussed-up guitar pop music. Tulpa deploy distortion expertly (see “Hellbound” and “Echo Maker”) but they aren’t wedded to it, leading to a pleasingly varied first statement.

17. Surrealistic Pillhead – Surrealistic Pillhead

Release date: May 8th
Record label: Future Shock
Genre: Garage rock, art punk, garage punk
Formats: Cassette, digital

Surrealistic Pillhead are a new band from Philadelphia featuring a few notable musicians (guitarist Ian Corrigan plays in Star Party, bassist Hart Seely in Sheer Mag), and their debut EP is out via legendary Cincinnati garage rock imprint Future Shock. Surrealistic Pillhead is a fairly hard-to-categorize rock record–there’s a garage rock and punk attitude, yes, and “Angora Branch” is snotty enough for the entire four-song EP, but there’s power pop, classic rock, and a bit of glam in EP’s more accessible moments (like my favorite track, “It’s Over”). Right up until the wild synths wiggle throughout closing track “Sense of Things”, one gets the sense that Surrealistic Pillhead are already pretty good at several different things, and I’d certainly be interested in hearing more from them.

16. Rip Van Winkle – The Grand Rapids

Release date: February 23rd
Record label: Splendid Research
Genre: Post-punk, experimental rock, lo-fi indie rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

I liked the one Guided by Voices album that came out this year (June’s Strut of Kings), but my favorite Robert Pollard release of 2024 was the debut from his new Rip Van Winkle side project. For those of us who believe Pollard is always at his most brilliant with a little bit of unpredictability and weirdness thrown into the mix, The Grand Rapids EP is a breath of fresh air, a throwback to early Guided by Voices grab-bag EPs where huge pop songs sit side by side with clanging basement post-punk. The triumphant lo-fi “The Metal Clip That Goes Over” and the acoustic fragment of “Storage” have to share space with the freaky instrumental “Images from a Dead Planet” and the raving “He Did the Clock”, and everything feels all the more vital for it.

15. The Gabys – The Gabys

Release date: September 6th
Record label: Fruits & Flowers
Genre: Dream pop, indie pop, lo-fi pop, slowcore
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Though they may be across the globe in Britain, The Gabys fit very well among the quieter side of the current guitar pop revival happening in the San Francisco Bay Area–if that’s your speed, you will find The Gabys’ ability to make timeless-sounding, wistful indie pop songs from the most basic of ingredients quite impressive as well. The Gabys has a few hallmarks–simple chord progressions delivered with as much feeling as possible, wispy, gazing-out-the-window dream pop-style vocals, unobtrusive drum machines, classic rock and roll slowed to a crawl. It’s an EP that’s gotten the art of giving us exactly what’s needed and nothing more down pat. (Read more)

14. Honeypuppy – Nymphet

Release date: January 24th
Record label: Indecent Artistry
Genre: Indie pop, twee, fuzz rock, power pop
Formats: Cassette, digital

Honeypuppy are a new group from Athens, Georgia featuring four-fifths of the lo-fi indie rock group Telemarket. Nymphet is our first glimpse of Honeypuppy, and they seem more like straight shooters than Telemarket–bandleader Josie Callahan is an excellent pop songwriter, as all of these songs boast big hooks. And yet, Honeypuppy still find time to break out some noisy, speedy, guitar-freakout indie rock in their opening statement, almost certainly benefiting from the quartet’s previous experience playing together. Nymphet is always a pop record, whether it’s via girl-group-on-Kill Rock Stars vibes, subtle toe-tappers, or laid-back sunny flower-garden pop. (Read more)

13. Apollo Ghosts – Amethyst

Release date: February 23rd
Record label: You’ve Changed
Genre: Jangle pop, guitar pop, power pop, college rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Apollo Ghosts are a Vancouver-based college rock/jangle pop quartet who I was surprised to learn have been around since at least the late 2000s. I’d seen some raving about the group (guitarist/vocalist Adrian Teacher, bassist Amanda Panda, guitarist Hasan Li, and drummer Dustin Bromley) around the time of the 2022 double album Pink Tiger–it passed me by, but I caught February’s Amethyst, and it hooked me. On the seven-song record, Apollo Ghosts fall somewhere in between fellow Canadian guitar poppers Kiwi Jr. (the sardonic, Pavement-fluent side) and Ducks Ltd. (the casual, flowing melodic side); sometimes Teacher comes off as more serious, sometimes fairly goofy, but regardless of that, Amethyst is always on some fully-developed, all-in New Zealand-style guitar pop.

12. Fast Execution – Menses Music

Release date: August 8th
Record label: Dandy Boy
Genre: Punk rock, pop punk, fuzz rock, riot grrl
Formats: Vinyl, digital

From the title on down, it’s not hard to gather that Oakland’s Fast Execution are drawing from classic riot grrl on Menses Music, although the punk trio’s debut release is firmly on the more polished and tuneful side of the subgenre; their brief but memorable first impression is made to the tune of garage rock, power pop, and West Coast pop punk. As a frontperson, Alex Velasquez does indeed pull off riot-punk sloganeering, but for a record whose press bio says it was inspired by “ire” (at the male-dominated nature of rock music) and “hatred” (of “patriarchal machinations in rock music/modern society at large”), she displays range beyond the anger one would expect across the sub-fifteen minute EP. (Read more)

11. Dagwood – Pollyanna Visions

Release date: September 3rd
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Power pop, slacker rock, pop punk
Formats: CD, cassette, VHS, digital

After a decade of home recording their sharp, hooky alt-rock, power pop, and punk, New Haven’s Dagwood decided it was time to make a record in a proper studio. None other than go-to indie punk engineer Justin Pizzofferato was enlisted for the task, and the band traversed up to his Easthampton studio, Sonelab, to record the six-song Pollyanna Visions EP. Perhaps a tinge more laid-back than last year’s Everything Turned Out Alright, Dagwood on the whole lose little of their charm in a formal recording setting and continue to deliver hook-heavy, punk-influenced power pop effortlessly. I thought home-recorded Dagwood sounded just fine, but if the studio helped continue the band’s hot streak, then I’m all for it. (Read more)

10. Slake/Thirst – Hunting Dust

Release date: March 2nd
Record label: Self-released
Genre: 90s indie rock, slowcore, lo-fi indie rock
Formats: Digital

Slake/Thirst made a joke about “beat[ing] the ‘sounds like Pavement’ allegations” upon sending their debut EP, Hunting Dust, to me, and while that band is definitely an ingredient in Hunting Dust (vocalist Bobby Cardos does sound a bit like Stephen Malkmus, yes) as well as several of their contemporaries, it impresses me just how confident Slake/Thirst are in their explorations of 90s-inspired indie rock. The Brooklyn trio microgenre-hop across the 22-minute EP, stretching their sound into the cosmos and truncating it for quick hitting, but they find melody in just about everything they do. Slake/Thirst really sound like they’ve hit on something already–I even wish the long songs went on a bit longer here. (Read more)

9. Loto – A Year in Review

Release date: January 12th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, experimental rock, bedroom pop, folk rock
Formats: Digital

A Year in Review is a four-song EP that came out at the beginning of this year and, according to Loto’s Lautaro Akira Martinez-Satoh, sums up their 2023 (“It sucked”). Despite such a dour point of origin, A Year in Review is a quite beautiful record, even as a close reading of Loto’s lyrics reveal images of torment, despair, and pain among their lo-fi but full-sounding pop music. Loto pull together a small but substantial collection of music that’s surprising and all-over-the-place but quite accessible when it wants to be–about half of it is lo-fi and folk/rock based, while the other half leans a bit more into experimental music and “art pop”. As good as A Year in Review is, I do still hope that Loto had a better 2024. (Read more)

8. Mealworm – Mealworm

Release date: February 9th
Record label: Mealworm
Genre: Singer-songwriter, indie pop, bedroom pop, folk
Formats: Digital

I’ve heard a decent amount of Portland-based singer-songwriter Colleen Dow’s solo material and their main band, Thank You, I’m Sorry, but the debut EP from their latest project Mealworm is the best thing front-to-back that I’ve heard from them yet. The Mealworm EP is brief–three songs, less than nine minutes–but it’s a heavy listen as Dow immerses themself fully in writing about people formerly in their life who’ve since passed away. Dow sounds lucid and clear moving through the jaunty pop and bedroom folk rock of “Stick n Poke” and “Meal Plans”, respectively, while the dramatic, synth-colored “Takeout Receipts” is the one track where the haziness of Dow’s remembrances starts to be reflected in the music.

7. ME REX – Smilodon

Release date: May 1st
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Indie pop, synthpop, folktronica(?)
Formats: Digital

After releasing a rare proper full-length last year, 2024 saw ME REX make a triumph return to their preferred format–the four-song EP. The digital-only, self-released Smilodon feels like ME REX’s conscious attempt at a “lower-key” release–only, the songs didn’t seem to get the memo. If you’ve enjoyed the London trio’s unique sound on previous records–smartly-written indie folk rock in the vein of the Mountain Goats or Frightened Rabbit but with a wholehearted embrace of synths and sparkling pop music–you will find plenty to enjoy on Smilodon, an EP that does everything you’d want a ME REX record to do in ten minutes and change. (Read more)

6. Sailor Down – Maybe We Should Call It a Night

Release date: August 16th
Record label: Relief Map
Genre: Midwest emo, indie folk
Formats: Cassette, digital

Chloe Deeley began Sailor Down as a solo bedroom folk project, and its second EP is its first as a proper quartet. On Maybe We Should Call It a Night, Sailor Down already have a distinct sound down as a unit on the record; its six songs pull together 90s Midwest emo, no-frills indie rock, and the more melancholic sides of twee and indie pop for a nostalgic, accessible, but hardly surface-level record. Maybe We Should Call It a Night is disproportionately full of memorable lyrics and lines for a small release; the writing in these songs feels drawn from imagined conversations and late-night pacing sessions, which makes the realizations and punchlines feel stumbled-upon and thus land even harder. (Read more)

5. Friends of Cesar Romero – Last Summer a Year from Now

Release date: June 13th
Record label: Doomed Babe
Genre: Power pop, garage rock, pop punk
Formats: Digital

South Dakota’s J. Waylon Porcupine once again had a busy year releasing strong power pop and garage rock as Friends of Cesar Romero–the two song “More Like Norman Fucking Mailer” single deserves a mention, but Porcupine’s most substantial release of 2024 was the five-song, nine-minute Last Summer a Year from Now EP. Last Summer a Year from Now is Friends of Cesar Romero in the lightning round, with only one track breaking the two-minute mark, but every song on here is a reminder that this is one of the most consistently strong power pop projects going. It’s hook after hook after hook here, with even the token punk track (“Kinetic Threat”) getting its fair share in.

4. Mt. Worry – Die Happy

Release date: February 2nd
Record label: Mountain of Worry
Genre: Shoegaze, fuzz rock, lo-fi indie rock, noise pop
Formats: Digital

Philadelphia-originating fuzz rock supergroup Mt. Worry have an impressive pedigree, but last year’s debut EP A Mountain of Fucking Worry developed a sound distinct from the members’ various other projects, one that fits in well with their city of origin’s shoegaze/noise pop scene. Now with its members evenly split between Philly and Chicago, Mt. Worry are thankfully still going strong, with Die Happy arriving almost exactly a year after their first EP. Die Happy is brief–it’s ten-minutes long, and features only four songs–but it’s incredibly strong nonetheless, retaining the loose, “anything goes” energy of the debut but while also feeling like the work of a more cohesive unit. Explosive power pop, lumbering fuzz rock, and mutant, heavily-distorted bedroom pop all work in tandem with each other here. (Read more)

3. Mister Data – Missing the Metaphor

Release date: September 13th
Record label: Little Lifeforms
Genre: Folk rock, power pop, indie pop
Formats: CD, digital

Mister Data’s latest, a five-song EP called Missing the Metaphor, is a pretty big departure for the Houston group. Much of this can be chalked up to some major lineup changes since last year’s Pleasure in a Fast Void, including dropping down to a trio from a quintet. Missing the Metaphor is the sound of a band soldiering forward nonetheless, finding a new sound that emphasizes the songwriting and lyricism–and in the process, creating their strongest work yet. Intentionally or otherwise, Missing the Metaphor’s writing touches on stumbling forward uncertainly but bravely, dealing with the agony and ecstasy in trying to live for something–anything–bigger than one’s self. Missing the Metaphor is remarkable in its unflinching, cohesive cosmic ugliness, reaching for interstellar utopianism but still suffering from the indignity of life on Earth nonetheless. (Read more)

2. Mopar Stars – Burning Question

Release date: May 3rd
Record label: Furo Bungy
Genre: Power pop, fuzz rock, alt-rock
Formats: Digital

One of my favorite under-the-radar debut EPs of last year was Mopar Stars’ Shoot the Moon, an awesome record of fuzzed-out Philadelphia power pop helmed by Nao Demand (who also plays in Poison Ruïn and Zorn). Despite Demand’s other musical concerns, Mopar Stars (also featuring Bill Magger and Evan Campbell) is back a year later with Burning Question, a six-song EP every bit as catchy and smooth as their first one. The opening title track and “Severed Head” are two of the best power pop songs you’ll hear this year easily, and that’s not to diminish the rest of Burning Question either–the cranked-up rock and roll of the middle two tracks and the more sprawling final two songs ensure that we’re given Mopar Stars’ strongest single statement yet.

1. Wavers – Wavers

Release date: May 21st
Record label: Musical Fanzine
Genre: 90s indie rock, fuzz rock, lo-fi indie rock, lo-fi pop
Formats: CD, cassette, digital

Wavers are a new Pacific Northwest quartet who proudly declare their love of Discount, J Church, and Versus on their Bandcamp page (with “any of the emo stuff that NUMERO GROUP has reissued” helpfully added on for those of you who aren’t familiar with those could’ve-been-canonical-indie-rock groups). Their first release is a self-titled cassette EP, which finds Wavers sketching out their sound–a little bit of emo, some 90s indie rock, lo-fi indie pop, and even a bit of punk attitude in between the cracks–in under ten minutes. There’s no cover or shelter of any kind on such a short release–every moment of the EP counts, and Wavers deliver nothing less than five massive, economical indie rock songs in it. I’ve got a very good feeling about this band–get on the Wavers train early with me right now, and thank me later. (Read more)

Honorable mentions:

Pressing Concerns: Mystery Fix, Yuasa-Exide, Possum in My Room, Schande

Welcome to the second half of December! There’ll be more year-end wrapping up coming on the blog soon (hot on the heels of last week’s Top 100 Albums of 2024), but we’re starting off the week with a Pressing Concerns that pulls from a handful of underappreciated releases from the past couple of months: new albums from Mystery Fix, Possum in My Room, and Schande, plus a two-album cassette compilation from Yuasa-Exide.

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. And last but not least: don’t forget to vote in the 2024 Rosy Overdrive Reader’s Poll!

Mystery Fix – Life to Life

Release date: October 4th
Record label: Gare Du Nord
Genre: Synthpop, indie pop, pop rock, psych pop
Formats: CD, digital
Pull Track: Cinnabar

It might be unrealistic to hunt down and listen to every record associated with Anton Barbeau, but one could do far worse than trying. We last checked in on him last year upon the release of his double album Morgenmusik/Nachtschlager, but he’s been busy since then; as of late, Barbeau is one-half of the core duo of Mystery Fix alongside Tim Walters, the project’s founder. Walters, an Oakland-based “electroacoustic musician”, might seem like an odd collaborator for Barbeau (if anyone could be considered “odd” next to Barbeau, I suppose), but they’ve both collaborated with Scott Miller and The Loud Family–Walters contributing to Days and Days and Attractive Nuisance, Barbeau taking co-lead billing on What If It Works?–so they’ve got that in common, at least. After a few singles in 2022 and 2023, Mystery Fix has put together an entire full-length called Life to Life, and it’s clear that the combination of Walters (handling all the music aside from a couple of guest horn contributions) and Barbeau (the lyricist and lead vocalist, for the most part) is a winning one. It turns out that Walters has an ear for pop music and can put some great instrumentals to tape when the moment calls for it–the final product is a slightly more synthetic version of the irreverent, freewheeling pop rock of Barbeau’s solo career, and the vocalist is more than happy to meet the music where it’s at.

Walters’ electro-pop and synthpop creations are solid but not overly showy throughout Life to Life–typically, Barbeau’s vocals are the most prominent feature of the record. That doesn’t mean that Barbeau is all that discernable as a writer–for every relatively easy-to-grasp pop lyric like the easy, breezy, somewhat sleazy “Bask and Be”, there’s two tracks where he keeps literal meaning close to the vest. Not that songs like the whirling “Fragments” and the robotic “Insect Crawls” are completely opaque, mind you–every once in a while, Barbeau breaks through the freaky imagery to land something (“Whispers and rumors / The old water cooler / Lies and deception / Immaculate con job” in the former, “Once in a while next door neighbor smiles / Waves in a well meaning way, hello / Strapped to your chin, plastic human grin / You try but still you know” in the latter). One of the strongest moments is an entirely Walters-concocted number–“Cinnabar”, a really spare piece of almost-ambient synthesizer and uncertain but melodic vocals from the beatmaker. Barbeau takes the reins once Mystery Fix want to get a little more chaotic again–like in penultimate track “We Play Along”, where the horns squeal and Barbeau sings “Mingus, Monk, and Bird / The cosmic slop gets stirred / Music from the stars / Beams down into tiny cars”. Barbeau’s clearly bemused by this image, but it’s up to us to make something of it beyond that. (Bandcamp link)

Yuasa-Exide – Information and Culture + Naturally Reoccurring

Release date: November 8th
Record label: Round Bale/Ape Sanctuary
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, fuzz rock, noise pop, post-punk, lo-fi pop
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: RJR Nabisco Takeover

Douglas Busson is a Kentucky-originating musician who’s been a part of Minneapolis-St. Paul’s “sub-underground music community” for nearly two decades now. In 2021, Busson was left in constant pain and with limited mobility due to a spinal injury and subsequent surgeries–and he responded to these difficulties by making entirely too much music. From March 2022 to August of this year, Busson has (by my count) released seventeen full-lengths under the name Yuasa-Exide, as well as an EP, an outtakes compilation, and two “primers” pulling from these releases. He’s gotten help from some regular collaborators (Adam Bubolz, Matt Helgeson, and Emily Garber, among others), but the bulk of the heavy lifting is done by Busson himself. All of these records have been digital-only up until now; thanks to Mankato experimental label Round Bale Recordings, you can now hear Yuasa-Exide on cassette. Rather than going for the “discography-wide cherry-picking” approach of Busson’s digital compilations, the Information and Culture + Naturally Reoccurring cassette is simply the two most recent Yuasa-Exide albums–one on each side of the tape. What we’re left with is nearly an hour of unfiltered music from a persistent talent, an invigorating collection of lo-fi pop, fuzzy basement indie rock, and a few noisy experiments.

Information and Culture is the more accessible and “rocking” LP of the two to my ears, zipping through almost exactly thirty minutes’ worth of clanging, distorted underground indie rock that’s either on the scuzzier end of Flying Nun Records or the brighter end of Xpressway, and is likely going to be up the alley of anyone whose mind has even been blown by a Sebadoh recording. The lo-fi flag-waving is hardly surprising given everything about Yuasa-Exide, but the pop strengths are remarkable; throughout the record, song after song–“RJR Nabisco Takeover”, “Parallel Realities”, “Heaven’s Porch”, “Comfortable as Alex”–is just significantly stronger than the average lightning-quick self-releaser regularly pens (and I’m a big-time defender of a lot of those types, too). I don’t mean to make Naturally Reoccurring sound uninviting by comparison, but it’s a fitting B-side to Information and Culture’s lead-off slot–it’s more likely to echo than rock out, there are more confrontational moments, and even the record’s catchiest songs (the buzzing psych-fuzz pop of “Account Services”, the acoustic but forward-marching “I Never Turn Off the TV”) achieve their successes in a more roundabout way. The format of Information and Culture + Naturally Reoccurring is an enjoyable one–we’re dropping in on something remarkable happening in the upper Midwest, checking out the sixteenth and seventeenth albums from the project of a musician too busy to properly welcome us in but whose work is nonetheless worth the effort. (Bandcamp link)

Possum in My Room – POSSUMGHOST

Release date: October 18th
Record label: Sad Marsupial
Genre: Alt-country, lo-fi indie rock, post-punk, gothic country, slowcore
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: Roadkill

Rockaway, New Jersey’s Ted Orbach appears to be a classic Bandcamp toiler–dating back to 2019, their project Possum in My Room has put out a bunch of singles, EPs, and generally informal-seeming releases on a steady basis. As of late, Possum in My Room has been a trio rounded out by Claire Ruiz on bass and Konner Hunter on drums, and it’s this lineup that recorded their latest album, POSSUMGHOST, with Max Rauch at Domestic Bliss Recording. The resultant album is a full-band exploration of a dark Americana, influenced by slowcore and alt-country but without fitting neatly into either of those boxes. Orbach sounds like a biting folk rock singer possessed on some tracks, and smoothly fits on top of polished instrumentals on others. The thirty-five minute LP only has seven songs on it, so Possum in My Room are plenty sprawling throughout POSSUMGHOST, although they rarely strain themselves in the same direction twice (it’s probably reductive to say it reminds me of Neutral Milk Hotel just because of guest musician Thor Speeler’s singing saw contributions, but there’s something to that, I think, in parts of the album).

Opening track “Roadkill” is one of the more electric tracks on POSSUMGHOST, but it’s anything but a welcoming opening, as Orbach bitterly unspools a scene of chemicals, carrion, and vices over top of the agitated country-rock dagger of an instrumental. “&&&the Dogs are Howling in the Night” is the only other track on POSSUMGHOST I’d call a “rocker” with any kind of confidence, but it takes a different track to get there–its instrumental is minimal power-trio folk rock, leaving plenty of empty space for the titular line to echo over its significant repetition. In between and around these two tracks lurks the rest of the album, populated with thorny and uneasy songs like “Oystercatcher” and “The Song at the End of the World”,  both of which balance slow-moving beauty with the ugliness that never fully escapes Orbach’s writing. POSSUMGHOST certainly benefits from having a full band behind it (not to mention guests like Speeler and guitarist Dan Taggart), with the gothic folk of “No More Love//No More Death” and nine-minute closing epic “The Truth” reaching surprising places I wouldn’t necessarily expect a solo project to find. As the latter track finally staggers to a close, there’s a sense of relief, like the spirit of a hard-luck possum finally stepping out of its corporeal form. It’s not easy to make the feel-bad hit record of this winter, but Possum in My Room are on it. (Bandcamp link)

Schande – Once Around

Release date: September 27th
Record label: Daydream Library
Genre: 90s indie rock, art rock, post-punk
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Palimpsest

Most of you probably don’t recognize the name Jen Chochinov (aka Jen Schande), but she is a thirty-year indie rock veteran at this point, playing in American bands like Shove, Boyskout, and Schande at various times in her life. In recent years, Chochinov (who is also a history professor) has been living in London, and the current lineup of Schande (bassist Giovanni Villaraut and drummer Ryan Grieve) is based in the United Kingdom, as well. Chochinov has also done time in the Thurston Moore Guitar Ensemble (touring with them in 2018 and 2019), so when it came time for the first Schande LP in twenty years (and first record of any kind since 2019’s Pedigree EP), Moore’s Daydream Library imprint was the one who put it out. Despite Chochinov’s somewhat daunting background, Once Around is a pretty straightforward and accessible indie rock record–there are certainly moments in the nine-song, sub-thirty-minute album that feel like they were made by well-seasoned musicians, yes, but the LP feels primarily like a vessel for some sharp indie rock songwriting and to compliment the just-as-sharp interplay between the band’s three members.

Once Around does indeed sound like the work of a band with ties to Sonic Youth, although Schande mostly keep their guitar-forward, rumbling version of noisy indie rock to brief two-to-three-minute bursts. The most obvious example of this in the record’s first half is “Palimpsest”, an excellent version of droning, electric pop music from the get-go, but it’s hardly the only moment on the album where Schande turn their sights to big choruses and instrumental catharsis without any obvious academic hangups. “Apogee” and “Gregor MacGregor” both end up in this bliss zone as well; at their climaxes, Schande sound transcendent, achieving pop music perfection in an unlikely medium without sacrificing anything to get there. Impressively, Schande keep this winning streak going into Once Around’s second half–after the four-minute instrumental chapter-turner “Relevant Campaigns”, Chochinov, Villaraut, and Grieve jump right back into the thick of it. Well, they need a minute to warm up in the sprawling “Double Hackner”, but once the trio have locked in again, “We’re Not Twins” and “52 hz” ensure that Once Around is just as spirited and energetic in its homestretch as anywhere else on the album. Decades into their musical career, Chochinov and Schande seem most interested in making studious, disciplined rock music that’s still a blast to listen to, and Once Around is the rewarding result. (Bandcamp link)

Also notable:

Pressing Concerns: The Sewerheads, Snow Caps, Lose a Leg, Magic User

Hey there, everyone! In case you missed it, Rosy Overdrive’s Top 100 Albums of 2024 went up this week; if you’re still working your way through those, that’s understandable. However, there’s still new music coming out, and today looks at three albums coming out either tomorrow (December 13th) or this Saturday (the 14th): new LPs from The Sewerheads, Snow Caps, and Magic User. We’ve also got an album from Lose a Leg that came out last week thrown in for good measure, 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. And last but not least: don’t forget to vote in the 2024 Rosy Overdrive Reader’s Poll!

The Sewerheads – Despair Is a Heaven

Release date: December 13th
Record label: Tall Texan
Genre: Post-punk, art punk, noise rock, folk rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Memories

The tail end of 2024 features a notable beginning–the debut album from The Sewerheads, a new band made up of several Pittsburgh indie rock/post-punk/garage rock veterans. Guitarist/vocalist Eli Kasan is known to some as a member of the underrated Gotobeds, while drummer/pianist Evan Meindl played in the recently-broken-up Rave Ami, violinist/vocalist Shani Banerjee was in Empty Beings, and Matthew “My War” Schor is an engineer who runs a studio called The War Room (and if that’s not enough, Mint Mile bassist Matthew Barnhart recorded their debut LP at Electrical Audio, and it features trumpet and organ from fellow Gotobeds member Dane Adelman). Despair Is a Heaven, the first Sewerheads full-length, falls on the dark and gothic side of the post-punk spectrum, making ample use of Banerjee’s violin and Kasan’s drab lead vocals. String-heavy post-punk always reminds me of the Mekons, and there’s some of them in the album’s lighter moments, but the record’s mix of electric garage rock tangles, prowling noir-rock, and burnt-out Rust Belt folk-punk (in a Poguesian sense) is kin to gutter-scrapers like The Birthday Party, Mark Lanegan, Iceage, and (known Gotobeds collaborators) Protomartyr. Kasan mentions being inspired by outlaw country in his songwriting, and while I’m not going to call Despair Is a Heaven “twangy”, the combination of a rambling ne’er-do-well frontperson with a skilled band that can do both “sprawling” and “tight” is an intriguing one. 

Despair Is a Heaven isn’t an overly welcoming album, but at least it opens with “It Came As a Surprise”, which is about as catchy as The Sewerheads’ whole get-up can be. Kasan and Banerjee trade off their vocals in a way that creates a dialogue (a tool that the band utilizes to impressive ends over and over again on the album), while Banerjee’s soaring violin stands on equal footing with Meindl and Schor’s unblinking rhythm section. It feels confrontational to have the particularly grey “Diary of a Priest” in the record’s first half, but if you press forward you’ll reach a couple of songs that flex The Sewerheads’ clanging art punk muscles (“Daughter of a Child of Sorrow” and the title track) and Despair Is a Heaven’s second half, where the band’s traditionalist side gets a genuine spotlight. Kasan and Banerjee commune in “Your Old Bedroom”, the record’s mid-tempo folk rock centerpiece, while “Memories” is the closest The Sewerheads get to “country punk” and the scorching, Banerjee-led “Little Fugitive” is a surprisingly all-in western ballad. Despair Is a Heaven is a lot to take in for a band’s first statement–right up until the final track, “Trick of the Rain”, which lapses into noise and false conclusions to make a taxing last stand. The Sewerheads are on the board now, and Despair Is a Heaven is hardly a record to take lightly. (Bandcamp link)

Snow Caps – Notes

Release date: December 13th
Record label: Strange Mono
Genre: Post-punk, new wave, bedroom pop, lo-fi pop
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: Broke Bay

I’m happy to introduce the music of Andrew Keller to you all. Well, maybe you’ve already heard of them–they’ve played in Philadelphia bands Hermit Thrushes and Jonagold, and the first album from their solo project Snow Caps came out all the way back in 2008 on Single Girl Married Girl Records (Kate Ferencz, No One and the Somebodies, Power Animal). Snow Caps is new to me, although their latest album, a ten-song cassette simply called Notes, feels oddly familiar. Notes’ version of pop music is warped but still potent; Keller’s influences are iconoclastic experimentalists like Kate Bush and Arthur Russell, as well as literature (citing the works of Virginia Woolf and Edmund White among others), and their music subsequently ends up sounding like offbeat pop rock from several decades past (from The Beatles to XTC and The Cleaners from Venus to They Might Be Giants). The Bandcamp page for this album highlights Keller’s “bizarre, beautiful melodies”, and I really can’t say it better myself–it’s a key ingredient to these ten songs, which are also carried by the inspired bedroom pop instrumentation and Keller’s layered vocals, which sound like an entire choir singing modern new wave hymns.

The non-intuitive left-turns, brisk tempos, and unstoppable hooks are all present from opening track “Blanket” onwards. Notes is never really full-on chaotic, but it’s always on edge; there’s a nervousness to this brief but full-feeling album nicked straight from the genesis of this kind of music. The chorus of “Broke Bay” has an “eerie carnival” vibe to it, wobbling and grinning uncertainly as Snow Caps stick the landing nonetheless. This somewhat mutated version of lo-fi guitar pop marks a lot of Notes, actually–there’s an Andy Partridge-like “pop music but falling off a melodic cliff” component to Keller’s writing, maybe more apparent in “Mere Mirror” and “Projected” but pretty much always present. Notes noodles around a little more in the second half–between the elastic jangle of “Pine Cloud” and the rumbling prog-pop of “Lie Ripened”, Keller has plenty more tricks up their sleeve–but it’s a refreshingly concise and consistent listen, succeeding all the way up to the final duo of “Dry Tone” (a minimal post-punk track that’s no less catchy) and “Shell in the Flower” (the triumphant big finish). The rhythms are firm and deft, the guitars frequently offer up blasts of catchiness, and when synths surface, they do much the same; it’s hard to put one’s finger exactly on what makes Snow Caps so odd, but it clearly has something to do with the attitude of their frontperson. (Bandcamp link)

Lose a Leg – The Vale of Awful Sound

Release date: December 6th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Post-rock, folk, psychedelia, chamber music, orchestral folk
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: I Shot an Arrow into the Air // Crown Shyness

Last December, I wrote about Lose a Leg, the self-titled fourth LP from David Roy’s instrumental post-rock solo project. The Glasgow musician (who’s played in bands like Sputniks Down, Multiplies, and Dananananaykroyd over the years) had been on an (at least) one Lose a Leg album a year schedule since 2020, but the stripped down (only electric guitar, bass, and drums) nature of Lose a Leg was something of a departure for the typically more orchestral-focused musician. Roy has once again returned with a Lose a Leg album right before the calendar flips to another year, this time with a five-song collection called The Vale of Awful Sound. Having gotten his “punk” album out of his system last year, The Vale of Awful Sound marks a return to a more expanded palette; both the “orchestral” and electronic-tinged sides of instrumental post-rock mark the record’s forty-one minutes. If guitars are present on the record, they’re generally of the tastefully-plucked acoustic variety, and while some of the tracks do have a drumbeat, it’s far from an integral, foundational tenet of these wandering, drifting pieces of music.

Roy softly eases us into The Vale of Awful Sound with “I Shot an Arrow into the Air // Crown Shyness”, a bright eight-minute track that features swooning strings, pianos, jazzy percussion, and a sparkling guitar part (it kind of reminds me of a busier version of the most recent Seawind of Battery album). The quiet, fuzzy, almost ambient electronic touches of “The Tree Held Him & Didn’t Drop So Much as a Leaf” make it a remarkable comedown from the commanding opening, cavernously beautiful in its own right, and the steady, hypnotic “A Walk Across the Treetops” attempts to find a midpoint between these two extremes (and ends up somewhere near Tortoise circa TNT, a more-than-welcome landing spot). “The Cailleach // Turning Back the Sun” once again turns towards the bright, folky tones Lose a Leg explored earlier, as do moments of closing track “A Poem Called ‘The Lure of the Pine Marten, The Scent of the Mink’ for a Dog That Went Off Overtoun Bridge”. The nearly twenty-minute finale takes up about half of The Vale of Awful Sound, and Roy really goes through it all on this progressive orchestral folk number–from bright and hopeful to tense and quiet to melancholic and thoughtful to a whipping whirlwind to a cold, empty finish. The song could stand on its own, but here it is hidden in the back of somebody from Scotland’s instrumental Bandcamp solo project. (Bandcamp link)

Magic User – Shadow on the Door

Release date: December 14th
Record label: Dandy Boy
Genre: Fuzz rock, 90s indie rock, lo-fi indie rock
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: Mirror World

When I think of Oakland’s Dandy Boy Records, it’s usually related to their position at the center of the thriving Bay Area jangle pop scene (perhaps best exemplified by their recent Martin Newell covers compilation), but the imprint has put out some solid sore thumbs recently, too–the fuzzed-out slacker-gaze of Nothing Natural, the grimy post-punk of Weird Numbers, and the punk blast of Fast Execution. The latest band to debut on Dandy Boy is Magic User, a project started by singer/guitarist Jordan Martich and rounded out by drummer Digger Barrett, guitarist Charles Thomas, and bassist Colin McDonald. Of the previously-mentioned bands, the one that Shadow on the Door reminds me the most of is Nothing Natural, but the main difference is that they’re even more “slacker rock” on their debut LP. Shadow on the Door is a thoroughly fuzzed out throwback to indie rock’s basement era, with the quartet blending loud guitars and downcast melodies together in vintage Dinosaur Jr. fashion while also reminding me of modern groups mining a similar vein like Gnawing and Late Bloomer.

Shadow on the Door isn’t really a “shoegaze” album, but Magic User get their shit together for a proper three-minute wall-of-sound opening track called “Cowboy”, which yanks us into the quartet’s world of distortion and bummer pop forcefully. Magic User then veer right into the world of rainy, bleary-eyed Pacific Northwest indie rock with “Machine” (which sort of reminds me of what Spiral XP are up to currently), the riff showcase of “Like the Moon”, and the stumbling mid-tempo “Never Better” (“I’ve never been better /  And I’ve never told the truth” goes the refrain of that one, a 90s rock lyric if I’ve ever heard one). There’s plenty of aloof-but-still-noticeable pop moments in these songs, and they’re still there in Shadow on the Door’s somewhat more heavy second half; “Nothing” and “Thread” both alternate between noisy rave-ups and more subdued breaths of fresh air, and then the record ends with an excellent fuzz-pop tune in “Mirror World”, an oddity in “Flower” (a dark song that eventually disembowels itself into noise) and an all-in dramatic closing track called “The Distance”. You know what, maybe Magic User aren’t slackers after all. (Bandcamp link)

Also notable:

Rosy Overdrive’s Top 100 Albums of 2024 (25-1)

Here we are! Rosy Overdrive’s 25 favorite albums of 2024, revealed today along with albums 50 through 26, and coming a day after albums 51 through 100. I believe I wrote about over four hundred albums on the blog this year, which means that whittling it down to these twenty-five was no easy task. This is the best of the best! Once again, thank you for reading, vote in the Rosy Overdrive Reader’s Poll, and stay tuned for upcoming EP and compilation lists as well as a few more Pressing Concerns.

See also:
Part One (100-76)
Part Two (75-51)
Part Three (50-26)
Playlist links (Spotify) (Tidal)

25. Perennial – Art History

Release date: June 7th
Record label: Ernest Jenning Record Co./Safe Suburban Home/Totally Real
Genre: Art punk, garage rock, post-hardcore, dance punk
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital

Over the past few years, New England trio Perennial have been honing a unique sound that mixes Dischord Records post-hardcore, turn-of-the-century dance punk, and retro garage rock together with just a hint of frayed experimentation around the edges. Their third album, Art History, finds Perennial doing exactly what they do best–making excellent rock music and pushing just a bit forward. This time around, the 60s pop rock influence feels less “implied” than ever and more and more central to their sound, and the experimentation continues to erode into the pop music. I was already fully on board the Perennial train before this album, and I’m just as excited as ever to witness the band continue to build in real-time something entirely distinct, huge, and befitting of the title Art History. (Read more)

24. Guidon Bear – Internal Systems

Release date: July 31st
Record label: Antiquated Future/YoYo
Genre: Indie pop, synthpop, folk
Formats: CD, cassette, digital

At the end of last decade, two indie rock veterans, Mary Water and Pat Maley, reunited as Guidon Bear, making guitar-based indie folk and guitar-based pop with increasingly prominent synth/electronic elements–which leads us to Internal Systems. The buzzing and chiming synths added by Maley to these songs fit perfectly alongside the duo’s guitar-based indie rock sound–it doesn’t reduce Guidon Bear’s “old” style so much as add to it, and it’s no less devoted to enhancing Water’s incredible songwriting. Internal Systems is a winding, rich listen–it’s a dozen tracks and nearly fifty minutes long, and Water’s lyrics are just as engrossing and vivid as the music they accompany, if not more so. (Read more)

23. Zero Point Energy – Tilted Planet

Release date: May 17th
Record label: Danger Collective
Genre: Post-punk, art punk, college rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital

Genesis Edenfield and Ben Jackson played together in mid-2010s Atlanta, Georgia art punk group Warehouse–now based in Brooklyn, the duo have reunited as Zero Point Energy. Their debut album, Tilted Planet, is a collaborative reintroduction to Edenfield and Jackson–both of them play guitar, both sing, and both wrote material for the twelve-song, forty-two minute record. Tilted Planet reinvents Edenfield and Jackson’s sound into something more polished and restrained, but still quite unique. American post-punk and garage rock still abound, but Zero Point Energy also adopt a mellow pop rock attitude that puts them towards the jammier end of classic college rock. Edenfield and Jackson meld together excellently here, creating a beautiful, obstinate, simple, complex melting pot of a debut album. (Read more)

22. Jr. Juggernaut – Another Big Explosion

Release date: August 9th
Record label: Mindpower/Nickel Eye
Genre: Alt-rock, power pop, grunge pop, fuzz rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

On Another Big Explosion, their fourth LP and first in eight years, Los Angeles alt-rock/power-punk trio Jr. Juggernaut deliver an eighteen-wheeler of a love letter to Sugar’s Copper Blue. Jr. Juggernaut embrace a loud, dramatic sound pulled from the moment “underground rock” bubbled to the surface–there’s nothing on Another Big Explosion that could be described as “slacker” or halfhearted. There’s a Bob Mouldian “pop music as endurance test” element to Another Big Explosion–the ten songs are almost all in the four-to-five minute range, and they’re roaring at full blast pretty much the entire time. It’s a key ingredient in making the album feel like a towering mountain, but Jr. Juggernaut summit it nonetheless. (Read more)

21. Aluminum – Fully Beat

Release date: May 24th
Record label: Felte
Genre: Shoegaze, noise pop, Madchester, fuzz rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Fully Beat is a huge leap forward for San Francisco shoegaze-pop group Aluminum, both sharpening and expanding their sound to create some of the most exciting, spirited, and downright fun rock music I’ve heard this year. The studied, carefully-constructed band on their debut EP, Windowpane, has been replaced with true believers in loud, bursting-at-the-seams indie rock throughout their debut LP. Fully Beat is the result of a band taking a big swing on their first full statement–it comes at you like a stampede in its loudest, most chaotic moments, but devotes plenty of time to filling in the gaps that they blast into their foundation, as well. (Read more)

20. Teenage Tom Petties – Teenage Tom Petties

Release date: August 2nd
Record label: Safe Suburban Home/Repeating Cloud
Genre: Lo-fi power pop
Formats: Cassette, digital

Three years, three Teenage Tom Petties albums–and oddly enough, two self-titled ones. The lo-fi power pop group ballooned to a three-guitar, five-piece rock and roll band for last year’s Hotbox Daydreams, but the latest record under the name finds Bath, England’s Tom Brown back in his bedroom, recording (mostly) alone yet again, just like the 2022 Teenage Tom Petties album. Hotbox Daydreams was a real leveling-up moment for Brown–maybe the band brought it out of him at first, but Teenage Tom Petties II is a worthy sequel not just to its homonymous predecessor but to the group’s sophomore record too, bedroom or no. (Read more)

19. Best Bets – The Hollow Husk of Feeling

Release date: September 27th
Record label: Meritorio/Melted Ice Cream
Genre: Power pop, garage rock, pop punk
Formats: Vinyl, digital

On the New Zealand band’s sophomore album, Best Bets put together a grounded, unsubtle collection of power pop, garage rock, and even glam rock that eschews the hazier and subtler sides of their home country’s guitar pop scene. The Hollow Husk of Feeling is the first Best Bets album where bassist Joe Sampson steps up for songwriting duty alongside Olly Crawford Ellis and James Harding, and this record feels full to the brim of smart pop craft and energy. The album as a whole is a cathartic listen–there’s an edge to Best Bets’ jangly, fuzzed-out tunes, and its vocalists are more likely to sound pensive or even aggravated than clearly blissful. The “feeling” may be a hollowed-out husk at this point, but Best Bets are going to squeeze every last spark out of it before their latest album is all said and done. (Read more)

18. American Motors – Content

Release date: October 4th
Record label: Expert Work/The Ghost Is Clear
Genre: Noise rock, post-hardcore, post-rock, post-punk
Formats: Vinyl, digital

American Motors are based out of Lancaster, Pennsylvania and have roots in West Virginia, but they could be from anywhere in the United States that’s far away enough from bustling urban centers but close enough that the ruins of something once more lively hover around unavoidably. The trio recorded their debut album, Content, with J. Robbins, who helped them zero in on a Rust Belt-inspired post-punk/noise rock/post-rock sound, keenly sharpened and honed much more finely than a lot of bands in their shoes would dare to even attempt. American Motors understand that the monster you can’t see is even scarier, and Content utilizes a huge amount of empty space to hover around the edges of these songs, while glimpses of something we probably shouldn’t see drift in and out of focus. (Read more)

17. Late Bloomer – Another One Again

Release date: March 1st
Record label: Self Aware/Dead Broke/Tor Johnson
Genre: Punk rock, 90s indie rock, fuzz rock, college rock
Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital

As far back as 2013, Charlotte’s Late Bloomer were melding 90s indie rock, punk, and pop hooks together in a way that’s only gained popularity in the years since. Not only were the trio trailblazers in this specific revival, they’ve also been one of the best to do it–so it’s quite pleasing to hear Late Bloomer plug in their electric guitars and continue to tap into the sort of ragged-but-catchy Dinosaur Jr.-indebted indie rock they’ve done so well in the past on Another One Again, their first album in six years. At the same time, though, Another One Again thematically and thoughtfully reflects the passing of time in a way that makes it distinct from the rest of the band’s discography, entering their second decade as a band with a clear path forward. (Read more)

16. Upstairs – Be Seeing You

Release date: September 27th
Record label: Obscure Pharaoh
Genre: Art rock, post-punk, experimental rock, indie pop
Formats: Digital

Upstairs features Rosy Overdrive regular Jon Massey, and their second album, Be Seeing You, does indeed contain shades of his projects Coventry and Silo’s Choice. The Cincinnati/Chicago quintet are a bit more varied, though–Be Seeing You alternatively embraces electronics, strings, and “rock” instrumentation across its dozen tracks, veering into several ditches but also using “pop music” as a jumpscare tactic (in the form of swooning, swelling indie folk rock or relatively humble piano-pop). Be Seeing You sounds like a mess sometimes, but its most beautiful moments are far from mutually exclusive with this side of Upstairs. Like most incredible art rock LPs, calling it an “incredible art rock LP” hardly does it justice. (Read more)

15. Downhaul – How to Begin

Release date: September 20th
Record label: Self Aware/Landland Colportage
Genre: Alt-country, emo-indie rock, power pop, roots rock, folk rock
Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital

On How to Begin, Richmond quartet Downhaul ditch the massive-sounding, post-rock-indebted emo-alt-rock of their last album (2021’s PROOF) for something laconic, polished-up, and alt-country/power pop-infused. How to Begin is an album made by a band who consciously decided to go into the studio with the attitude of honing songs into sharp points rather than “adding onto” them–it’s a pop album, even if it’s not a “traditional” one. Songs end almost at the exact moment when they feel they’ve made their point, Gordon Phillips’ lyrics are just as thorny and gripping as ever, and Downhaul as a whole still feel like a band that exists in their own little world. That is to say, it’s still a Downhaul album, even as the band have shifted around their angles of attack in executing it. (Read more)

14. True Green – My Lost Decade

Release date: February 1st
Record label: Spacecase
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, lo-fi pop, psych pop, singer-songwriter
Formats: Cassette, digital

Minneapolis’ Dan Hornsby is a novelist–perhaps unsurprisingly, his knack for storytelling and flawed, deeply-felt character studies is pervasive in My Lost Decade, the debut from his project True Green. What does surprise me is that the singer-songwriter chooses lo-fi, reverb-y psychedelic guitar pop to deliver it all. There are acoustic guitars, but Hornsby isn’t a folk troubadour, rather making music that’s generally thought of as the domain of Beatlesesque bashers like The Cleaners from Venus. My Lost Decade is a pleasingly varied-sounding record, but Hornsby and multi-instrumentalist Tailer Ransom develop a distinct musical style, a busy, kitchen-sink pop attitude that reflects True Green’s confidence that Hornsby’s striking songwriting will shine even if they whip up an instrumental storm around it. And it does. (Read more)

13. 2nd Grade – Scheduled Explosions

Release date: October 25th
Record label: Double Double Whammy
Genre: Power pop, lo-fi pop
Formats: Cassette, digital

Like any power pop band with a penchant for shorter songs, 2nd Grade have been blessed or cursed with Guided by Voices comparisons pretty much since their inception as a Peter Gill solo project–even if Gill’s early writing is fairly distinct from the balance between wonderment and darkness, between lo-fi bashfulness and rock and roll might marking Robert Pollard’s writing. On Scheduled Explosions, the fourth and best album from the Philadelphia power pop group, Gill and company unambiguously shoot for and subsequently nail this aforementioned balance for the first time in 2nd Grade’s brief but fruitful career. A patchwork record, Scheduled Explosions doesn’t abandon the “power” side of power pop even as it’s rarely the sound of five musicians playing together in a room. (Read more)

12. Sun Kin – Sunset World

Release date: April 19th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Art pop, indie pop, synthpop, singer-songwriter
Formats: Digital

Sun Kin is the project of Bombay-originating, Los Angeles-based Kabir Kumar, who’s been making music under the name for a dozen years in addition to playing in the band GUPPY and collaborating with Rosy Overdrive favorite Pacing. Sunset World, Sun Kin’s latest, is an ambitious pop album in which Kumar corrals a ton of their musical collaborators and acquaintances in service of an eleven-song, thirty-minute record with boundless energy. Sunset World is a record about destruction (“apocalyptic LA pop”, they call it), but it’s bright and sunny and never loses sight of the positives involved in ruins and decay–it’s just clearing more space for what really matters. (Read more)

11. Liquid Mike – Paul Bunyan’s Slingshot

Release date: February 2nd
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Power pop, pop punk, fuzz rock, alt-rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

The breakout act of 2023 was a punk band from the upper peninsula of Michigan called Liquid Mike, whose eleven-song, 18-minute self-titled record got them a fair amount of buzz. Liquid Mike took eleven months to follow up S/T with Paul Bunyan’s Slingshot, and the group’s pop punk energy, power pop hooks, and 90s indie rock sense of driven listlessness are not only intact, but expanded here. Paul Bunyan’s Slingshot is the sound of a band completely rising to the occasion–they’ve turned around and made a record that feels like a huge step forward from the (quite good, mind you) music that got them the modicum of attention in the first place. (Read more)

10. Toby the Tiger – Demapper

Release date: October 10th
Record label: Peligroso es Mi Nombre Medio
Genre: Emo-y indie rock, singer-songwriter, folk rock, bedroom pop
Formats: Digital

Demapper is the first album from Brock Ross and his Toby the Tiger project. Whatever led to this Boise father of two to arrive at recording and releasing original music out into the world, I’m grateful for it, as Demapper is a transcendent indie rock record that walks the line between emo and delicate indie pop recalling Pedro the Lion, Death Cab for Cutie, and Kevin Devine. Ross is adept at unearthing pop melodies, but there’s an electric side to Demapper, too, with Ross using as wide a spectrum as he can to capture what he’s composed for the record. Ross’ writing weaves tangled, religious-inspired webs across its nine songs–Toby the Tiger really do need to use everything from orchestral folk to post-hardcore-tinged emo to do it justice. (Read more)

9. Hell Beach – BEACHWORLD

Release date: August 9th
Record label: Uncle Style/Bad Time
Genre: Pop punk, power pop, punk
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Hell Beach seem to be Manchester, New Hampshire’s premiere snotty, hooky, golden-age pop punk group with an odd “beach” titling motif between the band and album name. Well, whatever’s behind the magic of their debut record, BEACHWORLD, is fine by me, as this is some of the straight-up catchiest and most energetic power-pop-punk music I’ve heard in quite some time. I can’t listen to this without getting worked up in some way! BEACHWORLD is an album where I could throw a dart and hit a hook most bands won’t match in their entire career–even though Hell Beach keep things a lean twenty-nine minutes and eleven tracks long, it still feels positively greedy of them.

8. Sonny Falls – Sonny Falls

Release date: March 1st
Record label: Earth Libraries
Genre: Fuzz rock, garage rock, alt-country
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Since 2018, Chicago’s Ryan Ensley aka Hoagie Wesley aka Sonny Falls has been putting out fiery, unique records that are loose-feeling but incredibly deep underneath their garage rock/fuzz-country exteriors. The fourth Sonny Falls album is a self-titled one that feels like an attempt to pack all the ambition strewn across the project in ten tracks and thirty-five minutes. The songs on Sonny Falls don’t sound like anything but Sonny Falls songs, but every track on the album feels stretched and teased out in a new way, Ensley spending a bit more time composing and arranging his sprawling writing instead of fully leaning into his street-raving side. At this point, Ensley has a very strong baseline as a songwriter, but it’s quite exciting to watch him figure out how to add to it. (Read more)

7. Ther – Godzilla

Release date: April 5th
Record label: Julia’s War
Genre: Art rock, folk rock, post-post rock, alt-rock, slowcore
Formats: Cassette, digital

On every record thus far from Philadelphia’s Ther, the band (led by So Big Auditory’s Heather Jones) has reinvented their sound in some form, so it’s no surprise that Godzilla sounds like none of their previous records once again. Godzilla asserts itself in Ther’s discography by embracing electric guitars and loud, dramatic indie rock to a previously unseen degree. Jones has worked with experimental shoegazers They Are Gutting a Body of Water frequently, and while that doesn’t really describe what Godzilla sounds like, Jones has perhaps taken inspiration from that side of indie rock to create what can at times feel almost like a photo negative the skeletal folk of Ther’s last album, in which her vocals alternatingly fight against or become entirely swallowed up by swirling, all-encompassing rock instrumentals. (Read more)

6. Ahem – Avoider

Release date: May 17th
Record label: Forged Artifacts
Genre: Power pop, pop punk, jangle pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital

You can call it power pop, pop punk, alt-rock, or college rock–whatever it is, the second album from Minneapolis power trio Ahem has more than enough in its ten songs to please fans of any of those genres. You’ll hear the band’s Twin Cities indie rock forbearers in Avoider, a massive collection of loud guitar-based pop music, and they expertly meld their Westerbergs, Harts, and Moulds with their off-the-cuff “indie punk” style and just a hint of high Midwestern folksiness/rootsiness, too. Whether it’s in service of roaring catharsis or lighter, breezier sunset-strummers, Ahem know what they’re doing and where they’re going–and it’s a treat to hear. (Read more)

5. The Triceratops – Charge!

Release date: November 1st
Record label: Learning Curve
Genre: Punk rock, noise rock, power pop, alt-rock, fuzz rock, grunge
Formats: Vinyl, digital

The Triceratops are a new Brooklyn-based duo formed by two indie rockers who go way back together; their first record is called Charge!, and it feels like a special one to me. It’s an urgent-sounding album–it does feel like the work of a couple of people who haven’t gotten to make a full-length statement of an LP in a while and maybe don’t know when or if they’re going to get to again, so they’ve put as much as they can into it. The Triceratops deliberately and intentionally walk the line between “pop” and “heavy” rock music on Charge!’s fifteen songs. It reminds me of, more than any other band, the Archers of Loaf–huge and catchy without being dogmatically “punk” or “noise rock”. It’s just The Triceratops. (Read more)

4. Miscellaneous Owl – You Are the Light That Casts a Shadow

Release date: March 1st
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Indie folk, indie pop, bedroom pop, singer-songwriter
Formats: Digital

Huan-Hua Chye’s latest as Miscellaneous Owl is You Are the Light That Casts a Shadow, a dozen-song record she wrote, recorded, and played entirely on her own over the course of February (which is, apparently, “Album Writing Month”). Given its method of incubation, it’s not surprising that You Are the Light That Casts a Shadow could loosely be described as a “bedroom pop/folk” record, although that doesn’t do justice to the music contained herein, which covers jangly, almost twee indie pop, offbeat guitar-pop singer-songwriters of decades past, and beautiful straight-up indie folk. Chye’s writing is clearly the work of a major talent, and just about everything on You Are the Light That Casts a Shadow merits much thought and engagement. (Read more)

3. Bad Moves – Wearing Out the Refrain

Release date: September 13th
Record label: Don Giovanni
Genre: Power pop, pop punk
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

At their best, D.C. power-pop-punk quartet Bad Moves are a walking, talking, harmonizing example of how pop music can be jam-packed with meaning and intent without losing any other part of itself in the process–and Wearing Out the Refrain is Bad Moves at their best. The band have always smashed heady, whip-smart political and cultural observations and firecracker, all-in, hook-laden power pop together like it’s no one’s business, but this one ups the ante even further. Wearing Out the Refrain lives up to its name; it’s the sound of some of the best hook merchants in broadly-speaking punk music leaning fully in and capturing the moment the rollercoaster starts gaining downhill momentum. (Read more)

2. Mister Goblin – Frog Poems

Release date: April 26th
Record label: Spartan
Genre: Singer-songwriter, alt-rock, folk rock, post-punk
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Frog Poems is notable in that it’s the first time Sam Goblin has released new music on a label other than Exploding in Sound Records (dating back to the first single from his old band, Two Inch Astronaut, in 2012)–and it feels like a new era by collecting and expanding on everything Mister Goblin has done up until this point. Frog Poems is a statement of active intent, a declaration that regardless of who’s around Sam Goblin (who’s moved states multiple times in the past few years) and what label he’s on, Mister Goblin will find a way to exist, with the “post-hardcore power trio” and “introspective folk rock” versions of the project both showing up here. (Read more)

1. Rosie Tucker – UTOPIA NOW!

Release date: March 22nd
Record label: Sentimental
Genre: Art rock, power pop, pop punk, alt-rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital

The snippets of Rosie Tucker’s discography I’d heard before now definitely did not prepare me for the adventurous, overstuffed, and punchy rock record that is UTOPIA NOW!, an album seemingly engineered to appeal specifically to me. As a songwriter, Tucker is lethally sharp, pulling out massive power pop/pop punk hooks out of nowhere, oftentimes completely at odds with where the track had been leading up to beforehand, but never in a way that feels overly shoehorned. UTOPIA NOW!’s sound is just as commendable–like the majority of Tucker’s output, it was produced by themself and their longtime collaborator Wolfy, and they gleefully veer between chilly bedroom pop/folk/rock, slick alt-rock, and limber, jerky art rock/new wave across the record’s thirteen tracks. Nothing else makes me feel the way I do when listening to UTOPIA NOW!. I did my due diligence (not that Rosie Tucker is a household name, but they’re the most high-profile artist to nab the top slot so far, so I really thought about it), but in hindsight this was always going to be at the top of this list. (Read more)

Honorable mentions:

Click here for:
Part One (100-76)
Part Two (75-51)
Part Three (50-26)

Rosy Overdrive’s Top 100 Albums of 2024 (50-26)

Hello! Welcome back (or just welcome) to Rosy Overdrive’s Top 100 Albums of 2024! Today reveals the top 50 albums on the list. Yesterday unveiled numbers 100 through 51, so be sure to check those out as well if you haven’t yet.

See also:
Part One (100-76)
Part Two (75-51)
Part Four (25-1)
Playlist with all albums (Spotify link) (Tidal link)

50. Shredded Sun – Wilding

Release date: September 6th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Garage rock, power pop, psych pop
Formats: Digital

In 2023, Chicago power trio Shredded Sun dropped a pair of releases depicting a group of underground rock and roll veterans (who’ve been playing together since the mid-2000s) honing in on a winning combination of fuzz rock, garage-punk, psych pop, and power pop and hitting a creative stride. Even so, I wasn’t expecting another Shredded Sun album in 2024, but Wilding blessed this year with thirteen more songs and nearly fifty minutes of brand new Shredded Sun material. If you enjoyed Each Dot and Each Line and Translucent Eyes, the trio pick up right where they left off, but (perhaps ironically given the quick turnaround) some of the tossed-off psych-garage energy of their last two records gives way to something just a little more deliberate and measured. (Read more)

49. Daniel Romano’s Outfit – Too Hot to Sleep

Release date: March 1st
Record label: You’ve Changed
Genre: Power pop, punk rock, garage rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

Although the proper records from Daniel Romano’s Outfit generally hew more towards “studio rats” than “garage punks”, those who’ve followed the prolific Canadian troubadour know about his band’s energy and ferocity in their live shows. I’ve been waiting for something like Too Hot to Sleep from The Outfit for a while now–a genuine live-in-studio sounding garage rock scorcher of a record. Romano and his crew really honed in on something potent with this ten-song, twenty-seven minute collection, which is looser-sounding than typical Outfit fare but still led by a smooth operator of a pop songwriter. Even if you think you know Daniel Romano’s deal by now, I’d recommend Too Hot to Sleep to any power pop and/or garage rock fan–it’s one of his strongest albums yet. (Read more)

48. Quivers – Oyster Cuts

Release date: August 9th
Record label: Merge
Genre: Indie pop, power pop, college rock, jangle pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

On their third album of original material and first for Merge Records, Melbourne quartet Quivers are dogged pursuers of perfect guitar pop–their mix of college rock, C86, power pop, and new wave is as shined up and sparkly in its presentation as Sam Nicholson and Bella Quinlan’s vocals are intimate and distinct. For all its ambition, Oyster Cuts stubbornly declines to embrace anonymity–it doesn’t hide the fact that it was made by Australian indie rock lifers who love The Chills and Pavement, nor does it stop at that surface-level descriptor. Oyster Cuts is something of a proof-of-concept for “indie pop” as something as potent as “real” pop–Quivers are just as precise and hard-hitting as the giants in these songs. (Read more)

47. Oceanator – Everything Is Love and Death

Release date: August 30th
Record label: Polyvinyl
Genre: Alt-rock, punk rock, fuzz rock, emo, power pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital

In a move that makes too much sense, Oceanator’s Elise Okusami linked up with renowned Philadelphia producer Will Yip for her band’s third album, Everything Is Love and Death. Yip (who also plays drums and keys on the record) helps Okusami accentuate the anthemic, immediate aspects of Oceanator’s sound–hard to categorize, but containing a distinct mix of emo, power pop, and even grunge-y 90s alt-rock. Despite the apparently months-long gestation time, Everything Is Love and Death is very streamlined, paring down much of the moodiness of Oceanator’s last record and the lengthy rock journeys of their debut. It’s Oceanator at their most outwardly friendly (without losing Okusami’s distinct voice); there’s never been a better time to get on board. (Read more)

46. Dummy – Free Energy

Release date: September 6th
Record label: Trouble in Mind
Genre: Psychedelic pop, art rock, noise pop, trip hop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital

Los Angeles noise pop group Dummy approached their sophomore album, Free Energy, with the clear intention of making something different than their 2021 sensory overload debut Mandatory Enjoyment, and the band indeed have grown into something new. The shift on Free Energy is palpable but subtle and harder to pin down to one distinct subgenre, as one would expect from an always-omnivorous band like Dummy. The resultant album is something that’s sleek, slick, and smooth–rather than come at you at full force, Dummy dart around us and leap over top of us, marrying fuzzy, distorted shoegaze-pop with alternative-dance elements in a way that’s frequently surprising but always coherent. (Read more)

45. Jim Nothing – Grey Eyes, Grey Lynn

Release date: October 18th
Record label: Meritorio/Melted Ice Cream
Genre: Jangle pop, Dunedin sound, fuzz rock, lo-fi indie rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Grey Eyes, Grey Lynn continues to mine the rich veins of classic Flying Nun-inspired jangle pop, psychedelic pop, and noise pop that New Zealand’s Jim Nothing so effectively explored on 2022’s In the Marigolds, but this one feels like a more wide-ranging take on this kind of music. Christchurch-originating, Auckland-based James Sullivan recorded half of Grey Eyes, Grey Lynn in a studio and the other half in a garage, which makes sense–sometimes, the Jim Nothing of Grey Eyes, Grey Lynn feels like a sturdier, louder rock band than ever before, other times feeling like a home-recorded Sullivan solo project. Sullivan’s songwriting is still sublime, though, and more than capable of weathering a more involved journey. (Read more)

44. Ethan Beck & The Charlie Browns – Duck Hollow

Release date: May 31st
Record label: Douglas Street
Genre: Power pop, college rock, jangle pop
Formats: Cassette, digital

Duck Hollow is the proper full length debut from Pittsburgh power poppers Ethan Beck & The Charlie Browns, and it pulls together giant hooks with electric alt-rock (at its most euphoric) and explores the terrain of delicate guitar pop music (at its most pensive). Duck Hollow is loosely a Pittsburgh-based concept album, with everything from the titular neighborhood to the one where Beck grew up (Squirrel Hill) to the Wabash Tunnel populating these songs. Recalling many great power pop records before it, Duck Hollow succeeds in placing us emotionally and geographically right next to its narrator as he traverses the Three Rivers. (Read more)

43. Mount Eerie – Night Palace

Release date: November 1st
Record label: P.W. Elverum & Sun
Genre: Folk, experimental folk, lo-fi indie rock, post-rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

I’m not sure what there is to say about Night Palace, the latest triumph from Phil Elverum’s Mount Eerie. Every music website that still exists has already extolled its virtues, and they’re right to do so; if you’re someone who appreciates Elverum’s canonical works like The Glow Pt. 2 but have fallen off in recent years, or if you can appreciate A Crow Looked at Me and Now Only but find those records difficult to listen to on a regular basis, Night Palace (in all its sprawling, eighty-minute glory) is something that can pull you right back into that world of fuzzed-out lo-fi rock, folk music as wide as the Pacific Ocean, and a songwriter who’s just as imposing at his best and (at the very least) unparalleled at all times.

42. SAVAK – Flavors of Paradise

Release date: March 1st
Record label: Peculiar Works/Ernest Jenning Record Co.
Genre: Post-punk, garage rock, college rock, 90s indie rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Coming a little under two years after their last record, Human Error / Human Delight, Flavors of Paradise adds to the language SAVAK have been developing since their debut in 2016, contracting it in some places and expanding it in others. The Brooklyn trio recorded the album at Electrical Audio last year, and while they’ve always been a “no nonsense” group, Flavors of Paradise finds the band plowing through twelve songs triangulating garage rock, post-punk, and college rock with a fresh, live sound. It’s easy to take for granted just how well SAVAK click together, but Flavors of Paradise is the work of several indie rock lifers determined to harness their experience into something accessible but still doing justice to the trailblazing nature of their influences. (Read more)

41. Greg Saunier – We Sang, Therefore We Were

Release date: April 26th
Record label: Joyful Noise
Genre: Art rock, noise pop, post-punk, math rock, garage rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Considering just how much great music he’s been involved with over the past quarter-century, it’s perhaps not surprising that Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier can carry an album all on his own, but still, I was surprised by just how much I enjoyed We Sang, Therefore We Were, somehow his first-ever solo record. As it turns out, he’s a killer, unique pop songwriter when left to his own devices; the album’s dozen tracks certainly are recognizably “Deerhoof-esque”, but the one-man Saunier band (he wrote, played, recorded, mixed, and mastered everything here) is truncated and streamlined, throwing jagged, catchy guitar riffs and shapeshifting, form-fitting vocals over top of everything in a keen manner. (Read more)

40. Adeem the Artist – Anniversary

Release date: March 29th
Record label: Four Quarters
Genre: Alt-country, country rock, folk rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

Adeem the Artist put out an album called White Trash Revelry in 2022 that I really enjoyed–I wasn’t necessary expecting the Knoxville-based alt-country singer-songwriter to match it with their follow-up record, but I’m pleased to note that their latest full-length, Anniversary, is even better than the one that preceded it. For those of us already on board, Adeem takes several steps forward and outward in their writing, shooting for the stars by embracing polished, confident country rock and continuing to tackle the impossible task of writing about queer Southern experience in a powerful yet personable way (and if it were possible, it’d certainly sound pretty damn close to Anniversary).

39. ADD/C – Ordinary Souls

Release date: March 29th
Record label: Let’s Pretend
Genre: Punk rock, pop punk
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Ordinary Souls is ADD/C’s first new music in over a decade, and it’s a sweeping, wide-ranging punk rock record (seventeen songs in under forty minutes!) from a band with nothing to lose and no reason to keep “doing this”–other than the music itself, which is more than enough on its own. “Heartland rock” has come to mean something fairly polished and critic-friendly, but Ordinary Souls is perhaps a truer version of the term: catchy and decidedly rough-around-the-edges pop punk made by two-decade-plus rock and roll veterans strewn across tertiary-market cities in the South and Midwest with several lifetimes’ worth of fucked up shit to write about. (Read more)

38. Mope Grooves – Box of Dark Roses

Release date: October 25th
Record label: 12XU/Night School
Genre: Lo-fi pop, art pop, post-punk, experimental punk, twee
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Box of Dark Roses is Mope Grooves’ posthumously-released final album, and it’s a double LP full of ramshackle pop music drawn from clanging keyboards and buzzing beats and vocals that regularly surprise. Box of Dark Roses is so easy to follow despite everything about it because its leader, the late Stevie Pohlman (stylized simply as “stevie”), is unfailingly consistent in her worldview as a writer and doesn’t shy away from following these core tenets to wherever they take her. I hear, in stevie’s art, a real fury and fervor with regards to the unjust precariousness of the people around her–collaborators, friends, and comrades. Box of Dark Roses stares down the cognitive dissonance and open contradictions one is required to accept in order to be a “respectable” member of society, and rejects them. (Read more)

37. Mary Timony – Untame the Tiger

Release date: February 23rd
Record label: Merge
Genre: Folk rock, progressive rock, power pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

The amount of definitive rock music that Mary Timony has made in several different bands over the years is staggering–and it’s continued in recent years to the degree that I can’t be the only one to not realize it’s been fifteen years since a proper Timony solo album. Any indie rock musician who’s taken influence from Autoclave, Helium, or Ex Hex should get out their pen and paper for Untame the Tiger, a record that shows that Timony is still better than most at creating something intricate, immediate, and shockingly deep. Untame the Tiger is a surprising album, basking in the sun in plain sight but sneaking up on you at the same time–its leader sounds free, untamed, and absolutely thrilled to be still pressing ahead in the form of inventive, unique rock music. (Read more)

36. St. Lenox – Ten Modern American Work Songs

Release date: October 25th
Record label: Anyway/Don Giovanni
Genre: Indie pop, singer-songwriter, synthpop
Formats: Vinyl, digital

The fifth St. Lenox album, Ten Modern American Work Songs, traces Andrew Choi’s journey from a graduate student and aspiring philosophy professor at Ohio State University to a JD program in Manhattan to his current status as a lawyer. Musically, Choi’s distinct style of indie pop is as bright as ever, corralling piano pop, synthpop, and occasional folk and violin touches into something that never threatens to distract from the lyrics but sharp enough to compliment them. Choi’s huge voice is just as incredible, and his pointed ramblings remain pointed and rambling as he tackles a subject that has shaped (and continues to shape) his life and music head-on. (Read more)

35. J. Robbins – Basilisk

Release date: February 2nd
Record label: Dischord
Genre: Post-punk, post-hardcore, 90s indie rock, alt-rock, art punk
Formats: Vinyl, digital

We’re probably lucky that we got a sophomore J. Robbins album at all–the D.C.-based musician is a prolific and in-demand engineer these days, and his influential 90s Dischord group Jawbox have reunited and even released new material in recent years. Basilisk sounds familiar in a most welcome way, with Robbins evoking his golden era in a way few 90s indie rockers are still doing today. That being said, Basilisk doesn’t exactly sound ripped from the world of Jawbox circa 1993–it picks up about where 2019’s Un-Becoming left off, with Robbins writing art-punk anthems with both “maturity” and “edge” and a fearless awareness of the present. (Read more)

34. Norm Archer – Verb

Release date: August 23rd
Record label: Panda Koala
Genre: Power pop, garage rock, prog-punk, college rock
Formats: Digital

Will Pearce started up Norm Archer a mere two years ago, wanting to explore home-recorded power pop–and Pearce has proven quite adept at college rock/guitar pop hook-spinning. Verb, the project’s third long-player since 2022, features everything great about Norm Archer thus far: huge, arena-ready power pop anthems, relaxed, 60s-esque jangly guitar pop, and multi-part prog-pop workouts all abound. Pearce takes Verb to some new and wild places, too, particularly in the twin epics that close out the hourlong record. Whether you wanted Norm Archer to stay the course, flex their rock opera muscles, or lapse into smoky basement explorations on their third album, Verb decides to just do it all. (Read more)

33. Dancer – 10 Songs I Hate About You

Release date: March 15th
Record label: Meritorio
Genre: Post-punk, indie pop, art rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

After two stellar EPs introduced the Glasgow band last year, 10 Songs I Hate About You is Dancer’s first full-length. It’s remarkably comforting just how stubbornly the quartet show up in the same clothes with the LP–the album was recorded live to tape at Green Door studio with Ronan Fay just like their EPs were, Gemma Fleet is still announcing every song’s title before it begins, Andrew Doig’s bass is all over the place and a treat to observe, and so on. Dancer had already covered quite a bit of ground on their first two EPs–all the ingredients for an excellent first album were lined up, and 10 Songs I Hate About You knocks it out of the park. (Read more)

32. Humdrum – Every Heaven

Release date: October 18th
Record label: Slumberland
Genre: Jangle pop, power pop, new wave, post-punk, dream pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

Chicago guitar pop veteran Loren Vanderbilt has a keen grasp on a very specific time and place in the history of indie rock on the debut record from his new solo project, Humdrum–specifically, vintage jangle pop, new wave, college rock, and dream pop. Every Heaven is largely the work of a singular pop-minded visionary, with everything from its prominent, pounding mechanical drumbeats to its New Order-y synth washes to sprinkled guitar arpeggios all working in tandem to service the melodies and hooks. Unfailingly upbeat but also unafraid to incorporate the more wistful side of Vanderbilt’s influences, Every Heaven is crystalline, both in how it reflects a bygone era of “indie music” and how it freezes its leader in his own moment in time. (Read more)

31. Mint Mile – Roughrider

Release date: February 23rd
Record label: Comedy Minus One
Genre: Alt-country, 90s indie rock, folk rock, Crazy Horse stuff
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Mint Mile’s Roughrider, their long-awaited second full-length, is their first to wrap its business up entirely on two sides of one vinyl record, finally adding the “tight”, forty-minute single long-player album to their resumé. Roughrider has a “snapshot” and “wide-ranging” feel that–while not absent from their sprawling debut, Ambertron–becomes more pronounced here due to the shorter timespan. After years of being the “new” band of Silkworm/Bottomless Pit’s Tim Midyett, Mint Mile has traversed a ton of ground in its first decade of existence, and the band pull from several aspects of it (meandering country-rock, sunny pop rock, moments of surprising bareness) throughout their latest triumph. (Read more)

30. Christina’s Trip – Forever After

Release date: July 5th
Record label: Cherub Dream
Genre: Indie pop, dream pop, noise pop, twee, 90s indie rock
Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital

Despite the nods to noisemakers Sonic Youth and Eric’s Trip in the band and album names, Forever After by Christina’s Trip is the most pop-forward record I’ve heard from Bay Area shoegaze label Cherub Dream Records yet. Led by namesake Christina Busler’s clear vocals, the record’s eight songs float pop melodies towards the listener wistfully but confidently. The guitars are loud but not overly distorted or blanketing, recalling undersung 90s indie rock groups like The Spinanes and Velocity Girl and even early guitar-based dream pop, while the band’s lo-fi, off-the-cuff attitude evokes prime K Records. Consistency is key in just how strong a debut Forever After is, and I’m excited to hear more from Christina’s Trip. (Read more)

29. Adam Finchler – The Room

Release date: July 12th
Record label: Window Sill
Genre: Indie pop, soft rock, anti-anti-folk
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Adam Finchler’s debut solo LP has been a long time in the making, and The Room is a world away from the sound of the former anti-folker’s previous music. These ten songs are given polished pop readings, clear but streamlined, placing Finchler’s songwriting front and center. As a writer, Finchler is vaguely in line with what one might expect from an anti-folker–irreverent, wide-ranging, and fairly unpredictable. The short stories, snapshots, and character sketches of The Room can be genuinely funny and just-as-strongly gripping–combined with the serious, straightforward guitar pop dressing that Finchler and co-producer Danji Buck-Moore pursue, it ends up being one of the most striking and unique-sounding albums I’ve heard this year. (Read more)

28. Shellac – To All Trains

Release date: May 17th
Record label: Touch & Go
Genre: Noise rock, math rock, post-hardcore
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

It’s as good as I’d hoped it’d be. I can enjoy Big Black in a certain mood and obviously “appreciate” it, but Steve Albini’s work with Todd Trainer and Bob Weston has always been my favorite from him as a musician. To All Trains is ten more songs and twenty-eight more minutes of possibly the greatest-sounding rock and roll band of all-time doing their thing, re-announcing their dominance by honing their metallic, razorblade-sharp sound into levels of concision and prickliness previously thought impossible to reach by mankind. It fucking sucks that this is the last Shellac album. It fucking rules–this, the last Shellac album.

27. Stomatopod – DrizzleFizzle

Release date: October 4th
Record label: Pirate Alley
Genre: Garage rock, punk rock, 90s indie rock
Formats: CD, digital

As one might guess of a Chicago-based, Electrical Audio-patronising power trio, Stomatopod could be reasonably described as “noise rock”, but it’s their own version of it–streamlined but expansive, unmistakably Midwestern, punk-y and garage-y, dark but “pop music”. DrizzleFizzle is their fourth album, and it’s a doozy, nearly twice as long as their last one and made up of ten enormous songs. The snapshot of brilliance that was 2022’s Competing with Hindsight is blown up onto the big screen here; it’s a dizzyingly complete, uncomfortably-up-close version of three rock and roll veterans hammering out songs because they must be hammered out. (Read more)

26. Ex Pilots – Motel Cable

Release date: August 23rd
Record label: Smoking Room
Genre: Noise pop, alt-rock, shoegaze, power pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

On what will likely be an introduction to Ex Pilots for a lot of people, the Pittsburgh sextet do what they do best–kick out fifteen songs and thirty-seven minutes of hook-laden, shoegaze-informed indie rock shot through with a sense of Robert Pollard-esque propulsive melancholy that’s equally present on the loud, punk-y rave-ups and Motel Cable’s more pensive moments. Similarities with their sibling band, Gaadge, abound, but Ethan Oliva (more or less Ex Pilots’ ringleader, while Ex Pilots bassist Mitch Delong largely helms Gaadge) seizes the opportunity to delve more full-heartedly into huge Guided by Voices-indebted rock anthems with distortion on tap. (Read more)

Click here for:
Part One (100-76)
Part Two (75-51)
Part Four (25-1)

Rosy Overdrive’s Top 100 Albums of 2024 (75-51)

Welcome to part two (of four) of Rosy Overdrive’s Top 100 Albums of 2024! This post covers albums 75 through 51. For any and all background info, see part one.

See also:
Part One (100-76)
Part Three (50-26)
Part Four (25-1)
Playlist links (Spotify) (Tidal)

75. Friko – Where We’ve Been, Where We Go From Here

Release date: February 16th
Record label: ATO
Genre: Indie pop, college rock, fuzz rock, 90s indie rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

Where We’ve Been, Where We Go From Here is the debut full-length from Chicago’s Friko, who’ve been associated with the Windy City’s “Hallogallo” scene since they arose around early 2020. Friko recall the playful guitar pop of several associated acts, albeit with a bit more “rock” in tow. Niko Kapetan is a compelling vocalist, sounding in command but close to breaking while delivering sharp melodies over top of instrumentals that veer into noisy indie rock freak-outs and then back to gorgeous chamber pop with ease. Where We’ve Been, Where We Go From Here swings drama and intensity around, but the projectiles are enjoyably well-crafted, going a long way towards defining Friko as standouts in a crowded and talented scene. (Read more)

74. Crumbs – You’re Just Jealous

Release date: May 17th
Record label: Skep Wax
Genre: Post-punk, punk, garage rock, indie pop, dance punk
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

Coming in at a dozen tracks in under 30 minutes, every song on Crumbs’ sophomore album, You’re Just Jealous, goes on for exactly as long as it needs to and not a second more. The Leeds group cites bands like Gang of Four, Delta 5, and Chic as influences, and it’s apparent that You’re Just Jealous was made with the perspective that post-punk can and should be catchy and fun to listen to. The record combines the danceability of 80s post-punk, the hooks of classic indie pop, and the sharp edges of 90s Kill Rock Stars indie rock groups–it’s bullseye vocal melodies, Andy Gill guitar licks, and rumbling rhythms right up to the end. (Read more)

73. Spirit Night – Time Won’t Tell

Release date: October 4th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Jangle pop, indie pop, synthpop, post-punk, dream pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Last year, Dylan Balliett released the long-awaited fourth album from his project Spirit Night, Bury the Dead, and it felt like the culmination of the emo-shaded indie rock present throughout his musical career. Rather than trying to top it, Balliett decided to try something different with Time Won’t Tell, the second Sprit Night LP in as many years. Time Won’t Tell embraces a less-seen side of Balliett’s songwriting, exploring jangly Flying Nun-esque guitar pop, synthpop, and even a bit of post-punk and new wave. Time Won’t Tell is neither a logical extension from previous Spirit Night records nor is it a clean break from the past, both in terms of the music and Balliett’s writing (evoking Bury the Dead at times but unmoored from its vivid desperation). (Read more)

72. Vista House – They’ll See Light

Release date: November 22nd
Record label: Anything Bagel
Genre: Country rock, alt-country
Formats: Cassette, digital

Last year’s offering from Tim Howe’s Vista House, Oregon III, was an excellent and adventurous take on alt-country, Americana, indie rock, and power pop, and I’m certainly happy to see the Portland-based musician back with a follow-up LP in short order. They’ll See Light is far from a departure for Vista House–once again, Howe leads the band through loud, rambling country rockers and softer, still-rambling folk-indebted music, but the cobbled-together feel of their last album is replaced with something more focused and streamlined. They’ll See Light sounds like the work of a well-oiled rock band who’s decided to record a bunch of great songs in one go because they know that they’re on a roll–and they’re right. (Read more)

71. Guitar – Casting Spells on Turtlehead

Release date: February 7th
Record label: Spared Flesh/Julia’s War
Genre: Shoegaze, experimental rock, noise pop, fuzz rock, garage rock, lo-fi indie rock
Formats: Cassette, digital

Portland’s Saia Kuli brings a louder, noisier sound to his project Guitar’s latest release, and he also gets a little more help this time around compared to 2022’s mostly self-recorded lo-fi post-punk Guitar EP. Kuli linked up with experimental shoegaze label Julia’s War for Casting Spells on Turtlehead, and, as it turns out, a more fleshed-out Guitar sounds surprisingly like it fits right in with the current wave of omnivorous noise pop/shoegaze acts. Like an early Guided by Voices EP, Casting Spells on Turtlehead feels like a collection of disparate but connected moments–beautiful, melodic guitar riffs, basement-acoustic immediacy, lumbering but fun fuzz rock, trippy dream pop. Guitar have stepped things up a bit on their newest release, and we should all take notice accordingly. (Read more)

70. Chime School – The Boy Who Ran the Paisley Hotel

Release date: August 23rd
Record label: Slumberland
Genre: Jangle pop, power pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

I’d been waiting for a follow-up to Andy Pastalaniec’s 2021 self-titled debut as Chime School for some time, and The Boy Who Ran the Paisley Hotel is a worthy sequel to that special record from the Bay Area jangle popper. It’s once again self-recorded and largely piece together by Pastalaniec himself, but there’s plenty of development from the singer-songwriter rather than trying to carbon-copy what made Chime School work. Nonetheless, there is plenty of twelve-string jangle and quick tempos, and even though there are a few moments of musical subtlety in the midst of its jangling barrage, The Boy Who Ran the Paisley Hotel is only really “mellow” compared to the last Chime School album. (Read more)

69. Vacation – Rare Earth

Release date: May 3rd
Record label: Feel It
Genre: Power pop, punk rock, garage rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital

Vacation are a quartet out of Cincinnati that have been making their blend of garage rock, power pop, and punk rock for a decade and a half now. Rare Earth, their debut for Feel It Records, displays a belief that pop music should be played loud and fast, but it also reaches over to nearby Dayton to snag a mid-period Guided by Voices “meaty but hooky” attitude and, last but not least, throws in a dash of Midwestern, blue-collar pop punk. All in all, Rare Earth is one of the most inspired-sounding rock records I’ve heard in quite a bit–huge-sounding, catchy, with the edges anything but sanded off. (Read more)

68. The Smashing Times – Mrs Ladyships and the Cleanerhouse Boys

Release date: November 1st
Record label: K/Perennial
Genre: Jangle pop, psychedelic pop, psychedelic folk, twee
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Baltimore’s premier mod revival quintet have returned with yet another collection of gloriously fractured and free-ranging guitar pop. This time around, The Smashing Times have come up with a record called Mrs Ladyships and the Cleanerhouse Boys that’s clearly indebted to the weirdest detours on some of the most classic rock albums. All the blissful psychedelic jangle-beat melodies that marked the band’s last album are still here, yes, but (as one might gather from its title) Mrs Ladyships and the Cleanerhouse Boys leans into the eccentricities of British pop of the past across its fourteen tracks. I wouldn’t expect anything other than pop music on their own terms from The Smashing Times, but Mrs Ladyships and the Cleanerhouse Boys is a strong reminder of why it’s so fruitful to accept those terms. (Read more)

67. MJ Lenderman – Manning Fireworks

Release date: September 6th
Record label: Anti-/Dear Life
Genre: Country rock, alt-country
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital

Manning Fireworks is the first album made with any kind of expectations for Asheville singer-songwriter and Wednesday member MJ Lenderman, and it feels like a transitional one for me. The follow-up to Lenderman’s breakthrough 2022 album Boat Songs contains a few different paths that Lenderman could potentially wander down–sometimes, Manning Fireworks nods towards the delicate and traditional, other times it sounds like Lenderman is hellbent on following his heroes the Drive-By Truckers into the world of blustering, loud country rock and roll. There’s always something interesting going on in Manning Fireworks–and it’s frequently something other than the qualities that helped his music leap out of the weirdo alt-country world from which it came.

66. Amy O – Mirror, Reflect

Release date: May 20th
Record label: Winspear
Genre: Lo-fi pop, bedroom pop, singer-songwriter
Formats: Cassette, digital

Last time I wrote about Amy Oelsner (aka Amy O) on this blog, I called her underrated, and I nearly went and proved my own point by leaving Mirror, Reflect off this list until I revisited it. The more I listen to Mirror, Reflect, the more favorite moments I find; this album, pieced together “at [her] home and friends’ homes” over two years, is a gorgeous mid-fi guitar pop album which loses no potency whatsoever via the casual way Oelsner approaches it. In fact, the patchwork nature of Mirror, Reflect is essential to its charm–even as it sounds complete in its own right, it also hints at a larger, vibrant world that this album only captures for thirty-odd minutes. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard so much contained within the lines “dribble dribble drop drop” and “rumble rumble splat splat”.

65. Frontier Ruckus – On the Northline

Release date: February 16th
Record label: Sitcom Universe/Loose Music
Genre: Folk rock, singer-songwriter
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

I first came to the work of Michigan singer-songwriter Matthew Milia via his excellent 2021 solo album Keego Harbor, but he’s probably most well-known for fronting the long-running folk rock band Frontier Ruckus. On the Northline is the first Frontier Ruckus full-length I’ve heard, but I can tell you that it’s great–it sounds like Milia’s solo work, but folkier! Frontier Ruckus’ peers still feel like indie rock and guitar pop groups to me–I hear Grandaddy, Fountains of Wayne, and even some Elephant 6 in On the Northline, but the mandolins, banjos, and acoustic guitars that populate these tracks are always the exact right accompaniments for Milia’s songwriting. On the Northline invites us to get lost in a vaguely familiar Midwestern world across its forty-seven minute journey.

​64. Rain Recordings – Terns in Idle

Release date: April 12th
Record label: Trash Tape
Genre: Emo-y indie rock, 90s indie rock, folk rock
Formats: CD, cassette, digital

Carrboro-based Evren Centeno and Stockholm, Sweden’s Josef Löfvendahl have been collaborating remotely for a few years as Rain Recordings, but Terns in Idle is the first album that the duo recorded in person in the same studio. Ceneno and Löfvendahl sound like they’ve spent a good deal of time with essential 90s indie rock groups like Modest Mouse and Built to Spill, but Terns in Idle isn’t entirely devoted to this bygone ornery era of guitar music–there’s also some Neutral Milk Hotel-ish folk ambition, the earnest, wide-eyed 2000s version of indie rock, and even a bit of emo mixed in, as the duo take advantage of the studio setting to expand their sound. (Read more)

63. American Culture – Hey Brother, It’s Been a While

Release date: May 3rd
Record label: Convulse
Genre: Punk rock, Madchester, power pop, jangle pop, noise pop, college rock, psychedelic rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Denver quartet American Culture’s sound has a lot of familiar ingredients, but it’s a unique and captivating blend that’s found on Hey Brother, It’s Been a While–they’re “punk rock” in a loose sense, yes, although in the older underground version of the term, while also leaving room for indie rock and pop of several different stripes (mid-to-late Replacements jangly power pop, and even some psychedelic Madchester influences). Some of the variety of Hey Brother, It’s Been a While can be explained by the band having two main singer-songwriters, Chris Adolf and Michael Stein–without getting too into it, the two distinct voices are key to the narrative of the album, which deals with a community-level traumatic event from two different perspectives. (Read more)

62. Sharp Pins – Radio DDR

Release date: May 19th
Record label: Hallogallo
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, power pop, jangle pop
Formats: Digital

Last year’s Turtle Rock was one of the breakout debuts of 2023, an exuberant and well-crafted collection of lo-fi pop that put Sharp Pins square in the center of Chicago’s “Hallogallo” scene. How does Kai Slater (Lifeguard, Dwaal Troupe), one of the most exciting talents in indie rock, follow it up? With a brand new sophomore album called Radio DDR coming scarcely a year later. As great as Turtle Rock was, Radio DDR advances the journey of Sharp Pins without losing the humble charms of his first record under the name. Radio DDR is refined and polished in both its writing and recording, finding the Pins inching closer and closer to power pop perfection. Two great and distinct records in as many years–pay attention to Sharp Pins.

61. The Softies – The Bed I Made

Release date: August 23rd
Record label: Father/Daughter/Lost Sound Tapes
Genre: Twee, indie pop, indie folk
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital

Two decades removed from their last album together, The Bed I Made is a reminder of why The Softies specifically have endured, even as their music is deliberately less immediate than most of Rose Melberg and Jen Sbragia’s other projects in the realms of indie pop and twee. When the duo sing together and play their guitars together, they don’t need any additional accompaniment–these songs don’t seek the spotlight, but neither do they shrink from the light shone upon them. When the duo reach a particularly resonant moment in one of their songs, the words just hang there, Melberg and Sbragia taking no measures to shield themselves from their impact. There’s nowhere to hide on The Bed I Made, even if The Softies wanted to do so. (Read more)

60. Micah Schnabel – The Clown Watches the Clock

Release date: May 15th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Country punk, alt-country, Americana, cowpunk
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital 

Columbus country-punk institution Micah Schnabel has always come off as somebody with a lot to say in his lyrics, both as the primary frontperson of his cult alt-country group Two Cow Garage and in his just-as-worthwhile solo career (and even, more recently, as a novelist).  His latest album, The Clown Watches the Clock, balances Schnabel’s long-winded tendencies with his punk rock instincts admirably–he wanders a fair bit in the songs’ verses, but there’s a conscious effort to return to clear, catchy, and concise refrains again and again on the album. The Clown Watches the Clock is a record about the ambient sights and sounds of middle America: guns, Jesus, and debilitating, humiliating, irritating poverty, delivered with none of the treacly, pandering romanticism in which lesser writers love to indulge (but, rather than cynicism, our narrator emerges out the other side with something much more potent). (Read more)

59. Silo’s Choice – Languid Swords

Release date: March 29th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Folk rock, prog-folk, art folk, new age
Formats: Digital

Built largely around meandering acoustic guitar playing and upright bass, the seven-song, 40-minute Languid Swords backs up the John Fahey influence that Chicago’s Jon Massey cited when he emailed me about Languid Swords. The latest LP from his long-running Silo’s Choice project takes its time and isn’t overly concerned with offering up pop hooks immediately–not that it doesn’t indulge in “pop music”, but it’s always on Massey’s own terms. It’s a bit more challenging than the experimental yet accessible take on Chicago indie folk rock of his other band, Coventry, but Languid Swords is gripping and spirited in its own steadily smoldering way. (Read more)

58. Office Culture – Enough

Release date: October 18th
Record label: Ruination
Genre: Art pop, jazz-pop, art rock, experimental rock
Formats: CD, digital

For the fourth album from his jazz-pop/soft rock project Office Culture, bandleader Winston Cook-Wilson decided to try something different–he decided to make a CD. The seventy-three minute, sixteen-song Enough was deliberately inspired by “the CD era”, embracing the ability to blow everything up to new proportions. Guest vocalists, experimental electronic instrumentation, and songs that cross the five-minute barrier without breaking a sweat all abound on Enough, an album that finds Office Culture and their twenty-something collaborators finding out just how many directions they can stretch Cook-Wilson’s distinct sophisti-pop songwriting at once. (Read more)

57. Cloud Nothings – Final Summer

Release date: April 19th
Record label: Pure Noise
Genre: Garage rock, punk, power pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

In a world where Greg Sage and Robert Pollard are Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan, Cloud Nothings vocalist/guitarist Dylan Baldi would be a folk hero, churning out loud, pummeling, hooky rock music at a steady clip for a decade and a half now, aided deftly by longtime drummer Jayson Gerycz and bassist Chris Brown. One could cherry pick a few details from Final Summer–like the way that krautrock-y intro of the opening title track gives way to a big-sounding, saxophone-featuring “heartland rock”-ish version of the Cloud Nothings sound–and spin a “Cloud Nothings as you’ve never heard them before” narrative, but to me Final Summer sounds like the band at their most comfortable, like a group of ringers completely confident in their abilities. (Read more)

56. Russel the Leaf – Thought to an End

Release date: September 1st
Record label: Records from Russ
Genre: Art pop, indie pop, experimental pop, psychedelic pop
Formats: CD, digital

Thought to an End is Troy-based producer and musician Evan M. Marré’s return to pop music after a few more experimental and improvisational records with his Russel the Leaf project–and it’s a triumphant one. Spanning twenty-one songs and seventy-five minutes, Thought to an End is quite possibly Russel the Leaf’s magnus opus. Thought to an End has the feel of a classic double LP–it’s got room for everything, from streamlined, breezy 60s-influenced pop rock to layered orchestral and psychedelic passages to heady art rock to, indeed, the experimental/jazz moments of the last couple of Russel the Leaf records. (Read more)

55. Spring Silver – Don’t You Think It’s Strange?

Release date: August 23rd
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Fuzz rock, experimental rock, noise pop, art punk
Formats: Digital

Maryland’s K Nkanza has been making D.C.-ish post-hardcore/art rock crossed with both shined-up power pop and electronics and synths as Spring Silver for a few records now, but Don’t You Think It’s Strange? still surprised me. Even though it was recorded entirely by Nkanza alone, the album actually sound like the most “rock-band-focused” version of Spring Silver yet, even as Nkanza approaches this from a unique vantage point. Still recognizably themself, Nkanza takes on the difficult task of making lengthy, rumbling, but still pop-focused rock songs on Don’t You Think It’s Strange?; it’s a singular listen, and it’s impressive how accessible it is in spite of all this. (Read more)

54. Tucker Riggleman & the Cheap Dates – Restless Spirit

Release date: February 17th
Record label: WarHen
Genre: Alt-country, country rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

If 2021’s Alive and Dying Fast was the sound of Tucker Riggleman & The Cheap Dates slowing down and displaying enough confidence in Riggleman’s writing to let it take the unquestioned center stage, Restless Spirit is where the West Virginia-based band show that they can maintain the captivating quality of that record’s songs while also injecting just a bit more rock and roll into things. No one’s going to mistake Restless Spirit for a garage punk record, but it is very clearly an album where Riggleman’s formative alt-country and power pop influences peak through with regularity, and this suits his writing–always with chaos and darkness hovering around, but determined to keep it in check rather than overwhelming everything. (Read more)

53. Female Gaze – Tender Futures

Release date: May 17th
Record label: Fort Lowell/Totally Real
Genre: Psychedelic rock, art rock, desert rock, post-rock, jazz rock
Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital

After retiring the name of their old band, The Rifle, Tucson’s Nelene DeGuzman and Kevin Conklin formed Female Gaze with Nicky David Cobham-Morgese, and the former garage rockers undergo a remarkable transformation on Tender Futures, their debut album under the new name. Stretching five songs across thirty-two minutes, Tender Futures is an expansive, vast record, with the band embodying the American southwest more than any of their projects ever have before. Inspired in part by DeGuzman’s chronic health issues that had left her in a “painful limbo”, Tender Futures explores the desert using empty space and towering nothingness as its language, intentionally evoking haziness and disorientation through psychedelia, post-rock, and even a bit of jazz-rock. (Read more)

52. Beeef – Somebody’s Favorite

Release date: September 6th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Power pop, indie pop, jangle pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Boston’s Beeef put out a pair of excellent jangly college rock records in the late 2010s before going quiet for a few years, but thankfully the quartet is not only alive but quite well. The third Beeef LP, Somebody’s Favorite, is just about everything one could want in a New England guitar pop record–immediately catchy, smart, and friendly, with plenty of depth below the sparkle and shine that feels like it will age incredibly well. Beeef can be one of the greatest modern pop bands whenever they feel like being one, and they’re in a great mood on this one. Somebody’s Favorite even existing at all feels like a victory, but it’s an even greater treat to hear that Beeef sound, more than ever, quite sturdy and built to last. (Read more)

51. Climax Landers – Zenith No Effects

Release date: May 10th
Record label: Gentle Reminder/Home Late/Intellectual Birds
Genre: Art rock, post-punk, indie pop, college rock, folk rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Although Will Moloney is clearly the ringleader/lead carnival barker of the Climax Landers, Zenith No Effects is just as palpably a record made with full collaboration welcomed. As a frontperson, Moloney frequently offers up his lyrics in a conversational talk-singing fashion–he’s got a little bit of the Minutemen-esque “post-punk as folk music” attitude towards things–but he’s hardly a one-note leader. Zenith No Effects is an offbeat but sincere guitar pop record at its core, with classic pop rock and college rock (aided by Paco Cathcart’s violin, Ani Ivry-Block’s accordion, and Charlie Dore-Young’s bass) shading the record–and Moloney ups his game to match the rest of the Climax Landers. (Read more)

Click here for:
Part One (100-76)
Part Three (50-26)
Part Four (25-1)

Rosy Overdrive’s Top 100 Albums of 2024 (100-76)

Hello, one and all! Welcome to the fifth annual edition of Rosy Overdrive’s Top 100 Albums of the Year. Today, albums 51 through 100 are being posted, and tomorrow (Tuesday, December 10th), the top 50 will be revealed.

Once again, thank you to anyone reading this list, anyone who has shared Rosy Overdrive with others, or anyone who even just makes it a part of their music life in some way. I am grateful, and it’s been a pleasure to share new music with everyone all year long. I put a lot of work into this blog in 2024, because I believe in the music that you’ll read about below and think somebody ought to be writing about it. I want something like Rosy Overdrive to exist, so I’ve done my best to make it real. I fully intend to keep Rosy Overdrive going strong into 2025!

Here is a playlist featuring all of the records from this list that are available on streaming services: on Spotify, on Tidal. As with last year, separate lists for EPs and compilations/reissues will go up over the next couple of weeks. To read about more music beyond what’s on this list, check out the site directory, and if you’d like to support Rosy Overdrive, you can share this (or another) post, or donate here. And you can also be part of the blog’s year-end rundown by voting in the Rosy Overdrive Reader’s Poll! Anyway, without further ado, let’s get to the list.

See also:
Part Two (75-51)
Part Three (50-26)
Part Four (25-1)
Playlist links (Spotify) (Tidal)

100. Grr Ant – Once Upon a Time in Battersea

Release date: April 26th
Record label: Crafting Room
Genre: Jangle pop, lo-fi pop, power pop, indie pop
Formats: Digital

British musician Grant Gillingham has made no secret of his love of 80s underground indie music–post-punk, C86 indie pop, college rock–and Once Upon a Time in Battersea reflects this, pulling together all of these influences ambitiously and successfully. One key wrinkle to the first record from his solo project Grr Ant is a bit of wide-open Americana in its jangly indie rock–recalling a bit of the British-Invasion-via Midwestern basement rock of early Guided by Voices, or modern GBV-inspired bands. The end product is something like a British person’s conception of an American’s conception of British pop-rock music–if this is the sound of Grant Gillingham taking us full circle, it’s very enjoyable to listen to. (Read more)

99. Bacchae – Next Time

Release date: July 5th
Record label: Get Better
Genre: Punk rock, post-punk
Formats: Digital

Washington, D.C.’s Bacchae unfortunately broke up this year, but not before delivering one last full-length statement. On Next Time, Bacchae incorporate their different sides a bit more seamlessly–rather than doling out furious punk rockers, spiky post-punk tracks, and polished pop songs one at a time, the band triangulate everything at once. Although the disjointedness of their last album, 2020’s Pleasure Vision, was part of its charm for me, this level of evolution works very well for Next Time, a record that’s nervous, fiery, and spirited as the band’s steady but forceful hand guides us across a unified LP. Bacchae will be missed, but Next Time cements them as a key D.C. punk act for the duration of their existence. (Read more)

98. Motorists – Touched by the Stuff

Release date: May 24th
Record label: Bobo Integral/We Are Time
Genre: Power pop, jangle pop, college rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Toronto trio Motorists introduced themselves as punchy understudies in a vibrant Toronto power pop scene with their debut album, Surrounded, back in 2021, which was an impressive collection of college rock and jangle pop-inspired music with a surprisingly tough post-punk backbone frequently rearing its head, too. For their sophomore album, Touched by the Stuff, the group display a subtle but palpable sonic evolution as well: the post-punk edge is less pronounced and more seamlessly baked into the sound, as Motorists embrace being a straight-up, rollicking power pop group more than ever across Touched by the Stuff’s dozen tracks. (Read more)

97. Weak Signal – Fine

Release date: September 20th
Record label: 12XU
Genre: Psychedelic rock, garage rock, 90s indie rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

New York’s Weak Signal have rode a distinct mix of chugging psychedelic rock, precise, fuzzed-out garage-y indie rock, and post-punk rhythmic excellence through four albums now. The ten songs on the trio’s latest album, Fine, continue Tran Huynh, Sasha Vine, and Mike Bones’ ability to feel streamlined but unhurried, forming an effortless-sounding mix of seediness and transcendence that’s musical comfort food to a certain subset of indie rock sickos. Even the moments on Fine that don’t adhere to Weak Signal’s signature propulsive, electric rock and roll feel perfunctory, like well-curated detours before hopping back on the highway. (Read more)

96. Biz Turkey – Biz Turkey

Release date: May 31st
Record label: Third Uncle
Genre: 90s indie rock, lo-fi indie rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

If you like the less jammy side of Built to Spill and the more guitar-based music of Grandaddy, I’ve got great news for you with regards to what the self-titled debut from Maine group Biz Turkey sounds like. Biz Turkey may be a new band, but the quintet is made up of several longtime collaborators, and their first album establishes them as having a clear handle on their specific style of pessimistic-feeling, pop-friendly electric indie rock. Biz Turkey captures the moment where the basement indie rock of the 90s started transforming into something larger and more aware of the concept of “the outdoors”. Vocalist Graham Wood sounds lost but still alert in the midst of these wandering instrumentals; sometimes Biz Turkey sounds quite driven, but Biz Turkey sound great when they’re groping about in the darkness too. (Read more)

95. The Dreaded Laramie – Princess Feedback

Release date: July 5th
Record label: Smartpunk
Genre: Pop punk, power pop, alt-rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

In the first lyrics you hear on Princess Feedback, the debut album from Nashville’s The Dreaded Laramie, lead singer M.C. Cunningham prays for the painful death of an ex–and in the very next line, Cunningham sings “I don’t need you to tell me I’m pathetic / I understand what I’m doing”. Musically, The Dreaded Laramie are power pop/pop punk mercenaries, zeroing in on the mainstream side of 90s alt-rock revival and blowing it up with unabashed classic rock/Weezer-y guitar solos–Prince Feedback is as huge and polished-sounding as its inner contents are messy and uncomfortable. A nice, big giant explosion obliterates everything in its vicinity, so why not toss your least favorite parts of yourself right in its epicenter? (Read more)

94. Hill View #73 – Night Time Is the Grace Period

Release date: March 15th
Record label: Trash Tape/9733
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, experimental rock, fuzz rock, noise pop
Formats: Cassette, digital

Night Time Is the Grace Period is the debut album from Hill View #73, which is the project of Atlanta, Georgia’s Awsaf Halim. Halim gets plenty of help on their first LP (including from members of Dwaal Troupe, Deerest Friend, and Post Office Winter), but Hill View #73 is pretty clearly Halim’s project–they wrote all ten of these songs and play most of what you’ll hear on the record. Night Time Is the Grace Period has a familiar yet distinct sound, with Halim proving quite capable of switching between noisy fuzz rock, Alex G/Jeff Mangum-ish bedroom folk, and bright, vibrant synth-colored pop–sometimes within the same song. Halim pulls together noise and pop music together with the skill of much more well-known and well-established indie rock acts throughout Night Time Is the Grace Period, establishing the singer-songwriter as one to watch. (Read more)

93. The Reds, Pinks & Purples – The World Doesn’t Need Another Band

Release date: September 5th
Record label: Burundi Cloud
Genre: Jangle pop, folk rock, singer-songwriter, indie pop
Formats: Digital

Last year, Glenn Donaldson’s The Reds, Pinks & Purples was the only project to appear on Rosy Overdrive’s favorite LPs, favorite EPs, and favorite compilations/reissues lists. The prolific Donaldson generously added to the Reds, Pinks & Purples oeuvre again this year–including the Slumberland-released “proper” album Unwishing Well, the outtakes/covers collection This Is Adult Art School (and the similarly-themed Restless When You Sleep EP), an expanded vinyl edition of 2022’s Still Clouds at Noon. My favorite one is a self-released digital-only album called The World Doesn’t Need Another Band. It’s a bit more “rock”-focused than Unwishing Well, and feels kind of like a more informal companion to last year’s The Town That Cursed Your Name to me. Soaring anthems like “Park Statues”, “My Toxic Friend”, and “Unloveable Losers” are as good guitar pop songs as any that Donaldson’s penned, and there’s at least one show-stopping piano ballad in “New Market Space”.

92. Dominic Angelella – God Loves a Scammer

Release date: August 30th
Record label: Dumb Solitaire
Genre: Folk rock, power pop, alt-country, country rock, singer-songwriter
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

God Loves a Scammer, the fifth LP from Philadelphia fixture Dominic Angelella, is a refreshingly timeless-sounding record, one that balances a predilection for offbeat, attention-grabbing songwriting from its frontperson with a casual, laid-back vibe from its players (who’ve played with everyone from Boygenius to Illuminati Hotties). Angelella is an indie rock songwriter who takes cues from the likes of David Berman and John Darnielle, but who is wise enough to understand that the lessons to be taken from them are primarily attitudinal. The music from the Angelella backing band is anything but an afterthought, accompanying their leader’s clear-in-the-mix vocals through rambling alt-country slingers,  unrestrained rockers, and quiet and tasteful numbers. (Read more)

91. Lunchbox – Pop and Circumstance

Release date: May 10th
Record label: Slumberland
Genre: Indie pop, power pop, twee
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

At this point, Lunchbox’s Donna McKean and Tim Brown could be considered Bay Area indie pop godparents–it took the rest of the region a couple of decades to catch up to the 90s-originating group, but when their moment came, Lunchbox was ready. The dozen pop songs on Pop and Circumstance (the group’s second album thus far to come out of their 2020s resurgence) come from people who live and breathe vintage pop rock of the 1960s and 70s–bubblegum pop, mod, psychedelic pop, and soul, delivered with ample experience and honed knowledge. Pop and Circumstance sound fresh and free because of McKean and Brown’s decades of practice at the craft, not in spite of it. (Read more)

90. Dancer / Whisper Hiss – Split

Release date: October 4th
Record label: HHBTM
Genre: Post-punk, indie pop, dance-punk, punk rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Both groups on HHBTM Records’ latest split full-length album are post-punk bands that know their way around a pop hook, but they’re fairly distinct to me–Glasgow’s Dancer are the irreverent, offbeat Brits who mix new wave-y art punk with fluffy indie pop, and Portland, Oregon’s Whisper Hiss are the heavier, more serious Americans who certainly have listened to their fair share of Dischord and Kill Rock Stars records. Both of them get six songs on this album to make the case for their version of indie rock, and both bring strong material to the table. Dancer even brings a bit of power chords and fuzzed-out indie rock into the mix, and Whisper Hiss mixes indie pop into their death-rock and punk, meeting each other halfway. (Read more)

89. Hit – Bestseller

Release date: October 25th
Record label: One Weird Trick
Genre: Experimental pop, noise pop, art rock, art punk, prog-pop, psych pop
Formats: CD, digital

New York quartet Hit is something of a sibling band to Miracle Sweepstakes (it features half of their lineup), but up until Bestseller, we’d only heard the group in brief, chaotic single bursts. In order to translate those early Hit songs (which merged Brainiac-like noisy post-punk with snatches of heavenly guitar pop) to a larger setting, the band were going to have to get even more creative. And Bestseller is creative, alright–adventurous and exhaustive, too, I’d say. Hit careen through zany, bonkers prog-pop, underwater-sounding psychedelic pop, and something that I can only really describe as “jangle-prog” across the album’s length–if you’re looking for an unpredictable pop album, here’s Hit. (Read more)

88. Fred Thomas – Window in the Rhythm

Release date: October 4th
Record label: Polyvinyl
Genre: Folk rock, experimental rock, ambient rock, singer-songwriter
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Spanning seven songs in sixty minutes, Michigan singer-songwriter Fred Thomas’ first solo record since 2018 is a spacious double album. Thomas and his guitar build a spindly but firm foundation for Window in the Rhythm, which sounds like nothing else Thomas has released before. As the tracks unspool, some of them get louder and more ornate, but Window in the Rhythm uses vastness and absence as a weapon for a good chunk of the hour it takes. It’s a very natural-sounding record, and it still sounds like a Fred Thomas album–his voice and writing guide us through the double LP, still recognizably the ace sing-speaking pop musician even as we enter a world of ten-minute songs with no choruses. (Read more)

87. Ylayali – Birdhouse in Conduit

Release date: October 16th
Record label: Circle Change
Genre: Fuzz rock, experimental, lo-fi indie rock, lo-fi pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Philadelphia musician (and 2nd Grade drummer) Francis Lyons pieced the latest album from his Ylayali solo project together from 2022 to 2024 at home, and the resultant Birdhouse in Conduit is Ylayali at their most exploratory (especially compared to the last album from Lyons’ solo project, 2022’s relatively accessible Separation). There’s still pop music to be found in Birdhouse in Conduit, but it sits alongside ambient and droning fuzz passages, experimental electronic instrumentation, and blasts of noise. None of this gets in the way of the “core” sound of Birdhouse in Conduit, and is in fact a key part of it–distortion and static have always been important to Ylayali, and this record is no different in shaping these elements into something just as emotional-sounding as the indie and folk rock hidden intermittently between them. (Read more)

86. Uranium Club – Infants Under the Bulb

Release date: March 1st
Record label: Static Shock/Anti Fade
Genre: Garage rock, post-punk, egg punk, garage punk
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Infants Under the Bulb is a massive, thorny way to return after a half-decade absence. The Minneapolis Uranium Club was maybe the most emblematic group of the late 2010s “egg punk”/“Devo-core” phenomena that swept the Midwest, and while entire bands have risen and fallen in the five years since 2019’s The Cosmo Cleaners, the garage punks’ long-awaited third LP reaffirms their position as a cornerstone act in a particularly dingy subsection of rock and roll. Dread, anger, seriousness, goofiness, and curiosity all collide in a pile-up of surf-rock guitars, squealing horns, and vocals that’ll restore one’s faith in “speak-singing”. 

85. Deep Tunnel Project – Deep Tunnel Project

Release date: April 5th
Record label: Comedy Minus One
Genre: 90s indie rock, punk, garage rock, noise rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

Deep Tunnel Project is the debut album from a band with plenty of indie rock experience between them; the Windy City indie rock supergroup features John Mohr and Michael Greenlees (both of Tar) as well as Tim Midyett (Silkworm, Mint Mile) and Jeff Dean (Her Head’s on Fire, The Story So Far, The Bomb). Deep Tunnel Project is all Chicago, from the geographically-informed lyrics to the band and album name to the music, which is a garage and punk-influenced take on workmanlike Second City underground rock music. Deep Tunnel Project is part of a grand and ever-expanding tapestry being woven by its creators and many others like them–but it sounds pretty damn good in its own right, too. (Read more)

84. Styrofoam Winos – Real Time

Release date: September 27th
Record label: Sophomore Lounge
Genre: Folk rock, alt-country, singer-songwriter, country rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

It’s quite satisfying to listen to Real Time and be able to hear the growth that Nashville supergroup Styrofoam Winos has made together almost immediately. The group’s self-titled debut was the work of a band with three distinct songwriters adding their own touch to the songs, but Real Time is a different story; Joe Kenkel, Lou Turner, and Trevor Nikrant meld together here more than ever before, creating a cohesive album that sounds relaxed and comfortable as a whole. It’s not like “laid-back country rock” is new territory for Styrofoam Winos, but the way that they do it here–effortlessly passing the torch between the three of them, creating a singular vibe across these ten songs–is a palpable leap. (Read more)

83. Marcel Wave – Something Looming

Release date: June 14th
Record label: Feel It/Upset the Rhythm
Genre: Post-punk, indie pop, garage rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

London’s Marcel Wave put out a demo EP back in 2019, so their debut album Something Looming has presumably been in the works for a while. It’s a confident, polished, and accessible first statement that follows in the grand tradition of British “post-punk”/“indie pop” records, balanced on both sides of the spectrum by vocalist Maike Hale-Jones’s delivery and a well-seasoned cast of instrumentalists. Something Looming is “catchy” in some form for pretty much its entire length, but sometimes it’s more traditionally so than others; in all cases, Hale-Jones’ sense of rhythm and force of personality are a great fit for Marcel Wave’s musical playfulness. (Read more)

82. The Ekphrastics – Make Your Own Snowboard

Release date: August 3rd
Record label: Harriet
Genre: Indie pop, 90s indie rock, singer-songwriter
Formats: CD, digital

Described as “a collection of short stories about doing one’s level best”, the eleven songs with words on Make Your Own Snowboard are all self-contained works that encourage close listening. Frank Boscoe led underground indie rock bands like Wimp Factor 14 and The Vehicle Flips in the nineties, but as of late he’s found a second (or third, or fourth, or fifth) life with The Ekphrastics. With only a passing familiarity with Boscoe’s previous work, I was immediately drawn in by his latest album, a fantastic exercise in storytelling with laid-back, folk-y indie pop as the fruitful vessel. There’s something very inspiring about Boscoe’s writing, the casualness with which he unpretentiously digs from history rather than lean on what we already know and understand to be common reference points. (Read more)

81. The Sylvia Platters – Vivian Elixir

Release date: April 26th
Record label: Grey Lodge
Genre: Jangle pop, power pop, indie pop
Formats: Cassette, digital

At eight songs and 24 minutes, Vivian Elixir is on the shorter side, but The Sylvia Platters consider it more than just another EP–it’s their first “album” since 2015’s Make Glad the Day, even as the Vancouver-based power/jangle pop quartet have remained fairly active in the interstitial decade. And when you’ve got a bunch of songs that are as strong as these are, you can call it just about whatever you want. The Sylvia Platters continue to assert themselves as one of the best guitar pop bands going with Vivian Elixir, offering up power pop songs of varying stripes but consistent in quality and catchiness–about half of the cassette is “gigantic tune that could’ve been the lead single”, and the other half gives Vivian Elixir some extra character and helps it feel more like a proper album. (Read more)

80. Simon Joyner – Coyote Butterfly

Release date: November 22nd
Record label: Grapefruit/BB*Island
Genre: Folk, singer-songwriter
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

Simon Joyner is already one of the most rewarding, most decorated, and most secretly influential folk artists of the past three decades, so a great album from the Omaha fixture is hardly a surprise. Referring to Coyote Butterfly as merely a “late-career triumph” doesn’t capture the difficult impact of this album, though, which is a tribute to Joyner’s son Owen, who passed away in 2022. The most viscerally emotional experience I had this year was hearing “My Lament” for the first time, something I’m not sure how to describe. Simon Joyner the excellent folk songwriter is still present in Coyote Butterfly, with songs like “The Silver Birch” and “There Will Be a Time” reaching for the same winning tools he’s used in previous great songs. Be it Joyner’s writing or the departed figure at the center of the record, there’s a poignancy to every link to the past on Coyote Butterfly.

79. Ben Seretan – Allora

Release date: July 26th
Record label: Tiny Engines
Genre: Art rock, psychedelic rock, noise pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Upstate New York musician Ben Seretan has released a lot of music, but Allora is the singer-songwriter’s first “rock” record in four years. Recorded in Italy over three days after the collapse of a European tour Seretan had booked, Allora is an energetic and forceful return–compared to 2020’s relatively delicate Youth Pastoral, Seretan and his band sound much more immediate here, with the rockers aiming louder and higher and the quieter moments displaying visible seams. Even though the embrace of electric rock music is the most immediately noticeable feature of Allora, it’s just as impressive that Seretan, Nico Hedley, and Dan Knishkowy still find ways to inject the singer-songwriter’s spacey, experimental side into their “power trio album”. (Read more)

78. Supermilk – High Precision Ghosts

Release date: August 9th
Record label: Specialist Subject
Genre: Power pop, post-punk, indie punk
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Jake Popyura has been leading Supermilk for a while now, but it’s the London band’s third album, High Precision Ghosts, that finds the quartet truly gelling as a sharp indie rock group. Now far much more than a Popyura solo project, Em Foster, Charlie Jamison, and Jason Cavalier (as well as producer Rich Mandell of ME REX and Happy Accidents) help turn High Precision Ghosts into a polished, dynamic rock album that still works well as a Popyura songwriting vessel. Supermilk’s distinctly British mix of hooky post-punk revival with muscular power pop, alt-rock, and even punk takes High Precision Ghosts into some surprising directions, but the band never wander long enough to waste time on the lean, sub-thirty-minute LP.

77. EggS – Crafted Achievement

Release date: November 1st
Record label: Prefect/Howlin Banana
Genre: Power pop, college rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Parsian collective EggS got my attention with 2022’s A Glitter Year, and their boisterous, party-friendly, saxophone-heavy version of vintage college rock is still very potent on their follow-up LP. Crafted Achievement doesn’t flag for a second–it’s only eight songs and twenty-three minutes long, but every moment of it is thrilling. Bandleader Charles Daneau’s vocals–in English and front-and-center throughout the album–reach melodic perfection through sheer force, shouting hooks among the tuneful maelstrom of the EggS band to complete the ingredients for a perfect hurricane of catchy indie rock. (Read more)

76. Yea-Ming and the Rumours – I Can’t Have It All

Release date: May 24th
Record label: Dandy Boy
Genre: Indie pop, jangle pop, folk rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

The latest record from Oakland’s Yea-Ming Chen and her band, The Rumours, doesn’t reinvent their sound–Chen is still a sharp, 60s pop-inspired songwriter and a striking vocalist, and the band give these songs a polished but utilitarian, classic college rock reading. What makes I Can’t Have It All feel so full-sounding and like a career highlight is the well-earned, quiet but palpable confidence Yea-Ming and the Rumors display throughout the entire record. Every song on the first half is a “hit” in its own way, and once you get on their level, you can appreciate how The Rumours skip through twee-pop-rock, folk-country, dream pop, and slowed-down girl-group-influenced pop with a steady helping of zeal. (Read more)

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Part Two (75-51)
Part Three (50-26)
Part Four (25-1)