West builds most of the songs around a single repeated chord, strummed high up on the neck. Her band populates the arrangement with everything else she needs-bass licks, chord changes, dynamic surges-while West sends her voice into the song's darkened corners and curls her mind around whichever odd idea grips her.
"Butterfly is the spring thaw after Beast," they say. "Country fair rides, angels and pixies, talismans, an impulsive fling in a small town, coyotes, fawns - we wanted to contrast the wintry rock of Beast and take listeners on a sonic road trip of different perspectives and in-between places." They've shared a new single, "Worry Angel," where Fraser and Reid's voices intertwine around each other in sinuous harmonies.
The work behind "Waiting for You" by Monotronic spanned two years and several geographic mindsets. Its songs were built in the contained spaces of an East Village apartment and the open humidity of Tulum, initially seeming like disparate projects with no clear direction. Only in retrospect did their shared disposition come into focus. This is an album about the slow work of self-knowledge, which here looks less like an epiphany and more like the gradual acceptance of a particular signal,
In a statement, frontman Ben Gibbard said the band is "thrilled to be joining the roster at Anti- which includes some of our favorite artists, old friends and in many cases, both." Atlantic signed Death Cab away from Barsuk in 2004 off the strength of the band's first four albums, including their 2003 mainstream breakout Transatlanticism. The group went on to release six albums with the label, starting with 2005's and ending with their most recent album, 2022's Asphalt Meadows.
After wrapping up their recent massive tour, the Beths are itching to get back on the road; the indie-rock band just announced plans to headline the United States this summer. Check out the complete list of stops below. The Beths previously shared 2026 performance dates in Japan and New Zealand. Once those legs finish, the group will fly across the globe to bring Straight Line Was a Lie, their 2025 album, back to the States for a few festival sets and headlining concerts.
"It's really just a dumb song, isn't it?" Jansson said about the track in a press release. "A dumb guitar riff, dumb lyrics and a dumb beat, and we love it just the way it is. I have no idea where the inspiration behind the lyrics came from, I have no relationship to switchboard operators and they haven't been around since before I was born. But wouldn't it be fun if they were still around and they sounded really hot over the phone?"
the mandolin riff wrapped around "Afterlife" like a well-worn flannel will inevitably recall R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion." It's a typically self-aware move for our preeminent alt-rock revivalist, who made the jump to a major label this year. But there's a deeper link to the heartbeat of the whole Alex G project, which has always been about breathing new life into old sounds, and at its best pulls off the trick of making indie rock feel ephemeral and eternal.
Montana indie rock greats Silkworm (Tim Midyett, Joel RL Phelps, Andrew Cohen and Jeff Panall) reunited for their first official shows in nearly 20 years back in September, and they've now announced a spring run of Midwest / East Coast dates that mark their most extensive tour in two decades. Dates kick off May 6 in Berwyn, IL and from there the band head to Columbus and Pittsburgh (with The Gotobeds), followed by East Coast shows with Come.
Indie trio Valley Onda is set to release their debut album, Middle Way, spotlighting the track 'Seraph' on October 31, 2025, via Valley Onda Records. The album features previously released singles 'Minacious' and 'Reebok Fantasy,' which premiered on CLASH Magazine and EARMILK, respectively, with the latter gaining radio support from NPR Music-hinting at the album's promise. Since their debut in 2019, the trio has amassed over 350,000 streams, earning acclaim from publications like triple j and touring nationally with acts such as The Money War.
A new band for fans of headstrong, tender Americana, Alabama twins Katie and Allison Crutchfield (of Waxahatchee and Swearin' respectively) are in a new band together for the first time since scrappy, beloved PS Eliot retired in 2011. Backed by indie guitar star MJ Lenderman and storied alt-rock producer Brad Cook, Snocaps is a family record in more ways than one: the four have a tangled history of making music together, giving this one-off collection the lived-in feel of a band five albums deep.
Again, one of the year's best indie rock albums, comes courtesy of the Belair Lip Bombs, a Melbourne four-piece who write with a precision and attention to melody that could put hired-gun pop songwriters to shame. Their second album, which follows their 2023 debut, Lush Life, looks set to establish the Lip Bombs guitarist and vocalist Maisie Everett, bass player Jimmy Droughton, drummer Daniel Devlin and guitarist Mike Bradvica as rising stars in Australia and far beyond.
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