#indie-rock

#indie-rock

Working in the vein of "laptop twee" acts like friends& and Worldpeace DMT, who fuse the genre-smashing maximalism promised by hyperpop with the whimsical optimism of '00s buzz bands, the material on their 2025 album Shy at first is as dense and dynamic as the songs you try to compose in your imagination.

Like many of the project's lyrics, it's less of a command to the audience as it is self-directed. Styles knows there's no catharsis without immersion, and on his new album, he is in desperate need of release. That release arrives most powerfully on tracks like "Season 2 Weight Loss," where a frenetic breakbeat gives way to something raw and urgent, or "Pop," where the rush of new love tips into near-panic.

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.

The first, "JCMF," is a rebellious song about Jesus punishing those who are cruel and helping the children upon his return, while the second single, "No More Darkness," calls for a return to the light and a pursuit of goodness. In a press release, Sparhawk explained that "JCMF" is an older track that he's played on the road for the past year.

"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.

Not only does the track show off Anjimile's lush, patient vocals, it's got a pretty fascinating rhythmic structure; his drummer offsets the groove when they arrive at the chorus, almost like the song gets caught between moving too fast and too slow. That momentum really ramps up in the final refrain, complete with some guitar shredding and open hi-hat smashing. It's a great demonstration of Anjimile's tasteful ear and his ability to match a song's subject with its instrumentation.

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?"

Who's ready to rock on New Year's Eve? If you're one of those with their hands raised (you can lower them now) then look no further than this guide to the Top 11 concerts happening on Dec. 31 in the Bay Area. And if rocking isn't your thing, well, that's perfectly fine, too. This guide rounds the musical bases, from sludge metal to smooth jazz with, to put it mildly, there being so much in between.

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.