Indie music has grown to include so much. It’s not just music that is released on independent labels, but speaks to an aesthetic that deviates from the norm and follows its own weirdo heart. It can come in the form of rock music, pop, or folk. In a sense, it says as much about the people that are drawn to it as it does about the people that make it.
Every week, Uproxx is rounding up the best new indie music from the past seven days. This week, we got new music from The Cure, Sasami, Liquid Mike, and more.
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Origami Angel – Feeling Not Found
Origami Angel taps into their feelings on Feeling Not Found. The D.C. emo duo, consisting of vocalist-guitarist Ryland Heagy and drummer Pat Doherty, explores everything from the alienation that social media causes, to grieving the death of a beloved family member, to getting lost in a waterfall of information overload as obstinate as the Pokémon HM of the same name. As always, their instrumental prowess remains on full display, with Heagy’s tap-shredding and Doherty’s adroit drumming finding a perfect unity. On their third studio album, Origami Angel evolves their punchy pop-punk once again.
Trace Mountains – Into The Burning Blue
The term “heartland rock” often summons images of endless roadside sprawl paired with dreamy instrumentals and introspective lyrics. Even if you’re not located in, say, the actual heartland, it’s more so an amalgamation of sonic identities than it is a geographic prerequisite. Currently based in New York, LVL UP’s Dave Benton is trying out the heartland rock thing on his new album as Trace Mountains, the Craig Hendrix-assisted Into The Burning Blue. And he pulls it off incredibly well. From the seven-minute opening track “In A Dream” to the War On Drugs-meets-Wild Pink cut “Hard To Accept,” Trace Mountains’ latest record is more than just an experiment with a new style; it’s a total success.
Blood Incantation – “The Stargate”
Absolute Elsewhere, the forthcoming album from Colorado death-metalheads Blood Incantation, is composed of two songs. Then again, both of those songs are about 20 minutes long. In other words, you can listen to half of the new Blood Incantation album – due this Friday – right now in the form of “The Stargate.” Across three discrete movements or, in the parlance of the record, “tablets,” “The Stargate” indulges all the go-to inclinations of a Blood Incantation track: fiery shredding, blast beats, and straight-up demonic vocals.
Fantasy Of A Broken Heart – Feats Of Engineering
As touring members of Water From Your Eyes and This Is Lorelei, Al Nardo and Bailey Wallowitz are accustomed to playing music written by other people. But now they’re here with an album of their own. Feats of Engineering, the debut LP from their project Fantasy Of A Broken Heart, is a feat of incredible songwriting. Nardo and Wallowitz possess a chameleonic ability to rapidly shift from one style to the next without the end result feeling disjointed. In the span of 11 songs (or even a single song), they trail through prog, art-rock, dream-pop, and more.
Chat Pile – “Funny Man”
According to pseudonymic frontman Raygun Busch, the latest Chat Pile single “concerns illusion vs. reality in regards to America and war,” as noted in press materials. The Oklahoma City noise metal group specializes in a battering onslaught of grit and sludge, and Stin’s gnarly basslines and Cap’n Ron’s aggressive drumming convey the seething contempt Busch demonstrates in the chorus. “Outside there’s no mercy,” he bellows, marveling at the cruelty of the American war apparatus.
Liquid Mike – “Crop Circles”
Marquette, Michigan’s greatest export is back. Liquid Mike, still fresh off this year’s early highlight Paul Bunyan’s Slingshot, returns with the power-pop-punk one-off single “Crop Circles.” Vocalist Mike Maple’s timbre conjures Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus, a clean, melodic, and emotional through-line that connects Maple immediately to his subjects. Such is the case with “Crop Circles,” a rumination on being a working-class person in the Midwest, a topic Maple himself is familiar with having recently quit his job as a postal worker. If we’re so fortunate, then hopefully that means he has more time to make another Liquid Mike album.
The Cure – “Alone”
“Alone,” the first new Cure song in 16 years, sounds like it has transcended time. There’s a three-plus-minute instrumental intro that recalls the somber sprawl of their 1989 masterpiece Disintegration; there are synths as sulfurous as rainfall; there are guitars that meet the middle point between melody and modulation; and, of course, as there always has been, there’s Robert Smith’s unmistakable voice, rising above the instrumental fog, silhouetted like a distant figure you’ve just noticed has been lurking there the whole time. “This is the end of every song that we sing,” goes the opening lyric, simultaneously alluding to English poet Ernest Dowson and Smith’s own band. “Where did it go,” he sings in the outro. Even as he marvels at the years that have passed him by, he’s still here. And so is the Cure.
Sasami – “Slugger”
The new song from Sasami hits like a 90-mph fastball. “Slugger,” with its poppy panache, marks a distinct, novel sound for Sasami. For 2019’s eponymous record and 2022’s nu-metal-inspired Squeeze, she leaned into an indie-rock styling on the former only to completely subvert it with heavy guitars and piercing screams on the latter. “Slugger,” however, rescinds Sasami’s indie-rock origins in a completely different way: trading them in for an album of hook-heavy, pop-forward bops. After defying expectations on the metal-adjacent Squeeze, she has gone in the wholly opposite direction on her new single. If “Slugger” proves anything, then it’s that Sasami will never allow herself to be defined by someone else. She’s doing this for her own fulfillment.
Wild Pink – “Dulling The Horns”
In just a couple of days, Wild Pink will release their excellent new album, Dulling The Horns. Meanwhile, you can pass the time listening to its also-excellent title track. Ringleader John Ross describes the tune as “a song about moving on” in a press release, and it’s one of the final tracks he wrote for Dulling The Horns. “How can there be / Really nothing in between / That big-ass moon and me,” Ross asks in the song’s denouement. In that great, liminal expanse, Wild Pink is a comfort in contemplating the unknown.
Two Shell – “Everybody Worldwide”
A few months ago, the ever-elusive, eternally enigmatic electronic duo Two Shell leaked their debut album by littering the Boiler Room floor with USB drives. The London producers have always enjoyed messing with their fanbase (and journalists), occasionally to the point where it might read as overly gimmicky. But, fortunately, the music is as fun, free-spirited, and fascinating as it has been since their 2019 EP, Access. “Everybody Worldwide,” the lead single of their forthcoming self-titled LP, proves as much. Its four-on-the-floor kick drum, syncopated synths, and playful starts and stops show that Two Shell are more than just pranksters. They’re making some of the best dance music of the modern age.
