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THIS WEEK’S ROCK BOPS

From Tel Aviv to Cape Town via Birmingham and Exeter, this week’s five rock acts share one thing: a whole lot of conviction. So let’s dive right in, while the amplifiers are hot ❤️‍🔥

fistpump! – Toyota Hellfire

fistpump! deliver a superb debut: Midwest emo tension and release handled with a maturity most new bands take years to find.

“Toyota Hellfire” earns its title through sheer dynamic range. The Birmingham four-piece build from twinkling, introspective guitar figures into detonations of percussion and dense, layered instrumentation, cycling through an almost ambient-like restraint in the verses to high-energy release with the kind of control that makes the loud parts genuinely hit. The track sits in the tradition of classic Midwest emo in its emotional weight and melodic intelligence, and it sounds like a fucking dream in my monitor headphones too.

Formed in 2024 and already playing the O2 Academy, fistpump! have moved quickly for a band less than two years old. “Toyota Hellfire” is their debut single, arriving ahead of an EP planned for late 2026. That speed of development is reflected in the song itself: Jonny Amos, who has worked across both Sony Music and Warner Music Group, praised the band for being “musically mature” with “high level songs”. Whatever some lad from Sony said, i think it’s fantastic and will be watching them carefully.

The Lazz – Observer

The Lazz make “Observer” a stunning pivot point in a four-part metal saga: the moment the protagonist stops struggling and starts watching, and the music opens up into something genuinely compelling

“Observer” is track three in a sequence – The Resonance, Riddle in the Mist, Observer, The Absolute – that follows a character named Maya through a Jungian inner journey from shadow to transcendence. Not your average song about a summer romance, this one. But it’s the precisely that grand vision, combined with the fantastically driving riffs and soaring vocals in ‘Observer’, that make it special. Most of all, it’s just a great tune – a brilliant chorus, elements of almost classical approaches at times, and a sort of heavy vibe that never becomes claustrophobic.

The Lazz is Ben Lazzaro, a San Diego composer and guitarist performing since 1982, with 13 years as a professional 3D digital artist in the video game industry running alongside the music. That visual practice is not incidental to how the project works. Lazzaro describes his songs as “fragments of a larger conversation that keeps evolving” rather than isolated pieces, and The Lazz is built on exactly that premise: “I’m not just writing the next song – I’m building a world that listeners can step into and follow over time.” For a metal project operating outside the mainstream, that kind of long-game thinking is rare, and it shows. A fantastic piece, and we’re really excited to hear more.

ANACY – Good Luck To Her

ANACY turns personal betrayal into one of the best pop-punk kiss-offs you’ll hear all year, vivid and cathartic in equal measure.

“Good Luck To Her” is built on a specific hurt: the moment of being replaced by someone described in the song as a “tall blonde with blue eyes,” a detail so precise it makes the heartbreak feel immediate rather than generalised. ANACY transforms that specificity into momentum, letting the face-melting guitars do what guitars do when someone has genuinely earned the right to be furious. The track moves from sting to release with real momentum, the kind of pop-punk that works because it never softens the edges. By the end, the title itself has shifted from bitter to something much more like freedom.

ANACY is based in Cape Town, South Africa, and brings a multicultural perspective shaped by growing up in one of the world’s most creatively diverse cities. Her work has twice put her on the cover of Pop SA Today, and several tracks have deservedly landed on Spotify editorial playlists, establishing her well beyond local scenes. “Good Luck To Her” released 1st May 2026 and marks a sharper, harder direction for an artist whose pop and indie instincts have always had an edge waiting to find the right moment to cut through. This feels like her time, it’s great.

Twenny bucks – Small Green Frog

Twenny bucks make an excellent racket: fast, loud, and cheerfully stupid in exactly the way guitar music occasionally needs to be.

Exeter’s Twenny bucks are not overthinking it. “Small Green Frog” runs on fast BPMs, big loud riffs, and what the band themselves describe as “stupid lyrics” – and there is real skill in pulling that combination off without it collapsing into a mess. The track sits somewhere between alt-rock and post-punk with a psychedelic edge, the kind of rock song that sounds like it was written quickly and recorded soon after. It’s compelling, driven stuff though and produced like a dream.

Based in Exeter, UK, Twenny bucks are one of those bands who lead with energy first and biography second, which is refreshing. The genres they span – alternative rock, post-punk, psychedelic, hard rock – suggest an artist keeping things direct and fun, rather than overthinking things. “Small Green Frog” dropped on in April and works precisely because it isn’t trying to be anything other than a loud, fast guitar song with a daft topic and a hook that doesn’t quit. Essential stuff.

Mosh Pit – No Returning

Mosh Pit deliver a brilliant alt-rock statement with “No Returning”: raw riffs, explosive dynamics, and an attitude that refuses to sit still or shut up.

“No Returning” runs on rocking refusal. The Tel Aviv trio build the track on raw, driving riffs and rhythms that just don’t ever let up, cycling through explosive dynamics with the kind of urgency that makes the subject – resistance to conformity, the cost of bending yourself to fit damaging social expectations – feel pretty damn visceral. The song earns its title: there’s very little in the way of winding down, no resolution into comfort, just the momentum of someone who has made a decision and isn’t looking back. Big guitars, a huge wonderfully dumb riff, a drummer who can barely keep up; all the elements of a alt-rock banger that I love.

Mosh Pit are a three-piece from Tel Aviv, Israel: a singer, a producer, and a drummer whose working dynamic began when the singer and producer first collaborated, before the drummer was brought in to complete the lineup. On record, it amounts to a fantastic, powerful combo and I’d absolutely love to see this live. A great single.

THIS WEEK’S POP BOPS

Five pop tracks with something driving them beyond the chorus: a cathartic final line, a Deptford dance floor with a point to make, a theatre ballad that earns its tears, and two artists betting everything on the strength of a feeling.

Project Rod Williams – So Over You

Project Rod Williams’ “So Over You” is a superb slow-burn rock track: heavy, controlled, and impossible to shake once it’s in your head

“So Over You” works because it knows which moment it is. This isn’t a song about being hurt – the hurt feels like it’s kinda already done. Released in January 2026, the track is a cover of a piece originally conceived in 2021 with vocalist Tim Condor, and Rod’s version leans into slow and emotional rock weight: deliberate tempo, grittier instrumentation, arrangements that feel like a door being closed rather than slammed. It strikes to the heart this one, to great effect.

Rod Williams records from an apartment studio in the Washington DC Metro Area, and the project is shaped by an interest in the atmospheric darkness of Depeche Mode, particularly the restraint of “One Caress.” What that influence produces here is a track that doesn’t chase resolution – it sits in the stillness after the decision is made. The empowerment doesn’t come with a key change or a big vocal moment. It comes from the song’s big heart. Check it out, it’s fantastic.

Deptford Sound Collective – My Love Was Not Enough

Deptford Sound Collective make protest music you actually want to dance to, and “My Love Was Not Enough” is their most infectious argument yet.

“My Love Was Not Enough” lands because the Deptford Sound Collective have solved the hardest problem in protest pop: making the politics feel like part of the pleasure rather than a lecture attached to it. The track draws on the DNA of 1960s songs that fuelled civil rights movements, runs that energy through funky bass-lines and synth hooks, and comes out the other side as something you actually want to hear twice. The floor-filling production, zinger of a groove, and the pointed lyrics aren’t in tension – they’re all working in unison wonderfully.

The Collective are a diverse alliance of musicians, artists, and community activists from Deptford in South East London, a part of the city with its own history of cultural mixing and creative resistance. That background matters here: this isn’t a band reaching for protest aesthetics from the outside. The goal, as they put it, is to drop love bombs rather than manifestos, and the track reflects that, prioritising joy as the delivery mechanism for everything else it wants to say. Good instinct, great tune, we love it.

DJ Cards – Move With Me

DJ Cards makes festival-grade EDM with the precision of someone who drafts contracts for a living, and “Move With Me” is a genuinely euphoric result.

“Move With Me” does what good EDM is supposed to do: it creates just the right amount of pressure and then releases it, with melodic depth underneath the energy rather than in spite of it. DJ Cards is a Philadelphia-based producer whose work has picked up traction across radio and global media, and this track sits in the polished, festival-ready corner of the genre – driving rhythms, atmospheric builds, hooks that arrive with enough force to justify the wait. This bop easily earns its place on your fave workout playlist but also every festival stage equally.

The detail that DJ Cards is also a practising attorney – earning him the nickname “The Lawyer Who Drops Beats” – is less a novelty than a clue to why the production sounds the way it does. Detail-driven, structured and forward thinking. That approach produces music that feels constructed rather than accidental, which in EDM is often the difference between a track that holds up across repeated listens and one that dissolves into generic noise. “Move With Me” holds up, it’s great.

Ferdinand Rennie – Why Do We Try?

Ferdinand Rennie sings “Why Do We Try?” like he means it personally, and the result is one of the most emotionally complete big ballads you’ll hear this year.

“Why Do We Try?” is a beautifully big ballad that earns the description: Rennie’s vocal is the kind of controlled, emotionally committed performance that makes the room go quiet, and the production from Sefi Carmel in London and Alan Vukelic in Germany gives it the scale to match. It’s right to the heart this one, with emotional heft for days, and Rennie delivers it wonderfully. It’s a ‘hair on the back of your neck-raiser’, for sure.

Austrian-born and now based on the west coast of Scotland, Rennie has spent over three decades in musical theatre – leading roles in Les Misérables, Jesus Christ Superstar, Elisabeth – and representing Austria in the Eurovision Song Contest. He has performed for Prince Albert and Princess Charlene in Monte Carlo and delivered “Never Enough” on Britain’s Got Talent in 2022. None of that is chest-puffing context: it explains why a song this emotionally exposed lands as it does. Rennie has spent his career learning how to fill a moment like this one, and it works to stunning effect.

Vie – Harry

“Vie’s debut single ‘Harry’ is a genuinely stunning heartbreak track, sharp enough to sting and honest enough to stick with you.”

“Harry” is a debut single with a very clear origin: Vie discovered she wasn’t the only one, and wrote the song in response. That specificity is what stops it moves into really interesting territory. Recorded at the Media Centre in Huddersfield, the track features early production and instrumentation by Thomas P, with all vocals, ad-libs, and layered harmonies performed by Vie herself under producers Julë and FarangDan. It’s a great song, with a brilliant smidge of toughness in the low end that I really love. But the vocals are the standout here, they’re fantastic.

Vie is from Mirfield in West Yorkshire and suprisingly “Harry” is her first professional release. The pre-release CV is quietly remarkable for someone at this stage: runner-up in the Song Academy’s 2025 Young Songwriter Competition, winner of the Starlight Song Competition 2025. As a neurodivergent artist she brings a perspective that shows in how directly the songwriting goes after what it wants to say. There is clearly a lot more where this came from, and we honestly can’t wait.

THIS WEEK’S INDIE ROCK BOPS

Five acts, five bangers, five flavours of guitar-driven indie: Paris soul-funk energy, West London DIY grit, Ottawa dream-pop drift, Ayr anthemic Britpop, and Chicago lo-fi electronica. Not a combination you hear all the time, right? But all worth your time.

The Hypnotiks (featuring Wolfgang Valbrun) – Stone Cold Sober

The Hypnotiks deliver a soul-funk masterclass on Stone Cold Sober: tight, alive, and impossible to sit still to

“Stone Cold Sober” is what happens when a nine-piece band that plays Paris venues every week takes that live energy into a recording. There’s nothing tentative about it: the brass section locks in, the rhythm section drives hard, and Wolfgang Valbrun has exactly the kind of voice that can hold its own above all of it. Which is no mean feat. It sounds like a room full of people who have played together long enough to stop thinking about it.

The Hypnotiks are one of Paris’s leading soul and funk outfits, built around a core band of eight musicians and a rotating roster of guest vocalists. The model, inviting the city’s best singers to perform rare gems and forgotten classics at top venues, has made them something unusual: a collective that gets tighter the more variables you introduce. James Startt leads on guitar, with Anthony Honnet on keys, Gérard Berruet on bass, and a full brass section rounding out the sound. This is genuinely great, and deserves to do very well.

Sparky’s Magic Piano – Orange Juice

Orange Juice is Sparky’s Magic Piano at their most quietly brilliant: a song that starts one place and ends somewhere far better

“Orange Juice” starts exactly where you’d expect: open-string riff, a lovely indie energy, heading somewhere loud, and then quietly goes somewhere else entirely. The Hanwell five-piece recorded it partly live in their homes, building it up over weeks of visits, each member adding and subtracting until the song found its own shape. What it lands on is lonelier and stranger than the opening suggests, and all the better for it.

Sparky’s Magic Piano are Pob Bartlett, Marion Bartlett, Alex Carter, Jill Majumdar, and Terence Martin. The Beach Boys and Smashing Pumpkins don’t sound like an obvious pairing until you hear a band using both as permission: permission to layer, permission to be abrasive, permission to let a song become something its opening riff never promised. “Orange Juice” is released as a double A-side with “Chaos,” the band’s first output in over a year. London locals can catch them at Hanwell Hootie on 9th May. And if I hadn’t left London a few years back, I’d be there like a shot. A great single.

Wotts – ALOHA!

ALOHA! is a genuinely gorgeous piece of dream-pop that earns its place as the closing track on Wotts’ debut EP

“ALOHA!” closes out the COPE EP in no particular hurry, which turns out to be exactly right way to do it. The Ottawa artist sits comfortably in Tame Impala and Pond territory: hazy, melodic and tapey-vibes, more interested in mood and texture than serving up the momentum. But Wotts feels very much in their own lane too, the track does a great job of using spaciousness to let the melody do the work. The production is a dream, and basically I’m just ready for the next EP right away.

Wotts has played RBC Bluesfest, Canadian Music Week, and Junofest, and picked up coverage from CBC Radio, The Luna Collective, and EARMILK: serious platform for an artist still on debut EP material. COPE was recorded as a duo project; “ALOHA!” is the first track released as a solo act. The step down in headcount hasn’t cost anything. If anything the focus is sharper. A real stunner.

Sbob – Lonely People

Sbob’s Lonely People is a quietly devastating indie anthem that builds from a whisper into something you’ll be humming for days

“Lonely People” opens quietly: acoustic, melodic, the kind of song that doesn’t announce itself too strongly. But it builds into a lovely and jangly indie classic. The refrain “why don’t you come back round” is blunt without being simple, a genuine plea for real connection over the hollow substitute that social media offers. Stuart Stevenson isn’t being clever about the diagnosis. He just thinks it’s true and has made a real banger out of it.

Sbob is Stevenson’s solo project, and “Lonely People” is his fourth single, the fourth track on his album Revelation. He plays every instrument and co-produces alongside Ayr-based collaborator Sam Rae. Before this he fronted Glasgow band Bob Cuba and recorded as one half of Stelar77, so the craft is well established. The solo format strips away the collaborative filter and lets the songs make their case directly. It’s a real indie bop, and on the strength of this one, I’ll be digging into the rest of the album. A great single.

Justin Sconza – What a Beautiful Day

Justin Sconza’s “What a Beautiful Day” is a brilliant piece of home-recorded indie pop: hand-played synth arpeggios, a Chicago attic, and a Tascam four-track doing the work of a whole studio.

“What a Beautiful Day” is the second single from Fantasy, and the production method is inseparable from what the song feels like. Sconza played the synth arpeggios by hand rather than programming them, running them fast against the chord changes in a way that introduces a slight human imprecision into the arrangement. The result sits between indie rock and ambient electronica without fully committing to either, which turns out to be a wonderful call when it sound this great. The whole track was captured on a Tascam analog cassette four-track and a Tascam digital multitrack, with Sconza deliberately avoiding a DAW beyond basic storage.

Justin Sconza is a Chicago multi-instrumentalist on his sixth self-recorded album, and the consistency of that working method is worth pausing on: every song written, every instrument played, every part captured alone, across six full records. Fantasy was recorded mostly in a sunny attic, piano parts tracked in the living room, the process shaped by influences that span Erik Satie and Duke Ellington at one end and Kurt Cobain and Elliott Smith at the other. That range shouldn’t cohere as well as it does, but six albums of sole-charge recording builds its own kind of discipline. It’s essential indie to check out this week.

THIS WEEK’S POP ROCK BOPS

Two pop rock tracks from opposite ends of the process spectrum. various, an AI-assisted single from St. Louis with a Taylor Swift heart. Rosso Tierney’s Oh Divine, composed on a King’s Cross Station piano during a spiritual awakening. Different roads, same genre.

Joe Kandel – I still believe in love

Joe Kandel land an emotional punch in under three minutes with I Still Believe in Love: high-energy pop rock with a Taylor Swift-shaped chorus and hope as the through-line

I Still Believe in Love is high-energy pop rock built around a hopeful, relatable message: love and connection in a world where most people feel alone. The track has been gaining traction on SoundCloud, and the songwriting borrows clearly from Taylor Swift’s playbook: a giant chorus, emotional centre, no overcomplicated production. It’s all straight to the heart, and it really works.

Joe is an artist project from St. Louis, Missouri, working in pop rock with a clear Taylor Swift north star. Pop has always been collaborative process, with co-writers, session players, and ghost producers, and Joe Kandel reframes that openness for the AI era, using modern production techniques. The track itself lands an emotional beat in under three minutes, and hope is the through-line. It’s a great track.

Rosso Tierney – Oh Divine

Rosso Tierney wrote Oh Divine at a piano in King’s Cross Station and finished it in the Sahara, and that journey shows: this is a melodic rock ballad that earns every bit of its ambition

Oh Divine started life on a piano at King’s Cross Station, where Rosso Tierney composed it spontaneously after the lyrics had arrived from a moment of inner awakening. It was finished at York’s Innersound Studio with producer Sam Graves, who co-produced Asking Alexandria’s The Black album, the right level of polish for what’s at heart a melodic rock ballad about shedding an old self. The Moroccan Sahara music video makes the yin-yang concept literal: a dark masked figure and a luminous lighter self who never quite meet, with the central lyric “as I take off this mask” landing on visible transformation.

Rosso Tierney is a York-based solo artist and multi-instrumentalist (piano, guitar, bass, vocals) with a foundation in punk that runs deep, including current duties as singer and bassist for Sema 4, a late-70s punk band signed to Detour Records. His solo work pulls tastefully from Bowie, Damiano David and YungBlud, landing in modern glam art rock territory with technical vocal chops. The wider project is rooted in men’s mental health, neurodiversity, and healing through spirituality, with ten-plus singles planned, and Oh Divine sits inside that mission as a study in vulnerability, truth, and transformation. It’s got a big heart, this one, and we really love it.

THIS WEEK’S INDIE BOPS

Five songs rooted in real places and real stories: a garage in Adelaide, a kitchen in Melbourne, a late-night kitchen table in California, a teenage bedroom in BC, and a London living room. Folk music made with something to say.

Lyndo Jaco – All Over Again

Lyndo Jaco makes the kind of pub rock that doesn’t fuss over polish: All Over Again is distortion-soaked, purposeful, and built to be played loud

This is a song that knows exactly what it is. Built on a driving riff and live-room energy, “All Over Again” belongs to the tradition of pub rock that goes right for the heart, doesn’t fuss over production polish or clever conceits. It’s about life’s achievements and the satisfaction of grinding through: simple stakes, simply stated. The whole thing feels like it was recorded to be played loud in a room with a pint or two in your hand.

Lyndo Jaco describes himself as a rock recluse tinkering in his garage south of Adelaide with guitars and drum kits, streaming the results to the world from Happy Valley. That’s not a marketing angle, it’s just the truth of how this music gets made. There’s no label, no co-writer, no production committee. Just a top bloke in South Australia doing his thing, with decades of rock and roll in his system. It’s a great single, with a lot of heart, and we love it.

Paul Louis Villani – Two Hearts

Paul Louis Villani turns an accidental love song into something genuinely disarming: Two Hearts is raw, warm, and more honest than most songs that try to be

The riff at the centre of “Two Hearts” is one Paul Louis Villani had been playing for years without a proper song around it. It took his wife walking past his Melbourne studio and telling him to stop singing stupid lyrics to unlock what the riff actually wanted to be: a beautiful country-leaning, bluesy love song about the friction and staying power of long-term relationships. The track opens intimate and builds into a full-band arrangement with bass, drums and layered guitars, landing somewhere between Chris Stapleton and Jason Isbell. The chorus was built to be sung along to, and I know this because I couldn’t help doing so myself.

Villani is a Melbourne-based multi-instrumentalist and producer who works across blues, rock, folk and whatever else the song asks for. He’s unapologetically DIY: no fixed lane, no interest in staying in one. He describes his writing as starting the same way every time, guitar in hand, chasing a feeling. “Two Hearts” is what happens when that feeling turns out to be gratitude and honesty rather than tension and darkness. It’s a more vulnerable gear than he often uses, and it suits him. Check it out below.

Becca Stefanson – How I Feel

Becca Stefanson is 17 and How I Feel already sounds like someone who has been doing this for decades: precise, tender, and harder to shake than it has any right to be

“How I Feel” is the lead single from Becca Stefanson’s debut six-track EP, Going Forward, Looking Back, released in April 2026. It was her first serious exploration of fingerpicking, and the discipline shows: the track keeps its instrumentation deliberately spare, building the emotional weight entirely through lyrical detail and Stefanson’s wonderful vocal delivery. The song was inspired not by personal experience but by the collected heartbreak stories of others, imagined from the inside. That remove gives it a particular kind of tenderness, less raw than confessional, more like a careful reconstruction of how loss feels.

Stefanson is 17, from Pitt Meadows in British Columbia, and has been writing songs since she was nine. Her influences run from Jeff Buckley and Stevie Nicks through to Clairo, Lizzy McAlpine, and Gracie Abrams, which is a reasonable map of where folk and indie songwriting sits right now. She placed as runner-up in the 2025 Young Songwriter Competition run by Song Academy, and has been a regular on the open-mic circuit in BC. For a debut EP, Going Forward, Looking Back is remarkably focused in its emotional range. We really love it.

Jean Noir – Long For This World

Jean Noir’s “Long For This World” is a brilliant six-minute indie epic with Depeche Mode’s pulse, Roy Orbison’s heartbreak, and a kitchen-table vocal take that survived into the final mix.

“Long For This World” runs six minutes and earns every one of them. The opening melody, a series of “oohs” quietly recorded into a laptop at a kitchen table during sleepless nights with a newborn, survived untouched into the final arrangement. The production layers four-on-the-floor drums and analog synths against castanets, lap steel, and stacked harmonies, drawing on Ennio Morricone’s wide-screen scores alongside Depeche Mode’s rhythmic discipline. The bass also leans a little into Talking Heads which I love. At the three-and-a-half-minute mark the track feints toward an ending before pulling back for one last zinger of ascent.

Jean Noir is Jonny Black, a California artist who spent his twenties fronting indie punk outfits Them Terribles and Dead Country before stepping off the stage to rehab old buildings into creative spaces for other musicians. A decade of proximity to other people’s studio practices clearly resharpened his own instincts. Canyon Prince, the forthcoming EP of which “Long For This World” is the lead single, trades guitar-driven punk for something more patient: ambient textures, faded Americana, and a family mythology rooted in lost California bohemia. It’s a great track, and an instant Spotify follow. Check it out below.

Dimitri Delakovias – Shaking Off the Lies

Dimitri Delakovias has been carrying Shaking Off the Lies since his younger days, and that wait shows: this is a wonderful ‘old man’s’ song in the best possible sense

“Shaking Off the Lies” arrives with a clear ideological brief: Delakovias wrote the lyrics some years ago, steeped in the folk-rock tradition of questioning and resistance, then updated them and used modern production to bring the track to life. The song’s DNA is the 1960s protest tradition, the era of folk music as a vehicle for politics, and its target is the decades since: the capture of idealism by power, the dumbing-down, the comfortable numbness. It’s a cranky old man’s song, which is exactly what he calls it, and that self-awareness gives it an edge.

Delakovias was born in Laconia, Greece in 1950, emigrated to Australia as a toddler and grew up in Sydney, where the 1960s musical explosion hit him hard. His career took him far from music: art direction for ad agencies in Sydney and Athens, then a pivot to the BBC in 1982 where he was among the first artists to work on the Quantel Paintbox, pioneering digital matte painting techniques for productions including Doctor Who. He was part of the VFX team that won the Oscar for Inception. He retired in 2018 and returned to the lyrics he’d been carrying around since his younger days. “Shaking Off the Lies” is the wonderful result, a great track.

THIS WEEK’S DREAM POP BOPS

Dream pop vocals over reverb-soaked guitars is basically one of the best combos in music, isn’t it? And alongside melodies that feel like half-remembered dreams you desperately want to return to. This week we are deep in the hazy, luminous end of the pool, so let’s go!

Aurealis – Fire in Rain

Fire in Rain is Aurealis at their most openly human: the dancefloor momentum is real, but the emotional weight underneath is what makes it stick

There is something quietly defiant about ‘Fire in Rain’. It opens with shimmering driving synth layers that feel warm and weightless all at once. The vocals sit at the centre, layered and glowing, carrying a warm, 80s influenced and bittersweet ache that I love. And the rhythm has genuine momentum, something you could move to at 2am. Lyrically it starts as a love story and slowly reveals itself as something bigger, a meditation on staying lit when the world feels cold. The production is cinematic without being overwrought, every element earning its place.

Aurealis is a studio-based electronic pop project, and that focus shapes everything. There are no live sets to anchor the identity here, no tour narrative to lean on. The project sits at the intersection of dreamlike atmosphere and genuine emotional storytelling, drawing on synthpop, cinematic production, and introspective electronic pop. The wonderful previous single Shadow of a Doubt leaned into shadow and tension. Fire in Rain moves in a different direction, brighter and more openly human, showing real range. It is music for both the dancefloor and the long drive home. And we really, really love it.

Rivermind – Nightlight

“Nightlight is Rivermind doing something genuinely hard: post-midnight atmosphere with real forward momentum, and neither quality cancels the other out.”

A 80s-influenced guitar, a huge drum sound and then THAT distorted bass hits. This is indie with all the right textures, and Nightlight earns its atmosphere honestly. Nothing feels decorative, it’s produced very well, with everything serving one thing; the song. The chorus melody and release is the standout here, easing into post punk shimmer, but with a kind of toughness that sits underneath. And by the time the lead guitar takes over from the vocal line towards the end, i’m bellowing the lyrics at the top of my voice.

Rivermind come from Switzerland, and they come from the basement up. Years of underground shows and late-night rehearsals feed into how this quartet carry themselves, like a band who figured out their sound before anyone was watching. They pull from a lineage that includes Foo Fighters, Muse, and Nothing But Thieves, but what they’re doing feels like a genuine synthesis rather than a tribute act. Distorted elements living comfortably alongside dreamy guitar textures and pop instincts sharp enough to cut through. Their debut EP arrives in June 2026 and it’s already shaping up as one of the more interesting alt-rock arrivals of the year. We can’t wait, because this single is genuinely brilliant.

THIS WEEK’S INDIE POP BOPS

Indie pop with edges this week. Trip-hop hedonism from Teesside, queer LA dancefloor liberation, London bedroom-pop protest, indie-industrial home-recorded synth, and a 2003 Windsor jangly throwback that still streams better than most new releases. Five takes, none alike.

MOSS – opener

opener hits the sweet spot MOSS have been building towards: trip-hop bones, guitars that won’t say sorry, and a room that definitely won’t stay still

opener began as MOSS blowing off steam during an early writing session, but when they took it live the Teesside crowd loved it so much the band had to put it out. The track is hypnotic and crunchy in equal measure, layering trip-hop drums under guitars that are crunchy as fuck. Feels like a song built for the back end of a long night, the kind of track that gets a room moving without ever quite letting go of the punk ethic underneath.

MOSS burst onto the ever-expanding Teesside music scene in 2023 and have spent the last couple of years cementing a reputation for hypnotic live shows. Their sound is a nostalgic strain of trip-hop bent through extra-crunchy guitars and the punk ethic embedded in the North East. The vocal delivery of Northern songsmith Oui Bee is something to behold, dragging the songs into territory that feels both familiar and wonderfully haunted in all the best ways. opener is what they sound like at their most loose, and we bloody well love it.

Strange Trigger – Over

Over earns its industrial edges: Strange Trigger finds the space where synth-pop and post-punk overlap and makes it feel wonderfully inevitable

Over was recorded at home using a meticulous mix of old and new synths. The process moved between piano, MIDI-controlled synths, and a drum machine, with Strange Trigger’s attention to detail audible across every layer. The track sits in that hard-to-define space between indie pop, synth pop and industrial, that’s kinda reminiscent of Black Marble at their best. The textures feel handmade and the atmosphere stays just slightly tape-y and haunted. This definitely rewards a careful listen, where each play surfaces a synth line you didn’t quite catch the first time.

Strange Trigger is an indie-industrial-pop band creating music with hardware synthesizers and voice synthesizers, building songs as much through gear choice as through writing. Their commitment to authentic music creation, in their words, shows in how their tracks balance experimentation with emotional weight, never letting the technology become the point. Over is a clear example of that, a release that really delivers in all the right ways. Essential stuff, check it out below.

Rock Berg – Let Go!

“Let Go! does what the best 80s-influenced pop rarely manages: Rock Berg pairs a genuinely catchy hook with something worth actually saying.”

Let Go! is a bass-heavy indie dance track built on pulsing synths and a steady, driving kick, with a subtle 80s edge and the kind of late-night, locked-in energy that doesn’t ask for permission. The song is about letting go of outside pressure and expectations and choosing yourself over the version anyone else wants, a call to follow your dreams instead of trying to fit. It sits comfortably between Roosevelt’s electronic instincts, St. Vincent’s art-driven tone, and an Eurythmics synth backbone. Having loved Rock Berg’s last single, it’s a lovely progression and if I’m honest, I can’t wait for more.

Rock Berg is a queer, Los Angeles-born indie pop artist and producer making upbeat, whimsical songs about love, growth, and having big emotions. I get excited about artists who are full stack; writing, producing everything themselves cos they can craft their world and move quick. Overall, it’s loads of fun, emotionally honest, playful but intentional and a smidge of humour and heart that never takes itself too seriously. I’m very excited about where Rock Berg goes next.

Don’t Look Now – Second Time Around

Second Time Around is the kind of song that shouldn’t still work 20 years later, and yet Don’t Look Now have made it their most streamed track for a reason

Second Time Around was released in January 2003 as the lead single from Don’t Look Now’s debut album, a feelgood track built around an uplifting saxophone intro and solo. The song’s holiday-romance lyrics were inspired by lead singer Martin Montague’s own Ibiza experience, recorded at the Dream of Ozwald Studios in Maidenhead with Gini Hogarth on keyboards and Damian de la Hunty on backing vocals. More than two decades later, it remains the band’s most streamed track, a testament to a song that genuinely bops along in the loveliest of ways.

Don’t Look Now are a Windsor, UK band who’ve mastered the art of intelligent, story-driven songwriting with an irresistible sense of fun. They draw from the witty observations of The Beautiful South, the jangly irreverence of The Smiths, and the cheeky charm of The Kinks and Madness, blending rock, pop, soul, funk, reggae and jazz-leaning saxophone work into something distinctive. Subjects range from stamp collecting to bank robbery to used cars. Three albums in, they’re still writing songs nobody else would, and we bloody well love them.

CHILL HOUSE BOP OF THE WEEK

Today’s chill house bop is pretty special, with some beautiful beats, driving synthesisers and production to die for. Let’s dive in.

FDM Prince x DJ B&W x Yazid On The Track – Electric Griot (Remix Club Edit)

FDM Prince x DJ B&W x Yazid On The Track have built a remix that earns its place on any dance floor while carrying genuine cultural weight. The percussion hits hard, the groove is hypnotic, and FDM Prince’s vocal presence ties it all together with real authority

Electric Griot in its Club Edit form sits at 122 BPM and pulls the original track into Afro House territory without losing its centre. DJ B&W and Yazid On The Track build the remix around deep tribal percussion, hypnotic grooves and FDM Prince’s vocal anchor, framing the vocal as both warning and reflection. The lyrics carry messages from Mali’s ancient griot tradition: remember the end, stay humble in success, use power to uplift others. It is club music with serious weight.

DJ B&W is the Cluj Napoca producer behind the Remixes by Black & White initiative, and the sonic architect of Black & White 360 Agency. His stated mission: turn African-rooted compositions into global club anthems while preserving cultural identity. Yazid On The Track steps out from behind the studio console for his first official artist credit on this release. FDM Prince embodies the modern griot at the centre, his vocal presence anchoring the remix as both ceremony and dance floor. It’s brilliant, check it out now.

ELECTRONIC BOP OF THE WEEK

Sometimes electronic week is one track, fully realised. m0n0 jay handed her viral debut to French producer ATH for a wonderful deconstruction, and the result trades fuchsia neon for industrial trance built strictly for 3 AM basement raves.

m0n0 jay – L.L.L. (ATH Remix)

m0n0 jay’s L.L.L. (ATH Remix) shoves a viral fuchsia-pop debut into a 3 AM industrial warehouse, the rare deconstruction that trades pop for power without faking either.

L.L.L. (ATH Remix) strips the fuchsia neon from m0n0 jay’s viral debut and drops her piercing soprano vocals over an abrasive 135+ BPM industrial trance bassline. Released as an Extended Mix on SoundCloud first, designed strictly for underground club DJs ahead of its 21 May Spotify drop, this is the Candy Gym after hours: heavy iron and high-camp pop traded for chopped vocals, menacing techno, and the iconic xylophone MIDI from the original deconstructed into something hypnotic. It’s dark, heavy, and – though this is a terrible way to phrase it – has the most epic, long-silence-based drop I’ve ever heard.

m0n0 jay makes pop music from the gym floor to the underground, what she calls ‘powerlifter glitter gym pop’: glitter, sweat, breath, rhythm, and relentless bass. Her sound pairs soaring pop hooks with heavy industrial textures and playful chaos, refusing both before-and-after narratives and perfection arcs. The viral debut hit 2M+ views and 50+ international press features. And wherever this ATH Remix bridges things into, we absolutely love it.

THIS WEEK’S HIP HOP BOPS

Two hip hop tracks that say a lot about who these artists are. A Texas video universe built around cinematic Southern rap, and a London UK-rap track born from a year sober and choosing ambition over the bar.

Ajoshd – Ballin’ Outta Control

Ajoshd built a full fake sports broadcast universe around Ballin’ Outta Control, the kind of swing only a fully self-produced Texas hip-hop artist with this much vision attempts.

Ballin’ Outta Control is taken from Ajoshd’s album TEJAS, but the video is the centerpiece. The visual constructs a fully produced fictional sports media universe around his THC (The Hodge Council) brand, complete with fake broadcast network segments, post-game press conferences, locker room scrums, courtside arena interviews, and a visual language soaked in Texas cultural identity from start to finish. The production value is high, the concept is sharp, and the storytelling is cinematic in a way that’s rare for an independent artist at this level.

Ajoshd is a Texas-born, fully self-produced hip-hop artist whose work sits at the intersection of Southern rap, cinematic storytelling, and deep cultural identity. With his TEJAS album he fuses raw Southern grit with haunting, Native American-inspired instrumentation. He’s collaborated with Big Tuck, OG Ron C, Mike G, Left Brain, TrackBangas, Rakeem Miles, and OTR Sinco, opened for Maxo Kream, Glasses Malone, and Chris Patrick, and shared headliner billing with the legendary Z-RO. Carving out a lane entirely his own.

Naviyah – Sippin On Dat

Naviyah’s Sippin On Dat is UK rap born from a year sober: gritty, infectious, and the strongest case yet for the female-version-of-Giggs comparison she keeps getting.

Sippin On Dat showcases Naviyah’s gritty UK rap authenticity wrapped in infectious energy. The track came out of a transformative period when she gave up smoking and drinking, finding strength through Christian faith after baptism, sober for an entire year, and captures the pivotal moment of choosing ambition in her music career over indulgence and drunken nights with the home boys and home girls. Producer 1995’s (Anthony Cruz) instrumental was the right canvas for her style. Marcel Somerville called it ‘an absolute banger.’

Naviyah is a London-based British Jamaican Nigerian rapper, singer, songwriter with a sound that pulls from hip-hop, rap, pop, R&B, reggae, dancehall and Afrobeats, embracing her Caribbean and African roots while pushing a positive message rooted in faith and lived experience. Her father was a top UK producer and engineer who worked with Liberty X, Blue, Mis-Teeq, S Club 7 and Leona Lewis, and Naviyah’s been in motion since her 2018 debut EP Change. It’s basically a banger, and you should check it out below.