Greg – Page 6 – BOPS

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THIS WEEK’S ELECTRONIC BOPS

Three very different corners of the electronic world. A London chef who makes the most eclectic music imaginable, a Philadelphia attorney dropping his best dancefloor track yet, and a London producer who started making music after giving up on learning to carve gemstones. Let’s go!

William McLaughlin – Dragon Hentai Tears

William McLaughlin’s Dragon Hentai Tears is boldly eclectic electronic music from a London chef who sounds like he absorbed every genre and synthesised something new.

Dragon Hentai Tears is one of those tracks that defies easy summary, and that is the point. William McLaughlin, aka WGMC, aka Billy G. Mc, is a Soho chef and passionate creative who describes his musical influences as everything from Red Hot Chili Peppers and Nirvana to Ella Fitzgerald, Kendrick Lamar, Django Reinhardt and Skrillex, and he lives that omnivorous principle fully rather than filing it away as marketing copy for the bio. There’s chrome-y synths, a giant kick, spoken samples, all wrapped up in a wonderful package.

Every song should be very different from the last, drawing on multiple genres, instruments and playing styles, he says, and the track is exciting, interesting, joyful, weird and unique, all the things he intended. McLaughlin has been putting music out for 12 years, working towards what feels like a singular creative vision. Originally from Devon and now based in Central London, he makes music the way a chef might approach a dish, instinctive, sensory, and quietly committed. It’s fantastic.

Pocket Lint – Cyanometer

Pocket Lint’s Cyanometer is a synth-pop stunner about an instrument that measures the amount of blue inside a person, yes really, and it is brilliant.

Cyanometer opens Pocket Lint’s new album Wunderkammer, in which every song represents an object in an imagined cabinet of curiosities. The cyanometer itself is a real historical device used to measure the blueness of the sky, but here it measures the amount of blue inside a person, which is the kind of central image that sells a concept album single-handed. Built from wonderfully warm synths, 80s drum machines and guitars, it is a brilliant piece of 80s-influenced synth-pop.

Pocket Lint is the genre-hopping musical vehicle for London’s Mark Heffernan, born in the summer of 2020 when he sat on his balcony with sandpaper and tried to teach himself cameo carving from an amethyst block. Three weeks in, covered in purple powder, he gave up and went into the studio instead, and Pocket Lint was the result. We are very glad about that decision, and the rest of Wunderkammer suggests the whole concept is built to last. It’s great.

Adam H Rohit – Need You

Need You is warm, melodic progressive house from Siliguri that lets the tension stretch before the drop arrives, and hits twice as hard for it.

Need You is melodic progressive house that takes its time. Out in early april, the track opens with warm, unhurried melodies before Jaime Deraz’s vocals arrive and changes everything. They really are the standout. The build is patient, layering reverb and delay in a genuinely compelling sound world. The drop is huge; deliberate, and balanced, designed to hit equally hard in the gym or in the middle of a festival crowd.

Adam H Rohit is based in Siliguri, India, a city not typically name-dropped in global progressive house conversations. He’s leaned into remote collaboration as a genuine creative method, working closely with producer Shiva Pereira and now signed with Ice Cream Music Records. He cites Martin Garrix, DubVision and Matisse & Sadko as references, producers who think in terms of scale. Need You suggests Adam is already operating at that level, well before the room gets crowded. It’s great.

INDIE POP BOP OF THE WEEK

Soft city light filtering through a smudged window, a melody that feels like it was written specifically for your Tuesday afternoon mood slump. This week’s indie pop pick is all about that lush vibe.

Jared Fullerman – Between Bricks

Jared Fullerman turns small moments into something overwhelmingly beautiful in ‘Between Bricks’

Lush piano and warm guitar wrap around you from the first few seconds, and then Jared Fullerman’s voice comes in, accompanied by a scratchy guitar. ‘Between Bricks’ is the fantastic second single from his upcoming album Ins, and it earns that centrepiece status without ever really raising its voice to demand it. There’s a lovely patient prettiness to this, and it sits in the intellectual indie space alongside stuff like Grizzly Bear and maybe a touch of Animal Collective. Most of all though, it sounds great, is produced like a dream and ambles along beautifully in an unexpected way.

Jared Fullerman put himself on the map with Albatross in 2023, a debut that earned genuine critical love across the indie blogosphere, not the manufactured kind. Before that, he was operating under the alias jrdfllrmn, building his craft quietly before stepping into the full light of his own name. With Ins due May 1, he’s making the case that Albatross wasn’t a fluke but a foundation. On the strength of Between Bricks, we’ve got something very exciting to look forward to. It’s fantastic.

THIS WEEK’S POP ROCK BOPS

Heartfelt guitar music this week. A Lancaster home studio home-recording, an Ohio six-piece with one of the richest singles we have heard all year, and a genuinely heartwarming comeback story to round things out neatly.

Sungaze – I’m No Longer Afraid of Heights

Sungaze’s I’m No Longer Afraid of Heights is midwest emo at its most wonderfully poetic, childhood nostalgia and adult stagnation colliding in one gorgeous slow-burner.

This is the kind of track that makes you stop what you are doing. Cincinnati six-piece Sungaze open with slide guitar drifting over a steady rhythm, long summer days and childhood possibility, before the track quietly pivots into something more complicated in the second half. I’m No Longer Afraid of Heights is about what happens when that golden childhood feeling curdles into adult stagnation, and the moment you finally decide to do something about it.

Sungaze blend shoegaze atmosphere with the nostalgic pull of midwest emo. Songwriters Ivory Snow and Ian Hilvert lead a six-piece that includes Snow’s sister on bass and a drummer who had to perform the song at double speed on the night of filming, for slow-motion purposes, and by all accounts a hilarious experience. The music video was shot across three days in Ohio, including the actual corner store from the first verse, and the album drops May 22. This is just brilliant.

Patti Zlaket – Love Is For You

Patti Zlaket’s Love Is For You is a warm, soulful comeback single that sounds like she has been saving it up for exactly this moment, deeply felt.

Patti Zlaket’s comeback story is one for the ages. After watching a documentary about legendary session musicians called The Section, she reached out to bassist Lee Sklar, of Phil Collins, James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt fame, completely out of the blue. He replied. That chance exchange set off a year-long recording process that has given us the album Dance Again, and Love Is For You is its final preview single before release.

Produced by Tariqh Akoni, whose credits include Christina Aguilera, Jennifer Lopez and Weezer, and featuring Sklar himself on bass, this is a wonderful and meticulously crafted piece of adult pop that rewards every listen. The song started life as a track about unrequited love, but Zlaket says it changed meaning entirely when she found her partner. Love is always there for us, waiting to welcome us in, and when she sings it, you believe every word on first hearing, and the second listen seals it. It’s genuinely great.

ALT POP BOP OF THE WEEK

This week leans into atmosphere and restraint, with alt-pop cuts that favour space, tone and slow-building emotion. There is a reflective edge throughout, with artists letting mood and texture lead.

Daniel de Boer – The Way

Daniel de Boer delivers a wonderfully restrained, atmospheric alt-pop track that lets mood and space carry its emotional weight

The Way unfolds with a slow, contemplative pace, built on minimal instrumentation and soft, spacious production flourishes that really work. Its gentle progression and ambient textures give the track a lovely reflective, cinematic feel, with more electronic elements building a compelling sound world. It really is a great mix of sound worlds, without ever feeling like too much. The standout of course is the vocal though, which build the narrative in style.

Daniel de Boer is a Netherlands-based composer, bassist and singer working across styles within a pop framework. This release leans into a more atmospheric direction, pairing visual storytelling with a sense of stillness and introspection, shaped by its Berlin-shot setting. It’s a beauty, check it out below.

THIS WEEK’S INDIE ROCK BOPS

A brilliant week for indie rock. A Welsh post-punk band with members on three continents, a Stockholm songwriter navigating urban paranoia, a Colorado basement auteur on his sixth album, and a New York anti-folk legend back with something very moving indeed. What a combo.

Blindness & Light – Our Man From Fife

Blindness & Light’s Our Man From Fife is wonderfully catchy Welsh post-punk with a band roster that literally spans the globe

Our Man From Fife is the title track from Blindness & Light’s forthcoming third album, and it arrives with serious pedigree behind it. Three of their previous singles reached number one in the European Indie Music Chart with another hitting number seven, and the band has been picking up regular BBC Radio plays recently that have pushed their reach well beyond the Anglesey base of leader Colin M Potter, where the project started.

Members come from as far as North Yorkshire, Argentina and Japan, giving the group a genuinely global character that finds its way into the music without ever feeling like a gimmick. Musically, the track balances raw post-punk energy with a keen pop sensibility, urgent and immediate without sacrificing melody or chorus craft. If you have not caught up with Blindness & Light yet, this is a good entry point, and the album landing next is a very good reason to. Essential stuff.

Anette Ähdel – Undercover

Anette Ähdel’s Undercover is a sophisticated alt-pop anthem for anyone who has ever felt invisible and desperate to be seen by someone / anyone

Undercover is an alt-pop track from Stockholm’s Anette Ähdel that navigates the shadows of modern urban life, the low-grade paranoia of existing in public spaces, and the deeply human longing underneath it to be recognised by someone. Can you see me from the outside sits at the centre of the song, and the balance between that poetic interiority and a driving, urgent chorus is what makes the whole thing actually work on the first pass.

Ähdel has long been the lead singer and lyricist of indie rock band Yesterday’s Gone, and has increasingly focused on her own material in recent years, usually with an indie touch rather than pure rock. She writes in English because it feels like her natural musical language, and Undercover is moody, sophisticated, and sticks with you long after the final bar, exactly the kind of track you put on a Night Drive or Dark Pop playlist. It’s brilliant.

Danny Django – Oh Me Oh My

Danny Django’s Oh Me Oh My is genuine, unassuming indie rock stunner with a storyteller’s instinct, a basement studio’s raw energy, and a sharp melodic hook.

Colorado Springs artist Danny Django writes from the gut, six studio albums deep, still recording in his basement, still drawing on Jack White and Bob Dylan in equal measure, and still clearly enjoying himself. Oh Me Oh My is a standout from his forthcoming album The Peach Orchard Field, blending punk energy with introspective songwriting and the kind of poignant, personal lyrics that feel like they were written by someone who has something to say. It’s genuinely touching.

Danny has been captivating audiences across the US with his unique brand of indie alternative rock, and Oh Me Oh My showcases the emotional directness that makes his work distinctive on a playlist full of polished alternatives. The melody sticks on first listen and the feeling sticks on the second, which is the correct order. Good honest music from a good honest artist, recorded properly, released properly, and absolutely worth your time and your full attention. I love it.

BLOCK – Firefly

BLOCK’s Firefly is a deeply moving tribute to a lost brother, Rolling Stone approved, Apple Music featured, and fully deserving of both endorsements.

Firefly is the final stand-alone single ahead of BLOCK’s sixth album Love Crash, out May 2026, and it might be the most emotionally affecting thing he has ever released. Written about his brother Michael, who died eight years ago from addiction, the song is about remembering the beauty they brought to the world. There’s a real weight and grace to the piece, which – as it unfolds – gets more and more affecting.

Produced by Chris Kuffner (Ingrid Michaelson, Regina Spektor), the track never becomes heavy-handed despite the subject. BLOCK’s first underground record helped launch the New York anti-folk movement of the late 1990s alongside Regina Spektor, Beck, The Moldy Peaches and Ani DiFranco, and Apple Music has been championing his recent singles with editorial placements on their New In Alternative playlist, so the US tour now underway is a real moment for an artist long deserving of one.

Darwin’s Cat – Mystical Tales

Darwin’s Cat craft a soaring, guitar-led indie cut that pairs cosmic scale with direct, emotionally driven songwriting.

Mystical Tales, opens with jangly, expansive guitar riffs and steady rhythmic pulse, quickly building into a soaring, enjoyable release. There’s a loose groove to the indie rock-ness of this one, definitely adding to the character of the track. That said, the compellingly unique vocal is the standout here, and the guitar work sets a foundation which allows it flourish.

Darwin’s Cat are a Germany-based art-rock project working within a sci-fi framework, using an outsider perspective to explore human behaviour. This release captures that approach clearly, framing themes of escape, independence and risk through a narrative of leaving the familiar behind. And after a long day at work, it’s definitely a feeling I’m leaning into. It’s a great track, and I’ll be keeping an eye on this artist’s work this year.

THIS WEEK’S SUMMER BOPS

Two tracks this week that both know exactly what they are for, making you feel good and making you move. One from a London vocalist teaming up with a Dutch producer, one from a Philadelphia attorney who moonlights as a prolific EDM producer ☀️

Jules Davidson – Find A Way

Jules Davidson’s Find A Way is London EDM meeting Dutch trance, with the kind of vocal that carries you all the way to summer

Find A Way is the second collaboration between London vocalist Jules Davidson and Dutch house and trance producer SPYZZD, and it is immediately clear why they keep working together. Jules’ vocal has a natural warmth that cuts right through the electronic production rather than getting swallowed by it, and when the drop comes the chorus actually has something to lift, instead of just a filter sweep chasing an empty hook back into the mix. It’s tough in all the best ways.

Influenced by Röyksopp, London Grammar and Eli and Fur, the track is built to feel good in a car with the windows down and the road open. The arrangement is summer-ready without being overly nostalgic, leaning on a confident mid-tempo groove that keeps the energy high without ever feeling rushed. If the first collaboration between Davidson and SPYZZD felt like a test run, this one is the version where the formula clicks properly and the partnership starts paying off. More of this please.

DJ Cards – Lose It in the Lights

DJ Cards’s Grab That Fall Feeling is warm, melodic progressive house from the Philadelphia lawyer who drops beats and clearly knows exactly how to do it.

Lose It in the Lights blends progressive house energy with light trance elements and a warm seasonal atmosphere, and it is excellent pre-summer listening on a dull afternoon. The arrangement unfolds like your best ever holiday trip to the balearics, and atmospheric layers build wonderfully into the drop. The result is a track that sits as comfortably on a run playlist as it does on a late drive, and we love it.

DJ Cards is a Philadelphia-based attorney who produces under the nickname The Lawyer Who Drops Beats, disciplined and detail-driven by day and bold and creative in the studio. He has gained real traction across global media outlets with a signature sound that fuses atmospheric elements, driving rhythms and powerful hooks, and this latest release keeps that approach intact while leaning further into the melodic side of progressive house to close out the season. This is huge.

THIS WEEK’S INDIE FOLK BOPS

We’ve got beautifully crafted folk tracks today. A London multi-instrumentalist who made percussion from household objects, a Florida songwriter finding parallels between human migration and ducks, and a Sydney artist making self-deprecating folk-pop about never getting anything right.

James Garland – It’s love

James Garland’s ‘It’s love’ is intimate, handmade folk-pop with the evocative fingerprints of household objects

It’s love was written to celebrate a four-year relationship, and London-based James Garland performs every instrument himself, including unconventional percussion built from tapping household objects and manipulating paper, all captured in the home he shares with his girlfriend. Vocal harmonies and instrumental textures layer into a rich sonic landscape that feels handmade in the best possible way, and the fact that you can hear the room in the recording is a feature, not a flaw.

Garland is a conservatoire graduate who started with jazz trumpet, met his partner while studying music in Cardiff, and currently lives with an opera singer, which probably explains some of the harmonic confidence underneath the song. It’s love is his first release featuring his own lyrics, and it shows beautifully, with a lyric that trusts the listener enough to stay specific rather than chasing a universal line at the cost of the actual story, which is harder than it sounds. It’s cute, compelling and we love it.

Liz Nash – Ducks Fly to Florida

Liz Nash’s Ducks Fly to Florida is warm, witty folk-pop from Florida’s most charming music chronicler, pulling migration and community into one neat parallel.

Ducks Fly to Florida is the third installment in Liz Nash’s Florida Songs collection, slice-of-life songs from her small hometown of Mount Dora, and this one finds a beautiful parallel between human migration to warmer climates and the seasonal movements of ducks. It produced beautifully, and wrapped in laid-back acoustic warmth with a Beach Boys backing vocal feel. The arrangement unfolds carefully and the vocal is just really, really lovely.

Nash’s first Florida Song, Nana and the Gator, inspired a student-led art project exploring swampland culture and community care, which is a genuine cultural footprint for music this deliberately unpretentious. The third installment keeps the tone conversational and the hooks easy, the kind of writing that makes a small town feel universally recognisable, and suggests the collection could keep running for a while yet without ever running out of small-town ground to cover and Sunday-morning details to notice. I love this.

Michelle Sutton – electric toothbrush

Michelle Sutton’s electric toothbrush is sincere, self-deprecating folk-pop about trying your hardest and still getting it wrong, and it is deeply, painfully relatable.

electric toothbrush is a folk-pop song about feeling like you cannot do anything right no matter how hard you try, and Michelle Sutton delivers it with the kind of self-deprecating warmth that makes you want to give her a hug and also laugh out loud. The specificity of the writing is what sells it, small domestic details that open out into something bigger, and a stunning vocal performance that sits halfway between confessional and stand-up.

Sutton is Sydney-based on Wangal Land, has been releasing music independently since 2020, and previously dropped the defiantly joyful Jesus Loves Fat Girls Too, which gives a decent sense of her range. If Camp Cope’s emotional directness and Maisie Peters’ wry pop-literate songwriting are both on your playlist, this one is absolutely for you, and the track rewards repeat listens as the jokes layer and the real sadness quietly sharpens underneath the melody and the laughs. It’s a beautiful track, we’d love to hear more.

THIS WEEK’S HIP HOP BOPS

Three very different corners of hip-hop and R&B. A theatrical Manchester artist building a track around EMDR therapy and lucid dreaming, a Lafayette musician who caught a 7am flight without sleeping, and a Long Beach artist turning adversity into a self-affirmation anthem. Three absolute bops 🕺

JESUS THE APOLLO – HUSH HUSH! (lucid dream edition)

JESUS THE APOLLO’s HUSH HUSH! is sonic cinema built around lucid dreaming and EMDR therapy, avant-garde UK hip-hop at its most ambitious and most self-aware.

Built around the concept of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy and the healing potential of lucid dreaming, the track samples a famous lullaby and flips it, with the protagonist refusing to be lulled into submission and instead taking control of the dream realm. The whole thing was created spontaneously, the instrumental built in hours and the intro freestyled in one take, and it pulses with wonderfully unnerving numerological significance without ever tipping into academic exercise.

JESUS THE APOLLO is a Manchester artist whose horror and sci-fi inspired live show The Martian: Live debuted at The Eagle Inn in 2024 to praise as a multimedia feast. Amazing Radio’s Mark Ryan called HUSH HUSH! dark and wonderful, which feels about right, and the lucid dream edition leans further into the atmosphere. That blend of theatre, avant-garde production is what makes him a very exciting prospect. We absolutely love this.

Gino V. – Taking Planes

Gino V.’s Taking Planes is a true story about going the distance for connection, late-night drives, early flights and no sleep, wrapped in a stunning 2000s R&B package

Taking Planes tells a very specific true story, finishing a casino gig at 1am, driving three hours to New Orleans, and catching a 7am flight to Philadelphia without sleeping, all to meet someone special. The production bridges classic 2000s hip-hop and R&B with modern sensibilities, and Gino V. himself describes the feel as a cool night ride with the windows down on a Friday. It’s produced like a dream, and vibes along gloriously.

Gino V. is from Lafayette, Louisiana, and he is a drummer, singer, rapper, writer and producer who does the whole thing himself rather than leaning on a team. That multi-instrumental instinct shows in how the record is arranged, with space for the drums to breathe and room for the vocal to sit forward without getting buried. Taking Planes is the kind of single that makes you want to hear the rest of whatever project it sits on. Essential stuff.

X.A.E. – Take 5

X.A.E.’s Take 5 is a self-affirmation anthem built from lived adversity, direct, purposeful, and genuinely uplifting

Take 5 is described by Long Beach artist X.A.E. as the pivotal track on their upcoming album, the one that lifts everything and everyone up, and the song earns that framing. It is built as a direct address to anyone who has been knocked around and made it to the other side – we all know that feeling – with a chorus that asks you to pause and take stock of what you have already survived. Honestly, i think it hits cos it means something.

X.A.E.’s creative philosophy says most of it: you are who you are because of the journey you have been on and the obstacles you have been through, and you would not be here if you did not make it through. That kind of directness, turned outward as encouragement rather than used as a flex, is exactly what makes Take 5 land as a full-volume anthem instead of just a nice idea on paper, and it is why the track carries. A true bop.

THIS WEEK’S SYNTH POP BOPS

Five synth pop tracks this week from every corner of the genre. From a Sydney-LA electropop artist on situationships to cinematic 80s synths and a 16-year-old Romanian bedroom producer. Let’s go!

Jeffrey Chan – Rebound Boy

Jeffrey Chan’s Rebound Boy is a stunning, sleek electropop cut about being someone’s in-between, where nothing is defined but everything still feels real.

Rebound Boy taps into the cultural conversation around ghosting and situationships with the kind of specificity that makes a song actually land. The production pairs glossy synth pop with a lovely new wave pulse, giving the track a finish that matches the subject matter, while Chan’s vocal carries the emotional weight without tipping into melodrama. It’s a song for anyone who has been stuck in that in-between space and wanted someone to name it out loud for them.

Jeffrey Chan is a Sydney-born, LA-based pop artist with over two million streams behind him and a project built around nightlife, connection, and the messiness of modern relationships. His catalogue leans into pop territory where club-ready production meets diaristic lyricism, and Rebound Boy fits neatly into that world. If you grew up on late-2000s electropop and are looking for a modern update with sharper songwriting, this should click on the first listen and stick around after. It’s a genuine banger.

Hera Anderson – Main Character

Hera Anderson’s Main Character is a pop anthem about the courage to see yourself as the lead in your own story, with a music video out day one.

Main Character landed on Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube on the same day, with the video live immediately so fans could experience the release in full rather than staged out over weeks. The song itself centres on empowerment and self-recognition, and Anderson has been vocal that it exists to remind listeners that you get to be the lead in your own story, not a side character in someone else’s. The chorus is definitely anthem-ready, and we love it.

Anderson has shaped the release around that message, and it shows in how the audio and visual lean on each other rather than competing for attention. Vocally she pushes into the big pop belt in exactly the places you would want, and the production gives her the room to do it without crowding the hook. It is the kind of release that rewards repeat plays, with little vocal and production details surfacing every time you come back to it. It’s great.

moonvine – cherry spice

moonvine’s cherry spice is a vibey AF dance-pop debut about the moment you stop overthinking and start feeling genuinely good in your own skin.

cherry spice leans on instinct, rhythm and attitude rather than polish, with a wonderfully conversational vocal that sits low in the mix and lets the groove do the work of selling the hook. The track has already picked up early organic traction on TikTok with creators running with the sound ahead of the official release, which is usually a solid sign that the hook is doing its job on first listen. For a debut, it is remarkably sure of what it wants to be.

moonvine is a Berlin-based sibling duo, and this is their first official release together under the project name. The record came from the two of them meeting in the middle after working on different things separately, and cherry spice reads as the product of that shared shorthand. Expect the next few drops to push further in the same direction, building out a sound that is playful, a little wry, and with everything we need in synth pop for 2026. Essential stuff.

TIANA – good girl, gone bad (supremacy)

TIANA’s good girl, gone bad (supremacy) is a bold pop-trap record about reclaiming your power, with a heavy bounce in the lineage of Rihanna and Billie Eilish.

On good girl, gone bad (supremacy) the intent is explicit, it is an anthem for anyone running their own show and done asking permission for the privilege. The sound sits between modern alternative pop and cinematic indie pop, with a trap bounce that gives the track real physical weight, and the vocal performance switches between whispery menace and full declaration in a way that keeps the energy moving from bar to bar. It sounds fantastic, and definitely built to be played loud.

TIANA is a 16-year-old singer, songwriter and producer from Romania, and she writes, records, mixes and masters her own songs entirely in her home studio. That level of self-sufficiency at her age is genuinely unusual, and the sonic fingerprint here feels entirely her own rather than borrowed wholesale from a production team. If this is the starting line, the ceiling is high, and supremacy is already a strong argument for paying attention to what she does next. Exciting stuff.

THIS WEEK’S PUNK ROCK BOP

One standout track this week from Cruel Ploy’s album EVOL. This is a stunner and You’re Offended By Your Shadow is the best way in. ✨

Cruel Ploy – You’re Offended By Your Shadow

Cruel Ploy channel glitching distortion and live-wire guitars into one of the sharpest moments on EVOL, confrontational and uncomfortably human.

You’re Offended By Your Shadow is the track to pick from EVOL, a moody, industrial-leaning piece that uses tension as its main instrument. Glitch textures rub up against live-wire guitars, the vocal is part accusation and part self-examination, and the whole thing moves with the mechanical pulse of a band that clearly enjoys sitting off-axis from the pop-punk mainstream. It’s got a touch of Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead in mood, and that’s exactly what makes it land.

Cruel Ploy are a four-piece alternative outfit whose own bio says it better than anyone else could: they didn’t form, they surfaced. The band have built a catalogue on tension, glitch textures against live-wire guitars and emotionally unstable pop hooks, and EVOL is the full-length that pulls all of that together. A real banger, check it out below.