This week’s indie rock trades volume for pressure. These are tracks that smoulder before they ignite, built on restraint and atmosphere rather than the big obvious swing, the kind of weight that creeps up on you and stays put long after the song ends.
Dave’s Manual – Electrical
Dave’s Manual is an excellent shot of late-night rock; earworm melodies, a youthful spirit and a whole lot of heart
After two tracks built on shadow and restraint, this is the one that throws the windows open. “Electrical” is all forward motion: hooky riffs, a chorus that lodges itself fast, and a few unexpected harmonic turns that keep you hooked. It’s loads of fun, and manages to carry that loose, late-night rock and roll buzz of a night out gathering pace, the energy of piling into town with your friends and deciding the evening is yours. Damn, I miss those nights.
Dave’s Manual are a power trio out of Minneapolis who deal in catchy, no-nonsense rock songs designed to stick. They describe themselves, with a nice bit of self-awareness, as about the most palatable rock band you’ll ever hear, and on this evidence the joke lands because the hooks back it up. There is no grand concept at work, just three players who clearly enjoy writing the kind of choruses you find yourself humming hours later, and that ease is its own kind of craft. A beautiful single.
Sutlej – Tell Me You Care
Sutlej make a superb racket on “Tell Me You Care”, a zinger of a grunge-soaked alt-rock track with the kind of melody that survives the noise.
Sutlej’s new banger sits right on the seam between heaviness and hook, dragging nineties grunge grit into something with a taste of a sharper modern edge. Guitars come in thick and a little anxious, but like all the best noisy lads, there’s a lovely melody underneath holding it all together. It has the coiled, restless energy of a band who clearly built this to detonate in a live room, and I’d very much like to witness this in a room one day.
Sutlej are a London three-piece made up of Lewis Maddison, George Power and George Butcher, and they made their name on stage before they had much music out, playing intense shows across two DIY UK tours. “Tell Me You Care” was produced by Alex Mountford, formerly of Dead!, who also handled their debut single Let Me Out. They cite Deftones and the nineties alternative scene among a wide spread of influences, but they definitely feel in their own lane. “Tell Me You Care” is a great single, and I hope there’s more like this coming.
DADDY DRWG – Black Thread
DADDY DRWG serves up a beautifully atmospheric anti-ballad that holds its tension like it’s daring you to look away.
Black Thread works by holding back. Distant, cinematic guitars hang in the space while layered vocals build a quiet kind of dread, and the track resists every chance to break into something bigger, choosing repetition and restraint over release. The tension is the whole event here, drawn out across a slow burn that never quite resolves the way you expect. Musically, I like the droll vibes, the drum machine, but it’s the moody, patient and slightly off-kilter chorus that pops this one into banger territory for me. ‘New phone, face down, buzzing, I don’t wanna talk no more, you keep calling’ is a highlight too.
DADDY DRWG, pronounced Droog and meaning Bad Daddy in Welsh, is the solo project of Cardiff songwriter and producer Richard Proctor, a Music Technology graduate of the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama. It’s not my favourite artist name if I’m honest, but the tunes are good. He has toured internationally with They Walk Among Us and was one half of The MeMeMes alongside the late Cardiff musician Mel Daley. A cool CV, but it’s this banger that’s really doing it for us. Keep an eye on this lad.
Zak Coghlan – Jump The Gun
“Jump The Gun” is a soaring alt-rock anthem from Zak Coghlan, one of the most fully realised rock singles you’ll hear this month
Zak Coghlan is here with an alt rock zinger that’s hard to ignore. Driving drums and textured guitars push it forward with real urgency, while the vocal soars over the top with the kind of conviction you only get from a song played live hundreds of times. It deals in overthinking and emotional miscommunication, that frustrating churn of things left unsaid, and the heavier arrangement gives all that tension somewhere to go. The place it builds to is fantastic, genuinely euphoric and this should be screamed back by thousands of fans at festivals.
Zak Coghlan is a songwriter and producer from the Liberties in Dublin, now based in London, making his solo debut after fronting the rising Irish alt-rock band Sunburn. “Jump The Gun” is a heavier reinvention of a song from his previous band’s days, reclaimed for the solo project. It follows recent singles Composure and Lead Balloon, and arrives on a wave of live momentum, with shows across London, a first Manchester date, and headline gigs lined up in London and his hometown of Dublin. Exciting stuff, but the most exciting thing here is this banger. It’s great.
Tom Minor – Bureau of Change
“Bureau of Change” is a stunning bit of restless indie from Tom Minor, a song that hops genres mid-stride and somehow makes it all hang together wonderfully
Tom Minor’s latest banger is a track that refuses to sit still. In under four minutes it slips from indie rock into two-tone, then into tango and bolero and back again, and the wild thing is how naturally the seams disappear. Make no mistake; this could be an absolute mess. But amazingly, it works, as a kind of immaculately illogical harmony, every swerve landing exactly where it should. I bloody love it. A sense of playfulness that’s been lost in Englishness somewhere. It’s inventive, unpredictable and genuinely fun.
Tom Minor is a London N1 singer-songwriter who calls his style existential indie, drawing on new wave, punk, power pop, psychedelia, garage rock and soul. After years spent writing for other people, he now channels all of it into his own work, and “Bureau of Change” follows his sophomore album and the earlier single Change It!. The track was written and arranged by Minor himself and produced by Teaboy Palmer. More of this madcap wonderfull-ness please Tom.