After the recent brilliance of the Diners Domino album, Portland’s Brenden Ramirez’s (aka Bory) is the latest act to benefit from Mo Troper’s seemingly unrelenting production quest to wrestle power-pop firmly into the hands of today’s youth. Nestled gently on Ramirez’s soft, inviting vocals that are so perfectly under-produced in the hands of Troper, tracks such as Five Course Meal, Our New Home, North Douglas, We Both Won, and Wreck drizzle the slightest of fuzz persuasions into soft Teenage Fanclub power-pop, which is then just about shaken enough to reveal a melancholy that is perfectly ac ..read more

After recent releases by Funeral Cake and The 1981, this Smile Too Much release cements the Dandy Boy Records cassette label as the summer’s most in-form and dynamic label. At its most precious, this succinctly named EP2 EP sees You Can’t Help Me, Wrong About Everything, and Get Used To It drizzle the beautifully delicate vocals of Maggie Aytac through feathery fuzz-pop and jangled guitar licks that just about win the fight for recognition amid the translucent ‘noise’ of it all. However, as stunning as the above sound is, this release truly excels when the energy is accentuated and charged wit ..read more

Another gorgeous double-track digital single from Christian Dam and his prolific The Age of Colored Lizards project is now available digitally through the Sotron Records label. Track 1 is June, which embarks on a journey of powerful fuzzy, noise-pop exploration that is beautifully addled by hushed male and female vocal harmonies that lay upon each other with deft ease, in the same manner as the recent Fine releases have encapsulated. The other track, I Will Never See Tomorrow, feels far more deliberate, sombre, and wistful. Here female vocals akin to the sultry introspection of Mazzy Starr ti ..read more

Now on its fourth album, the Shiny Times solo project of Kim Weldin would probably be considered her ‘primary gig’ if it was not for the sheer success of the more lucid, jangle gaze aesthetic of the Tape Waves she performs in with her husband, Jarod Weldin. Shiny Times always feels like a vehicle for this artist to get her ‘obtuse’ on, perhaps to cleanse herself from getting just a tad too mainstream for her liking. It’s no less beautiful than the Tapes Waves vibe, but such a sense of stunning derives from infinitely more untraditional musical contexts and structures. As such, Memory Dumpster ..read more

If the self titled EP (2019) and the debut Ennemi Commun album of 2021 were happy to revel in the bombast of the noise part of noise pop, then Wait Until The Flames Come Rushing In is positively gentile in comparison. However, Do not mistake the softer change in direction as a cause for concern  as this album still manages to retain the inimitable sense of cool that has always been so fundamental to their aesthetic. As such tracks best represented by Selkie, Bete, Intertie and Maze takes an almost Young Marble Giants sense of isolated, fractious rhythmic and joins the musical dots of such ..read more

Melbourne based sextet, Phil & The Tiles are an act that seem to avoid labels. With a purposeful, rumbunctious belingerence that ensures they never really settle at one definitive aesthetic, their’s is a sound of genuine originality that cavorts, with often unsettling energy, in the cracks between genres and eclecticism. Opener, Health/Body, is the most abrasive on the EP. Slipping off the end of Buzzcocks buzzsaw, into the more deranged end of noise-pop and engulfing a The Slits style passive aggressiveness on route, this track is grumbling jange-punk, in a simiar manner to the Ryan Allen ..read more

If the only previous output by Nottingham’s Holden Hush saw him wrapping whimsical titles about British takeaway food around dark, solemn, post-punk-inflected strangeness on his 2017 Loudspeaker single, then this Happiness Is A Poor Man’s Passion EP seems to be a re-awakening where he has taken his musical abilities altogether more seriously. Still omnipresent is the distant, unheard suggestion of a vocal delivery however, the illegibility somehow now seems to merge with beautiful purpose with the jangly aural textures of the standout title track and its journey through spatial surf rock, juxt ..read more

Not to be confused with their debut The Gabys by The Gabys debut EP (see our review here) released on the All Gone cassette label in February 2021, this EP of the same name, sees their move to the Fruits & Flowers vinyl label heralded with a less than subtle shift in musical nuance. First intimated as a possible direction in tracks such as Molly and Gaby’s Daydream on the debut, the left field psyche tinge and fuzzy noise-pop of 2021 is replaced on Theresa and I Don’t Mind with an accentuation of the fuzz (for this album is possibly fuzz-core) a deliberate, but beautiful mutation of the vo ..read more

You could describe this sound as ‘noise pop’ and pat yourself for a job well done in describing the core essence of For Everything, Always. Undoubtedly the most significant aesthetic of this album is forever rooted to a glorious fuzz laden foundation and the production accentuates this throughout. However, such a description just seems a little trite, considering the jangle rock riffs and melodic persuasions that make the London based foursome of Adults, stand out from the noise pop minnions. After opener, i had a little snooze & now i will probably never arrive at yr house, offers the fal ..read more

If the Cloudberry blog / label can be relied upon as the ultimate indie-pop archaeologists, then the French compatriots, the OVVK Archives label, is rapidly becoming a more regionally centric cousin, with an emphasis on fuzz laden, melodic, noise-pop in all it’s machinations. The label’s succinct Bandcamp bio explains such regionailsm and it’s general purpose by stating themselves as:   A place for the french indie pop scene circa 1990-1995. Mainly from Nantes, Rennes and Brittany / North West of France. Remasters of demos, side projects, studio outtakes, live soundboard recordings ..read more