If their eponymous debut album of 2021 highlighted the Cowgirl propensity to find the instant classics that would have found the perfect home in the pre-CD singles world of the 70s and 80s, then this follow-up Cut Offs album by the York (UK)-based act cements their place in the very select world of 2020’s artists ..read more

Less than a year after their Book of Bad Ideas ninth album was released and immediately drew comparisons to Big Star, Teenage Fanclub, and Dropkick due to their new concentration on jangle-pop-infused hooks and melodies, the Smug Brothers have returned with a captivating 10-minute EP that continues to showcase their versatility. Opener and lead single Javelina Nowhere is Columbus-based foursome’s finest track ever (I am not always one to revel in such fluffy platitudes, but in this case it is true!). The song drifts along in a haze of crushed psyche-pop, threatening to be brushed aside by the ..read more

Meritorio Records (on this release collaborating with Celluloid Lunch Records) are not the sort to let jangly power-pop brillance pass by without a physical format release. As such, this Because It’s True album sees Montreal-based foursome Laughing join an imprssive roster of similar acts that include jangly giants such as Stephen’s Shore, Rural France, and The Maureen’s, who have already released music on their label in 2024. Laughing certainly merit a place among such greats. As such, this debut album (it almost feels a little obnoxious to have such an accomplished effort as their initial re ..read more

Fans of jangly indie-pop acts such as Marine Research (and indeed any number of Amelia Fletcher fronted acts) and more recently The Hannah Barberas may well have found their latest darling in the form of St. Louis-based foursome Smiling Strangers and this, their eponymous debut EP. Packaged within three inextricably linked musical nuances, The Crying Clown and The Surveyor would move headlong into a definitive modern-day power-pop aesthetic if it were not for the infusion of the made-for-80s anglo-indie-pop vocals and the fairground organ that act as a core to the absolute originality of thes ..read more

County Galway (Ireland) trio Oh Boland have always been able to batter the aural senses into absolute submission and eventual appreciation and their third Western Leisure album (out Safe Suburban Home and Meritorio Records) shows that there is no intent, or indeed need, to change such as musical modus operandi just yet such is the sense of exhilaration each listen provides. Always offering a verve that has amateur music hacks like me looking for words to express their dynamism, tracks best represented by Grass Walls, the gloriously named The Cult Of A Western Rail Operator, Spectatoring, and W ..read more

Finally back with a full-length follow-up to their debut Make Glad The Day album of 2015, this Vivian Elixir gently guides The Sylvia Platters from the brilliance of their melodic power-pop that reached a pinnacle on 2022’s Youth Without Virtue EP to exploring the altogether more melancholic aesthetic that they first experimented with on the split Shadow Steps album that they released with Stephen Carl O’Shea in 2018. As such, the Creased Sneaker, Severance, and Same Devices are drenched in the Elbow, British Sea Power and Band of Horses massive dulcet of the mid 2000s and juxtaposed with the ..read more

It has been two and a half years since literally the entire world rejoiced when Janglepophub voted the RF album by Wiltshire-based Rural France “album of the year 2021” and now they are finally back with a follow-up Exactamondo! album that is simply itching to be given similar year-end accolades by all the microblogs that ‘really’ matter. Still including their signature fuzz-augmented Matthew Sweet-style melodic power-pop in The Song She Skips, Ghost Dance, and Blabbermouth, and the jangly 54:40 meets Camper Van Beethoven sounds of Sunsplit, lead single Packhorse, and Stay Away from the W ..read more

Pumped with the sort of testosterone-fueled incessance that seems destined to add to the sort of RGV, DIIV, and Mythical Motors energy that seems determined to wrestle the jangly guitar sound out of the more effete clutches of the current persuasion for every second act to sound like a Sarah Records tribute show, this self titled The Wesley’s album puts the boy is boisterous. The jangly muscle is fired from three musical cannons. Initially, Make It My Way, lead single Great Big Smile, and Death By The Bite marry early Bdrmm post-punk brooding with the jangly indie-rock energy of the Ducks Unl ..read more

A few years ago, in the COVID-19 time excesses, I found myself with too much time to think. This resulted in my middle-aged ‘Kevin’ (I am reliably informed by my teenage kids that this is the male equivalent of a ‘Karen’) surfacing in the form of grumpy mumblings about power-pop being consumed by paisley shirt-wearing, long-haired oldies who, despite being able to make their guitars sing, had been doing so in the same way since the 1970s and 1980s. Thankfully, acts such as Mo Troper, 2nd Grade, The World Famous, Diners, and The High Water Marks have come along and found new, more fertile groun ..read more

Back with his third full-length release on the Jigsaw Records label, Berlin-based Hans Forster (Sealevel, Seaside Stars, and Man Behind Tree) is back with a Rain or Shine album via his current primary Hanemoon project that will undoubtedly cement his reputation as an erstwhile jangle-pop legend. Thankfully, unfettered by the need for the overt change that can sometimes ruin all that is wonderful about an act, Forster remains largely dedicated to surrounding his brilliant songwriting craft with as much 90s-inflected, jangly power-pop beauty as is possible. As such, My Circle Line, Let’s Do The ..read more