12 tracks worth having on your radar.
Thursday’s Radar is chock full – Penrith metal, Geelong psych, pirate punk, sibling dream pop, Latin fire and enough guitars to carry us comfortably into the weekend.
Here’s what we’re spinning.
ANGLES – ‘Bitter End’
We love a sibling duo, and ANGLES make a very strong case for keeping it in the family. Shoegazey, synthy and beautifully dreamy, ‘Bitter End’ lands somewhere between dream pop and indie haze – and we love it to bits.
The bi-coastal project pairs New York writer and bassist Preston DeGarmo with his sister Rylie DeGarmo, with their debut album due September 4.
Stockade – ‘Magicarp of Pondi’
A drop of metal out of Penrith for your Thursday. Heavy, immediate and built for the masses, Stockade get straight to the point with this one.
Scrap Scrap – ‘Yes! A Thousand Times, Yes!’
Beautiful guitar, warm vocals and the loose charm of your insanely talented uni mate who really should have abandoned everything else and started a band. Love is a tough gig, but Scrap Scrap make something very sweet out of it — and another good sign that some seriously cool indie rock is coming out of the UK.
Space Honey – ‘Bright Ideas’
Geelong psych-rock conglomerate Space Honey are swimming in all kinds of good ’60s flavours here. The vocals are particularly great, floating over a track that knows exactly when to get weird.
Mad Routine – ‘Zombified’
Equal parts Paramore and Linkin Park, with trip-hop and grunge lurking underneath. ‘Zombified’ has that great early-2000s alt-rock punch without simply sounding like a nostalgia exercise.
Steffania Uttaro – ‘Yo Soy Latina’
A total mood of Latin proportions. Venezuelan singer-songwriter Steffania Uttaro brings pop, flamenco, salsa and folk together with plenty of fire, and ‘Yo Soy Latina’ absolutely moves.
Dear Future Archaeologists – ‘Playing with Fire’
The best thing about ‘Playing with Fire’ is that it gives you absolutely no idea where it’s going. Acoustic guitar gives way to left-of-centre punk and full-blown pirate orchestrations, because apparently that is exactly what Thursday needed.
Children Of Eden – ‘Well Fed, Still Hungry’
Big pop-punk energy, dual vocals and a healthy little flash of Blink-182 in the mix. ‘Well Fed, Still Hungry’ is loud, melodic and very easy to get around.
Brunch – ‘Please Kill Me’
Brunch throw post-punk, garage rock and ’90s alternative into the blender and leave all the rough edges intact. ‘Please Kill Me’ has attitude, drama and just enough glam weirdness to keep things interesting.
Myriad Kindler – ‘A Friendly Conversation (I Fear)’
Myriad Kindler goes big without losing the human bit. Symphonic folk-pop, expressive vocals and an arrangement that keeps expanding around the song make ‘A Friendly Conversation (I Fear)’ feel properly cinematic.
Sam McLintock — ‘more&more’
Sam McLintock sits comfortably in that indie-electronic space where things can feel intimate and expansive at the same time. ‘more&more’ is a nicely textured alt-pop cut with plenty going on beneath the surface.
Jean Summers – ‘SPF300’
Neo-western dream-pop angel is about the best way we can describe this. There’s a definite Lana Del Rey mood hanging over ‘SPF300’, with gorgeous vocals and guitar doing most of the heavy lifting.
