The last best new indie songs playlists for November concludes with indie rock from Chicago and Philadelphia; the return of an Austin-originated indie band; an overseas band from Finland, and two singles from female artists out of Oklahoma and New Jersey.
Tiny Kingdoms – Chicago, Illinois
Lightouts – Brooklyn, New York
Sture – Seinäjoki, Finland
Asher Evergreen – Tusla, Oklahoma
The Ten Year Program – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Sarah Sunday – East Brunswick, New Jersey
Tiny Kingdoms – “Tides”
The new song “Tides” is an energetic, melodic new indie rock single from the Chicago four-piece band Tiny Kingdoms.
The track features a memorable guitar hook and an ambitious chorus that drives the single forward with a rock and roll verve.
The accompanying music video is “an Alice in Wonderland type experience as the video follows the protagonist through a dreamlike adventure…the main character encounters a variety of odd characters as she travels through obstacles in an attempt to escape,” says drummer Jake Newling.
In addition to Newling, this promising band also includes guitarist and vocalist Nico Miura; bassist Nick Collis, and guitarist Ryan Mitchell.
The band thoughtfully balances various genres, such as rock and pop, to create a sound anchored by melodic guitar hooks, chugging percussions and robust, post-punk-style vocals. Their tracks are sonically robust and full of catchy harmonies.
Earlier this year, Tiny Kingdoms had a successful appearance at SXSW as an official artist after dropping the debut Stay.
They are influenced by, and fans of, artists such as Circa Survive, Taking Back Sunday, The Dangerous Summer, Everyone Leaves, among others.
Lightouts – “Lucky Strikes”
With band members living in various locales – Brooklyn, Austin, and even the Peruvian Amazon – of the western hemisphere, indie rock band Lightouts managed to write and record their first album in nearly five years via long-distance collaboration.
The release, titled Wake, has spawned the new single and accompanying video, “Lucky Strikes.”
To the dismay of fans, the band was on a bit of a hiatus.
“The greatest achievement on Wake, apart from the songs themselves,” explains guitarist and keyboardist Gavin Rhodes, “is making time seem to stand still,” Rhodes adds.
“Family commitments, geographic hurdles, vaporizing vocalists — all played a role in the unusually lengthy interval between Lightouts albums,” Rhodes says, adding: “day jobs, kid-raising, ayahuasca experiments, and shaman-searching to the mix.”
All of these things have informed the band’s latest work, something their fans have been waiting for since Lightouts debut E.P., More Than Ever, in 2015.
That recording was unusual, but exciting, by the very fact that ex-Dead Kennedy’s vocalist Skip Greer sang on the E.P. (DK fans take note)
In addition to Rhodes, the permanent band members include Greg Nelson (lead vocals, guitars); Dean Perry (bass guitars), and Josh Fleischmann (drums) first got together as an official band back in 2013.
That year’s debut release, Want, landed on a number of best of 2013 lists, and was also featured on IRC.
Sture – “Fabricated”
The powerful “Fabricated” is the first single from Seinäjoki, Finland indie rock band Sture’s upcoming debut album, Broken English.
The single was conceived at the last minute during a jam session. “We hit it perfectly and it fit nicely with our mood. We caught it using a cellphone,” according to Bohdan Holovan. Later, the band was able to use the moment captured live to construct a final version.
“While recording this song, we tried to create a simple, childish and naive sound without over-producing the track.”
Holovan said that he used a late 1980s Korean Stratocaster clone guitar and a “super cheap” Danelectro T-Bone distortion pedal plugged “into decent studio equipment.”
The album was recorded during the summer of 2018. At the same time, Holovan moved his family out of Ukraine to Finland. The other band members are in the process of moving to Finland, Holovan says.
Originally from Ukraine, the band started in 2016 as a “girl/boy duo” of drummer Katherine Martynova and guitarist and vocalist Bohdan Holovan.
The two met while attending the Ukrainian university in Zaporizhia, a “once-great industrial hometown.”
Sture’s debut single, “Elza Never Told You,” was released in July of 2017 followed a few months later by the single “Keyboard and Pillow.”
During this period, the duo transformed into a trio by bringing on bassist Maxim Fedoseiev.
For the past two years, Sture has been performing live shows and plan to continue to in Finland.
The band cites their biggest musical influences as The White Stripes, Blur, Oasis, The Stone Roses, and Pixies, all of which have informed their garage/indie rock and Britpop sound.
Asher Evergreen – “Rejected”
The debut release from Brooklyn-born, Tulsa based, recording artist Asher Evergreen, “Rejected,” is an indelible number with a catchy modern pop sound full of powerful lyrics, delicate harmonies and of course, her strikingly husky soul vocals.
With her striking green hair, Evergreen catches people’s attention, but it’s really her music that gets noticed more than anything as soon as people hear it.
Her musical journey from humble musical beginnings up to now, with her own compelling debut release and a new single, has been one of perseverance and pure love for music.
Moving around a lot as a youngster she learned to substitute enduring friendships with music, turning to her songwriting and spoken word while developing a keen talent, and unique style, as a pianist and vocalist, as well as her unique style.
The green hair is just a small part of Evergreen’s personal identity. She aims “to bring positivity and ‘greenness’, the color of life, to people everywhere,” she says.
“It’s not just about entertaining the crowd to me, it’s about bringing them into my world, and visiting theirs.”
She certainly has made a mark with her breakout into the brave world of being noticed for her natural and acquired talents.
The Ten Year Program – “Ambient Wet Dreams”
Philadelphia indie rock project The Ten Year Program was brought to fruition by two longtime friends and musical partners.
Multi-instrumentalist Ian Richards (guitar, bass, drums, synth) produced, engineered, wrote, and recorded the music while vocalist Jack McCracken carries the vocal duties.
The band’s single, “Ambient Wet Dreams,” has actually been out for a bit, but we like it so much that we added it to this playlist. The song starts with a wall of guitars.
The use of pedal tones effectively adds to the urgency of the work. The rhythms are clever, at times intricate, utilizing hemiola to create the illusion of competing time signatures. No one element detracts from the whole.
The duo has a wide range of musical influences, including bands like Glassjaw, Deftones, Sunny Day Real Estate, Deftones, Glassjaw, Pearl Jam, Jimmy Eat World, and Green Day.
Sarah Sunday – “Mental Zoo”
Calling her music ‘Europop Revival’ East Brunswick, New Jersey alternative pop musician Sarah Sunday has just released the audio and music video for her newest single, “Mental Zoo.”
The single has a strong playful edge with notable vocal hooks, pulsating downbeats and a tempo that flows evenly with a vein of pop and punk.
The sound and style of Europop and new wave that burned up the airwaves in the 1980s is alive again through Sunday’s embracing of retro vibe revival through channeling of pop and rock genres of the era, from post-punk to pop.
retains the same anthemically euphoric edge of your more conservative EDM Pop hits. Sunday verses the lyrics with an innocently playful vocal approach which gives the track an incredibly distinctive edge while doing nothing to compromise the accessibility of the single.
Sunday says her music is “inspired by a plethora of iconic female vocalists from Avril Lavigne to Debbie Harry.
A colorful character by her own words, Sunday also rides her fashionista verve wearing retro clothes and makeup with the angle towards punk rock. Yes, there are a lot of genres, but that is the nature and strength of indie rock.