Best Indie Rock Songs, Bands, Albums

Blood red is the new black. Like a reconnaissance of caves, each darker than the last, Blood Red Shoes’ discography is an ongoing incitation to fill already-black voids with one’s own crepuscule. While the flow of 2019’s ‘Get Tragic’ bludgeoned with garage rock energy, follow-up ‘Ghosts on Tape’ lives up to its title by channelling the misery of a global pandemic.

The klaxon-like keyboards of ‘Morbid Fascination’ actually appear chirpy compared to the bulk of ‘Ghosts on Tape’. While it may not encapsulate the album’s torn-apart manifesto – more Satan’s cookbook – the song is an evident high for the duo; an insistence on unique, whilst shaping itself perfectly into today’s hallowed alt rock zeitgeist – alongside a few other bits and pieces, most notably ‘I Lose Whatever I Own’, it’s Muse-like.

But the norm for Laura-Mary Carter and Steven Ansell – heavily persuaded by the cancelled plans and geographic separation spawned by the pandemic – is to play the part of serial downers, shifting shape ever so slightly to fit a beast that bit more frightening. Blood Red Shoes are the vampiric folklore creatures of their craft, spiked by the gloom of isolation, whilst sporadically renewing the garage energy of ‘Get Tragic’ on cardio machines like ‘Give Up’.

Not even those energetic tunes could make ‘Ghosts on Tape’ appear extroverted, though the album does flick through a little book of influences in a manner that teases embrace. A few corners resemble CHVRCHES if their synthesiser suffered from stage fright, as much a part of the action, but hiding its face to contribute with Frusciante-style subtlety; the “it’s not about me” approach of a Pink Floyd concert. Save for post-industrial meltdowns like ‘Sucker’, on which the keyboards breathe upwards like melodic chimneys, this nuanced synth-wave is the duo’s principal creative stamp, multiplying atmosphere when necessary, but as ‘Begging’ proves, such a feat may just as well be achieved with six-inch-deep guitar picking or double-focussed percussion pulses.

Continue reading on IndieIsNotAGenre

As an ex 2013 Tumblr teenager, The Wombats’ fifth studio album, Fix Yourself, Not the World, released on January 7th 14th, is one of my most anticipated 2022 releases. The Wombats formed in their native Liverpool in 2003 and have been a pillar of indie rock for the past 2 decades with no signs of faltering. Unlike many of their fellow 10’s alt rock bands, The Wombats are actually gaining traction with younger generations – Greek Tragedy (2015), Kill the Director (2007), Let’s Dance to Joy Division (2007), and Line Without a Hook (2016) have all gone viral on TikTok in the past two years. 

Despite (or perhaps in ignorance of) their expansion into a new and younger audience, Fix Yourself, Not the World is The Wombats’ most authentic album in a decade. After experimenting with a more pop-y sound on Glitterbug (2015), The Wombats seemed to lose their footing. Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life (2018), aside from Turn and Lethal Combination, was ultimately disappointing. Luckily for fans (old and new), Matthew Murphy (frontman and guitarist), Tord Øverland Knudson (bassist), and Dan Haggis (drummer) seem to have found themselves again.

Fix Yourself, Not the World is a true pandemic-era album; recorded from three different cities (LA, Oslo, and London) with the help of 5 different producers. Murphey, the band’s primary songwriter, pulls two years of quarantine, political unrest, and personal adversity into 41 incredibly relatable (but not too on-the-nose) minutes. This is a record that will outlast the uncertainty that inspired it.