At this point, I’m honestly not sure why I allow the Callous Daoboys to surprise me. Celebrity Therapist had set up the Georgia-based mathcore group as the true worthy successor to the legendary Dillinger Escape Plan… and the Daoboys did everything in their power to avoid making a straight repeat of that album. Between pushes towards a more mainstream sound with “Waco Jesus” to… well, whatever the hell you want to classify the lead singles from their upcoming album, I Don’t Want to See You in Heaven, as, the Daoboys have been doing their best to drill into our heads that we should expect the unexpected. But this might be their most shocking left turn yet: the Callous Daoboys wrote a straight-up pop song.
No, seriously, Lemon lacks pretty much all of the prevailing weirdness that had defined the band’s past work, being driven almost entirely by a simplistic drumbeat and, of all things, clean guitars! Even when the electric guitars do surge to the forefront in the final chorus, it feels less chaotic and far more triumphant, like a natural climax to the song. Nowhere will you find Carson Pace’s signature manic vocals, only a more restrained singing performance that allows him to show off some more emotional rage aside from pissed off. The weirdest part about all of this is that, despite being such a steep departure from anything the Daoboys have done before, “Lemon” just works. The vocals are great, the melodies are catchy, and there still is a smidgen of…
Lo, it’s back! Embrace the warm bosom of Sputnik Singles and be a valued participant in deciding what sucks and what doesn’t. Today’s track, fresh out of the oven, comes from NU-metal titans, Disturbed, who have dropped their first new song in nearly three years. So wrap those headphones around your ears and lets decide if it’s shite or not.
For me, I’ll be honest; I’ve not listened to a Disturbed record since subjecting myself to their disastrous seventh album in 2018, ironically titled Evolution. To be clear – I’ve never been a huge fan of the band, but I’ll concede I enjoy a lot of their songs in a throwaway fashion. Draiman is a solid singer who brings this Iron Maiden-esque bravado to their music, crafting these claustrophobic verses and detonating them into an apodictic tension-releasing chorus of soaring earworm melodies and chubby guitar riffs. Of course, they’ve not been able to do this to the same effect since 2008’s Indestructible, with albums getting progressively more lifeless and rudimentary. By the time Evolution came into being, they’d managed to strip all of their gusto away for piss-weak rock songs with none of the distinction behind them. After skimming through their 2022 album, Divisive, for this review, the issues carry over from Evolution but the problems are nowhere near as prevalent, and as a result make the record feel more forgettable than bad.
So where does that leave “I Will Not Break”? Well, it has that modern day…
Truman Sinclair’s American Recordings is reminiscent of old-fashioned folk/americana. There’s a Dylan-esque flair to his storytelling, as evidenced on the strange tale of justified (even ethical?) murder told during “Joel Roberts”, set atop wailing harmonicas: “I had to kill him for my good goddaughter / I walked in, he was holdin’ her down / I got my gun and I gave him a round.” It’s a barebones production certainly, nothing set to top any charts soon; but it’s the sort of song whose unique lyrics and confident delivery force it to become lodged in your memory. Pay attention to the backstory in the lyrics, too; it’s a goodun.
Michigander’s self-titled debut LP is a breezy, enjoyable exercise in indie-rock/indie-pop, and “Giving Up” brings the sort of stadium-sized atmosphere that an album like this occasionally needs. Its memorable beat, catchy chorus, and slick production make it the type of under-the-radar earworm that sounds like a guilty pleasure on the surface but feels like a hidden gem. Michigander was released on Friday and is available on most major streaming services.
The Indiana Drones are still very much unknown (less than 12k Spotify listeners), but you wouldn’t know it from their sound. Indie-rock infused with huge melodies front-to-end is the name of the game on their self-titled debut LP, and “New Chemical” shines the brightest of the bunch. It manages to make lines like “we’re all slowly dying anyway” sound inspirational; it’s a call to live in the present, with fervor. The song reaches its emotional zenith in the last half minute or so, when the distorted guitars wrap around lead singer Justin Zuccato’s emphatic refrain. It’s a moment well-worth exploring if you enjoy the alt/rock-ier side of the indie underground.
Renny Conti’s “Looking at the Geese” is rooted in the moment. It’s a stream-of-consciousness style of journaling, and also something of a love song. The acoustic guitars are shimmering and match the reflective nature of the lyrics, while dreamy hums serenade from the background and lull you into a sense of complete and utter peace. There’s something so effortless about the song, and even in its placid insignificance, it somehow ends up feeling like a distillation of many different essential life moments. Put it on, sit back, and let your mind drift. Conti’s self-titled album is available to stream now in its entirety.
Maddie Jay’s brand of indie-pop floats gracefully atop her breezy, melodic voice and playful production. Her debut LP, I Can Change Your Mind, marked something of an early-year gem for me with its relentlessly gorgeous aesthetics, and “Eckhaus Latta” was the first song to get lodged in my brain after a few spins. It’s effortlessly pleasing, if unspectacular — the sort of song that will make you feel better about a long bus or train ride to work/school in the morning. It just has the sensation of being perpetually in-motion, and finds the beauty trapped within the hecticness of daily life.
London folk artist Luke Sital-Singh certainly remains under-the-radar of most indie-goers, making him a prime candidate for this feature. “Still Young” is a beautiful single that comes in advance of Sital-Singh’s upcoming LP, Fool’s Spring. The song blends pastoral acoustics with crystalline production and Luke’s soothing self-harmonizing, resulting in a Sufjan-adjacent vibe that still manages to feel distinct in its own right. It feels like a glowing ember in the middle of a cold, harsh winter. Fool’s Spring releases February 21, 2025.
Emily Bowen’s debut album Hate Me For This hits like a series of unfiltered diary entries. The songs were written with the intent of tapping into some of Bowen’s deeper emotions, and the only way for her to access them was to abandon all pretenses and simply write exactly what she was feeling, in the exact words that came to mind during that moment. “Room 17” is a prime illustration, with an admittedly non-poetic lyrical approach that hits harder because of it. The song adopts a confessional indie-pop style that also explores a soft-to-loud aesthetic juxtaposition, and the result is a piece that sounds as powerful as the emotions the artist is attempting to convey — even if she can’t quite find the words. Hate Me For This was released on January 3rd, 2025, and can be heard in its entirety here.
Tucked away between the rural, easygoing strums and hypnotic, swaying vocals of “Barn Nursery” is one haunting message: “If I could’ve changеd your mind / I would’ve ran that fucking light / I would’ve watched you grow up right / And never have to say goodbye.” In what appears to be an ode to a friend who ended their life, the new single from up-and-coming indie darlings hey, nothing cuts deeper than its floating atmosphere or ephemeral runtime suggests. The duo, consisting of Tyler Mabry and Harlow Philips, spans indie folk/rock and midwest emo, having released their 2023 debut LP We’re Starting to Look Like Each Other and an EP last year entitled Maine. If “Barn Nursery” is an indicator of their future direction, then their best work to-date may be just over the horizon.
Outside of “Blue Monday” being Orgy’s universally acknowledged claim to fame, the band very rarely come up in music discourse. There’s obviously good reason for that; the band fell into the NU-metal whirlpool at the height of the genre’s popularity and were quicky chewed out with the slew of other bands clambering to make a decent name for themselves. Unlike most bands in that scene though, I always lamented the unharnessed potential Orgy wielded in the early noughties. Candyass and Vapour Transmission were really solid albums, and, while far from perfect, demonstrated a competent blend of NU-metal and industrial in a way that gave them an edge over their peers – their own inimitable identity. Unfortunately, the band were never able to make that potential truly flourish, as their third album, Punk Statik Paranoia, sealed their own demise (at least until their return in 2015). It was a record that stripped the band of their fundamental qualities in favour of derivative trend chasing, which ultimately finished the band off in the process.
Since their return in 2015, the band have followed suit in a way that feels as though they never really left or learned from their previous shortcomings – that glaring wound of unfettered, untouched potential staring back at me as they bleed generic dance beats and vapid pop melodies into my ears. This new single, “Empty”, stays the course in this vein, vomiting autotune and scintillatingly optimistic electronics with the only consistent thing…
I’ve always been a huge fan of two things: playlists and nostalgia. Lo and behold, I present to you that point of intersection! Since I first became an avid consumer of music back in 2010, I’ve been secretly compiling “greatest hits” versions of each year I’ve been on Sputnikmusic (I’m not counting 2008 or 2009 because I was barely present). It’s a hobby, sure, but it’s also a superhighway to connect me to any given point in time within the last decade or so. It goes without saying that these installments will be subjective in every conceivable way, but I also think that listeners – particularly on this website – might get something out these posts because my taste in music is essentially a product of what I’ve discovered on Sputnikmusic. I invite you to click ‘play’ on my selective 25-song 2010 playlist and get whisked away to some twelve year old memories. Because it obviously will not be the same as your 2010 experience, I invite you to share your own favorite songs in the comments below. Thanks for listening!
Regardless of your political stance on treating boys like sluts, daine’s ability to fit the lyrics “treat that boy like a slut” into the first second of ‘boythots’ is highly impressive. Moreover, it signals a gratifying shift in the Filipino-Australian artist’s style: where her previous output largely mimicked Lil Peep-isms by combining trap beats with spaced out twinkly riffs, this brand new single is much more energetic and immediate. Trading melodrama for drama, daine finds a newfound sense of life in wonderful lines like “Steppin’ in the club in my vegan Uggs / Slappin’ all these hoes in my Prada puff” and her crystal clear goal of, yes, treating a boy like a slut. It’s ambitious yet firmly embedded within reality; aware of limitations and more than willing to face them.
While it’s a highly delicate exercise in vulgarity and meditation, ‘boythots’ also manages to be highly self aware. It’s snappy; it knows precisely what it’s doing. Clocking in at just over two minutes, the song delivers its message without overstaying its welcome or dragging at any point. Its framework comprises an addictively pulsating beat and enough ethereal qualities to feel like a natural progression from daine’s past output; nothing more, nothing less. While ‘boythots’ might last as long as its subject matter, it manages to feel much more satisfying and complete.
“Oldest Daughter” finds The Wonder Years both maturing and, um, dematuring. “Oldest Daughter” sees the pop punk powerhouses return to the generation of The Greatest Generation in more ways than one. The track is a direct sequel to that album’s acoustic number “Madelyn” and, musically, this is the most pop punk they’ve sounded since The Greatest Generation (arguably since Suburbia). The structure is that of a classic pop punk song: Verse -> pre-chorus -> chorus -> repeat -> bridge -> end with a chorus. The chorus rips, there’s a chugging guitar riff, there are some sing-a-long echoes, and it never slows down for a “quiet” section. In other words, “Oldest Daughter” sounds like everything you would want from a pop-punk song in 2012, just a decade too late.
Yet, somehow, “Oldest Daughter” is also maybe the most mature that The Wonder Years have ever sounded. Dan Campbell has developed a deeper control of his voice since the release of Sister Cities five years ago (the vibrato!). The production sounds much cleaner than their previous two releases, yet still rough enough that it avoids sounding sterile (the harmonies!). Campbell has also clearly taken some influence from Aaron West and the Roaring Twenties in his lyrics, as the storytelling style that The Wonder Years already lean into is transformed into an even more literal style, sharing the heartbreaking story of what Madelyn’s life has turned into in the ten years since (the imagery!).
“Sidelines” is the new song by the music artist Phoebe Bridgers. You know who she is, glad to be on the same page. Is it a good song? It recalls the minimalist keyboards of the title-track of her 2020 phenomenon statementzeitgeistermeme album Punisher, but where that song’s progression was intricate, fragile and full of intrigue, this one follows butterfingered plinky-plonks and emointense study beats and an antidynamic chord pattern so tepid Aaron Dessner would doze into his decaf chaipalace eyemask latte over it. Bridgers’ vocal performance peaks when she channels Imogen Heap on the occasional high note, and it dips when she mumbles some bollocks about personifying her houseplants instead of objectifying herself to the chonk of that babysnare. Is this a little cruel? To the lyrics: oh okay, Phoebe Bridgers is using the first song released from her new(ish)found platform of supercelebdom to affirm the confidence she’s found to leave her house, all while weighing up a fresh stint at Berklee (hardly unwarranted by this song’s sclerotic arrangement)? She is dealing with fame marvelously, and you can tell this because she grounds it in sly Bright Eyes references. All things considered, this is a guaranteed live kicker and I can’t wait to hear some tosspot in a suit promote their insurance company over its opening stanza the next time I open a Youtube video 10/10 well played.
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