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New album: Daily Worker || Prefab Maverick

Two-minute gems with timeless spirit

By / / Indie Pop / Leave a Comment

Prefab Maverick marks the 22nd release from Daily Worker, the indie-pop vehicle of Austin, Texas–based poet and guitarist Harold Whit Williams (of Cotton Mather). By now, introductions feel almost beside the point. but if one were needed, these ten new songs make the case effortlessly.

Each track is a compact gem, most barely brushing the two-minute mark. Jangly guitars chime over buoyant power-pop hooks, crisp vocals deliver sharply observed, relatable lyrics, and the production strikes a sweet balance: lo-fi in texture, yet warm and inviting in tone. Nothing overstays its welcome, every melody lands, lingers, and makes room for the next. “Rock ’n’ roll will never die,” we hear in standout cut Pop Knock-Offs. You’ll understand, it’s not difficult to embrace this record.



Prefab Maverick, produced by Reinli Style, is out now digitally and on limited lathe cut vinyl LP Repeating Cloud.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New EP: Las Margaritas || Haru

Chilean trio nail the sweet spot between cutesy and melancholic

By / / Indie Pop / Leave a Comment

Santiago (Chile) trio Las Margaritas are making their Wantlist debut today with their new 7-track EP Haru. It’s the band’s third EP since 2020, for those keeping score, and it showcases a band that knows their twee pop inside and out, with the talent to write indie pop hits that are both cutesy and punchy.

Listening to songs like Baby and Niebla, you get the sense that Winter has passed and Spring is here. Las Margaritas have a breezy, sunny disposition, but their singer’s voice also has that melancholic edge that works oh so well for indie pop. It’s that push and pull between bright melodies and wistful delivery that makes Haru something beyond saccharine.

Haru is out now on CD through Joyboy Records.


Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New album: The Green Hearts || The Green Hearts

Fourteen shots of hooks and humor

By / / Power Pop / Leave a Comment

Remember Richmond, Virginia’s The Green Hearts? In 2022 we wrote about their Oh Heidi +3 EP, and after a live album they now return with +14. Mark Golden, Paul Ginder, Steve Dingus, Doyle Hull, and Brian Collins deliver a self-titled full-length that’s all heart, hooks, and volume. Across the energetic songs, the band tears through crunchy riffs and sugar-rush choruses with ragged charm and zero fuss. There’s grit under the gloss, sharp humor in the lyrics, and a bar-band swagger that keeps things refreshingly unpolished. Think punchy power pop with a punk streak, immediate, melodic, and built for repeat spins. A no-frills, turn-it-up, fun kind of record.



The Green Hearts’ eponymous album is out now digitally via Slaxitone.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New album: It’s All You, Cowboy || I Can’t Eat

And now for something completely different, it's Frankie Furillo!

By / / Funk & Soul, Indie Pop, Psych / Leave a Comment

Frankie Furillo spent 15 years playing experimental grindcore with The Central, but that tells you nothing about what to expect from his pop project It’s All You, Cowboy. I Can’t Eat is what happens when someone who’s mastered extreme music decides to make something catchy you can actually dance to: a unique brand of sophisto-pop that’s part AOR, part yacht rock, part ’80s/’90s neo-soul, and a whole lot more. Think Michael McDonald’s solo records filtered through basement show desperation and too much caffeine and sugar. It should be a mess, but it’s the exact opposite. Tenement gets namedropped too, and indeed, some of the vocal melodies are reminiscent of that band. Of course Tenement’s Amos Pitsch is involved, though not in production but rather in art direction, and his Crutch of Memory label is releasing the record.

I Can’t Eat is a sonically rich album packed with different styles, layered vocal harmonies, and key-driven hooks that burrow into your brain. Lyrically, it’s a tour through self-deprecation, romantic dysfunction, and the grinding mundanity of just trying to get through the day. Furillo documents what it’s like to exist with relationships that fall apart and a brain that won’t shut up. Absurdism and tenderness go hand in hand in these songs.

Furillo treats his songs with precision and care. Clearly a lot of attention to detail went into the arrangements, and yet this is not a sterile record. Snark, sparks, and snickers all go together, and this is way more fun to listen to than I expected before pressing play. And the video for Loser? Hang it in your local modern art museum!

I Can’t Eat is out now on Crutch of Memory as a digital album and double-cassette. It’s pretty special.


Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New album: Sassparilla || Honey, I’m Using Again

Fewer chords, harder truths

By / / Blues & Roots, Country & Folk / Leave a Comment

After a long hiatus, Portland-and-Colorado-based jamgrass outfit Sassparilla return with their eighth album under their belt, Honey, I’m Using Again. The fifteen(!) new songs, recorded in bandleader Kevin Blackwell’s basement, are characterized by a warm sound in which the banjo and other acoustic instruments create an intimate live atmosphere. This feeling is further enhanced by the frayed and unvarnished vocals that carry late-night confessions you weren’t meant to overhear, with a Southern-gothic chill.

There’s an undeniable sense of earned wisdom here, both musically and lyrically. This is a record about the reckoning that comes with time, with relapse, addiction, and survival as central threads: “I’m counting // My blessings // I’m nothing more than this” (from standout track One Morning). We look back at wrecked love affairs, dead friends, and missed chances, like rolling stones from a heavy heart. Packed in minimal chords, generating maximum impact.




Honey, I’m Using Again—written and produced by Kevin Blackwell—is out now digitally via In Music We Trust Records. Featuring Kevin Blackwell (lead vocals, guitar, banjo, fiddle, harmonica, drums), his 13-year-old son Emmett Blackwell (drums), long-time collaborators Doug Ebert (upright bass, backing vocals) and Dan Power (acoustic guitar, backing vocals), with Nama Muntal (backing vocals), and Ross Macdonald (harmonica).

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New EP: Space Jaguar || Every Room is an Escape Room

The quick follow-up that doesn't compromise on quality

By / / Alternative Rock, Indie Rock, Jangle Pop, Power Pop / Leave a Comment

I quickly became infatuated with Space Jaguar’s 2025 album If You Play Expect To Pay, which played like a love letter to ’90s power pop. The follow-up arrives quick, comprised of six new originals and a cover of Freedy Johnston’s 1994 track Bad Reputation. Space Jaguar aren’t reinventing the wheel here, but when the wheel runs this smoothly, why would they?

The EP is another success for the outfit fronted by Mark Grassick, together with Andrew Taylor (Dropkick, The Boys With The Perpetual Nervousness) on drums and guitar and Michael Wood (Whoa Melodic) on bass. Expect jangly guitar pop that sounds warm and cozy, clean and harmonious, but rocking as well, bringing the power to the band’s pop. The trio of A Bright Future, She Goes, and You Won’t Drift Away is particularly likeable, each one a reminder that Space Jaguar have mastered the art of making their music sound effortless yet endlessly playable.

CD out now on Subjangle.


Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New single: Child Of Panoptes || New Romance

Kaleidoscopic tones from the south of France

By / / Garage Rock, Psych / Leave a Comment

Child Of Panoptes release their second outing on Disques Rogue, following 2024’s Un Petit Morceau De Buvard. The new 7″ pairs the vigorous freakbeat strut of New Romance with the even better, danceable punk of Out of My Mind, excelling in organ and screams, respectively. Cool stuff again, on which Alexandre Besson and Eric Pouchet drift freely between vintage psychedelia, fuzzy garage rock, and groove-laced detours.

New Romance is out now digitally and on 7″ vinyl through Rogue Records.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New EP: Institute || Institute

Essential noise from Texas

By / / Alternative Rock, Punk / Leave a Comment

Texas punk veterans Institute are touring Australia for the first time and have teamed up with Anti-Fade Records for something fresh and essential at the merch table: a three-song 7″ that, for entirely selfish reasons, I hope does not sell out immediately. Too bad that shipping this thing overseas will cost about as much as the record player you spin it on.

Three songs, zero filler. And once again Institute prove they are operating on a different level than most so-called punk bands. Call it punk, call it rock, call it post-whatever. The attitude is what counts.

Lead track The Shooter is the gut punch. Sour, tense, melodic in a way that makes the bitterness land harder. Lyrically it goes straight for America’s gun delusions, delivered with the kind of drained fury that sounds like it has been simmering for years. Institute are fed-up and razor sharp.

The other two tracks hit with the same urgency. This does not feel like tour filler. It feels necessary. Institute still have plenty to say, and they play like it matters.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New album: Worries And Other Plants || Sweet Heart Sugar Love

Hypnotic grooves for desert drives and coastal escapes

By / / Psych, Surf / Leave a Comment

Switzerland-based musical mastermind Dionys ‘Dio’ Müller returns with Worries And Other Plants, drifting between coastal breeze cool and heat-haze hypnosis on the Sweet Heart Sugar Love LP. Its sound is rooted in psychedelic indie rock, but it’s the surf-kissed riffs, repetitive rhythms, and languid grooves that make this release stand out. Like desert flowers cracking through sunbaked asphalt.

The eight new songs come across as a wondrous blend of influences from Allah-Las, The Velvet Underground, Ghostwoman, and Kid Koala, making for a mesmerizing listening trip through dystopian tension and blissed-out melody, along open highways and endless horizons, feeling both intimate and infinite.



Sweet Heart Sugar Love is out now digitally via Nice Guys Records.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New EP: GOOEY COOKIE || GIMME THE GOO!

So-cal '90s vibes from Denver

By / / Alternative Rock, Indie Rock, Power Pop / Leave a Comment

Earlier this month we shared that excellent EP of decades-old lost demos by Ridel High, one of those L.A. bands that briefly caught a moment in the 90s in the slipstream of Weezer. This new EP by GOOEY COOKIE feels like it is tapping into that same specific strain of punchy, catchy alt pop, the kind that often gets labeled geek rock.

GOOEY COOKIE are a trio from Denver, not L.A., but they sound eerily like a 90s So-Cal Generation Blue band. GIMME THE GOO! is a six-song debut that trades in good vibes only, with crunchy guitars, bouncy rhythms, and choruses that land fast and stick around.

There is nothing ironic about it either. These songs feel written by people who genuinely love this sound and know how to make it work without overthinking it. Short, sweet, and hook-packed, GIMME THE GOO! does exactly what a debut EP should do: make you want to hear more.


Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

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