Clem Snide

“The last ten years have been a rollercoaster of deep despair and amazing opportunities that somehow present themselves at the last possible second,” says Eef Barzelay. “During that time, the band bottomed out, I lost my house, and I had to declare bankruptcy. The only way to survive was to try to transcend myself, to find some kind of deeper, spiritual relationship with life. Once I committed to that, all these little miracles started happening.” ‘Forever Just Beyond,’ Barzelay’s stunning new album under the Clem Snide moniker, may just be the most miraculous of them all. Produced by Scott Avett, the record is a work of exquisite beauty and profound questioning, a reckoning with faith and reality that rushes headlong into the unknown and the unknowable. The songs here grapple with hope and depression, identity and perception, God and the afterlife, humanizing thorny existential issues and delivering them with the intimate, understated air of a late-night conversation between old friends. Avett’s production is similarly warm and inviting, and the careful, spacious arrangement of gentle guitars and spare percussion carves a wide path for Barzelay’s insightful lyrics and idiosyncratic delivery. “I look up to Eef with total respect and admiration,” says Avett, “and I hope to survive like he survives: with total love for the new and the unknown. Eef’s a crooner and an indie darling by sound and a mystic sage by depth. That’s not common, but it’s beautiful.” Named for a William S. Borroughs character, Clem Snide first emerged from Boston as a three-piece in the early 1990’s, and the group would go on to become a cult and critical favorite, picking up high profile fans from Bon Iver to Ben Folds over the course of three decades and more than a dozen studio albums. NPR highlighted the Israeli-born Barzelay as “the most underrated songwriter in the business today, with a sneakily firm grasp on poignancy and humor,” while Rolling Stone hailed his songwriting as “soulful and incisive,” and The New Yorker praised his music’s “soothing melodies and candid wit.” Website | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube

Rattlesnake Milk

From the southern plains of Texas, Rattlesnake Milk summons the sound of the prairie, mimicking the howl of coyotes and the pulsing rhythm of a lonesome junk train. While farming cotton for a family friend, Lou Lewis found inspiration to record an eight-song demo listening to the classics played on KDAV 1590AM in the empty flatlands of his hometown. Those demos paid homage to Lou’s favorite Dust Bowl migrant songs and haunted melodic gems from the 50s and 60s. Now, with the help of Corey Alvarez, and Andrew Chavez, Rattlesnake Milk captures the ephemeral soundscape of the Texas panhandle in the studio and on the stage. Website | Instagram | YouTube | Spotify

Novulent

Starting their music journey at 17 Novulent has been making a name for themselves as a singer and songwriter. With just a phone and earbuds Novulent has made one of the biggest shoegaze songs to date ‘scars’ which has 143 million views and counting at just 18 years old. Making a name for themselves in the alt rock scene their polarizing approach to music is what captivates the hearts of many. Website | Instagram | YouTube | Soundcloud | Spotify

Boris – Pink 20th Anniversary Tour 2025

Boris formed in 1992 and eventually arrived at the band’s current lineup of Takeshi, Wata, and Atsuo in 1996. In the years since, Boris has tirelessly explored their own rendition of what is heavy through methods entirely their own. Though the depths of their “heaviness” may intensify, their unique musicianship defies classification in any one genre or style, so let’s just call it real “heavy music” in extreme color. Their music has been called a “game changer” regarding the leading edge of the world’s rock scene, and that influence is limitless. They enter realms that cannot be described simply in terms of the “explosive sound” or “thunderous roars” that have become their trademark. Website | Facebook | Instagram

Geese – The Getting Killed Tour

In the summer of 2021, Geese emerged from out of nowhere, sparking a hype cycle unlike anything that had been seen for a young American rock band in recent memory. Suddenly a band that had previously planned to release some music, break up, and go away to college was touring the world. And during this entire process, that very same band everyone was getting to know ceased to exist. On a practical level, Geese are still the group we were introduced to in 2021: vocalist Cameron Winter, guitarist Gus Green, guitarist Foster Hudson, bassist Dom DiGesu, and drummer Max Bassin. But spiritually, Geese have returned as an entirely different prospect. Their new album 3D Country is the sound of a restless, adventurous band redefining themselves. Anyone who has seen Geese live recently might’ve noticed the band adopted a different vibe onstage — more of a volcanic, unpredictable aesthetic. It turns out that wasn’t a flipside to the recordings of Projector, but foreshadowing that there was more to the story. Knowing they were now beyond teenage basement experiments and were instead making something for an audience who would hear it, Geese felt emboldened. “When we were writing Projector it was about narrowing the scope, trying to do more with less,” Green says. “When we started writing for 3D Country we were trying to do a lot more and seeing what worked and what didn’t.” At the same time, they’re well aware of how significant a departure they’ve made. “As music listeners, we all appreciate bands who change over time, and are comfortable with risk,” Winter adds. It wasn’t necessarily a given that Geese would overhaul their sound, but with age came new adventures and interests. “Maybe the last record was our teenage angst and 3D Country is our newfound twenty-something arrogance,” he quips. For Winter, the album really started to materialize when they figured out “Gravity Blues” in early 2021. “It was simultaneously new and classic sounding, like older structures and sounds run through the 21st century,” a sound recognizable but warped to underpin an album meditating on daily life in a world sliding out of view. You can hear that fusion across 3D Country, Geese repurposing fragments of classic rock into a sound that is stranger and wholly their own. Right out the gates, the album kicks off with serpentine grooves underneath the armageddon visions of “2122,” before quickly ceding to the title track’s gospel-flecked chorus.”Undoer” is a slowburn simmer constantly building to something apocalyptic; “Crusades” travels back to Medieval times but chugs along on a “Heroes”-esque groove before strings swoop in around it. Later, Green and Hudson’s guitars bend and fry while Hudson also jumps in on vocals for an inhuman wail on “Mysterious Love,” and the whole album ends with the sideways piano elegy of “St. Elmo,” playing out like a saloon song viewed through a funhouse mirror. Website | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | TikTok | Soundcloud | Spotify

Jack Van Cleaf – No One’s Gonna Know if You Leave San Diego

Jack Van Cleaf was still an independent artist when “Rattlesnake” became a viral hit in 2023, earning praise from songwriters like Noah Kahan (who hand-picked Jack as the opening act on his sold-out Stick Season Tour) and Zach Bryan (who began covering the song online). For Jack, it felt like a pivotal moment in a career that had been building since his teenage years. “This album is all about the vertigo of growing up,” says Jack, who makes his Dualtone Records debut with the sophomore release JVC. “It’s about re-defining and re-understanding yourself.” JVC does more than plant its flag halfway between the worlds of indie rock and Gen Z folk. It also asks big questions about home and identity. Years after penning his first song as a high school freshman in San Diego, he headed east to Nashville, where he studied songwriting at Belmont University and released his debut album, Fruit from the Trees, after graduation. “I met many of my closest friends during my very first week at Belmont,” says Jack about his formative years in Music City. “All talented artists in their own right, they went on to help me make my first record everything that it is, and have remained my most trusted collaborators to this day.” “Rattlesnake,” with its introspective lyrics and atmospheric acoustics, earned him a spot on Spotify’s 2024 Best New Artist list with tastemaker playlist “juniper,” but nothing – not even the praise of his heroes – could calm the existential freakout he experienced as a 20something thrust into adulthood. “I was shell-shocked,” he remembers. “I’d spent my whole life being told what to do every single day, and I always dreamed about growing up to be my own boss. Then graduation came, and I got what I wanted… but I realized I had no idea how to function on a day-to-day basis.” JVC was born during that period of anxiety, self-examination, and newfound freedom. It’s a sharply-written record that measures the long, winding road from past to present. Sometimes that road is literal, with songs like “Shouldn’t Have Gone to L.A.” finding Jack in transit, caught between locations without a clear anchor, his heart in search of a place to land. Elsewhere, the album traffics in metaphor, whether Jack is singing about the road to ruin in “Thinkin’ About It” (a candid look at suicidal ideation, laced with resonator and acoustic guitars) or tracing the similarities between romantic obsession and substance abuse with the countryfied “Using You.” “This is me grappling with adulthood, trying to figure out who I am as an adult, and how that reckons with who I was as a kid,” he says, speaking with the same heart-on-sleeve honesty that informs his writing. Once known for his confessional and cathartic folk songs, Jack digs deeper with JVC, blurring the dividing lines between acoustic Americana and electrified indie music. The result is an expansive sound that resists categorization: sparse one minute and grungy the next, dreamt up by an artist who’s never been afraid to write songs that shine a light on his own challenges. To record JVC, Jack and producer Alberto Sewald (Katy Kirby, Sierra Hull) headed to far-flung locations like Joshua Tree and the Texas/Mexico border. Those choices were deliberate, their landscapes reflecting the barrenness evoked by many of the album’s lyrics. Spotify | Instagram | TikTok

Sydney Rose – I Know What I Want Tour

Music will always be there for us—especially when we don’t have the words to express what we want to say. Georgia-born and Nashville-based singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Sydney Rose writes songs for those moments. As she sings, it almost sounds like she’s whispering in your ear, giving you a boost of confidence, offering a little clarity, or just reminding you everything will be okay. The intimacy of her songcraft has resonated in the hearts and minds of countless fans worldwide, leading to billions of views on TikTok, hundreds of millions of streams, and critical acclaim. It also underscores her I Know What I Want EP [Mercury Records]. “Even if I can’t say how I feel with my own words, I know my favorite songs can,” she states. “When I listen to records or go to concerts, a song that speaks to me will be able to communicate what I’m going through. My goal has always been to relate to other people.”It’s easy to relate to Sydney. Growing up in the suburbs of Atlanta, she cultivated a rich musical palette by listening to artists as diverse as Phoebe Bridgers, Bon Iver, Daughter, Conan Gray, and Cavetown. Along the way, she picked up ukulele, piano, and guitar. Building an audience organically on social media, she broke through with a viral take on “Turning Page” by Sleeping At Last. It gathered over 67 million Spotify streams, led to her first label deal at 18-years-old, and set the stage for 2022’s You Never Met Me EP. A year later, she unveiled her debut LP, One Sided, highlighted by “You’d Be Stars” [feat. Chloe Moriondo]. Along the way, she received co-signs courtesy of everyone from People to Olivia Rodrigo and Awho invited her on tour.By the fall of 2024, she found herself now settled in Nashville without a label, yet undeniably inspired. So, she dropped the fan favorite voice notes EP.“I wanted to return to my roots, which was recording a song as a voice memo on my phone and releasing it,” she says. “When I got dropped, I got back to who I am.”In this creative space, she continued to write and record. While sitting at the piano one day, she crafted “We Hug Now.” Sparse chords shudder as raw emotion echoes through the cracks in her stark delivery, resembling the fracture of a formative friendship. Holding back tears, she muses, “I have a feeling you got everything you wanted and you’re not wasting time stuck here like me. You’re just thinkin’ it’s a small thing that happened. The world ended when it happened to me.”“I was upset about this relationship I had with a friend,” she confesses. “I’d go to her Instagram and see her posts with other friends, and it seemed like she was having a great time. I know it’s not 100% true because of how people are perceived on the internet. I was feeling down though, and I know she wasn’t. I wrote about wanting to be friends again and go back to simpler times.” A post of the tune’s bridge surged on TikTok, snowballing and eventually exploding on the platform. It inspired over 400K “creates” on Tik Tok, yielding 1.3 billion total views and reaching the Top 15 of the TikTok Top Songs Chart. It catapulted to the Top 3 of the Spotify US and Global Viral 50 Charts. Website | Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | Facebook | Spotify

Cigarettes At Sunset, High June, Yesterday’s Clothes

Winyah

Hailing from a small South Carolina beach town, Winyah emerged onto the music scene in early 2023 and has swiftly made their mark. They’ve shared stages with acclaimed artists such as The Red Clay Strays, The Vegabonds and The Stews, while also shredding festivals like Bonnaroo. Winyah’s live performances are a testament to their distinctive blend of indie and southern rock, featuring electrifying guitar solos and soulful vocals reminiscent of icons like Led Zeppelin, The Backseat Lovers, and flipturn. The band draws its name from Winyah Bay, a cherished landmark in their hometown where all five members spent their formative years. Their music is a reflection of the five rivers that converge into Winyah Bay, capturing the eternal summer vibes of their coastal upbringing. On the surface, Winyah delivers youthful energy and raw power, but their music also delves into themes of nostalgia and the bittersweet longing for childhood memories and cherished places. Website | Instagram | YouTube | Spotify

Dissimilar South, Anne-Claire Cleaver

Dissimilar South is the indie project of Durham-based songwriter Maddie Fisher. Blending ear-catching melodies with a subtle twang, the band has always been a harmony driven outfit. The band’s 2022 debut album, Tricky Things, introduced a sound that’s intimate and nostalgic, but with Fisher now at the helm, it’s entering a punchier and more personal era. Anne-Claire is from Raleigh. She went to music school where her brain got smart but her head got dumb. In 2018, she released her first LP I Still Look For You, and in 2021 she partnered with local label Suah Sounds to release her single Jean Jacket. She’s collaborated with artists like Mike Mills (R.E.M.), Ari Picker (Lost in the Trees), Chris Stamey (The dB’s) and Charlotte Church.

Genre: Miscellaneous