indie, pop, rock, electronic

Denver, CO multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Dave Hawkins is a true original.  He makes rich, thoughtful indie music that zig zags across genres, touching on Americana and indie pop and shoegaze and more.   The thread tying it all together is his endearing voice, everpresent wit, conscious lyricism, and deft arrangements.  

He’s out on Bandcamp (and in the process of releasing the rest one single at a time) with the best work of his catalog to date, the impressive Half Alive EP, offering a 5 song meditation on “finding presence in a world that keeps pulling you away”.

In the process of exploring that theme, Hawkins gives us some quirky and memorable performances, veering from sparkly pop rock to groovy psychedelic pop to plaintive ballad to electronic power pop to jazzy piano bar anthem. It’s a dizzying tour through Hawkins’ mind as well as his dazzling array of competences, and every track brings something utterly unique to the EP, to Hawkins’ catalog, and to the indie music landscape.

industrial, experimental, rock

This isn’t easy music; even for those of us who’ve come to trust his artistic instincts, it often takes a few focused turns through a Kid Lightbulbs record before things really click.

Partly this is because the music is challenging, and the arrangements designed to convey maximum emotional clarity and punch rather than to keep you tapping your toes or muttering the hook.

But at least as often, it’s because he manages to be thought-provoking in real time in a way I don’t know anyone has matched for me. A Kid Lightbulbs song will often kick you off the edge of your concentration into a stream-of-consciousness spiral, like some sort of Internet-age Leonidas screaming “WE! ARE! PROCESSING SOME SHIT HERE!”

power pop, alternative, indie rock

Jeffrey Trainor (British Columbia) makes shimmering, confident pop music under the moniker of Western Jaguar. We’ve been enjoying the drip of singles all year, and now the payoff has come in the form of Kaleidoscope, a tour de force of indie pop/rock that contains some of the finest songwriting, the most skillful playing, the most tasteful arranging, and the most immaculate vibes of anything we’ve covered in 2025.

This album packs a staggering number of great hooks and should-be hits into a tight package, with a couple of bonus tracks included in the Bandcamp version.

Bluegrass, folk, traditional

This new album is decidedly more traditional and classic than the previous offering from David Clark Carroll (Daring Coyotes).

Where The Aftermath featured something like doom-grass instrumentals with deeply ominous undertones slathered in layer upon layer of sparkling strings, here we get arrangements that should feel more familiar to fans of mountain music. The album features deft performances from both Carroll and his collaborator Ryan Seiler (Broke String) on bass.

Taken as a whole, Tales From Mount Tom is a pretty big step forward in the Daring Coyotes catalog, a beautifully performed and produced, entirely cohesive, full-length collection that finds the project expressing confidence on all fronts.

alt rock, post grunge, indie rock

The Strange Vines is based in and around Geneva, Switzerland - but their sound will cause waves of nostalgia for anyone who was listening to alt rock radio in the 90s and early aughts. Frontman Valere de Riedmatten has a voice that will garner instant comparisons to Live’s Ed Kowalczyk, and the band’s compositions would fit perfectly into that era.

The album does a good job of capturing the live feel of The Strange Vines - who are a proper band in an age of solo projects, and it serves as proof that they know how to craft punchy, gritty, and catchy set pieces made for the stage.

Worth checking out for any fans of rock music, but certainly for anyone who has been jealously eyeing the cash-in festival lineups recently featuring all the bands that dominated their angsty teenage radio listening years.

folk, ukelele, indie

A delightful collection of vignettes about everyday life, stitched together by Toronto songsmith Jason Pilling’s clever and cutting lyrics, his earnest and vulnerable vocal delivery, and a sparkling set of arrangements and expert production from Gabrielle Papillon.

Pilling built the record around simple ukelele-and-voice compositions, which remains the foundation of these tracks. Atop said foundation, Pilling and Papillon have constructed a series of veritable mansions, each serving as a perfect frame for the idea at the core of each song.

From the modern phenomenon of “ghosting” to the meditative nature of long drives, from losing a friend to internet conspiracies to losing a friend to the Great Beyond, Pilling covers a bit of everything in this brilliant and beautiful album.