The Best Indie Songs of 2015 - 10 Of The Best (Part One)

These songs didn’t make it onto the blog. They should have as these are some of the best indie songs of 2015 so prepare to have your socks knocked off in this New Year special!

1.   The Meligrove Band – Tortaruga

From their fifth album, Bones of Things (2014), the Canadian indie rockers The Meligrove Band have got a ‘rare as rocking horse shit’ indie rock classic here. Tortaruga (Aug'15) is one of the best indie songs of 2015.

“And we're never making it out alive,
Still we're walking, and we're running,
And we're telling all our lovers "goodbye"
 

 

2.   The View – Penny

This Scottish indie rock band have one of the best lyrics in rock’n’roll, “I got so many hidings in the city that they stopped being rare,” off 2011’s Grace, but Penny channels their inner Beatles. It sprang from their fifth album Ropewalk (Sept’15).

 

 

3.   Walk Off The Earth (with the Arkells) – Drag Me Down
 

Two great alternative Canadian bands come together for this One Direction cover. Of course it’s better, it's indie... Drag Me Down (Oct’15).

 

 

4.  Bronze Radio Return – Light Me Up

Indie pop rockers from Connecticut with the title track from their fifth album. Middle-of-the-road indie pop candy, Light Me Up (Oct’15) is packed full of ‘whoah’s’ and happiness. 

5.    Iration – Reelin'

Who doesn’t love Sublime? Sad people that’s who. White boy reggae that St. Bob would have loved, Reelin’ (Apr’15) is from the Santa Barbara (by way of Hawaii) sunshine reggae band Iration, and it’s a smoker...

 

6.   Nekokat – Up In Smoke

 “I wanna kiss you on the face, give me whiskey,” is a sample lyric from this bouncy indie popper from Los Angeles newcomers Nekokat. I’ll take mine messy... and there is an endearing, spontaneous, quality to Up In Smoke (Nov’15)...

 

7.    Faith No More – Superhero

A scathing alternative rock song from the hard rocking San Francisco legends. Sol Invictus (May’15) is their first album since 1997, seventh in total, and finds them in fine fucking form... Superhero (March’15).

 

8.   Civil Twilight – Holy Dove

There’s something of Depeche Mode’s Personal Jesus in this tune. A dirty little rock groove that chugs along before the chorus takes flight in this earnest effort from the South African alternative rockers. Holy Dove is an epic with wings... (June’15).

 

 

 

9.    The 1975 – Love Me

Funky as fuck tune from the popular Manchester indie pop band. Love Me (Oct’15) is from next years album I Love You When You Sleep For You Are So Beautiful Yet Unaware Of It (Feb’16). It recalls 1980’s pop and for my dime INXS in particular but was a jab at people taking selfies...

 

 

10.   BORNS – Electric Love

 

This indie pop rocker from Michigan made a massive impression with his debut album Dopamine(Oct’15) this year. Electric Love(May’15) has some glam rock vibe to go with the ethereal vocals.

The Best Indie Songs of 2015 - SWMRS

SWMRS are a surf punk band with strong pop punk roots that sally forth from Oakland, California. They are related to punk royalty in that Billie Joe Armstrong, front man of Green Day, is the drummer's father. SWMRS have just finished a west coast tour doing fluffer duties for Wavves and Twin Peaks. 

The band got attention for their tribute to punk rock queen Miley Cyrus, Miley (Sept'15). The first single release from the bands third album, albeit first after a name change, is Figuring It Out (Nov'15). 

Figuring It Out  is their best work, a massive crowd singing, indie rock banger. Noisey Vice called Figuring It Out a “poppy foot-tapper filled with skate-gang vocals,” and Little Indie Blogs praised it's “propulsive energy and vibrant riffs.”

SWMRS broad influences are The Ramones, The Clash and The Beach Boys. More diverse influences include Public Enemy, A Tribe Called Quest, Pavement, Weezer, and Nirvana.

Broadway World said SWMRS music in general “combines the caustic broadsides of The Clash, the amphetamine bubblegum of the Ramones, and the searing lyrics, propulsive energy, and raw honesty of Public Enemy.” 

Inner Speaker Magazine had some good words for the new album Drive North saying it is “energetic, angry yet light-hearted” and “emotional, rebellious, and at times reflective.” Of the tune Figuring It Out the blogger Drink Cold Soda hit the nail on the head with the simple yet accurate “anthemic.”  

Throwing out the haymaker early doors massive ‘whoahs’ form the chorus and introduce the track in a hair on the back of the neck build up to quiet verses with a Ramones-eque delivery and lyrics describing a universal need to find your place in the world. The song pulls it all together for a bouncing off the walls rock out at the end. Figuring It Out rocks harder than a prison rapist coming and is one of the best indie songs of 2015

“We like getting drunk now

 Jimmy flunked out pants undone”

Shit you need to know:

The band released two albums and a string of short players as Emily’s Army before changing their name in 2015 reflecting a change in the bands musical direction from punk to a beach pop style.

Punk icon Billie Joe Armstrong produced all the Emily's Army albums.

The band are childhood friends who started making music in 2004 after watching School Of Rock.

Figuring It Out is the first single from the bands fourth album Drive North (Feb’16).

The album Drive North was produced by Fidlar vocalist Zac Carper.

The singer Cole Becker said Drive North is thematically about “cultivating your own creativity within the world that you live in and basking in your individual identity.”

Broadway World said Drive North is “suffused with coming of age jams, subversive anthems to Miley Cyrus, and a sense of freedom forged out of modern-day confusion.”

The band self-release their music on the label Uncool Records.

SWMRS have been described as a beach-punk band, a punk-rock band, a surf-punk-pop band and surf rockers.

The bands original name Emily's Army was in honor of Max's and Cole's cousin Emily, who suffers from Cystic Fibrosis.

SWMRS have toured the world on fluffer duties for bands like Rise Against, Soundgarden, Gerard's Way and Pennywise.

Other SWMRS songs to keep the party going strong are Ammonia and Bleach, Miley and Kids Just  Wanna Dance.

Sloppy seconds is courtesy of SWMRS tour mates Wavves. The San Diego indie rock band have a killer here with the second single from their fifth album V.  Don’t waste your time. Listen to Flamezesz (July’15).

“It’s suicidal hurt

The way you walk around”

The Best Indie Songs of 2015 - GHOSTS

“We’re a garage band, we come from garageland,” asserted Joe Strummer in one of the Clash's early signature tunes and it's that white-hot intensity, honesty and grittiness, that forms the middle ground of punk and garage and it burns brightly in Love/Hate (Nov’15) by GHOSTS. This is a tune to get arses bouncing and fists punching the air. More contemporarily Love/Hate minds of raging songs like The Orwells Let It Burn,Titus Andronicus’s Dimed Out or even Cloud Nothings. At the same time it bubbles and bounces on a beat, or maybe it was just the phrasing of the chorus, that sent me searching for English New Wave band The Vapors and their 1980 classic hit, Turning Japanese. Love/Hate was featured by Jonathan Hunt in the October Indie Rock Playlist (2015) and Don't Need No Melody has called GHOSTS music “shambolic surfy power pop,” while Whurk magazine said “...you’ll be in danger of dancing in no time.”
 

Caleb Hoehner is GHOSTS, and that’s all in caps, in a futile attempt to remain googleable, not because it’s fashionable. He is a multi-instrumentalist who has been fashioning fine garage rock tunes since 2012. The man sallies forth from Richmond, Virginia by way of Kansas, Michigan, South Carolina and Georgia. GHOSTS want to write songs you wanna die to and the bands that really resonate in GHOSTS music are the greats like Weezer, Nirvana and the Pixies. GHOSTS's previous short player Ugly Boy was called   “...a small pack of anthems for the young and disillusioned,” by Whurk magazine and Sounds Of RVA thought GHOSTS tunes “...loose punk vocal harmonies and pumped up, dirty guitar vibes make this some fun ass grunge rock." A song about a girl, or the paradoxical duality of human nature, Love/Hate roars along like the slap of the tyres on the blacktop from a V8 hurtling down an empty country road to a rendezvous with friends at the lake on a blue-sky sunshine summer's day. Love/Hate is one of the best indie songs of 2015.

“I wish I had a medicine to help me never sleep again
so I could think about you all the time.”

Shit you need to know:
 

Love/Hate is the third song from GHOSTS seven song short-player Superstar (Nov’15).

GHOSTS have two long players and four short players in the bank that are all for freesies on bandcamp.

GHOSTS are unsigned and the music is recorded on a laptop and self-released on Spooky Town Records.

Caleb Hoehner is a journalist major who finds inspiration from the ladies, surfing, pop stars and dark shit like death and anxiety.

On the topic of Caleb’s broader musical influences he said he “...really love(s) the whole garage scene thats out there right now like The Orwells, The Black Lips, Wavves, Ty Segal, Bass Drum of Death and Twin Peaks.”

GHOSTS have been compared to maverick Tennessee wild man of garage rock Jay Reatard.

Caleb's brother made a great video of the family partying back in the day for the song Make A Name 4 Yourself, a song with a classic dirty glam rock vibe.

Caleb sprinkles his communication with good manners and friendly vibes, ending Facebook postings with good words like "I love you all and thanks for the support" and offering his fans to “...have an intoxicated evening on my behalf.”

More glorious GHOSTS tunes to listen to while manning the barricades against the barbarian hordes are I Wanna Die Happy, Lil Soldier and Superstar (My Girl).

 

Slippery seconds is courtesy of Chicago garage rock band Twin Peaks and another storming track with a great garage/punk blend, Flavor (2014).

“Flavor your heart and your soul.”

The Best Indie Songs of 2015 - Passion Pit

Passion Pit are super popular. 2012’s Take A Walk has 21 million You Tube plays to date and Carried Away has 11 million. Well Until We Can’t (Let's Go) (Apr’15) is the third single off the new album Kindred (Apr’15) and has only has 350 000 plays so quite a reverse you might imagine. Except while this is another tune that built up slowly on me like dick cheese, this is the best Passion Pit tune by donkeys miles. Even better than February’s release Where The Sky Hangs and that’s saying something. Where The Sky Hangs has a sexy, slinky groove but Until We Can’t (Let's Go) is the peak of a rise, full of jubilant hands in the air excitement. Under The Gun called Until We Can't “a bombastic, synth-heavy dance party” and NPR said it's “a euphoric anthem.”
 

 

Passion Pit is Michael Angelakos, an electric indie-pop musician from Cambridge, Massachusetts who has been putting grooves in vinyl since 2007. He has a four piece touring band. R Kelly and Usher are Mr Angleakos' big influences and he listens to a lot of hip hop and rhythm and blues. His music has been compared to Madeon, Zedd and 1989 era Taylor Swift. Until We Can't (Let's Go) is a song about escaping physical confinement and the positive effect it has on mental well-being. Or, presumably, about how we project negative thoughts on our surroundings. The media like to make a lot out of the fact Michael Angelakos has a bi-polar disorder. Until We Can't is all big synths and drum but it's the singer's phrasing in the bridge that elevates this into the stratosphere. Until We Can't (Let's Go) is as sticky as a gypsy in the tax office and one of the best indie songs of 2015.
 

“Somebody else told me something about
Where you live can cause you suffering”

 

 

Shit you need to know:

Exclaim called Until You Can’t (Let’s Go) “a bombastic tune” and Consequence of Sound were sure it's the best track on the album.

Until We Can't (Let's Go) was compared to Sun City by Indie Shuffle.

Lotus Land called the new long player Kindred, "the quintessence of joy" and Spin said it's “joyfully, euphorically saccharine.”

Not everyone has a hard-on for the band. Rolling Stone thought it's, “so relentlessly up, it starts to feel suffocating,” and Slant Magazine condemned it as “insufferably smug.”

Phoenix is one of Michael Angelakos's favorite bands and the whole band love Michael Jackson.

Passion Pit covered the Smashing Pumpkin’s iconic Tonight, Tonight in 2010.

The band’s name, Passion Pit, refers to drive-in movie theatres.

 

 

The double dip is random as fuck. An indie pop gem from English indie-pop duo Summer Camp. Bad Love (May’15) is the title track from their third long album.
 

“My love was tainted, my love was flawed”


 

 

The Best Indie Songs of 2015 - San Cisco

San Cisco released Run on Nov ’14 so there’s that but, as it was the shock troops of a triumvirate of triumphant singles from their shit-hot 2015 album Gracetown (April'15), let’s roll on. San Cisco are an indie pop band from Fremantle, West Australia, and like skate-boarding and gaming. They have been compared to The Drums, The Flaming Lips and Vampire Weekend. Their influences are MGMT, Vampire Weekend and The Flaming Lips. The AU Review said Run is "...a classic, upbeat indie bop-along track indicative of the infectious grooves that the band has become known for..." and the album Gracetown is "...a record that is fresh and exciting, while still paying homage to the unique sound..."

 

Run is another song that grew on me slowly like cock rot. It's got this funky, heavy breathing for percussion and a fat beat that minds more than a smidge of Gorillaz Feel Good Inc and somehow I conflated the Isabella of this tune with Arabella in the Arctic Monkey's song. Easy done. Anyway the song is about chasing a lady above your weight-class. The band have said Run is "...a darker, dancier number than usual..." and has a "bangin riff." It does, it bangs harder than sailor in Bangkok on two days leave. With a fat groove and some dirty guitars in support Run is one of the best indie songs of 2015.

“Gave my heart to Isabella,
She's bad news but I'm no better”


 

 

Shit you need to know:

Run is the lead single from San Cisco's second album Gracetown.

The three men in the band went to school together and played in school bands.

The band were originally known as King George but a survey of friends and family persuaded them to change it to San Cisco, because it has a “clean slate.”

When The Gramophone Rings said Run is "a fun and flirty tune" and "the perfect dash of summer warmth."

Gracetown was produced by Steve Schram who has bent his back for bands like Paul Kelly, Little Birdy, The Cat Empire and Shihad.



Songs that Run is similar to are Al Bairre Bungalow, The 1975 Chocolate, and The Jungle Giants She’s A Riot and Sweet Emotion by The Kooks according to Indie Shuffle.

I was minded of Chet Faker's Drop The Game, Flume's Holdin On and Passion Pit's Where The Sky Hangs.

Bass player Nick Gardner accidentally shot himself in the foot when rabbit shooting at a friend's farm.

In 2013 San Cisco toured the US on fluffer duty for The Vaccines.

The band have a popular cover of Daft Punk's Lucky recorded on iconic radio program Like A Version on Australia's Triple J (2013).

If you need more of San Cisco's sweet goodness try the sublime Magic, fantastic Too Much Time Together or the wonderful Bitter Winter.

 

Slippery seconds is from Brooklyn indie pop duo Matt and Kim. The couple have been making sweet music together since 2004 and quickly found mass popularity, touring in 2013 with Passion Pit and fronting Fall Out Boy shows in 2014. Matt and Kim have five albums on the shelf and Hey Now came bubbling off their fifth New Glow (2015) and will make you jump around like you've got a ferret in your pants and it's commando Monday.

“Oh you’re the troubles that I always find

But if you died I’d die right by your side”