The Best Indie Songs of 2015 - Rabbit!

A hit tune isn’t easy but Rabbit A Year In The Life (Jan’15) not only have a fucking ripsnorter on their hands here, they are a band to fall deeply in love with. This tune is emblematic of how they do. It isn’t happy, it’s delirious and brimful of optimism.

Released on New Year’s Eve it’s a song with a head nodding piano intro and boppy verses that set up a Kinks-esque chorus made of unicorn dreams and my little pony wishes. All the while with a touchdown pass from the drums and a little 'I got your six' from the guitar.

A Year In The Life revives an innocence found in music made at the dawn of pop while making it essential to a modern audience and thats what makes it one of the best indie songs of 2015.

 

"With a little love, a little hope,

we’ll find a way to rewrite,

all our fractured fairy tales" 

 

 

Rabbit! are an indie pop rock band from Mount Dora, Florida. They burst into glorious fruition in 2007.

A Year In The Life is a free New Year download from the Rabbit! facebook page. Rabbit! have two absolute gems of albums to their undying credit, Go For It and Connect the Dots.

Shit you need to know:

Rabbit! are genuine good guys having toured in support of art and music programs in schools and other laudable causes.

People tend to love or hate this band, check out their YouTube comments for corroboration. I particularly like the one on “Sun and Moon” where some dude compared the dislike bar to Justin Bieber's penis. That person got told.

Rabbit! songs are popular for advertising having been used for Mott’s Juice, Telus and Zappos among others.

Rabbit! have been described as TweePop, simple, sweet, do-it-yourself, indie rock that has convoluted origins.

Rabbit! do a ‘fuck yeah, of course it’s better’ cover of Black Eyed Peas I Gotta Feeling.
 

Feeling Twee as fuck? More tunes fuck full of fantastic are  Great is Better, Magic, Together, Pea, Best Thing That I've Found and that’s just a taster bag.

 

 

So sloppy seconds today is reserved for these ska punk legends fighting out of Seoul, South Korea since 1996, the Korean mythical beasts that are No Brain.

This is their, pat your pockets down, adjust your love package in the crotch of your jeans and get ready for it, mosh pit favorite. It'a a fucking stormer, hold on tight for Party Like Crazy (2006).
 

 

Gaze on the majesty of these cunt punting rock gods.

 

 

The Best Indie Songs of 2015 - We Are Z

We Are Z Airbrush (Nov’14) starts all throbby bass and drums then builds to all in for the chorus. It’s plenty dance in the bridge with synth doodles and falsetto vocals. But this beauty ain’t short on a bit of punk rock neither with the shout together chorus and guitars joining the fray.

 

A tasty little musical mixture to accompany a track that takes a solid crack at cosmetic surgery and people’s need for visual perfection. Worthy themes good sir. A top class potpourri that makes Airbrush one of the best indie songs of 2015.

“We get the picture you'll be zero thin,
white out the teeth, cut the bingo wings”

 

 

 

 

We Are Z are indie pop rockers from London and Paris. They have been preaching in the streets since 2013 and Airbrush is their second single.

Shit you need to know:

We Are Z  are influenced by 80’s new wave like XTC and Devo. But Vampire Weekend and Metronomy will also do the trick.

We Are Z have been described as reminiscent of Foster the People, a Foals gone mad and anthemic Arcade Fire.

We Are Z’s dream collaboration would be with The Clash. Mine too gents.

If you want some more of Z try Knucklehead.

 

Sitting in reserve with the big guns goes to this Australian indie rock punchfucker by Apes.

Pull The Trigger (July’14) is a real indie rock stomper. A ‘teeth on the gutter, boot to the back of the head, turn the body around pop out and eye and give it a skull fucking cracking’ track. Pretty good I reckon.

 

 

 



 

The Best Indie Songs of 2015 - Prides

Prides Higher Love sticks to ya like stink to an axe wound. It’s another dose of mainstream indie pop, drum and synths, que sera sera. It screams big 80’s pop influences like Tears For Fears while still being a millennial beast of its own.

 

 

There’s a mild sense of urgency to the epic, singalong chorus, juxtaposed with the mildly brooding verses in a track about having belief in yourself and others, and something about love’s enabling qualities too. And for that sentiment and those sticky choruses, it makes Higher Love one of the best indie songs of 2015.

“When they said I would never, you said that I would,
That I would do something good”

Prides are a trio from the mean streets of Glasgow who have been avvoiding a bottling since 2013. Higher Love comes off Prides’ second short player of the same name, Prides (Feb'15).
Shit you need to know:

Prides have been compared to Bastille and British 80’s pop like Tears For Fears and Simple Minds.

Prides have performed fluffing duties for their childhood heroes Blink 182 and Twenty One Pilots and RAC.

They love Katy Perry.

The press have bandied about words like ‘anthemic’ and ‘arena ready’ and on the stength of Higher Love they might be right. This tune is fucking world class.

 

 

Stirring the porridge goes to LA indie rock dance band Decorations and Girls (2014).

Just because the dude is showing strong commitment to a world class mo and Girls rocks hard and yet dances soft as a buttercup.
 

 

The Best Indie Songs of 2015 - Flor

Get Behind This (Jan’15) is a synth driven indie dance tune that starts out a mite melancholy over the ashes of a fire. But by chorus time its hands in the air, let’s get retarded, happy good times and that transition is gold. Sure as shit you’ll find your head nodding and toes tapping of their own volition. This bauble is as infectious as chlamydia’s dick and that’s enough to make it one of the best indie songs of 2015.

 

 

An ephemeral track with the nutritional value of cotton candy, yet it captures the zeitgeist of West coast indie synth pop; uplifting, joyful, all drum machine, synths and girly man vocals. While some may rail against the pussy nature of this tune and dimes to dollars no one out there is carving ‘Flor4real’ into their arm with a knife after the life changing experience of hearing this indie dance pop tune, that doesn’t mean this is anything less than top shelf indie.

“I guess I never thought,

anything good could come from the dead and gone”

 

 

Get Behind This is the third track off Flor’s first short player Sounds (Feb’15). The band sing out of Los Angeles by way of Hood River, Oregon and got started in 2014.

Shit you need to know:
 

Flor are currently touring with Young Rising Sons.

People have made comparisons to Passion Pit and Two Door Cinema.

Broods, Smallpools and Oh Wonder all have songs they love.
 
Heart and Back Again are the other Flor songs that don’t suck hairy balls even if they do.

 

Well seeing as you’ve been warmed up goes to one of the greatest Canadian indie rock bands of all time Sloan and this fucking great rocker Unkind (2011). Bit of a manly palate cleanser.

 

 

The Best Indie Songs of 2015 - The Wombats

The Wombats Emoticons (Jan’15) so fucking much is one of the best indie songs of 2015. It sounds like New Order, but also good Scissor Sisters in patches and sometimes even The Cure. The sum of the parts is a song like Tijuana donkey cock, a ripper so big it’s scary.

The start is a little rock, guitar taking lead, a ramble down the road. The verses a get the dance on and tell the tale of a relationship and the chorus is a big one with the take home message. Emoticons is a lot dance, very pop and true blue indie rock. Describing a failure to communicate on an intellectual level. Or not. Irony. Either way, arses are grooving and hips moving because The Wombats have hit a deep vein of shit hot awesome here.

“And all these emoticons and words,

Try to make it better but they only make it worse”

 

 

The Wombats are an indie dance rock band bouncing out of Liverpool, England. They have been on the job for thirteen years. Emoticons is the third single off their third album Glitterbug (Apr’15).

Shit you need to know:

The band met studying at Paul McCartney’s school for music in Liverpool.

The new album was produced by a chappie who did the same for Bastille, Mark Crew.

The album is about pretence, envy and struggle in modern cities, but specifically Los Angeles.

In a heroic list of musical generals the singer cites influences that include Michael Jackson,The Beatles, Foo Fighters and New Order.

Other  ‘pie-hole shutting, time to get strutting’ tracks include Let’s Dance To Joy Division, Tokyo (Vampires and Wolves) and Greek Tragedy.

 

 

 

 

The vocals in the last track put me in mind of the Canadian indie dance/rock band Le Trouble and this fucking pearler Real Talk (Part 2) (2014). It has a "I just got straight punched in the ball-sack" falsetto.

 

 

The Best Indie Songs of 2015 - Maudlin Strangers

Maudlin Strangers Aim (Jan’14) is one of the best indie songs of 2015 because of its nasty groove. A sun shining down on a sidewinder on the blacktop, slithering speedily towards you as you get in a convertible with your sunglasses on, no glance back, smile at thes tunnerr sitting in shotgun and then ease that V8 on out of there there in a hail of loose stones with the stereo blasting hard rock, drinking whiskey from a bottle and snorting coke while you drive. That type of groove.

There’s no teasing here.  You either like the start or you won’t be feeling this tune because that’s the good shit right there and there isn’t much else happening. The guitars do wind up a bit to justify the ‘rock’ in the genre title but it’s that dangerous groove that’ll get you back for more and more you junkie fiend.

Jake Hays is the man with a band, Maudlin Strangers. Aim got pushed off their debut Overdose  E.P.  (Jan’15). Mr Hays comes sashaying out of Agoura Hills, California.

Shit you didn’t need to know:

Jake Hay’s Mom is the singer in The Runaways (yes that band with Joan Jett) and his Pop’s is an actor (the pilot in Airplane!). So no silver spoons then.

The E.P. is a re-release.

Jake Hays describes himself as ‘dark’ indie rock.

He has said he feels the force listening to Pink Floyd, QOTSA, Mutemath and the Arctic Monkeys.

Agoura Hills is a small town right close to Los Angeles famous for popping out Linkin Park, Foxygen and Incubus.

 

Nefarious deeds goes to this song...

... Darth Vader's gym music...

... a monster fuckin groove...

... the Scottish lords of alt rock...

...bow before the majesty that is...

... The Jesus and Mary Chain and Sidewalking (1988).

 

 

 

 

 

And check out that fucking hair. Brilliant. You don’t see enough of that today.