Is it just me or was August a weird month? It went almost as quick when you’re unemployed as when you’re blogging 50 hours a week. I miss my job and my coworkers and I also miss the blog being what it was before Andrew, Amanda and myself were suddenly not there anymore.

Beyond a steady paycheck, it to

ok me a week or so to realize what a massive BV-shaped hole it would leave, and what it did that no other site did. Like put all the new songs released in one day all in one post. That comes in handy for when you want to make a list of your favorite songs of the month. I did my best and wrote about 10 songs that were released in August that were not on albums released in August.

I also picked my favorites albums of August which was surprisingly tough — usually I narrow it down to five but this time I chose eight. Eight! August is usually slow, not this year.

Meanwhile, I also made a playlist with all 10 songs, plus selections from all eight albums, plus a whole bunch of other songs I liked in August. I even made cover art for it! Those are linked below the paywall, along with the reviews which leads me to…

A big thanks to everyone who became a Sound Bites subscriber in the first month of this Substack’s existence, and if you’re a free subscriber, consider becoming a paid subscriber. According to Geordie Greep almost no one in the American indie press writes about UK artists and to that I say true but please check out Sound Bites as I am one who frequently does.

Head below for all the Indie Grotto Best Songs & Albums of August 2026 roundup goodness…

Read more

Summer is almost over and it’s already starting to feel like fall. Especially here in the grotto where I am reviewing seven albums this week, including a few heavy hitters. Those include Interpol’s best album in 20 years, Dinosaur Jr (still throwing heaters), the first solo album from Mike D, and another widescreen ripper from Ty Segall. Plus: the danceable sounds of LA Priest and Marci, and the 10th album from Montreal psych greats Elephant Stone.

I would be remiss to not mention we lost three greats this week: the incomparable Dolly Parton, who was an amazing human being and there will never be another like her; Tim Curry who made some great, weird albums in the late-’70s/early-’80s in the years after Rocky Horror; and original polka dot queen Yayoi Kusama.

For more reviews of this week’s albums, be sure to check out (and subscribe to) Andrew Sacher’s Unhappy Place Substack.

Enjoy these warm days and cool nights while you can. Head below for this week’s reviews…

Read more

Usually, August is the slowest month of the year behind January; it’s the month everyone in the entertainment industry and media takes vacations, and we all chill out before the fall puts everything in overdrive. But this week is jam-packed with notable new releases and I review eight of them, including the latest from The Afghan Whigs, Cornelius, Black Marble, and a new UK band I like a lot, Grandmas House. Plus: the lost album debut from The Cramps, as well as No Joy, Julia Holter, and Black Marble.

For those who remember my reviews column on BrooklynVegan (I was still employed there just a few weeks ago), also probably remember that Andrew Sacher had one as well (and first) that now lives on his Substack. We only two crossovers this week which is rare. Subscribe to his too if you haven’t already (he’s also got his first book you should pick up).

This was the first real week of this Substack that also saw the launch of a podcast, Extra Helpings, which at this point I can’t promise will be every week, but you should subscribe to (Apple, Spotify) so you’ll have the latest episodes as they arise. The first episode is out and features an interview with Sondre Lerche about his terrific new album Acrobats (review below).

Also this week, I wrote about Young Knives, a long-running UK group who are partially responsible for you reading this now, and the first single from Fontaines D.C.’s fifth album which is easily my most anticipated of the fall.

Have a great weekend and head below for this week’s reviews…

ALBUM OF THE WEEK: Cornelius - REFRACTIONS (Eat Your Own Ears Recordings)
Keigo Oyamada rediscovers the spark of ‘Point’ with help from Arto Lindsay, Sean Ono Lennon and The Monochrome Set

Keigo Oyamada has been prolific, for him at least, since reviving Cornelius in 2017 after a decade-plus hibernation. Most of it has been on the gentle side, though, floating atop ambient clouds on Mellow Waves, A Dream in a Dream, and Ethereal Essence. All three are great, but for those hoping for a little more spark, he has woken up. REFRACTIONS feels like a direct successor to Point, albeit released 25 years later with many albums in between. Funk, jazz, and ’80s pop are clear inspirations, all filtered through the kind of digital manipulation and surprising rhythms you’ve come to expect.

Read more

For me, the most anticipated album of the fall has to be Fontaines D.C.’s fifth album, Dopamine Chamber. The Dublin band were already on a fast, steady ascent with their first three albums but skyrocketed with 2024’s Romance, a major level-up and a rare case where their most popular album yet was also their best.

For this one, Fontaines once again worked with James Ford, who produced Romance and probably seven other of your favorite albums from the last 15 years, recording in London, the English countryside, and Palermo, Sicily, where frontman Grian Chatten “recorded vocals in a makeshift booth built from mattresses and cushions,” which either sounds like he was in some sort of squat or the hotel where The White Lotus Season 2 was filmed.

“The album itself is a dopamine chamber,” Chatten says. “You step inside and we test these different mind- or mood-altering pieces of music on you.”

Ford was clearly very good for the band, who stayed more on the shouty/talky post-punk route with their first three albums, all of which were produced by the very capable Dan Carey. They were probably already on the path that gave them the grand, cinematic Romance, but Ford certainly helped pave the way. So it was all but assured they’d team up again for its follow-up.

“Our albums have always questioned a sense of place,” says bassist Connor Deegan. “First Dublin, then being away from Dublin, and then trying to find the romance elsewhere. On this record, the question became: where do you escape to?”

That said, the album’s first single isn’t obvious in the way “Starburster” or “Favourite” were. Powered by a throbbing synth-bass chassis, “Marianne” is sleek and sexy, a widescreen slow-burn, a drive down rain-soaked city streets at 2 AM. The song doesn’t really follow traditional pop structures but is undeniably catchy and a bit of a grower.

“Marianne” almost didn’t make the album, Deegan says, adding that it was Fontaines’ late manager Trevor Dietz, who died in June, who saved it from B-side status. “We were at his in Brighton one evening showing him all the songs, and he said ‘yere absolute lunatics’ for wanting to leave this song off the album. So we brought it back, and now it’s the first single off of our next album Dopamine Chamber. An album that suddenly feels more fitting to our lives than we thought it would be when writing it. This album is dedicated to Trev, all he gave us, all he taught us.”

The hallucinogenic video was directed by Dave Meyers, whose MV CV includes Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso,” Billie Eilish’s “bad guy,” and Kendrick Lamar’s “HUMBLE.,” which clearly puts Fontaines D.C. in Big League status:

Fontaines D.C. also performed the song at their recent BBC 6 Music session at the Beeb’s legendary Maida Vale Studios, which was in fact the last-ever session there before closing. (The BBC is relocating to East London and will have an all new recording studio.) Part of their set had already been broadcast, but the saved this peformance till the album was announced.

Fontaines D.C. had already been playing “Marianne” at EU summer festival appearances, along with another new track, “Six Shot Morning” which opens the album. You can hear a bit of that one in the teaser video for Dopamine Chamber:

Dopamine Chamber is out October 16 via XL and you can preorder it now.

Dopamine Chamber:
1. Six Shot Morning
2. Marianne
3. Mimesis
4. Happy for You
5. Demolition
6. Tongue
7. One Man
8. Where Is Gone?
9. You Miss Me
10. Japan
11. Intimate

Fontaines D.C.’s tour schedule includes US festival appearances at Shaky, Knees, Sea.Hear.Now and Ohahana…

August 18th - Les Docks, Lausanne, Switzerland

August 20th - FM4 Frequency, Sankt Polten, Austria

August 28th - Reading Festival, UK

August 29th - Leeds Festival, UK

August 30th - Electric Picnic, Ireland

September 18th - Shaky Knees, Atlanta, GA, USA

September 20th - Sea.Hear.Now, Asbury Park, NJ, USA

September 27th - Ohana Festival, Dana Point, CA, USA

Ashby-de-la-Zouch’s Young Knives and I go way back. As I noted when I wrote about being let go from BrooklynVegan, along with fellow editors Andrew Sacher and Amanda Hatfield, by parent company VEEPS last week, when BV founder Dave first emailed me about writing for his blog, he said I filled a void because “I knew about the secret Versus reunion at Union Hall and have seen the Young Knives more than once.” So it’s funny timing that, less than a week later, Young Knives were back with a new single. How could I not devote a post to it?

“Everything’s a PsyOp” is the kind of post-punk-funk-meets-proggy-British-folk that sibling bandleaders Henry and Thomas “House of Lords” Dartnall have been doing so well for 20 years. Does it sound a little like Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Give It Away”? Perhaps, but in the most Leicestershire kind of way, and with the soaring middle eighth and Henry’s distinctive lyrical bent and delivery.

It’s also about as 2026 as it gets. “I wrote the song when I read the Wired piece about Geese being a PsyOp,” Henry tells me. “I thought it was funny to pick on them. When you really interrogate the things you love or indeed hate, it’s hard to come to the conclusion that you came to those decisions independently, everything that forms our value systems is really built on some kind of conditioning. I guess we all know this in theory, like it’s fairly accepted these days that nothing is just inherently good or bad, but it’s not how we talk. We still use the language of independent, autonomous human beings who have objectively evaluated something and made a rational decision about its worth. So there’s a weird disconnect between what we know intellectually and how we talk about it day to day, we often say that a band are awful, or a piece of music, or indeed anything, you know, a brand of toothpaste or whatever, is just so good. Like we were tapping into something really inherent in the thing itself, which is just a lie really.”

“That’s why I thought the word PsyOp kind of encapsulated a broader picture,” Henry says. “I like the idea that a silly rock song can have a deep vein of questioning like that in it, it’s really the only reason I keep writing, to ask questions like that. I suppose I am aiming at some ideal of true art really questioning the human condition without taking the question too seriously, just chucking it around and seeing what happens, like no one will even notice, and that’s OK too, because at least I know I’ve done it.”

You can read more from Henry on the song below.

“Everything’s a PsyOp” is out as a 7” single with another new song, the proggy, synthy “This Bright Condition,” on the flip. There’s a video for the A-side that will be out tomorrow:

This post is seeming even less like a coincidence: this Friday is also the 20th anniversary of Young Knives’ excellent Mercury Prize-nominated debut album, Voices of Animals and Men. Produced by Gang of Four’s Andy Gill, the album includes such mid-’00s indie bangers as “She’s Attracted To,” “Weekends and Bleak Days (Hot Summer),” and “Here Comes the Rumor Mill” and holds up better than a lot of the other bands doing similar things at the time. They’ll be celebrating on a UK tour this fall, too.

—

Henry Dartnall on “Everything’s a PsyOp”":

I wrote the song when I read the Wired piece about Geese being a PsyOp. I thought it was funny to pick on them. When you really interrogate the things you love or indeed hate, it’s hard to come to the conclusion that you came to those decisions independently, everything that forms our value systems is really built on some kind of conditioning. I guess we all know this in theory, like it’s fairly accepted these days that nothing is just inherently good or bad, but it’s not how we talk. We still use the language of independent, autonomous human beings who have objectively evaluated something and made a rational decision about its worth. So there’s a weird disconnect between what we know intellectually and how we talk about it day to day, we often say that a band are awful, or a piece of music, or indeed anything, you know, a brand of toothpaste or whatever, is just so good. Like we were tapping into something really inherent in the thing itself, which is just a lie really.

That’s why I thought the word PsyOp kind of encapsulated a broader picture. All the things on your preference list are valueless in and of themselves, and the more you experience them as such, the less you will cling to them, and the freer you might become. Maybe that’s too much of an explanation, but I like the idea that a silly rock song can have a deep vein of questioning like that in it, it’s really the only reason I keep writing, to ask questions like that. I suppose I am aiming at some ideal of true art really questioning the human condition without taking the question too seriously, just chucking it around and seeing what happens, like no one will even notice, and that’s OK too, because at least I know I’ve done it.

It was also amazing to me just how many words you can find that mean “misleading” or “not true”, we have loads of them in English, like we need that many to describe the myriad ways we lie to ourselves. I was thinking about this yesterday. The Buddha used the word Dukkha, which sort of means “unsatisfactoriness,” which people often translate as suffering, but that’s kind of too negative in a way. It’s a slightly different point: everything in the world that we pursue or try to avoid leaves us somehow unsatisfied. But I think it plays into the same feeling that there is a shallowness to most of the things we ascribe depth to. Nothing is inherently wrong with choosing one thing over another, I’m not suddenly supposed to start enjoying the taste of stinky tofu, but we are in need of some new way of looking at things that reveals a subtler picture of how we come to conclusions, and how movable and transient our choices/preferences are.

I think the Lego Movie song “Everything Is Awesome” was making a similar point, “we’re gonna party 4 eva” reveals the ridiculousness of a life that is wall-to-wall incredible and full of pretty much just the good stuff.

Also, the song was a realization of a dream with the band, which was to just write a song and bash it out. We even had a conversation in the rehearsal studio where I was saying that I was going to schedule this song for release before we had even written it. House was like, “shouldn’t we wait until we know it’s actually good before we do that?” And I just wanted to fuck that whole thing off, what’s good? This is going to be vibey and spontaneous, let’s just go for it. We weren’t fighting, by the way, he just voiced the way that normal people think about these things. For me, the only point in continuing is: 1. Like I already said, ask questions about accepted ways of thinking/living etc, and 2. Have a blast doing it. It could be a new manifesto.

Today for the first episode of the Sound Bites: Extra Helpings podcast, I’ve got as our guest Norwegian singer-songwriter Sondre Lerche, whose new album Acrobats is out this week. This is his first since 2022's wildly ambitious double album Avatars of Love. While this one is slightly smaller in scale, it feels just as big in scope.

Sondre tells us how his run starring in stage musical Moulin Rouge influenced the record, as did dance music artists like Pet Shop Boys and Underworld. We also talk about Sondre's foray into (natural) winemaking, his time as Brooklyn resident that included running the New York City Marathon, plus his upcoming North American tour, five records he thinks everyone should have in their life, and more.

Extra Helpings is part of Bill Pearis’ Sound Bites substack.

Hi Subscribers!

This is my first post to Sound Bites, the Substack, as opposed to my ‘00s/’10s blog SoundBitesNYC which sadly now only exists on the Wayback Machine. What a lot of people have told me in the week since I was laid off from BrooklynVegan/VEEPS, is that my Indie Basement reviews column was a weekly check-in for them, so to all of you welcome to the Grotto.

This inaugural edition of Indie Grotto, reviews will be pretty short — I got thrown a few curveballs at the same time as losing my job — but just wanted to shout out the records I’m most excited about this week. My former BV coworker Andrew Sacher is also bringing his reviews to his new Substack, Unhappy Place (please follow and subscribe), and this week he reviews the new Phoebe Bridgers and more. As usual we don’t overlap and it’s just like before just someh

This week, we’ve got the wonderful and complete different from each other fourth albums from L’Rain and Kiwi Jr, plus new ones from Sweeping Promises and Getdown Services, not to mention King Gizzard’s “rave” album and a unique solo record from James Ellis Ford of Simian Mobile Disco (who has also produced some of your favorite albums of the last 20 years).

Thanks for reading, subscribing, and in some cases paying to do so. Lots more on the way here. Head below for this weeks’ reviews (and I’m my own editor here so forgive typos and brainfarts this time).

L’Rain - fata morgana (Mexican Summer)

“I used the term ‘experimental’ as a way of finding freedom when I was first starting this project and really trying to assert myself as a person that can do whatever they want to do and to establish that as the norm,” Taja Cheek told me earlier this summer ahead of her fourth album as L’Rain. “I think I have done that, but I also think that it can place limitations on people’s imagination for what I can do, what kind of impact I can have and what kind of spaces I should and can be in. I’m questioning that as a frame now, but I think I’m purposefully making music in this way as a political position. So I’m negotiating that for myself and wondering what alternatives I have to describe myself with my sound.”

L’Rain’s music can be hard to describe, as it incorporates so many styles and genres in truly unexpected ways, but it is easy to enjoy. A free-flowing, undulating, interconnected fever dream of an album, fata morgana slides from dreampop to jazz to punk to heavy shoegaze, R&B, soul and more. Dancehall artist Screechy Dan even shows up on “july 5th” for the album’s most delightfully surprising moment. It’s at times beautiful, noisy, weird and groovy, while remaining entirely dazzling. Come to think of it, there is a perfect descriptor for all this: L’Rain.

—

Kiwi Jr. - Blowin’ Up (K Recs)

I’ve never looked into the origins of Toronto band Kiwi Jr’s name, but they have never sounded more Kiwi than on their fourth album. Their first for K after two albums for Sub Pop, Blowin’ Up is loaded with the kind of jangly guitars, vintage organs, and catchy melodies I associate with New Zealand bands like The Clean and The Chills. They might be a little closer to The Verlaines, though, thanks to Jeremy Gaudet’s thoughtful, clever lyrics.

That wordplay and delivery also got Kiwi Jr compared to Pavement a lot after the release of their 2020 debut, Football Money, and those two Sub Pop records seemed to find them bucking against that comparison…and many of their best instincts along with it. They’ve clearly started embracing those instincts again, as the hooks are undeniable this time. The album opens with four all-timers -- “Photos of the Reenactment,” “Hard Drive Ontario,” “Pure Michigan,” and the title track -- and keeps it up from there. Blowin’ Up is their best album yet.

—

Getdown Services - Massive Champion (Breakfast Records)

For a group known for their DIY indie dancefloor fillers, duo Getdown Services open their second album with a surprise: the banjo. “I catch myself watching someone sleeping on the bus,” Josh Law sings over a Celtic drone. “She’s old, she looks uncomfortable.” It’s unexpected, but it’s also entirely in keeping with their anything-goes style, lyrics that shine a light on dark corners, insecurities, and social anxieties, not to mention a fondness for just jamming on one chord.

Don’t worry, Josh Law and Ben Sadler have not stopped being Bristol, UK’s premier makers of infectious, funky, low-self-esteem party jams. The banjos give way to the bluesy T. Rex riff of “I Can’t Die Like That,” the shirts come off, and the fun begins.

“I eat raw flour and call the shit a cake,” from literal banger “The Radiator,” one of the album’s most infectious songs, is just one of many memorable lines from these quote machines. There’s a little LCD Soundsystem in this one, between the use of repetition and the way the song builds and builds into a frenzy. These two know what they’re doing, despite their disheveled image.

Other zingers: “Bob Dylan went electric, you went fucking shit!” (“The Definitive Map”), “I don’t know what ‘good’ is, but I know I’m not looking for it” (“Cha Cha Slide”), and “I’m clean livin’ with beans down my chest” (“Probiotic”).

Massive Champion is the rare record that gets better as it goes, dropping some of its best songs deep into the album: “Stop Living” owes more than a little to Prince’s “Pop Life” and has the best chorus; “No One Likes Me” could be a Strokes/Voidz song and bubbles with life as Law chants the title; and “Check the Definition” is a bummed-out ’80s jam of the highest order. As anyone who’s seen them live knows, Getdown Services have already won the people’s hearts, and now they’re coming for the charts.

—

Sweeping Promises - You Say I Romanticize (Sub Pop)

The third album from one of my favorite new bands of this decade finds the duo of Lira Mondal and Caulfield Schnug sharpening their claws and expanding on their core post-punk sound, inspired by The B-52s, Gang of Four, Pylon, and Bikini Kill. If you’re in the mood to dance, Sweeping Promises are masters of flinty rhythm-section grooves and minimal, wiry guitar lines: fire up “My Anchoress,” “Accent,” and “Write Lightly.”

They’ve really upped the angst, though, on You Say I Romanticize, their first worldwide release on Sub Pop: “Cocoon” has blood-curdling screams worthy of Laura Palmer, and the whole thing feels much more moshpit-oriented. That may be in part due to this being their first record to feature touring drummer Spenser Gralla, and you can feel the sweat on rippers like “Shooting Shadows,” “Abduction on Camera,” and “Last Man.”

Side note: You Say I Romanticize keeps up Sweeping Promises run of fantastic album art; here for the first time by Kansas City based designer Claire Monroe. Perhaps influenced by the late, great Barney Bubbles (Ian Dury & The Blockheads, Elvis Costello), it’s as striking as the music. Album package of the year so far.

—

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Alien Metal (p[doom])

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have dabbled in electronic dance music before; 2023’s The Silver Cord was all-electronic while still keeping pop song structures, and they’ve dived further into EDM territory over the last few tours, incorporating “rave” sets into their shows with a custom modular synth they’ve named Nathan. They’ve now used Nathan to record an entire album that goes full-on dance.

While King Gizzard announced Alien Metal in early July, they only revealed yesterday that the album would be out today -- also the start of their Field of Vision festival in Colorado, which makes sense -- so I’ve only given it a cursory spin. But the band have managed to make an album that is full-on, blissed-out dance music while still sounding like the band who gave us PetroDragonic Apocalypse, Nonagon Infinity, and the other 25 studio albums they’ve released since 2012. And like all those others, this music is a lot more fun in a live setting.

—

James Ellis Ford - Lost In Another World (Domino)

James Ellis Ford, who has been one half of Simian Mobile Disco since the mid-’00s but these days is better known as a producer for Arctic Monkeys, Pulp, Depeche Mode, Fontaines D.C., Beth Gibbons, and more, wrote and recorded his second solo album over two weeks in early 2025 while in the hospital between rounds of chemotherapy following a diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), an aggressive cancer of the white blood cells. He says it began “mainly as a way to lift my spirits and process what I was going through,” but now “feels to me like a Polaroid of a very surreal chapter of my life.”

Musically, Lost in Another World is verdant, bucolic synthpop that owes more than a little to Brian Eno’s first three solo albums and avant artists like Bill Nelson and David Sylvian, while also reflecting the environment in which it was made, with beeping medical monitors providing dreamlike nuance to the arrangements. That underlines the very personal point of view on songs like “The Ever After,” “Did You Ever Want to Go to Your Own Funeral,” and “Parallel Dimension.” His pop instincts were clearly not hampered, and thankfully, Ford is “definitely in a much better place than I was when I made it.” But Lost in Another World is not just a snapshot of one of the most difficult points in his life, it’s also a wonderful album that stands on its own.