Combine 1960s American garage (the Girls in the Garage series, in particular) with early 1980s British post-punk (say, Girls at Our Best) and you’ll end up somewhere in Chicago. That is where Miniskirt is from, a four piece who appear only one quarter female but have this great female (or feminist) punk energy that makes those influences (and also Miniskirt) so good. On a recent EP Dive Bar Darlings, where each song plays tribute to a local venue, this Be Nice (“on the way back home”) may be about an unfortunate side of going clubbing in Chicago. Or anywhere, really.

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There is a Pains of Being Pure At Heart link in Always You through shared band members. There is also a Pet Shop Boys link, as their music, this Against The World in particular, really reminds me of the music of the British synth pop duo. Do I mind? Let me say that The Pet Shop Boys were among the first bands I fell in love with, when ten-year-old me explained to my mum how It’s A Sin gave me a special feeling in my belly. I still like them a lot. And I really like Always You too.

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In a recent interview Velocity Girl said that members of The Linda Lindas came up to them and told them “their father had played Velocity Girl for them when they were little kids”. That alone is a reason to love The Linda Lindas. There is of course their awesome name too. And, not unimportant, the music. Catchy pop punk with a lot of young energy – the band members are between 16 and 21 and they’ve been playing for years – and multilingual lyrics that appears to have given them a lot of praise (including some prominent TV appearances). They deserve it.

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I’ve been in Germany for the past few days and as it happens my favourite new band this week is German too: The Naggs are four women and one man from Düsseldorf who make the most addictive indie garage punk. Think of early 1980s girl-fronted indiepop groups like Girls At Our Best! (the lo-fi production sounds 1980s too) or Avilda to provide a more recent reference. Their whole debut album The Naggs Generation (which includes many covers of classic garage songs) is great, but here on Stuck for Good everything really falls into place. Super, super toll.

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I seriously reduced my record collection in the course of several mostly international moves, but I never got rid of The Arrogants’ Your Simple Beauty. The reason was simple: this one song, Lovesick, which for a time wasn’t available on the streaming platforms (it is now). Less than 100 seconds of perfect indiepop that has a unique but recognisable take on a failed relationship: “I’m not sad and I don’t want you back / I just miss the feeling of being in love”. Or, as they say on Bandcamp about themselves: “It was a great time while it lasted”. It was.

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I had never written about the same band twice on this blog, until now. Because this is The Cat’s Miaow. With a song from their upcoming debut album (on Slumberland and Lost and Lonesome). Debut album, yes, for in 34 years of being a band they only ever released a million singles and as many singles compilations. There are few bands whose music hit me deeper in the feels than the Melbourne band with its quiet so-intimate-it’s-almost-scary indiepop. When You Smiled And Turned Away is among their best songs, though in fairness, many of their songs are among their best.

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Full Sun’s Buggin’ reminded me so much of Shonen Knife (the lyrics seem to contain many long vowels) that I had to check whether the band is Japanese. They are not. Full Sun is a four piece from Bloomington, Indiana who operate on a fairly slow release cycle: three albums in twelve years. Through which they rush quickly, as they make fairly straightforward (and rather enjoyable) punk. Which occasionally, such as on this song, skirts closely to the edges of indiepop. And I happen to like that kind of punk best.

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I was a massive fan of The Thermals around the time of their 2003 debut album, which contains some of the most intense indie punk I know. They never got that good again, but follow-up albums were pretty decent still. And now The Thermals are back! Or is back, maybe, as the new album is recorded by Hutch Harris on his own. It still sounds unmistakably Thermals, whose music has, over the years, grown closer to where The Mountain Goats are now. Just listen to this On A Wind So High which still has some of that early Thermals energy.

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Oh, this is lovely. I wasn’t familiar with The Sprouts, but they are from Melbourne, Australia and are about to release a new album, a joint release between their local Lost and Lonesome (run by Mark from the Lucksmiths) and Spain’s Meritorio. I’m looking forward to that album, as I really love this Hit Me Go Down. A “wistful tribute to growing older and the fragility of memory” (I’m quoting their Bandcamp) and the quiet introverted jangle pop song really fits that melancholic feeling of getting older and memories slowly fading away.

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It’s time for the power pop song of the month. Relive It is the title track of Motorcycle’s debut album which was just released on Dandy Boy records. The song reminded me of label mate Joe Cusumano and while many artists on the label share musicians, I do think that comparison may be coincidental. It’s my favourite song of the album, which says a lot as there are several electro pop songs on it – usually more my jam. But with a second vocalist doing oooh oooh, this is exactly the kind of power pop I blindly fall in love with.

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The first Heavenly song I ever heard was C Is The Heavenly Option, a call-and-response duet Amelia Fletcher sang with Beat Happening’s Calvin Johnston. I always thought Heavenly should have done more duets like these. Well, here is a lovely new song by Swansea Sound, in which Amelia does call-and-response vocals with fellow bandmate Hue Williams, whom indiepop fans may know as the singer of The Pooh Sticks (who actually hailed from Swansea). I love it. The song is a teaser of an upcoming album, Pre-post-truth, which will be out in November, obviously on Skep Wax records.

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In the late 1990s, I used to correspond with Paul Nini (I helped him put together a compilation of Dutch and Belgian lo-fi music), who a decade before had been the bass player in the Columbus, Ohio band Great Plains. I was thinking back to that as I listened to Great Plains’ reissued 1985 album Naked at the Buy, Sell, and Trade, perhaps the first time I properly paid attention to the band. College rock, yet with a wide range of influences, from post-punk to jangle pop to, here on Fertile Crescent, folk, creating a pretty unique sound. Great band.

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“A damsel saved is a damsel earned / joining the ranks of the things I’ve learned”. We – and by ‘we’ I really mean ‘I’ – should listen to young people more often. Callum Ruly Branch (Callum Wilsie, from somewhere in the Bay Area) is 19 years of age, according to Bandcamp, and her folky indiepop (or poppy folk, if you like) sounds very fresh, innocent yet confident. This Things I’ve Learned is the title song of what she describes as having poured her “heart and soul of the past two years bared onto an album”. That’s how I like it.

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One reason why I made this a blog about songs is that there are those bands that have one song that I like so much more than the rest of their oeuvre. The Innocence Mission is such a band. Sure, their indie folk is very pleasant to listen to — indie folk usually is — but Lakes of Canada (a song from 1999) is such a beautiful song that the rest of the band’s oeuvre doesn’t seem to matter. And because I recently found the song stuck in my head — you can guess why — I wanted to share it with you all.

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ComCmit 2 Try, a three piece from Montreal, Canada, self-identifies as tweemo, a genre that mixes the whimsicalness of twee with the intensity of emo. I guess it’s like drawing hearts and faces on your duffel bag, except the hearts are black and the faces are sad. On their just released debut EP Famous Stages, I can definitely hear the emo part (the band apparently cites Rainer Maria as an influence). The twee part less so, except in this introverted-intense Always a Surprise. And that’s exactly how I like my emo. 

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Today, it is exactly twenty years since I moved out of my native country, The Netherlands. It’s not something I’d have recommended a chronically anxious autistic person to do (even less so move countries a few more times) but I did and here I am, still having fun. And writing, today, about The Klittens, five women from that country, making indiepop-but-slightly-edgier that I wish people made back when I lived there. After several singles, the band will release its debut album Have A Heart later this month, but until then, this 2024 song is my favourite of theirs.

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Don’t judge a book by its cover, or a band by its name (Unrest, anyone?), but a band named The Happy Somethings I simply can’t not like. Indeed, the band from the English Midlands makes very pleasant pop music deep rooted in the 1960s (The Beatles aren’t bad as comparisons go). Though on this reflective You’ll Grow Up Quick, my favourite song from their latest album A Healthy Dose of Hope, they sound perhaps more 2000s American indiepop (accents aside of course). Hey, that’s a something that makes me very happy.

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The Spook School is back! The C86-inspired Edinburgh indiepop band will release a new album, Like A Heartbeat, on Slumberland early next year. One song, Falling, has already been released and I suggest you listen to it; it is really good in a Buzzcocks-kinda way. But today I want to write about Speak When You’re Spoken To, a song from their 2015 album Try to be Hopeful (Fortuna Pop!). For as I was listening to The Spook School’s back catalog while having some mentally rough days, it was this song’s energy that helped me pull through. Thank you, Spook School.

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“What tattoo would you choose if you wanted it to represent a band or album you love?” a friend asked me some time ago. I didn’t have to think for a long time: the rocket cat from Beat Happening‘s self-titled debut album. If there is one album that would be a metaphor for my own weird life it would be this: playful but also serious, very intimate, and punk in its own unique way. “I don’t have to smile if I don’t want to / You don’t have to smile if you don’t want to”. Now ink that on my leg.

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I feel like we’ve run out of band names by now, so when I saw new music by a band called ‘Persil’, I didn’t think it was the Dutch electropop duo releasing new music after two decades. But it is them indeed, with four new tracks that sound like it is still 2004, when I saw the band play at least half a dozen times in small, dark Dutch venues, never disappointing. The late John Peel was a fan. I was a fan and I’m happy with the new music. I am a fan again.

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