today’s rock picks move between horn-drenched joy, desert glam disco, urgent post-punk reinvention and a sharpened up power-pop reissue. from a rhythmic rock sunburst to a stripped-back cover gone confrontational, these four tracks are all up against tight deadlines, and they’re well worth moving on quickly.
waterfall – kevin honold
kevin honold’s indie zinger captures burnout and grief into pure, horn-drenched summer joy
waterfall brings in those punchy horns and it’s an instant mood lift, kinda irresistible. there’s a lovely lows slinging groove to kevin’s vibe here. and i love how the vocals are delivered honestly, the strings swell right when you want them to, and honold’s tenor sax cuts through the mix in the best way. it’s got a bit of primal scream about it, and it builds toward this genuinely joyful sunburst of a chorus that just makes you want to roll the windows down and sing. for me, it’s the horns that make the song, they’re so cool.
kevin honold is a jersey city-based indie rock singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who trained on tenor sax before picking up guitar, and that background shows in how confidently the horns sit in the mix. he wrote waterfall during a heavy stretch of grief and burnout, turning exhaustion into gratitude instead of wallowing in it. his debut album the forge came out last year, and a second is on the way. it’s a brilliant single, and an essential summer listen.
thank u for making this kevin honold 🎷
wicked tongue – jetlag
jetlag’s new single somehow makes raw tension and disco swagger collide, and it just works beautifully
wicked tongue opens tense and moody, all fuzzy guitars and qotsa style riffs, then just explodes into this disco driven chorus that comes out of nowhere and works like a dream. it’s kinda scuzzy and schizophrenic in the best way, heavy one second and dancefloor ready the next. the production is really interesting too, and there’s wonderful performance at the heart of this. my fave bit is the post-chorus guitar-solo-ish and also the chorus switch, it genuinely catches you off guard every time.
jetlag are a london band who call themselves indie maximalists, and wicked tongue backs that up completely, trading their old brass heavy sound for fuzzy guitars and disco swagger instead. it’s built around a kind of self reflective paranoia dressed up as a party track, which is a tricky balance to pull off. we’ll be watching these guys closely, this banger deserves to be played loud as hell.
thank u for making this jetlag ✈️
she’s like the wind – boxing club
boxing club rip apart an 80s soft rock ballad and rebuild it as something brilliantly urgent
she’s like the wind is not the cover you’re expecting, boxing club strip out all the soft 80s sheen and replace it with dark, urgent post-punk energy. tbh i love the original, and this one is brilliant take. the guitars are sharp and the whole thing feels tense in a way the original never was. it kinda rocks. turning a soft rock ballad into something this confrontational takes some nerve, and it completely works. best of all, it’s the vocal delivery that sells it, all edge and no sentimentality.
friend of the blog boxing club are a five-piece post-punk band formed between london and glasgow, pulling from fontaines d.c., idles and joy division for their sound. they’ve built this one entirely independently, no label or management, and it’s already their biggest release yet with support from bbc 6 music and radio x. fresh off isle of wight festival, they’ve got belladrum and tenement trail coming up. i hope we get a lot more from them this year, cos this is fantastic.
thank u for making this boxing club 🥊
sing-along songs – arn-identified flying objects and alien friends
arn-identified flying objects and alien friends sharpens an already great song until it’s punkier, catchier and impossible to resist
sing-along songs is a punchy blend of punk and power pop with just enough folk rock in there to keep it warm rather than snotty. this new version tightens everything up, the intro hits harder and david myhr’s backing vocals in the second and third chorus are ridiculously catchy, exactly the kind of hook you’ll be humming for days. the mix is properly crisp too, way clearer than a song like this usually gets. it’s kinda impossible not to sing along, unsurprisingly.
friend of the blog arn-identified flying objects and alien friends is the solo project of a swedish musician who used to play guitar and sing in the band redmoon, and between 2021 and 2025 released a run of singles and two albums under the wonderfully odd name arn-identified flying objects and alien friends. the new album, the king and the sparrow, digs into swedish folk roots while still sounding fresh rather than nostalgic. it’s a brilliant single, more of this please.
thank u for making this arn-identified flying objects and alien friends 🐦
follow indie bangers 26 for more of the most exciting, up and coming artists
Leave a comment