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.”