“Anyway you come” came out of a difficult period: Fiona’s mother had been diagnosed with a terminal illness the year before, and the song captures a specific, hard-won realization – that when faced with losing someone you can’t imagine life without, you find yourself willing to support whatever version of that person remains, as long as they’re still here. It’s never had a real promotional push, quietly picked up by listeners who discovered it after streaming her other work, and it’s overdue for wider attention.

Her signature soulful vocals were just as good here in 2023 as they are now. The clear evolution is in the accompaniment – I think in the latest releases it suits her character better, though this is still excellent. “Anyway you come” carries the gentler, more stripped-back arrangement that fits a singer-songwriter ballad of this weight, letting the vocal performance do most of the emotional work without much else competing for space. It’s a quieter, more raw version of the artist than the rock-leaning singles that followed, which makes sense given what she was processing at the time.

Hearing “Anyway you come” now, after the rest of her catalog, gives the song an extra layer of context – you can hear an artist still finding the exact shape of her sound, with the voice and the honesty already fully formed. That’s often how the best discographies work: not a sudden arrival, but a steady refinement of something that was true from the start. This one deserves to find the audience it’s been missing.

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“Tell Me You Care” is an emotionally overwhelming song, despite it being deceptively simple in its approach, but its melodicism and harmony is so genuine that it completely envelopes you as you listen to it. Harmonically, it actually perfectly sounds like someone desperately calling out for someone to confess to caring about them, asking to see if they really care, so even without words, it manages to say so much. If it’s that effective without them, you can imagine how powerful it becomes with these objectively great vocals that convey such deep yearning and desperation and adapt to the song’s dynamics and soar in the chorus in a way that actually made my heart skip a beat.

For a band still early in its catalog, that kind of emotional precision is a rare thing to land this cleanly. Sutlej clearly know exactly what feeling they’re chasing and has the musicianship to actually catch it. With a full slate of releases still ahead, “Tell Me You Care” suggests this band is only going to get more dangerous from here.

Musically, old spaghetti westerns are invoked with the big guitar sound played through rotary speakers, sounding like it’s echoing through the Grand Canyon. It sets the atmosphere with that captivating bassline so the duet can tell their story of love and anguish. In a way, love and anguish are a duet of their own, how inseparable they are – always tied to one another like sworn lovers, one never fully present without the other lurking close behind. That tension plays out in the arrangement itself: the hypnotic, wailing guitars and the frantic collision of voices in the middle eight aren’t decoration, they’re the unraveling the lyric is describing, rendered in sound rather than just told in words.

St. Divine has made a habit of transforming hard subject matter into something cathartic rather than simply heavy, and “The Devil That You Know” continues that. The dual harmonies the band is known for do real work here, carrying both the tenderness and the chaos without losing either. With the full album arriving June 12th and a release party at Mama Tried on July 2nd, this title track sets a serious tone for what’s coming.

Musically, this is one of those golden examples of someone recreating a style of song that was once popular but successfully imprinting their own identity onto it – effectively making something fresh. Structure-wise, it’s a very 80s song; the chords themselves and the songwriting DNA, if you stripped it back and played it acoustically, would land squarely in that decade. But the textures and the performance itself are what make it uniquely Tether the Star’s. The synth work from Connor Hall and the production choices push it into a contemporary space without erasing the bones of where it came from, and Lanahan’s vocal delivery carries the emotional whiplash the lyrics demand – the verses are anxious and pulled in multiple directions, the chorus flipping from compliance to outright defiance on the same phrase. I believe that’s what they set out to do, and they really did achieve it.

The lyrical device at the center of the song – “make me” shifting from a plea to a dare within the same breath – is the kind of writing that earns the production around it. Tether the Star has a full album on the way, and if “Degeneration” is the temperature check, it suggests a band with both something to say and the craft to say it memorably.

Featuring gentle instrumentation and soft vocals, the song serves as both a reminiscence and a subtle advice from the experienced to those yet to come across it. By exploring the place between retrospection and anticipation, Arctic Wave captures the very essence of hopes and worries, which make up our lifetime. This is exemplified by the first verse: “Young man sings a hurried tune / Old man smiles, says, ‘You’ll get there soon'”.

Why does “Old Man” stand out? Well, this song does not speak about regret; instead, it talks about development. For example, the chorus, “You got to live every day, you gotta love every way,” represents the essence of this composition, inspiring people to enjoy their lives and appreciate what they can get from them. Despite its peaceful nature, this melody contains an essential lesson – wisdom cannot be gained instantly; one should earn it in the course of his or her life.

“Old Man” presents a meaningful reflection of time, personal experience, and the value of looking back. Combining lyrical verses and musical subtleties, Arctic Wave creates an exceptional work of art, giving people an important lesson: sometimes moving forward means realizing your past first..

“Me and My Gold” is a song about longing for change while gripping the patterns you can’t quite bring yourself to break. It is an indie rock anthem with a vocal delivery that pays respect to Rufus Wainwright’s unguarded emotionalism. The song has been closing the band’s live sets all year, consistently earning encores from audiences across Sweden.

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Northern Trails make warm, melody-first guitar pop that feels like it was always there — somewhere between the emotional depth of R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People, the sweeping melodic instincts of Keane, and the quiet grandeur of early Coldplay. Rooted in the 90s indie tradition, they make music for people who still believe in the power of a well-written song.

The band came together in Uppsala, Sweden in May 2022, when Christer Tinnerholm and Thomas Isberg decided it was time to spend a little less time on ultra running and a little more on pop music. Joined by Per Larsson and Ulf Eklund, they recorded Hearts Went Frozen EP and released it late 2023. Thomas Strömbom heard the single “AQ” on Swedish radio and asked if the band needed a keyboard player. Northern Trails has performed as a quintet ever since.

Since then the band has built a steady catalogue of singles and a growing reputation on the Swedish live circuit. In spring/summer 2026 they return with a run of new singles and a new EP.

Production-wise, this song is an unbelievable collage of styles – it’s like EDM, punk, trip-hop, and arena rock all at the same time. It’s very hectic, and the momentum of the rhythm section is palpable throughout. The digital and analog elements don’t take turns so much as collide, which is exactly the point; the friction between them is where the song lives. What keeps it from flying apart is the underlying drive – there’s a relentless forward motion that holds the whole chaotic thing together, pulling you through the genre whiplash rather than leaving you stranded in it.

Massé calls finding that convergence point “serious business,” and the production backs that up. “Rocker on a Club Run” isn’t content to gesture at the rock-meets-club concept from a safe distance – it actually sounds like both things happening at once, which is considerably harder to pull off than it sounds. International Breakthroughs is shaping up to be one of the more genuinely adventurous debut albums coming out of the Canadian indie scene this summer.

The song touches on the challenge of moving forward while remaining attached to the habits you know you should leave behind. Rather than focusing on the straightforward process of changing your life, the band highlights how difficult that journey can be and the emotions that often come with it. There is a strong sense of longing woven throughout the track, yet the narrator also seems resistant to taking that final step toward change.

The release features warm guitar work, appealing melodies, and a vocal performance that feels both convincing and heartfelt. The chorus is especially memorable and instantly catchy. The lyrics, also, portray a narrator who is fully aware of their weaknesses but remains unwilling to let them go, adding another layer of emotional depth to the track.

With the release of “Me and My Gold,” Northern Trails offer thoughtful insight into what it means to pursue change. The song captures the complexity of personal growth in a way that many listeners will recognize, making it an engaging and emotionally resonant listening experience..

Aesthetically, it’s like an alien singing about a very human experience. The lyrics are barely decipherable through the idiosyncratic delivery – a spacey, breathy vocal style that prioritizes texture and atmosphere over legibility. Musically, it complements that approach completely. Thematically, the lyrics are introspective and psychedelic in the sense that they feel like a very small part of a much bigger story, one your head fills in as you embark on the journey with them. Lines like “we hung our souls up with clothespins” and “drink in the darkness in our wrists” land as impressions rather than statements – vivid enough to mean something, open enough that everyone who hears them will mean something slightly different by them.

That quality – giving the listener room to project their own story into the gaps – is the defining feature of the Nick Drake and Low Roar comparisons the press materials reach for, and Taschuk earns them. “A Kiss” is not a song that explains itself, which is exactly right for what it’s trying to do. Dyna Dyvest, if this single is representative, is shaping up to be one of the more interesting debut albums to come out of the Canadian independent scene this year.

The individuals’ personal stories coming through the music are what this genre has always been about – it was never about re-inventing sounds. These songs are like modern folk songs, just some friends expressing themselves. The intention behind every note is communicated brilliantly, just effortless self-expression. This isn’t music made for the sake of fame or any superficial reason. This music is made out of the necessity to express oneself and to connect to others, to say: we’re here, and this is our experience.

“Best Is Yet To Come” is specifically about watching the people you love navigate the inevitable peaks and troughs of life and quietly wishing them through to calmer ground. It’s a generous emotional premise for a comeback single, outward-facing rather than self-congratulatory, which tells you something about where the band’s heads are at after sixteen years. The twin guitars and patient builds carry the weight of everything that went unplayed in the interim, and the cathartic lift when the hook arrives feels genuinely earned. Three more singles still to come before the year is out – the FAMILY EP is worth following in full.