Steven Loftin

Brooklyn-based and Matador-signed duo Water From Your Eyes are turning delicate indie pop sounds into a sprawling and contorting metamorphosis.
Water From Your Eyes breathes in spaces. This is a fact within the music; the art; the dynamic between Rachel Brown and Nate Amos.
The pair have been creating music since the mid-2010s after meeting in NYC’s indie scene. Never defining themselves with one singular sound or vision, Brown and Amos prefer to keep things open. Their electro-led indie idea...

For just shy of two decades, Bloc Party have subverted expectation.
From 2005’s critically acclaimed Silent Alarm, which birthed the immortal guitar anthems “Banquet” and “Helicopter,” to 2008’s electro-clashing Intimacy, the four-piece have refused to stand still. Throughout their explorative and innovative journey, founding members vocalist and guitarist Kele Okereke and guitarist Russell Lissack — along with latter-day additions bassist Justin Harris and drummer Louise Bartle — have litter...

Three albums in, and WILLIE J HEALEY is embracing his “funky and weird” side with ‘Bunny’. Read our latest Dork Playlist cover feature now.
Photos: Jennifer McCord.
FOLLOW DORK PLAYLIST ON SPOTIFY
Indie upstart Willie J Healey is finally, properly, listening to himself. Over the six years since his 2017 debut, ‘People And Their Dogs’, he has been toiling away.
Though releasing its follow-up, ‘Twin Heavy’, in 2020, plotting his course hasn’t always been easy going. Between the world shutting d...

MUTOID MAN are back, armed with a treasure trove of gnarly sounds and a newfound sense of confidence.
Mutoid Man’s third act is an exercise in grief. Certainly, ‘Mutant’’s cartoonish artwork lends itself to the band’s beginnings – a fun outlet that came at the right time for vocalist and guitarist Steve Brodsky – but beneath that, ‘Bam! Pow!’ looming giant-ant exterior lies a journey through forms of loss and out to the other side.
That’s precisely what this project has been all along for Ste...

OSCAR LANG’s new album ‘Look Now’ takes listeners on a heartfelt journey of self-discovery, embracing simplicity and vulnerability.
Photos: Jono White.
Oscar Lang has arrived. The indie bop master has been finding his feet over the course of his career. And for a while, he thought he’d found them. From his start on his early bedroom-recorded EPs to the gleaming studio-session-rife debut ‘Chew The Scenery’, it all felt like he was heading where he needed to be. But, as he soon found out, somet...

ZAND isn’t scared of making a statement, but with new release ‘Sewerstar’, they’re out to challenge everything.
Words: Steven Loftin.
Photos: Frances Beach.
2020’s ‘Ugly Pop’ properly introduced ZAND as unapologetically spirited. By slanging around brash pop music that delivered a lusty dose of liberation and confidence, including cuts like ‘Slut Money’ and ‘Freak’, it built upon the work of the London-based artist’s 2018 singles, including ‘Boys Like U’ and Luci’.
With upcoming EP ‘Sewerstar...

Exploring new territories with defiant abandon, Movements shatter expectations and embrace new influences in their ambitious album ‘RUCKUS!’.
Movements aren’t fucking around. Four albums into their career and the California four-piece are tired of the sound they’ve been toting for nearly a decade. On ‘RUCKUS!’, they’re expanding into spaces they’ve never before dared tread, all with glorious abandon.
There’s the swinging ‘Lead Pipe’, the unapologetically romantic ‘Heaven Sent’, and even a tou...

OSCAR LANG’s new album ‘Look Now’ takes listeners on a heartfelt journey of self-discovery, embracing simplicity and vulnerability.
Photos: Jono White.
Oscar Lang has arrived. The indie bop master has been finding his feet over the course of his career. And for a while, he thought he’d found them. From his start on his early bedroom-recorded EPs to the gleaming studio-session-rife debut ‘Chew The Scenery’, it all felt like he was heading where he needed to be. But, as he soon found out, somet...

London-based electro-punk duo SHELF LIVES have already whipped up a buzz at festivals, yet they’ve only just announced their first-ever headline show in the capital. They’re coming up fast.
Words: Steven Loftin
Photo: Jennifer McCord
“Just do it!”
No, Shelf Lives haven’t signed a sponsorship with Nike. But, the Swoosh purveyors’ slogan is a good fit for the attitude-spitting two-piece. It’s also a phrase that landed in their lap back in 2021.
After getting together to create tunes for a telev...

Object of Affection appear in our 2023 summer issue, which you can buy here.
Object of Affection deal in truths. The duo of Madison Woodward and Colin Knight are true to the influences they wear on their sleeves; to the idea of being in a band; to themselves, particularly for Knight.
The natural coming together of the pair is a simple story. Working with each other at the studio they run in Orange County called Paradise, Woodward says the mission statement for Object of Affection boils down t...

Royal & The Serpent has been finding her way out of the darkness. And alongside that journey comes Happiness Is An Inside Job, a sharp-toothed grin of an EP that continues the mental health journey of Ryan Santiago and her excavation of all that lies within.
Read more: 5 things we learned from HOLY FVCK, Demi Lovato’s raucous return to rock
Among the brash beats, raging guitars and furious drums, Royal & The Serpent's dichotomy between embracing life and exploring its twisted darkness rages o...

LP has had a wild career. One where she’s amassed millions of streams, most notably on her 2015 breakout hit “Lost On You.” But prior to this came several major-label signings, a plethora of songwriting for other artists and a handful of her own albums. With her powerhouse vocals proving to be an indomitable force, LP has since been on a constant rise, and she’s ready to get going again with her sixth album. After spending the better part of last year itching to hit the road, a place she conf...

From his early days of deconstructing and rebuilding classic songs to his ongoing obsession with learning and absorbing new techniques, as they prepare to drop new covers EP ‘Phantomime’, Ghost‘s leader Tobias Forge sees each new track as a fresh puzzle to be solved.
Like an apparition manifesting within a dense fog, it was through radio static that Swedish rockers Ghost were formed. In the kindergarten he attended as a young boy, Tobias Forge found himself enamoured with the music crackling ...

With their Epitaph debut, DRAIN are pushing the boundaries of hardcore.
Often at hardcore shows, limbs will be flying, and bodies will be contorting and writhing about the stage, while a band thrashes out their tunes. The only difference at a DRAIN show is you’ll also find front person Sammy Ciaramitaro’s beaming smile through the darkness.
A trio who clearly knows when and how to have a good time, they’re a sight to behold. This physically propelled positivity is as infectious as their tunes...

NOTHING, NOWHERE. is looking back to his roots for an evolution in sound.
This is not a drill. Those crushing sounds that erupt the moment you hit play on nothing,nowhere.’s new album ‘VOID ETERNAL’ are for real. And, in the most sincere way possible, nu-metal is back. So grab those chain wallets, and get excited.
It would seem that nothing,nowhere.’s Joe Mulherin is finally where he belongs. “I haven’t been this excited about music since I started nothing,nowhere.,” he opens joyfully. “I kno...