These LITM Rock Picks span across everything possible with rock music, featuring Liam C, Oliver Pinder, Tralalas, and more!
1. Liam C – Bang Bang
Overflowing with joyful indie-pop-rock energy, Liam C drops Bang Bang – a perfectly screamable anthem that teems with bouncy, lively energy. Featuring vocal delivery with hints of rap, it’s the kind of fast-paced song you can imagine being the background to the summer vacation shenanigans in your favourite early ‘00s teen movie. It’s all about living in the moment and having fun – Liam C’s voice is full of carefree melody, soaring above the lively rolling instrumental arrangement with little to no visible effort. Bang Bang is sure to put a smile on your face and a skip in your step!
2. Oliver Pinder – love of my life
love of my life is an acoustic ballad, tiptoeing the line between intimate folk and expansive rock – and never once losing balance. Embellished with dreamy, hazy instrumentation, it brings to mind images of strolling through a park at dusk: a deeply introspective and personal moment that feels like the only thing you can ever feel again. At its core, love of my life is about seeing the love of your life in everything around you, big or small. It takes off slowly, eventually opening up to jangly guitars and a wide-open atmosphere, but it never quite loses touch with the intimacy it created in its first few moments, and that is what will stay with you after it ends.
3. Tralalas – Burns
Burns begins with a sound that’d slot right into a Tarantino film – slightly ominous musical art. Growled vocals, reverberating guitars, and a heavily restrained drumset make up the base of the song, instantly transporting you into a zone that’s almost meditative and trance-like. Burns is the kind of song you’d expect would pick up pace rapidly and transition into metal screams and crashing drums, and Tralalas play perfectly with that feeling of suspense: there are enough moments that leave you suspended in mid-air expecting to be suddenly dropped, but they just leave you there, causing the kind of adrenaline that comes from being dangled with no control. And there’s a certain beauty in letting yourself be taken to where they want to take you.
4. Bones in Butter – Persona Non Grata
“You don’t know how to shut up / You don’t know how and when to stop / Being a human being cannot be that difficult…”
Bones in Butter’s Persona Non Grata, from their album Cosmopolis, is imaginative in how it brings out the feeling of not belonging, of being unwelcome, through music. With melancholy yet clear vocals, along with drums that linger in the background, keeping you invested, Bones in Butter’s sound is broad-ranging and intriguing in a way that’ll keep you coming back. The song isn’t shy about speaking straightforwardly of being persona non grata – unacceptable, unwelcome, “forever and ever”.
5. Verticoli – Milk & Honey
Reminiscent of classic rock, Milk & Honey is vibrant with sparkle and life. Opening with thumping beats and an electric guitar that thrums with energy, it showcases mastery and finesse to perfection. Verticoli has kept the track as tight as physically possible – no filler, no unnecessary embellishments for the sake of it, and a glorious, glorious guitar and drum solo. With vocal delivery that screams middle-fingers-up rebellion, Milk & Honey is layered to cause a storm that’ll brew in your ears. It’s invigorating in its apathetic carefreeness, and Verticoli will easily bring you to the brink of screaming out loud yourself.
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