LITM Rock Picks Featuring Ettie, Boxfires, Tom Minor and More!

LITM Rock Picks brought to you by Ettie, Boxfires, Tom Minor, BOLIDDE and CS Hellmann.

1. Ettie – You’ll Never See Me Cry

If ever there was an anthem for the emotionally exhausted but spiritually undefeated, Ettie’s “You’ll Never See Me Cry” is it. This track doesn’t just tug on your heartstrings, it yanks them, tunes them, and strums out an indie-pop-punk power ballad of quiet vengeance. It’s the sound of someone who’s cried in private one too many times, risen from the emotional ashes, and now wears her pain like glittery war paint.

Ettie sings softly but with a fierce, aggressive tone, as if to say to you she's finished with you and calmly daring you to do something. It swells gradually, piano and acoustic guitar calming you into a serene mood before violently erupting into a full-blown, blazing climax, a cathartic sigh contained within crashing percussion and harmonies piled like sheep bells. Her Gemini duplicity is working at full capacity: hurting and healing simultaneously, both and neither.

For fans of Taylor Swift's poetic slaps and Avril Lavigne's swaggering sentimentalism, this is eyeliner-and-steel-boot heartbreak.

2. Boxfires – Every Year

Boxfires' "Every Year" is a snuggly, fuzzed-out indie-rock meditation on death, memory, and hooks that get caught in your head like a contented, pesky spectre. The band walks the fine line between dolorous and pop sheen with care, delivering a sound that's both introspective and poised to score your car ride on a dismal afternoon.

The guitars hum and buzz with an old-timey happiness, and the rhythm section keeps it all anchored, propelling the song forward with a pulse that is human, imperfect, hopeful, and full of life. "Every Year" lyrically is like digging through old album photos: a little blurry around the edges, but emotionally searing.

What really sets the track apart is its musical pull. You don't hear once, you repeat. It's musical déjà vu, but the good rhythms. This is the kind of song that catches you in the middle of walking and texting someone you haven't talked to in years. Big concepts, bigger heart.

3. Tom Minor – The Loneliest Person on Earth

Tom Minor's "The Loneliest Person on Earth" is more of a monologue than a song, recited at last call when the lights are down low, the bar is half-full and everybody's feigning not to hear. It's raw. It's powerful. It's the aural equivalent of staring up at a ceiling fan and wondering why love goes silent.

The instrumentation is lean but forceful. A mournful piano figure is the heartbeat of the song, and Minor's vocals waft by like cigarette smoke, fragile, evaporating, and indomitable. The words are sung in such naked honesty, you'll find yourself thinking that you've opened up a stranger's diary you shouldn't have read… but can't put down.

And just when you think it's all whisps and sorrow, the B-side "The Manic Phase" explodes in like a technicolor fever dream. Punchy and psych-tinged and completely out of hand in the very best way, it's the perfect foil. Together, they're two sides of the same coin, one going inward in explosions, the other going outward in bursts.

4. Bolidde – Rainbow Galaxy

Buckle up, because Bolidde's "Rainbow Galaxy" is not a ride; she blasts you full-boat through a sonic wormhole full of glimmering synths, snarling guitars, and emotions bundled in glitter and grime. This is not music, it is a starship fueled by passion and punk-shine, with a dash of indie melodrama and an alt-pop heartbeat.

From track one, you’re pulled into a universe that’s both futuristic and deeply personal. One moment you’re vibing with an anthemic chorus made for stadiums, the next you’re floating through synthy introspection that feels like you’re reading someone’s inner monologue in zero gravity. It’s bold. It’s cinematic. It’s genre-fluid and emotionally loaded.

Lyrically, Bolidde does not just touch on the surface, he digs deep into questions of identity, growth, and how to amount to something in a broken world. Picture M83 mixed with The Killers but with a pinch of Tame Impala's stardust and with loads of big feelings.

A rainbow never went so big.

5. CS Hellmann – Burned Romances

CS Hellmann's "The Burned Romances" is the aural equivalent of a cyberpunk noir film in a dreamscape. Half of post-punk gloss and half of synth-drenched despondency, where this single walks the fine line between classic and visionary, interlacing shadow and light to form an uncomfortably familiar-sounding fabric of sound.

The guitars jangle like broken glass in a velvet box, the bass snarling beneath waves of synth that come and go like smoke on bright city streets. It's a sound made out of oppositions, tactile but fierce, old-sounding but progressive, structured yet dreamlike.

Hellmann's singing does not beg for attention; instead, it welcomes you in, cold and calculated, with lyrics that taste like secrets and scars. If you like The War on Drugs, early Interpol, or a darker vision of dream pop, this is the record to add to your next solo drive home.

It's not a song, it's a mood, a movement, an introspection for the breathtakingly battered parts of ourselves.

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LITM Singer-Songwriter Picks To Set The Tone of The Week Featuring Oaken Lee, Sean Griffin, Just Rick and More!

LITM Singer-Songwriter picks tunes to set the tone of the week brought to you by Oaken Lee, Sean Griffin, Just Rick, Mahto & The Loose Balloons and Ink To Spill.

1. Oaken Lee – The Longest Way (to Say Goodbye)

Oaken Lee's The Longest Way (to Say Goodbye) is like the kind of song you come across during a late-night drive, the stars twinkling above you, the drizzle on the windshield, and thoughts you didn't intend to face resonating in your head. It's a subdued but emotionally deep song that carelessly threads acoustic guitar and ambient modern production into something that sounds like a recollection in movement. Lee won't overwhelm you with theatrics; he invites you into a realm of quietude, heat, and slow-burning contemplation. The song is as much about the gravity of leaving behind as it is about the hope that remains in release. Whether it's a physical goodbye or a symbolic leave-taking from an aspect of yourself, this song greets you exactly where you are. It's personal, ageless, and the kind of song you'll want to hear as the credits roll on your own indie moment.

2. Sean Griffin – People Are Mad

Sean Griffin's People Are Mad is akin to being treated to a carnival of contemporary life in three and a half manically addictive minutes. It's punk-folk pandemonium at its best, all harmonicas, banjos, train whistles, and a generous serving of dark Irish wit. The song begins rooted in an acoustic strum and soon unfolds into a wondrous circus of sound, demonstrating that yes, humans are crazy, and it's hilarious and heartbreaking. Griffin's lyrics are keen yet completely relatable; you'll find yourself chuckling, agreeing, and perhaps even whispering the title phrase to yourself while doomscrolling next time. There's something freeing about the way the song embraces the absurdities of life. Crafted with passion and panache by Grammy-winning artists, the end result is a rich, unpredictable soundscape that never forgets its humanity. Imagine Zippity Doo Dah and Sgt. Pepper with a pint on the table and a nod to the insanity surrounding us.

3. Just Rick – Quaint Celestial Reflections

Just Rick's Quaint Celestial Reflections is the kind of song you don't just hear, you drift through it. It's cosmic daydreaming for overthinkers and quiet rebels both. Against a psychedelic landscape of undulating synths and laid-back grooves, the song considers ambition and disillusionment and the peculiar calm of letting go. Rick delivers the existential with charisma, dropping lines that fall like stardust on the soul, glittering, soft, and somehow reassuring. It's like talking to your future self who's already experienced the quarter-life crisis and emerged wiser (and a bit weirder). With trippy instrumentals and lyrics that sound like stoner philosophy colliding with poetic understanding, Quaint Celestial Reflections doesn't preach—it reflects, muses, shrugs, and gives you a cosmic bong. The lo-fi spacey quality of the song makes it ideal for journaling, zoning out, or drifting through memories that never really stuck. It’s an escape hatch in audio form, celestial, quaint, and sneakily profound.

4. Mahto & The Loose Balloons – Parking Lots

With Parking Lots, Mahto & The Loose Balloons deliver a song that feels like a sepia-toned photograph of your youth, faded, familiar, and still full of meaning. This track is a masterclass in nostalgic storytelling. Mahto’s voice carries a quiet ache, the kind that knows better than to shout. It's contemplative but not maudlin, romantic but not silly. The composition is simple—tattered strumming, ethereal keys, that lets the lyrics carry the weight. And they do, with phrases that pull you into that transitional place between "what was" and "what might have been." It's the soundtrack for every unfinished love story, every drawn-out goodbye, every parking lot where you sat thinking what the fuck comes next. Parking Lots doesn't attempt to fix anything. It simply asks you to sit down and recall. And sometimes that's all you truly need. a song that allows you to inhale the past, if only a little.

5. Ink to Spill – South Side

Ink to Spill's South Side is more than a song, it's a film-like nod to the grit, heart, and soul of a girl who discovers magic in crayons and strength in art. The band weaves an emotional force that's half-heart-tug and half-head-bob. You can almost envision the Chicago streets as Farrah Adams—vulnerable and blazing, takes the spotlight in this sonic short film. Gus Reeves' voice is full of lived-in honesty, and the band, augmented by new and old blood alike, plays lush, driving support that propels the tale along. From the understated but beautiful guitar of John Tate to Ernie Adams' perpetually accurate percussion, every facet gives weight to the tale. But it's the lyrics of Bob Sauer that really stand out, sketching pictures of survival, of beauty, and belief amidst chaos. South Side is not a song, it's a movement—a reminder that art can be rebellion, and crayons can paint the future.

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LITM Singer-SongWriter Picks Tunes Featuring Bryter Colours, Brendan Kelly and J.R Dalfort

LITM Singer-SongWriter Picks some great tunes brought to you by Bryter Colours, Brendan Kelly and J.R Dalfort

1. Bryter Colours – I’m Alive

If ocean waves had a therapist, they’d probably recommend “I’m Alive” by Bryter Colours. This track opens with the calm hush of the sea and a cuatro gently strumming like it’s trying not to wake the sun. But don’t let the mellow beginning fool you—this song glows. It sings, not like a war cry, but like a whispered vow to keep going.

It's not showy. It's not obnoxious. It's the soothing pep talk your soul didn't even realise it was crying out for. Like a cup of tea cradled in two hands on a hard day. There's something hypnotic and mantric to it, less "look at me!" and more "I see you. Breathe." You don't tune into "I'm Alive" to escape. You listen to remember that you’re still in it, still fighting, and somehow, still okay.
Healing has never sounded so gently radical.

2. Brendan Kelly – Brother

Brendan Kelly's "Brother" is the musical equivalent of a fist bump and a bear hug with a coat of sunshine. If there were a groove for resilience, this would be the one. The song almost struts in from the opening beat with its country-pop-rock beat, gutsy drums, bright guitars, and vocals that yell heartfelt without ever being cheesy.

This is a song that leaves you feeling like you've just received the world's greatest pep talk from your best friend. And when you know Brendan's tale, how he recovered from a life-changing accident through sheer will, you hear that resilience in every note. "Brother" not only sings about dedication; it embodies it. It's a song you'd play on full blast during a road trip with someone who has seen all your chaos and loves you in spite of it.

Catchy, real, and joyfully alive, this is more than a feel-good anthem—it’s a sonic hug that says, you’ve got this, and I’ve got you.

3. J.R Dalfort – “Easy Livin’” (English Version)

Out of the home of ABBA and IKEA sofas comes something tastyly American,
J.R Dalfort's "Easy Livin'." Hailing from Sweden but apparently in tune with Nashville's dusty soul, Dalfort plays a road-ready Americana tune that is the musical equivalent of denim and sunshine on vinyl. "Easy Livin'" is half-groove, half-grit, and all swagger. It's got a propulsive rhythm section that'll make you reach for your keys and just take off. His writing is clear, assertive, and hooks like an old buddy telling a good yarn. There's something wonderfully unpretentious about the entire operation—no thinking too hard, no sonic showboating.
Just good, soulful songcraft and a feel that says, "Why worry when you can just crank up the radio?" Dalfort may be warbling in English, but the language he's actually using is hip. If "Easy Livin'" is a portent of things to come, Americana had best clear the table, Scandinavia's taking over the open road.

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