With an aesthetic that touches on shoegaze, power-pop, and grunge, Wishy are about as on-trend as a band can be in 2024. But once you look past genre trappings, the real appeal behind the Indianapolis upstarts is the strength of their songs. “Love On The Outside,” the lead single from Wishy’s debut LP, jangles and shimmers with the requisite ’90s-nostalgic splendor, and more importantly, it’ll get stuck in your head real fast. Just when you think Kevin Krauter’s vocal melody on the verse is tremendously catchy, he starts harmonizing with Nina Pitchkites on the chorus, the goalposts for what constitutes an exceptional hook have already shifted. The song is about the excitement and anxiety of navigating a budding romance, and it sounds like exactly that kind of rush. —Chris

“I saw I missed your call/ Sorry for not picking up/ I got the job at the flower shop,” Cassandra Jenkins lulls at the beginning of “Delphinium Blue,” singing with the same softness as the warm, gentle synths that surround her voice. She continues: “I sweep the floors but I’m talking to you/ I see your eyes in the delphinium too/ I’ve become a servant to their blue.” The poetic lines roll off her tongue with ease; the song is surreal and hypnotic, blossoming with patience and grace, enhanced by spoken-word moments and an abrupt end that leaves the listener dazed. —Danielle

Michael Jones and Turk Dietrich have kept Belong dormant for more than a decade, but at a time when shoegaze is one of the buzziest words in all of music, their grand return makes sense. “Souvenir,” however, does not sound like most of the user-friendly ‘gaze that’s been popping off lately — not the heavy post-Nothing stuff, not the weird post-Spirit Of The Beehive stuff, and definitely not the straightforwardly fuzzy dream-pop that plays so well on TikTok. This is a dark, lo-fi chug, mechanistic and menacing despite its faint glowing aura, like bar italia doing a tribute to Duster or some kind of minimalist reworking of Isn’t Anything. —Chris

I’m in the middle of figuring out a DJ set for a friend’s party next weekend, and right now my inspirational guiding light is Erika de Casier’s “The Princess.” I’m trying to put together some songs that have the same weightless vibe, with trills that set my soul on edge. It feels like fate that Ouri’s “Baby Has A Frown” would drop this week because it’s exactly what I’ve been looking for. I loved Ouri’s work with Helena Deland as Hildegard, and this is just as entrancing, all minimalist slink and airy seduction. It’s going in the mix. But I’m also kind of struggling with this set so if you have any suggestions sound off below! I also might just ditch everything and play that Waxahatchee trance remix six times in a row. —James

This is how you announce a return. For their first new song in seven years, Los Campesinos! go big, building up to a booming, howling, hands-to-the-sky crescendo. The Welsh indie-poppers were never afraid of hooks or drama or poetry, but while the rest of the indie universe turns inward, they’ve blown their sound out to find Red Rocks canyon-echo majesty. “Feast Of Tongues” starts soft and tender, but by the time it reaches its raging climax, it’s all goosebumps, all the time. Suddenly, it doesn’t seem so far-fetched to imagine thousands of people singing about feasting on the tongues of every last bootlicker. —Tom