Happy Friday. I’ve been slacking over here but for good reason - I have been toiling away in the Google Doc mines to bring you Indie Sleaze month on Bandsplain (and yes we’re just calling it that, you can listen to the first episode which came out yesterday for a more thorough explanation as to why, it’s fine). We launched with what is in my opinion the best of the bunch that fall loosely under this post-facto mantle, Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
This gave me the idea to use this week’s letter to put you onto a bunch of other bands who carry the band’s DNA forward, including established ones you might have missed and very new ones you might not be aware of yet. But first a little housekeeping (hate myself):
London! October 15th - Miranda Sawyer’s excellent podcast Talk 90s To Me is doing a live event at ICMP Queen’s Park and I am the guest. The topic is Courtney Love. Tickets are available HERE.
I’ll be in London (on and off) between October 14th and November 5th so as usual this is your chance to invite me to fun things, ask me to host/present things, give me a gift, point me towards the best sausage roll in town, etc. Respond to this email or send me a note at fastnloosexo@gmail
Okay let’s get into the list (playlist at the bottom):
Slayyyter
Okay hear me out. The latest incarnation of Slayyyter is so good, and a big part of that is the sleazy, who-gives-a-fuck, girlish raunch vibe of her new album WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA, which sounds at many points very what if Sleigh Bells was legible and by the transitive property (not using this word right I fear I’m not a woman in STEM), very YYYS.
This is a bit of a duh but if you, like me, were erstwhile a non-participant in Wet Leg fandom only to discover far too late that they are simply phenomenal (especially this second album) then it will be worth it to bring that joy to a few more people.
Not a single solitary idea how I happened upon this band from Marquette, Michigan. I do love a sibling duo. This one is Gretchen McKenzie (vocals/guitar) and Dawson McKenzie (drums), and they make mathy, freewheeling rock that Buffablog (a blog about music in Buffalo, naturally) likened to “a disjointed Emily Haines fronting Pavement.” It’s so good - all elastic riffs and dark humor.
Now here’s where it gets interesting. I’m pretty sure Lex Walton is in her 20s, and her music is heavily referential of a time before her own (on multiple levels, there’s a song called “Hipster Runoff”, the album is produced by Wolf Parade’s Dan Boeckner, whose band formed when Walton was like two years old) but also somehow thoroughly modern (Emily Green of Geese plays guitar on the incredibly vital track “USA = FAG NATION”, Ivy Wolk is sampled on the same song), both in themes and feel. Walton’s a razor sharp wordsmith, and her stance is one of smirking confrontation. To me, it’s adjacent to Karen O’s frenetically sexual posturing, different but just as mesmerizing.
You know how much I love these Philly angels who whiplash between tender melody and full-throttle noise, often within the same song (and who does this sound like?). Missy Dabice is one of the coolest front people we have right now and it’s been such a pleasure to watch her grown and expand her musical and performance palate these past ten or twelve years.
Man I love this band. Experimental pop duo Rachel Brown and Nate Amos (who is being feted at the moment for his new album under his other moniker, This Is Lorelei), making genre-shizo, dance-adjacent art rock that to my ears pulls from New Order, Talking Heads, ESG, and Deerhoof, amongst others.
I love this Chicago post-punk quartet who are named after a rare dissociative disorder (DSM-5 core). Moody and noisy, they’ve drawn comparisons to Fugazi, Sonic Youth, and Shellac, which if that sentence doesn’t have you saying “you had me at hello” this might be the wrong place for you.
I’ve talked about this Brighton, UK four-piece on here a few times because they’re just really good. They bill themselves as “wonk pop,” blending disco, surf and indie rock with incredibly dry lyrics, all observational wit. People have compared them to The Strokes but you know what I think…
Not sure what’s in the water in Brighton, but here’s another band worth your time (and one of Iggy Pop’s favorites, if you’d like to argue go tell it to a wall). Duo Phoebe Lunny and Selin Macieira-Boşgelmez are sort of a riot-grrrl-adjacent act known for no-holds-barred political lyrics (tackling transphobia, misogyny, lad culture, etc) wrapped up in elbow sharp humor. They called their 2025 debut Who Let the Dogs Out which is like, okay be more perfect.
Again no clue how I stumbled across this Boulder, Colorado power trio fronted by Demi Demitro (guitar/vocals) but guess what they have TWO drummers, Baby Pottersmith and Jonny Fig (something I have always fucking loved since I saw the Ohsees do it over a decade ago) who play on a conjoined kit. (Another band that sort of lives in the YYYs lineage but predating them is Delta 5, who had two bassists and ripped). This band was discovered by Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys but we don’t have to hold that against them.
I definitely have put this Brooklyn art-punk/no-wave band (Adam Sierz, Ben Petrisor, Jacob Saxton, Sergio Falvo) on a playlist here in the past. They are making what they call “weirdo punk that comments on existential dread and corporate greed” which it’s like, I’ll take two. A big strain of the YYYs is that dance punk element, and CS Cleaners’ songs are more ass jerkers than circle pit starters.
Saw Lex Walton open for Ezra Furman last year and have been champing at the bit for an album ever since. Can’t believe I was late to the release!