The Rock Revival’s Ones To Watch for 2023
Written by Ronan Calvert
As a year of amazing albums, exciting EPs and singles has come to a close, it’s time to look forward to what 2023 could have in store for us.
2022 will be a tough act to follow, but with a fresh wave of emerging talent waiting in the wings, the new year will bring its own unique qualities to this reverend creative space.
The Kairos
Coming in at number eight on The Rock Revival’s Top 10 songs for 2022 was The Kairo’s ‘Lazy Lethargic’, and for good reason. The Liverpool lads tick every raw, homegrown, indie rock box you will ever need with pacey tracks, gritty vocals and aggressive guitars that look destined to get sweaty crowds jumping up and down for years to come. The “Keep it moving on…” plea of the hard-hitting ‘Lazy Lethargic’ chorus has everything required to become a relentless festival favourite, while the heavier ‘Teetotal’ describes a “Feeling coming over” to all the agro of ‘Cave Song’ by Pretty Vicious.
By taking long-adored indie rock sounds and stepping them up with distortion and aggression, the Kairos make for one of the best young live acts in the UK right now. We’re in hard anxiety-inducing times so why shouldn’t indie bands express their many frustrations to a passionate extent? Hard rock and British indie don’t have to exist as separate entities. Backing memorable melodies with fuzzy amplification can create something better than either genre, and The Kairos prove it.
Suggested first listen: Lazy Lethargic
The Royston Club
Welsh wonders The Royston Club burst onto many people’s radars with straight-up garage indie bangers like ‘Shawshank’ and ‘Kerosene’ in 2019. The band’s ability to write catchy hooks, memorable choruses and pleasing riffs was obvious from day one. The songs were great — the type that would stick in your head for days — but their evolution over the last eighteen months suggests bigger and better things await them in 2023. More recent efforts like ‘Cold Sweats’ and ‘Infatuated’ bring plenty of reason for such optimism as they marry 2015 indie sounds of early ‘Circa Waves’ and ‘The Academic’ with 2021/2022 post-punk trailblazers like ‘Yard Act’ and ‘Courting’. Spoken word verses on newer tracks help break the formulaic predictability of indie pop (which is always good) but even better is the fact that these segments elevate the impact of each chorus to a triumphant degree. Anyone who has witnessed ‘Cold Sweats’ live will know exactly what we’re talking about: It’s huge.
Should this songwriting trend continue, then it would be no surprise to see the band propel itself to greater success in 2023, both critically and numerically. The four-piece recently cited Fontaines DC, Black Country New Road, Loyle Carner and Wunderhorse as favourites of each respective member and if those influences are crossed with their already excellent indie tunes, a potential debut album will have all the ingredients to explode. Eccentric groups like ‘Wet Leg’ and ‘Dry Cleaning’ began to overshadow Catfish-type guitar bands in 2022 as listener tastes continued to react to our increasingly disillusioning society, but perhaps 2023 will bring us the best of both worlds where uplifting belters and spoken word commentary can morph together as one beautiful thing — and perhaps, just maybe, The Royston Club will be the ones to deliver it. This isn’t just a band with the potential to make it big, but a band with the potential to inspire.
Suggested first listen: Cold Sweats
Wunderhorse
Fontaines DC’s recent support act Wunderhorse were arguably the breakout band of 2022 and they look primed to double their following in 2023 with what could be described as retro grunge-tinted indie. The foot-stomping ‘Leader of the Pack’ is an aptly titled belter which grabs your attention with its crunchy guitars over an emphatic beat. It’s big, it’s catchy and it’s one of the songs of the year. On first listen you could be fooled into thinking this is just another Rock and Roll tune yearning for the ’90s (the chord progression’s familiarity makes it feel like a classic you have known all your life) but Slater’s imperfect, impassioned delivery of the album’s best chorus gives it an edge that stays with you.
That same passion is sourced from the singer’s carefully crafted verses — verses which delve deep into his personal life across the LP with a little apology, especially on ‘Teal’, a song which explores some ‘nasty shit’ experienced by a friend of his: “Jacob baby I’m broken, I can’t be fixed / They think it’s my kidneys, they don’t know what it is”. The ‘Cub’ lyric book reads like it was penned with the last cartilage of ink in the world as Slater believes “It’s a sacred space, it matters. You’ve got to mean it.” Other lyrical highlights appear in muddy but atmospheric cuts like ‘Butterflies’ and ‘Purple’ where suicide emerges as a subject matter, before the album moves onwards to the memorable ‘Girl Behind The Glass’ where some light is left through the window with a melodic hook either side of guitars reminiscent of Radiohead’s ‘My Iron Lung’. The band’s live shows — which include one or two unreleased future fan favourites — suggest their star will continue to burn bright in 2023.
Suggested first listen: Leader of the Pack
The Katuns
The Katuns are a band from West Lothian who’ve supported the likes of The Lathums, Vistas and Dylan John Thomas over the last year or so. Undoubtedly influenced by the legendary Arctic Monkeys, the fast-tempo group has modelled their sound around crispy power chords combined with high-pitched riffs and snappy lyrics. Songs like ‘Comedown’ and ‘The Holiday’ show them at their uncompromising best as their rocket-fuelled energy feeds into each bar in a way that usually gets crowds jumping and band members smiling.
At a time when guitar music moves ever further from the mid-2000s sounds of ‘The Enemy’, ‘Reverend and the Makers’ and ‘The Pigeon Detectives ‘, these lads are standing tall to provide no-nonsense head-bangers for an increasingly alienated audience. There’s definitely still a market for fun indie rock and The Katuns are here to deliver the goods. Give them a go and try to get down to one of their all-action live shows in the new year.
Suggested first listen: The Holiday
Rowan
Critics believe 2022 was Ireland’s most prosperous year for music in decades but although Fontaines DC, Murder Capital and Pillow Queens grabbed most of the attention with their alternative post-punk sounds, there was also an unexpected emergence of enjoyable Irish indie bands. The little-known Rowan are the prime example as the Cork trio released their excellent debut album ‘Does it Make You Happy?’ back in March and will certainly hope to carry that momentum into 2023. The record is heavily Strokes inspired in its instrumental make-up but the quality of songwriting from frontman Dylan Howe cannot be doubted, as every track on the twelve-song LP is intelligent and melodic. ‘Youth & Youthhood’ is a standout but ‘Nothing’s Gonna Change’, ‘Honesty’ and ‘I Don’t Wanna Talk’ also shine bright to deliver memorable tunes with tight arrangements.
It is a surprise that the band have not drawn more attention to date, but by touring their music in 2023 they look a good bet to enjoy significant word-of-mouth growth before long.
Suggested first listen: Youth & Youthhood
Been Stellar
Covid-19 had at least one consolation in the fact that artists had all the time in the world to hone their craft and delve into their creative impulses. It makes perfect sense why 2022 was one of music’s most fruitful years witnessed for some time, as with lockdown came a guilty artistic opportunity. One band that made the best of the bad situation was New York’s ‘Been Stellar’ as they shot to prominence in the last twelve months with a series of crackly alt-rock releases. Great acclaim followed singable numbers like ‘My Honesty’ and ‘Manhattan Youth’ and by the time their self-titled debut EP was dropped in August, they had already become a regular fixture on BBC Radio 6’s highly-held playlists.
The fourth track on that EP is the jagged but cinematic ‘Kids 1995’ which emits a nostalgic element through its Nada Surf guitars and evocative lyrics: “I watch the needle jump / The engine makes the evening flow / As our morals slow / Absorbed by the sea”. And, although not the most instantly rewarding track on the EP, it is perhaps the track that reveals the full scale of this band’s creative potential. Potential to make it big in 2023? Potential to become the next great American export? We think so.
Suggested first listen: My Honesty
FEVER
2023 might just be the year that sees Hull band FEVER establish themselves among the UK’s favourite indie outfits. The band have been releasing music since 2019 but their two most complete songs were released in just the last eight months. ‘Gold Intentions’ landed in April as a major statement of their talents. Like early Blossoms efforts, the band’s sound on this track pays tribute to 80s influences such as The Cure and The Smiths, while simultaneously progressing the present-day state of indie music with synths and creative bridge sections. November release ‘Too Similar’ meanwhile, illustrates more strengths as its colourful chorus lands with all the triumph that usually catapults new bands onto the mainstream map. It’ll only be a matter of time too, as although the track has just 8,500 plays on Spotify, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t reach the millions of streams racked up by comparable (but not ‘too similar’) Blossoms tune, ‘There’s a Reason Why’ – because it’s that level.
To create unpredictable and enjoyable indie pop tunes after both the 2000s ‘Indie Landfill’ era and the 2010’s arrival of Catfish and the Bottlemen, DMA’s, Circa Waves etc. is a tricky task, but these lads manage it with some style. Most promising of all however, is the noticeable improvement in every single song they share. One quick listen to their discography will assure you that their quality of output is only trending in one direction.
Suggested first listen: Jungle Man
NewDad
Still without a full-length album but forever on the rise are indie shoegazers NewDad who spent the last couple of months supporting Paolo Nutini on tour to a glowing reception. Fronted by the dreamy vocals of Julie Dawson, the Galway group have already released two excellent EPs, ‘Waves’ and ‘Banshee’, and even recorded a live session with BBC Radio Six’s Steve Lamacq in November 2020. 2021’s sing-along ‘I Don’t Recognise You’ is the best starting point for new listeners as they penned one of the year’s catchiest numbers.
What’s most exciting about NewDad though, is the standards they maintain. Despite only being a couple of years into their journey in the music industry, they can already call upon a bag full of short, sweet and clever indie hits.
Suggested first listen: I Don’t Recognise You
DICE
Australian music is a fantastic place right now and Perth surf rockers DICE are the latest band to make waves down under. Fans of Sticky Fingers, Spacey Jane and Mako Road should be all over this four-piece as they continue to drop banger after banger. If it’s any indication, the single, ‘Double Espresso’ was only released in early 2022 but has already amassed more than two million streams on Spotify.
Even more, the earlier single ‘Stop Sign’ boasts 3.5 million streams and its appeal is understandable as it takes the best of English indie rock and saturates it with feel-good sunrays. Their most recent release arrived in September with ‘Tequila Shotgun’ and again, given its striking melodies and cool guitars, it is hard not to be excited to see what these guys could put together in an album format.
Suggested first listen: Stop Sign
The Murder Capital
Perhaps the most established band on this list is Dublin’s ‘The Murder Capital’. The moody post-punk group already have an acclaimed album under their belt in the form of 2019’s ‘When I Have Fears’, but recent singles suggest 2023’s follow-up ‘Gigi’s Recovery’ will launch the group towards the bigger venues they deserve. While the five-piece’s devastatingly melancholic debut effort was led by the brilliant ‘Don’t Cling To Life’, the rest of the record – for all of its dark integrity – arguably lacked the ‘Liberty Belle’ or ‘Boys In The Better Land’ type earworms which saw their friendly rivals Fontaines DC appeal to a wider audience.
The pandemic was a major impediment to the band’s progress but they now look primed to make their big break in 2023 as new singles ‘‘Only Good Things’, ‘Ethel’ and ‘A Thousand Lives’ indicate a brighter but no less authentic and engaging sound – the kind that should draw in new fans and retain them forever. The Murder Capital had only known each other for nine months when they released their stunning first album so you can instantly hear the improved dynamism between the band in new moments like the outro to ‘A Thousand Lives’ where all-action ‘In Rainbows’ percussion is complemented by drilling low guitars and high pitched licks. The vitalising lyrics on ‘Ethel’ are also refreshing as vocalist James McGovern allows cynicism and romanticism to co-exist in a particularly Irish fashion once mastered by Damien Dempsey. Indeed, very Dempsey is the way in which lines like “One chance at this life” are delivered with a sincerity that steals them from empty Instagram posts and back into the powerful heart-opening mantras they ought to be.
Suggested first listen: Only Good Things
