by Tim McMahan,Lazy-i.com

We’re already halfway through a fairly good year for indie album releases, though there hasn’t been a single overpowering album that’s made an impact on the national psyche like, say, records released in 2024 by Charli XCX, Cindy Lee, Fontaines or The Cure (and the list of 2025 local indie releases through May is all but non-existent – what’s happened to our local indie scene?). 

I thought maybe the new Perfume Genius album (Glory) or Sharon Van Etten album (Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory) would crack through the indie glass ceiling and make waves in “greater pop culture,” but while both are, indeed, very good, they still remain firmly buried in the indie ghetto micro-niche. 

Anyway, for your gatekeeping pleasure, below are some albums from the first half of the year that deserve your attention, just as they’ve caught mine. 

Florist, Jellywish (Double Double Whammy) – The album by the Brooklyn-based quartet fronted by singer/songwriter Emily Sprague is a quiet meditation on her life and world view. While the mostly acoustic music couldn’t be any prettier or more comforting, there’s a thread of deep anxiety that winds through the entire album that no doubt reflects a generation’s angst as it wonders how it’ll survive in a post-global-warmed-over world divided by polarized political discourse. As their song goes:  “It’s been a good time in the right places / It’s been a bad time for a lot of humans.” 

Sextile, yes, please (Sacred Bones) – LA-based trio has emerged over the past few years as EDM giants, thanks to their knack for creating irresistible beats and synth sounds reflected in sonic chrome. But while their previous album, 2023’s Push, leapt atop their most infectious single, “Contortion,” yes, please is more focused on creating dance-enabled slogan-themed anthems like “Women Respond to Bass,” which, while true, is hardly a revelation. And while it feels like we’ve heard most of these synth sequences before on their previous outings, yes, please rewards repeated listenings thanks to clever nuances that sneak out of the cracks. When the band stretches out of its confort zone, on tracks like trance-inducing “Soggy Newports” and pop candy “Kiss,” we get a glimpse of where they could be headed.  

Perfume Genius, Glory (Matador) – Early singles “It’s a Mirror” and “No Front Teeth” gave the impression this album was destined to make frontman Mike Hadreas the rock star he deserves to be. But after those opening tracks, things return to the familiar, moody, lilting territory he shares with acts like Sufjan Stevens. Hadreas has a way for making gorgeous, anxiety-driven song-poems (“Mr. Peterson” from his first album is still my favorite), but I know there’s a complete, muscular indie rock album still waiting to turn him into an arena act.

Palmyra, Restless (Oh Boy) –  The Richmond trio’s sound is indie-folk or indie-country or, maybe even emo-folk. With upright bass, electric and acoustic guitars, mandolin and banjo — along with the layered three-part harmonies — it’s easy to lump them in with dusty crooners Avett Brothers, but Palmyra’s songs are way more poppy and hook-filled than anything by those old sad sacks. 

They wisely add a solid drummer to these recordings, pushing the album away from traditional folk and toward more approachable indie singer/songwiter stuff by the likes of, say, The Frames’ Glen Hansard, alt-country legends The Silos, or London alt-folkies Flyte, thanks to their uncanny knack for finding ear-worm melodies for songs about surviving breakups and overcoming loneliness and identity struggles. Pained confessional “Shape I’m In” feels emo until you realize singer Sasha Landon is describing his life-long battle with manic depression. Standout “Palm Readers” sounds like a Mountain Goats chestnut until they belt out the chorus that turns it into an anthemic confessional. 

Rounded out by Mānoa Bell and Teddy Chipouras — all three contribute songs — there’s not a bad tune in bunch. Maybe there’s something to this whole emo-folk thing….

More to come…

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Tonight at Reverb Lounge, which has become (or maybe always was) the home for touring indie acts, Oklahoma singer/songwriter Samantha Crain headlines.

Crain, a prominent Choctaw Nation songwriter and three-time NAMMY (Native America Music Award) winner, is a tour veteran and first-string collaborator, having toured with everyone from Avett Brothers to Racheal Yamagata. Her vocals can be heard on albums by First Aid Kit, Wild Pink and Murder By Death, among others.  No doubt her music was influenced by all those collaborators, along with a healthy dose of Kate Bush. 

Her latest LP, Gumshoe, dropped this past May on Real Kind Records and continues in an upbeat, indie-pop direction. Opening for Crain is Alaskan singer/songwriter Quinn Christopherson, whose latest LP, Write Your Name in Pink, was released in 2022 by PIAS. 8 p.m., $22.

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2025 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Given the average demographic of Lazy-i readers, the simplest way to explain a project like Florist (who played at Reverb Lounge Saturday night) is to draw comparisons. 

With that in mind, the easy button points to K Records or acts like The Softies or Ida or Lois. But that isn’t quite right. While there were plenty of soft, muted melodies to go around, Florist proved it can lean into a down-low riff and play it out, sort of like Red House Painters or Bedhead or Galaxy 500 or even Low. 

All of these comparisons, however, are lost on an audience consisting mostly of very young people who have never heard of any of those bands but are familiar with the likes of Adrianne Lenker and Big Thief – who clearly belong in the chat. Your mileage may vary based on your mileage. 

What the 50 or so on hand universally received were thoughtful songs played well by a talented four-piece consisting of bass, guitar, synth/drums and frontperson Emily Sprague on guitar and vocals. Florist has been described as a “friendship project” – a label that seemed apt. Mostly quiet and always ethereal, the band performed songs from their latest, Jellywish, as well as some older numbers, all in the same acoustic style augmented at times by synths provided by the drummer who did double duty. 

Though the evening remained at the same even keel, the highlights included “The Fear of Losing This,” off 2017’s If Blue Could Be Happiness, “Vacation” from the band’s debut EP, 2015’s Holdly, and “Our Hearts in a Room” from the new album, which received a long between-song-while-tuning introduction, where Sprague talked about her life in a way that implicitly asked the audience if they were satisfied with theirs, which matched the song’s theme and the mood of the evening as a whole. 

Opener Allegra Krieger played a solo acoustic set and seemed to struggle getting comfortable behind the microphone (even saying as much at the end). The bare bones approach obviously lost some of the dynamics heard on her band-powered releases, but still managed to hold the audience’s attention. I’d love to see her with a full band.

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North Carolina’s Southern Culture on the Skids, who play tonight at The Waiting Room, have been playing their brand of surfy, twangy, alt-country post-punk for more than 40 years. Sort of a cross between Creedence and The B-52s. Their last album was 2021’s At Home with Southern Culture on the Skids (Kudzu Records). And they just keep on touring, god bless ‘em.

Our very own tractor-punk legends, Wagon Blasters, open the show at 8 p.m. $25.

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2025 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Florist is a Brooklyn-based quartet fronted by singer/songwriter Emily Sprague with Felix Walworth, Rick Spataro and Jonnie Baker. They call their sound “minimalist folk,” though it’s more like acoustic singer/songwriter fare in the same vein as Adrianne Lenker’s solo work (i.e., it’s more mellow than Big Thief). 

Actually, songs like “Have Heaven,” off the new album, Jellywish (2025, Double Double Whammy), are reminiscent of Suzanne Vega’s first album (but ultimately sounds like something off Lenker’s Bright Future). 

Funny thing, Florist has been around longer than Big Thief. Their first EP, We Have Been This Way Forever, was self-released in 2013 and they’ve been on DDW since 2015’s Holdly. Their two previous albums, the self-titled 2022 release and 2019’s Emily Alone, both received the coveted “Best New Album” designation from Pitchfork. If you knew, you knew; and something tells me Lenker knew.

Jellywish couldn’t be any prettier, and will make for a quiet, intimate Saturday night at Reverb Lounge.

Joining Florist is label-mate and fellow New Yorker Allegra Krieger, whose last album was Art of the Unseen Infinity Machine (2024, Double Double Whammy). According to her website, Krieger “…writes songs, bad checks, love letters, and poorly formatted emails and trusts that terrible things can have extraordinary outcomes.” It’s a return engagement for Krieger, who opened for Katy Kirby back in February 2024. $20, 8 p.m. See you there…

What else is happening this weekend? Glad you asked.

It’ll be a late night tonight (Friday) at The Sydney in Benson as Jeff in Leather headlines a bill that includes Cult Play, Ladie Muerte and X-ID. Starts at 9 p.m. $15. 

Tomorrow night (Saturday), there’s a free show at O’Leaver’s with Frankie Chairo, Watson & Co. and Katie Kasher (who I’m told will be playing with a full band). 9 p.m. start time. 

Sunday night Carver Jones & The American Dreamers return to Reverb Lounge. No opener is listed, so it could just be Carver. $15, 8 p.m. 

And that’s all I got. If I missed your show, put it in the comments section. Have a great weekend. 

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2025 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.