There’s been a lot of people making peace with the political atmosphere with “well, we’re gonna get a lot of great music out of this” — which, I don’t think that’s a great coping mechanism, all things told. But so far, I can’t disagree. There’s a general atmosphere around music criticism that music is somehow worse or less diverse than it used to be, and that might be true in some senses. But every time I do one of these roundups, I’m always stunned at the variety and quality of the stuff that comes across my feed.
Before I get into the nitty-gritty, a few details about Genrefvckery. If you’ve released something lately and you’d like me to review it, send it my way! You can find me on Bluesky at @fiversdream or on SubscribeStar right here. There’s also a contact form on this site. I can’t guarantee I’ll get to everything but this is a great way for me to hear about stuff I might not otherwise. If you want to know how I find stuff, the best advice I can give you is to listen to music with purpose. The more diverse, strange and niche you make your listening habits, the more Spotify or Apple Music or your listening platform of choice picks up on that. My Release Radar gives me weird stuff because the algorithm knows I want stuff with less than 10k listeners.
Without any further ado, here’s my top ten for songs released in November 2024!
- Никогда (Nikogda) – Lena Katina, ShonZi
If you put on this song and immediately feel like the vocals are familiar, don’t worry, you’re not hallucinating — Lena Katina first found fame as half of girl group t.A.T.u.! Unlike her co-singer, Katina’s remained pretty liberal, which is no small feat in Putin’s Russia; while the lyrics of Nikogda are pretty metaphorical, other songs of hers have flirted pretty closely with controversial topics while never quite getting blunt. (Who can blame her, considering Pussy Riot’s prison sentences?) ShonZi is less familiar to me, but appears to be an up and coming rapper. Language barriers aside, this song is awesome. The beat is engaging, the synth is smooth, and ShonZi and Katina’s vocals fit together beautifully. It doesn’t even feel like as short a song as it really is — it taps out at under two minutes.
2. Pretty Sweet Little Mess – Lilie Hoax
Lilie Hoax is another musician who can clearly be described as ‘up and coming’ – the first time I listened to this track, I could swear she had less than 1k listeners, and now, a month and a half later, it’s getting really close to 3k. (And that’s just on Spotify.) It’s not hard to see why, either. The track starts with a music-box intro and Hoax’s sweet voice in an almost singer-songwriter style. Hoax’s accent adds a really nice element to the song — I’ve always been sad about how often singers are ‘trained’ into singing with more or less American voices, and it’s lovely when someone gets some popularity singing with their own accent. (Bastille is another great example.) But the real achievement of the song is the chorus — where Joni Mitchell switches with a whine of guitar feedback to Sleater-Kinney riot-grrl energy. The overall energy is far closer to Alanis Morissette or Imogen Heap than anybody more ‘normal’, and it’s the kind of thing I dearly missed from indie rock. The best part is that this is from her first album and she’s 20 years old. I just hope she doesn’t get less weird over time.
3. I’m Not Sorry – The Pinpricks
We’ve been to Russia and Australasia — this time we’re in Germany with punk duo The Pinpricks, comprised of fiery female frontwoman Ronja Kaminsky and bass player Nils Degenhardt. I’m Not Sorry is from their second full album, and it’s got the raw energy of second-wave punk mixed with the acoustic grit of the OG grunge bands. Think Le Tigre meets Vice Squad.
What entertains me is that they’re apparently promoting themselves as pop-punk — which, I suppose, is accurate given production values and verse-chorus-verse models, but I’m always a little surprised at what counts as ‘pop’. The lyrics and music video are also an absolute hoot — low budget visual fun with a story that’s a more violent ‘No Scrubs’. I say this all one thousand percent as a compliment. If this means we’re finally getting pop-punk with some actual guitars back, then I’m down.
4. Day to Day – Acid Flashback at Nightmare Beach
Acid Flashback at Nightmare Beach is the project of phenomenally talented musician Lonny Starsky, who released the gorgeous Jazz from the Other Side Of The House in 2023 and is back this year with several singles. “Day to Day” is — not quite a sad song. It’s introspective, melancholy, and both about depression and — if I’m not projecting too much as a trans person living in horrible times — trying to take life ‘day to day’ after being handed an awful hand. Out of all the songs here, I think this is the one where the lyrics have affected me the most personally, and Starsky’s tender voice just makes them land all the harder.
Starsky’s work also defies categorization in a way I really enjoy, both creatively and as a stubborn hipster. Her works are tagged on Bandcamp as everything from ‘alternative’, ‘bedroomjazz’, ‘progressive lonnywave’ (a personal favourite) and ‘psychedelic emo’. This particular single hasn’t shown up on Bandcamp just yet and I’m not personally sure what words I’d use, but I think a lot of these tags speak for themselves.
5. Baliza – Driade
In case this list isn’t making it clear, I genre-hop with pretty extreme regularity. I listen to, quite literally, everything; I find the people who say “everything but country and rap” or “everything but opera” to be cowards. But the first genre I ever got into as a genre, under my own power, was metal. So I’m quite pleased to have at least one proper metal song on here, and what a song it is! Driade is a new band for me, but have been around under a different name since 2020. They’ve got a powerhouse combination of musicians, obvious just from listening to them, and it takes chops to play this kind of metal. All metal is a step or two up in difficulty; black metal is pretty high up there! (Although I’m still debating with myself whether this is black metal, doom metal, or gothic metal. It combines a couple different genre traits, and their Spotify unhelpfully lists them “modern, aggressive, delicate music from Madrid”. The only useful part of that is knowing they’re from Spain.)
Either way, though, this is a hell of a song and one I actually found much later than the rest of the list — it slid under my radar til well into December! I’m very glad I found it, and I’ll be keeping an eye on these folks.
6. Low Mood Season – Casey Lowery
This is the most popular song I think I have on this list, but in my defense… it’s very good. I love good singer-songwriter/folk-influenced work, especially when it’s not from the American South (Lowery is from the UK). And this song, about mutual struggles, hits in such a specific way. It’s not a coincidence that ‘Day to Day’ and this song are on the same list, but they also both came out in November, so who’s really at fault here? Winter, that’s who. Winter can go fuck itself.
Anyway, the production value on this song is incredible, but high production value also can’t do much for a song that’s already rubbish. Everything from the guitar to Lowery’s voice to the lyrics are like jigsaw pieces, and I’m almost annoyed at how much I like this song. I got a tiny bit of metal cred back with the last one and now here I am. Curses.
7. Say No To Drugs – We Don’t Ride Llamas
Now THESE folks are fucking cool. An Afro-Punk band of four siblings based in Austin, Texas, W.D.R.L. is made up of Chase, Max, Blake and Kit Mitchell. You might be expecting a silly song or a silly band, but ‘Say No To Drugs’ is actually a heartbreaking song about pain and — presumably — surviving withdrawal. With a surging soundscape behind Max Mitchell’s vocals, it’s a song you can fall into, and lyrics that might otherwise feel cheesy seem imbued with so much sincerity and genuine empathy that I find myself listening to the song over and over.
Another great note about W.D.R.L. – they were formed in 2014, which means 2024 was their tenth anniversary! Not a small achievement in today’s music world.
8. Riders On The Storm – Mortemia, Sirenia, Emma Zoldan
Next up is an absolutely bloody brilliant cover of ‘Riders on the Storm’ by The Doors. (There’s been a swath of really original cover choices the last few years — I only recently found out about In This Moment’s ‘ARMY OF ME’ back in 2023, on their album Godmode.) This is an odd case of redundant crediting, though; Mortemia is a one-man band comprised of Morten Veland, Emma Zoldan is the solo career of Emmanuelle Zoldan, and Sirenia in its modern format is comprised of…. Morten Veland and Emmanuelle Zoldan. So I don’t know what that’s about. Brand recognition? (Even that doesn’t make any sense, though, since out of all of these Sirenia is the most recognizable.)
Anyway, the song is gorgeous. The Doors are already a favourite band of mine — they’re often considered a precursor to the goth movement, which is one of those observations that sounds bizarre the first time you hear it, and makes sense the more you think about it — and ‘Riders on the Storm’ is, in its original form, a western-tinged song with just a hint of menace lurking behind its bassline. For the time, The Doors were already doing music much grimmer than normal — but of course, in today’s world of distorted guitars and shrieking synth, their work sounds very tame. What Mortemia and Emma Zoldan have done is take the lyrics and the basic frame of the song and opened it up to its full potential. It’s shorter, for one — two, the synths that in the 60s were still in their infancy are at full power here, and layered into a wall of sound that feels like a stormcloud. The guitars are louder, and Zoldan’s voice is a rich alto that feels like the only possible choice. (It would have been very tempting, I think, to go for either a male vocal or a soprano; but there’s a Valkyrie vibe to this that I don’t think would have come across with a gentler or more high-pitched voice.) For those keeping track, Sirenia et al. are Norwegian.
9. Charlie – The Hex
This time we’re in Ireland — look, I swear I didn’t plan this. And this is another band fresh on the scene, which always makes me feel good to cover! In fact, ‘Charlie’ is only their second single, after a release back in 2023. This is another pop-punk/riot grrl-flavoured song, and — amusingly — another revenge song, although this one is a lot more directly about jealously. The rhythm of the lyrics makes me absurdly happy, and I don’t have the knowledge to explain why — it’s just really well written. These girls also have incredible talent; for a second single, this is a hell of a song. They’re determined to play music in both Irish and English, and just in case anybody misses the memo, there’s a line in Irish in ‘Charlie’.
The members of The Hex are Caoimhe Garvin (singer), Katie Moran (lead guitarist), Helen McCarthy (bassist and pianist) and Peas Kelly (drummer). And I am looking very eagerly forward to their first album.
10. In Dreams – Suvitar
For our last song, we’re going to Finland! For those keeping count, we’ve had exactly two Americans on this list. (Which is still more than anybody else.) Suvitar is another brand new artist, which is amazing to me, cause this song is baller. It’s fast-paced with crunchy guitars and gothic vocals, so in other words, exactly my kind of thing. All I know about Suvitar so far is that this is her first single and that she’s very happily leaning into the gothic label. Which, GOOD. There’s been a SHORTAGE.
The easiest place to find out more about Suvitar is over here on her Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/suvitarofficial/.
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Elliott Dunstan 