Cinders releases “Growing Up”
SLC trio Cinders released their first single in a few years on Feb. 21, by way of the song “Growing Up,” and the accompanying video on March 1. The track finds them once again channeling the brand of indie pop they perfected on their 2018 album Looking Forward to Looking Back. The song builds on a what seems to be a legacy of indie pop that was built in the early 20-teens—think Walk the Moon, Grouplove, Young the Giant and Neon Trees. “Growing Up,” sounds off like an incredulous, stepping-stone realization that growing up isn’t all it's cracked up to be, a tale as old as time. But it also smacks of a particularly millennial problem: We still feel like kids, because none of us can afford not to! Lead singer Montana Smith sings, “I’ll bet you thought that growing up would make you feel more mature / but I feel more like a kid than I ever did before / I’m over this! / Too old for finding peace of mind in pieces all the time / I guess that’s just the way it goes.” Despite these stressed lyrics, the song sounds like a neon-themed party, propped up by a chorus of ba-da-ba-da-da’s. Mixed by Phil Joly of Daft Punk, Lana Del Rey and The Strokes, the song is a shot of pure pop for those who can take it. View the video—which stars a stop-motion teddy bear being forced to “grow up” in a charming but also kind of tear-jerking tale—here. Find the song on Spotify.

Choir Boy release cover of “All My Rowdy Friends (Have Settled Down)”
SLC’s indie pop darlings, Choir Boy—who in the spring of 2020 released their much-awaited second album just as the pandemic was settling in—are back to business, a bit, with a new cover of, of all things, a Hank Williams Jr. song. Those who know their music know it’s a distinctive combo on goth, affective ‘80s pop and contemporary indie that in recent years have won them overseas tours and fans to match. That makes this even more of a strange song to cover, since Williams Jr. is of course, a country man. The single just dropped for Bandcamp day, and it’s actually quite good, with Choir Boy’s signature synth parks mewing dreamily and singer Adam Klopp’s voice delivering the lyrics in his uniquely expressive range, with melancholy tone. Anyone who knows the lads in the band knows that they are a rowdy bunch themselves, but they, like all of us in this pandemic, have been forced to settle down. Oh, would it were owing to marital bliss instead of a virus. Stream it on Spotify or purchase at choirboy.bandcamp.com.