Five new artists to rival The Strokes
The Strokes are back. Now veterans of the indie scene, it feels like so much of the modern rock world has been built in their shape.
I’ll admit it, I genuinely thought the band were finished. During their last run of shows, there seemed to be a real sense of tension between the members. At London’s Victoria Park, Julian Casablancas sang through ‘Is This It?’ while adding a defeated “yep” after each question. At the time, it honestly felt like his way of saying goodbye.
But alas, the band recently announced a brand new album and a string of tour dates. However, it begs the question: Do we need the OGs when there are now so many amazing new acts following them up in the next generation?
It’s almost tough to pin down which bands are the most Strokes-like when it feels like there is at least a tiny bit of the band in each and every new indie outfit coming up. It’s a tough reference to avoid, but in these five acts, the balance of familiar energy and freshness is perfectly done.
Five new acts to rival The Strokes:
Loïc April
In 2024, when Montreal’s Loïc April dropped the song ‘Mes Wranglers et moi’, I reviewed it, writing, “Imagine The Strokes if Julian Casablancas was French Canadian. That’s the energy here, and it’s excellent”.
April bottles that classic indie feel that The Strokes helped to cultivate, but he also bottles the older nostalgia that fed into them. Out of their entire New York Scene, The Strokes always felt like the indie sleaze band willing to hold their hands up to being influenced by the old school rock and roll names like The Beatles, and as April sings with a crooning French swagger, he has that too.
For those missing a version of Casablancas that was more effortlessly cool and the band were more upbeat, look here.
Witch Post
Out of every artist on this list, Witch Post feel like the band that differs most, but that’s perhaps what makes them so apt to include.
Across their records, The Strokes are like ten bands in one. Sometimes they’re outright and loud, sometimes they’re stripped back like on the tender demo version ‘I’ll Try Anything Once’, or on a song like ‘Call It Fate, Call It Karma’.
Across their discography, Witch Post tick all those boxes. ‘Chill Out’ and ‘Rust’ are booming and anthemic, while a song like ‘Spell’ is softer and beautiful, more emotional and introspective. Made up of Scotsman Dylan Fraser and American Alaska Reid, their meeting in the middle of the indie landscape might not sound exactly like The Strokes, but it carries their enigmatic ethos.
Lime Garden
You know how Strokes songs often come with a joke or a sly little smirk, full of wit and sharpness? Brighton’s Lime Garden have that in abundance.
They’re ticking so many boxes here. Huge riffs, a knack for catchiness, lyrical bantering, just enough angst. They also have that glorious indie band energy of feeling made for the stage, where everything goes into the live shows and the band sounds exactly the same on tour as they do on tape.
Having just released their second album with a huge bumper crop of tunes that feel like they could be timeless anthems in the future, the boisterousness of tracks like ‘Maybe Not Tonight’ and ‘All Bad Parts’ feels made in the image of The Strokes’ energy, while ‘23’ captures the underlying existentialism of it all.
Dead Dads Club
There was the indie sleaze era of the early 2000s, and then directly after, the 2010s indie bands were a direct product of that influence. Cleaned up slightly and mostly born out of random suburbs, acts such as Wolf Alice, Swim Deep, Peace and so on appeared. Amongst them, as a long-lost favourite, was Palma Violets, the partnership of duo frontmen, Samuel Fryer and Chilli Jesson.
That band split in 2016, but in all of Jesson’s projects since, that old school inspiration has stayed intact. His newest band, Dead Dads Club, especially bears the marks of Casablancas in his vocal delivery as well as the band’s layered instrumentals.
Fast Money Music
If none of that is enough and you’re craving for basically a carbon copy, look towards Fast Money Music.
The solo project of Nick Hinman feels like if you took all the indie classics and put them in a blender. Specifically, it sounds like if you took The Strokes, The 1975 and Tom Petty and put them together with ice, tequila and lime juice to mix them up into a margarita. Capturing the boyishness of it all, as well as the catchiness that gets crowds moving, it’s foolproof music in the way The Strokes’ hits are.
Perhaps the only difference is that Fast Money Music is born and raised in California, so maybe just imagine a world in which the indie sleaze, ‘Meet Me in the Bathroom‘ crowd were actually all hanging out on the beach instead.
