4 Indie Artists Every Melomaniac Should Have on Their Playlist

Your music choices say a lot about you. Are you a classic rock fan who wants to flex to big guitar solos? Do you like solemn grunge music that makes you feel all the feels? Maybe you’re a rap fan who loves lyrics, an electronic music guru who knows what machines make what sounds, or maybe you dig the timelessness of classical music?

Whatever your proclivities, we imagine indie rock is in your top five genres. And given that you’re someone (we assume) who likes to talk about music and share your favorite songs, we thought we’d do the same. For if you want to appear to be someone in the know (and who doesn’t these days?), you better check out these four indie acts and add them to your playlist.

Death Valley Girls

The Los Angeles-born group Death Valley Girls sounds like an ancient spell incarnate. Fronted by Bonnie Bloomgarden, the band offers a sonic quality like that of opening a scroll and peering into some mythical secret. They’re part-incantation, part-spiritual seance. Whether the project is producing songs about literal magic powers or covering Fleetwood Mac, they’re essential listening today, tomorrow, and forever more.

Natalie Bergman

When you put on the music of Natalie Bergman, it’s like you’ve entered your own black and white movie. Suddenly, you have a soundtrack to mark your story and provide emotional resonance. Bergman makes you feel like you’re the star of your own show; she empowers you to feel central in your own life, which is a rarer thing than we might think at first. She combines a devoutness with a doo-wop aesthetic that is both classical and deeply heartfelt. Check out her new single from her forthcoming LP below.

Deep Sea Diver

Fronted by master guitar player Jessica Dobson, the bubbly and bouncy Seattle-born band Deep Sea Diver recently released a new album, Billboard Heart. That LP follows their stellar record, Impossible Weight, which helped so many get through the early part of the 2020s. Fans of Deep Sea Diver may have seen them on tour with Pearl Jam recently or on their own string of headlining gigs. With Dobson, buzzy and bold as always, Deep Sea Diver may just become your new favorite band.

La Luz

The lush, gilded group known as La Luz also has a new album out recently, News of the Universe, which dropped in 2024. Fronted by Shana Cleveland, there is a wistful quality to the group’s harmony-driven, dreamy tracks. It’s like you’re swimming in a whirlpool of liquid poetry that may sink you or may take you to another part of the world. Are you willing to risk it? Cleveland is soothing-yet-stirring. That’s what the honest-to-god truth will do to you—it’s unnerving but also blissfully freeing. La Luz is just that in every face-melting bent note.