Indie Basement is a weekly column on BrooklynVegan focusing on classic indie and alternative artists, “college rock,” and new and current acts who follow a similar path. There are reviews of new albums, reissues, box sets, books and sometimes movies and television shows. I’ve rounded up May’s best music, highlighting my favorite songs and albums, plus links to relevant features and news, a monthly playlist, and more.

What year is it? May’s Best Of roundup includes what is probably the highest percentage of “classic” groups and Indie Basement all-stars in the history of the column. All with new music, and all of it great. It’s almost like it’s the ’90s again, with a few artists from the ’80s raising their hands to show that they’ve still got it too. I find it very inspiring. Who am I speaking of? Read on.

There are of course, newer groups here as well, from the best albums of the month, to the 10 singles I chose to review. For more of May’s best stuff check out the Indie Basement Best of May playlist, available in Spotify and TIDAL form, below.

Head below for this month’s song and album reviews.

INDIE BASEMENT: TOP 10 SONGS OF MAY 2025

Pulp – “Got to Have Love”

If there was any question Pulp were back, here we are with a classic high-drama disco banger featuring most of Jarvis Cocker’s trademarks front and center: the soaring chorus, a glammy guitar solo, the whispery bit, some spelling, and more than a few quotable lines—including this couplet: “Without love you’re just making a fool of yourself / Without love you’re just jerking off…inside someone else.” The video, featuring vintage footage from the famed Wigan Casino’s Northern Soul dance nights, is the perfect accompaniment. “Wouldn’t you like to be able to dance like this,” Jarvis asks via the video’s titles. “Guess what? You can.”

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Saint Etienne – “Glad”

After 35 years of making stellar pop, Saint Etienne are going on permanent hiatus (don’t call it a breakup) —but it looks like they’re going to go out with a big bang. “Glad” is the first single from their 12th and final album, International, and it’s an absolute stonker. Co-written with The Chemical Brothers’ Tom Rowlands and Jimi Goodwin of Doves, “Glad” is pure Saint Etienne: loaded with clever, nostalgic samples, big beats, and sunny melodies, all cut with just a little melancholy. “The song is about taking pleasure in everyday things like nature and the outdoors when life is otherwise getting you down,” says the band’s Pete Wiggs—and listening to “Glad” has much the same effect.

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Mythologen ft The Radio Dept & Jens Lekman – “Radicalised”

Sweden’s The Radio Dept have never shied away from mixing pop and politics, and you’d think that with the current political climate they’d have more than enough to inspire them for a couple of albums. We haven’t gotten anything from them in five years, though, so it was a welcome surprise to get this new single from fellow Swede and longtime Radio Dept collaborator Mythologen, featuring Johan Duncanson’s signature hushed vocals. With Balearic house backing, “Radicalised” could pass for a Radio Dept song—and a great one at that—with its simple lyric “Let’s get radicalised,” a “speak softly” call to arms. And that house piano you hear? Courtesy of Jens Lekman.

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Baxter Dury – “Allbarone” ft JGrrey

In the mind and mouth of Baxter Dury, “Allbarone” sounds like some idyllic Italian getaway—somewhere on the Sorrento peninsula or near Lake Como. No, it’s actually a song about getting stood up at an All Bar One, a UK chain of “posh wine bars for people on apps.” It just sounds more romantic with Baxter’s version—though he’s an unreliable narrator if there ever was one—with JGrrey serving as a Greek chorus of desperation, crying “Answer the texts! answer the phone! Tell me if you’re coming to Allbarone!” atop a perfectly dingy electro backing. (This is the title track to Baxter’s eighth album, produced by Paul Epworth.) Italy actually does play into the video, though, which was shot in Venice.

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mary in the junkyard – “drains”

Young London band mary in the junkyard make what I’d call classic ’90s-style indie rock—guitar, bass, and drums—but bring so much exuberance and charm it feels almost brand new. “Drains” is messy in all the right ways: loose, off the cuff, but not like they don’t know how to play their instruments. Clari Freeman-Taylor dances around the melody, sliding in and out with her phrasing, which is as mesmerizing as the song’s fuzzy, circular riff. I saw them play this earlier this year when mary in the junkyard opened for Wet Leg, and I must admit—I had a better time during their set.

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The Chameleons – “Saviors Are a Dangerous Thing”

When The Chameleons released “Where Were You?” last year, it was outside of what most people expect from the post-punk greats—from the punky style to the sleeve design, which definitely didn’t fit with anything else they’d ever done. But “Saviors Are a Dangerous Thing,” the first single from their first album in 24 years, is the Chameleons you remember: the interplay of ethereal and harder-edged guitars, nuanced drumming, an open-hearted melody, and a grand chorus with socially conscious themes. “Saviors” hits all the right notes—and does so with a great tune.

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No Joy – “Bugland”

The first single and title track from No Joy’s new album Bugland picks up right where 2020’s wild, glitchy, late-’90s-inspired Motherhood left off—but it’s also clearly a dive into deeper waters. Jasamine White-Gluz collaborated with producer Fire-Toolz, making for an inspired match made in weirdo shoegaze dance music heaven. There are glitchy power chords right out of Snap’s “I’ve Got the Power,” layered Cocteau Twins-style harmonies, and a bassline inspired by Korn. It’s one of those “you just have to hear it” songs that’s hard to describe but easy to dig.

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deary – “I Still Think About You”

My favorite new shoegaze group continues to work at a higher level than just about anyone else. “I Still Think About You” is actually one of the first songs deary wrote but had shelved for a few years before giving it another try. Good thing they did—this is wonderful. The harmony vocals and layers of guitar shimmer and melt together over one of their more driving rhythms. The band call it “the most joyful thing we’ve ever written,” and despite its early origins, they say this is a good indication of the direction they are heading now—which is exciting.

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Suede – “Disintegrate”

“If Autofiction was our punk record,” Suede frontman Brett Anderson says, “Antidepressants is our post-punk record.” This writer thinks of Autofiction as Suede’s goth album, and by the sound of “Disintegrate,” the new one is following suit. Anderson’s voice has always had that dark melodrama, and the jagged yet manicured sound befits a group whose members are in their 50s and still, y’know, rocking out credibly. One of the most unexpected second acts continues to bear midnight blooms.

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Gina Birch – “Causing Trouble Again”

Gina Birch turns 70 this year, but she sounds as youthful, rambunctious, and ready to challenge the status quo as when The Raincoats released their debut album in 1979. “It’s not a game / It’s my life / They’re not your rules / It’s our rights,” she sings over a fun, danceable backing that is part vintage post-punk and, with its shouty gang chorus, part Shampoo. The song dissolves into dubby grooves and a litany of inspiring women—including Joni Mitchell, Nina Simone, Yoko Ono, Kathleen Hanna, Stormy Daniels, and more. May Gina continue to cause trouble for many years to come.

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INDIE BASEMENT: TOP 5 ALBUMS OF MAY 2025

Stereolab – Instant Holograms on Metallic Film (Duophonic / Warp)

Instant Holograms On Metal Film does just about everything you want a Stereolab album to do, checking all the boxes: VU guitar chug, motorik drumming, bleepy-bloopy analog synths, vibraphone, horns, wondrously layered harmonies, lefty lyrics, “bah-dee-dah” choruses, and titles that seem like they were generated by a random phrase creator (but in this case were at least partially pulled from the October 1970 issue of Electronics Australia). It all makes for a warmly familiar record, welcoming you like family—record nerd family—at the airport. This is the Stereolab you remember—at least the one that emerged around 1994’s Mars Audiac Quintet and made classics like Emperor Tomato Ketchup and Dots and Loops. Melody is at the forefront, all in the band’s signature style, with lots of room for instrumental zones to stretch out. For a group many still consider to be outré, Instant Holograms is kosmische comfort food—and that’s ok. They’re not breaking much new ground, but nobody else sounds like them—not imitators, and not even Gane or Sadier’s various post-Lab projects.

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Robert Forster – Strawberries (Tapete)

“The last album was very personal,” notes Go-Betweens co-founder Robert Forster of 2023’s The Candle & The Flame, made while his wife Karin was battling cancer. (She’s doing fine, happy to report.) It was a heavy experience, and he didn’t write anything for over a year. When the songs started to come again, he found they were of a lighter mood. “A situation a little bit outside of myself, and I thought that was good. That was a place I could go to.” Outside himself, indeed. Strawberries consists of eight character sketches, all with Forster’s still keen eye for detail and ear for dialogue. The album was made in Stockholm with producer Peter Morén of Peter Bjorn and John, who also plays guitar throughout as part of an all-Swedish band that includes Jonas Thorell on bass and Magnus Olsson (The Last Days of April) on drums, with Lina Langendorf on woodwinds and Anna Åhman on keys. Forster’s songwriting style, indebted to Lou Reed, David Byrne and Bob Dylan, hasn’t changed much since The Go-Betweens and he remains at his literate best here, from romantic parlour dramas like instant classic “Tell it Back to Me” to literate tales of one night stands (“Breakfast on the Train”), and the he-said-she-said playfulness Strawberries‘ title track which is a duet with Karin. Speaking of family members, Forster’s son, Louis (formerly of The Goon Sax) plays on “Such a Shame” which about a rising rock star who has already been ground through the music biz mill. Then there’s closer “Diamonds” that starts like Buffalo Springfield and ends in free jazz chaos. With his heavy days currently behind him, Forster is clearly having fun this time and it’s contagious.

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Ty Segall – Possession (Drag City)

If you’ve ever felt intimidated by the sheer volume of Ty Segall’s releases, Possession is not only a great album but a perfect place to start. “This one was me trying to make a pop record,” he told us. Possession is Segall’s most immediate album yet—an ambitious swing for the fences where he mostly connects. It’s got big hooks and melodies, augmented by bravura string and brass arrangements from bandmate Mikal Cronin, and some of his most thoughtful lyrics to date (co-written with filmmaker Matt Yoka). Possession is steeped in the classics of the ’60s and ’70s, from late-’60s Beatles and The Kinks, to ZZ Top’s Tex-Mex boogie and The Allman Brothers Band’s soulful groove (the title track owes a little to “Midnight Rambler”). The electric piano used throughout the record gives everything a funkier edge that works especially well with the orchestral flourishes on “Buildings” and “Fantastic Tomb.” Where he’s gone for glorious guitar overload in the past, here he wields them for accent—dropping in a sweet lick between lines in a verse, or delicate acoustic arpeggios that float just under the surface. The strings and horns also give Possession a cinematic feel that underlines the emotions of the characters he and Yoka crafted in short story tales of petty larceny, urban sprawl, car culture, and exorcism. Add to that “Another California Song” and Possession plays out like a typical sunny day in Los Angeles—where weirdos still lurk just around the corner. No worries, though: Ty’s got the top down and this is playing on the AM radio.

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Mei Semones – Animaru (Bayonet)

Warm weather is here and I can’t think of a better soundtrack to the blooming flora and fauna than the debut album by Mei Semones. Animaru opens with “Dumb Feeling,” filling the air with bossa nova guitars straight out of a ’60s Jobim album, but 26 seconds in come the fuzzed-out indie rock chords and not long after strings that dance like blossoms in the breeze. It’s an unusual blend of tropicalia, indie rock and chamber pop that is familiar, friendly, satisfying and uniquely hers. Mei and her band are very skilled and songs can turn on a math rock dime from gentle to loud, sweet to aggressive, while they’re always in control of where they’re going. Animaru is the kind of album you could play for MOJO-reading music snobs (raises hand), metalheads, jazz lovers, emo fans, or your grandparents, and they’d all find something to like here. For all the dazzling technique on display, “Dangomushi,” “Norwegian Shag,” and “Toro Moyo” are effortless and tuneful and just sound wonderful. At times, like on album high point “I Can Do What I Want,” Mei is not unlike Cornelius at his Drop peak, blending traditional genres into something her own. Minus the electronics, that is, but I wouldn’t count that out in the future. Mei is just getting started.

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Billy Nomates – Metalhorse (Invada)

Tor Maries’ third album as Billy Nomates expands on her unique, signature mix of new wave, post-punk, and pop country. A few things changed this time around, most notably she used her band — bassist Mandy Clarke (KT Tunstall, The Go! Team) and drummer Liam Chapman (Rozi Plain, BMX Bandits) — in the studio for the first time, which makes these songs fuller, sharper, and hit harder. It also takes her melodic style, centered around her rich voice and distinctive twangy harmonies, even further into folk/country territory. It’s a definite step up for her most confident, personal batch of songs yet which are framed around Metalhorse, a fictional amusement park where the rollercoaster of life is writ large in thrill rides. Tor really feels like she’s come into her own here as she white-knuckles one hairpin curve after another. “Some rides are nice to get on and some rides aren’t,” Maries says. “That’s how life felt for a minute, and it still feels like that a bit now.”

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Here’s the Indie Basement Best of May 2025 playlist (click here for TIDAL version):

Looking for more? Browse the Indie Basement archives.

And check out what’s new in our shop.

Cocteau Twins’ Vast Influence Lives On : 24 Great Artists They’ve Inspired

Slowdive with Robin Guthrie

Slowdive

With a cascading guitar sound and ethereal vocals, Slowdive's sonic debt to Cocteau Twins is instantly apparent, though they took the building blocks and made it their own. The band are admitted fans, especially guitarist Christian Savill who tells us his first exposure was single "Pearly Dewdrops Drops" which changed his life.

"The vocals and words were unlike anything I’ve ever heard," Christian says, "and the guitars seemed huge and mysterious. Then I found the records in my local record shop and found that the record covers were beautiful and their other song titles were equally as bonkers as the first song I’d heard. So many beautiful EPs and LPs came in a short time. I'd tape them and listen on my Walkman whilst wandering around Reading, feeling like I was in a different world to everyone else around me.

It was a time at school when everyone started talking about forming a band. Most of my school wanted to be in a band like U2 or Big Country, but me and one or two of other school weirdos wanted to be in the Cocteau Twins. I finally got to see them live just after their brilliant album Heaven or Las Vegas came out. I was lucky enough to join a band who had the same influences as me and we'd just been signed by Creation records. As I watched, aside from fulfilling that ambition and being mesmerized, I knew that without the Cocteaus I would never have joined a band."

And here's Slowdive singer Rachel Goswell on her relationship to the Cocteaus:

"I first heard the Cocteau twins at the age of 16 when a penpal sent me a cassette of Treasure. I remember going to bed and putting my headphones on and found myself immersed in the magic and wonder of their overall sound musically and Liz Fraser's unmatched voice. There began my love affair with their music which endures to this day.

Heaven or Las Vegas at the time was their most commercial offering to date. I loved and still love everything about this record. Liz’ singing was slightly more decipherable and easier to pick out words and sentences and it definitely had a slightly more pop sensibility, dare I say, around it. I still listen to this record now nearly 30 years later and it still stands the test of time. I was lucky enough when Neil [Halstead] and I were doing Mojave 3 to have the opportunity to support the Cocteaus at a relatively small show in London. I was overwhelmed, really, being in their presence and was far too shy to talk to them at that point in time, even though we were sharing a dressing room. It was for me a very poignant show. The simplicity of their set up with the three of them, but the enormity of their sound. Liz’s voice and Robin's guitar playing being all encompassing. How lucky I felt.

As the years have passed, Robin has become a friend and in recent years, with Slowdive back out in the world, we have met up in France at shows several times. Simon, of course, running Bella Union and with my involvement with The Soft Cavalry we have had many conversations on and off over the years. Liz remains the missing link. How I would love to sit down with her and a glass or two of wine."

Ride

Ride

The original UK shoegaze scene wouldn't sound the way it does without Cocteau Twins, even with groups like Ride who were always more of a psychedelic rock band. You can hear Robin Guthrie's guitar influence on tracks like "Decay" from Nowhere and "Sennen" from the Today Forever EP.

"For me, Cocteau Twins recorded some of the greatest sounds ever committed to tape," Ride bassist Steve Queralt tells us. "Take a listen to Simon’s bass on 'Cicely' or 'Aikea Guinea,' the drums on Treasure and, of course, Elizabeth’s spellbinding vocals on just about every Cocteaus track there is. It’s Robin’s shimmering guitars, though, that set the blueprint for bands like us and is surely where it all began for Shoegaze.

"There’s a fierce, tough edge to their early records which I grew to love the most. But my introduction to the band was through Victorialand, a largely bass and drum free affair, very different from their other records but still unmistakably them.

"I discovered Victorialand while working in an Oxford record shop in the late '80s. It had a pretty cover so I decided to play it over the shop system and immediately fell for it, flipping it over repeatedly A-side followed by B-side followed by A-side over, and over again. It was sometime later that a colleague kindly pointed out that this particular album played at 45 RPM and not the traditional speed of 33 which I’d been enjoying all morning. There aren’t many records that sound so good at both speeds but Victorialand did and still does today. Try it.

"So, from there began the journey back to Garlands through Head Over Heels and the EPs and then onto Heaven or Las Vegas. Heaven or Las Vegas was their final record for 4AD and in my opinion the last great Cocteau Twins album. It had a massive influence on our band at the time as we went into the studio to record Today Forever and Going Blank Again. Ride and many other bands would probably sound very different and some wouldn’t exist at all without this incredible band and the incredible catalogue of sounds they left us with."

Lush

Lush

"The Cocteau Twins' influence on Lush is obvious," says Lush co-leader Miki Berenyi. "Robin produced Spooky, and the Mad Love and Black Spring EPs, so our sound was moulded by the experience. But I find it tricky to list artists they’ve directly influenced because - to me - their genius lies in their unique combination of musicality, experimentation with guitars and studio effects, and Liz’s incomparable voice.

"Yes, there are bands that glide toward one or another aspect. Harriet Wheeler of The Sundays used to get endless comparisons with Liz at the time but it's obvious to everyone now that she has her own beautiful voice and style. Plenty of bands (including Lush) have ramped up the chorus and delay on guitars, but you need to see Robin at work in a studio to discover his tireless experimentation with guitars, pedals and other technological effects to recognise that it’s a lot more complex than that. And I’ve heard plenty of tracks that mimic the Cocteaus' sound and vocal style, but fail to include their beautifully constructed chord progressions, key changes and melodic hooks. Back in the day, Simon would sometimes get referred to as 'just the bass player,' an insult that ignores his vast reservoirs of musical knowledge, which he effortlessly incorporates into his music.

"So I guess my point is that the voice, the guitars, the songs -- they aren’t just simple blocks you can co-opt or fit together to recreate the whole. Each element is huge and deep and unique in and of itself. Many of us try and borrow a hint of one or two facets, but we’re really only scratching at the surface."

The Weeknd

The Weeknd

He's a huge star now who topped five Billboard charts at once back in April -- including the album and singles charts -- but when The Weeknd burst on the scene back in 2011, he was seen as an indie artist (that Drake helped break) with '80s dreampop influences. He sampled The Cocteau Twins' "Cherry Coloured Funk" on House of Balloons track "The Knowing."  "I've always had an admiration for the era before I was born," he told Billboard back in April of this year. "You can hear it as far back as my first mixtape [2011's House of Balloons] that the '80s -- Siouxsie & the Banshees, Cocteau Twins -- play such a huge role in my sound. Sometimes it helps me create a new sound and sometimes it's just obvious. I'm just glad the world's into it now."

Napalm Death (photo: Gobinder Jhitta)

Napalm Death

Robin Guthrie's style is so unique and distinctive (and copied), it's seeped into all corners of  guitar music. Barney Greenway of grindcore greats Napalm Death told Louder Than War, “Our palette for music is huge...even stuff like the Cocteau Twins, which people might be really surprised at, but Mitch and Shane were huge fans of the Cocteau Twins, and so you can hear things in the music and you think maybe I can use that, if I kind of twist it, make it more abrasive.” Napalm Death's "A Bellyful of Salt and Spleen," from 2020 album Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism, has textural guitar-work amongst the punishing riffs and industrial power tools that you could imagine coming from Robin Guthrie.

John Grant at Warsaw (photo by P Squared)

John Grant

"It would be impossible for me to overstate the effect Cocteau Twins' music has had on me," says superfan John Grant who records for former Cocteau Twins member Simon Raymonde's Bella Union label. "I guess I discovered them around '85. Hadn't heard sounds or singing like that before. The period which is closest to my heart is the few years which produced Treasure, Victorialand, Echoes In a Shallow Bay & Tiny Dynamine, Aikea Guinea, and Love's Easy Tears, but every single one of their albums has a period connected to it for me. Blue Bell Knoll was the backdrop to my year in Heidelberg in 1988." (John talked with Fraser about Blue Bell Knoll for it's 30th anniversary at Royal Albert Hall.) "I remember walking home from my job as a night porter at a small hotel at 6 in the morning through the misty autumn streets of that beautiful city and marvelling at 'Athol-Brose' and everything else on that record. It sounded so exotic. The incredible Heaven or Las Vegas and the underrated Four-Calendar Café accompanied me through my time at school in Germersheim, Germany. 'Know Who You Are At Every Age' and 'Evangeline' are breathtaking. Milk and Kisses came as I was settling back into life in the U.S. So yeah, their music has been a constant for over half my life and it continues to transform whatever landscape I happened to be surrounded by. For me it is timeless music. Right now it's the recently released HD vinyl reissues of Garlands and Victorialand. Off the hook."

Prince (via Prince Official Facebook)

Prince

“What I like is stuff that I can’t do. That I would never do," Prince told Rolling Stone in 2014. "Like the Cocteau Twins, I would never do that.” That doesn't mean he wouldn't sample them, though. Prince produced "Love...Thy Will Be Done," the first single from Martika's 1991 album Martika's Kitchen, and it features some throbbing bass and a gurgling synth loop that sounds a whole lot like Cocteau Twins' "Fifty-Fifty Clown" from Heaven or Las Vegas. The track, which Prince sent completed to Martika to add vocals, was also apparently recorded by New Power Generation for their 1995 album Exodus, with a more prominent sample, but did not make it onto the album. Simon Raymonde told The Quietus, "These days, your record label would likely have received notice from Warner or whoever and would have some deal done, but back then, sampling was quite new and no one really knew what the legalities were around it all, and to be honest we were just massively flattered that someone we really liked was into our stuff, so we never thought to ask for money or royalties. Prince liked Cocteau Twins so much that he was keen for us to sign to Paisley Park Records, but I think 4AD had their own plans that didn’t really include him, which was probably a good thing as Paisley Park went bust in 1994.”

Sigur Rós at Forest Hills Stadium, 2017 (photo by P Squared)

Sigur Rós

The Cocteau Twins' influence on Iceland's music scene of the last 40 years is especially potent. It's almost as if Icelanders heard it and finally realized this was the aural equivalent of the spectacular natural beauty of their country, opening the floodgates to artists whose ethereal music flowed like their many stunning waterfalls and hot springs. With an especially transcendent, dreamlike guitar sound and a vocalist whose voice soars with lyrics sung in a invented language, it is hard not to compare Sigur Rós to Cocteau Twins. Thing is, the band claims they'd never listened to them. "When Sigur Rós was starting, we were always compared to Cocteau Twins and I really didn’t like that," frontman Jónsi said recently. "I hated being compared to anybody. Then I got really into Cocteau Twins like two or three years ago. They’re so good. I understood the comparison then." Not only that, Jónsi got Elizabeth Fraser to sing on a track on his first solo album in 10 years.

Liz Fraser with Massive Attack at Radio City Music Hall (photo by P Squared)

Massive Attack

Cocteau Twins albums sold well but the biggest song to feature a member of the band is Massive Attack's "Teardrop," one of three songs Elizabeth sings on 1998's Mezzanine. It was a Top 10 hit in the UK -- and #1 in Iceland -- but entered North America's consciousness as the theme song to long-running medical drama House. (Though if Massive Attack founding member Mushroom had had his way, "Teardrop" would've been sung by Madonna.) But even before Mezzanine, you can hear bits of the Cocteau Twins (and This Mortal Coil) in Massive Attack's music, like on "Three" from Protection, and in the group's darker, gothier material.

American Football (photo by Atiba Jefferson)

Mike Kinsella (American Football / Owen)

"You, in love with the Cocteau Twins / You're bored with your boyfriend," Mike Kinsella sings on "Poor Souls" from Owen's 2002 album No Good for No One Now. Kinsella is a big Cocteau Twins fan and said in a Reddit AMA for new album The Avalanche that the band were "pretty influential this time around." You can hear that on shimmering Avalanche tracks like "On with the Show" and "Mom and Dead." Mike also included Heaven or Las Vegas' "Cherry Coloured Funk" on American Football's "Stay Home" playlist they made for us back in March, writing "My brain rewrites the lyrics to it differently every time I hear it. It’s like beautiful dream-induced Mad-Libs."

The Sundays

The Sundays

The Sundays were an '80s UK indie guitar band fan's dream, like a magical gene-splicing of The Smiths and The Cocteau Twins, though as Lush's Miki Berenyi notes elsewhere on this page, "it's obvious to everyone now that [singer Harriet Wheeler] has her own beautiful voice and style." Still, the Cocteau Twins influence was undeniable, with David Gavurin's style owing a little to both Johnny Marr and Robin Guthrie, and Wheeler's voice was indeed spectacular if entirely her own. 4AD's Ivo Watts-Russell loved The Sundays and wanted to sign them, but they instead chose Rough Trade (The Smiths' label) who released their fantastic debut album, Reading Writing & Arithmetic in 1990, the same year as Heaven or Las Vegas.

The Innocence Mission

The Innocence Mission

With an atmospheric, shimmering sounds and the powerful, unearthly vocals of singer/keyboardist Karen Peris, Lancaster, Pennsylvania's The Innocence Mission -- who formed in the '80s and released their great 12th studio album in 2020 -- were compared to The Cocteau Twins when they weren't being compared to 10,000 Maniacs. They toured with the latter but admit to the influence of the former. "The obvious thing is that we were stunned by the voice of Elizabeth Fraser, and by the sweep and atmosphere of the guitars, of the music played by Robin Guthrie and Simon Raymonde," Peris tells us. "It was music that created its own world and was transportive. But also, it was as if Cocteau Twins brought about a cultural shift in some way, an embracing of music that would be impactful because of the magnitude of its beauty, and that did not need to conform to the music of the times but was its own. That was significant and inspiring to us and to our friends. I think there was a freedom in that, that could be felt by any other person who wanted to make music, in addition to the work ethic that one could hear clearly on their albums, to aspire to."

The Innocence Mission's sound mutated, softened and mellowed over the years, eventually finding a fan in Cocteau Twins' Simon Raymonde who signed them to his label, Bella Union.

Beach House at GovBall 2017 (more by Toby Tenenbaum)

Beach House

From their beginnings, Baltimore dreampop duo Beach House have gotten comparisons to Cocteau Twins, who are an admitted influence on the duo. You could feel it especially on 2018's 7, on tracks like "Lemon Glow" (which is even a title you could imagine Cocteau Twins using). Simon Raymonde, the former Cocteau Twins bassist who runs Beach House's UK label, Bella Union, understands the comparisons. "I see the way people look at Victoria [Legrand]. It's like I'm revisiting what it was like to see a sea of thousands of faces look at Elizabeth, just madly in love with her," he told Under the Radar. "I think it's really emotional, their music. I can't say I ever felt that about our own music. I never cried at our own music, listening back to it, unless I was so frustrated because I couldn't make it sound how I wanted to make it sound. I know that other people did find our music very emotional. Now I kind of understand that better."

M83 at @ Riviera Theatre (photo by James Richards IV)

M83

Anthony Gonzalez filtered his love of the '80s, from John Hughes films to bubbly synthpop and the gauzy world of 4AD, into a unique but nostalgic brand of danceable dreampop on M83's instant classic fifth album, Saturdays=Youth. There is more than a little Cocteau Twins influence on it, like on "Skin of Night" which has the high, gothy drama of the Cocteaus' Treasure. Helping Gonzalez achieve that sound was the album's producer, Ken Thomas, who engineered Cocteau Twins' Aikea-Guinea EP (and went on to work closely with Sigur Ros). Anthony has admitted his affection for the band: "I love Heaven or Las Vegas. I think it is one of my favorite albums from the ‘80s," he told American Songwriter. Heaven or Las Vegas is from 1990 but we know how he feels.

My Bloody Valentine

My Bloody Valentine

The two pillars of shoegaze guitar are probably Robin Guthrie and My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields who took very different approaches to make beautiful, unreal music with their instruments. Shields says that was entirely intentional. From an interview with Westword:

I saw an interview you did with Ian Svenonius on the Soft Focus program where you mentioned that your sound was more dry and up front, like Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr., as opposed to the Cocteau Twins. Absolutely. Part of the thing that really attracted me to a lot of the American groups was a real sense of it being bands playing and capturing it purely on tape. There was rawness to it and up-frontness to it. British groups, in general, have a tendency to use more effects, be more studio-bound. Of course, ironically, me imitating the American sound, it was assumed that my music was studio-bound, when, in fact, I was consciously avoiding doing all of that. I like the Cocteau Twins, though. Fundamentally, the huge irony with the bands called "shoegazing" was that a lot of those bands really were into the Cocteau Twins. And they all used choruses, flangers and other effects pedals to create a certain kind of sound. Three pedals I refused to use in that era were chorus, flanger and delay. Everything we did was everything but that.

Still, you hear a My Bloody Valentine song like "Swallow," from the Tremolo EP, and you might wonder if Shields didn't have a similar goal in mind even if getting there by an entirely different route.

Explosions in the Sky at Knockdown Center (photo by Toby Tenenbaum)

Explosions in the Sky

Post-rock is another genre that would probably not sound the way it does without the Cocteau Twins. One of the biggest bands in the genre, Explosions in the Sky, pulled from Guthrie's ethereal bag of tricks but applied them to an entirely different form, making stirring, cinematic, instrumental rock. In an interview with dmute, EITS' Chris Hrasky notes that Cocteau Twins (and Slint and The Cure) all played a part in post-rock's DNA, at least their brand of it. This was another case where the feeling was mutual. Simon Raymonde was enamored with EITS and signed the band to Bella Union in the UK in time for the release of their 2003 classic, The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place.

Arca

Arca

Venezuelan musician Arca's music is celestial and alien, seeming to come from an entirely different galaxy than ours, which is probably what attracted her to Bjork. Instruments are manipulated to the point where they are no long recognizable and on his more atmospheric tracks, you get some of that same feeling you do with the Cocteau Twins. Then there's Arca's 2016 track "Entrañas" which chops up Cocteau Twins' operatic Treasure cut "Beatrix" into bite-sized morsels and blends them with distorted beats as part of this disorienting, sometimes beautiful, sometimes grotesque, sound collage. She and Fraser may exist on different moons but they're orbiting the same planet.

The Sugarcubes

The Sugarcubes / Bjork

Bjork is, of course, a hugely successful, totally unique artist. An influential iconoclast. But as a teenager in Iceland she was a voracious music fan. "I was 14, hanging out with people who were much older than me at the only indie shop in Reykjavik," she told The Guardian. "Everybody volunteering, to keep the tiny shop alive. We imported really accidental things – the big Cocteau Twins album never made it, but their fourth awkward album that nobody else knew about did. We’d be like: ‘We love it!’" The Cocteau Twins' influence on her band The Sugarcubes was undeniable, especially their 1988 debut, Life's Too Good. Just listen to the album's classic single "Birthday" -- the deep sea thrum of the bass, woozy layers of guitar, and Bjork's voice that soared and dipped with daring beauty.

Radiohead at Coachella 2017 (photo by Erik Voake)

Radiohead

"The Cocteaus are cool," Thom Yorke told VOX magazine in 1997, responding to a quote from an OK Computer review that called it "a shameless rip off of Jeff Buckley and The Cocteau Twins." Ed O'Brien added, "I was a huge Cocteaus fan. What Robin Guthrie does on guitar is amazing. They are an influence, but there’s no point directly ripping something off," while Jonny Greenwood replied, "I’m excited by that comment, the idea we can do something even approaching that."

Deftones

Deftones

As a band who have been referred to as "The Radiohead of metal," Deftones have unsurprisingly wide-ranging influences. To get a feel for just how wide that range is, just look at the many covers they’ve done, which include artists from all different genres and eras like The Smiths, Depeche Mode, Drive Like Jehu, Jawbox, Sade, The Cardigans, The Cure, The Cars, and more, and of course, Cocteau Twins. They’ve done an impressive, muscular take on "Wax and Wane" (from the Cocteaus' very gothy debut album, Garlands), and even outside of that cover, you can hear the influence. When Deftones are at their dreamiest and most atmospheric, it’s easy to draw a straight line to Cocteau Twins.

Wye Oak (Kendall Bailey Photography)

Wye Oak / Flock of Dimes

Jenn Wasner of Wye Oak and Flock of Dimes is a singer and guitarist who can wield her voice and instrument with both power and ethereal beauty. She's got a little of Guthrie and Fraser in her style, and she is a fan. "The first Cocteau Twins album I heard was Treasure when I was in high school," Wasner tells us. "It instantly captivated me; I had never heard anything like it. I don’t think I had really understood to that point the power of pure sound, devoid from any sense of literal meaning. It changed my approach to writing permanently." She goes on to say that Heaven or Las Vegas is "an all-time record for me, a hugely beloved and formative work. It’s one of a very few records that has lost none of its spark or emotional pull, even with countless listens over many years. I’ve tried to take it apart, to capture some of its essence in my own work, but it’s always eluded me. There’s some kind of magic within it that elevates it far beyond the sum of its parts. A true masterpiece."

Reggie Watts at Bonnaroo 2018 (photo by Adam Fricke)

Reggie Watts

Comedian, rapper, dance music producer, James Cordon bandleader. Cocteau Twins fan. "I was a huge New Waver, kind of goth industrial kid. Cocteau Twins is a huge, huge one for me, and The Sundays," Reggie Watts told Inverse. "I was mostly gravitating toward that kind of music because I love the darkness of it very much. And I had an amazing crew of friends that were super unusually good looking. It was like The Lost Boys, only half of them were girls, and we all got along together. We were all friends and went on vacations and adventures." Like Elizabeth, Reggie possesses a multi-octave range voice, and like Robin Guthrie he's a master of loop effects pedals.

Kelly Lee Owens (photo: Kim Hiorthøy)

Kelly Lee Owens

Before she started making ethereal electronic dance music, Kelly Lee Owens played in London shoegaze band History of Apple Pie, and you can hear echoes of the Cocteau Twins in just about everything she's done, including 2020's Inner Song. "The Cocteau Twins have been a huge inspiration to me," Kelly tells us. "From the dreaminess of each track sonically, to Elizabeth's voice. The way that the feeling comes before the words themselves in her lyric writing, pushed me to find that place in my own melodies." She adds, "There isn't a single track they've made that I dislike, which is incredible -- I don't think I could say that about every artist. The world they've created sonically I could inhabit forever. I'm immensely grateful for their art."

No Joy (photo by Matieu Fortin)

No Joy

Montreal band No Joy make a brand of shoegaze/dreampop that can be both delicate/beautiful and pummeling/deafening, and to the former have definitely tipped their hat to the Cocteau Twins. "As a songwriter, I always created melodies based on feeling and filled in the lyrics as an afterthought," says bandleader Jasamine White-Gluz "When I discovered Cocteau Twins, it was a huge validation for me in this technique. Heaven of Las Vegas remains untouchable; production-wise it sounds like so many different eras at the same time, songs are deceivingly catchy, it defies genres. No one has come close to recreating a wonder like this record and I don't think ever will (so we should all stop trying)." Given the bonkers nature of No Joy's latest album, Motherhood, Jasamine is taking her own advice.