CTRL+ALT+REPEAT 2025: Best Indie Songs
Joshua Sloane, Oracle Sisters, Mt. Joy, and Arcy Drive delivered some of the best indie songs of the year.
Grab your headphones and blue light glasses, folks, because it’s time for the end-of-year sprint by music publications: annual music recaps.
As we at Off the Record Press revive our CTRL+ALT+REPEAT series, we celebrate the best of what the indie, alternative, and rock gods had to offer this year. From tracks that took Spotify playlists by storm to the underrated bangers that signified artists’ breakouts, here are some of the best indie songs of 2025 to kick off the collective December music reflection.
“Tides” by flipturn
Jane Flautt, Music Extras Co-Editor
To choose just one standout song from flipturn’s no-skip sophomore album, Burnout Days, is a nearly impossible task, but “Tides” is a clear, if underrated, frontrunner. Grappling with the cycle of change, grief, and acceptance, the lyrics use the simple imagery of the tides going in and out in a way that feels fresh and nuanced. The song pulls you in with a gentle guitar melody and lead singer Dillon Basse’s entrancing vocals. Then, after three minutes of slowly building the dreamy, reverb-heavy guitars and heart-pounding drums that define flipturn’s particular brand of indie rock, “Tides” reaches a breaking point, crashing over you with the lyrics, “Well, everything's everywhere / The chrysalis cracks.” Drummer Devon VonBalson’s beat adds a frenetic energy to Basse’s signature vocal cry, held for an achingly long time on “cracks.” As a whole, the beauty of this song lies in its confrontation with the idea of impermanence; change may be unavoidable and happiness a temporary state, but so too is pain — just as the tides are constantly in flux, ebbing and flowing.
“Thrift Store” by Arcy Drive
Brooke Shapiro, Music Extras Co-Editor
You know a band has that “it” factor when they successfully fit a Western-esque bridge complete with bird calls into a driving indie rock song that opens with the lyrics, “Two girls and one wh*re at a thrift store.” Top it off with a hysterically absurd music video, and you get the masterpiece that is “Thrift Store” by Arcy Drive. In two minutes and 14 seconds, the self-proclaimed “attic rock” band tells the tale of an awe-struck boy who lays eyes on a “clean” girl in a thrift shop and the “mess” that ensues. The track, which was released as a single ahead of the quartet’s debut LP The Pit in February, has all the elements of an unrestrained banger; from its grooving bass line, to its perfectly-paced a capella moments, and vocalist Nick Mateyunas’s on-the-brink-of-breaking tenor, “Thrift Store” is an exemplary case study in the art of letting loose.
“Marseille” by Oracle Sisters
Niki Singh, Contributor
“Marseille” walks with you hand-in-hand along a cinematic path: a sun-bleached indie dreamscape that feels equal parts memory and mirage. On this track, Oracle Sisters blend their signature hazy, guitar-filled sound with a languid synth rhythm that makes the whole song feel like it’s “dancing through the fog.” Lyrically, it plays out like a postcard from a half-forgotten summer: longing, romantic, and tinged with that particular kind of melancholy that follows joy too closely. The trio’s harmonies glide effortlessly over the arrangement, featherlight and almost ABBA-like, pulling the listener deeper into the fantasy of the French coastline. By the time the final chorus blooms, “Marseille” captures the slow ache of wanting to stay frozen in a perfect moment just a little longer: “What was in the frame? / No one has a name / Let’s do it again,” lead vocalist Christopher Willatt sings in the final verse. It’s a transportive standout from 2025, and proof that Oracle Sisters remain masters of atmospheric melodies and the subtle emotional blow.
Watch Lucy Dacus and Hozier perform “Bullseye” live on YouTube.
“Bullseye” by Lucy Dacus and Hozier
Harmony Robinson, Contributor
“Bullseye” is the breakout track on Lucy Dacus’s fifth studio album, Forever is a Feeling. Featuring folk rock legend Hozier, “Bullseye” is filled with blissfully sweet harmonies and velvety vocals, as the two reminisce on a love that was doomed from the beginning: “It was young love / It was dumb luck.” The song explores the far-off, dream-like world of lovers everywhere: “The world that we built meant the world to me,” the two sing in the final verse. With lyrics that allude to finding comfort in moving on even while the simplest things remind you of a past lover, “Bullseye” serves as a reminder that traces of love linger despite its ending. In the words of Dacus herself, “When one world ends, the other worlds keep spinning.”
“Nothing I Need” by Lord Huron
Jane Flautt, Music Extras Co-Editor
When listening to “Nothing I Need” by Lord Huron, you’re instantly transported to another time, full of desert sunsets, dusty roads, and reckless, lovesick cowboys. Like so much of Lord Huron’s discography, you can easily imagine hearing the rollicking drums and guitars of “Nothing I Need” filtering through the smoke-filled air of a shabby honky-tonk. Most of the band’s protagonists make all the wrong choices — from breaking marriage vows (“I Lied”) to picking a fight with a man after proposing to his girlfriend (“Fool for Love”) — and this trend continues in “Nothing I Need.” The singer laments leaving his love behind to pursue his own plans, and in a moment of reckoning, he realizes he made the wrong gamble: “Now I got everything I want and I got nothing that I need.” Lead singer Ben Schneider’s charismatic drawl blends with the twang of the steel guitar for a quintessentially Lord Huron tune — a country western folk rock song that’s the ideal soundtrack for driving down lonely stretches of highway, yearning for long-lost loves.
“Shutter Island” by Sasha Cee
Jessica Doherty, Contributor
When I first heard Sasha Cee at the Los Angeles house party concert series Bandshake, her cool girl, quirky office siren outfit immediately drew me to her performance. Cee feels like the younger sister of Sidney Gish, her intimate, green, and charming lyricism blending with the California chic of a new generation. Her first single since 2023, “Shutter Island” is a bedroom confessional of yearning and hopeless romanticism. “Finally changed my sheets today / Been sleeping inside our last conversation … You were playing with my hair at some discrete unknown location / In my dreams, I felt the wind blow / I woke up, it was a lie,” she sings in the first verse. The simple melody, ambient hum, and echoey vocals allow her stream-of-conscious lyricism to flow as she muses on her anxieties in a surprisingly comforting tone: “I paint a picture of a life I think I want, maybe I need / Look down, I ripped off all my band-aids and it’s only 9:03 in the morning.” It’s the perfect on repeat companion for late night drives home and walks at dusk when listeners catch themselves at their most introspective.
“Lucy” by Mt. Joy
Maria Murphy, Contributor
Entering a new year full of unknowns, Mt. Joy’s “Lucy” feels like a timely reminder to stop overthinking and start living. The song blends the band’s signature indie warmth with clean, uncluttered production that lets their emotion breathe. Serving as a lead single from the band's fourth studio album, Hope We Have Fun, it captures the project’s larger theme of making the most of whatever life throws your way. Vocalist Matt Quinn’s delivery, soft but insistent, frames Lucy as someone who managed to live with intention and fearlessness. The lyric, “Lucy won’t fight she knows she’s right / she said she wanted one more jam with us tonight,” hints that maybe this is Lucy’s last convergence with the people she loves, and it gives the song an unexpected emotional weight. In the end, “Lucy” nudges listeners toward embracing life a little more boldly.
Watch the music video for “Fingers and Clothes” on YouTube.
“Fingers and Clothes” by Jake Minch
Jackie Fortis, Music Review Editor
“Fingers and Clothes” by Jake Minch is brilliantly crafted storytelling in the form of a song. With indie folk influences like Phoebe Bridgers and Leif Vollebekk running deep through the heart of his music, the song is layered and topped off with Alix Page’s doubled vocals that give the song a double meaning. The track is built on the idea of lying that you quit smoking and walking into a room with the smell stuck to your clothes, symbolizing when you are dating one person while having a crush on another, thinking it isn’t noticeable. The concept alone shows Minch’s creative genius, which is supported by his beautiful vision for accompanying production elements.
“Waldo” by Hana Eid
Alivia Stonier, Contributor
Haunting guitar chords that linger long after the song ends are immediately brought to the forefront in Hana Eid’s “Waldo.” The track features the softer sides of Eid’s discography, moving away from some of her more typically upbeat sonic choices. Instead, listeners are met with a deep yearning, a confessional ache that feels familiar for anyone that has experienced longing. Both deeply human and memorable, this track serves as a tiny window into a connection between two people hoping for their relationship to bloom into something more. There's a softness that really ties the track together as Eid shows that there’s power behind emotional complexity. Despite having a shorter runtime of under three minutes, the track effortlessly pulls into the situation, giving you just enough to leave you wanting more, mirroring the lyrical subject at hand. It's a whisper of something that you can grow to love more, and it leaves you absolutely hooked.
“Purgatory Silverstar” by Djo
Olivia Garby, Photojournalist
“Purgatory Silverstar” by Djo takes you on a carefully crafted journey from start to finish, making it an absolute treat for first-time (and repeat) listeners. The track is a standout addition to The Crux Deluxe, released as a 12-track companion piece to Djo’s third album, The Crux. It opens with a dreamy blend of acoustic guitar, drums, and soft vocals which steadily build until around the halfway mark. Here, it takes a bold turn with heavy guitars and playful, yet introspective lyrics. Djo explores the aftermath of a relationship, framing the emotional fallout as a kind of purgatory, floating and suspended in isolation: “I’m a vacuum-sealed body bag / In a crafted metal poliwag.” To close out the song, the instrumentation settles back into an acoustic moment, this time adding gorgeous piano to the mix. “Purgatory Silverstar” is constantly evolving and each sonic shift feels exciting, intentional, and seamless — it is fun and expressive indie rock at its finest.
“Shark Attack” by Joshua Sloane
Reegan-Tate Johnson, Co-Editor-In-Chief
Joshua Slone’s “Shark Attack” is the kind of song that makes you do a double take: a strong indie structure, a country surface, and somehow strangely irresistible. Slone writes from the depths of a wreckage, dropping cinematic visuals of “ships in the water” and “bloody teeth” with a resigned tone. The song is haunted with an inevitably painful and unmistakable vulnerability, especially in the TikTok clips where it’s just Sloane and a trusty acoustic guitar. But the studio version flips the mood, wrapping all that emotional damage in driving, bright production that pushes everything forward. It’s a contradiction, sure, but that closing line, “I don’t wanna miss you again,” lands at the final destination of all the chaos he’s been narrating.