Are we slowly seeing a return of the bombastic in the underground? After lo-fi and chillwave all made slacking, underachiving and grotty insouciance the mood de jour. Recently we've been witnessing something more resembling high-fidelity in our musical youth, who appear to actually be interested in crafting sounds, rather than just getting songs down on a four-track and relying on hip nonchalance rather production quality.

So even though Swim Deep's member's look like they should be drinking cans of cider outside Tesco on Kinsgland Road, their music heralds something more adventurous than their love of denim jackets might suggest.

Out on Chess Club on May 14th.

It take's less than thirty seconds of Devin's 'Masochist' to fall in love with it; with its big, squealing guitars; high-energy drums; layers and layers of backing vocals; sharply dressed New Yorkers. It's got the bombast to get close enough to kitsch and sentimentality without getting bogged down in it, and comes out channelling the better moments of The Strokes and Tom Petty. Devin is perfect with his pocket handkerchief, and 'Masochist' is three minutes of classic pop-rock.

If I was a girl I'd be cutting his picture out of the NME and sticking it on my bedroom wall.

Out April 23rd on No Evil.

Toy are slowly but surely shaping up to be the band to watch this year, after debut single 'Left Myself Band' cracked out a heavy dose of recontextualised krautrock fantasies, new track 'Motoring' builds on that driving, Korg led sound, with a smattering of pop melodies.

Like Kraftwerk's 'Autobahn', Toy's 'Motoring' is an homage to chasing the horizon down a strip of tarmac.