Indie Vibes 2023 ✨

cooks ~ still woozy

Butterfly

POPSICLE

DARLING

Outrunning It

Good Time All The Time

Celebrate

Famous

You & I, is the next single from the upcoming EP out in June.

You & I

Outter

Boston grit-pop trio Happy Little Clouds’ sophomore album tells a poignant story of reflection, assessment and awakening. The band’s collective experience has shaped these nine tracks on Embers, and the stories contained within, packed tightly in the band’s eclectic, melodic, and soulful post-grunge sound, offer an invitation to seek refuge, seek allyship, and attempt, both collectively and individually, to make sense of an insane world. 

The record’s title derives from a lyric in new single “Liar Fire” -- “All my body curls like embers / Up or down I’m forced to choose” – a white-hot blast of ‘70s arena-rock ambition that sets a striking tone for an album packed with definable moments.  

“We really liked the symbolism of embers because it represents an intense, ephemeral light – like life,” the band states. “While an ember burns you can’t tell which way it’s going to drift. In the song, it represents a panicked moment where you are at a crossroads in life. You either choose to give into your fear or move toward love.” 

The songs in the album follow a narrative,” the band explains. “Fresh-faced optimism, encounters various obstacles, people and life experiences. Our protagonist plumbs the depths of introspection, existentialism, and eventually a dark night of the soul. They reemerge after hitting rock bottom and sincerely ask, like The Fool in the tarot, ‘Can you help me with these questions about life, loss, and love?’” 

By Embers’ closing track, “The Water at Your Feet,” there is a reflection back at life, and Mestel sums it up perfectly: “Like a town drowned to create a reservoir with all its once relevant objects now relics of the past. We end the album looking back through all of life, both the painful and the joyful parts, all together.” 


Clear and Present Danger

Slowly

Oh God

"Paper Prayers" is a gentle acoustic pop track about the vulnerability of hope. It captures the feeling of sending your deepest wishes out into the universe, unsure if anyone is listening, but doing it anyway.

(Verse 1)
I’ve got a notebook full of scribbles under my bed
Things I couldn't say, so I wrote them down instead
Ink stains on my fingers, tears on the page
Trying to break out of this silent cage
I fold them up into tiny little planes
And fly them out the window into the rain

(Chorus)
These are my paper prayers
Caught on the wind, going nowhere
But maybe they’ll land in the palm of a hand
That can finally understand
I’m sending them up, I’m letting them go
To the sky above from the world below
Just paper prayers, fragile and thin
But that’s how the healing begins

(Verse 2)
I wrote one for forgiveness, I wrote one for the past
I wrote one for the moments that went by too fast
"Dear God, if you're reading, I’m sorry for the mess"
Is usually how I start every single address
It’s cheaper than therapy, safer than speech
Putting the secrets just out of my reach

(Chorus)
These are my paper prayers
Caught on the wind, going nowhere
But maybe they’ll land in the palm of a hand
That can finally understand
I’m sending them up, I’m letting them go
To the sky above from the world below
Just paper prayers, fragile and thin
But that’s how the healing begins

(Bridge)
Maybe the rain will wash the words away
And turn them into something new today
Maybe the ink will bleed into the ground
And grow a flower where no hope was found

(Chorus)
These are my paper prayers
Caught on the wind, going nowhere
But maybe they’ll land in the palm of a hand
That can finally understand
I’m sending them up, I’m letting them go
To the sky above from the world below
Just paper prayers, fragile and thin
But that’s how the healing begins

(Outro)
Fly away, fly away
Paper prayers on a rainy day
Fly away...
(Fade out with acoustic guitar picking)

DARLING

Tomas Chris

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