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Indie Sleaze’s Ongoing Revival: The Artists Shaping Its Current Sound

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Indie Sleaze’s Ongoing Revival: The Artists Shaping Its Current Sound
In the beginning, God created post-punk revivalism. The indie sleaze scene kicked off in New York City with post-punk revival bands like Interpol, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and The Strokes being embraced by the mainstream.
This coincided with a broader cultural nostalgia in the wake of 9/11, for the days when Television and Talking Heads were the tastemakers of the underground.
Electronics worked their way into the mix in the early-aughts with the success of bands like LCD Soundsystem, Crystal Castles, and MGMT, who incorporated genres like electroclash and French touch into their scuzzy brand of punk-schooled dance music.
Fast-forward to today, and the indie sleaze revival is characterized by a repudiation of current trends, and a reversion to the aesthetics of the Tumblr days: Fcukers was started because the founding members were “over [the] indie shit” they were doing previously; The Dare’s “Girls” is “a rejection of the last five years of music”; and Bassvictim’s Ike Clateman loathes music’s current underground, denouncing everything from Dean Blunt to the Windmill scene.
Today’s indie sleazers have traded in culture blogs and anti-Bush sentiment for gender dysphoria and nihilistic memes, getting picked up by TikTok’s trending page all the while. Below are ten figures to help you chart the scene.

The Hellp – Fashion-Forward Bloghouse Revivalists

The Hellp is fronted by a pair of self-mythologizing fashionistas, Noah Dillon and Chandler Lucy, known in part for their characteristically indie, sleazy wardrobes – a grubby, grungy style harkening back to the days of peak American Apparel consumption, featuring skinny Hedi Slimane jeans, tight and faded band tees, and leather jackets.
And they do more than just look the part: their music is a neon frenzy of glitchy vocal sampling, crashing cymbals, and guitar accents that come straight out of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs playbook.
The Hellp will always be seen as forefathers of the scene’s latest comeback, despite the fact that their latest album, Riviera, saw the group maturing past pastiche, effectively leaving the revival’s afterparty.
For example, the more polished “Here I Am” starts out sounding like a Kavinsky song and evolves to a more textured, less fraught song than anything they’ve done before it.
To hear them in full pseudo-bloghouse swing, check out the tough, stringy song “Hot Fun” off of their “LL Revisited” EP.

The Dare – NYC Club Culture’s New Figurehead

Harrison Patrick Smith, AKA The Dare, is currently the poster child for the NYC club scene, but it wasn’t always that way.
He started out moonlighting as a DJ while working as a substitute teacher in the West Village, hosting and playing at semi-weekly parties he called “Freakquencies,” notable for being soundtracked by Justice, Soulwax, and other massive bands from indie sleaze’s first incarnation.
He refers to his debut single, “Girls,” a hedonistic, wacked-out bit of indie electronica, as “a rejection of the last five years of music,” which has become too serious for him.
Charli XCX said in 2022 that “Girls” “goes off at parties,” and went on to recruit Smith to produce “Guess” off of the deluxe edition of “BRAT,” effectively solidifying him as a contributor to the biggest moment in the scene’s revival ever.
The third single, “Perfume,” from his debut album, What’s Wrong With New York? encapsulates his ideology well: a neat intersection between high-brow aesthetics and hedonistic pleasure-seeking.

The Truth – Indie Sleaze as Self-Parody

The Truth was allegedly created by indie singer/songwriters James Ivy and Roy Blair. The band is uber mysterious and keeps a super low profile, but the general consensus between fans is that they were formed to parody The Dare (hence the name) and The Hellp.
They’re more pastiche than parody, though: “Heroes” and “Wax” sound pretty much just like pre-Riviera The Hellp, complete with swaggering, sashaying vocals and cyber jitters.
Their song “NYUTH” has a line that goes “And if you’re a suit, you’re not invited,” which comes off as a diss pointed at The Dare, his signature suit, and his song “You’re Invited.”
This, as well as “U.S.T,” a tongue-in-cheek dirty electro house remix of USA’s national anthem, shows The Truth’s true colors.
Their keen sense of mockery embodies the spirit of rejection underlying the movement as a whole, and though they’ve gone silent since “NYUTH,” their presence in the movement is notable nonetheless.

Snow Strippers – Hardstyle Euphoria and Witch House DNA

Snow Strippers is an electronic music duo hailing from Detroit, MI, consisting of singer Tatiana “Tati” Schwaninger and producer Graham Perez.
The duo frequently draws sonic comparisons to witch house icons Crystal Castles, a connection that’s made deeper when you learn that Schwaninger and Perez are ostensibly a couple, having met on Tinder in 2018 before forming the group in 2021.
Pre-dating Snow Strippers, Perez went under the moniker of DeliverTheCrush to produce underground rap beats as part of Evilgiane’s Surf Gang collective, a connection that’s still strong today, with Snow Strippers being one of Surf Gang Records’ first signees.
Their euphoric exercise in hardstyle, “Under Your Spell,” gained a lot of online traction in 2024, making it their first song to earn an RIAA gold record certification.
Despite there being lots of trap elements in their music, the duo, at its core, makes electropop music that harkens back to the glory days of Alice Glass — listen to “Cautious” off of their Night Killaz, Vol. 1 EP for an obvious parallel.

Bassvictim – London’s Bass-Heavy Counterpoint

Ike Clateman, Bassvictim’s producer, has said that the name for his and vocalist Maria Manow’s music project originated from the killer, torturous bass at an intense party at Peckham Audio in London, where the band originated — less than 24 hours removed from this party, their lascivious banger “Air on a G String” was recorded.
Emerging from London’s club scene, they released their first single, “Canary Wharf Freestyle,” a speedy, grimy electrohouse cut, in September 2023.
Their music isn’t all garish, bassed-out intensity though: they’re also known for purring, blissful tracks that come and go as lullabies do, like “Life so far.”
Bassvictim’s latest album, Forever, leans into this muted, buzzing sound, Manow’s vocals taking on an ethereal yet cutting quality like that of Feist from Broken Social Scene if she had a more Bjork-y accent.
They’re at the peak of their post-bloghouse powers on last year’s Basspunk 2, though, case-in-point, the twisted, crackling electronics and vocal chopping on “Wooden Girl.”

Fcukers – House Music with Indie Sleaze Attitude

Fcukers was formed in NYC in 2022, with members Shanny Wise and Jackson Walker Lewis both leaving their indie rock backgrounds in search of something fresher.
In March 2023, they released their first single, “Mothers,” a sunny house song with Wise’s sultry vocal delivery acting as a driving force.
Fcukers has since had the good sense to lean even further into Wise’s dusky tone of voice, establishing a more prominent, less glitched-out lead singer than their contemporaries on tracks like “Play Me.”
The duo teamed up with indie sleaze icon James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem fame to collaborate on a remix in 2023, positioning themselves as forebearers of the movement’s revival.
They opened for Tame Impala on tour in 2025 and just announced their upcoming debut album, Ü, to be released on March 27th of this year. All signs point to Fcukers having a big year in 2026.

Garett Caramel & velvette blue – Neo-Justice Club Energy

Garett Caramel and velvette blue are NYC-based electronic musicians who lean into the sounds of the early aughts club scene to form nouveau electronica designed to tear the party down.
The early-Justice influence is clear in the digitized, saw-toothed noise reverberating through “HD,” a track from their collaborative EP, Mixtape.
Though the two don’t always make music together — notably, Garett Caramel has collaborated with one half of Suzy Sheer, boysinblush (see below), on some of his best songs, “Mind Freak” and “Discipline”— they are closely connected by their mutual live shows, their onehundredpercentmusic imprint, and their apparent friendship.
velvette blue is also part of dgnr8, a band started by him and r0ckerfish that operates in tandem with a clout-seeking online presence.
These artists’ indie sleaze influence is most apparent not in their music, but in their leather-clad dresswear and cybersigilist tattoos.
Their music is wonderful, though, combining elements of French touch, house, and hyperpop to create a palpably Gen-Z soundscape, embodied here on “Hotline Bling.”

Suzy Sheer – Eurodance for the TikTok Generation

Suzy Sheer is a collaborative project started in 2021 by NYC-based producer boysinblush and Montreal-based vocalist tuchscreen.
Sheer purveys a unique brand of eurodance fitted to TikTok’s zoomer sensibilities, bearing hyperpop’s stuttering electronics, phonk’s growling sub-bass, and rave music’s frantic BPM.
Similar to Snow Strippers, they also have their hand in some rap production, being credited as producers on “Easter Pink” by fakemink, the most popular song by the current London underground’s posterchild, as well as his song “Braces.”  
Loveforthestreets,” an essential part of the Suzy Sheer canon, is a glitch-hop remix of Young Dolph’s song of the same, yet differently stylized, name.
tuchscreen belts out itchy, strained shouts on tracks like “Euphoriphilia” that are founded on the success of Alice Glass’ blood-curdling contributions to Crystal Castles.
2024’s Euphoriphilia saw the duo at their tranciest, concocting driving, electroclash synth tunes that deserve to be fitted out with a fog machine.
Check out “Chain,” a slithering, electric eel of a digicore track to hear the unmistakable indie sleaze influence.

MGNA Crrrta – Bloghouse Nostalgia Meets Girl EDM

Farheen Khan and Ginger Scott met on a Minecraft server when they were just eleven years old. Khan got into “Arctic Monkeys type shit” in high school, introducing Scott to Crystal Castles, which she says “ruined [her] life in a sense.”
The pair formed MGNA Crrrta in 2022 because they were “lowkey just bored,” not expecting anything to come of it.
However, their debut single from the same year, The American Experiment, an aesthetic callback to the days of cutting up the dance floor at the Mercury Lounge, would make their name known.
Though they evoke bloghouse through their nostalgic mix of EDM, electropop, and dubstep, they’re equally influenced by female pop icons, namely Nicki, Kesha, and Britney.
Having toured with Ninajirachi and Cowgirl Clue, they’re closely associated with the “Girl EDM” scene, but songs like “Tragedy” see the band playing with the corroded and sludgy blogosphere sounds of the past.

Frost Children – Electroclash Chaos Reimagined

Electro-punk protegées Frost Children moved to NYC in 2021, disillusioned with music school and having grown out of cover bands.
The pair, made up of siblings Angel and Lulu Prost, began picking up traction in the Dimes Square nightlife scene, the same one that The Dare cut his teeth in.
They carry on the traditions of the Pitchfork nightlife scene through their chaotic and spontaneous apparel choices, draping themselves in color-clashing vintage tops and chunky shoes.
Their latest album, Sister, starts out with signature-electroclash yelping a la The Rapture on “Position Famous,” the serrated, buzzing keyboards taking two minutes to slowly build to a euphoric, cymbals-crashing EDM-style climax.
“CONTROL” is similarly crafted on the foundation of a pitchy, moody refrain, the angsty chainsaw tones bursting at the seams before exploding into a dense cloud of harsh, digitized noise.
If their sold-out North American tour in support of Sister is any indication, Frost Children are going to be indie sleaze’s torchbearers for some time.
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