15 Rising Bands to Know for 2021

What’s in a band? We struggled over the question, and the questions that followed—is it more than two people? Does someone have to play an instrument? What’s an instrument, really? 

Here’s where we landed: you know it when you hear it. Some musical projects are clearly an execution of one mind’s vision, even when it takes a group to make it happen. And Adam Levine’s not all wrong—2021’s music industry is built for singular stars, iconic personalities. 

But he is mostly wrong. Plus, there was this snarky, pitying tone to how he told Zane Lowe, “I feel like there aren’t any bands anymore, you know?” that wrinkled my nose. He called bands a “dying breed.” Which, if you’re the lead singer of one of the previous decade’s biggest bands, is a self-own worthy of further discussion at therapy. The bands didn’t change, Adam Levine. You did.

We did set some ground rules: The bands on this list have no more than three full-length albums. They’ve all formed in the last five(ish) years, and have followings less than or equal to 1% of Maroon 5’s 52 million monthly listeners. They’re also not already hugely famous.

This list is mostly vocal-forward rock bands, a word worn so thin that it’s hardly helpful as a qualifier. But, generally: music you wouldn’t be surprised to find here. All apologies to my punk, noise, choral, and ambient instrumentalists. You are loved.

All these bands are at various exciting points in their careers, with uniformly bright futures in common. And they got here by building something great, together.

Hometown: Brooklyn, NY/Los Angeles, CA

Essential tracks: “BNR,” “Gone”

My introduction to Crumb was “Locket,” still the song that comes closest to distilling a psychedelic trip into an audio file. The video helps too. Regardless, I was hooked, and have been following the four college friends ever since. Crumb makes thoughtful jazz-rock, and their 2019 debut album Jinx was weird and wonderful enough to break through the blogosphere on the strength of chilled-out anthems like “Ghostride” and “Part III.” 

An intense touring schedule was interrupted by the pandemic, but it made room for more music. Just two years after Jinx, the band’s sophomore album Ice Melt arrived last month swathed in the effect pedals and cryptic lyrics that have become something of a calling card. It introduces a smoother, sleeker version of the band, with a new emphasis on lead vocalist Ramani’s slurry, enigmatic melodies. The album was recorded in L.A. with indie rock guru Jonathan Rado and released on the band’s own Crumb Records. Crumb may not be a household name yet, but their slow and steady approach have cemented their place on the genre’s cutting edge.

Hometown: Los Angeles, CA 

Essential Tracks: “Sick of Spiraling,” “Stay in the Car”

Last year, the minds behind Jay Som (Melina Duterte) and Palehound (Ellen Kempner) rented a house in the California canyons. Topanga Canyon, to be precise—a winding, weaving little hippie hideout with a long creative history. Two weeks of writing and recording followed, and the resulting album, Doomin’ Sun, arrives May 28. 

Supergroups come with expectations, but three singles in and Bachelor have already outdone themselves: whether it’s a biting guitar solo (“Sick of Spiraling”), a meticulous cacophony (“Anything At All”), or a weightless breakdown (“Stay In The Car”), these two friends have achieved new levels. 

The music has a distinct feel, due in part to Duterte’s technical ingenuity. “I had this Tascam 4-track [tape recorder],” she told Pitchfork. “We recorded sounds into it, put them into the computer, then put them back into the cassette tape and used a pitch wheel to make synths that way.”

But it’s Bachelor’s lyrics that echo back hours later. Duterte and Kempner are proven storytellers and longtime friends, and their connection makes for a rare kind of realism: the Chevys, cheap gas station knives, and blood-ringed fingertips all feel like non-fiction. These are hardly rote songs about the magic of friendship—Bachelor’s music sounds like spontaneous ideas and secrets two friends tell only each other.

“One of the things we talked about a lot was being solo artists really young,” Kempner said. “It’s too much responsibility to put on someone at that age. So much of who I am is shaped by being exposed at that age, especially as a queer woman. It was nice to be able to really talk to someone who understood that.”

Hometown: Cary, North Carolina

Esssential tracks: “Saturday Nights,” “Pears”

Sometimes talent just jumps out. And every member of Weston Estate has a musical knack. Comprised of Srikar Nanduri (guitar), Manas Panchavati (vocals), Tanmay Joshi (vocals), Abhi Manhass (production, bass), and Marco Luka (vocals), the group has been making music since 2017. 

They went their separate ways for college, only to be reunited by the pandemic. Their music is smooth and modern, drawing inspiration from crooners like Frank Ocean and Omar Apollo, and also drawing from their own cultural influences (all the band are of Indian descent except Marco, who is first generation Cuban-American). They signed to Arista Records in 2020 and released two singles with another two released in 2021, and more on the way.

“Saturday Nights” and “Pears” are recent standouts, and they’re two very different songs. “Pears” is an introspective contrast to the flashy anticipation of “Saturday Nights.” This band is clearly in sync, and are making some of the most polished, likable alt-pop out.

Hometown: Fleet, Hampshire, England

Essential Tracks: “What’s On Your Mind,” “Frame of Reference”

Isolation and escapism. That’s what Drug Store Romeos had on hand when they turned to music. They’re from a suburb an hour north of London, three friends within 10 minutes of one another, all drawn to the flame of music. The resulting rock is a fitting reflection. Simultaneously serene and curious, songs like “Quotations for Locations” and “Frame of Reference” make all the right choices. A synth here, a pitch bend there—patience and details are what set Drug Store Romeos apart. 

“What’s On Your Mind” is their latest, a dreamy hopeful cut that sits with you like a distant memory. “The last half of the song is sort of our interpretation of a mental journey through realisations about past situations that send you down rabbit holes of thought that end up linking to other rabbit holes,” the band says. “During this journey you go through positive and negative emotions, but the negative emotions are not inherently bad and can lead to positive change. ‘What’s On Your Mind’ is also about perspective change and was made for listening to at 10pm as you’re settling in for the night.”

After a handful of singles, their official debut album The world within our bedrooms arrives June 25. And if recent developments are any indication (“a practicing catholic monk just gave me 3 tabs of acid to help us write our second album,” the band recently tweeted), it’s only up from here.

Hometown: New York City

Essential Tracks: “FYO,” “SUNRISE” 

MICHELLE made a splashy entrance in 2018, as only a genre-defiant six-piece ensemble can: HEATWAVE was a statement of purpose as much as it was a debut album, led by the sticky synth-wave anthem “THE BOTTOM.” Their sound is an open-ended interpretation of pop and R&B, with a variety of voices and harmonies trading places on a given song. The collective signed to Canvasback/Atlantic Records after the self-released debut, and the follow-up to HEATWAVE is due out this summer. 

The hype has been building for a year: After the jaw-dropping positivity of “SUNRISE” arrived last June (with an Arlo Parks feature in tow), MICHELLE flexed their writing muscles with “FYO” in January 2021. The song is a lyrical rumination on multiracial identity, signaling a purposeful new era for the group. “’FYO’ is about belonging to different worlds but feeling rejected by both,” MICHELLE’s Jamee Lockard said. “Growing up as a mixed-race minority in the US, my self concept was warped by other people telling me what I am and am not, pushing and pulling me between identities...We should never give others the authority to define who we are.”

Hometown: Nagoya, Japan

Essential tracks: “ACTION,” “PING PONG!” 

CHAI has been buzzing since their first EPs dropped in 2018. There was a Pitchfork interview in 2018, and a feature alongside JPEGMAFIA on the 2020 Gorillaz cut “MLS.” They also met their hero DEVO. But this is the year CHAI breaks through like never before: WINK arrives May 21, the band’s first album on their new label Sub Pop. 

Their music is at once loose and intricate, displaying instrumental wizardry and a refreshing disinterest in metronomes. Ferocious joy defines their early EPs, and while the intensity is still present in 2021, there’s a new level of focus to this latest music. 

The band—comprised of Yuuki (drums), Yuna (bass), and twin sisters Mana and Kana (vocals, guitar)—has made a mission of writing songs celebrating their true selves and challenging patriarchal expectations. “N.E.O.” is an iconic send-up of the beauty industry, “ACTION” was written in response to last year’s Black Lives Matter rallies, and “PING PONG!”—that’s just about ping-pong. The dramas of romance are studiously avoided, and the music never suffers from a lack thereof. 

There are plenty of other things to focus on. Like this next album. WINK will be an album of firsts. It’s the first time they’ve recorded at home, and the first time they’ve worked with outside producers (Mndsgn, YMCK). The pandemic forced CHAI to trade maximalism in for something more personal, and it’s sounding like their best work yet.

Hometown: Toronto, Canada

Essential tracks: “Easy,” “You Were In My Dream Last Night”

Babygirl was born into a life of music. Kirsten “Kiki” Frances started writing song at nine, and Cameron “Bright” Breithaupt grew up in a household of professional musicians. They first met in college, bonded over a shared love of Lil Wayne, and started creating seriously catchy songs. “You Were In My Dream Last Night” is especially contagious, expertly walking the fine line between romance and heartache. It’s one of six tracks on the duo’s gloomy masterpiece Losers Weepers, released last month 

Their unadorned songs build and bloom: every new phrase is sure to include a little ear candy or percussive perk, each hook guaranteed to take the song in a new direction. In short, there’s no fluff. Babygirl’s music packs a punch, even when it’s just a tambourine and plunky bass accompanying Kiki’s immaculate vocals. These two have created their own vintage of of angsty pop rock, something haunting, hopeful, and timeless all at once. “We had similar tastes when it came to pop music and that made us want to try working together,” Frances told Audiofemme. “We were just like, how do we write a hit song? Let’s figure it out,” Breithaupt said.

Hometown: Dublin, Ireland

Essential tracks: “F**k That,” “Drive”

Incredibly, “Drive” is the first song Just Wondering wrote as a trio. “All the lyrics were written completely together, regardless of who’s verse it is,” the band told The Line of Best Fit. Wale Akande, Jack O’Shaughnessy, and Adam Redmond are passing the mic with frequency and grace on the track, their first “official” release. A handful of singles were scrubbed before “Drive” arrived in 2020, which is usually a sign of big plans. 

“F**k That” is the only song we’ve heard since, but this second cut makes good on the promises of the first. The synth-heavy backdrops and punchy guitars are a perfect pairing for the band’s bouncy melodies—they’re writing sharp songs with pop ambitions and representing their hometown at the same time. “The unapologetic ‘Dublin-ess’ of the lyrics was a bit of a lightbulb moment for us,” the band says. “We never hear phrases or terms we’d use in day to day life in music we like, especially not in pop music. The thinking was if we would love to hear this, other people would too. That’s an ethos we go by now.”

The music is exciting, and after a few plays on BBC Radio 1, it may be only a matter of time before the rest of the world catches on to Just Wondering.

Hometown: New York City

Essential tracks: “Allen Street,” “Superstar”

Sabrina Fuentes formed her band Pretty Sick when she was 13 years old. Now, over half a decade and multiple iterations later, the native New Yorker is preparing to release her second EP with Dirty Hit. In addition to Fuentes on bass/vocals, Pretty Sick is also drummer Austin Williamson of New York City experimental jazz group Onyx Collective, guitarist Wade Oates, formerly of The Virgins, and bassist Orazio Argentero, whom Fuentes met in her contemporary music program at Goldsmiths University.

Fuentes and her bandmates make high-impact rock songs with a youthful and unpredictable edge, careening from grunge-y snarls to softer, slower ballads.⁠ In the music and videos, Pretty Sick captures the energy and upredictability of days and nights in New York City, with new single “The Devil In Me” on of their most raucous songs to date. The Comedown EP is set to be released on June 17.

“I’ve always grown up listening to bands and it was always what I wanted to do as a kid,” Fuentes tells us. “As I’ve grown up playing in bands, including this one, it’s come to mean more. I think a lot of artists and the people who represent them opt for a solo project these days because a lot of the music industry sees musicians as dispensable, whether they’re the face of a project or the unknown mastermind or whatever. I do not see musicians or people as dispensable and I see being in a band as being a part of a family, where everybody’s contributions are celebrated and strengthen the contribution of the others. Pretty Sick’s music wouldn’t be anything if it weren’t for our collaboration as a group, members past and present, Eva, Ella (aka Cleo), Wade, Austin, Orazio, and I, will be family forever.”

Hometown: Chicago, IL

Essential Tracks: “Ferry,” “About You”

The music of Moontype clicks into place, led by Margaret McCarthy’s breezy, ranging vocals. She joined forces with Ben Cruz (guitar) and Emerson Hunton (drums) in Chicago, and the trio made good on the buzz last month with their debut full-length album, Bodies of Water. 

The unadorned setup of guitar/bass/drums/vocals becomes a cozy home over 12 tracks, but Moontype is ambitious: these are shifty, slippery songs that transform and surprise. “Ferry” is a five-minute crescendo of distortion, while more urgent tracks like “Anti-Divinity” and “About You” are riffy and vibrant. Each feels like an exploration of something new, whether it’s time signature, key, dynamics, guitar tones, or lonesome friendships across the Great Lakes. Lyrically fulfilling and musically unpredictable, Moontype is irresistible.

Hometown: Sydney, Australia

Essential Tracks: “The Seaside,” “Where’s My Brain???”

Ten years after Tame Impala’s Innerspeaker set the psych-rock world aflame, there’s another group of Australians distorting their way into our fuzz-loving hearts. The Lazy Eyes formed met at a performing arts high school, and their debut EP arrived in 2020. There’s a playfulness to the music, a push and pull to dynamics that makes the music feel alive.

The next release is imminent: the band’s website promises “a leap further into the driving rhythms of King Gizzard and Black Sabbath,” and a lead single “Where’s My Brain???” arrived in February. It’s an ambitious cut, nearly seven minutes long and full of delicious builds, drops, and guitar work. “We always end the live shows with this one, it’s so fun and loose,” the band says of the single. “Even if our pedalboards have melted and our amps have caught fire, we always trust this song to bring it home.”  

But there’s a formidable range tucked beneath the layers of distortion. The band’s latest release, “Nobody Taught Me,” is something else entirely, a baroque meditation that demands multiple listening to unpack everything that’s going on.

Hometown: Los Angeles, CA

Essential tracks: “Cold Blood”  

Since we first covered Junior Varsity in 2019, the L.A.-based duo has released all of one song. That’s not a knock—hype has been building all the while, and “Cold Blood” is, incredibly, worth the long wait. It’s a song that personifies release, dusty guitars and bad luck that give way to a euphoric chorus, vocals screaming out from an overshaken can of creativity. Granted, Greg and Zach have put out music on their own, but Junior Varsity is something else, a direct response to the years they’ve spent as writers in the music industry’s churn. 

“We finished this project, people started hearing it, and I didn’t want it to turn into some industry hype shit,” says Junior Varsity’s Greg. “I wanted people to be a part of this beyond just industry heads, because that shit is wack as fuck.” Instead, they decided to “build Junior Varsity as a world...music is the centerpiece of it all, but it shouldn’t be the only thing...People just want to feel something, and you’ll feel a lot more when you enter a world.”

There are tantalizing clips from unreleased music videos on their increasingly active Instagram, but for now, “Cold Blood” the only hard evidence of Junior Varsity the band. Still, it makes a pretty compelling case.

Hometown: Montreal, Canada

Essential tracks: “Brad Pitt,” “777”

They might call themselves “experimental pop,” but close enough. Skeleton Club’s music feels band-like—there’s a comforting familiarity to songs like “Brad Pitt,” a song about “the summer [we]...lived up in the mountains in Nelson, British Columbia, delivering pizzas to pay the rent,” Skeleton Club’s Chris says. It’s a club of three—childhood friends Chris and Andrew met drummer Morgan in 2017, and their debut album Death, Love, & Money was completed over a six-month stay in rural Nova Scotia in 2019. 

Theirs is a fuzzy, exploratory sound: blues, punk, and IDM all have a turn in the spotlight, and the band ventured even farther into new territory on last March’s ONLY HUMANS EP. It’s a pandemic release in every way, and one of the best musical examples of how to find a silver lining. They’re exorcising sonic demons on “777” and “Magic Beach,” and taking big swings into new electronic territory with “Wormz” and “In The Sun.”

Hometown: London, England

Essential tracks: “bmbmbm,” “Ducter,” “Slow”

The myth of black midi grew out of blistering live shows, initially through a monthly residency at a small London club, but quickly moving to bigger spaces as hype around the band grew. An initial introduction for many was this live performance for KEXP in 2019, and live still feels like the space where their sound makes most sense—they returned to KEXP for another live set this year in advance of their new album.

black midi’s music is the opposite of easy listening. It grabs you by the neck and doesn’t let go with dramatic vocals, twitchy percussion, and influences drawn from rock, jazz, ambient, punk, hip-hop, and more. black midi met at The BRIT School, the performing arts school with famous alumni like Adele, and from longform jam sessions to their recorded music, the band is making something fresh and new. Of their eclectic influences and freeform approach, singer and guitarist says: “You have to try because you could either end up with a madman’s breakfast or you could end up with a fantastic kaleidoscope, and the only way to find out which one it’s going to be is to try. If you fail, so what? Try again.” 

2019 album Schlagenheim fulfilled the early excitement, and Cavalcade is out on May 28. “A big thing on this album is the emphasis on third person stories, and theatrical ones at that,” says singer and guitarist Geordie Greep. “When you’re listening to the album you can almost imagine all the characters form a sort of cavalcade. Each tells their story one by one and as each track ends they overtake you, replaced by the next in line.”

The music is pushing boundaries and the videos are wild too, so strap in for the black midi experience.

Hometown: Galway, Ireland

Essential tracks: “I Don’t Recognise You,” “How” 

“We’re not as sad as we sound,” Irish rockers NewDad said around the release of “I Don’t Recognise You” last year. With listed inspirations like The Cure and The Pixies, the quartet can be forgiven for stewing in sadness. The band (Julie, Áindle, Sean, and Fiachra) met in high school, and their shared love of those alternative influences made for the excellent Waves EP. It was recorded in three days and released last month, just a couple of years after the group started playing together. 

Waves of feedback, reverb, and airy vocals make listening to NewDad a fragile, graceful experience. Although their stage setup is a classic mix of guitar, bass, drums, and vocals, NewDad has a more enlightened definition of what makes a band: “It is a weird term nowadays,” they tell us. “We always grew up thinking of a band as the classic ‘guitar-bass-drums’ combo, so that’s how we leant into it. But saying that, we’d nearly think of everyone we work with as being part of the band! ‘A group of people coming together to make music, and using all their different influences and ideas to create something brand new’ is how [we’d] classify it!”