My fellow New Yorkers, we must prepare ourselves: the New Colossus Festival is upon us once more. Beginning tomorrow, 180 bands will descend upon the streets of the Lower East Side, taking over 12 separate venues for five straight days. It’s a lot, and it’s not for the faint of heart. But fear not: we here at Paste hope to make the considerable challenge of deciding which bands to see a little easier. Here are the acts we’re most looking forward to at this year’s fest.
Aunt Katrina
Aunt Katrina might have started out as ex-feeble little horse guitarist Ryan Walchonski’s solo project, but it’s since become something much bigger—literally, considering it’s now a six piece that includes Snail Mail’s Alex Bass, Tosser’s Eric Zidar, and more. Paste writer Camryn Teder penned an extensive feature on the Baltimore band last summer in honor of their debut record, This Heat is Slowly Killing Me. As she put it, “This Heat is Slowly Killing Me’s yearning lyrics shroud in blurry guitars—it’s textured but neat, and that fusion of guitar-driven rock and electronic embellishments create a sound Walchonski creatively dubs “laptop gaze.”” Wanna hear what that genre sounds like firsthand? Check ‘em out this Friday night.
See Aunt Katrina on Friday, March 6, at Parkside Lounge at 7 p.m.
cootie catcher
This Toronto indietronica group made our “must-see bands at New Colossus” list last year too, and they’ve only gotten better with time—we quite liked their recent sophomore album Something We All Got (an acronym for SWAG, obviously), and even did a feature on them last month for our Best of What’s Next series. As I wrote in that piece, “They write jangly, heart‑on‑their-sleeve indie pop that could pass for classic twee if you only heard the guitars. Except it’s not just guitars: the band weaves tinny drum machines, chopped‑up vocal snippets, and live‑triggered glitches into each measure, making the songs feel less like a scene revival and more like someone snuck a laptop into a basement band… In that sense, the twee is just the vehicle. The cootie catcher effect, then, feels less like a scene revival and more like a Trojan horse: familiar indie‑rock shells smuggling in lofi beats and chopped‑up samples.”
See cootie catcher on Friday, March 6, at Arlene’s Grocery at 10 p.m.
ira glass
To be clear: this ira glass is not NPR’s Ira Glass, although the confusion is to be expected. This ira glass is, according to Chicago Reader, “Chicago’s best new post-hardcore band,” and although I don’t live in Chicago myself, I don’t doubt it to be true. The group expertly wind through brutal, shredding riffs, machine-gun drumlines, and cathartic, raw screams—and also, somehow, some free jazz touches—to create something altogether exhilarating.
See ira glass on Saturday, March 7, at Parkside Lounge at 11:30 p.m.
Junk Drawer
We really enjoyed Junk Drawer’s sophomore LP last year; as writer Clare Martin wrote in her review of Days of Heaven: “Junk Drawer’s debut channeled a loose ‘90s sound akin to Pavement and occasionally devolved into a punk dance party; Days of Heaven, however, maintains that playful freshness while broadening their thematic scope and injecting their music with a healthy dose of ‘60s psychedelia…And then there’s the jam of it all; this is a band who know their instruments and each other so very well, and it’s obvious during every hypnotic groove they lock into. It’s easy to get lost in Junk Drawer’s mesmerizing aural push and pull.” The Belfast band is great live, to boot; they even won Best Live Act at the Northern Ireland Music Prizes in 2022. They’re a perfect storm.
See Junk Drawer on Wednesday, March 4, at Berlin at 12:15 a.m.; Friday, March 6, at Arlene’s Grocery at 3 p.m., and Saturday, March 7, at Pianos NYC at 10 p.m.
Pinc Louds
There is no other act on Earth quite like Pinc Louds. Claudi (who uses all pronouns) makes gender-bending, loop-heavy, sugar-sweet punk rock that’s already bizarro and magnificent on its own, but becomes absolutely mesmerizing live—watching her build a wild, feverish world one loop at a time is so supremely fun. There’s so much childlike joy in their music, and it all comes to life when you’re face-to-face with Claudi himself, adorned in some bright flower-print dress and the same black wig, jumping from syrupy falsetto to dinosaur-esque growls with pure glee. Watching Claudi feels a little like watching Superorganism’s Tiny Desk Concert, except instead of eight people working together to create that beautifully strange cacophony, it’s just the one (albeit sometimes with bass from Ofer Bear, drums from Rai Mondo, and keys from Marc Mosteirin). You won’t forget their “hardcore acoustic doo-wop trash-art” style anytime soon.
See Pinc Louds on Friday, March 6, at Sour Mouse at 7:45 p.m., and Saturday, March 7, at Nublu Classic, at 11:30 p.m.
Pop Music Fever Dream
I’ll be honest, I haven’t actually seen Pop Music Fever Dream live yet, but their set is one of my New Colossus top priorities for precisely that reason—I’ve had no less than four (4) friends tell me their live shows are not to be missed, so I need to pop my PMFD cherry ASAP. Their sound is all no-wave post-punk, a la Parquet Court’s Content Nausea, but their shows are sheer chaotic ecstasy and raw catharsis. They make full use of the space given, climbing up poles and crawling under platforms, always moving faster, harder, wilder with each song. I’m not missing this one for the world, so if you see me at Francis Kite Club this Friday, feel free to say hi.
See Pop Music Fever Dream on Friday, March 6, at Francis Kite Club at 9:15 p.m.
Prism Shores
I’m definitely excited to see Prism Shores, considering I just so happened to blurb their latest single, “I Didn’t Mean to Change My Mind,” for last week’s Best New Songs list. As I wrote there: “Who doesn’t want some good ol’ power pop to close out the week? ‘I Didn’t Mean to Change My Mind’ sounds like it fell out of a forgotten ’90s college-radio rotation and landed squarely in 2026, blinking in the light but already halfway through its chorus. Prism Shores pile up chiming guitars and fuzz like it’s second nature, all bright jangle on top and this low, satisfying crunch underneath, and then have the nerve to sing over it with a flattened, shrugging delivery that makes every hook feel like an offhand confession.” We have to wait until April to hear the band’s third LP, Softest Attack, in its entirety, but at least we can catch a sneak peek this weekend.
See Prism Shores on Friday, March 6, at Arlene’s Grocery at 8:30 PM or Saturday, March 7, at Baker Falls at 3:30 p.m.
Punchlove
We loved Punchlove’s 2024 debut, Channels, so much that we dubbed it a Paste Pick. As editor Matt Mitchell put it, “Punchlove started from a small bedroom project and graduated into this majorly evocative, eclectic force of guitar-piling nature. The album was not just a cohesive, awing feat, but one of our very favorite debuts of 2024.” As we all know, the shoegaze revival has gotten a bit tired at this point, but Punchlove somehow makes it feel wide awake again. To quote Grace Ann Natawan’s glowing review, “The band’s experimental and stirring blend of blazing instrumentation and poetic lyricism will deeply resonate with a new generation of shoegaze enthusiasts. It’s fiery and pensive all at once, clocking in at a rapturous, breakneck pace.”
See Punchlove on Thursday, March 5, at Arlene’s Grocery at 7:45 p.m, or Saturday, March 7, at Arlene’s Grocery at 8:30 p.m.
Star’s Revenge
Hey, have any of you guys heard of this, like, super under-the-radar band Geese? Well, you’re reading Paste Magazine, so I’m going to assume you have. In that case, Star’s Revenge is an absolute must-see: it’s the burgeoning side project of Geese guitarist Emily Green alongside Sunflower Bean drummer Olive Faber, after all. We here at Paste love both of those bands already—editor Matt Mitchell gave Getting Killed a perfect score in their review, and Sunflower Bean’s Mortal Primetime wasn’t far off, courtesy of writer Alex McLevy—so it’s no surprise we’ve been enjoying Stars Revenge too. That’s not to say that the band is just Geese and Sunflower Bean Pt. 2, though; the duo’s mellower, starker indie-pop sound is a far cry from the members’ other outfits.
See Star’s Revenge on Tuesday, March 3, at Pianos NYC at 8:30 p.m.
Triples
Not to be confused with the K-Pop group TripleS, this up-and-coming Toronto pop-rock group released their debut EP, Every Good Story, this past January. “Be Around,” the EP’s lead single, was one of our best songs of the week in December; as I put it then, “Toronto project Triples share a moment of bright, slightly dizzy clarity on “Be Around,” a song that captures the emotional whiplash of early infatuation without sanding down its complications. Built from forward motion, barely contained feeling, and punchy riffs that feel both rough-edged and melodic, the track moves with an easy momentum that mirrors its subject: the thrill of being pulled so fully into someone else’s orbit that the rest of your life briefly fades into the background.” The band is just getting started, so now’s your chance to get in on the ground floor!
See Triples on Sunday, March 8, at Arlene’s Grocery at 1:30 p.m. and at Baker Falls at 8:30 p.m.
Wilby
Maria Crawford’s latest project, Wilby, is all indie-rock goodness—a modern-day take on the ’90s melancholia of Mazzy Star and The Cranberries. Crawford’s not new to the music scene by any means (Nashville lifers might know her as the folk artist Mar), but Wilby’s debut record, the introspective deep-dive Center of Affection, finally arrived last October. There’s a lot of raucous bands on this list, so if you need something of a cool-down, look no further: Wilby’s soft, poignant, folk-tinged self-reflection is exactly what the doctor ordered.
See Wilby on Friday, March 6, at Ki Smith Gallery at 6:45 p.m.
YUVEES
The once-Portland, now-Brooklyn-based “mutant disco” art-rockers are playing three whole shows during the fest, so there’s really no excuse for missing out. I liked their 2024 debut Dead Keys a lot: it’s all gritty Midwestern punk, bursts of riotous sax, and harsh vocals that hurt my throat just hearing them. It’s the kind of music that you feel somewhere in your gut, rumbling and grinding. If there’s not at least a little bit of a mosh pit at each of their sets this week, I’ll eat my hat.
See YUVEES on Wednesday, March 4, at Arlene’s Grocery at 10 p.m.; Friday, March 6, at Francis Kite Club at 7 p.m.; and Saturday, March 7, at Pianos NYC at 2:45 p.m.
For more information about venues, artists, ticketing, and more, visit here.
