5 Under 5000 - Broadcast #2
The algorithm’s a liar. Good bands aren’t hiding, they’re just busy making the kind of music you don’t stumble into on autopilot. So we went digging again. Five bands. All under 5K monthly listeners. All worth your time. Broadcast #2 is live.
1. Creeping Charlie
(Minneapolis, MN)
This is guitar music with a pulse. Creeping Charlie writes songs that sound like coming of age in a humid basement with too many feelings and not enough outlets. Their album Three for One blends melody and muscle without getting cute about it. It’s noisy in the right places, tender when it needs to be, and totally locked into that space where shoegaze meets slacker rock without losing either edge. You don’t need to squint to hear the heart in it.
2. Gaadge
(Pittsburgh, PA)
Gaadge doesn’t care if the mix clips. In fact, that might be the point. Yeah? is a blown-out mess of alt rock, noise pop, and lo-fi jangle that’s somehow more cohesive than it has any right to be. These songs lurch and twist but always come back to a hook, usually after taking the long way around. It’s like throwing Built to Spill, My Bloody Valentine, and a busted amp into a blender. Not polite music. That’s the charm.
3. Me Rex
(London, UK)
Me Rex builds songs like puzzles. Bits of synth, guitar, and spoken-word vocals folded into something that feels bigger than it should. It’s scrappy and ambitious and way more sincere than the genre tags let on. Tracks like Giant Elk and Flood pull you in with rhythm and keep you there with lyrics that read like someone trying to make sense of time while walking home alone. Clever without being smug. Emotional without playing the victim.
4. Moon Pop
(Chicago, IL)
Lo-fi in texture, hi-fi in intent. Moon Pop is hazy, minimal, and kind of magical if you let it sit with you. There’s a DIY charm here that doesn’t feel like a gimmick. Just keys, loops, tape hiss, and vocals that float in and out like half-remembered dreams. It’s not trying to be loud. It’s trying to linger. And it does. Think early Broadcast or the softest side of Stereolab, but stripped down and staring at the ceiling.
5. Into Twelve
(Bristol, UK)
This is post-hardcore with restraint. Into Twelve doesn’t explode as much as they uncoil. Their Wreck EP is tense, melodic, and carefully gutted. There’s desperation in the vocals, but it never tips into drama. Just honest pressure. The guitars scrape and shimmer. The drums punch through like they’re trying to keep everything from falling apart. Fans of Touché Amoré, early Pianos Become the Teeth, or anything that bleeds on purpose will find something here to hold.