Pardoner

Bay Area quartet Pardoner marry angular, distortion-heavy instrumentation with classic indie rock catchiness, often disrupting one with the other. The band's equal love of melodicism and noise grew weirder and more adventurous on each release, reaching new heights of exciting strangeness on their third LP, 2021's Came Down Different, and finding a messy, conflicted intersection of Devo-esque riffing, slacker pop hooks, and even hints of noisy hardcore on 2023's Peace Loving People.