New York City, USA’s Matthew Lee and the Standbys are back with a looping song that describes longing. It’s called Carousel.
By Graeme Smith
Feature photo by Max Pearlman Photography
Since discovering Matthew and his band in March 2025, I’ve known them to be the perfect purveyors of emotional rock. Falling Apart was their previous release, one that explored late-night anxiety in a fiercely relatable way. It was a track worth delving into detail with, much as one might scrutinise life’s little decisions at 2am, unable to sleep.
Emotionally, Carousel paints a similar picture, though thematically, it touches on an entirely different topic. “My head’s screaming you can’t win, But my heart demands I step back in,” it remarks during a tongue-in-cheek love song that also explores the self and themes of regret.
The track opens with a wall of fuzzy guitar, giving us an instant sense of emotion and atmosphere. Pleading vocals come in, cutting through the feedback with some organic soulfulness. By the time the drums join the party, we get a soft groove augmented with electronic overtones. The track progresses with some rich, looping indie rock while the lyrics are full of emotive poetry that paints some visceral pictures in our head as listener. Throughout, the passion of the vocals never wavers, finally hitting a dramatic crescendo in the bridge.
In our previous interview, Matthew Lee explained his sound was formed in part by a love for old country and alternative rock, as well as “Myspace era” emo bands like My Chemical Romance and Panic! At The Disco. With Carousel, he’s giving us something a little different, celebrating the grunginess of Bush and the clean emotional pop rock of early Coldplay in equal measure.
Through it all, there’s an inimitable, original Matthew Lee and the Standbys sound. It’s one to which I’ve found myself drawn to twice now, and I have no doubt I will be again. Fortunately, we know there’ll be more on the way from them. Both Falling Apart and Carousel are taken from their upcoming debut album, Black Book.
If you have the time, check out Falling Apart and our revealing interview with Matthew. You can also find out more about him and his band on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Their music is available to stream on Spotify and Apple Music. For merch and more, head here.
Carousel is out now and you can give it a listen below.
