Sweet Nobody - Driving off to Nowhere (2025)

Somehow still one of indie pop’s best-kept secrets, Sweet Nobody return with their third full-length Driving Off to Nowhere — a record that proves, again, they deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Alvvays and The Beths. Joy Deyo’s voice still has that bittersweet sparkle, equal parts melancholy and uplift, while the band around her continues to perfect their blend of jangly guitars, soft heartbreak, and sun-streaked hooks.

This time, though, the LA quartet widens their palette, weaving in new wave shimmer, dream pop haze, and the warm pulse of heartland rock. “Maybe this album is about loss,” the band’s Brian Dishon told me. “A loss of innocence, a loss of perspective. What do you do in the face of loss? You drive off to nowhere. You go anyway.” That sense of motion — of moving forward even when you don’t know where to — defines the album’s mood.

He calls it a “night drive on Pacific Coast Highway” kind of record, and you can hear it: headlights cutting through memory and melancholy, songs flickering like highway lights. “When my sister got her license, we’d go on long drives blasting Cyndi Lauper and Roxette,” Deyo adds. “Pop music meant freedom — windows down, first taste of independence. I try to put that joy in my songs now.”

That push and pull — introspection and exhilaration — runs through the album. From the haunting Baby Is a Black Hole and the closing title track to the instantly catchy Revenge, Making It Right, and Forget Me, Driving Off to Nowhere feels like an album about finding light through motion.