LOSER DEMON GETS LOUD, WEIRD AND WONDERFULLY UNPREDICTABLE ON ‘EP3’

There’s a particular thrill in stumbling across a local band and immediately wondering why more people aren’t talking about them yet. Loser Demon, an indie rock band from Riverside, California, lands squarely in that lane. On their six-track release EP3, they pull from punk and indie rock in ways that feel familiar at first, then quickly start bending those sounds into something stranger, sharper, and more their own.

Across the EP, Loser Demon moves through ripping guitars, huge harmonies, tightly wound rhythms, and a few moments that get wonderfully weird. You can catch echoes of Maritime, Manchester Orchestra, Against Me!, Built to Spill, and The Decemberists here and there, but those names only get you so far. The more time you spend with EP3, the clearer it becomes that Loser Demon is carving out an identity that doesn’t feel borrowed.

And they don’t waste any time making that clear. Let’s dig in:

“New Year, New Hell” opens the EP like a band kicking the door in. The guitars come in hot, the drums are busy without losing their punch, and the bass keeps the whole thing grounded underneath the chaos. It’s exactly the kind of song you want leading off a release like this. There’s some Maritime in the DNA, with a bit of COPE-era Manchester Orchestra intensity thrown in, but the track never feels like an imitation.

The band describes “New Year, New Hell” as “a simple plea to hold someone while the world continues to devolve,” which feels pretty dead-on. There’s something oddly comforting about the idea of clinging to someone while everything else feels like it’s falling apart.

As an opener, it does its job perfectly. It grabs you right away, sets the tone, and gets you ready for the bigger, stranger, more expansive moments that follow.

The second track, “Roulette,” brings in flashes of early Against Me!, especially in the guitar work, but pairs that grit with vocals from bassist and vocalist Keith Beshwate that feel forceful without losing their sense of fun. If you’re in the mood for guitar solos that actually rip without overstaying their welcome, this one delivers. The lyrics land with some weight, but there’s still a playful edge to the song that keeps it from feeling too self-serious.

“Expensive Speech” follows with some of the EP’s most intricate and immediately satisfying guitar work, thanks to Zach Mullen and Kyle Delaney. The production deserves a shout here, too. Even when the song opens up into a wall of sound, nothing turns muddy. Every instrument has space, every part cuts through, and the track keeps its force without sacrificing clarity.

“Doesn’t Feel Like Home Anymore” takes what the first few songs have been building and pushes it further. The harmonies Beshwate lays down are a real highlight, the kind that sneak up and give the song an emotional lift without feeling overdone. Dan Ambriz’s drumming also stands out here. He’s not trying to steal the spotlight, but every hit feels deliberate, full, and creative. It gives the track extra weight while still leaving room for everything else to breathe.

Then comes “The Tower,” which doesn’t even hit the two-minute mark but still manages to cram in a surprising amount of personality. Spoken-word vocals cut through an arrangement that feels off-kilter, unpredictable, and genuinely inventive. Sure, it’s technically still in 4/4, but the way the band plays with movement and structure makes it easy to lose track of where the song is about to go next. If EP3 has one clear mosh song, this is it. “The Tower” feels like it was built to go off live.

Closing track “The Conveyor” brings everything together in a way that feels both satisfying and a little frustrating, only because it ends right when you want it to keep going. There are shades of The Decemberists and Built to Spill woven through it, along with bits of other clever indie rock touchstones, but the song still feels distinctly like Loser Demon. They’re not just recycling influences. They’re filtering them through their own strange, energetic, increasingly confident sound. Honestly, the only real complaint is that “The Conveyor” could have stretched out for another few minutes, and we wouldn’t have minded at all.

For a band coming out of Riverside, Loser Demon sounds ready to reach well beyond the Inland Empire with EP3. These six songs pull from punk and indie rock without ever sounding like the band is chasing someone else’s blueprint. There’s enough familiarity to pull you in quickly, but enough weirdness, experimentation, and personality to make you stay.

More than anything, EP3 sounds like a band figuring out exactly what it wants to be while still leaving plenty of room to get stranger. From the urgency of “New Year, New Hell” to the controlled chaos of “The Tower” and the winding final stretch of “The Conveyor,” there isn’t much wasted space here. Six songs fly by, and by the end, the takeaway is simple: Loser Demon should be on a lot more people’s radar.