Weird Nightmare’s Alex Edkins Selects Bandcamp Listening Picks

Alex Edkins, best known as the guitarist and vocalist of Toronto noise-rock band METZ, has curated a set of listening picks for Bandcamp. The selection lands a few weeks after the release of Hoopla, his second full-length under the Weird Nightmare name. Rather than a promotional run-through, the list functions as a quiet unveiling of the private listening that fed the record’s sharp, sugary songwriting.

On Hoopla, Edkins leans into a warmer, less abrasive palette than his main project allows. The songs are compact, built from blurry power-pop chords and melodies that feel familiar without tipping into nostalgia-bait. In a recent interview, he noted the project has always been “a positive, optimistic outlet” for him. That intent threads through the album’s eleven tracks, from the bubblegum rush of “Peavey Bandit” to the giant, crashing chorus of closer “Where I Belong.”

The Bandcamp picks pull back a curtain on that approach. Edkins highlights obscure Canadian college-rock, tightly wound indie pop, and a few curveballs that explain the album’s specific texture without reducing it to a simple equation. It’s a deliberate, modest collection—no grand statements, just a working musician showing the raw materials he trusts. For anyone trying to understand how a noise-rock lifer ends up writing unguarded basement pop, the list does what press cycles rarely manage: it lets the records speak for themselves.