The Wonderbolts! Clockwise from bottom left: Whimsy, Captain Thrack, Musket, BlueBrony, Skribbles, theoneGalen, Mongo / Pappa Pie
The Wonderbolts! are a band like no other. For more than 10 years, this 7-headed group has been making heavy rock and blues pony music. They also make a splash at conventions, where other artists regularly join them. At the beginning of the year, they finally released an album with their greatest songs (which is nearly all of them). Keep reading for a quick overview of the track list!
After a long wait, 4EverfreeBrony is finally back with a new album! It’s been nearly 3 years since his last concept album, Lost & Found. On The Perfect Prison, 4EverfreeBrony explores themes of death, grief, and immortality. Dark topics like these are something he seems to have a special relation to: his first concept album was The Pink Side Of The Moon from 2014, about Pinkie Pie being alone on the moon and the resulting depression, and two years later he released Hoping, where Twilight copes with immortality (and which got a remaster just last year).
So we’re once again listening to Twilight and the burdens of her immortal alicornhood. Specifically, The Perfect Prison is about grief, with the songs representing different stages of grief, or the spectrum of emotions tied to it. Get a song by song breakdown after the break
Three years ago, Koa composed a love-letter to Rainbow Dash Presents called Rainbow Disaster Pop, with each song about a different episode of the legendary fan series. For its anniversary, she gathered up a bunch of artists to create a remix album. Enjoy all the various ways these musicians have given the tracks a makeover, from hardstyle to dubstep and from drum & bass to pop punk! As a special extra the album ends with No Rainbows Bossa Nova, the background tune to Dawn Somewhere’s Rainbow Factory Employee Safety Module.
For those not in the know, Dust Car was a discord server created in 2020 during the height of the pandemic. It featured regular competitions where musicians were given a topic and had only 14 days to create a new piece of music based on it, very similar to the toastbeard competition from early fandom history. The server functioned as its own underground music scene—a place where both newcomers and veterans alike could experiment with making music and make friends along the way. The discord peaked in popularity around 2021, but continued operations into 2024. In total, 100 competitions took place and 1,200 tracks were made!
Today marks the one year anniversary of Dust Car – Lap of Honor, the final album put out by the musicians in that community. Keep reading after the break for a run down of all the tracks
Turquoise Splash has been in the fandom since its peak days. He wrote songs like Polychromatic, The Twilight Will Rise, and So Much Left To See. You may also know Canterlot Nights, a collaboration between him & Forest Rain. Despite having produced quite a few songs over the years, he never produced an album.
Until now! You may have expected something acoustic, but instead, A Splash of Color is 41 minutes of pure pop punk. Sit back and enjoy the full spectrum of youthfully energetic joy and angst (I mean that in the best possible way). Half the songs feature other famous artists from the fandom, making this is a real group effort.
Idols: the digital notepad passion project is SCR4TCHK4T’s latest pony album, and it’s quite the undertaking. Each track on the album is inspired by another fandom musician, but she also imitates that artist’s style and genre. Anyone familiar with the idolized artist will delight in listening through the album blind and figuring out which songs are for which artist. There’s the infamous “Dylan core” samples of Vylet Pony, the background pony chops and auto-tune heavy vocals of Rawrity, the pop-based piano and “Weight of the world” samples of Evershade, the brass and upbeat eurobeat sounds of Odyssey. The list of references and styles successfully imitated goes on and on, and with 16 tracks on the album, it takes you on quite the journey.
In case you missed the release party at the end of last month, the compilation collective Equinity released their sixth album. Most of the 42 individual songs on this release are electronic, from house to dubstep to drum & bass, but there is the occasional rock or orchestral piece here and there. The artists featured this time around are also more diverse – some regular names make an appearance but there are also some new faces to add to the Equinity sonic universe.
All proceeds from Equinity’s albums also go to charity. For this album, the team have chosen to donate Hivos, an organization striving to bring gender equality, climate justice and several other important topics to attention especially in lesser developed areas of the world.
It’s always a delight when a new musician shows up in the fandom demonstrating a lot of talent and potential! Working off limited production resources, 17 year-old Blurain comes out swinging with this inspired alternative rock debut pony album. Here are just a couple of the highlights from this 11-track premier!
Oh Equestria: The first full song off the album, Blurain makes a great, charismatic choice to lean into his inexperience by starting the track with feedback from plugging in a guitar and a metronome playing before ever strumming the first notes. Once the intro is over, it is clear that he knows what he’s doing as he professes his love for the technicolor world we all came to love. The chorus hits with a catchy hook singing the name of the song as full harmonies fill out the soundscape. Driving guitars, bass, and drums keep things energetic and fun.
A Princess You’ll Never Be: Blurain goes all-out with a blend of screams and full, harmonized vocals; switching between the two as if to both narrate and illustrate the plight of Chrysalis in this epic track. The guitars have sections of heavy breakdowns, further emphasizing the anguish. As the final song on the album, Blurain gives a stunning performance and really leaves you wanting more.
VibePoniez has slowly made a name for themselves as being the chill label that fills all your need for calm and relaxing music, and once again they don’t disappoint! In the following first I and then Arch will present you with two each of the amazing tracks featured on the album!
Over half a year in the making, and actualizing concepts from the last five years, Vylet Pony’s new album is jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring, and breathtaking. It is an album shroud in mystery as its narrative follows the protagonist and their shadow through a plethora of genres, each track morphing seamlessly into the next, starting with heavenly soundscapes before descending into darkness and death, only to turn around and ascend back to its harmonious beginnings. Much of the story is incomplete, and the listener is invited to theorize more about it. Throughout the album you’ll hear samples from previous Vylet songs, the classic “Sing a song about life” clip, as well as a new carousel motif.
Horse Music Herald 