Roe Kapara has figured out how to make doom sound like a beach party. The indie-pop artist returns with summer single “Crying On Vacation,” a candid confession of gloom set to a buzzing, feel-good beat. His sardonic melodrama plays against a surf rock aura, euphonious horns, and sly tongue-in-cheek one-liners, with his vocal range front and center as he belts the chorus. Listen here.
Kapara is refreshingly blunt about where the song came from. He describes feeling like a fat, middle-aged, divorced dad and chasing a sound to match, reaching for the indie rock he obsessed over as a kid with an ABBA twist layered on top. That mix of self-deprecation and big melody is exactly what makes the track land.
The single extends a strong recent run. It follows his post-Valentine’s confessional “My Love,” an indie-pop and Van Morrison hybrid that built on last year’s fan favorites “Feel Sexy” and “Good Times.” Each one works as a self-assured vignette of the left-field pulse shaping Kapara’s writing, and together they hint at the heart of his long-awaited debut album.
The momentum has been building for a while. That fearlessness started surfacing on his 2024 EP ‘Big Cigars & Satin Shorts’ (Epitaph), which FLOOD praised for balancing deeply confessional songwriting with a sense of humor Kapara refuses to suppress. With over half a million monthly listeners, it tracks that Ones To Watch calls him irresistible.