Deep Sea Diver are no strangers to the long game. The Seattle band, helmed by singer, songwriter and guitarist Jessica Dobson, released their first album in 2012. They were something of a regional act before 2020, when Impossible Weight helped them reach new audiences, which included a stellar single of the same name featuring indie heavyweight Sharon Van Etten.
Just over three years later, word of their talents became even more widespread, as evidenced by posters on r/pearljam singing the band’s praises: “They can really fill an arena sonically,” one user wrote. That‘s some first-hand knowledge, as that Pearl Jam fan likely saw Deep Sea Diver open for the legendary Seattle grunge rockers during a string of shows in 2023. Whoever was responsible for that concert billing had some serious clairvoyance. Now, in 2025, Dobson’s songs may dot Spotify playlists with titles like “Front Page Indie,” but they’re outliers among the humdrum of bedroom background music that drives the algorithm. Billboard Heart is front-page rock and roll.
While Billboard Heart would make a perfectly lovely backdrop for any number of activities (someone should really put the title track in a movie), it deserves your undivided attention. Snappy lyrics, impeccable guitar-playing and crisp synthwork meet in a tight clasp, and the result is indie rock that sounds like it was made with both the confidence of a 22-year-old bursting onto the scene and the wisdom of a veteran player.
Dobson wrote much of Billboard Heart with her partner and Deep Sea Diver drummer Peter Mansen. The pair more frequently collaborated prior to 2020, and this album matches the springy energy of the band’s earlier material, as Dobson fiercely wields a guitar while electronica ripples underneath each chord. It’s a sampling of sounds native to the Northwest: the stony rhythms of grunge, the blistering guitar of garage rock and the quirky melodies of 2000s indie rock. All of these qualities make the band’s recent jump to Sub Pop—once home to Nirvana and since to legions of alt-rock greats—even more fitting.
While traces of the Pacific Northwest’s grunge legacy can be heard throughout, it’s actually some more contemporary Sub Pop labelmates who Deep Sea Diver better emulate on the major moments of Billboard Heart. “Tiny Threads” channels the frenetic arrangements of Wolf Parade, and the dancey “What Do I Know” has nearly identical pacing to Loma’s “Relay Runner.” The latter introduces the ribbons of darkness that flash across every song on Billboard Heart; Dobson’s writing can be everything from mournful to downright macabre. “There’s a spider in the milkshake I’ve been drinking,” she sings, later discovering something equally grotesque inside herself: “What’s gotten into my soul?”
We’re thrust into the shadows all over Billboard Heart. On “Happiness is Not a Given,” we tumble into the “chasms” of a “black marble night.” On “Emergency,” which screeches with guitar playing that would fit right in on old White Stripes material, Dobson makes the dark remark: “I’m pulling teeth inside my head and disappearing into it.” “Shovel,” while packed with mesmerizing synths and the catchiest hooks on the whole record, paints a picture of desperation: “Bruised and I’m blistered / And I’ll dig till my hands fall off.”
But for every taste of dead-of-night doom on Billboard Heart, there’s a flash of energy. The terrific title track exclaims over a rush of guitar, “Punch out the clouds, follow me,” and you may just feel compelled to obey Dobson’s order. And in one of the album’s best moments, guitarist and singer-songwriter Madison Cunningham helps juice up “Let Me Go.” But it’s “Tiny Threads,” a song about coming undone, that leaves us with what might be Dobson’s musical truth: “I’m a flickering livewire… I’m a moth of fire.” Carried by a pair of burning wings, Dobson blazes across the night sky over and over again.
More than a decade after their first output, Billboard Heart could propel Deep Sea Diver to the greatest of heights: mild indie stardom. Or at least it should, because this record is very good. But even if they aren’t headlining Pearl Jam-sized arenas this time next year, the sounds of Billboard Heart could fill one.
Read: “Deep Sea Diver Returns to the Surface”
Ellen Johnson is a former Paste music editor and forever pop culture enthusiast. Presently, she’s a full-time editor and part-time writer. You can find her in Atlanta, or rewatching Little Women on Letterboxd.
