Aesthetics of a Sunburnt Sound

Dawson Daugherty, almost monday’s frontman, woos the crowd.

The back room of a packed dive bar screams to life as the new stars of alt-pop arrive.

Tonight, Beat Kitchen is a portal: San Diego transplanted into Chicago’s soul. almost monday—alt-pop, sun-drenched, adolescent in the way only California can be—commands the room with a studied nonchalance. Their sound is a composite: guitar rock that flirts with funk, pop melodies sanded smooth by salt air, a restlessness barely contained within its own rhythms.

The Californian band burst onto the scene in 2020 and have since garnered over 600 million streams and five charting alternative radio songs, with “can’t slow down” being crowned No. 1 on Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart.

almost monday steps onto the stage and, suddenly, winter ceases to exist…

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