Music update, February 2018.

Lot of bigger names out this month with new music, some of which didn’t make the list here – I haven’t included either of the new CHVRCHES singles, because I think they’re the worst things the group has ever done; and I didn’t include the Weeknd & Kendrick Lamar’s “Pray for Me,” because it’s already in the top ten and I think it’s going to be among the biggest hits of the year. If you don’t see the widget below you can access the Spotify playlist here.

Janelle Monáe – Make Me Feel. It’s good to have The Fabulous Miss M. back on the music side of her multi-talented self, with this the stronger of the two singles she released this month to tease her upcoming album. There’s a lot of Nile Rodgers in here, and more than a little Prince, but also some unique twists like the chromatic descent in the bridge’s vocals (“with a little bit of tender”).

Sunflower Bean – Twentytwo. Twentytwo in Blue, the second LP from this New York indie-pop trio, is due out March 23rd. Their off-kilter approach masks melodies that seem to reflect every era of pop music back to the 1950s.

Frank Turner – 1933. I’m breaking one of my own rules against including two songs by one artist on the same playlist, but Turner put out two singles from his forthcoming album, both very different, and released them about a month apart anyway. This is more in line with Turner’s folk-punk output like much of Tape Deck Heart, with an ardently political, anti-fascist message (“don’t go mistaking your house burning down for the dawn”).

Speedy Ortiz – Lucky 88. I wasn’t sure if Sadie Dupuis’ solo effort (as Sad13) meant the end of Speedy Ortiz, but I’m thrilled the post-punk outfit is back for a third album, Twerp Verse, due out April 27th.

whenyoung – Pretty Pure. This Irish/British trio is poised to be a Next Big Indie Thing, because their music is good and they’re getting some more press attention too.

Cloves – Bringing The House Down. I believe this is the first new song from Cloves since last May’s “California Numb,” and I’m hopeful this means we’ll finally get a full-length album from the 22-year-old Australian singer with the haunting, beautiful voice behind 2015’s “Frail Love.” If you like Fiona Apple, Cloves should be your new crush. (And she’s mentioned loving Apple’s work, too.)

Kate Nash – Drink About You. Nash seems to have settled into a sort of mode of mock-serious pop songwriting – when she’s not acting as Rhonda Richardson/Britannica on the Netflix series GLOW — and is about to release her first album in five years, the crowdfunded Yesterday was Forever, due out March 30th.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra – American Guilt. Absolutely love the guitar riff that opens this song, which teases their album Sex and Food, due out April 6th.

Strange Names – UFO. The opening to this track reminds me of something specific from the 1980s that I can’t put my finger on – New Wave? Early hip-hop? – as if it were filtered through Tour de France-era Kraftwerk.

Django Django – Marble Skies. The title track and opener of Django Django’s latest album is one of the fastest-paced songs on the record, similar to “Tic Tac Toe,” and like the Strange Names song before this also recalls a lot of early 1980s New Wave.

Kid Astray – Joanne. This Norwegian sextet should be much more popular than they are – they’ve churned out a bunch of great singles with catchy, memorable hooks and sharp lyrics going back to 2013’s “The Mess” and 2015’s “Diver.” I assume this is a lead-in to a second album; their last LP was 2015’s Home Before the Dark, which included the two songs I just mentioned as well as “Cornerstone.”

Kero Kero Bonito – You Know How It Is. This garage-rock song is thoroughly out of character for the dance-pop trio, but I kind of love its Britpoppy vibe, which reminded me of Echobelly’s “Great Things.”

Twin Shadow – Saturdays (feat. HAIM). I’m not a HAIM fan at all, and have never been much for Twin Shadow’s solo work, but damn, this is a great pop song.

Belly – Shiny One. The first song in 23 years from Tanya Donnelly and company feels very close to the sound of their last album, 1995’s King, which had two modest hits in “Superconnected” and “Now They’ll Sleep.”

I’m With Her – I-89. A folk/Americana trio featuring Nickel Creek’s Sara Watkins, Crooked Still’s Aoife O’Donovan, and solo artist Sara Jarosz, their name seems to predate its usage as Hillary Clinton’s campaign slogan. The group has been releasing singles since 2015, but their first full-length album, See You Around, just came out on February 16th.

Frank Turner – Be More Kind. And here’s the second Turner song of the month, a gentle, acoustic folk track that speaks its mind in disarming fashion.

Courtney Barnett – Nameless, Faceless. Barnett’s kind of an automatic inclusion on my playlists – unless she’s working with Kurt Vile – and this seems like a return to form for her after that awful collaboration last year.

The Voodoo Children – Tangerines & Daffodils. I’d never heard of this duo, which apparently includes JT Daly (Paper Route), but this song brought me right back to the Von Bondies’ 2004 hit “C’mon C’mon.”

The Kenneths – Favourite Ex. Not quite as great as their 2015 single “Cool As You,” but the best song this punk-pop trio has put out since then. I do kind of wish they’d spent a bit more time on the lyrics, though.

Black Map – Let Me Out. Wikipedia calls these guys post-hardcore, but this is very much what mainstream metal sounded like in my formative years as a fan of the genre in the late 1980s, when thrash was king, before death metal forged a schism that sent many bands racing towards extremes like blast beats or trending backwards towards a more commercial sound.

Blitzkrieg – Forever Is a Long Time. Lyrics have never been a strength of Blitzkrieg leader Brian Ross, but I’ll at least give the aging rockers – whose song “Blitzkrieg” is a classic of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and was famously covered by Metallica as a B-side on the “Creeping Death” single – credit for still being able to churn out a credible metal tune.