→ March 2, 2023
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Music update, February 2023.

February spawned a lot of great music, as it turns out, enough that I have 82 minutes of new tracks for you here. As always, if you can’t see the Spotify widget below, you can access the playlist here.

Temples – Cicada. I seem to like whatever Temples puts out, at least for their singles; their take on psychedelic rock, often with the kind of influences from Asia and north Africa that gave us Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir.” I love the interplay between the guitar and vocals in the frantic chorus here.

Fucked Up – Cicada. What are the odds of two great songs called “Cicada” dropping in the same month? Technically this came out in late January on these Canadian punk/post-hardcore stalwarts’ sixth album, One Day, and if you told me this was a lost track from Hüsker Dü I’d believe you.

Geese – Cowboy Nudes. This is the first new song from this young Brooklyn band (including Mets fan Dominic DiGesu on bass!) since their standout debut album Projector, and it sees them expanding their sound substantially. It’s less dissonant, better produced, and definitely more art-rock than anything on Projector, which was an incredible throwback to the heyday of post-punk.

CHVRCHES – Over. A one-off single from the Scottish trio, who just signed a new deal with Island Records, “Over” goes back a little in time, with a sound reminiscent of “Clearest Blue” from Every Open Eye.

Altin Gün – Rakiya Su Katamam. I didn’t know Anatolian rock, also called Turkish psychedelic rock, was a specific subgenre, but I’m extremely into it after stumbling on this track by this Amsterdam-based outfit. The “i” in the song’s title should be the Turkish character ?, without the dot on type, but I don’t think it’ll display properly.

Brooke Combe – Black is the New Gold. Combe is just 22, from Midlothian, Scotland, and this is the title track from her forthcoming mixtape. The hook was stuck in my head for days, and I like both her singing voice and the slight syncopation (here, stress on the third beat of each measure) that gives the track its subtle groove.

Caroline Polachek – Blood and Butter. Polacheck was half of Chairlift, who produced two of my favorite tracks of the last decade (“I Belong in Your Arms” and “Ch-Ching”), but her solo stuff has left me pretty cold. This is my favorite of her songs since Chairlift broke up, as it has a much stronger melody while still showcasing her impressive voice.

John-Allison Weiss – Tell Me to Go. Another strong single from The Long Way, Weiss’ first album in over seven years and their first since coming out as trans and non-binary.

Bartees Strange – Tisched Off. One of two tracks on a double-sided single from Strange as part of Sub Pop’s singles series, along with a song featuring Daniel Kleederman.

STONE – I Let Go. The first new song from STONE after their 2022 EP Punkadonk is a raucous rocker that’s less punk and more hard-edged rock-and-roll.

bdrmm – It’s Just a Bit of Blood. This British act takes an experimental approach to post-punk and shoegaze, releasing this as the lead single ahead of their second album, I Don’t Know, due out in June.

Squid – Swing (In a Dream). Squid are even more experimental, with a post-punk underpinning but a very definite bent towards the dissonant and the offbeat, but the chorus here is a complete earworm.

wilt – puberty. wilt are an LA-based quartet who’ve released just three songs so far, including this most recent one, which has a slow burn to a big finish with giant guitar riffs that reminded me of the band Hum.

beabadoobee – Glue Song. A cute two-minute acoustic number from beabadoobee, not one of my favorites from her but a solid showcase for her voice.

Beck – Thinking About You. I generally do not love Beck’s slower acoustic tracks, even though they tend to garner him more critical acclaim. I also didn’t like this song the first time I heard it, but then I went back, and I liked it more the second time, and even more the third time. So here it is.

Black Honey – OK. I include just about every single Black Honey puts out at this point. Their third album, A Fistful of Peaches, comes out on March 17th.

Girl Ray – Everybody’s Saying That. A North London trio that started out as an indie act and pivoted towards pop around 2018-2019, Girl Ray just released this funk-tinged pop track right at the start of February, with a great hook in the chorus and a prominent bass line that makes this a hell of a dance song too.

swim school – delirious. swim school describe themselves as “Tesco-value Wolf Alice,” which isn’t that apposite to this particular track, which is way more shoegaze than Wolf Alice’s cheerier indie-pop/rock style.

Inhaler – Just to Keep You Satisfied. Inhaler released Cuts & Bruises, their second full-length, two weeks ago, and I think they’ve stalled; this is more of the same from the Irish quartet, but even a step back in the quality of their melodies. Inhaler has a sound, and that only gets you so far without some hooks like their first album had.

Depeche Mode – Ghosts Again. I mean, if you want to go back to the sound of the ‘80s, you could just listen to one of the bands that made that sound. This is the first song from Memento Mori, the band’s fifteenth album and their first since the death of longtime band member Andy Fletcher. The album drops March 24th, and it sounds like it will be a melancholy affair, which isn’t really my favorite flavor of Depeche Mode.

San Cisco – Lost Without You. The first new song from this Australian trio since their 2020 album Between You & Me is a typically bouncy alt-pop track with witty lyrics that offer a dark contrast to the music. The video, which stars the three in a Sting-like gangster film, is worth a watch.

Demob Happy – Voodoo Science. I was unfamiliar with Demob Happy, who’ve been around for fifteen years, before hearing this track, but I love the guitar riffing here, which reminds me of Porcupine Tree’s heavier moments.

shame – The Fall of Paul. This London-based post-punk band’s Food for Worms dropped last month and the highs (“Fingers of Steel,” “Six-Pack”) are high but there’s too much filler where the band sound like they’re just fucking around, unfortunately.

slowthai – Feel Good. British rapper slowthai’s third album, UGLY, which supposedly stands for “U gotta love yourself,” drops on Friday. I find his music more interesting than appealing, as he’s crossing and mashing up a lot of genres but his technical skill as a rapper isn’t his strength. This is one of the better songs of his that I’ve heard.

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→ December 23, 2021
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Top 100 songs of 2021.

Another great year of new music is in the books; despite less time in the car, I still heard more music this year than I can remember hearing before, and thus heard more good music, with longer monthly playlists and the longest year-end albums ranking I’ve ever assembled.

Previous years’ top 100 lists are all here: 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012.

You can access this year’s playlist here or use the widget below.

101. SAULT – London Gangs. This song is no longer available to stream, as SAULT only put their fifth album, NINE, online for 99 days. As a result, I’m disqualifying it from my top 100 and my albums list (I didn’t love it anyway), but this was the best track on the record.

100. Potty Mouth – Not Going Anywhere. I’m still bummed that this power-pop trio called it a day, but I can hardly blame them after all the trouble they had with their record label before their second album came out. Their last EP, 1% Happier, has four songs, including this banger – which I hope is a harbinger of at least one of these women staying in the industry – and “Contessa Barefoot.”

99. Wye Oak – Its Way with Me. Most of what we got from Wye Oak in 2021 was B-sides and demos from the Civilian era, but the duo did give us two new tracks, this one and “TNT,” without word on a new album yet.

98. Mini Trees – Carrying On. Mini Trees is Lexi Vega, an LA-based guitarist and singer who just released her debut album, Always in Motion, this fall, after putting out a few EPs over the last few years. This was the best track on the record, with the strongest riffs, although I don’t find Vega’s vocals that distinctive or interesting.

97. YONAKA – Call Me a Saint. I loved YONAKA’s debut album, Don’t Wait ‘Til Tomorrow, but their follow-up, this summer’s “mixtape” Seize the Power, didn’t fulfill the first record’s promise, not in music or in lyrics, where Theresa Jarvis’ finds herself singing a series of clichés. Two tracks stood out, this one and “Ordinary,” more for their power-pop music than their words.

96. Cœur de Pirate – Plan à trois. Béatrice Martin released what I think is her best album to date, Impossible à aimer, full of beautiful tracks with lush arrangements and great pop hooks, many of which come straight out of the ’70s.

95. gang of youths – unison. This Australian quintet had a huge hit with their 2017 album Go Farther in Lightness, sweeping four of the biggest honors at the ARIA Awards (that country’s equivalent to the Grammys), but didn’t release another new studio single until “The Angel of 8th Avenue” this past summer, followed by this quieter, more serene track – fitting, as both were included on the EP total serene in July – that builds gradually to a huge finish that sounds like it was written to fill a concert hall. It’s all leading up to the band’s third album, Angel in Realtime, due out in February.

94. Jerro & Panama – Lost for Words. Jerro, a Belgian producer of melodic house music, released his first album this fall, highlighted by this collaboration with Australia’s electro-pop group Panama, who have appeared on my lists in the past for “Always” and “Hope for Something.”

93. IDLES – The Wheel. IDLES are critical darlings, but I can’t get on board with most of their music – it’s angry and true to punk’s roots, but that alone doesn’t make the songs compelling. This was the one track off Crawler, their fourth album, that grabbed me.

92. Talk Show – Underworld. This was the only release this year from Talk Show, produced by two members of Hot Chip (whose influence is rather evident), a textured, dark, almost gothic-sounding track with more electronic elements than we heard on the band’s previous EP. The title of this song is meant to evoke the legendary British electronic group, according to Talk Show themselves.

91. Renée Reed – Neboj. Reed grew up in Lafayette, Louisiana, and the Cajun musical influence appears in spots across her eponymous debut album, a lo-fi affair that’s mostly just her voice and guitar. That formula can wear thin across an entire record, but here the guitar work is just gorgeous and invites a close listen, while the ethereal vocals accentuate the guitar rather than drowning it out.

90. Porcupine Tree – Harridan. Not bad for a bunch of greybeards – Porcupine Tree have been around since the late 1980s, and I assumed they were done recording, but this eight-minute single heralds the prog-metal icons’ first new album in 13 years, Closure/Continuation, due out in February. Fans of Opeth’s recent work will likely adore this.

89. Abstract Mindstate – A Wise Tale. Kanye West brought this Chicago hip-hop duo back together to record a new album for his label, YZY SND, and this lead single, which recalls early ’90s The Pharcyde, ended up by far the best track on their comeback album.

88. Superbloom – Pollen. Superbloom is a new grunge quartet out of Brooklyn who sound as much like Nirvana as any band I can think of from the last 25 years, although that often works against them (listen to “Whatever,” their most-streamed track on Spotify, to hear what happens when homage turns to imitation). “Pollen” is the title track from their debut album, which came out on my 48th birthday, and it’s the most original song on the record while still reminiscent of many great ’90s alt-rock artists (Hum and Lotion in particular).

87. Sunflower Bean – Baby Don’t Cry. I’m in the tank for Sunflower Bean at this point – they seem unable to do any wrong for me. Their indie-pop sound just works, and they come up with a lot of solid hooks, so while I conceded that they’re not breaking new ground, I’m going to listen to everything they put out.

86. Michael Kiwanuka – Beautiful Life. A lovely ballad from the 2020 Mercury Prize winner that came from the soundtrack to the Netflix documentary Convergence: Courage in a Crisis.

85. HAERTS – Shivering. HAERTS’ latest album, Dream Nation, was a mild disappointment to me, mostly because I liked their earlier work more and hoped for either some growth or a return to the more upbeat sound of their self-titled debut album. There are some highlights here, however, notably this track, boosted by an insistent organ line and repeated phrase in the chorus that serves as the album’s best earworm.

84. Spoon – The Hardest Cut. Hey, if Spoon wants to turn towards harder rock, I’m here for it. This song still grooves, maybe as well as Spoon’s best stuff (“I Turn My Camera On” remains my favorite for that reason).

83. Alien Boy – The Way I Feel. Speaking of grunge, there was a moment around 1995 when grunge and shoegaze seemed to be on a collision course, and bands like Lush and Ride were producing something that seemed like a hybrid of the two … and it never caught on no matter how much I wanted it to. Alien Boy, who describe themselves as a “loud gay band from Portland,” sound very much like a band of another era, especially on this track, where the arpeggiated guitars could have been ripped from any indie rock album in the middle of the 1990s.

82. Floatie – Shiny. This Chicago experimental-rock group released their debut album, Voyage Out, this spring to some critical acclaim. There’s some of black midi’s intention to deconstruct rock music and put it back together in novel ways, but here the musicians’ jazz backgrounds play a more prominent role, making something more accessible while every bit as off-kilter.

81. Susanna Hoffs – You Just May Be the One. Yes, that Susanna Hoffs, darling of 1980s MTV – it is not possible to me that one of my main celebrity crushes from childhood is now 62, by the way – just released her fourth solo album, her first LP of new material in nine years, with Bright Lights, and it’s the best thing she’s done since When You’re a Boy, which featured her wonderful cover of the Lightning Seeds’ “All I Want.” (The Lightning Seeds take their name from a misheard Prince lyric from “Raspberry Beret.” Prince, meanwhile, wrote the song “Manic Monday” and gave it to the Bangles for Hoffs to sing, giving the band their first mainstream hit. Everything is illuminated.) Hoffs’s voice has lost little to nothing, and the quirky folk-rock style she has pursued since the Bangles’ first breakup hits a new high here with tracks like this one.

80. Mastodon – Pushing the Tides. Plenty of standout tracks on Hushed & Grim, Mastodon’s vast new album, but this has been my favorite so far, just edging out “Teardrinker” and “Sickle & Peace.”

79. Lottery Winners feat. the Wonder Stuff – Bang. I’m disappointed that this track didn’t make The Lottery Winners’ great new album Something to Leave the House For, as it has a great hook in the chorus and brings back the Wonder Stuff, authors of the underrated 1990 college-radio hit “Circlesquare.”

78. The War on Drugs – Harmonia’s Dream. This is the album that made me a War on Drugs fan, thanks to tracks like this one, featuring a decidedly upbeat tempo and ton a memorable chorus, and a strong guitar solo at the end.

77. James BKS – Kusema. The French-Cameroonian producer and African hip-hop artist has released a handful of singles so far ahead of his delayed debut album Wolves of Africa, which he’s planning to release on his own Grown Kid record label. Kusema is the Swahili word for “to say” or “to express,” while this track includes bikutsi rhythms from his native Cameroon.

76. Anxious – In April. Anxious are a fairly new band from Connecticut with hardcore roots – they contributed a song to a hardcore compilation earlier this year – but whose bread-and-butter is pop-punk material like this highly melodic track or the subsequent single “Call from You” (which reminds me a lot of the early 2000s act Sugarcult).

75. Maisie Peters – Psycho. A straight-up pop song from one of my favorite new voices of the last five years. Good luck getting that chorus out of your head.

74. Frank Turner – Miranda. I liked the song before I knew the backstory – this is about Turner’s father, who came out as transgender in her 70s, and how the two are rebuilding their relationship.

73. Khruangbin feat. Leon Bridges – B-Side. Khruanbin and Leon Bridges are preparing Texas Moon, a follow-up EP to their 2020 release Texas Sun, for a February release. Khruangbin have been on quite a roll between that first EP and their outstanding album Mordechai, which made my top five albums of last year. This feels more like a Khruangbin track that just happens to have guest vocals than any of the tracks from Texas Sun, which works for me.

72. Courtney Barnett – Before You Gotta Go. I’ve been a Courtney Barnett fan for years, but her latest album, Things Take Time, Take Time, felt stagnant to me – her sound hasn’t changed at all since those first breakout singles (“Avant Gardener” and “History Eraser”) except perhaps to become more laconic and mellow, and I don’t think that sound best suits her unique lyrical style. More “Pedestrian at Best,” please, and less “Rae Street.”

71. Greentea Peng – Nah It Ain’t the Same. Aria Wells describes herself as a “psychedelic R&B” singer, although there are elements of hip-hop and light jazz throughout her music. Her debut album Man Made came out last June, but was uneven and in many cases seemed unformed, while this track was easily the best on the record.

70. Kid Kapichi – Self-Saboteur. Kid Kapichi’s self-produced, self-released debut album This Time Next Year is a blast almost start to finish, making it a bit hard for me to single out specific songs for this list – I truly don’t dial it in for just one or two songs, but start from the first track (“First World Goblins”) and go as long as I can with it. But if forced to pick a few standouts, this is one of them. “I don’t mean to sound like a preacher” is one of the lines of the year for me – I catch myself walking around the house singing it all the time.

69. TURNSTILE – BLACKOUT. TURNSTILE are like a better Helmet, for those of you old enough to remember the ridiculous buzz around Helmet, which the NYC punks never entirely fulfilled. If you remember Helmet’s more mainstream-oriented stuff, like “Unsung” and “Milquetoast,” you have a good sense of TURNSTILE’s sensibilities.

68. black midi – Chondromalacia Patella. black midi aren’t much of a singles band, between their song lengths and unusual sense of … well, everything. I’ve said before that they sound like a band trying to play their instruments inside-out, and that fits their new album as much as it did their first. This might be the most accessible track on the record, which is a low bar to clear, but also stands reasonably well on its own.

67. Bobby Gillespie w/Jehnny Beth – Chase It Down. The lead singer of Primal Scream and the (former?) lead singer of the Savages collaborated on an album this year, Utopian Ashes, that didn’t make great use of his guitar playing or her voice, unfortunately. Those are best showcased on this track, though.

66. Inhaler – It Won’t Always Be Like This. The Irish band, whose lead singer/guitarist happens to be Bono’s son, released their first full-length album, It Won’t Always Be Like This, in July, featuring “My Honest Face” (from 2019), “Cheer Up Baby,” and this great title track. They don’t break much new ground on the record, but it’s a solid alt-rock effort that feels well-grounded in more than just his father’s music.

65. Foals – Wake Me Up. Foals are promising Big Rave Energy on their upcoming album, and based on this track, I believe them.

64. Death from Above 1979 – One + One. This Canadian duo’s blend of guitarwork from the edge of heavy metal and dance rhythms and drum machines hit a new peak with their latest album, Is 4 Lovers, exemplified on this track and one more further on up the list.

63. Bruno Mars/Anderson .Paak – Fly as Me. I love the sound these two guys were trying to re-create on Silk Sonic,but they missed the target on the slow jams, which often veered too close to parodying the sound they were trying to emulate. This track nailed it, with a ’70s funk backbeat below some tongue-in-cheek rhymes from .Paak and a solid hook in the chorus.

62. beabadobee – Last Day on Earth. beabadobee’s been releasing songs for five years, and earned some acclaim for her 2020 debut album Fake It Flowers, but this is the first song of hers that I’ve found offered a strong melody to go with her solid fretwork and the sweetness of her voice.

61. CHVRCHES – Final Girl. The thematic heart of the Scottish trio’s tour is also one of the best tracks on Screen Violence, both in lyrics and music, with tremendous work from Lauren Mayberry on the pre-chorus (even if she resorts one of my least favorite cliches in the world, “only time will tell”). My wife even bought a “Final Girl” at the CHVRCHES concert we went to in Philly in early December.

60. Yard Act – The Overload. Still waiting for this English post-punk band to deliver their first full-length LP, but this rivals “Fixer Upper” for my favorite from them so far, with strong Gang of Four vibes. I love that singer James Smith said Little Simz’s Sometimes I Might Be Introvert was his favorite album of 2021 too.

59. English Teacher – Good Grief. I didn’t put these two songs back-to-back on purpose, but they do share a very British sensibility, with talk-sung lyrics that only occasionally line up with the music below them, yet somehow still work as a cohesive whole (which, for example, is one of my main complaints with the acclaimed “Chaise Longue” from Wet Leg this year – it doesn’t work together at all).

58. Bob Vylan – GDP. Imagine if Body Count didn’t suck. And Ice-T was actually British. This appropriately angry rap/rock track from an artist who describes himself as the “prettiest punk/rap/alt thing you’ll ever meet” forced me to reconsider my bias against artists who name themselves this way.

57. The Mysterines – Hung Up. We got three more singles from Lia Metcalfe and company this year – this one, “In My Head,” “The Bad Thing,” the last one as a sort of three-song EP with all of the tracks – as a lead-up to their long-awaited debut album, Reeling, due out on March 22nd. I love her snarling delivery and the heavy, crunchy guitar hooks on all of their stuff, but I am certainly a bigger fan of when they just let it rip, as on this track.

56. Wolf Alice – How Can I Make It OK? The second-best track from Wolf Alice’s Blue Weekend, an inconsistent affair overall with multiple very high points throughout the record. This midtempo number is more reminiscent of the best songs from their debut album, My Love Is Cool, like “Freazy” and “Bros.”

55. Sports Team – Happy (God’s Own Country). Fresh off a Mercury Prize nomination for their 2020 debut album, Deep Down Happy, the art-rockers Sports Team released this ebullient single that was supposed to celebrate this spring’s easing of lockdown measures. Oh, those were the days.

54. Geese – Rain Dance. One of my top five albums of the year came from this Brooklyn quintet that’s barely out of high school, but whose affinity for early post-punk acts like Television and Suicide is incredibly evident in sophisticated, experimental tracks like this one.

53. Chime School – Radical Leisure. I enjoyed the eponymous debut album from Andy Pastalaniec, a.k.a. Chime School, a throwback to the 1980s heyday of jangle-pop from an avid San Francisco Giants fan.

52. Frank Turner – Haven’t Been Doing So Well. This is what I came here for – Turner letting it rip with big songs about big feelings, like “Recovery” and “1933.” And who among us can say we’ve been doing much better?

51. Mdou Moctar – Chismiten. The opening track from Afrique Victime is the best one, I think, although I admit that I could drop into this album at any point and sort of get lost in the charms of its blend of American guitar shredding and traditional Touareg music.

50. Joy Oladokun – look up. I love Oladokun’s voice, having first heard her music with the single “Sober” back in 2018, and this is the closest the folk/fusion artist has come to that peak for me, even with some hackneyed phrases in the lyrics.

49. Ariel Posen, Cory Wong – Spare Tire. Ariel Posen is a talented guitarist, but this is way out of his typical genre – a two-minute instrumental funk jam, boosted by guitarist/bassist Cory Wong, who tends to record more in the jazz/funk sphere and whose influence here seems obvious.

48. Amyl and the Sniffers – Guided by Angels. These Australian punks released their second album, Comfort to Me, in September, highlighted by this straight-up rocker with ridiculous (and I presume meaningless) lyrics.

47. BLOXX – Everything I’ve Ever Learned. BLOXX put out a four-song EP this year, Pop Culture Radio, to follow their strong 2020 debut album Lie Out Loud. This track could easily have been on that earlier record, an anthemic power-pop track with a soaring chorus.

46. Iceage – Vendetta. Iceage’s latest album, Seek Shelter, was probably their best to date, thanks to a continuing evolution in their sound, to the point where you can barely hear their punk roots, with elements of shoegaze, post-hardcore, even some of the melodic sensibilities of Britpop all appearing on the new LP and this song in particular.

45. Jorja Smith – Addicted. Smith released an eight-song EP called Be Right Back in May, more of a teaser than anything else, although she continued to appear on other artists’ songs – at least five such tracks this year that I know of.

44. Allie X – GLAM! This non-album single follows last year’s LP Cape God, which got a deluxe edition release this year that didn’t include this track … that I like more than any song on the album itself. It’s such a great pop song that I’m disappointed it didn’t catch on anywhere.

43. Royal Blood – Typhoons. The title track from Royal Blood’s third album has a great groove to it – and once again has me shocked that anyone can make these sounds come from a bass guitar.

42. Lorde – Solar Power. I actually agree with Pitchfork – Lorde’s latest album is boring, especially because it sounds so unambitious. The title track had the best hook on the record for me, and the lyrics are some of the best on the album as well. I feel like the general disappointment with the album has led the pendulum to swing too far the other way, dismissing the entire record, even its better moments.

41. Coeur de Pirate – Tu peux crever là-bas. “You can die over there,” says Béatrice Martin to a former lover who has been unfaithful. What a wonderfully dismissive putdown in a beautiful song.

40. Bloc Party – Traps. I can’t believe “Banquet” is 17 years old. I also can’t believe it took that long for Bloc Party to give us a worthy successor – they’ve had decent songs since then, but this one feels like a spiritual sequel.

39. Sam Fender – Get You Down. The title track from Seventeen Going Under was a bigger hit, and it’s worthy, but this was my favorite from the album, thanks to the gradual crescendo from the opening vocals-and-guitar through the addition of a second vocal line and guitar and onward, adding more layers as it progresses.

38. Lottery Winners – Much Better. One of my favorite albums of the year, Something to Leave the House For is full of pop gems, like this one, that got stuck in my head for weeks after I first heard them.

37. CHVRCHES feat. Robert Smith – How Not to Drown. If you want to accuse me of letting my Cure fandom push this song up the rankings, I’m not going to argue. It was great live without Smith, though.

36. Band of Horses – Crutch. This is the band I want Band of Horses to be, not the one from Why Are You OK, which is what the single after this one, “In Need of Repair,” sounded like.

35. Noname – Rainforest. If this is the last song we get from Noname, who announced that she’s taking a hiatus from music and won’t be releasing her second album any time soon, then the Chicago rapper and activist is leaving us with her best.

34. Japanese Breakfast – Be Sweet. Japanese Breakfast’s album is all over year-end lists, and I just couldn’t get on board with it: The general vibe is good, but there was exactly one song that had a memorable hook, and it’s this one, which is a damn pop gem and should have been all over the radio (if radio still exists) this summer.

33. Jungle – Keep Moving. This was the first song I heard from this electronic/R&B act’s third album, Loving in Stereo, and I assumed it would be the best song on the record like the last two lead singles (“Busy Earnin” and “Happy Man”) was. And then they put out a single that’s even better.

32. Kiwi Jr – Cooler Returns. These Canadian garage-rockers put out their second album and first for the label Sub Pop back in January, full of jangly tracks with dry wit like this one, which was by far my favorite on the record.

31. Atlas Genius – Elegant Strangers. I’m so glad to have this Australian indie-pop group back, as this was their first new music in two years and just their third song since 2015’s album Inanimate Objects. It’s also on par with some of their best singles, comparable to “Molecules” and “Trojans” for me.

30. AJ Tracey – Little More Love. Tracey, a British rapper whose real name is Ché (after Guevara), put out his sophomore album this year, Flu Game, a throwback in musical and rap styles to the 1990s, highlighted by this lead single, which seems very much like the one the label would release first to drum up airplay in advance of the record’s release.

29. Little Simz – I Love You, I Hate You. Little Simz is going to appear a few times on the list – hardly surprising since her album Sometimes I Might Be Introvert was my #1 record of the year – and while this isn’t my favorite track from the album, the lyrics here, where Simz addresses her very difficult relationship with her biological father, are some of the best on any song I heard in all of 2021.

28. Griff – One Night. Sarah Griffiths, a 20-year-old singer/songwriter from London, put out four singles this year, and two were incredible, gorgeous pop tracks with big hooks and great use of her vocal range. This is actually the lesser of the two, if you can believe that.

27. Thrice – Scavengers. The first single from Horizons/East was my favorite track off Thrice’s eleventh studio album, driven by a droning guitar and drum line that introduces the song and succeeds each chorus.

26. Hatchie – This Enchanted. My favorite Hatchie track since 2017’s “Sure,” “This Enchanted” has the same dream-pop leaning as her first EP and first album showcased, but with the introduction of shoegazy guitar elements to elevate it to something more substantial.

25. Freddie Gibbs – Big Boss Rabbit. Gibbs would get my vote as the best American MC working today, and he’s incredibly prolific, both on his own singles and working with other artists. This is a great example of how skilled he can be with a mic in his hand, rhyming quickly and easily with a very distinctive cadence. I love the Mike Tyson quote at the beginning, too.

24. Parquet Courts – Walking at a Downtown Pace. I’ve never put a Parquet Courts song on any of my lists before this year – not even a monthly playlist – and now they have two tracks in my top 25. So much of what I’d heard from them before made them sound like a joke band to me, but it turns out I was wrong – they can fucking rock.

23. The War on Drugs feat. Lucius – I Don’t Live Here Anymore. As I saidin my albums writeup, I’m a latecomer to the War on Drugs, but I’m here now, and this is my favorite song of theirs. It’s not a coincidence that Lucius’ two singers are part of it; their presence gives the song some variety and different textures, which really helps lighten a song of five and a half minutes. The intro is a bit too reminiscent of “Bette Davis Eyes,” but I give Adam Granduciel credit for just flat-out admitting the Bob Dylan thing with the second line, “a creature void of form,” taken straight from “Shelter from the Storm.”

22. Cœur de Pirate – On s’aimera toujours. I loved Cœur de Pirate’s album, obviously, and this shimmering, upbeat love song is one of the best things I’ve ever heard from her, up there with “Carry On,” maybe second only to “Prémonition.”

21. Parcels – Somethinggreater. Parcels released a double album this year, Day/Night, running 23 songs and 96 minutes. I am going to just admit I haven’t listened to it yet, because that is a commitment. But this funk-tinged track from the Australian indie-pop band is sublime.

20. Griff – Black Hole. And thiswas Griff’s best song of the year, the one she performed at the Brit Awards before winning their Rising Star award. It’s a near-perfect pop song, again showing off Griff’s voice, with a brilliant build from the quiet opener to the giant chorus.

19. Little Simz – Introvert. The massive string- and brass-laden intro was itself unexpected, given all of Little Simz’s previous work, but then it surprises again, leading into a sensuous rhythm of clean guitar lines and synthesizers below her increasingly agitated rapping. This song alone should be the world’s introduction to Little Simz, except that it presaged an entire album of similar brilliance.

18. Robert Plant & Alison Krauss – Can’t Let Go. I was underwhelmed by the album, Raise the Roof, but it sure was great to hear these two together again on this cover of a Randy Weeks song first made famous by Lucinda Williams.

17. Jungle – Truth. This song floored me when I first heard it while listening to Loving in Stereo. It’s still clearly Jungle, but there’s an urgency here – as if they shifted forward from their usual dalliances with mid-70s R&B to slide into disco’s DMs. That six-note riff in the chorus is instant ear candy.

16. Jonah Nilsson/Steve Vai – Diamond Ring. This showed up on one of my auto-generated Spotify playlists because of Steve Vai; I didn’t even know who Nilsson was (he’s part of Dirty Loops), and Vai is only here for a solo at the end, but hey, this is a superb little pop number that sounds with extremely strong peak MJ vibes. Dirty Loops also released a fun album with Cory Wong (see #49) this fall called Turbo.

15. The Wombats – If You Ever Leave, I’m Coming with You. I’m cautiously optimistic, based on the three singles we’ve gotten so far, that the Wombats are about to produce a worthy successor to their 2015 album Glitterbug, which was one of my favorite LPs of the decade. This song has Matthew Murphy back at his wittiest, and I think there’s an extremely high correlation between the quality of his lyrics and the quality of the music on their songs.

14. White Lies – As I Try Not to Fall Apart. White Lies might be the best new wave band going right now – as in, they think it’s 1983, and make music to match, and I am completely fine with that. I am comfortable with that aspect of myself. My music mind will forever think it’s at least sort of 1983 and want to hear music that reminds me of that time, sometimes even more than I want to hear music that is actually from that time.

13. Pond – America’s Cup. Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker was once a member of Pond, while several current members of Pond are heavily involved with Tame Impala now, and you can hear the connection in this psychefunkadelic track that alludes to Australia’s surprising win in the 1983 sailing race of the song’s title.

12. Arlo Parks – Hope. Most of the best songs from Parks’ Mercury Prize-winning album Collapsed in Sunbeams were released as singles prior to 2021, and appeared on prior year-end lists of mine, including “Hurt,” “Green Eyes,” and “Black Dog.” This was the best of the new tracks when the album first appeared in January, with a breezy, soulful piano line behind Parks’ gorgeous vocals.

11. Sleigh Bells – True Seekers. It’s the best thing they’ve done since “Rill Rill.” I happen to think Alexis Krauss has a great voice, but the music so often works against her that she gets drowned out or overshadowed. This song works with her, the way the music did on “Rill Rill,” so that her vocals grab you by the ears and aren’t competing for your attention with the rest of the song.

10. Manchester Orchestra – Telepath. This sounds like something Alison Krauss could have written and recorded with Union Station, a beautiful song about love and seeking forgiveness that I wish was twice as long.

9. gang of youths – the angel of 8th ave. I’m also getting on this train a little bit late, but my god, this song is tremendous. That little guitar riff in the intro – is that “Melt With You?” Something else from the new wave era? Yet there’s a decided shoegaze vibe to the vocals, a pounding energy to the bass and drums, an ambition to the chorus … this is the song that made me a gang of youths fan.

8. Lottery Winners – Favourite Flavour. The Lottery Winners might be my favorite pop band right now, although their lack of any kind of attention over here probably makes them alternative or indie or whatever. Genres are stupid. They make great, catchy, light-hearted songs, and if you like that sort of music, you should go listen to them.

7. Royal Blood – Boilermaker. Josh Homme’s help on Typhoons was especially evident here, which sounds a fair bit like someone put Royal Blood and Queens of the Stone Age in a blender and this is what came out of it.

6. Kid Kapichi – Working Man’s Town. As I said above, I love this album start to finish, but if there’s a single song I most think about, or hum, or want to turn on, it’s this one, which encapsulates everything that’s great about the album, from the crunchy guitars to the righteous indignation in the lyrics. They are Angry Arctic Monkeys, and that works for me.

5. Little Simz, Obongjayar – Point and Kill. Obongjayar brings not just his vocals but his Afrobeat style to this collaboration with Little Simz that doesn’t have the lyrical power of “I Love You, I Hate You” or the sheer musical ambition of “Introvert,” but that instead delivers its message through a fusion of sounds and styles, while also providing one of the album’s strongest melodies.

4. Charli XCX feat. Christine & the Queens and Caroline Polachek – New Shapes. These three women were supposed to perform this song on Saturday Night Live last weekend, but a COVID outbreak on the set cancelled the performance, and I think we’re all the worse for it. It would have been a great showcase for the song, which has an incredible hook and features two of the best singers in the alternative/pop space right now. Good for Charli XCX for collaborating with them.

3. Parquet Courts – Black Widow Spider. It took me about a month to figure out that the song this song kept reminding me of was Olivia Tremor Control’s “The Opera House,” a low-key favorite of mine from the mid-90s (thanks to a CMJ monthly disc), but this sort of does that one better, probably thanks to the construction of the chorus. That psychedelic/blues riff that opens the song is such a grabber.

2. Foxing – Draw Down the Moon. The title track from Foxing’s latest album is the peak of everything they do as a band, with a gigantic chorus, big falsettos, tonal shifts, and the sense that you’re listening to something grander than your average rock song. Foxing showed great ambition on the new album, and achieved it, never more so than on this track.

1. Wolf Alice – Smile. Man, Ellie Rowsell can do it all, even rap … okay, maybe that’s not the best part of the song, but when Wolf Alice decides they’re going to rock, they put out these huge, muscular, wall-shaking riffs, like they did at the end of “You’re a Germ” from My Love is Cool. “Smile” opens with one of those riffs, then downshifts for Rowsell’s verses, then brings in softer harmonies in the chorus over the layered guitars before we get back to the gigantic riff again. It’s a masterpiece of construction, bolstered by one of my favorite guitar lines of the year.

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→ April 24, 2021
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Stick to baseball, 4/24/21.

I had two posts this week for subscribers to the Athletic. I wrote a draft scouting notebook that focused on Louisville catcher Henry Davis, who might be the best prospect in this class. I also collaborated with Britt Ghiroli to look at the MLB Draft League, which sent out its initial rosters this week and earned negative reviews from scouts and executives. I also held a Klawchat this week.

Over at Paste, I reviewed the Princess Bride Adventure Book Game, a slight but fun co-operative game you can play with your kids or just because you love the movie, to which the game is very faithful.

On the Keith Law Show this week, my guest was our White Sox writer James Fegan, talking about Carlos Rodón, the Yerminator, and more. You can subscribe on Apple podcasts, Amazon, and Spotify. I also appeared on the Athletic Baseball Show on Friday, which will be my regular slot for most of the year; and on the Sports-Casters podcast, talking about the draft and my second book.

If you’d like to buy The Inside Game and support my board game habit, Midtown Scholar has about a dozen signed copies still available. You can also buy it from any of the indie stores in this twitter thread, all of whom at least had the book in stock earlier this month. If none of those works, you can find it on Bookshop.org and at Amazon.

For more of me, you can subscribe to my free email newsletter.

And now, the links…

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→ December 6, 2020
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Music update, November 2020.

A quick playlist of new tracks from November, as we head into mid-December and time for my year-end lists of 2020’s best albums and singles, which I’m tentatively planning to run on December 21st and 22nd. As always, you can access the playlist here if you can’t see the widget below.

James BKS feat. The New Breed Gang – No Unga Bunga. French producer and hip-hop artist JamesBKSwas the first signing to Idris Elba’s new record label, and this is now his fourth single for the imprint, following last year’s “New Breed,” with guest spots from Q-Tip, Little Simz, and Elba himself.  

Arlo Parks – Caroline. At this point, I might be looking forward to Parks’ debut album, Collapsed in Sunbeams, due out January 29th, more than any other album scheduled for next year. Her voice is stunning and I love the lush sound of just about everything she’s released so far.

Jade Bird – Headstart. The Welsh singer-songwriter Bird hasn’t announced a new album but this is her first new track in over a year, since her debut album dropped in May 2019.

HAERTS – It’s Too Late. The duo announced a release date for their third album, Dream Nation, of March 21, with this track and “For the Sky” to be included.

Mourn – Stay There. ThisBarcelona punk-rock trio seem to be getting more experimental as they get older – although they’re still all between 20 and 23 years old – with their fourth album, Self Worth, released on October 30th.

Khruangbin – Summer Madness. Khruangbin had already released one of the year’s best albums in Mordechai, and now they’ve put out a full album with 15 covers, including this reworking of a Kool & the Gang track from 1974.

Django Django – Glowing in the Dark. The title track from the Djangos’ fourth album, due out February 12th, is more of the same electronic rock we’ve gotten from the group since their more experimental first record, 2012’s self-titled debut.

Radkey – Seize. The Brothers Radke are at their best when they turn up the tempo, which they do here on this punk-infused track. Their newest album Green Room just came out on November 27th.

Record Heat – Nathan. Record Heat used to be called Spirit Animal, but they changed their name based on criticism of the possible cultural appropriation involved in the old moniker. I find their music a mixed bag – when they try to introduce anything resembling rap, it doesn’t work, but their straight rock tracks can be pretty strong.

Romero – Troublemaker. A new power-pop group from Melbourne, Romero just released this, their third single, in advance of a debut album coming out next year.

The Lounge Society – Burn the Heather. This West Yorkshire teenaged quartet have called themselves “the antidote to The 1975,” which is good enough for me, although I also dig the post-punk vibe on this, their second-ever single.

Pale Waves – Change. This is my favorite song to date from the Mancunian indie-rock band, whose second album, Who Am I?, is due out on February 12th.

Middle Kids – R U 4 Me? I never got this Sydney indie-pop act’s their 2016 hit “Edge of Town,” but this new track, their first since an EP came out last May, is pretty solid.

Zeal & Ardor – Wake of a Nation. The title track from this gospel-blues-metal band’s new EP, released October 23rd, has more of the same righteous anger in the lyrics and tones down the harshest elements (e.g., blast beats) of some of their earlier output.

Moonspell – The Greater Good. The Portuguese doom metal stalwarts announced their 12th album, Hermitage, will come out on February 26st; it’s their first since 2017’s concept album 1755.

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→ November 1, 2020
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Music update, October 2020.

October turned out to be a great month for new music, perhaps boosted by five Fridays (I feel like music analytics would have to adjust for that). I also think that the pandemic and inadequate responses by many developed nations have left musicians and labels at the point where they don’t feel like they can keep delaying releases – movie studios have a financial incentive to keep kicking the can down the road, but record labels don’t. So this month I have 24 songs on the playlist, with over 90 minutes of new music, running the full gamut of musical styles I like. You can access the playlist here if you can’t see the widget below.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – Automation. Maybe the best guitar riff of the year. I don’t love everything King Gizzard does, but I’m always amazed by their musical shapeshifting. They can move from psychedelia to metal to blues rock and in between and still put out two albums a year.

Creeper – Annabelle. Creeper’s first album was a horror-themed punk record, but they’ve remade themselves on their sophomore album, Sex, Death & the Infinite Void, which is one of the best LPs of 2020, a mad, sprawling record that recalls Suede, the Killers, My Chemical Romance (in a good way), Americana, and elements of early 1980s post-punk/new wave. Some other standout tracks on the album include “Paradise,” “Cyanide,” and “Poisoned Heart,” but really the whole album is incredible.

HAERTS & Ed Droste – For the Sky. I don’t know if or when HAERTS will give us a new album – lead singer Nini Fabi just had a baby, which I’m sure impacts their timeline – but this one-off track with Grizzly Bear’s Ed Droste is a lovely interlude to tide us over.

Peking Duk & the Wombats – Nothing to Love About Love. I wasn’t familiar with the Australian “mad rock” duo Peking Duk, but this came on my Release Radar because I’m a huge fan of the Wombats – and this sounds like a Wombats song remixed.

Battles, DJ Dairy, & DJ Orient – Stirling Bridge. Battles put out a call for artists interested in remixing tracks from their 2019 album Juice B Crypts, and the resulting EP will come out on November 20th. This track comes from two members of black midi, and it’s not a remix of any single song but a new creation from the raw tracks Battles recorded when making the original record.

Goodie Mob ft. Organized Noize – Frontline. Goodie Mob’s first album in seven years, Survival Kit, comes out on November 13th, with tracks featuring André 3000, Big Boi, and Chuck D. This single is an anthem for Black Lives Matter protesters, with prominent mention of the federal government’s use of tear gas on peaceful demonstrators. Cee-Lo also appeared on a new track from Big Boi and Killer Mike called “We the Ones,” which has great work from the two MCs but sluggish music and mailed-in vocals from Cee-Lo, who is a pretty terrible person anyway.

Tori Handsley ft. Ruth Goller and Moses Boyd – What’s in a Tune. Tori Handsley is a jazz harpist who’s been playing with other artists since at least 2010, but is just now releasing her first music under her own name, leading a trio that includes drummer/producer Moses Boyd (whose Dark Matter is one of my favorite albums of 2020). I heard this song before knowing anything about Handsley, and I assumed Handsley was playing a guitar via two-handed tapping, or maybe a Chapman stick, but she gets sounds and patterns from the harp that I don’t associate with that instrument.

Jorja Smith ft. Popcaan – Come Over. This new track from the Mercury-nominated English singer-songwriter Smith appears to be a prelude to a sophomore album, although it’s at least her third single since Lost & Found came out in 2018. It has a more obvious reggae influence than the last few tracks and includes a contribution from dancehall artist Popcaan, although I don’t think he brings much to the table.

Arlo Parks – Green Eyes. Parks’ debut album is finished, and due for a release early in 2021, but this is at least her fifteenth single to date, at least according to her artist page on Spotify. I’ve been late to this party but her voice is gorgeous and whatever you might call her style of music – it’s soulful but not really soul, folk-ish but definitely not folk – I’m here for it.

TRAAMS – Intercontinental Radio Waves. I hadn’t heard TRAAMS before this song, but they released two albums in 2013 and 2015, and a song in 2016, before going dark for the last four years. Wikipedia calls their early music “krautrock” and that’s certainly still evident here, with a flat vocal delivery over a pulsing electronic backdrop.

Slow Pulp – Track. Slow Pulp’s music is indeed slow, and atmospheric, although here they sound more like Slow Smashing Pumpkins (the intro is a lot like the chord pattern from “Today”) – with lyrics about the lead singer’s mother’s anxiety over getting Alzheimer’s disease, which runs in their family.

Artificial Pleasure – The Movement of Sound. Artificial Pleasure released their second album, A New Joy, on Friday, so I haven’t had a chance to crack it yet – we’re seeing a flood of new material this fall, which is great except that I’m never in the car to listen to music at long stretches like I used to do – but it includes this banging track as well as last year’s “Boys Grow Up,” this year’s “Lose Myself Again,” and both parts of “Into the Unknown” as a single song.

Hot Chip ft. Jarvis Cocker – Straight to the Morning. I think I take Hot Chip for granted, because their singles are consistently good, just rarely great on the level of “Over and Over” or “Huarache Lights.” This track includes former Pulp lead singer Jarvis Cocker, although he’s barely noticeable, and the melody is strong enough that the song doesn’t need any help.

Deep Sea Diver – Hurricane. Deep Sea Diver grew out of a solo project of that name by Jennifer Dobson, now the lead singer/guitarist/songwriter of a full four-piece band. Sharon Van Etten makes a cameo on the band’s new album, Impossible Weight, which gives you some idea of their sound, although Dobson’s vocals are far superior and give this song a hint of pop.

The Struts ft. Joe Elliott and Phil Collen – I Hate How Much I Want You. It is entirely appropriate for a band as bombastic as the Struts to call in two members of hair metal icons Def Leppard for a song this ridiculous. I love it.

Dinosaur Pile-Up – It’s Tricky. Another snotty rock band covers another seminal early hip-hop track. This shouldn’t work, but it does.

Are We Static – Wildfire. This new track from AWS starts out a little like that annoying 2014 song “Geronimo” by Sheppard, but instead of turning into a poppy sing-along it converts that nervous energy into a swirling guitar-driven chorus, a quantum improvement in my mind.

Black Honey – I Like the Way You Die. I love Black Honey but this title is on the bleak side for a band this poppy.

All Them Witches – Lights Out. ATW’s Nothing as the Ideal has some incredible psychedelic sludge rock riffs across its eight songs, highlighted by this one and “Enemy of my Enemy,” although the six-minute-plus tracks go too long for their content.

Rob Zombie – The Triumph of King Freak (A Crypt of Preservation and Superstition). I did not foresee Rob Zombie dropping one of the best hard-rock tracks of 2020, I have to admit, but this is peak RZ content, even hinting back at the last White Zombie album Astro-Creep: 2000 with samples and electronic elements.

Pallbearer – Vengeance & Ruination. The kings of American doom metal – or just modern doom metal, period – just released their 4th album, Forgotten Days, and I think it’s their most accessible work to date, although it still has some longer tracks to satisfy diehards (and perhaps scare off folks looking for more radio-friendly lengths).

Killer Be Killed – Dream Gone Bad. Mastodon vocalist Troy Sanders is involved in two side projects that released new tracks this month; this is the better of the two, as the latest Gone is Gone track didn’t do much for me. KBK includes Max Cavalera of Soulfly and formerly of Sepultura, but the sound is closer to Mastodon’s here, very bass-forward with thrash elements but mostly clean (and strong) vocals.

Dark Tranquility – Identical to None. DT’s newest album Moment will drop on November 20th; it seems like more classic Gothenburg melodic death metal, with some great thrash riffing below the growled vocals. I haven’t spent a ton of time on this but I think Gothenburg bands have a distinctive melodic sound that works more at the middle and higher ends of the guitar’s range in each song’s standout riffs, whereas comparable bands from other scenes just try to blow you away with speed or riffs at the bottom end of the range.

Carcass – Slaughtered in Soho. And this is the one exception to everything I just said – but Carcass is sort of an exception to a lot of generalizations about extreme metal, coming out of grindcore to create a ridiculous subgenre termed “goregrind” (which didn’t need its own name), only to abandon both the style and the lyrical content with Heartwork, among the greatest extreme metal albums in history and proof that you could craft compelling melodies without sacrificing speed, growled vocals, or other trappings of the death-metal genre. This track comes off their four-song EP Despicable, which just came out on Friday, with tracks that missed the cut for their next album. The riff on this one is great, and remarkably slow and grooved for Carcass.

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→ October 3, 2020
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Music update, September 2020.

Whew, that was the most loaded month of the year for new music, perhaps as bands and labels have accepted that we’re not getting back to anything like “normal” until 2021, at the least. There’s over 90 minutes of new music here, including four metal tracks at the end (more than I usually have, but it was a better month on that front as well). If you can’t see the Spotify widget below you can access the playlist here.

SAULT – Free. Do we still not know who SAULT are? The just-released Untitled (Rise) is the band’s fourth album in thirteen months, and once again is full of funk and soul tracks laced with strongly political lyrics. They’ve put out so much music I have a hard time keeping up with specific tracks, but this track might be my favorite so far, and the album is their best yet.

Public Enemy featuring Nas, Rapsody, Black Thought, ?uestlove, YG, and Jahi – Fight the Power: Remix 2020. This should be terrible, but it’s not, probably because Chuck D wisely gives up the mic to several other MCs, most of them younger and better rappers than he is right now. The message is what you’d expect, but it hits harder because of the voices delivering it.

Prince – I Need a Man. Prince’s estate released this previously unheard song, which he wrote for the Hookers and later wanted to use for Vanity 6, as part of their mammoth remaster/reissue of Sign O’ The Times. Prince released very few tracks this good after his name change and the end of his contract with Warner Bros. I hope there’s more, since we all know Prince recorded about a billion songs he never released during his lifetime.

Ghost of Vroom 2 – Rona Pollona. That’s Mike Doughty, and this is the closest thing to a Soul Coughing song he’s made since that seminal quartet broke up after El Oso.

Arab Strap – The Turning of Our Bones. I thought Arab Strap was more of a quiet, indie-folk sort of band, but this new track, their first since their last album dropped in 2005, is dark, electronic, and, more in keeping with their prior output, about sex.

Zeal & Ardor – Vigil. Z&A put out two songs in early September, this and “I Can’t Breathe,” both directly aimed at the scourge of police killing unarmed Black Americans with stripped-down backing music with fewer metal elements to it.

Everything Everything – Big Climb. RE-ANIMATOR dropped on September 11th, although by that point I’d already heard half the album from various singles and early releases. This is the best of the remaining tracks, with their normal frenetic combination of fast-sung lyrics and heavy synth work.

Black Honey – Run For Cover. This is Black Honey’s second new single this year, after “Beaches,” so I assume there’s a new album coming soon. I loved their self-titled debut, which was full of great power-pop hooks.

Porridge Radio – 7 Seconds. This new-new-wave track has an intense feeling of desperation to it that elevates it to something more than just another very catchy rock song with a good synth line.

Sunflower Bean – Moment in the Sun. I’ve been on Sunflower Bean’s wavelength pretty much from the start and loved their 2019 EP King of the Dudes, so this one-off single, which has a summery vibe that feels like the soundtrack to a walk on the beach, is right in my wheelhouse.

Cut Copy – Like Breaking Glass. This track is very obviously Cut Copy, but also reminds me quite a bit of St. Lucia’s first album or his song “Dancing on Glass,” which I assume is some sort of subliminal connection in my brain because of their similar titles. Anyway, this is a perfectly adequate Cut Copy song, not “Need You Know” or “Black Rainbows” but good enough for my purposes.

Django Django – Spirals. The Djangos’ first new track since they released an album and an EP back in 2018 is more of the same, as “Spirals” could easily have fit on Marble Skies or Born Under Saturn as one of either album’s singles.

Of Monsters and Men – Visitor. Unlike most good OM&M songs, this one is driven more by its music than by Nana’s vocals, which are understated here.

Sprints – The Cheek. The driving bass line at the start of this track reminds me of Romeo Void’s “Never Say Never,” of early Killing Joke, even a bit of Joy Division, but with the strident vocals of Karla Chubb. The Dublin quartet have said contemporary Irish punk band Fontaines DC are an inspiration, and you can hear that influence here as well.

Bartees Strange – Mustang. A reader recommendation from last month, Bartees Strange is a Next Big Thing, a huge fan of the National who sounds quite a bit like the Hold Steady on this track from his debut album, Live Forever, which just came out on October 2.

The Aubreys – Smoke Bomb. That’s Finn Wolfhard’s new band, since Calpurnia broke up last November.

Courting – David Byrne’s Badside. This new Liverpudlian post-punk quartet look like they’re barely out of middle school, let alone old enough to know who David Byrne is, although the lyrics have nothing to do with him and are instead an indictment of what the band call “pub culture.”

Mourn – Men. As much press as the Spanish band Hinds gets, Mourn is just better. Both bands comprise only women, but Mourn’s three members are superior musicians and have shown musical and lyrical growth over their three albums. This is their second single of 2020, so I presume there’s another LP in the works.

LA WITCH – True Believers. This is a holdover from last month that I somehow forgot to put on the August playlist, but LA WITCH’s sophomore album Play With Fire would be in my top ten for the year so far.

Pallbearer – The Quicksand of Existing. Is this Pallbearer’s most uptempo song? The American doom stalwarts will release their newest album Forgotten Days on October 23rd, and this muscular track is dark and gothic but it’s got more in common with Kyuss/QotSA than true doom metal – and now it’s my favorite Pallbearer track.

Carcass – The Long and Winding Bier Road. Carcass’ new album has been pushed back, probably to 2021, so instead they’re releasing an EP, Despicable, of tracks that didn’t make the latest album.

Dark Tranquility – Phantom Days. One of the pioneers of the Gothenburg melodic death metal sound, Dark Tranquility will release their eleventh LP, Moment, in November. The guitar work and melody here are both superb if you can deal with the death growls.

Vio-Lence – California Über Alles. Yes, it’s a cover of the Dead Kennedys song, but also interesting that it’s the first new material Vio-Lence, one of the more significant Bay Area thrash acts of the late ’80s, have released since 1993.

Napalm Death – Amoral. I have talked about Napalm Death more than I’ve ever listened to their music, really, as their early stuff, which practically defined the genre of grindcore, was way too extreme for me. Their sound has evolved over the last thirty-plus years, and their sixteenth album, Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism, sees them working across a range of metal genres and even going into no-wave/post-punk territory, although you’ll always have to deal with Barney Greenway’s vocals.

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→ September 2, 2020
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Music update, August 2020.

August rallied late to produce enough good new tracks that I ended up cutting a few from the final playlist. There were also some fairly high-profile and/or well-reviewed albums, including the Killers’ Imploding the Mirage, Samia’s The Baby, Bully’s SUGAREGG, Young Jesus’ experimental jazz/rock Welcome to Conceptual Beach, Angel Olsen’s Whole New Mess, Bright Eyes’ oh I don’t care what it’s called. I liked the Killers album, and sort of like the Young Jesus album even if I don’t fully appreciate what they’re doing, and could do without the others. Anyway, here’s my playlist for August; you can access it here if you can’t see the Spotify widget below.

Anderson .Paak – Lockdown. Therehave beenway too many songs about the lockdown, and most of them suck. This one doesn’t.

clipping. – Say the Name. That’s Daveed Diggs of Hamilton and Blindspotting, along with a pair of producers, and I’m a bit ashamed to admit that I didn’t know of this trio’s existence until a few months ago. Diggs is a clever wordsmith whose laconic style calls back to Guru and Kool G Rap. clipping.’s fourth full-length album, Visions of Bodies Being Burned, which takes its title from the sample that opens this song, is due out on October 23rd.

Lupin – May. Lupin is Jake Luppen of the inoffensive alternative band Hippo Campus, but apparently he’s been hiding his inner Neon Indian, at least based on this single from his forthcoming debut solo album, which has an incredibly funky drum machine loop and a bass line to match. No word on whether he’ll hold any concerts during a full moon.

The Naked & Famous – Monument. TNAF’s new album Recover dropped on August 8th and it’s their best and most complete LP yet, with several standout tracks including this one (which showcases Alisa Xayalith’s vocals particularly well), “Death,” “Recover,” “Easy,” and “Sunseeker.”

Space Above featuring Alisa Xayalith – Stolen Days. Xayalith also lends her vocals to her former bandmate Aaron Short, who records as Space Above and just put out a new 7-song EP Glow the same day TNAF released their own record. Maddie North, who records as So Below and has recorded with Space Above, even put out a new single, “Fear,” that same week.

Arlo Parks – Hurt. Parks just turned 20 last month but she’s the most interesting, dynamic new voice I’ve heard all year. This new single combines distinct soul and funk elements with her hypnotic vocals, the gentle nature of which belies the depth of emotion beneath them.

Killers – Dying Breed. Brandon Flowers and company returned with Imploding the Mirage, which took me by surprise as someone who was never a huge fan of their work. The record doesn’t take any huge risks, but also has quite a few strong pop melodies and immaculate production, led by this, the fourth single off the record, as well as “Caution” (with a guitar solo from Lindsey Buckingham!) and “Blowback.”

Doves – Cathedrals of the Mind. A new Doves song is pretty much an automatic inclusion on my playlists, but this isn’t quite what I was hoping to hear from the trio for a single from their comeback album The Universal Want, due out on September 20th, lacking the immediacy or the strong melodies that marked their peak output.

London Grammar – Baby It’s You. I was reasonably sure I’d listed another London Grammar song on a past playlist, but I seem to have made that up. They’re quite popular in the UK, with a #1 album in 2017’s Truth is a Beautiful Thing; I’m surprised how often commercial or critical success in other Anglophone countries can fail to translate into any notice here in the U.S. We can be xenophobic in music, too.

Lucius – Man in My Radio. This Brooklyn indie quartet can be strange, and pretentious, but Lucius seems good for one absolute banger a year, and this one-off single definitely qualifies.

BLOXX – Coming Up Short. This Uxbridge quartet have toured with the Wombats and just released their debut album Lie Out Loud, featuring this very hooky indie-pop track.

Yard Act – Fixer Upper. These guys are post-punk in the Gang of Four/Wire sense, and take it a step further with spoken-word lyrics about suburban real estate. I swear it’s not deliberate that this month’s playlist skews so heavily towards the UK.

Fontaines D.C. – I Was Not Born. These heralded Irish punks made my top 100 of last year with “Too Real,” but their singles prior to this one had missed that song’s hook, lacking something to counter the abrasiveness of their music. They’ve found the balance again here with a more melodic guitar line without sacrificing any of their signature sneering.

Ihsahn & Einar Solberg – Manhattan Skyline. So, this is the lead singer/guitarist of the infamous black metal band Emperor, perhaps better known for their support of arsons of old churches in Norway in the 1990s and their drummer’s conviction for murdering a gay man who he thought made a pass at him than for their actual music; and the lead singer and keyboardist for Norwegian prog metal band Leprous. And they’re covering a minor single from a-ha’s second album.

Gojira – Another World. This French heavy metal outfit’s 2016 release Magma was named the best metal album of the decade in a poll of musicians by MetalSucks.net and even earned two Grammy nominations. They’re often called “death metal” but they don’t have that genre’s blast beats, and the vocals here are more shouted than growled or screamed, although if you think this is a distinction without a difference I won’t press the point. Anyway, the guitar riff here is outstanding, rivaling the riff that opens “Stranded” from Magma.

Carcass – The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue. The greatest death-metal band in history will release an EP of new material, Despicable, on October 30th, featuring this brutal six-minute track that goes through what feels like a half-dozen different movements, some of which I could do without but others feature some of the incredible guitar work that has made me a fan of theirs since Heartwork.

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