I don’t know if this was a weak month for new music or if I was just too busy to find as much of it as I normally do; either way this is a shorter-than-normal playlist, but anything I didn’t discover in July will just have to come find me in August. If the embedded panel doesn’t work you can access the Spotify playlist directly instead.

The Naked And Famous – Higher. I’ve liked most of the Naked & Famous’ output to date, including this anthemic new single, but they also seem to me like CHVRCHES without the charisma of Lauren Mayberry. N&F’s lead singer Alisa Xayalith does her job, and the group’s lyrics typically bring a few clever flourishes, but for whatever reason her voice doesn’t compel you to listen. “Higher” is their most radio-friendly track since “Young Blood,” though, and I’m hopeful they’ll get some crossover airplay.

Jagwar Ma – O B 1. Jagwar Ma is among the leading lights of Australian indie pop, with drawn-out takes on spacey psycheledic pop music. Their first hit “Save Me” appeared in 2011, followed by a full-length album in 2013. This track appears to be the first ahead of their second album, and it’s just as weird and spaced-out as their work to date, almost defying you to grab hold of its twisted melody.

ELEL – When She Walks. ELEL – again with the all caps, although I suppose Elel might look odd – is a pop octet (yep) from Nashville led by Ben Elkins, with a sort of roots-rock element to its instrumentation and arrangements. I kind of liked their debut single last year, “40 Watt,” but this is much catchier and the instrumental bridges elevate the song well above your standard alt-pop track.

Biffy Clyro – Howl. Biffy Clyro is a band name you could only get away with if you were from Scotland, but this trio is, so it’s all good. Once an experimental rock act, they’ve gone indie-pop as they’ve gotten older, with this track reminiscent of another Scottish power-pop act, Teenage Fanclub. Their seventh album, Ellipsis, is due in September.

Local Natives – Fountain Of Youth. Good Local Natives have a little more tension, almost a yearning, the way “Heavy Feet” stood out from the overall mellow Hummingbird album. This song, like “Past Lives” earlier this year, has me cautiously optimistic about their upcoming album Sunlit Youth.

HUNGER – Amused. HUNGER (stylized in all capitals because reasons) is an Austrian electronic pop trio about to release its second album, which is a deep throwback to the post-new wave synthpop era – mid-period Depeche Mode, for example. They also really remind me of Cause & Effect, a band I don’t even know that well.

Jeff Beck – Right Now. Jeff Beck’s guitar work, both technical proficiency and his ability to craft compelling riffs, is incredible for someone in his ’70s, and while the vocals of Rosie Bones are a distraction here I’m still buying in to hear Beck’s fretwork.

Wild Beasts – Tough Guy. Wild Beasts are huge critical darlings in the U.K. but are probably too strange and artsy to find much of a following here; if you’re a fan of alt-J or Everything Everything, then you’d probably enjoy their work, which has a heavy electronic component and plays around with song structures. It’s also very distinctly British, which I consider a positive but others may not.

Zhu – Palm of My Hand. Stephen Zhu had one of my favorite songs of last year with “Hold Up Wait a Minute,” an inspired collaboration with Bone Thugs N’ Harmony and Trombone Shorty, but the California-based DJ and producer’s output is so all over the place I haven’t found another song I’ve liked from him until this almost completely instrumental electronic track, which starts with a melodic guitar solo before spacing out with a mournful piano riff, mostly over a throbbing drum-and-bass line. Zhu’s debut album, Generationwhy, came out last Friday.

Of Montreal – it’s different for girls. These guys are delightfully bizarre; their sound doesn’t always come together for me, but when it does they make some of the most unique alternative pop music out there. Lead singer Kevin Barnes’ lyrics don’t always rhyme, and they cover topics not typically found in pop music. His delivery is over-enunciated and effeminate. The song structures vary from track to track and often fall apart mid-song, like Barnes forgot where he started and didn’t bother to go back to it. This song, which is like a psychedelic reimagining of a vintage Blur track, is the lead single ahead of their album Innocence Reaches, due out August 12th.

Prophets Of Rage – Prophets Of Rage. Prophets of Rage are a supergroup that could easily end up a disaster – the three musicians from Rage Against the Machine together with Chuck D (Public Enemy) and B Real (Cypress Hill). On the plus side, either one of those guys would represent an upgrade over Zack de la Rocha. On the minus side, this could end up some cliche-ridden rap-rock. This lead single, bearing the band’s title, is probably a 55: above average, better than I’d feared, not as good as it might have been 20 years ago.

Pixies – Um Chagga Lagga.

Nani – I Am Volcano. This LA-based quartet, featuring a singer born in Bosnia and raised in Canada, just dropped this lead single in June, a manic punk rush powered by lead singer Nina’s tumbling, vaguely poetic lyrics.

Descendents – Beyond The Music. The Descendents are pretty much an automatic inclusion on these lists; they’re older but they haven’t grown up musically, just in their lyrics (like “No Fat Burger,” an ode to fighting high cholesterol). Their new album Hypercaffium Spazzinate features twenty-one mostly short, mostly similar tracks, but there are a half-dozen with melodies just a bit better than the rest, including this one, “Without Love,” and “On Paper.”

JEFF The Brotherhood – Idiot. I saw JEFF (grr) the Brotherhood in Tempe in 2012 with Nick Piecoro. They were … adequate. Kind of loud, not very hooky, but “Idiot” definitely brings the hook without materially changing their heavy guitar/drum sound (think Drenge, Royal Blood, and all these other rock duos mining the same formula).

I ended up with over 30 songs on the rough draft of this playlist, but cut most of them after a few additional listens – many were from bands worth mentioning, like Sigur Ros or Two Door Cinema Club, but I couldn’t justify including the songs on their own merits. So here are 21 new tracks for June, 20 of them currently on the Spotify playlist with one I’m hoping will return to the streaming service shortly. You can access the Spotify playlist directly as well.

Van William – Fourth of July. Van Pierszalowski, lead singer of WATERS, hardcore Dodgers fan, and serious coffee snob (I say that as a compliment), has a new side project under the name Van William with a different sound than his main band boasts. This is the first single, and there’s a second one I’ve heard via their publicists, both of which are definitely more personal and sunnier than WATERS’ stuff. This song has disappeared from Spotify for the moment, but I’m leaving it on the playlist for what I assume will be a quick return. It was my favorite new track of June, and I’m not only saying that because I’ve met Van (for coffee, of course) and talked Dodgers prospects with him.

CHVRCHES featuring Hayley Williams – Bury It. This is a reworked version of a great track from CHVRCHES’ 2015 album Every Open Eye, with Paramore singer Hayley Williams singing the second verse and sharing duties on the chorus. I’m not a Paramore fan, but Williams’ staccato style works perfectly with the hesitating lyrics in her verse. I think this might be the song that launches CHVRCHES fully into the pop mainstream.

Broods – Heartlines. Broods’ second album, Conscious came out a week ago, and there’s a big shift in sound from their debut, with more songs like “Heartlines” and “Free” that feature electronic sounds and quicker tempos. These are the two best songs on the album, but there are still darker, more … uh, brooding songs here, including “Freak of Nature” (featuring Tove Lo) and “All of Your Glory” that are more reminiscent of their debut.

Dagny featuring BØRNS – Fool’s Gold. Norwegian singer Dagny appeared on my top 100 songs of 2015 with “Backbeat,” and this track has a similar feel, showcasing her lower vocal registers in particular, here in collaboration with Michigan-born singer/songwriter BØRNS, who seems like he should be the Norwegian part of the pairing.

Bat For Lashes – Sunday Love. Natasha Khan, who records solo material as Bat for Lashes, just released a new concept album last week called The Bride, about a woman whose fiancé is killed on the way to the church for their wedding – a classic summer listen, really. The album is uneven, although I think Khan is such a risk-taker musically that this is inevitable for her. This particular track is my favorite, trending toward the electropop style she showed on “All Your Gold” from her last BfL album.

Ladyhawke – A Love Song. Ladyhawke is a singer-songwriter from New Zealand and generally an interesting person, diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrom in her 20s and speaking openly about performing drunk to cover her anxiety. Anyway, this is a great summer pop song regardless of her biography. Her third album, Wild Things, came out on June 9th.

Drowners – Another Go. Drowners’ second album, On Desire, just came out last month, and it’s more of the same jangly post-Britpop as they brought on their self-titled debut. I preferred “Pick Up the Pace” from this album, but “Another Go” would be my choice for a second single over the one they actually released, “Human Remains.”

The Kents – The Stakes. This fairly new Canadian indie-pop quartet just released its debut five-song EP Waking on June 1st, and while I may be succumbing to a bit of availability bias, I thought I heard some real Tragically Hip influence here.

Alexandra Savior – Shades. Savior, a singer-songwriter from LA, has become Arctic Monkeys lead singer/songwriter Alex Turner’s writing partner of late, even co-writing “Miracle Aligner” on the latest album from Turner’s side project The Last Shadow Puppets. Her own debut album remains in the works, but this is the first true single Savior has released herself, with her only previous appearance on wax in a song called “Risk” that popped up in HBO’s series True Detective.

Phantogram – You Don’t Get Me High Anymore. Phantogram is so hit or miss, with “Blackout Days” one of the best songs of the decade so far, especially with Sarah Barthel’s voice so front and center. That’s the same reason I didn’t like their Big Grams collaboration with Big Boi; if she’s the best thing about Phantogram, then relegating her to the chorus behind some of Big Boi’s worst raps ever isn’t going to produce anything worthy. This new track is the lead single from their upcoming album, Three, due out September 16th, and it’s much closer to “Blackout Days” territory.

Phoria – Everything Beta. This Brighton trio’s ambitious spacey alt-rock sound is not terribly conducive to the short single format, but they’re worth listening to even with all of the Radiohead comparisons piled on top of them (and Radiohead comps don’t do anyone any favors).

Bear’s Den – Auld Wives. This British duo gets a lot of comps to folk-rock acts included the dreaded Mumford & Sons, but I hear more mid-1980s “sophisti-pop,” a terribly-named subgenre that encompassed groups like Roxy Music, ABC, and Level 42, in this track from their upcoming album, their first since the departure of one of the three founding members.

The Stone Roses – Beautiful Thing. The second single from the unlikely reformation of the likely lads has more great guitar work from John Squire, yet once again Ian Brown seems to have lost his teeth as a vocalist and lyricist. Brown’s best work on his own and with the Roses was always sneering, sometimes angry and sometimes just derisive, but the two new songs this year are both a little too shiny-happy-people to recapture the magic of old Stone Roses matieral.

SULK – Black Infinity (Upside Down). Now these guys sound a hell of a lot like the early Stone Roses, pre-Second Coming, all the way through SULK’s second album, the self-released No Illusions. I highly recommend this song and “The Only Faith is Love” if you’re an old-time Madchester fan like me.

Jeff Beck – Live In The Dark. Speaking of great guitar work, legendary guitarist Jeff Beck turned 72 last week and has a new solo album, Loud Hailer, due out this month. Vocal duties fall to singer Rosie Bones, but this is entirely about Beck’s fretwork, and he sounds as good as ever.

Wye Oak – If You Should See. This indie duo’s fifth album, Tween, is due out in August, and features a more guitar-driven sound than the minimalist electronica of 2014’s Shriek. The songs are all tracks that didn’t make the cut for that album or its predecessor, Civilian, so the eight songs might be a mixed bag musically.

Troup – Mercury and Gold. Big-time throwback sounds from Alex Troup, formerly frontman for British pop-punk act Crashland, and producer Evan Beigel, with thisi raw-edged guitar track that reminds me of lots of unapologetic rock acts of the ’70s, not least because Troup has a Mick Jagger sneer to his singing.

The Wans – Run Baby Run. Hard rock, borderline metal, with a strong melody, from a Nashville power trio off their upcoming EP of the same title, the follow-up to their 2014 debut album He Said She Said.

Descendents – Victim Of Me. I assumed these guys were defunct, but the pioneering punks, nearing their 40th anniversary as a band, will put out, Hypercaffium Spazzinate their first album in twelve years, at the end of July. The song is 96 seconds long, so I see age hasn’t changed Milo and the boys at all.

Gone Is Gone – Starlight. The debut, self-titled EP from this supergroup, featuring members of Mastodon, QotSA, and At the Drive-In, drops next Friday. It’s heavy, but not metal; funereal, but not stoner.

Monument – Hair of the Dog. I haven’t heard any act so happily anachronistic as Monument in ages; the music is very late-80s speed metal, and the singer is doing his best Bruce Dickinson impression. I don’t even know if I like the song or if I just enjoy the surfeit of nostalgia within it.

Banks & Steelz – Giant. This new project from RZA (of Wu-Tang Clan, although I feel like that’s superfluous) and Paul Banks (of Interpol) is the umpteenth attempt to merge alt-rock and hip-hop, most of which have, to my ears, been somewhere between unfortunate failures and painful trainwrecks. The duo’s first single, “Love & War,” wasn’t any better, but this second release is a lot more on the mark, primarily because RZA just takes over – this song is about him, delivering a vintage performance worthy of classic Wu-Tang material, dropping some comic rhymes early before turning political with a full spectrum of progressive talking points in the final verse.

Twenty-four songs this month because I couldn’t bear to cut any of these – some are just that good, others are important because of who recorded them, all are worth your time.

Radiohead – Burn the Witch. Yep, the boys are back, looking more like the killers in a Rob Zombie splatter film than like a post-rock band, but the lead track from A Moon-Shaped Pool is one of their best songs in years, maybe my favorite since Amnesiac. I didn’t find much of interest on the rest of the album, though, as Radiohead seems to favor atmospheric sounds that I find a bit soporific.

Wire – Numbered. It was a big month for new tunes from the old guard, with post-rock icons Wire releasing their fifteenth album, Nocturnal Koreans just as April ended. I found several tracks here worth including, but chose “Numbered” for its lyrical and stylistic callbacks to the band’s best-known song, “3 Girl Rhumba.”

CHVRCHES – Warning Call. Not necessarily their best work, but this song, from the soundtrack to a video game called Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, is a new CHVRCHES song and it would take a lot for me to exclude a new CHVRCHES song from a new music playlist.

Local Natives – Past Lives. To borrow a favorite malaprop of my daughter’s, I was “so-and-so” on Local Natives even through Hummingbird, although “Heavy Feet” did make my year-end list in 2014. “Past Lives” is just so much bigger and more ambitious than what I’ve heard from them before, and the music actually accentuates Kelcey Ayer’s vocals, as opposed to their sparser previous work that placed too much weight on his vocals and left them sounding whiny. I heard this song at least a half-dozen times before I realized it was under four minutes; it has the feel of a long, broad epic six-minute track.

The Stone Roses – All for One. The music is there, with a strong riff from John Squire, but Ian Brown’s lyrics are awfully tame for someone who never held his tongue before.

Glass Animals – Life Itself. Glass Animals do some seriously weird stuff with their percussion lines, often in a very good way (like “Pools”), but their songwriting takes a big step forward with this lead single from their upcoming second album, How to Be a Human Being.

Lucius – Almost Makes Me Wish for Rain. Another pop gem from the quintet’s second full-length album, this song has a summery, anthemic feel, and lyrics that seem like a rebuttal to a certain Garbage song.

Wolf Parade – Automatic. Never a big Wolf Parade fan but I’m including this song from their comeback EP because Nick Piecoro will cut me if I don’t.

The Faint – Young & Realistic. The Faint have always had some new-wave stylings, but this song could have opened for Blondie and Duran Duran in 1982.

The Big Pink – Hightimes. I doubt they’ll ever recapture the peak of “Dominos,” their first hit and a key sample in a Nicki Minaj song (the first time her name has ever appeared on this blog and I hope the last as well), but this has a similar feel and tempo, just without some of the bombast that made “Dominos” a sort of guilty fun.

Speedy Ortiz – Death Note. This track didn’t make SO’s 2015 album Foil Deer – it’ll appear instead on an upcoming EP called Foiled Again – but I think it’s my favorite song by the Massachusetts band yet. Those riffs are seriously heavy.

Leagues – Dance With Me. Leagues had a minor hit a couple of years ago, around when I started writing up music posts more regularly, with “Spotlight,” a very bright indie-pop that featured a solid contrast between the tension in the music behind the verses and the big peaks in the chorus. This is a little more straightforward, slower tempo but more in line with the rest of Leagues’ first album.

The Aces – Stuck. This is so much poppier than stuff I usually include on the list, but my daughter, who told me this morning that she liked the song on the radio (it was Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs”), absoutely loves it, and it’s very catchy. But I don’t understand how this all-girl quartet can keep the name when it already belongs to a popular blues band that existed for about two decades last century.

The Pass – Silent Treatment. This Louisville quartet is about to release its first album, Canyons, next Friday on indie label SonaBlast Records. This lead single is another straight-up synthpop song, perhaps a bit poppier than what I usually include here, but, hey, it’s finally summer, so forgive me for throwing some more sunshine on this month’s playlist.

Monica Heldal – Coulda Been Sound. This Norwegian singer-songwriter sounds sort of like an elf, or perhaps Kat Edmonson, over a track here that would have fit in perfectly on Ben Howard’s Every Kingdom album.

Drowners – Pick Up The Pace. Drowners had a couple of minor hits in 2013-14 with “Long Hair” and “Luv, hold me down,” and this song is in just the same vein, a bit of jangly indie-pop from a band named for a Suede song but clearly inspired by ’80s alternative sounds.

Wild Beasts – Get My Bang. Wild Beasts earned huge critical acclaim for their Mercury-Prize nominated 2014 album Present Tense, featuring the memorable line “Don’t confuse me with someone who gives a fuck.” This song, from their upcoming album Boy King, has a much stronger funk influence than anything on that last album, which I thought was a better academic record than a listening one.

Leapling – Alabaster Snow. If Death Cab for Cutie adopted some noise-rock effects on their guitars, you might get this song.

Elwell – Let the Rain Come In. Just hang with the dirge-like opening here – the song’s centerpiece is the part-folk, part-electronic chorus, a change of direction for Minneapolis guitarist Andy Elwell on his upcoming seventh album.

Everything Everything – To The Blade. This song isn’t new – the album, Get to Heaven, actually came out in 2015 in the UK, and was finally released in the US this February, but because of the gap in release dates and its unavailability last year on Spotify I never included anything after the lead single “Regret” on my playlists. The sprawling 18-song record doesn’t have the highs of the previous disc, Arc, and certainly could have used a little editing, but has several strong singles, including this one, which has this utterly frenetic chorus that recalls their most original work from their last two albums.

Thrice – Death From Above. Featuring friend of the dish Riley Breckenridge, Thrice just released their ninth full-length album, To Be Everywhere is to Be Nowhere, last week, and this is the third track from the record I’ve included on a playlist here because it’s all pretty fucking great. The vibe is remniscent of classic hardcore, but dialed down to a stoner tempo that gives the heavy riffs on the chorus more time to fill your ears.

Gone Is Gone – Violescent. This supergroup features members of Mastodon, Queens of the Stone Age, and At the Drive-In, with a sound that you might get if you threw all those groups in a blender. It’s more accessible and less heavy than Mastodon’s progressive metal sounds, a little quicker and richer than the stoner vibe of QotSA. The chorus is a hell of an earworm, too.

Death Angel – The Moth. I’ve got two tracks this month from 1980s thrash icons who’ve put out new records, the first from Death Angel, whose first album, The Ultra-Violence, was recorded while the band members were still teenagers. Their eighth album, The Evil Divide, came out last week, and the band’s core sound remains very true to their original Bay Area thrash roots.

Destruction – Under Attack. One of the pioneers of European thrash in the 1980s, Destruction has been recording pretty frequently (if without much notice) since 1998, and like Death Angel haven’t varied their sound much either: If you like classic thrash sounds, you’ll like most of their latest album, Under Attack, although I found it a mixed bag. The first half of the album is stronger than the back half, sticking to the formula that made Destruction one of the most important thrash acts of the 1980s, while the second half has some changes in direction that just don’t work (“Stand Up for What You Deliver” is cringeworthy) before they return to the formula in the closer “Thrash Attack.”

Good month for new tracks, with a slew of big alternative album releases coming up this month and next. I was disappointed by the new Last Shadow Puppets record, though, so I have nothing new from them here.

DMA’S – Too Soon. Apparently the British press has compared these guys to Oasis – although I suspect their goal was just to get Liam and/or Noel to say “piss shit bollocks” or something – but while I agree the DMA’s harken back to Britpop, I’m hearing far more Cast or Blur than Oasis. The song is too sunny and melodic for Oasis to be more than a lazy comp, even with the little nod to Nirvana’s “Come As You Are” coming right out of the chorus.

Hundred Waters – Forgive Me For Giving Up. Hundred Waters had my favorite album of 2014, The Moon Rang Like a Bell, for their strange mixture of ethereal vocals and sparse electronic backdrops. This one-off single would be somewhere in the middle of the pack compared to tracks from that album, although it’s far better than the atrocious remix of “Show Me Love” that appeared in March.

The Hearts – Lovers Drug. Not to be confused with HAERTS, this Welsh act has a heavy Stone Roses vibe to the vocals and the guitar sound, although the riffs aren’t quite so big and the song is ultimately more Britpop than Madchester – although that works just fine for me.

The Kills – Heart Of A Dog. I thought “Doing It to Death” was better but hold out hope that their next album, due out June 3rd, will be more like that track or even their seminal “Sour Cherry.”

The Coral – Fear Machine. The longrunning British alt-rock act celebrate their 20th anniversary this year with the album Distance Inbetween, a very solid record that brings in a lot of the vaguely eastern percussion patterns of a Band of Skulls, but with less of the latter group’s bombast and powerful riffs.

A. Sinclair – Let It Go. Aaron Sinclair’s group is back with a new record, Get Out of the City, another hookfest full of their uptempo roots-rock sound, due out next Friday.

KONGOS – Take It From Me. The South African group’s hit “Come With Me Now” shouldn’t make them a one-hit wonder given the strength of this lead single from their second album, Egomaniac, due out on June 10th. The Brothers K still incorporate the South African musical style called kwaito into their sound, giving them a distinctive edge in a sea of sameness on alternative radio.

The Temper Trap – Fall Together. More great pop music from Australia, which has been a fountain of great indie-pop for several years now. This is their best song since their first big hit, “Sweet Disposition,” maybe better since I always found the earlier song a little cloying, whereas this track’s soaring chorus hits just the right note of sweetness.

Frightened Rabbit – Get Out. The Scottish group’s latest album is too quietcore for me, lacking strong hooks or any sort of urgency, but this song’s drum fill and amped-up chorus provides some much-needed contrast to the yearning, tame verses, something lacking from the rest of the record.

Lust For Youth – Better Looking Brother. Lust for Youth can’t seem to decide which classic New Wave band they wish to imitate; their new album’s first track, “Stardom,” is a dead-on Smiths impersonation, but I prefer this seven-minute track, which sounds like a deep cut from a New Order’s Brotherhood.

Fort Frances – Days Get Heavy. The vocals are a little precious, but the big chorus is the song’ salvation. This Chicago indie act is giving away a free mp3 if you sign up for their mailing list.

ELEL – Animal. ELEL’s “40 Watt” made one of my playlists last winter and was a late cut from my top 100 for the year, but I like this new single from Nashville octet, plus is that Tim Lincecum in the back row of this band picture?

Cellars – I’m Feeling. Allene Norton records as Cellars and if you’re of a certain age, you’ll flash back to a lot of ’80s synthpop, some good (Men Without Hats, early Tears for Fears) and some not so good (Suzie Q’s “Two of Hearts”).

Black Honey – On Your Time. The British group’s debut EP, Headspin, came out last week, with this and “All My Pride” (on my last playlist) my two favorite tracks, driven by lead singer Izzy B. Phillips’ charismatic delivery.

White Lung – Below. The Canadian punk-pop act’s highly anticipated (by me, at least) album Paradise drops this Friday. The singles released in advance of the album have all been tighter and more melodic than their previous work, which was already solid.

Stone Cold Fox – Firing Squad. These Brooklyn indie-rockers take their name from the famous line in Footloose: “If you ask me, Ren is a stone cold fox.” Anyway, “Firing Squad” combines a rich, crunchy guitar line with a meandering, aimless vocal line gives the overall song a psychedelic quality not immediately apparent from either element.

Car Seat Headrest – Fill in the Blank. I love the opening gimmick, where a young woman announces the group but stumbles as if she’s just reading the name of an unfamiliar group off an index card. TO be fair, it’s a terrible name, and the group – originally a solo project by Leesburg, Virginia native Will Toledo (shout-out to King Street Coffee!) but now a four-piece – will release its first formal, studio-recorded album on May 20th. Also I like this song.

Porches – Braid. Porches are creepy, but the good kind of creepy, not like Gary Glitter creepy. The electronic drumbeat is hypnotic, and the bass line swirls even when it’s rudely shoved to the background by the vocals (who asked you to sing anyway? I was zoning out).

Band of Horses – Casual Party. BOH’s first album since 2012 is scheduled to drop next month; “Is There a Ghost?” ranks among my favorite songs of the decade so far, so I’m rather looking forward to this record.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra – Shakedown Street. Another track from the forthcoming Grateful Dead tribute album.

Thrice – Black Honey. Hi, Riley!

Gojira – Stranded. Gojira cross a lot of metal subgenres, occasionally veering into death metal territory, sometimes descending into groove metal, but here they go very old-school, with a song that derives just as much from classic Testament or Megadeth as it does from Pantera. The vocals are shouted, but not growled or screamed, making it a bit more accessible than, say, Amon Amarth’s melodic death metal, but it’s still an aggressive sound that at least brought me back to the golden age of thrash.

Native Daughters – Two Princes. This Denver technical-metal outfit does instrumental stuff that draws on about four decades of metal sounds, with a heavy doom influence to the big drum line here, symphonic inspirations for the keyboard and lead guitar, and thrash riffs to the rhythm guitar.

I published my rankings of the top 100 songs of 2015 and top 15 albums of 2015 in mid-December, which is nearly always a dead month for new releases anyway, so in past years I haven’t even bothered with a new playlist until the end of January. This time, however, there were about a half-dozen tracks I wanted to mention before we got too far along in the calendar, so I’ve put together this shorter-than-normal playlist to tide everyone over.

Animal Collective – FloriDada. This song reached me in time to make my top 100 for 2015, and it’s one of my favorites from Animal Collective alongside “My Girls,” but even more accessible. I’m still trying to piece together some of the lyrics, but I love the way the music, including the layered vocals, seems like it’s always about to veer off the road into the wild grass.

School Of Seven Bells – Open Your Eyes. SVIIB’s final album is due out in February, their first and thus only release since the death of co-founder Ben Curtis from cancer in 2013, including parts he recorded before his passing. I found their music beautifully melancholy to begin with, so I can only imagine how this record will feel knowing that Curtis is gone and the band is finished.

Bloc Party – The Good News. I’m mixed on this song; it seems a bit too much like Four, but after the promise of the first single from their upcoming album I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Wild Nothing – TV Queen. Good Wild Nothing tracks manage to sound upbeat and depressing at the same time, kind of like Joy Division and early New Order. This isn’t on par with “To Know You,” which I still say was practically lifted from Talk Talk’s “It’s My Life,” but still would have fit well on 2012’s Nocturne.

St. Lucia – Physical. Included because it’s St. Lucia and I have liked just about everything he’s released to date, but I don’t like this track anywhere near as much as “Dancing on Glass” or the bulk of his first album.

DIIV – Under the Sun. Zachary Cole Smith, who records as DIIV, is putting out a double album on February 5th, which seems to have a lot of the music press excited, but I’ve yet to see evidence Smith can fill a single album with enough worthwhile and non-repetitive material. Part of the problem is that every DIIV song I’ve ever heard sounds like it’s just a clone of the one original DIIV track, so if there were some sort of Panama disease that affected that one song his entire catalogue would be wiped out. This track is pretty good, though.

Conrad Keely – In Words of a Not so Famous Man. This quiet, pensive track is about the last thing I expected from the lead singer of …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. There’s still a hidden tension in the song, as we get from most Trail of Dead material, but where his main project creates huge shimmering walls of sound, this track is almost intimate by comparison.

(The London) Suede – Outsiders. They’re never going to make another “Metal Mickey” or even another “Beautiful Ones,” but Suede have settled into something comfortable for their middle age, with this track, released in late September, continuing in the same vein as their solid 2013 comeback album Bloodsports.

Killing Joke – Euphoria. I whiffed on Killing Joke’s album Pylon – I didn’t hear it until I’d already gotten well into writing my year-end posts and didn’t get to spend any time with it until after Christmas, but it should have slipped into the last spot on my top albums list. It’s not quite vintage Killing Joke, which was more punk than anything else, with many of their best-known songs (“The Wait,” “Eighties”) running long for punk but about the norm for radio-friendly rock; it’s more like an album full of longer, dark songs like “Love Like Blood,” six minutes and up, heavier, driving music that I’d call metal but might only qualify as “hard rock” by today’s standards. Whatever you call it, it’s fucking boss.

pop. 1280 – Pyramids on Mars. I admit I knew nothing of this band before hearing this track, and still don’t know much about them other than that they’re named after a great noir crime novel; this song is sort of noise-rock experimentalism with hints of early gothic new wave stuff like Bauhaus.