The 5 Best Songs Of The Week

Nashville indie pop duo Twen released their new album Fate Euphoric on Tuesday, not necessarily because they miss the good ol' days before Friday became release day standard, but in compliance with an astrologer's advice. Twen's cautiously optimistic instincts were in the right place: On Fate Euphoric's release day, Virginia and New Jersey handily elected new Democratic governors, California voted in favor of redrawing the state's congressional districts to thwart Republican power grabs, and New York City erupted in seismic celebrations upon confirmation that Zohran Mamdani would be its next mayor. A better future, finally, seemed a bit more tangible.

Fate Euphoric appropriately closes with its title track, a sparkling end-credits soundtrack that acknowledges that keeping the faith is a skill worth honing. There'll always be "criminal minds" ready to hijack your joy, vocalist Jane Fitzsimmons tells us over a Britpop jangle, which is all the more reason to embrace hope as a practice. "Fate Euphoric" doesn't falsely promise that everything will work out in the end, but Twen are ready to stick it out either way. —Abby

These days, there's no running from your problems or hiding from your past. "Wherever you go, there you are," as they say, but it feels doubly true now that our lives are so tied into the internet. Or as Jeremy Gaudet puts it on the chorus to Kiwi Jr.'s latest, "It's hard to leave home with your heart on a hard drive." Inspired by a wifi password on the side of a barn, the song laments our inability to truly get off the grid — or even really unplug for a while. It does so via "the story of some young people trying to live a fantasy old country life, sort of city slickers cosplaying as hillbillies," whose story takes a dark turn. But "Hard Drive, Ontario" makes its bleak premise feel hopeful through sheer musical exuberance, channeling the kind of classic guitar-based indie rock that might get you jumping up and down at a gig (assuming you can get your face out of your phone). —Chris

On Dari Bay's "Interstate," Zack James sings of his heart aching, and he's doing an impressive job of transferring that feeling right onto the listener. The guitars reverberate with fuzz and yearning, and his vocal delivery is gentle but full of conviction, especially when he asserts, "And I would like to love you/ And I would like to love you." The first time he offers the line, it warms your heart; the second time, it's so beautiful it threatens to break your heart. —Danielle

Nothing always bring the heat. It's been two years since When No Birds Sang, their scorching collaborative LP with Full Of Hell; it's been five years since their last non-collaborative album The Great Dismal, which saw the Philly band digging deeper into gritty shoegaze. Now "Cannibal World," the first preview of A Short History Of Decay, is dizzying and frenetic, as glitchy as it is fuzzy. Their usual sweeping darkness is punctuated by a sputtering breakbeat; there are feelings of anguish and feelings of ecstasy clashing together. As always, it's a trip. —Danielle

When those two Crutchfield twins harmonize together? When they hit those notes? Listen. Come on. Nothing like it. Pretty much any song from Snocaps, the new album that the Crutchfields recorded with MJ Lenderman and Brad Cook, would've fit just fine in this spot. "Doom" is just the one where those voices soar a little higher, where they hit those feelings of confused uncertainty a little harder. The people who made this song are all professionals with many years in the game, but "Doom" has the raw rush of the music that the Crutchfields made when they were kids in Alabama. When they talk to us, they still sound like they're talking to each other. —Tom