Every week the Stereogum staff chooses the five best new songs of the week. The eligibility period begins and ends Thursdays right before midnight. You can hear this week’s picks below and on Stereogum’s Favorite New Music Spotify playlist, which is updated weekly. (An expanded playlist of our new music picks is available to members on Spotify and Apple Music, updated throughout the week.)
Zoh Amba - "Another Time"
The best singers are the ones who never try to hide their accents. Up until now, Zoh Amba has been best-known as a saxophone ace on New York's avant garde jazz scene, and you might've never known that they've got a heavy, lovely Tennessee twang. On "Another Time," Amba goes full singer-songwriter, delivering lyrics in a conversational Bob Dylan wheeze. Nobody's going to accuse them of being the next Whitney Houston, but that voice, along with those lyrics about being lost and seeking transcendence, make for pure beauty, rustic country-rock style. —Tom
TV Star - "The Package"
It's a good day when you stumble across a song that evokes hard-earned optimism while sparing you the Hobby Lobby-decor truisms. It's a good day when you hear TV Star's "The Package." The opening track of the Washington band's upcoming debut album Music For Heads is among the best self-confidence directives in recent indie rock memory: "I wanna take it from here while I’m ripe with fear," Ashlyn Nagel muses over a pseudo-psychedelic jangle that's equal parts gritty and sweet. For the moments when doing hard things yields the biggest rewards, "The Package" goes down easy. —Abby
Dari Bay - "We're Gonna Be Okay"
I love the picture "We're Gonna Be Okay" paints in my head via familiar sonic ingredients. The backbeat is steady, pressing forward with purpose but not zealous fervor. Those less-is-more guitar chords rise like waves, or clouds, or — let's say forcefields. Zack James' voice hides within them on the verse, then bursts out like flashes of light on the chorus. Joining in this dance of electricity are crackling bolts of lead guitar. It adds up to a downcast yet vibrant whole that gave me a needed jolt. —Chris
Slippers - "Fool In Your Room"
Slippers have the special sauce. Much like its predecessor "Wants For Everyone," "Fool In Your Room" is a blast of chic, graceful indie pop that ends far too soon. This new one, though, has more elan, with the jangly guitars racing as Madeline Babuka Black drawls about being a fool — a topic that will never get old. Few bands could do something so infectious and impressive in under two minutes. —Danielle
World News - "Sidestep"
For the past few years, London's World News have evoked the sound of jangly '80s college rock, to great effect. "Sidestep" sounds bigger and sleeker than anything that they've done up until now. They're chasing bigger game these days: Echo And The Bunnymen, the Psychedelic Furs, the Church. Frontman Alex Evans bellows out a towering chorus with heavy authority, and the extended instrumental coda rides the same apocalyptic tension that the phrase "world news" presently summons. Producer Tommy Bosustow has done technical work for big names like Harry Styles and Nick Cave, and he captures the band's itchy groove with gleaming efficiency. It sounds like the beginning of something. —Tom
