The 5 Best Songs Of The Week

Death Cab For Cutie have such a knack for fatalist songs that it's like they're trying to prove their own point. "Sometimes I think this cycle never ends/ We slide from top to bottom, then we turn and climb again," goes the opening line to the Transatlanticism gem "Expo '86." Over two decades later, Ben Gibbard and co. are releasing a song called "Punching The Flowers," and the opening line goes, "In his search/ For the end of the circle/ He kept arriving back at the start." This time, though, the band expresses the sentiment with stronger velocity, a sharper edge, and a more fleshed-out storyline. So no, they're not back at the beginning, doomed to a monotonous loop — they're only getting better. —Danielle

I only needed one listen of "Boys In Blue" to know it would lodge itself in my brain like sugary taffy stuck stubbornly in your back molars. Nia Archives taps into the sweetest kind of revenge (the kind that comes for a cop-calling ex) and flips it into a punky, sing-songy “fuck you” that doubles as a nice ACAB banger. “Brought coppers to my gaff / Did u think that you’d have the last laugh,” she coos, her voice featherlight against a barrage of breakbeats that feel ripped straight from a sweat-slick rave. It’s sugar over steel. It’s playful, hypnotic, and just volatile enough to keep you on edge. The kind of track that doesn’t just make you want to run, but makes you feel like you already are. Nia Archives leaves our heart thumping, our scratched-up shoes slapping pavement, and leaving all the backstabbing shitheads far behind. —Margaret

"Triceratops" is woozy, hookless blog rap par excellence, with three distinctive emcees floating over a Daringer loop full of weightless keyboards and smoky organ licks. Action Bronson gets free-associative and gross as only he can: "I remember back in the days/ Used to nut all over the book, you couldn't turn the page." Lil Yachty keeps that same energy, adding a reference to Charlie Kirk's killer to raise your eyebrow an extra centimeter: "Told her I want all neck just like Tyler Robinson/ Diamonds in my left ear, it's real life mind-bogglin'." Every word out of Paul Wall's mouth sounds impossibly smooth, whether he's flexing about his 20th century exploits or dining around the globe. I totally would have burned this to a mix CD in 2012. —Chris

Judging by "Song For The Messenger," Shane Lavers has a good sense of humor: "This song is laughing at me," the Chanel Beads bandleader says of the lead single to his sophomore album Your Day Will Come, the follow-up to his 2024 debut Your Day Will Come. See? That's a guy who likes jokes! But in Chanel Beads' world — "Song For The Messenger" included — the best tricks and quips aren't rehearsed punchlines, but the ways in which we surprise ourselves. "And I always thought I would kill myself," Lavers belts over a trancelike groove. "Lead me to the water, save me from the slaughter." There's an odd sort of freedom, "Song For The Messenger" seems to argue, in the fact that anything can change on a dime. —Abby

If you put a salad bowl on Mat Kerekes' head, he would look exactly like the Juggernaut. That motherfucker is huge. He looks like he could twirl a sectional sofa on his finger. Part of the appeal of Citizen's music is hearing this brick shithouse get sensitive. Every Citizen album sounds a little different from the one that came before, but it always comes across as Kerekes and his bandmates achieving emotional catharsis through any means at their disposal. On "Highs And Lows," they dip back into the hardcore bark that comes to Kerekes so naturally, combining it with soaring melodies, ultra-processed guitars, and cinematic synth-drones, everything calibrated for maximum longing. The end result is something almost as big and strong as Kerekes. —Tom