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 subscribers on Spotify and Apple Music, updated throughout the week.)
Open Mike Eagle & Kenny Segal - "Unfinished Concrete Initials" (Feat. Hemlock Ernst)
Open Mike Eagle bills "Unfinished Concrete Initials" as the pilot in the prestige TV series that is DOOMED!, his new album with producer Kenny Segal. It thrusts us directly into post-breakup despair, bad vibes spilling all over a Segal beat like a soul sample in a spin cycle.
After taking a turn as a bewildered soul singer, Mike shifts to rap mode: "Flushing evidence, pain is better in secret/ Don't tell nobody you missin' bites from them peaches/ We should've taken more photos that dude bad bunny's a genius/ In my daydreams your name's curse words so I bleeped it." Then the guy from Future Islands swings in with soulful sing-rap to turn the screw until you feel his pain: "Apartment is empty, my wallet is empty/ My heart and my head is a spaceship/ She even took the space heaters/ I'm a mouthbreather, so my fear is nothing remains/ Every breath's a reminder of pain/ Every step as she's walking away." —Chris
Nick Hakim - "I Can See"
Nick Hakim has called title track "I Can See" the gateway into his formidable new album. "It felt like an experiment of how time moves, and we change, but how you can retain a feeling from the sound or tone of music you've made or love," the Queens musician said of the four-year creative process behind the song. He could just as easily be describing our listening experience. When "I Can See" is on, time warps into strange new shapes and textures. Memories and this present moment bleed into a singular flow state. Hakim's falsetto flutters delicately amidst lush clouds of emotion, like a celestial visitation from a non-problematic Michael Jackson. And just when you thought it couldn't get any more beautiful, that guitar shows up nearly five minutes in to carry us home. I can see now too, Nick. —Chris
L'Rain - "soulless cycle"
"I always take big swings but these are my biggest so far," Taja Cheek says of her forthcoming L'Rain album fata morgana. Musicians are always making declarations like this when it's time for new music, but "soulless cycle" speaks for itself. It's an enthralling blast of unruly noise rock, Cheek's polished vocals floating through the mayhem as it grows, resulting in something both monstrous and beautiful. It's a hell of a lead single. —Danielle
Slow Pulp - "Better Man"
I would lie and say I can't find a better song called "Better Man," except that it might not even be a lie. Chicago's Slow Pulp have shown that they know how to make starry-eyed shimmy better than most of their indie rock peers, and "Better Man" pushes them further into the heart of the sun. Emily Massey hits notes of deep yearning, as spangly guitars and gasping keyboards explode all around her like fireworks. It's a song for the end of the night, when your head is pure slush and everything around you feels like a slow-motion movie montage. Dream in color to this one. —Tom
Chat Pile - "Deep Blue"
Chat Pile's Cool World was a definitive album of 2024. A month after it came out, I saw the Oklahoma City band at NYC's Le Poisson Rouge and broke my glasses headbanging. My face went right into some guy's back. I couldn't help it. It's music for exorcism and pure destruction. "Deep Blue" is of the same ilk. The guitars haunt as much as they shred, and Ray B.'s vocals ricochet between a tired drawl and feral screams, delivering lines like, "Break my face and call me your friend," which just make me want to shatter my glasses a second time. We are so back. —Danielle
