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.)
Dying 4 - "Strafe"
I’ve stared at the word misfit so long that its meaning has begun to melt. A label for outsiders that eventually becomes an identity itself. That’s how Dying 4's “Strafe” lands: music that exists just outside the fold while remaining unmistakably itself. Pulling from UK dance music, cascading Midwestern emo, and math rock, a shower of interlocking riffs collides with shifting percussion, bubbly textures, and intricate tinkering. It’s a relentless, exploratory rush, like neurons firing across the brain, that captures the feeling of symbiotic ideas. It reminds me of Rostam Batmanglij and Wesley Miles’s Discovery project, a nod to a collection of nostalgic sounds that breaks new ground. —Margaret
Angela Autumn - "Mountain Stream"
All Angela Autumn needs is a mountain stream. The Appalachian-born, Nashville-based musician tells us this many times on her new Believer single "Mountain Stream," in a gnarly Southern drawl whose jagged edge sounds perfect against contained guitars and a personable banjo. Sometimes repeatedly declaring what you need is the secret to a great song, but it helps when it sounds as cool as this. —Danielle
Ela Minus & Nick León - "espiral"
Whether they intended it to be or not, the first single from Ela Minus and Nick León's new EP is all-in on the "indie sleaze" nostalgia we've been hearing about for half a decade now. There's a twist, though. The opening seconds of "espiral" have me flashing back to the late 2000s indie dancefloor glory days — a synth-powered beat worthy of LCD Soundsystem, eerie vocals out of the Crystal Castles playbook — but with a distinctively Latin twist. There's a reggaeton thump within this sleek, shadowy pop track, a syncopation that feels entirely natural coming from two brilliant minds with Colombian roots. Viewed another way, it's an ideal synthesis of the duo's NYC and Miami hometowns that would've had hips swinging on bloghouse dancefloors. —Chris
Westside Cowboy - "Pin Up Boys"
These kids have it. They make it sound so easy, too. Not that Westside Cowboy come off as nonchalant; the young Manchester alt-rockers are too polished and engaged for that. It's just that masterfully constructed, contagiously energetic songs seem to fall out of them, as if accessible tunes with grit and momentum just happen. Like many Westside Cowboy singles, "Pin Up Boys" has the veneer of indie rock, especially when Aoife Anson O’Connell's voice careens into the mix to join Reuben Haycocks at the end. But — and I say this without any snide condemnation — there's a reason this band is signed to the same label as Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan, and the Killers. They're total pros, and they're going to go far in this business. —Chris
Boy Harsher - "Jeans"
It's been way too long since Boy Harsher's last album The Runner, but the electronic duo has been busy doing cool shit, like making thrillers starring FKA twigs. But we require new Boy Harsher music, or at least I do. "Jeans" meets that need. The duo's new single is a synthpop anthem for the summer, but it's laid-back and cool, subtly awesome. The lyrics are brief but paint a cinematic portrait with small towns, blue skies, cowboys, and jeans. More Boy Harsher now, please. —Danielle
