So many artists, so many songs, so little time. Each week we review a handful of new albums (of all genres), round up even more new music that we’d call “indie,” and talk about what metal is coming out. We post music news, track premieres, and more all day. We update a playlist weekly of some of our current favorite tracks. Here’s a daily roundup with a bunch of interesting, newly released songs in one place.
RESIDENTE – “313” (VIDEO STARRING PENÉLOPE CRUZ)
Puerto Rican rap veteran (and Calle 13 member) Residente will release his next solo album Las Letras Ya No Importan this week, and its pensive new single comes with a video starring Penélope Cruz.
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HURRAY FOR THE RIFF RAFF – “HAWKMOON”
Hurray for the Riff Raff’s anticipated new album The Past Is Still Alive comes out this week and here’s one more pre-release single and video, “Hawkmoon.” The song was inspired by the first trans woman that HFTRR’s Alynda Segarra ever met, and the video follows the song’s themes, with a queer spin on classic outlaw/heist films.
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DEVON WELSH – “THAT’S WHAT WE NEEDED”
“‘That’s What We Needed’ is about being in a state of total confusion, when you lack the means to understand or describe the world around you, and that it’s often okay and even important not to know,” Devon Welsh says of his new single. “The song was written during the summer of 2020 and was inspired by the overwhelming chaos of that time, but the song also anticipates chaos to come.” It’s from his new solo album, Come With Me If You Want to Live.
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CARPOOL – “NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS”
Rochester emo-punks Carpool have shared the third single off their upcoming album My Life In Subtitles, and it’s a big, catchy, anthemic punk song “about the choices that affect the rest of your life (regardless of how trivial they may be).” We’ve also got an exclusive clear vinyl variant up for pre-order, limited to 100.
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BORED AT MY GRANDMAS HOUSE – “SHOW AND TELL”
Leeds-based musician Amber Strawbridge anounced her debut album as Bored at My Grandmas House, Show & Tell, due out June 7 via CLUE Records / EMI North. The title track is a charming indie pop track that Amber calls “quite a tongue-in-cheek song about me being the opposite of an open book and all the little specific things about me that I sometimes wish were different. Overall it’s about me being a guarded person and fearing the possibility of having to be vulnerable and realising that vulnerability is actually a beautiful thing and something i shouldn’t be so scared of.”
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BODEGA – “CITY IS TAKEN”
“City is Taken” is the second single from Bodega’s upcoming album Our Brand Could Be Yr Life and its video was directed by the band’s Ben Hozie. “It starts in front of what was Goodbye Blue Monday, where I played my first show in the city way back in 2009,” says Ben. “The camera frames key DIY spots in BODEGA’s history such as Party Expo, Palisades (where the release party for the original ‘Our Brand Could Be Your Life’ happened in 2015), Silent Barn II, Sunnyvale (where the ‘Endless Scroll’ release party was), Shea Stadium, Death by Audio, 285 Kent, Glasslands, Monster Island, Aviv, and Cake Shop plus some classic punk spots from before our time such as Mercer Arts Center, Palladium, Tier 3, Mudd Club, and Max’s Kansas City – the track references Patti Smith’s recent dictum that young NYC artists should ‘pack (their) bags and move to Detroit’.”
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REYNA TROPICAL – “CONOCERLA”
Los Angeles musician and She Shreds founder Fabi Reyna’s debut album as Reyna Tropical, Malegría, is out next month, and the latest single is the sultry “Conocerla.”
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THE MESSTHETICS & JAMES BRANDON LEWIS – “THAT THANG”
Skronky trio The Messthetics (guitarist Anthony Pirog + Fugazi’s Brendan Canty and Joe Lally) and innovative saxophonist James Brandon Lewis are gearing up to release their self-titled debut album on March 15 via Impulse! and here’s the appealing second single.
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KÁRYYN – “THE REAL”
After returning with her first new music in four years last month, Armenian-American artist KÁRYYN announced a new EP, Calm KAOSS!, due out on May 22 via Mute. The first single is “the REAL,” which she worked on with producer James Ford and is inspired by the Sumrian poem The Descent of Inanna and the Vedic text The Upanishads.
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PREFUSE 73 – “THE END OF AIR”
Guillermo Scott Herren will release new Prefuse 73 album New Strategies for Modern Crime Vol. 1 on March 22 via Lex Records. “I’ve lived in NYC since the 90s but I think during the post-COVID era, most ‘media’ has become obsessed with crime statistics and inflated ‘fear’ over basic human needs,” he says.
I wanted to channel this surreal landscape – where crime has become a strange form of entertainment and journalistic distraction into sound.”
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CLAIRE ROUSAY – “ILY2” FT. HAND HABITS
sentiment, claire rousay’s first album for Thrill Jockey, is out in April, and the latest single is “ily2,” which is grounded with Hand Habits’ lush acoustic guitar.
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ELEPHANT STONE – “GOING UNDERGROUND”
“Rock’n’roll was my late-night companion, the anthem of my adolescence,” says Elephant Stone’s Rishi Dhir on the subject of their new single (which is not a cover of The Jam song). “I’d drift off to sleep with ‘Live at Leeds’ by The Who playing, tweaking the stereo so it was just the left speaker booming, coloring my dreams with John Entwistle’s bass genius. Those moments weren’t just about listening; it was like living inside the music. That’s the heart of ‘Going Underground.’ It’s an homage to those times, that sensation of being enveloped in a universe conjured by a few chords and a horizon of endless possibilities.” New album Back Into the Dream is out this week.
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PERFUME GENIUS – “WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES” (DINAH WASHINGTON COVER)
The latest single from the Jack Antonoff-curated and produced soundtrack to new Apple TV+ series The New Look is Perfume Genius’ piano-and-voice rendition of “What a Difference A Day Makes,” which was originally written in Spanish by María Grever as “Cuando vuelva a tu lado.”
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MELTS – “ALTERED”
Dublin band MELTS return with Field Theory on April 12 and have just shared this dark, brooding song from it. Say the band: “‘Altered’ is a love song about how love can be a catalyst that allows you to be more open to the world around you, and transforms your perspective on life. You become influenced by your environment, maybe more vulnerable to it, but overall, more aware of your surroundings.”
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GRACE CUMMINGS – “COMMON MAN”
Ramona, the third single from Grace Cummmings, is out in April, and the second single is “Common Man.” “This song is about being a colorful bird and never, ever wanting to be a pigeon,” she says. “Somebody I used to know wrote a song called common man about working nine to five and coming home and having a cup of tea and going to bed and it made me want to have a fucking panic attack. I wish I could tell people it was about riding off into the distance on the back of a white horse with a Cowboy in Austin Texas, but it’s not.”
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URANIUM CLUB – “TOKYO PARIS L.A. MILAN” & “VIEWERS LIKE YOU”
The Minneapolis Uranium Club have added horns to their tighty wound arsenal on “Viewers Like You” and slow things down for once on “Tokyo Paris L.A. Milan.” New album Infants Under the Bulb is out March 1.
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DISCOVERY ZONE – “PAIR A DICE”
NYC musician and artist JJ Weihl is releasing her new album as Discovery Zone, Quantum Web, on March 8 via RVNG Intl. The latest single is “Pair a Dice,” a smooth synth-pop track.
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GRAMERCY ARMS – “AFTER THE AFTER PARTY”
Gramercy Arms, the NYC rock collective led by former Dambuilders frontman Dave Derby, have announced new album The Making Of the Making Of which is out April 26 via Magic Door Record Label. “After the After Party” is a suave earworm.
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KAÏA KATER – “FÉDON”
Americana artist Kaïa Kater announced a new album, Strange Medicine, due out May 17 via Free Dirt Records, and shared “Fédon,” featuring Taj Mahal. “This song centers around a late 18th century Grenadian revolutionary, Julien Fédon, who began an armed insurrection against the British Colonists and plantation owners in Grenada,” Kaïa says. “Inspired by the Haitian Revolution, Fédon’s army was composed of many enslaved Black Grenadians and mixed race free Black people. Though the rebellion was ultimately unsuccessful, I wanted to channel the meticulous planning and electric energy that must have been traveling through the island the night of the first attack.” She adds, “I was overjoyed that Taj Mahal agreed to sing on this, as he is an icon in folk music and has brought Caribbean influences to so many of his works. He’s also an incredible person and a personal hero of mine.”
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COCOROSIE – “BEAUTIFUL BOYZ” (UNPLUGGED)
After returning with their first new music since 2020 last year, CocoRosie have announced a new EP, Elevator Angels, due out on March 8 (International Women’s Rights Day) and featuring acoustic versions of songs from throughout their catalog. The first is their new take on Noah’s Ark track “Beautiful Boyz.”
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PERNICE BROTHERS FT NEKO CASE – “I DON’T NEED THAT ANYMORE”
“I was excited that Neko was into singing with me,” says Joe Pernice of his new duet with Neko Case. “No one needs me to tell of her singular voice. And being in the live room while she recorded her part legit gave me goosebumps. And she’s a really great person, which is always a plus.”
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MAC DEMARCO – “BOKU WA CHOTTO” (HAROUMI HOSONO COVER)
“Hosono is my hero, I love all of his music, I am eternally at his every beck and call, it is my honor to be a part of this compilation,” says Mac DeMarco of his Contribution to an upcoming Haroumi Hosono tribute. “I recorded this cover in Joe Bird’s guest room in Paris, August 2023. I hope my Japanese pronunciation isn’t too horrible.”
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LIP CRITIC – “MILKY MAX”
Brooklyn’s Lip Critic have announced their debut album, Hex Dealer, which will be out May 17 via Partisan Records. New single “Milky Max” has frontman Bret Kaser shouting “All my life I just wanted to live / Now I gotta die just because of what I did” over Lip Critic’s signature two-drummer breakbeat attack.
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GIRL AND GIRL – “HELLO”
Call a Doctor is Melbourne band Girl on Girl’s debut album and will be out May 24 via Sub Pop. This is the lead single.
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VALLEY LODGE – “I WROTE A SONG”
Valley Lodge frontman/songwriter Dave Hill says “I Wrote a Song” is “two-minutes and fifty seconds of pop rock schizophrenia that sounds kind of like Paul McCartney if he’d joined Big Audio Dynamite on bass to record a song for a homecoming dance in a John Hughes movie.” Sign us up. New album Shadows in Paradise is out in April.
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GRUMPSTER – “WITHER”
Bay Area punks Grumpster have announced a new self-titled album along with new single “Wither.”
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MARBLED EYE – “IN THE STATIC”
Oakland post-punks Marbled Eye have shared the second single off upcoming album Read the Air and they also told us about the influences behind the album.
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PLUTOCRACY PLANET – “THIS VERY SEVERITY” (ft. BOB NANNA)
Plutocracy Planet is a “super-collective” led by Alarm Magazine editor and musician Scott Morrow, and their upcoming self-titled album is loaded with impressive guests, including members of Braid, American Football, The Get Up Kids, onelinedrawing, Protest the Hero, The Callous Daoboys, and more. Braid’s Bob Nanna sings the lead single and also stars in its video. Read more here.
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BONNY LIGHT HORSEMAN – “WHEN I WAS YOUNGER”
Bonny Light Horseman have signed to Jagjaguwar and released their first single for the label, “When I Was Younger.” Read more about it here.
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HEAVENLY BLUE – “STATIC VOICE SPEAKS TO STATIC ME”
Heavenly Blue, the Detroit screamo band who morphed out of Youth Novel, have announced a new album, We Have The Answer, due 4/12 via Touché Amoré vocalist Jeremy Bolm’s label Secret Voice. Read more about the album and this new single here.
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Looking for even more new songs? Browse the New Songs archive
