Best New Songs (July 24, 2025)
Don't miss out on these great new tracks.
Photo of The Last Dinner Party by Laura Marie Cieplik
At Paste Music, we’re listening to so many new tunes on any given day, we barely have any time to listen to each other. Nevertheless, every week we can swing it, we take stock of the previous seven days’ best new songs, delivering a weekly playlist of our favorites. Check out this week’s material, in alphabetical order. (You can check out an ongoing playlist of every best new songs pick of 2025 here.)
Automatic: “Mercury”
If Gary Numan, Kevin Parker, and Portishead got in a studio together, they might come up with something like “Mercury.” The latest single from LA trio Automatic’s upcoming LP, Is It Now? (out September 26), is a brooding collision of breakbeat samples, shrieking synths, and eerily detached vocals. While last month’s title track paired tinny snares and thick bass with chorused, Tears for Fears-era synths, “Mercury” takes more risks—veering into dance-punk interludes where the synths completely overtake the melody like some sort of alien summoning call. The song describes a world in “full decay,” but urges listeners to look for small pockets of joy among the wreckage. Sometimes, it’s where you’d least expect it: “Pleasure in disguise looks like pain.” —Cassidy Sollazzo
Case Oats: “Nora”
In an era of music arguably oversaturated with fuzz and haze, all doubled vocals drenched in gauzy reverb and soundscapes blanketed in waves of distortion, there’s something undeniably refreshing about the clear-eyed simplicity of Case Oats’ latest single, “Nora.” Frontwoman Casey Gomez Walker’s vocals are unapologetically bright and blunt at the front of the mix, backed by bouncy guitar twang, pedal steel, and even the occasional electric guitar or fiddle solo. On paper, this sonic lightness might feel at odds with the song’s lyrics, seeing as the track is addressed to “the woman your boyfriend left you for,” according to Gomez Walker; in most cases, the song would be steeped in anger, swamped in grief. But “Nora” is anything but: it’s essentially an ode to the titular ex- (and, presumably, soon-to-be-future-) girlfriend in question, with the speaker admitting that time and space have allowed them to realize that the relationship never would have worked out in the first place. “Nora / I’m glad you are here now,” Gomez Walker sings, straight-forward and genuine. “I can see now.” As Gomez Walker puts it in a press release: “If they’re meant to be together there’s no use in being mad. I’m genuinely thanking her for releasing me from that situation and celebrating her love. I don’t see why anyone should be mad at real love.” —Casey Epstein-Gross
Folk Bitch Trio: “Hotel TV”
The last teaser from Folk Bitch Trio’s debut album is an ode to regional infomercials and dirty dreams. From the jump, it feels like you’re right there in the hotel room, sitting beside Jeanie Pilkington as she dissociates into a buy one, get one free deal. There’s a tingly fuzz in the opening seconds, like a bathtub filling in the next room, before Heide Peverelle’s hazy electric guitar sneaks into the mix, almost like it’s pulling you inside Pilkington’s internal monologue. Her vocals echo for days; the “ohs” at the end of each verse sound like they just tumble out of her. And the lyrics carry the same wry wit as earlier singles, with lines like “Say you wanna get sober / I say, I’d like to see you try” delivered with a taunting shrug, like she’s already over it. I honestly just love everything about this song: the distortion in the electric, the way Peverelle and Gracie Sinclair’s harmonies drift in and out, Pilkington’s guttural delivery. —Cassidy Sollazzo
Joanne Robertson: “Gown”
Joanne Robertson has worked with the best of them: Dean Blunt, Elias Rønnenfelt, Mica Levi. Her new solo record, Blurrr (out 9/19 via AD 93), recontextualizes her singing voice into a soundscape co-produced by Aftersun composer Oliver Coates, who worked on A Moon Shaped Pool with Radiohead a decade ago. “Gown” pairs Coates’ cello with Robertson’s washed-out vocal and humid guitar plucks. It’s a cinematic unfurling that sounds like it’s leaking out of the next room over. “You’re outside,” she sings, her voice rupturing into a hollowed-out carol. “You’re out there looking into the old place.” Anyone familiar with Robertson’s last album, Blue Car, already knows that she’s properly spawned out of the acoustic, oft-uncanny doldrums of Cat Power and Amen Dunes. And, after putting out Backstage Raver with Blunt last May, she’s now showing out on her own again with “Gown”—a song full of more grace that one could possibly reckon with. —Matt Mitchell
Nation of Language: “Under the Water”
At the end of a relationship, bleeding hearts are left longing for more, and those once-reciprocal feelings keep you connected across time. It’s a tether that’s hard to break, and if timing was the only thing that was wrong, maybe it never does. Instead, you’re stuck in purgatory, wondering: Will our clocks ever align? Synth-pop trio Nation of Language’s atmospheric track “Under the Water” boldly asks this question. Ian Devaney’s vocals wash over a minimalist soundscape of bright synthesizers and oscillating strings, the sparse textures shining a spotlight on his yearning. “Bound in inhibition, diving further down, down, down,” Devaney sings, sinking deep into a depression as he ponders a potential fate. What if he and his beloved never come together again? Hopeful yet shy, Devaney soldiers on and breaks the ice: “I’m around, might we have a talk?” he asks. It’s a vulnerable position to be in, but he’ll do it all for the one he loves. —Camryn Teder
Humanity’s relationship with nature is terribly imperfect. One day, we’re bulldozing forests to build another set of condos or dumping pollutants into a lake for the sake of convenience. Next, we’re planting gardens and trees, or frolicking in the luscious green spaces of a public park. Are we forgetting we have to nurture what we’re lucky enough to enjoy? The Midwest shoegaze group she’s green takes a long look at this juxtaposition in their wistful new track “Willow.” Distorted guitars and fuzzed-out drums rear their heads, infusing the track with texture and grit. Singer Zofia Smith’s contemplative vocals drape a dreamy veil over the instrumentals, completing the ethereal sound. “We can keep what we had, let the seasons crawl. We can learn to start again,” Smith sings, remembering the fickle ways of humanity, and eager to replant the parts of mother earth that were stolen away. It’s as much a pertinent look at the world as it is a shoegaze summer anthem, trading the usual themes of introspection and isolation for an unbridled embrace of the natural world. —Camryn Teder
Following the massive success of her memoir about her relationship with her mom and grieving her passing, Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner spent a year in South Korea, fully immersing herself in her late mother’s culture. “NamgungFEFERE,” her collaborative track with the renowned South Korean band Silica Gel, marks a significant moment in her career and life: she’s now showcasing what she learned during her time in Seoul, writing and singing in Korean for the first time. Collaborating with Silica Gel is a perfect match, as they share a guitar and synth-heavy sound. “NamgungFEFERE” is a jazzy, electropop delight, reminding me of Zauner’s other project, BUMPER. After releasing an album that mostly focused on gentle, contemplative tracks, For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women), releasing a single that’s so vibrant and fun is a refreshing contrast. —Tatiana Tenreyro
With “This Is the Killer Speaking,” The Last Dinner Party trade preludes for pulp: it’s ornate, vicious pop noir, a murder confession disguised as a glam-rock prayer. The all-female British group’s first track since their breakthrough debut doesn’t just extend their baroque art-pop mythos, but sharpens it, gives it teeth. Over crackling guitar twang and Kate Bush theatricality wrapped in saloon-glam finery, frontwoman Abigail Morris turns ghosting into a gothic Western shootout, wielding “Good morning, good looking / This is the killer speaking” like a switchblade tucked into a garter. The track lurches between sultry slow-burn and riotous full gallop, with tempo swings and a theatrical scream that lands like a dagger in the third act. The band’s maximalism has always been part of the appeal—the operatic intensity, the medieval pageantry—but here, they use that melodrama to build into something darker, more deranged, and utterly fun. If Prelude let heartbreak linger like incense, “This Is the Killer Speaking” lights the match and lets the whole chapel burn. —Casey Epstein-Gross
Don’t Tap the Glass may be Tyler, The Creator’s most unpredictable album since Flower Boy, but it arrived this Monday with some career-best flair—namely the Madison McFerrin-assisted “Don’t You Worry Baby.” The singer also nabbed a co-writer credit on the song, which features her soulful interplay where, in the past, Tyler would have pitch-shifted his own vocals. It’s one of the rapper’s more inventive collaborations, one that finds him relinquishing full control. It allows McFerrin to be the rightful star of the song, as her “I’ll give you the world before you fall asleep” line provides great contrast to Tyler’s repetition of “Damn, girl, you better move your hips.” In a statement about Don’t Tap the Glass, Tyler shared: “THIS ALBUM WAS NOT MADE FOR SITTING STILL, DANCING DRIVING RUNNING ANY TYPE OF MOVEMENT IS RECOMMENDED TO MAYBE UNDERSTAND THE SPIRIT OF IT. ONLY AT FULL VOLUME.” True to his intentions, “Don’t You Worry Baby” is a totally ‘80s prom breakdown injected with modern trap flavor and sex-on-a-stick swagger. As the man himself demands, “Let me rock, pop it, shake it.” —Matt Mitchell
It’s unsurprising that all of Wednesday’s singles off Bleeds have been fantastic so far. While some bands lose themselves as they get bigger, Wednesday has only gotten more in touch with its sound, highlighting what makes the five-piece special. And that factor, besides being some of the best “bootgaze” melodies, is bandleader Karly Hartzman’s songwriting. Hartzman is a masterful writer, one who can paint a vivid image of life in North Carolina while still being so relatable that it doesn’t matter if you’ve never stepped foot in the South, the songs will resonate with you. “Pick Up That Knife” is exemplary of this. Here, Hartzman captures those moments of self-loathing where everything seems to be going wrong and you can’t find your way out. From the punctuated guitars when Hartzman wails, “Sometimes it feels like it will never end,” to the mention of throwing up in the pit at a Death Grips show (apparently a real thing pedal steel player Xandy Chelmis did at Primavera two years ago), there’s so much to love. —Tatiana Tenreyro