Best New Songs (July 10, 2025)
Don't miss out on these great new tracks.
Photo of Maruja by Argiris Liosis
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.)
Big Thief: “All Night All Day”
Some bands have an ability to blend such a perfect mix of instrumentals that their songs begin to sound truly alive. Big Thief’s new track “All Night All Day” is a prime example. With jangly instrumentals, and Adrianne Lenker’s pure and gracious lyrics, the song shimmers all over. Plucky percussion dances along a soaring synth, and the combination is beyond euphoric, like the foundation of one of ABBA’s lushest pop hits. For a moment, I feel transported to some dreamy maritime scene: sipping a cocktail beside a perfect ocean, or dancing in a yellow cabana by the sea. Lenker sings about cherishing intimate moments with someone she loves. “All night, all day / I could go down on you / Hear you sing your pleasure,” she coos over a chirpy interplay of drums, delicate harmonies, and bright string lines. “All Night All Day” is an ode to the all-encompassing haze of desire. —Camryn Teder
Dylan Earl: “Level-Headed Even Smile”
“Level-Headed Even Smile,” the title track from Dylan Earl’s upcoming album, is not only a smoke-rolling, backroads-blaring preface, but a kind and determined explosion of truck-driving drama. The sentimental, lineage-honoring colors of “Level-Headed Even Smile” contrast the material-based, algorithm-attentive formula of mainstream country music, as Earl sings compassionately about a sadness that can linger even in the most beautiful place on Earth. After celebrating the pastoral of Arkansas on “High On Ouachita” and flipping a bird to fascists on “Outlaw Country,” he becomes one with the salt and loose gravel on “Level-Headed Even Smile.” It’s punk as hell to keep going. Even cowboys wearing pit vipers get the blues. Dylan Earl remains one of country music’s most vital voices. —Matt Mitchell
Geese: “Taxes”
Some of modern society’s priorities are so disgusting or dull, I can’t help but wonder where it all stems from. (This can’t all possibly be about money, can it?) I feel this way about the increasing obsession with quantity over quality, the inflexibility of our work lives, and the inconceivable hassle that is paying taxes. In the latter category, I know I am not alone. As Geese frontman Cameron Winter croons in the band’s eccentric new track “Taxes,” “If you want me to pay my taxes, you better come over with a crucifix. You’re gonna have to nail me down.” It’s a jarring juxtaposition to the song’s looped jungle drums, and later, the shimmering guitars that soar across his jaded vocal line. It’s Geese conveying complex emotions in its signature theatrical form, sort of like choosing to laugh maniacally instead of cry. It’s exactly how watching a commercial for a tax company feels: It’s nice you’re getting some assistance, but why are you smiling so much? Nobody likes this. —Camryn Teder
Jay Som: “Float”
I spent much of my early to mid-twenties listening to Jay Som’s music whistfully on the train, wrapped in my own little world through Melina Duterte’s songs. With a six-year absence as she entered her producer era, I found comfort in some of Duterte’s singer-songwriter contemporaries, but none of them quite captured the intimate, soothing essence of her music. Unsurprisingly, “Float,” one of two singles ushering in Jay Som’s comeback, is exactly what I needed. With gossamer synths over effervescent pop punk drums and guitar, Duterte finds the perfect duet partner in Jimmy Eat World’s Jim Adkins. It’s a brilliant homage to the genre that influenced her adolescent years, while adding some very Jay Som touches that make it her own. —Tatiana Tenreyro
Maruja: “Saoirse”
“Saoirse” translates to “freedom” in Irish Gaelic and became a cherished name during the creation of Saorstát Éireann (the Irish Free State) in the early 19th century. Maruja turn “Saoirse,” the latest preview of their forthcoming LP Pain to Power, into a demand for humanity and liberation as Israel’s genocide of Palestinian people remains ongoing. In a press statement, the band writes, “This is a song for peace, an outpouring of grief and a refusal to be numb to what we are seeing. Genocide. Man-made famine. An attempted erasure of a people.” The band was inspired by a comic strip found in saxophonist Joe Carroll’s Irish grandfather’s belongings: a member of the Black and Tans boarding a boat from Dublin to Palestine. Vocalist Harry Wilkinson, while thrashing phrases of woodwind, bass, and percussion collapse into him, sings one thought over and over: “It’s our differences that make us beautiful.” His voice never raises into a yell, simmering in “Saoirse”’s rally for solidarity. —Matt Mitchell
“Lonely Road” reminds me of lots of things, all of them complimentary. The opening melody mirrors that of “A Day in the Life,” as if 
It’s always a good day when Open Mike Eagle drops a new track—meaning tomorrow will be a great day, considering it’s the release date of his latest LP, Neighborhood Gods Unlimited—and today is no exception. OME has been one of the most consistent rappers in the game for some time now, his laidback flow filled to the brim with wordplay, pop culture references, and quick wit—and his final single prior to the record’s release, “my co-worker clark kent’s secret black box,” features all that and more in spades. As if to preempt the fact that James Gunn’s Superman movie comes out the same day as his album, OME takes shots at none other than Clark Kent himself, albeit from the perspective of a long-suffering Daily Planet employee frustrated that Clark seems to think no one realizes he is obviously Superman, which is honestly a bit insulting to the speaker’s intelligence: “He must think we all some bozos / Jus gossiping and driving Volvos / […] / This is some bullshit / I don’t know why y’all be trying to act like y’all don’t know who that is?! / This is fucked up.” But the song goes beyond that obvious humor, with Mike tweeting that it’s “about open secrets and folks being mad at you because they gave up on their dreams and you didn’t.” And, fittingly, over some lush production from K-Nite, OME spends the second verse in the mind of a protagonist bemoaning precisely that (“I played guitar in a metal band / I still got a pair of leather pants”). Open Mike Eagle remains firmly in a class of his own—I mean, who else would name-drop Pearl Jam and Goku in the same verse? —Casey Epstein-Gross
Saintseneca is back after seven years of near-silence (save for a lone single in early 2021), and I am physically incapable of keeping my cool about it—their criminally under-appreciated masterpiece, Pillar of Na, was genuinely one of my top AOTY contenders in 2018, so I simply cannot emphasize enough how hyped I am to see the Columbus folk-rock group back on the scene. I admit, I was a little nervous at first glance, because I have been witness to many a comeback that finds a band starkly transition from their original sound, abandoning the very things I fell in love with in the first place, but I am overwhelmingly pleased to say that, based on Saintseneca’s new single, “Infinity Leaf Clover,” I don’t think that will be a concern here. “Infinity Leaf Clover” clocks in at almost seven minutes, but Zac Little and the rest of the band make good use of every second, switching with ease from lush soundscapes to sparse drumlines to electronic-tinged droning. Not a moment goes by that doesn’t overflow with the band’s signature yet indescribable warmth, the hearth-like burn at the core of their music that’s always drawn me in like a helpless moth to a kind flame, made all the more visceral by Little’s warbling voice unspooling lines like “I was only asking for it all / Waves of revelation / And my own personal young god sleeping on a sinking ship.” Between the Ken Kesey references and the bird whistles, the background harmonies and the breathless giggling toward the end, “Infinity Leaf Clover” is utterly idiosyncratic in the way only Saintseneca can be, even applied to these new sounds, genres, and mediums. And this is just the first introduction to the 21 songs making up Highwallow & Supermoon Songs. I already can’t wait to hear the rest. —Casey Epstein-Gross
I’d seen 
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think this was a Positions-era Ari leak. Syd’s first solo release since 2022 is a pulsing-yet-subdued, Tinashe-meets-Kehlani track about being so enamored by someone that you’d legitimately end it all for their love. (“I really love my life, but I would die for this.”) There’s a bittersweetness washing over the whole thing, with Syd seemingly declaring loyalty after a rocky beginning, hinted at in lines like “You won’t recognize me when I commit” and “Say something crazy and wind up trying to take it back.” Syd’s meticulous production skills shine, never overcrowded but always evolving. You can notice something new with each listen: the endless ripples of reverb, glimmers of bass that peak through the pre chorus, all tied together by Syd’s velvety vocals. The song comes a few weeks after the news that Syd will support Reneé Rapp on her fall tour. Is there an album in our future? Here’s hoping. —Cassidy Sollazzo-
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