Best New Songs (July 31, 2025)

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.)

Animal Collective: “Buddies On the Blackboard”

Strap in, psychedelic enthusiasts (referring to both the genre and the drug); Animal Collective has released yet another song just for you. “Buddies On the Blackboard” is a jaunty, off-kilter, inexplicably hypnotic psych-dub trip, filled to the brim with peals of electronic noise and mesmerizing three-part harmonies. There’s something almost childlike about it, the strange, rubbery bounce of the beat compelling listeners of all ages to gleefully bop along like a toddler discovering the joys of the Backyardigans theme song. It’s fitting, considering both the lyrics and the Abigail-Portner-animated music video are about doodling on a blackboard, each line and each frame strung together by the kind of visual and auditory logic that tends to ebb away with age. That tonal whimsicality swirls into those psychedelic waves of sound until all that remains is a glorious half-LSD half-ABC hallucination, like Mister Rogers on mushrooms—or, well, like an Animal Collective song. So if you want to feel sucked into a sonic landscape so simultaneously dense and expansive that you become genuinely unsure whether you’re craving a juicebox or a tab of acid, “Buddies On the Blackboard” is your newest best bet. —Casey Epstein-Gross

Creative Writing: “Can’t Thank You Enough”

I have never been to Orange, Massachusetts, but I’d like to imagine it looks the way Creative Writing’s new single, “Can’t Thank You Enough,” sounds. On Bandcamp, the band itself considers their work for fans of Big Star and the Chills. And sure enough, Alex Chilton would be gaga over these chords. Creative Writing, whose debut album, Baby Did This, comes out in October, is a collage of members of other bands, including Huevos II, Luxor Rentals, and Sore Eros, and their sound is teeming with ‘80s college rock tones and impossibly catchy harmonies. “Can’t Thank You Enough” is tongue-in-cheek pop perfection that sounds like a million bucks. As a former creative writing major, the buzz is intoxicating. As a new Creative Writing fan, my ears are still vibrating. —Matt Mitchell

Golden Apples: “Mind”

Part of being a music critic, I’ve discovered, is patience. Not every song you encounter is going to sweep you off your feet at first blush—many are slow-burners, and part of the job is giving them enough time and grace to grow on you. It is always a pleasure, though, when you don’t have to. “Mind,” Golden Apples’ second single ahead of their fifth record Shooting Star, had me hooked from that first easygoing drum riff and bassline. By the time the bright acoustics came into full focus beneath Russell Edling’s husky, nasal, almost Dylan-esque delivery, I was a complete goner. For a song about “the futility of seeking peace via mindfulness amidst the constant sorrows of the times,” “Mind” is awfully bouncy. The spring in its step and the sunniness of its chords quickly become contagious, and the simplicity of the track allows the earnest, at-wit’s-end frustration to shine through. Edling’s cheery “I must be out of my mind / You must be out of your mind” never comes across as some performative contradiction between content and delivery, instead feeling like the way you might grit out an expletive from a too-wide, all-teeth smile—like cracks beginning to show on a pristine, happy porcelain mask. And there’s a clarity to the sound that a lot of modern indie rock has shied away from in recent years, preferring to drench the production in fuzz, the melodies in distortion—and it’s those crisp textures that give the song its staying power, its addictiveness. The song might only be three minutes long, but I promise you, it won’t leave your head for the next three hours. —Casey Epstein-Gross

Jane Inc: “elastic”

In a lot of ways, there’s nothing more freeing than being face-to-face with your own mortality. It becomes less scary once you look at it up close. That’s the central point of inspiration for Jane Inc’s next LP, A RUPTURE A CANYON A BIRTH (out October 17). Lead single “elastic” is endlessly fun and addictive—an electro-disco jolt seemingly engineered for sweaty European dancefloors. It was born out of an actual near-death experience Carlyn Bezic and her band had in 2023, when a semi-truck crashed into their van. The band, shaken but alive, still took the stage later that night, playing with a blazing, unrestrained energy. An event that might push some artists towards dark, brooding sonics instead sent Bezic into a pulsating spiral of dance music. The opening line, “I wanna get closer to death,” speaks to that energizing rush of adrenaline. The rest of the lyrics toy with those chaotic, buzzing emotions: “I feel so feminine / In a way I can’t understand” hints at being more in touch with your body than ever before, without knowing what to do with all that energy. Bezic’s vocals are light and breezy, in the spirit of peak mid-2010s Spinnin’ Records tracks. You can feel the near-chaos in the final build, where chorused vocals and octaved synths erupt in operatic euphoria: “Everything can stretch / Everything is elastic.” —Cassidy Sollazzo

Laura Groves: “Yes”

There’s a period of time after coming out of a depressive episode when you’re almost reluctant to feel joy, turning your nose up at it like it’s something you don’t deserve. But you’re actually just afraid of losing it again. South London’s Laura Groves chronicles that back and forth on “Yes,” the title track of her new EP (and first record release since we named Radio Red Album of the Week back in 2023). It’s hypnotic and mesmerizing, with hazy, reverb-drenched synths that create a soundscape that’s equal parts hopeful and heavy, capturing what it feels like when happiness and hesitation meet. Groves’ operatic falsettos almost fall out of her, often with a run-on cadence that feels involuntary. She cascades down a scale on the line, “I could give it out, but I could never take my own advice,” with a sense of sheer frustration—aware of the inherent self-sabotage masked as self-preservation. The song grows brighter as it builds, her voice becoming lighter and airier with each line. Groves repeats a hushed “Yes” throughout the final seconds, as if she’s finally letting the joy flow through her. —Cassidy Sollazzo