Best New Songs (March 27, 2025)
Don't miss these great tracks.
Photo of Model/Actriz by Kane Ocean
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.)
Colin Miller: “Porchlight”
Colin Miller’s voice, frankly, is limited, but that’s okay, because it’s truly lovely—just this wisp of a drawl, a barely-there brush of the breeze against your skin. There’s a delicious sweetness to his shy whisper, one that lends itself quite nicely to his tenderest ballads, like his latest single, “Porchlight.” To me, it’s something like what Jeff Buckley’s standard “Last Goodbye”—another irresistibly melodic, sweeter-than-bitter soft-rock kiss-off—might have sounded like if Buckley were a Southern boy living in the 21st century. Xandy Chelmis’ weepy pedal steel infuses an alt-country flavor; Miller admits to a departed lover that he’s got a sweetheart in Beaumont, Texas. As always, his lyrics are lined with humanity and intelligence; he possesses a remarkable ability to imbue his rustic surroundings with great emotional depth, most notably by christening his humble porchlight as a lodestar for his lost lover. Technically speaking, his voice is ordinary but, in a similar vein, that’s exactly what makes it so affecting and what makes his words register with such sincerity. When he coos, “Darling, you’re still my #1 tube top angel”—oh, I could just melt. —Anna Pichler
Horse Jumper of Love: “The Car Knows the Way”
There’s something utterly devastating in the plaintive, childlike sweetness of Horse Jumper of Love’s latest single, “The Car Knows the Way.” The Dimitri Giannopoulos-led group has been on a hot streak lately, having released an album every year since 2022 (culminating in last year’s hypnotizing Disaster Trick), and the growth the band has undergone as a result feels palpable in a track like “The Car Knows the Way,” which balances slowcore aesthetics with Phil Elverum-esque earnestness without ever sacrificing one for the other. The shoegaze influences buoy rather than swallow Giannopoulos’s quiet vocals, allowing the vulnerability to seep through, feeling every bit as tangible as water bleeding through a paper towel. “It’s a story I misremembered about frozen lakes and flowing rivers,” he sings, near-whispering. “And the devil said that it’s hard to be me without you.” The drumline is hushed and barely there, the acoustics soft and warmly fuzzed, and the unsteady falsetto of Giannopoulos’s voice feels liable to break any moment. Each disparate piece of the track coalesces seamlessly into one gorgeous, understated evocation of yearning. —Casey Epstein-Gross
Read: “Horse Jumper of Love’s Creative Rebirth”
I Dreamed I Dream: “Fags”
Warbling, hollow-sounding synth and big, primal drums set the scene for “Fags,” the latest offering from buzzy Irish rockers I Dreamed I Dream (who made our list of the 10 Irish acts you should know in 2025). It’s the sound of the Ireland I know and love: an earnest vocal performance and melody that would fit in a traditional Irish song, constructed with modern instruments and evoking the culture of here and now (“Halfway between girl and boy / I’m smoking fags with you”). It’s the new and the old, mixed together and inextricably linked in one charming, heart-swelling air. “Fags” is the first single off I Dreamed I Dreamed’s sophomore EP BOYOPOISONING, which is out on April 18. On the surface, the track is an ode to sharing a cigarette with a pal, but in truth it’s about what that cigarette represents: wasting time with someone you love, the activity less important than the company. Its off-kilter sweetness hits the same emotional spot as Grandaddy’s 1997 classic “A.M. 180,” particularly that song’s repeated final line “Whatever, together.” I Dreamed I Dream aren’t complete saps, though; they sprinkle plenty of absurdity and macabre humor into “Fags.” “Have you ever seen a pigeon smoking / Smoking fags with you,” they ask playfully. Later on, as the tune unfurls like a plume of smoke from a lit cigarette, the lyrics grow more dramatic: “In my darkest dreams I’m crucified for smoking fags with you.” Frankly, this is the musical version of Bebe’s pro-smoking soliloquy in Frasier. I’m going to go pick up some nicotine gum. —Clare Martin
McKinley Dixon ft. Blu & Shamir: “Could’ve Been Different”
In his newest attempt to make “the perfect closing credits,” McKinley Dixon calls upon Blu and Shamir to fill out his new single, “Could’ve Been Different.” The song, his second single from his upcoming LP Magic, Alive!, is an ode to motherhood and keeping your city close. “Now we’re standing in the meadows, where the flowers know our name,” Shamir sings. “We ain’t ran from where we grew up, shit, we’d probably go insane. Oh, my God: I just wanna jump off the roof.” Shamir’s harmonies are painted by a chugging string arrangement unfurling behind him, but “Could’ve Been Different” quickly splashes back into Teeny’s saxophone-facing jazz instrumental underscoring Dixon’s and Blu’s verses. “Just came home, on the stoop playing dice,” Dixon raps. “Through screen doors, her shape forms. She died for this life, once or twice.” Magic, Alive!, like all of McKinley Dixon’s records, is about a dozen short stories touched by a block-wide echo. Generously, “Could’ve Been Different” conjures nearby gods, friends, strangers and the bodies caught in-between them: “Young boy got a talent for gifting ghosts such beautiful names, still the age where this hurt to us a wonderful game. We staring out the window, pray these wings hold up our frames.” How gorgeous it is to be familiar. —Matt Mitchell
Read: “Entering the Kingdom of McKinley Dixon”
Model/Actriz: “Doves”
Listening to Model/Actriz’s new single “Doves,” I am left wondering: Does Cole Haden like Fad Gadget? His band’s color is one of surly affirmation: dance your way out of the metallic. “Doves,” like “Cinderella” before it, is warehouse pop with a scorched-earth twist. Haden, with every new breath, further cements himself as the most interesting vocalist in New York City. “Doves” is caustic yet tremendously glossy. When Haden’s vocal warps into a buzzing falsetto harmony, his bandmates—Ruben Radlauer, Aaron Shapiro, Jack Wetmore—play through skyscraping dissonance behind him. As the recording edges to a climax, you can picture Haden’s body writing on the floor in the way his words stretch around the static of Radlauer’s drum machine migraines. “I make a rapture out of waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting,” Haden sings and, like “Cinderella,” the ground never fully splits open on “Doves.” A surge hits, painting the song’s corpse into “blackened stone,” before the noise mercifully shrinks back into the cracks, leaving only the pangs of Wetmore’s guitar behind. It’s alien, blood-curdling and deeply, deeply erotic. —Matt Mitchell
“It’s only dust,” Mike Hadreas affirms, “kicked up and lost.” “Clean Heart,” the final single from his newest Perfume Genius album Glory—which earned a “Paste Pick” 
Wake up, babe. The Jeff Rosenstock and PUP collab just dropped. The third single for PUP’s upcoming record Who Will Look After The Dogs?, “Get Dumber” is a furious, rollicking head-banger and an ode to everything sucking. PUP’s Stefan Babcock and Rosenstock trade off barbs at first (Babcock: “Lying on your couch so fucking despondent”; Rosenstock: “You should try getting high more often”; Babcock: “Holy shit, what a concept”) before coming together to scream, “It seems like every year / I swear that you’re getting dumber.” (My personal favorite moment has to be Rosenstock’s mid-verse scream of “AHHHH…lyrics!”—which, according to Babcock, was Rosenstock’s attempt at an adlib during a take in which they forgot the lyrics, and Babcock found it so funny he had to keep it in). As cathartic as the track is, it’s also just a lot of fun, and it will no doubt go absolutely bonkers live—and luckily for all of us, it sounds like we’ll be finding out soon enough! “Get Dumber” released this week alongside the announcement of the DIY icons’ first joint tour since 2015, when they both opened for the now-defunct pop-punk emo outfit Modern Baseball. This is no doubt a big week for all pop-punkers and ex-pop-punkers alike but, honestly, I think it’s probably the biggest for me, specifically—the Tampa stop on that tour 10 years ago was supposed to be my first concert ever. Sadly, the tour itself went a little disastrously (thanks to food poisoning, van breakdowns, stolen gear, cactus-induced injuries and vocal cord ruptures), culminating in PUP having to cancel the last week of shows, including the one I was meant to attend, but it seems that now, at long last, PUP and Jeff Rosenstock might get the do-over we’ve all been waiting for. —Casey Epstein-Gross 
Since he’s been out on the road touring Manning Fireworks, MJ Lenderman has supplemented his setlists with gems pulled from the oeuvres of everyone from Neil Young to Dinosaur Jr. to Warren Zevon. In my opinion, there has yet to be a song that Lenderman’s fingerprints sully, but only one of his covers has really made me lose my shit (along with the worst man you know, probably): his take on “Dancing in the Club”—a standout track from Box For Buddy, Box For Star, the 2024 album released under Nate Amos’ project This Is Lorelei—which he debuted live in New York back in January. In support of the announcement of the Box For Buddy, Box For Star deluxe edition (due for release in April), Amos and Lenderman released a studio recording of the cover this week, and blessed be the day because, now, we don’t have to crawl over to YouTube to hear lo-res recordings of the so-far unrivaled Indie-Golden-Boy collab of the year! Perhaps unsurprisingly, Lenderman alt-countrifies the tune’s arrangement, trading the original recording’s scintillating synths for twangy guitar. He favors a plodding tempo to the original’s jittery pulseline and elects not to pitch up his mournful drawl via the glitchy AutoTune Amos used a year ago. In peeling back the original’s glittering surface, Lenderman lays bare the sheer misery at the heart of Amos’ wry, incisive lyrics. In comparison to the original, it sounds like the comedown from a nauseatingly sweet cocktail, realizing that, welp, your heart is still broken. A few months ago, if you’d have asked me which Amos composition Lenderman would have been most likely to cover, I would never have guessed “Dancing in the Club,” but with some musical tailoring it’s proven to fit him like a glove. I mean, is eating dinner in the dark and singing Steely Dan not a plausible second act to getting dumped under a half-mast McDonald’s flag? —Anna Pichler 
If you’re not hip to Um, Jennifer?—the NYC duo of Fig Regan and Elijah Scarpati—yet, there’s still time to get in line!! The band, formed after the two met at a party and Scarpati wanted to hook up with one of Regan’s friends, make music for “nobody except the vengeful god, Jennifer,” and their new single, “Old Grimes,” sounds like Being Dead interrupted Dogrel-era Fontaines D.C. while they were recording. It’s a collage of dream-pop and hard-nosed post-punk. Titled after the musician who made one of the greatest tracks ever (“Oblivion”), Um, Jennifer? honor Claire Boucher with a lot of reverb and tempo shifts. The void is encroaching, but Regan and Scarpati supplant the dreadful unknown with scraps of acoustic guitar and a godly “Would you be mine?” harmony. I love my freak siblings Um, Jennifer?; the world needs more songs about taking estrogen and rejecting Ari Aster. —Matt Mitchell 
In case you’re not familiar with the concept, bog bodies are the human remains that have been miraculously mummified thanks to the singular conditions of peat bogs. They’ve been discovered everywhere from the western coast of Sweden to Florida; it’s unnerving to encounter them and see just how lifelike they are. Those Swedish bog bodies surely inspired Stockholm band Viagra Boys to release their new tune “The Bog Body,” which channels the scuzzy rock of yesteryear while paying tribute to a preserved corpse. I’d highly recommend the Eoin Glaister-directed music video, which featured the titular bog body in “Thriller”-esque makeup and a faded leather get-up, sashaying around with vocalist Sebastian Murphy. “You’re just jealous of her darkened skin and her dainty nose,” vocalist Murphy sings, and he is correct! Women have enough unrealistic beauty standards to live up to without comparing ourselves to the enduring allure of peat mummies! Stay tuned for Viagra Boys’ upcoming album v**gr aboys, out April 25 via their very own label Shrimptech Enterprises. —Clare Martin