Best New Songs (May 29, 2025)
Photo of TOPS by Nori Rasmussen-Martinez
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.)
Alan Sparhawk & Trampled By Turtles: “Get Still”
The third single released from Alan Sparhawk’s upcoming collaborative album with Duluth bluegrass group Trampled by Turtles (titled, fittingly, With Trampled by Turtles), “Get Still” is a twangy, evocative crooner with lyrics that feel almost as if they could’ve been pulled from Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons—and though you might not recognize it, you have heard it before. “Get Still” is one of two songs from White Roses, My God (Sparhawk’s 2024 solo album recorded in the wake of his wife and Low bandmate Mimi Parker’s death) revisited on With Trampled by Turtles; a risky move, considering it’s barely been six months since the tracks were originally released. After all, how much difference could six months possibly make? Apparently, a lot. The original version, much like the rest of the record, was emotional distance pushed through a digital filter, the vulnerable core of it scrambled by glitched-out textures and Auto-Tuned into oblivion. But in this re-release, it’s like Sparhawk pulls the song out of the computer and into the living room. It’s bluegrass, technically, but it moves like a séance: banjo and fiddle weave around lyrics that don’t so much narrate as they flicker, and those bizarre soundbites of mundane surrealism (“Kitty needs this for chips,” “Remember the Stouffer”) become almost intelligible from the sheer humanity of the track around it. Couched in the warm support of Trampled by Turtles, Sparhawk’s once uncanny track settles into something communal, almost sacred. It’s not that the uncanny feeling is lost, but that something else is gained: the emotion, once buried in digital frost, now radiates through every twang and tremble. It’s not just a translation from electronic to acoustic. It’s a reframing: the same abstract song, now stripped of artifice, made warmer but no less strange. Sparhawk’s voice, unfiltered and steady, reminds us how much feeling can survive even the most elliptical language—if you’re willing to sit still with it. —Casey Epstein-Gross
Alex G: “Afterlife”
Alex G is in the big leagues now. After scoring Jane Schoenbrun’s films and producing Halsey’s latest record, it was inevitable for the Philly musician to graduate from “indie star” to the mainstream. He signed with Sony imprint RCA Records in 2024 and has just announced his first LP under the new label: Headlights. It’s a crapshoot when a beloved indie artist makes this shift. Will they lose the spark that makes them special to appease the masses and suits, disregarding the sound that caused this breakthrough in their career? Thankfully, that’s not the case with Alex G. His forthcoming album’s lead single, “Afterlife,” is an Americana pop track that retains the magic touch present in Alex G’s previous work. Led by bright mandolin strums, he recreates that feeling of being a kid and enjoying the simplicity of life. In the lyrics, he looks back at feeling that childlike wonder (“Let me run on afterlife / Filling up the tank with it / Like a kid I ran it past / Rolling in the tiger grass”) as he reflects on beginning a new life “when the light came,” seemingly referencing his new role as a father. —Tatiana Tenreyro
caroline: “Coldplay cover”
The third single from caroline 2, out tomorrow, is a multi-part opus steeped in intimacy. “Coldplay cover” opens with stripped-down acoustics and vocals, but don’t mistake it for “Yellow.” It feels cautious, like dipping a toe in a hot bath. caroline’s “spatial polyphony” is so deep and sensitive that we can hear the creaking of wood floors, an intimacy that imbues the whole song with the coziness of a fireplace’s warmth. The acoustic is covered in reverb, adding a depth that creates space for what unraveling is to come. The second half of “Coldplay cover” is plugged in and miked up, introducing woodwinds and strings that move in tandem and chase each other. Fragmented lyric phrases (“You got / You never really asked”) add a layer of instinct, like the music pulled the words right out of their mouths. —Cassidy Sollazzo
Drugdealer & Weyes Blood: “Real Thing”
Drugdealer (whose real name is Michael Collins) and Weyes Blood (the moniker of Natalie Mering) were a heavenly pair in their collaborative tracks for The End of Comedy and 2019’s “Honey,” so it’s thrilling that they’ve joined forces for a new single, “Real Thing.” For both artists, this is their first song since their respective 2022 albums, and what a way to come back. “Real Thing” feels like uncovering a forgotten ’70s disco duet, with Mering taking on a more optimistic perspective as she declares that she’s blissfully in love with someone who gives the same adoration in return. “Think I found someone who loves me / Somebody that’s so proud that they found me / Someone who loves me in every way,” Mering sings, accompanied by romantic violin, a soulful saxophone and a gentle, funky bassline. —Tatiana Tenreyro
mary in the junkyard: “drains”
mary in the junkyard’s first release of 2025, “drains,” picks up where last year’s breakthrough This Old House EP left off—the same fire is at its core, but it’s burning faster, wilder, louder. The track opens with a bassline that sounds like it’s been playing since 1994 and only just now bubbled up through a London sewer grate, and when the drums come in, they don’t tiptoe; they punch. It’s a sharp turn toward a heavier sound for the trio, but Clari Freeman-Taylor’s vocals remain the anchor. Her delivery is fragile and serrated all at once, flipping upward at the ends of lines, wavering with a kind of mystic clarity—somehow, she makes even lines as ostensibly plaintive and self-explanatory as “I am your lover and I’m loving you” land like a punch to the gut. And, of course, I’m legally obligated to like any song that includes a frustrated keyboard smash a la “aaarrrtggggghhhh” in its official lyrics. (How better to describe that culminating scream, anyways?) “drains” might be about looking for someone in the lowest, murkiest places, but what it finds is something vivid, immediate, and alive. —Casey Epstein-Gross
Carolina rapper MAVI’s connection to Earl Sweatshirt goes back nearly six years, to their collaboration on Earl’s FEET OF CLAY track “El Toro Combo Meal” in 2019. On the Hollywood Cole-produced “Landgrab,” MAVI and Earl trade verses across 90 seconds, setting each other up with full-court alley-oops. “I was in the backseat hoping to cash in, heard the whip crack,” MAVI raps. “And it woke up the master,” Earl chimes in. “We still everywhere, broken glass. When you get where you going, just don’t look back.” A soul sample crescendos into a beat with a BPM that’s in a different stratosphere than Earl’s oft-off-centered flow. But the contrast doesn’t conflict, and MAVI raps about being a “latchkey math whiz” after Earl lobs him a deep-pocket reference to NBA draft bust Michael Olowokandi. “Been balling, my right foot all on the gas so hard it surprised them that I didn’t crash,” Earl says, and an image of MAVI draped in Rick Owens appears. The duo are exactly that—working in tandem, bouncing off each other’s vocab and going bar-for-bar. —Matt Mitchell 
I loved I Feel Alive, TOPS’ last record. I loved Marci, the solo debut of band member Marta Cikojevic. I loved Surfacing, bandleader Jane Penny’s 2024 EP. And I love “Chlorine,” the focus track from TOPS’ new album Bury the Key. The song begins gloomy and matter-of-fact, with synths twinkling through airy, soulful vocalizations that juxtapose elegance with minimalist grooves. The chorus doesn’t aim for climax, but for texture and harmony. “Gassing me up in an empty bar, filling my cup with so much empty love,” Penny sings. “Just the way you are.” There’s a rallentando in the bridge, as the synths downshift into brief acoustic strums before swelling into a sultry, dramatic conclusion. This iteration of TOPS is more OMD circa 1988 than Donna Summer, and the clothes fit just right. —Matt Mitchell 
“CPR” is the second single from British indie rock group Wet Leg’s forthcoming LP, moisturizer, out July 11. It sounds like the duo in all the best ways, featuring a thumping backbeat, crunchy bass textures, and Rhian Teasdale delivering every lyric with sass and attitude. The track chronicles a less-than-healthy love—a love so overpowering that they would jump off a cliff if they were told to. The “Is it love or suicide” pre-chorus hook is a blunt summary of what can feel like a relationship entrenched in self-sabotage. Wet Leg cycle through built-up and released tension, mounting pressure in the verses that then explodes in the chorus. By the end of the track, the droning “call the triple nine and give me CPR” (a line that has been on a loop in my head since my first listen) mixes with wailing guitars piercing into overdrive. It sounds like approaching emergency sirens, like someone did, in fact, call 999 to come rescue them. —Cassidy Sollazzo 
Known for their low-key instrumentation and introspective lyrics, Whitney is back with their first new song since 2023: the sweet new single “Darling.” Framed by soulful piano chords and a driving bass, Julien Ehrlich’s signature lush falsetto sound tells a story that’s revealing and honest. As he’s saying goodbye to his lover, a silky guitar line, sweeping strings, and muted trumpet fill in the romantic soundscape. The result is a breezy and uplifting sound, one of those rare songs that make a heavy topic (in this case, the end of a long relationship) feel more freeing than devastating. It’s a song washed in that refreshing “whatever will be, will be” mentality. A big welcome back to Whitney and their beautifully raw, acoustic sound. —Camryn Teder 
World News feels like a band plucked right out of the ‘80s, thanks to their addictively bittersweet post-rock sound. In their new song “Don’t Want to Know,” jangly guitar lines ring out across a lush, dreamy soundscape. It’s the song’s first sign of life, but harmonic layers of guitar, bass, and drums bring depth and energy to the track, driving it further as the instrumentals mine effortless hooks. The rhythmic medley gives the song a carefree feeling, and frontman Alex Evans’ signature deep voice ties it all together as he sings, ironically enough, of a deep yearning for isolation. “I think when I wrote it, I was definitely in a depressive episode,” he said of the track. That may be the case, but this song makes me feel like I’m soaring, especially as the guitar slides across registers high and low. —Camryn Teder