The 10 Best New Songs

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 Thursday we can swing it, we take stock of the previous seven days’ best tracks, delivering a weekly playlist of our favorites while keeping Fridays free to focus on new albums. Check out this week’s best new songs below.

††† (Crosses): “Protection”

It makes perfect sense that the dreamy, intense sound of Deftones would make way for the poppier sights of frontman Chino Moreno’s side project Crosses. Their first new material in almost a decade, “Protection” is a sleazy, sexy, R&B-inspired track that brings the duo into new territories. Moreno’s breathy vocals ease onto the brink of a moan as atmospheric synths and reverbed guitar plucks orchestrated by producer Shaun Lopez fill the expanse of this new chapter of the duo’s career. —Jade Gomez

Fontaines D.C.: “Skinty Fia“

Anticipation continues to grow for Fontaines D.C.’s third album Skinty Fia, especially following the release of its first two excellent singles, “Jackie Down The Line” and “I Love You,” which were included on our lists of favorite songs from January and February, respectively. Now, ahead of the record’s arrival on April 22, they’ve shared a third single, “Skinty Fia.” The album’s title track is accompanied by a video directed by Hugh Mulhern. The band, which hails from Dublin, have turned homeward for lyrical inspiration on each Skinty Fia track we’ve heard so far, and the same is true for this latest single: the Irish phrase “Skinty Fia” translates to “the damnation of the deer” in English, and is often used to express annoyance or disappointment. Fittingly, the song explores the paranoid death of a relationship, perfectly captured by the video’s depiction of a surreal party fading away into a dark, disjointed dreamscape. —Elise Soutar

Jane Inc.: “2120”

As U.S. Girls member Carlyn Bezic gears up to release her second album under the moniker of Jane Inc., Faster Than I Can Take, she’s shared “2120,” a glimmering, disco-inflected track about existential dread and the environmental turmoil we continue to live through. It’s a combination that doesn’t really seem to work on paper, but the way in which Bezic brings it to life feels effortless and, more importantly, like something you can’t help but dance to. “I’ll pour my grief into this plastic crucible / Forge a new infinite fuel made of anger, and hope, and refusal,” she sings over a cascading wave of synths and drum loops that does Moroder and Summer proud, creating a sequin-covered shrine to the dread we all feel about, well, everything nowadays. —Elise Soutar

Kilo Kish: “DEATH FANTASY”

It’s been fascinating to watch electro-pop artist Kilo Kish shift and change over the last decade, always approaching each album cycle like an art project with carefully constructed, interwoven ideas hanging from the skeleton of one major theme. In an Instagram post, she referred to “DEATH FANTASY” as the “manifesto” of her second full-length album American Gurl, which arrives tomorrow (March 25). “It’s asking who we are beyond definitions and beyond who we appear to be to ourselves, and others,” she continued, calling the track “a declaration of freedom in many ways.” Featuring backing vocals from Miguel, “DEATH FANTASY” sees Kilo Kish, an artist often preoccupied with the situations in life over which we have no control, take the reins once and for all, demanding attention from anyone whose eyes aren’t glued to her already. —Elise Soutar

Let’s Eat Grandma: “Levitation”

Excitement is ramping up for Let’s Eat Grandma’s follow-up to 2018’s I’m All Ears, and the sparkly art-pop banger “Levitation” has only made it grow even further. With irresistible, urgent synths that take cues from early ‘00s dance-pop and soaring vocals, the single rounds out their forthcoming album Two Ribbons’ rollout with optimism. It’s a hypnotic, effortless love letter to the euphoria of escaping into one’s imagination, and Let’s Eat Grandma are the perfect soundtrack for that. —Jade Gomez

PENDANT: “Blue Mare”

Chris Adams, better known by his moniker PENDANT, has shared the latest track from his forthcoming album Harp (April 8, Saddle Creek). It’s a fitting final single, reflecting on the underlying fear of growing old while acknowledging the positives that come with it. Adams taps into his arsenal of influences, with droning post-punk synths and melancholy shoegaze vocal delivery to showcase both sides of his existential coin. —Jade Gomez

Soccer Mommy: “Shotgun”

The first taste of Sophie Allison’s forthcoming Sometimes, Forever is a doozy, as befitting an album produced by Daniel Lopatin of Oneohtrix Point Never, and described in a press release as “Allison’s boldest and most aesthetically adventurous work yet.” First reactions online crowned “Shotgun” Soccer Mommy’s best song yet, and while it’s too soon—and Allison’s catalog is too strong—for us to jump to that particular conclusion just yet, the track is undeniably excellent. It’s a love song built around a simple concept: romance as an intoxicating high with no hangover. Meanwhile, Allison’s hooky and intimate guitar-rock melds with subtle synth work from Lopatin to create a new (and arguably improved) Soccer Mommy sound. “Uppers and my heart never meshed / I hated coming down / But this feels the same without the bad things,” Allison sings softly over a lurching guitar riff, swearing in the track’s soaring choruses, “So whenever you want me I’ll be around / I’m a bullet in a shotgun waiting to sound,” the killer hook at the center of a song we’ll be hearing for a long while. —Scott Russell

Son Lux & Moses Sumney: “Fence”

It was hard to imagine how the next taste we got of Son Lux’s soundtrack for A24’s Everything Everywhere All At Once would top the lovely “This Is a Life; which featured Mitski and David Byrne (a combo that I personally would be too intimidated to follow). Leave it to Moses Sumney to exceed any (already high) expectations we might have had, as he delivers a typically gorgeous vocal performance over Son Lux’s lush, otherworldly backing. It feels simultaneously ethereal and apocalyptic in the best sense of the word, like it would be the perfect thing to play as the sky caved in and all we could do was watch in slow motion. “Fence” sees both artists pushing themselves beyond the boundaries of the musical ground they’ve covered before, standing on its own two feet as a marvel of a song even if you weren’t aware it was part of a soundtrack. —Elise Soutar

Twen: “Dignitary Life”

Nashville-via-Boston band Twen, led by Jane Fitzsimmons and Ian Jones, made their buzzed-about debut with 2019’s Awestruck, but have since had to withstand “2 years of canceled tours and broken ties to all music-industry execs,” according to their website. Judging by their spate of recent singles, including December 2021’s “HaHaHome,” last month’s “Bore U” and their latest, this week’s “Dignitary Life,” the band’s abilities have been untouched by all that turbulence. In a perfect world, Twen would have a Sunflower Bean-esque career path—their polished, impossible-to-pigeonhole pop-rock is that good. The duo seem to reckon with their fickle industry on “Dignitary Life,” with Jones cautioning over sparkling jangle-pop, “You oughta know / As quickly as it comes / You’ll be sure to watch it go,” and Twen singing in unison in the choruses, “You are my kind / Our fates are tied.” —Scott Russell

Zola Jesus: “Lost”

The darkly hypnotic “Lost” opens Arkhon, singer/songwriter and producer Nika Roza Danilova’s first new album as Zola Jesus since 2017, coming May 20 on Sacred Bones. In terms of atmosphere, “Lost” is like a three-minute A24 film, with rhythmic breathing and digitally manipulated voices (sampled from a Slovenian folk choir) forming the backbone of the track. Danilova’s voice fills the void as she laments our “collective disillusionment,” her vocals multiplying to underscore the observation that “Everyone I know is lost.” The notion unsettles as much as it reassures: Wandering in the wilderness, we can only hope to find each other. —Scott Russell