Best New Songs (January 23, 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.)

Circuit des Yeux: “Megaloner”

This week, Circuit des Yeux, the main musical project of Chicago singer and composer Haley Fohr, announced their fifth album, Halo on the Inside (out March 14 via Matador Records), and first release in three years. The dark, dance inspired lead single “Megaloner” continues Fohr’s refusal of genre classification standards. The track puts Fohr’s vocals on full display in a reflective chamber of grinding synths and anxiously pulsing drums. It’s a boiler room death march—a song that would be right at home echoing throughout Nosferatu’s castle. Fohr talked about the track in a press release, saying that “Megaloner is an anthem for the place that exists after an action and inside its consequence. Prices are being paid and hope is our currency. I’m singing about endurance, faith, agency, and the singular, unbelievable path toward one’s own fate.” “Megaloner” has massive, unyielding energy. —Gavyn Green

Daneshevskaya: “Kermit & Gyro”

It’s rare to exist at the same time as an artist like Daneshevskaya, an artist so deeply astonishing that I am faithfully floored by her work every time she makes something new. Brooklyn’s music population is not lacking in originality or singer-songwriters, but Anna Beckerman may very well be the best one living there. I say that as a non-New Yorker, but I am undoubtedly correct. Daneshevskaya’s debut album, Long Is The Tunnel, remains in my constant rotation, and she one-upped herself last year with a one-off single, “Scrooge.” But again Daneshevskaya has blessed us, this time with “Kermit & Gyro,” a lullaby dappled in the sun-treated symphonics of a breathless orchestra. The song may be a puzzle, but I promise that the pieces are easy to gather—Beckerman tenderly pairs her voice with a finger-picked guitar melody and a string section. There is a moment when she is singing, “At least I know we had a good time,” where her vocal coils into a falsetto emphasizing the “know” of it all. It’s just a beautiful thing, and I feel lucky visiting a song like “Kermit & Gyro”; a sentence like “Of course I forget how to move in the sun” will remain with me. —Matt Mitchell

Jeffrey Lewis: “Sometimes Life Hits You”

Jeffrey Lewis’ upcoming album might have the best name and cover art I’ve seen in quite some time: I laughed out loud upon seeing the text The EVEN MORE Freewheelin’ Jeffrey Lewis atop a re-staging of Bob Dylan’s famous record of a similar name—except Lewis, who is EVEN MORE freewheelin’ than Dylan, is ass naked. It’s a perfect fit for the cult favorite, who has made a career off of sharp witticisms, “anti-singing,” and painfully relatable lyrics. The album’s first single, “Sometimes Life Hits You,” covers all those bases and more, all amp feedback and anti-folk blues and a yelled refrain of “Ow, fuck, that hurt!” that somehow manages to strike the perfect balance of silly and deeply cathartic. The song was a favorite on his post-pandemic tours, and it’s easy to see why; my parents called me on their way home from his show at Tallahassee’s The Bark last year and laughed about how they screamed along to that refrain. And as true as the song is for life in general, I can’t think of a more apt song for the current political moment, considering that every time I open Twitter (sorry Musk, it’s still Twitter to me) I instantly feel as if I’ve been backhanded across the face, then backhanded across the face again. “You can quote from philosophers, or Bibles or songs / That find hope in the hopeless and find right in the wrongs,” Lewis speaks-sings. “You can wear art and wisdom like a bulletproof vest / But sometimes life’ll hit you like a hammer to the chest, then you’ll say: ‘OW! Fuck, that hurt!’” —Casey Epstein-Gross

JPEGMAFIA: “PROTECT THE CROSS”

JPEGMAFIA may have already delivered the most quotable lyric of the year on “PROTECT THE CROSS,” barreling in at the end of each pre-chorus to shout, “2025: your politics is a gang sign.” It’s a no-nonsense line, and quite apropos considering the timing of it all. “PROTECT THE CROSS,” the first taste of a forthcoming I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU deluxe-edition, came out during Trump’s inauguration this Monday, which also happened to fall on MLK Day— an irony that isn’t lost on myself or on the serviceman turned rapper. The song’s cover art has already faced controversy for its striking image of the American flag, which Peggy explained in a recent tweet, “Before the sensitives start making shit up, i don’t support trump never have never will, and i hope every black person sees what happens when u defend yourself even on small scale. They just get mad and start making shit up lol.” In spite of its controversy, or perhaps because of it, “PROTECT THE CROSS” remains a fun, hard-hitting rap-rock banger. Built upon an ear-clipping drum beat and punk guitar chords, Peggy fires off bars with the intention to make your grandmother faint, cynically joking that white girls lied about voting for Kamala Harris and using it as justification for his sexual exploits. —Gavyn Green

Lily Seabird: “Trash Mountain (1pm)”

In the “Trash Mountain (1pm)” music video, Lily Seabird runs, jumps and twirls with reckless abandon, a red balloon trailing behind her. Wearing a metallic gold blouse and a vaguely crown-shaped hat, she stands in stark contrast to the dreary landscapes she dances through—she’s the undisputed queen of the mountain, and thrilled to be so. As Seabird sings of the titular “Trash Mountain”—a pink house situated atop a decommissioned landfill site in Burlington, Vermont, that serves as a home base for her and her friends between relentless tour dates—she takes us with her, raising all the little things around her to the utmost importance. These hallmarks of home she sings of—a pack of kids playing, a man pushing a shopping cart “full of bottles of belief,” a white ribbon lost to time—may seem insignificant on paper, but when Seabird sings them to life, you can’t help but to hang onto every detail. Gusts of harmonica whirl through the rawness of her voice, like wind slicing an open wound, leaving her gasping for air between words. Listening to this singularly piercing voice, you’ll likely find yourself just as breathless. —Anna Pichler

Lonnie Holley: “Protest With Love”

I have to give thanks to Paste’s editor-in-chief, Josh Jackson, for turning me on to Lonnie Holley. He wrote this great cover story on the Alabama-based visual artist, educator and musician early in my tenure as music editor, and Holley’s 2023 album Oh Me Oh My quickly became one of my very favorite releases that year. After showing up on a Moor Mother track in 2024, Holley’s next project, Tonky, is set to come out in March and will feature an incredible lineup of contributors—including Open Mike Eagle, Isaac Brock, billy woods, Mary Lattimore, Angel Bat Dawid and more. Lead single “Protest With Love” was produced by Jacknife Lee and features him on most of the instruments, along with horn players Kelly Pratt and Jordan Katz. It’s a beautifully glitchy soul song full of a dozen eras. Holley offers a simple instruction: “Let love be your weapon.” I love hearing Holley’s vocal tremble here, as if his voice could give out at any second but won’t. “Protest With Love” is sublime and lyrically minimal, an electronic arrangement that sounds as alien as it does ecstatic. I crave whatever turn Holley makes next. —Matt Mitchell

MIKE: “Bear Trap”

I was always taught that the mark of a good writer is being able to say a lot with a little—that an intentioned message will trump flowery words or a spicy semicolon every time. So, when I throw on MIKE, and I’m comparing his verses to the best stanzas from Robert Frost or Bukowski, I know he’s a one of a kind emcee. One of MIKE’s most popular songs, “Hunger,” clocks in at just 69 seconds, and there are few moments throughout his catalog that surpass the three-minute mark, yet while I’d usually rant about the loss of the third verse like some ‘90’s hip-hop evangelist, the briefness of MIKE’s songs are, to me, his biggest strength. Now readying his 10th studio album, Showbiz! (out January 31 via 10K Projects), MIKE has shared “Bear Trap,” a laid-back meditation guided by angelic piano runs and timeless, soulful vocal chops. “Bear Trap” reads like MIKE just walked into a confession booth— he steps in, atones, says his prayers and gets the hell out. —Gavyn Green

neil young and the chrome hearts: “big change”

As if I couldn’t love Neil Young more, he and his band, the Chrome Hearts, have changed their name to all lowercase: It’s neil young and the chrome hearts now, and their new single, ironically, calls for something massive. “big change” is loud, sludgy, thrashing and lyrically minimal. Young repeats the refrain “big change is coming” until he and guitarist Micah Nelson quake into a brief solo. The band, made up of Young, Nelson, Corey McCormick, Anthony Logerfo and Spooner Oldham, sound primal and totally in-step with each other. It should be no surprise, either, that the Lou Adler-produced “big change” arrived just days before Trump was inaugurated as president. During the song, the chrome hearts insist that it’s time for the American people to reap what they’ve sown. “Might be a politician tryin’ to say something new,” Young cries out. “Might be your decision, now you got to see it through. Might be bad and it might be good, big change is comin’ to you.” I like the way John Hanlon described it, as “in your face loud irreverent rock ‘n roll paint splatter on the canvas in the vein of a Jackson Pollock painting.” —Matt Mitchell

Tamino ft. Mitski: “Sanctuary”

Not being able to catch Tamino’s show when he toured the States in early 2023 was a bummer, but missing him when he returned that fall as an opening act for Mitski on her The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We Tour was a double-blow—two of my favorite singers were playing on the same bill, but passing over Ohio? It felt personal, almost. However, getting to hear their new duet, “Sanctuary,” lifted any of my lingering sadness. Over swelling waves of golden-tinged acoustic strumming and a stirring pulseline of strings, Tamino and Mitski’s voices soar to a breathtaking catharsis. There is no refrain, and the song is better off for it—the cascading, stream-of-consciousness dialogue allows the pair to luxuriate in every piece of its poetry; you can imagine their hands stretching out to each other as they trade and share verses about the ecstasy of connection. A breathtaking synthesis of Tamino and Mitski’s respective talents, “Sanctuary” rushes like a flood to the heart and hits every corner, never to abandon. —Anna Pichler

Vundabar: “Spades”

Boston band Vundabar seems to be moving in a grittier direction with their new record, Surgery and Pleasure, and considering how great their latest single, “Spades,” turned out, I am all for it. “Spades” is loud and riotous, an exemplary mix of Vundabar’s various sounds (billed by a press release as “arty post-punk, tangled math-rock, sun-dappled surf-guitar, shimmering jangle-pop, and grunge scuzz,” the latter of which especially comes across in “Spades”) as Brandon Hagen sings over and over “I’m watching you watching me / watching you watching me” atop Drew McDonald’s furious drumline and grounding bass from Zack Abramo. The album description calls Surgery and Pleasure the band’s “most urgent and visceral collection yet,” with singer/guitarist Brandon Hagen revealing in a press release that it was written in the midst of a particularly hard period in his personal life, which naturally resulted in a record that revolves around change and the arduous process of learning to accept it. It’s a new era of Vundabar, and it’s shaping up to be an all-timer. —Casey Epstein-Gross

Other Notable Songs This Week: Accessory: “Chain Link”; Bathe: “Here”; Cheekface: “Growth Sux”; Cornelia Murr: “Skylight”; Cross Record: “Charred Grass”; DITZ: “Four”; Double Wish ft. ARK IDENTITY: “Aeroplane”; FACS: “You Future”; Hannah Cohen: “Earthstar”; Kate Teague: “Get By”; more eaze & claire rousay: “kinda tropical”; Palmyra: “Shape I’m In”; Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs: “Stitches”; quickly, quickly: “Enything”; Sedona: “Best Kept Secret”; Scowl: “Not Hell Not Heaven”; Shygirl ft. PinkPantheress & Isabela Lovestory: “True Religion”; SUMAC & Moor Mother: “Scene 1”; Your Grandparents: “The Dial”

Check out a playlist of this week’s best new songs below.