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 tracks, delivering a weekly playlist of our favorites. Check out this week’s best new songs, in alphabetical order. (You can check out last week’s songs here.)
Blonde Redhead: “Melody Experiment”
The latest single from Blonde Redhead’s next album Sit Down for Dinner, “Melody Experiment” swirls and careens through a conversation between two interlocutors, one overly questioning and the other inching towards peace with their own reality. Between the duo lies the deepening chasm of instrumentals which embrace the song ever more tightly as it flows onward. “Melody Experiment” toes the line between lo-fi and urgency with a steady, expert hand. Sparkly guitars and wispy, insistent vocals complement each other calmly and confidently, building a rich sonic landscape. —Miranda Wollen
Buck Meek: “Paradise”
The second single from Buck Meek’s upcoming album Haunted Mountain finds the Big Thief guitarist gravitating towards the multitudes of universes opened up by love. “Paradise” is gorgeous and tantalizingly minimalistic; a tribute to Meek’s crystallized vocals and lyrical prowess. Simple harmonies and twinkling, light guitar plucks create a feeling of intimacy in the songs as he croons, “Tell me how you got Heaven in your eyes.” No doubt, a paradisiacal light rings around Meek’s calm, steady track, as unassuming and earnest as the best love songs always are. —Miranda Wollen
Cut Worms: “I’ll Never Make It” b/w “Don’t Fade Out”
This double-single release from Cut Worms’ forthcoming self-titled album find Max Clarke forging his steadfast architecture of timeless rock ‘n’ roll even further. “I’ll Never Make It’ is a methodical slow-burn that pairs elements of doo-wop, mid-century chart-topping eccentricities and contemporary lyricism. The track is tight, unforgettable and sharp. On “Don’t Fade Out,” Clarke examines the joys of a place where he can be free and madly in love. “How can I tell you, how can I express? / How much I love you now, you never could guess / I feel the world is opening up / For nobody but me,” he sings. Both songs beautifully lament the losses and romances of humanity and package it all in a catchy, undeniable box. It’s another limitless offering from one of our sharpest storytellers. —Matt Mitchell
Diners: “Domino”
The title track from Diners’ new album DOMINO arrives with the length of a mid-20th-century, chart-topping hit, clocking in at 2:33 under an energetic, feedback-laced guitar arrangement that is so jubilant and perfect that you’ll be humming its melody all week long. “The look on your face, thinking how it’s all unfolded,” Blue Broderick sings. “Gonna live to see another day with eyes and arms wide open.” The Mo Troper-produced track exudes flickers of doo-wop, surf rock and hypnotic glam-pop. DOMINO is a soon-to-be-instant-classic power-pop record. —Matt Mitchell
Field Medic: “everything’s been going so well”
The lead single from Field Medic’s upcoming album light is gone 2, “everything’s been going so well,” finds Kevin Patrick Sullivan engrossed in a tender, double-tracked digital folk tune that takes the singer/songwriter’s love of trap beats, airy acoustic arpeggios and chopped up electric chords and packages it all beneath a gorgeous, auto-tuned vocal and looping backbeat. “Everyday feels like a memory / I’m outside my body / And can’t make out the details / Just when I think I’ve found meaning / I remember I’m the stranger / And no one really cares,” he sings. The song signals a new chapter of Field Medic, one that aims to reach out for a new sonic horizon filled with every type of melody and story he’s ever loved. —Matt Mitchell
Hala: “R.S.V.P.”
Detroit singer/songwiter Hala—aka Ian Ruhala—has returned with his first new single of 2023. Ever the prolific musician, Ruhala has been steadily releasing music as Hala since he was in high school in 2014. With “R.S.V.P.,” he’s channeling a broad range of influence into one unrelenting composition. Think BRONCHO fused with the Cars’ Candy-O era, or the Strokes on acid in 1980s England. Ruhala has floated under the radar, even though his 2016 song “What Is Love? Tell Me, Is It Easy?” has racked up over 22-million streams. “R.S.V.P.” finds him ditching (at least momentarily) the sugary, lo-fi pop-rock he’s perfected in 10 years’ time and substituting it with a roaring, fuzzed-out, glitzy post-punk rocker. —Matt Mitchell
Izzaldin: “Spike”
Ever had an awkward encounter with a famous person? Has it resulted in you getting thrown out of a basketball game? If you answered yes to both, you’re in good company. On the second single from Izzaldin’s forthcoming album, the Indiana-bred rapper recounts an incident at an NBA game where, sitting courtside, he was upbraided for coming to the arena sporting Pacers gear by notorious Knicks fan Spike Lee. Izzaldin apparently gave as good as he got and was soon tossed out of Madison Square Garden by security. Making the best of a dumb moment, the hip-hop artist turned it into a song, recounting the gory, pretty hilarious details of his confrontation with the Oscar-winning filmmaker over a jazzy minimalist beat. —Robert Ham
Jeff Rosenstock: “DOUBT”
With his new album HELLMODE around the corner, which he calls a representation of “the chaos of being alive right now,” Jeff Rosenstock has gifted us with “DOUBT.” In his typical fashion, the song is searing and angry, chaotic and impossibly polished. It’s a toast to an ever-approaching doomsday, a fixation common in much of Rosenstock’s recent work, with a defiantly emotional throughline. “Scream / It doesn’t matter anyway,” he admits at the song’s genesis. As an irresitibly catchy guitar riff mirrors Rosenstock’s own peaking vocals, the song’s lyricism flips a switch: “You gotta chill out with the doubt, the doubt, the doubt,” he preaches on high, a medicinally angry catchphrase that is as ready for mosh pits as it is mental circuitboard resets. —Miranda Wollen
Sara Oswald & Feldermelder: “Everything Vibrating is an Illusion”
The song begins simply enough with an ostinato plucked out on Sara Oswald’s cello. But if you know anything about her work or that of the electronic musician Fendermelder, her collaborator on this piece, you are well aware it won’t stay in that one bouncy zone for long. Soon enough the scratchy sounds of a bad stereo connection and various drones start to flood the stereo field like small swarms of furious wasps. It’s disorienting and beautiful in the way that only the greatest experimental music can be, and it trebles the anticipation for this duo’s latest collaborative album Dual / Duel, out next Friday. —Robert Ham
Slow Pulp: “Slugs”
The second single from Slow Pulp’s sophomore album Yard, “Slugs” follows its predecessor “Cramps” with a gentle and insistent melody. It’s a sugared, summery indie track made unique by blink-and-you’ll-miss-it glitches and a distorted backing track. With thematics tracing the blurring outlines of isolation and togetherness, “Slugs” itself is an encapsulation of the dainty, terrifying and hopeful feelings that arise when you start to fall in love in the summertime. —Miranda Wollen
Speedy Ortiz: “Plus One”
The latest single from Speedy Ortiz’s forthcoming LP Rabbit Rabbit is a raucous tune rife with gnarly guitar riffs and bombastic drums that accentuate bandleader Sadie Dupuis’ singing perfectly. She mines through vignettes of a traumatic childhood, opining: “Songs are for telling and records for show / Stole my split necklace half to see where I’d help you go / The other piece, it doesn’t fit where I hoped.” We couldn’t be happier to have the Philadelphia band back and delivering new work to us, and Speedy Ortiz haven’t missed a single beat. “Plus One” is anthemic, tough and open-hearted—a real benchmark for Dupuis and company. —Matt Mitchell
The Chemical Brothers feat. Halo Maud: “Live Again”
Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons, the two men better known as the Chemical Brothers, haven’t put a false foot forward since emerging from within the vibrant dance music community of Manchester in the late ’80s. Even as they’ve stayed true to their big beat aesthetics, the pair have honed and sharpened the psychedelic edge within their compositions. On latest single “Live Again,” that comes out in a Steve Reich-like vocal sample that repeats the song’s title even as it is being cut up and phased out of proportion. When combined with the blowsy beat and synth splashes, the words start to hypnotize and lift the spirit to a higher plane. —Robert Ham
Worriers: “Trust Your Gut”
Worriers are back with Trust Your Gut, their first album in three years, and the title track arrives in a hurry. “Lately I’ve been feelin’ just a little off / If not you then baby, who can I trust? / If you’re not just yessin’ me to death, then prove me wrong,” bandleader Lauren Denitzio sings over a sugary power-pop hook. Done with the energy of a punk track and the sonic alchemy of a new wave sunnter, “Trust Your Gut” is a bright, charismatic emblem of queer joy and Denitzio’s always magnetic songwriting. —Matt Mitchell
Other notable songs from this week: Crooks & Nannies, “Weather”; Daneshevskaya, “Somewhere In The Middle”; Girl Ray, “Love Is Enough”; Hayden Pedigo, “Signal of Hope”; Ratboys, “The Window”; Strawberry Runners, “Look Like This”; Sweeping Promises, “Good Living Is Coming For You”; Truth Club, “Blue Eternal”
Listen to our playlist of these 13 songs below.