2025’s Q1 is officially over. St. Patrick’s Day came and went, and it looks like the winter is finally beginning to wane here on the East Coast. March was full of memorable New Music Fridays, including the spoils of 3/28’s riches, which saw album releases from Lucy Dacus, Destroyer, Free Range, OHYUNG, Great Grandpa and many more. This month, we also got remarkable deep cuts from the new Backxwash and Perfume Genius releases, the single Chappell Roan teased on SNL last fall, feeble little horse’s return and a few unexpected treats from the likes of Paco Cathcart and Moon Mullins. So, let’s take a moment to celebrate the best of the best from these last 31 days. Here are our 10 favorite songs of March 2025. —Matt Mitchell, Music Editor
Backxwash: “History of Violence”
A synth begins like a lullaby on “History of Violence” before patiently building into an armor of metal drums and Michael Go’s thrashing guitars. “Is Heaven the only semblance of peace?,” Backxwash asks. The song is not just a reflection of her own political climate-inciting agony, or an uncomfortable interrogating of cultural abuse, but an annihilation on global power, corruption and gluttony; Backxwash prosecutes the fascists enabling the ongoing genocide in Gaza, shouting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” She condemns the world’s leaders using freedom as a bartering chip; she recalls videos of dying Palestinian children and reckons with what power fuels a slaughtering of innocent children: “These fuckers gonna say it’s all about peace. Check the stats, motherfucker, it’s all about greed.” The perspective repeatedly switches between micro and macro, as Backxwash, ever the intergenerational, socio-political magician in rap, casts a spell on Black trans life through gothic, scorched-earth overtures, unpredictable pop tangents and prompt lyrical critiques of global corruption and genocide. —Matt Mitchell
Chappell Roan: “The Giver”
Last Friday I listened to Chappell Roan’s “The Giver” no less than half a dozen times with my friends as we drank wine and put on makeup before heading to our favorite queer bar; I have no doubt in my mind this is only the first of many such “Giver”-filled nights. Chappell Roan’s celebrated debut album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess nods to her Missouri upbringing in its title but not so much in its ‘80s-inspired pop sound—but “The Giver” rectifies matters. High, sassy fiddle invites you to try your hand at line dancing, while Chappell assures us with a wink and a smile that “I get the job done.” While it’s disappointing she didn’t include the spoken section from her already iconic Saturday Night Live performance (“All you country boys saying you know how to treat a woman right—well only a woman knows how to treat a woman right”), likely to improve airplay chances on more conservative radio stations, this is still one hell of a country pop song. For those in the know, this is a top anthem. And for everyone else, well, it’s a barnburner. —Clare Martin
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
feeble little horse: “This Is Real”
Babe, wake up. New feeble little horse just dropped. After two years of periodic touring, not to mention a brief yet alarming rumor that the band had disbanded altogether, our favorite Pittsburgh noise-poppers are back with “This is Real.” It’s their first single since 2023’s Girl With Fish, which we named one of our favorite albums that year, but “This is Real” sees the band decidedly coloring outside the lines of their sophomore LP. The song unfolds like a Pompeii-level eruption—one second Lydia Slocum is nonchalantly singing about smoking in the back of a car, only to quickly pummel us with waves of double kick drum, bit-crushed guitar and a near-screamo pre-chorus of “Like I could be the moon / Like I could be the moon / Like I could be the moon.” Then, just like that: The detonation is over, punctuated by a warped acoustic guitar and a calm, warm outro. When I say I was floored upon my first listen, I’m putting it lightly (I didn’t know Slocum had it in her to scream like that, but it was absolutely awesome, and I hope this isn’t the last we hear of it). “This is Real” manages to feel both more structured and more spontaneous than anything feeble little horse has done so far—like it’s mutating unpredictably with every inharmonious guitar note. I also can’t get enough of the cybercore meets webcore, late ‘90s aesthetic that ties together the whole release. If “This is Real” is a launchpad for feeble little horse’s next album, I’m fully on board and I want more of it as soon as possible. I get it though, genius takes time. —Gavyn Green
Back in 2023, we named Florry’s “Drunk and High” the #7 song of the year. It was the crown jewel of their album The Holey Bible, and I’ve been clamoring for a follow-up ever since. LP3—Sounds Like…—is coming out in May, and lead single “Hey Baby” finds Florry’s full-band sound growing ten-fold, with Colin Miller behind the boards and influences of the Jackass theme song and country-fried Minutmen serving as a raw-hemmed, honking template for Francie Medosch and their crew. “Hey Baby” is an up-to-no-good, fully-cooked country-rock ditty beefed up with a raving guitar solo and Medosch’s barmy vocal. “If I could turn back time,” they sing over and over, and Florry nearly gets all the way there—uniting the sounds of Philly, Asheville and the Santa Monica Mountains into one blistering, catchy-as-all-get-out, jerried barn-burner. —Matt Mitchell 
I hate to admit it, but I was late to the Jim Legxacy wave. The rapper/singer first surfaced in South London’s notoriously chaotic music scene back in 2021, dropping a flood of singles that soon found him at the precipice of mainstream success. Still, he continued to fly under my radar. My friends were blasting “dj” and “eyetell(!)” on repeat, hyping him up as “the future of UK R&B,” but I remained oblivious even then. I swear, I must have had my head in the sand, but hey, better late than never. It wasn’t until late 2023—when Legxacy linked up with Fred again.. for “ten”—that I finally caught on, and I’ve been all in ever since. His latest track, “father,” is an exposé of versatility—a showcase of his Batman-sized artistic toolbelt and his knack for seamlessly blending musical genres as well as his wide array of emotions. Built around an amped up sample of George Smallwood’s 1981 track “I Love My Father,” the song layers in drill-style production and a nod to DJ Shadoe Haze’s iconic “Damn son, where’d you find this?” soundbite. “father” stands out as an outlier in Legxacy’s discography, though. He momentarily tucks away his melodic side and leans fully into rapping, reminiscing on his teenage hustle, making moves at 16 and dropping this undeniable bar: “On the block, I was listenin’ to Mitski.” The contrast is striking—his raw upbringing clashing against the introspective, emotive world inside his head. Jim Legxacy is in peak form, still keeping us on our toes as we await his black british music (2025) mixtape. —Gavyn Green
Paste writer Candace McDuffie praised National frontman Matt Berninger’s debut solo effort, 
Well, that was the weirdest elevator ride I’ve been on in quite a while. By “that,” I’m referring to “Lobby Music,” the newest song by Brooklyn-based ambient artist Moon Mullins. It’s the lead single to his forthcoming album, Hotel Paradiso—and quite the introduction to the titular lodging. Upon pressing play, you’re immediately transported to a dimly-lit pocket of a sleazy hostel and served up a way-too-tall cocktail (or maybe something a little more mind-altering). It feels a little bit sinister, a little bit seductive: swirls of synth intertwine like legs locking in a surreal tango, while the ominous beat sounds like it’s been submerged underwater, or crushed beneath a weighted blanket. Call it what you want, but “Lobby Music” surely isn’t just background music—Mullins possesses the ability to tell stories without verbal language, channeling imagistic, dynamic narratives into his sinewy melodies and visceral production. —Anna Pichler 
You might be familiar with Paco Cathcart already, if you know about the couple-dozen albums they’ve recorded under the name The Cradle (a project with strong influence, one that’s touched artists like Water From Your Eyes and Palm). But Paco is switching things up, recording under their own name now for the first time and heralding a new era, one that will be end-capped by an LP titled Down on Them in May—an album that will feature the likes of Miriam Elhajli, Ellie Shannon and fantasy of a broken heart’s Bailey Wollowitz. Lead single “Bottleneck Blues” is powerfully intimate yet written in the stars, a song inspired by a bike ride from Rockaway Beach through a “brinier New York,” through Dead Horse Bay, Fort Tilden and “the bike paths winding through the marshes by Canarsie Park” and the beaches nearby, inspired the city-driven emptiness coloring Paco’s storytelling. A finger-picked guitar lopes across the melody of “Bottleneck Blues,” reversing the titular claustrophobia with airy, generous strides of serendipitous reeds, harmonies and pattering snare hits. I can’t quite describe it, but Paco’s use of “and” in their lyrics is especially charming. It’s never “or,” always “and.” When I think of “kaleidoscopic music,” I will think of Paco’s “Bottleneck Blues” indefinitely. —Matt Mitchell 
My favorite part of the new Perfume Genius album