“It was very difficult.” That was what the guitarist from Chain Cult told me last year. Chain Cult played Richmond, and I bought a shirt from him and thanked him for coming all this way. He looked tired. It’s hard for us mere civilians to even contemplate how hard it must be for a Greek band to mount a DIY tour of North America. It’s the kind of thing that you can only do if you really, really believe in it, and you can hear that belief at work on “What We Leave Behind.” Chain Cult play nervy, skeletal post-punk with hardcore ferocity, and “What We Leave Behind” rockets forward with anthemic purpose. It’s the sound of a band putting it all out there, doing their best to inspire themselves and maybe the rest of the world as well. —Tom

The new Bad Moves album is called Wearing Out The Refrain — a quote from the second verse of new single “Outta My Head” — and I can certainly imagine running this song’s chorus into the ground. “I can’t get the part where you fucked up out of my head!” the DC indie-pop band repeat in jubilant gang-vocal style, and yeah, I can’t get it out of my head either. Paired with a propulsive walking bassline that explodes into a Weezer-worthy power chord sequence, the hook works as an exclamation point on an expertly constructed song. If only every big mistake yielded this kind of life-giving response. —Chris

If it weren’t for modern phrasings like “I’m not built for this” and “I hate it here,” it would be hard to believe that “God Take Me Out Of LA” isn’t a classic folk song. The woeful pedal steel, Eliza McLamb’s earnest alto saturated with emotion, the lyrics telling a timeless tale of paralyzing indecision in the face of choosing where to live — they all piece together a ballad that feels like it’s existed for a hundred years. Yet McLamb, who did in fact get out of LA and is now based in New York, is only 23 years old and only has one album under her belt, so this is just the beginning. –Danielle

The central tension in Godspeed You! Black Emperor has always been the balance of despair and hope — man’s inhumanity to man vs. the seed of the idea that we can maybe build something better out of the wreckage of the old world. That’s explicitly built into “GREY RUBBLE – GREEN SHOOTS,” a song inspired by Israel’s ceaseless bombing campaign against Gaza. Godspeed were made for times like this, and the track’s heavy swells and beatific sighs bring big ideas about solidarity in the face of evil. This is instrumental music, so you could potentially let the beauty sweep you away, never paying any mind to the context. But why would you want to? With Godspeed, the context always adds extra layers, and that’s what makes this music so heartbreaking. —Tom

Sabrina Carpenter knows she can be hard to forget. It’s why that one boy won’t stop calling, why she begs him not to embarrass her in public, and why her ego isn’t crushed when he goes back to his ex-girlfriend. According to “Taste” — the sparkly opener to Carpenter’s new album Short n’ Sweet — her influence permeates every aspect of this relationship that she’s no longer in, from the clothes that have mysteriously disappeared from the guy’s closet to his newly amplified sense of humor that rings a bell: “Now all his jokes hit different/ Guеss who he learned that from?”

But what separates “Taste” from the plethora of songs that try to dunk on an ex’s new girl is Carpenter’s self-awareness. She understands that she’s not innocent, that beef this pointed is rarely one-sided, that she might even like the idea of the Other Woman “tasting” her. (Which could mean nothing!!!) She proves as much on the bridge, cooing through an undoubtedly glossed-up smile: “Singin’ ’bout it don’t mean I care/ Yeah, I know I’ve been known to share!” A song that could otherwise end overly bitter instead becomes a reminder that, at the end of the day, Carpenter’s mostly just here for a laugh — that guy had to get his sense of humor from somewhere, didn’t he? –Abby