Although I bristle at the the term “dirtbag twee,” songs as compelling as “Saltlick” make up for any cringe attempts at scene-defining branding. Grumpy’s first single for the ever-reliable Bayonet label is just uncanny enough to keep you on your toes, but Heaven Schmitt’s feelings are potent enough to burn through any digital gloss. They begin with vivid description set to a piercing processed melody: “You cant play me like that/ I’m loose peanuts in your bag/ High as fuck at the radio shack/ Begging for a charger” — an intro that instantly draws me into the Grumpy’s slightly skeezy indie-pop sound. The effect is similar to the queasy, despairing vibes Nate Amos perfected on This Is Lorelei’s recent LP, compulsively listenable tracks about relational mess amidst a cultural garbage pile. OK, the branding is growing on me. —Chris

There’s something about a Liquid Mike song that makes going through the motions of life feel a little more forgiving. On the Michigan band’s recent album Paul Bunyan’s Slingshot, they seem to offer some perspective on common complaints: What’s so wrong about staying in your hometown? What’s another breakup in the grand scheme of things? Is anything really that bad when you’ve got your best buds in your corner? “Man Lives” — one of the bonus tracks on the new deluxe edition of Paul Bunyan’s Slingshot — caps off these feelings in a two-minute blast of huge hooks. It’s the sonic equivalent of shaking off the nerves, when being alive feels like a relief instead of a condemnation. —Abby

“That was the summer when I grew my hair out long/ Played in the basement some/ Learned how to drive the car.” So begins “My New Shirt,” the third song by New York-based indie-rock outfit My Wonderful Boyfriend. “And that was you in the passenger, feet on the dashboard/ That’s my cigarette butt burning a hole in the fabric,” P.J. McCormick’s fragile rasp continues against infectious riffs that are as nostalgic as they are exhilarating. “My New Shirt” does what all great emo songs do: drops the listener in a vaguely meaningful place of youthful destruction. Eight balls are shot, teeth are lost, chewed gum is stuck in spots where it shouldn’t be, curbs are driven on. It’s sort of like if the Front Bottoms if they were less shitty, or Modern Baseball if they were less depressed. —Danielle

Rap songs that depict therapy sessions are usually indulgent and pretentious. This one is indulgent and pretentious, too, and its brief moment of casual transphobia isn’t helping anything. But I can’t stop listening because it’s also catchy and fun and way more revealing than most of them. Doechii is a wildly inventive rap stylist, and she comes sprinting onto this bright, simple faux-’80s beat. Her exchange with her fake therapist starts out as a standard fame-and-breakups lament, but it goes left when she talks about accidentally finding that she’s become a “TikTok artist” who enjoys her pills and coke. There’s no self-help revelation. There’s just Doechii, turning her fake breathing exercises into human-beatbox silliness. I don’t know why, but it works. —Tom

With 2001’s The Glow Pt. 2, the then-22-year-old Microphones mastermind Phil Elverum built a time capsule of young adulthood. The record was an oddly beautiful collection of lo-fi songs that captured the essence of being both terrified and ecstatic; both hopeless and hopeful; both as smart as you’ve ever been and as confused as you’ll ever be. There hasn’t been an album like it since.

Nowadays, Elverum is better known for his work as Mount Eerie, whose upcoming album Night Palace is meant to be a spiritual successor of sorts to the record that initially put him on the indie rock map. Early single “I Walk” harks back to that fuzzy analog sound, though there’s a sharpness to it that seems to echo Elverum’s newfound clarity in the wake of personal tragedy. “I walk until it’s all fallen away,” he murmurs as the guitars and cymbals swell. A drawn-out coda then breaks, giving way to the sounds of wind blowing through the mountains and birds chirping from the trees. You can almost feel the lightness. –Abby