Every week the Stereogum staff chooses the five best new songs of the week. The eligibility period begins and ends Thursdays right before midnight. You can hear this week’s picks below and on Stereogum’s Favorite New Music Spotify playlist, which is updated weekly. (An expanded playlist of our new music picks is available to members on Spotify and Apple Music, updated throughout the week.)
Deafheaven - "Magnolia"
Deafheaven have been moving in progressively prettier directions for years now, and lots of people have felt lots of ways about those shifts. Now, suddenly, they've locked back into the primal force of the black metal that brought them to the dance in the first place. If you were looking for reasons to get mad, you could knock Deafheaven for pulling a cynical back-to-basics move, bringing back the demon-screeches and the blastbeats in an effort to recapture the fans who drifted away. But this version of Deafheaven still reaches for transcendence, and you can read it in the bottomless grief of the lyrics -- you need to read them, since you won't decipher them otherwise -- and in the way those fractal riffs surge outward near the end of the song. Once again, Deafheaven find beauty in brutality. Nobody does it quite like them. —Tom
Weatherday - "Angel"
Singer-songwriter-producer Weatherday has released some of the most compelling emo music in recent memory. That might have something to do with the surrounding circumstances: The Gen-Z musician remains (mostly) anonymous and hails from Sweden, a country whose artist exports – from an American perspective, at least – tend to feel intrinsically linked to coldness and isolation. Weatherday’s new single "Angel" isn’t exempt from this, but there’s an air of hope in its muddled percussion and upbeat, noodly guitar riffs. "My fingers are too cold to move/ So I can’t text you anymore," they sing, bridging the gap between digital and emotional. "Angel" might be frozen in heartbroken grief, but a Swede would know that sometimes, the best part of snowfall is the relief you feel once it starts to melt. —Abby
A.L. West - "Rabbitbrush 2"
Under an alias alluding to Major League Baseball, Daniel Bryson batted two great tunes our way this week. "Rabbitrush 2," a sequel to a song from A.L. West's 2023 album Stores, was especially potent: a steadily ambling indie rock track seasoned with distorted guitars and dazed reflections. "I don't mind at all," Bryson sings, "If you found someone to call/ Home for now." As he sings about forgetting his own words but finding a way forward in life with a strange peace of mind, the music builds toward a home-run finale worthy of peak Built To Spill. —Chris DeVille
Sleigh Bells - "Wanna Start A Band?"
They've still got it. Sleigh Bells are a decade and a half deep, long past the moment when "Crown On The Ground" impacted the blogs like outer space's loudest meteor. Yet, true to its title, new single "Wanna Start A Band?" feels like a work of fresh inspiration, as if the duo's combination of crushing hard-rock guitars, jarring electronics, and bubblegum pop was a brand new idea they're manifesting for the first time. "Shut up and let me finish!" Alexis Krauss sneers at one point, and, yes, please, be our guest. —Chris
Momma - "I Want You (Fever)"
In 2022, Momma dominated the summer with their infectious breakthrough album Household Name. Anthems like “Speeding 72” and “Medicine” were designed for reckless fun; now, they’ve announced its follow-up, Welcome To My Blue Sky. Previous single “Ohio All The Time” topped its week's 5 best list, and the newest one “I Want You (Fever)” is doing the same. It’s another grunge-pop earworm with irresistible hooks and the catchiest refrain: “Pick up and leave her/ I want you, fever.” Though it’s about wanting someone who "has a girlfriend, or someone who isn’t over their ex," as per the band, it’s a celebratory anthem that calls for jumping up and down and dancing like your life depends on it. Who has time to be sad over unrequited love when the riffs are this good? —Danielle
