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.)
Pyramids - "Fools Gold"
From the band press photo of the members with their faces lethally covered in saran wrap to the album artwork of chic acrylic nails on tattooed fingers, Pyramids are as visually pleasing as ever for their comeback. Luckily, the music is awesome, too. After a 10-year hiatus, the Denton group returns with “Fools Gold (Mi Vida Ha Ido Pa Atras),” a gauzy blend of metal and reggaeton that will serve as the sound of their new album, Pythagoras. Never has metal had such groove or beautiful singing vocals. “Fools Gold (Mi Vida Ha Ido Pa Atras)” is a treat, and it’s no surprise it’s their debut on the Flenser, a label responsible for a lot of innovative and alluring heavy music right now. Pythagoras is going to be great. –Danielle
RXKNephew - "The Truth"
What, RXKNephew releases a 12-minute diss track with multiple beat switches — on which he announces "I'm being petty as hell" and "This is not a diss record, it's just the truth" — and it's not going to be my most-listened song of the week? Neph has a lot of hilariously mean things to say about Slimesito, but the moment "The Truth" won my heart was when he declared his adversary cannot read and, shifting from a rap flow into grandstanding monologue, declares, "I'll apologize right now if you can read one page out of a Captain Underpants book. 'Cause I, like I really have this belief, like I truly believe that you can't read not one page out of a Captain Underpants book. You can't read no Dr. Seuss," then invokes the moment when 50 Cent, in a video for the viral Ice Bucket Challenge, challenged Floyd Mayweather to read one page of Harry Potter. There is so much more meaning to mine out of this song, and with a rapper as diabolically entertaining as Neph, it never feels like homework. —Chris
My Transparent Eye - "Ghost"
"Ghost," the latest song from New York's My Transparent Eye, begins with a deceptively upbeat tambourine jangle — the kind you might expect to hear before an explosive drum beat, ear-splitting riffs, or both. Instead, "Ghost" feels as airy as its titular specter, its lackadaisical instrumental seemingly floating in tandem with Maraya Fisher and Avinoam Henig's alternating lead vocals. It almost feels like a grungier Mazzy Star, until blown-out guitars take over near the song's end; you expect the tune to fade away, reverberating until its echoes dwindle entirely. Instead, it just stops, and suddenly, you're back on the ground. —Abby
Smut - "Dead Air"
In pursuit of fun music that rocks, Smut sought inspiration from childhood favorites — "My Chemical Romance and Metric, Green Day and the Fall." It worked! "Dead Air," our first preview of the Chicago-via-Cincinnati indie band's forthcoming project, is catchy, immediate, and a blast from start to finish. The music shuffles along like a buried gem on a Y2K-era movie soundtrack. Tay Roebuck's melodious vocals evoke a grander version of Sundays-style indie-pop, until the moment when she goes full Karly Hartzman and intros Sam Ruschman's guitar solo with a ghoulish grunt. It strikes a perfect balance of grit and accessibility, and I can imagine some other band looking back on this track for inspiration someday. —Chris
Deafheaven - "Heathen"
Deafheaven are really, really not fucking around with their new album Lonely People With Power. Lead single "Magnoila" brought back the frantic, feverish majesty of the band's earlier days. "Heathen" keeps that same energy, and George Clarke's demon-screech is as elemental as ever. On this one, though, Deafheaven fuse their old grand-scale blackened fury with the dream-logic intricacies of their 2021 album Infinite Granite. The hard parts hit even harder after Deafheaven build up to them with chiming, layered prog-folk frippery. "Heathen' is one of those songs that feels truly epic but ends at the five-minute mark. Against all odds, Deafheaven have aged into a band that takes us on a journey but still respects our time. —Tom
