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.)
Men I Trust - "Bethlehem"
Men I Trust’s new album Equus Asinus is like getting a glimpse into someone else’s daydreams. The songs float softly, but "Bethlehem" stands out as maybe the most beautiful moment on the record. Sonically whimsical and lyrically cosmic, "Bethlehem" has the alluring aura of a hymn: "Through grief, I climb/ The toll of time/ A solemn flight/ Beacon of sight," Emmanuelle Proulx lilts, her voice ascending and descending the scale playfully. The Montreal trio has once again proved themselves as one of the most trusted sources of dream pop. —Danielle
quickly, quickly - "Take It From Me"
We need to come up with a genre name for what quickly, quickly is doing here. "Take It From Me" is sparse and deconstructed in that Bon Iver/Dijon/Mk.gee kind of way, that slightly surreal digital-world minimalism cool-kid musicians have been messing around with a lot in the near-decade(!) since Blonde. When Graham Jonson reaches the chorus, the song shifts into a more plainspoken kind of beauty: His voice darts upward into melodic curlicues, mirrored by a delicately plinked piano. A digital backbeat cracks through static, lending forward momentum without infringing upon the open space. It's a brilliant bit of songwriting, but it's also an exercise in stellar sound design. —Chris
caroline - "Total Euphoria"
What even is this song? On their grand return after three years away, caroline remind us that no one does off-kilter beauty quite like them. "Total Euphoria" sets jarring stabs of guitar against a steady bashed-out drumbeat that's not quite in sync at first, letting gorgeous droning keyboards and vocals serve as glue for the beautiful chaos until it all coheres. By the end, they're joining their voices together in choral bliss as orchestral instruments scream all around them. They titled this thing right; it's like watching an image come in and out of focus and having an emotional breakthrough with each new degree of clarity. —Chris
Jawdropped - "Fantasy"
A band, even a lucky band, only gets one chance to make an impression, and the brand-new LA fuzz-poppers Jawdropped don't waste the moment. The first line from the first Jawdropped song that most of us will ever hear is this: "I saw that your dad sent you money on Venmo/ He said anything that will keep you stable." Bandleader Kyra Morling has more bars where that one came from. Like this: "I say things I read just to get some reassurance/ We nod to each other to prove that it’s worth it." Or this: "You think you’re clever because you want to die/ I think I'm clever because i want to live to live to live." Those lines are back-to back! And they arrive amidst of swirl of sustain and delay and bright melody, and they speak to a restless anxiety over everything -- money, communication, your own mental health, the burden that you might put on other people. If you can do all that in one song, then the rest of us need to pay attention. —Tom
Alan Sparhawk With Trampled By Turtles - "Stranger"
Alan Sparhawk helped put Duluth, Minnesota on the indie rock map as a member of Low, the band he founded with his late wife Mimi Parker over three decades ago. Though Parker's tragic passing ceased Low's legendary run, Sparhawk has continued to do what he does best: create incredibly affecting and poignant music. Through the web of Duluth's creative scene, Sparhawk met the local country-folk band Trampled By Turtles years ago. They serve as Sparhawk's backing band on his upcoming album With Trampled By Turtles, and as lead single/album opener "Stranger" indicates, it's a sound we haven't quite heard from Sparhawk yet. "Stranger" filters the band's bluegrass roots through Sparhawk's knack for atmospheric, post-rock-inspired arrangements, like if Things We Lost In The Fire took a shot or two of Jack Daniel's. "You gotta put up with stranger people than you know now/ You gotta go through some dangerouser things than you thought you'd have to," Sparhawk croons, so emphatically that the grammar quirks make perfect sense. Sure, it's smart to make plans, but "Stranger" is a sage reminder to hold on to them loosely. —Abby
