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.)
Home Front - "Eulogy"
A lovingly, expensively restored 1961 Ferrari sits gleaming in a suburban father's pristine-showroom garage. Judd Nelson walks with purpose across a high school football field, his fist slicing through the air and freezing in a gesture of existential triumph. A shirtless, oiled-up muscleman blows ecstatic saxophone riffs into the air of a California town riddled with vampires. Those are all ultra-obvious '80s teen-movie scenes, and they're forever defined by the driving, ineffable synth-rock songs that score them. Someone needs to do something like that for Home Front's "Eulogy." Once a scrappy, shouty synth-punk outfit, Home Front seem to be moving toward the kind of polished, retro. emphatic music that briefly made, say, the Bravery into a viable prospect. But Home Front take that manicured sound all the way back to the multiplex in the John Hughes shopping mall of our collective dreams. If you want to make one of those cinematic moments for yourself, just do something dramatic while playing this loud. —Tom
Harmony - "Apple Pie"
"She looks really pretty, yeah, I heard she’s really nice," Harmony sings. "I know that you’ll fuck her over your entire life." On "Apple Pie," the former Girlpool member dresses down a former lover, lamenting the fate of his submissive new partner. It's a subject that's been addressed many times in song, to different ends. On "Deja Vu," the scumbag ex's familiar song and dance fuels Olivia Rodrigo's vitriol. On "That's So True," the old boyfriend's new love interest triggers Gracie Abrams' neuroses. When Harmony goes there — aching voice caked in Auto-Tune, like Future as a feminine balladeer or some kind of hyperpop Soccer Mommy — you really feel her pain. —Chris
Twen - "Tumbleweed"
The song title is misleading. Tumbleweeds usually symbolize desolate settings devoid of life. But Twen’s “Tumbleweed” is anything but: It’s a hip-swinging good time. I do not like Quentin Tarantino, but this is exactly the kind of song that might soundtrack that cool dancing scene from Pulp Fiction — arms flailing with cool intensity, Mia Wallace and Vincent Vega completely on beat at the center of the room squaring off to the groove. It’s swaggy. It’s fun. It’s bold. Guitar plunges expand and snap like an inflatable wacky man. Nasally, hypnotic vocals flutter like insect wings. The title is accurate in at least one sense: This song will roll around in your head for days, just like its namesake. —Margaret
Westerman - "Nevermind"
Heartbreak doesn't only ensue in the aftermath of explosive, clear-cut breakups. Sometimes the most impactful heartbreaks -- romantic or otherwise -- result from ambiguity, crumbling under the pressure of everything left unsaid. "Nevermind," the latest single from Westerman, is about as lyrically nondescript as it gets: "I lingered, as people do/ We fall into a truce that’s binding," the singer-songwriter's booming voice proclaims, the sparse guitars and persistent reverb forging a striking emptiness. Though the atmosphere of "Nevermind" is desolate, Westerman's deceptively simple words are teeming with potential meaning: "What I said, though I forgot, I meant it," he repeats until you get the sense he might actually remember, clear as day. —Abby
Dove Ellis - "Pale Song"
What if I said Dove Ellis is better than Geese? What then? I won't say it, but I think it would be funny if I did. The Irish singer-songwriter is getting ready to open for the rising band on tour, and he only has three songs out, but they are all unbelievably beautiful, especially "Pale Song." It's some serious Radiohead worship in the best way, almost as poignant as "Fake Plastic Trees" or "Weird Fishes" — his warble as delicate and moving as Thom Yorke's, the guitars warm but painful. Geese fans better be paying attention to this opening set. —Danielle
