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.)
Hovvdy - "Try Try Try"
Hovvdy make me smile. Whether they’re singing about grief or loving someone to the best of your ability, they know how to make those moments sound immediate and tenderly cared for. It’s no surprise that “Try Try Try” has me grinning: It’s a muffled, cozy garage rock track with a thwomping beat and whimsical flute-like embellishments. It feels like the musical equivalent of catching yourself smiling out the car window for no reason at all. It doesn’t have to make sense to yourself or a passerby, it just feels good. —Margaret
Rostam - "Hardy" (Feat. Clairo)
Rostam's singing voice is unmistakable, but "Hardy" reveals itself as his work before he sings a word. When that string section hits, there's no question who crafted this arrangement. Throughout his career, both solo and with Vampire Weekend, the singer-songwriter-producer has merged sleek, modern pop-rock sounds with far older musical traditions, including orchestral flourishes straight out of a 19th century symphony. Those strings carry this song skyward until the climactic moment when the clouds part and Clairo arrives to play the part of an encouraging angel. It's one of the most breathtakingly pretty moments I've yet encountered this year. —Chris
Widowspeak - "Soft Cover"
Widowspeak members Molly Hamilton and Robert Earl Thomas are married, so one would hope they know a thing or two about steady, enduring love — and judging by "Soft Cover," the latest single from the New York duo's upcoming album Roses, they do. Over blissful, breezy electric guitars and a tambourine jangle, Hamilton and Thomas suggest the best relationships should feel like your favorite book: something you want to tell all your friends about, invigorating despite its familiarity, worth carrying around with you to even your most mundane excursions, dog-eared pages and all. —Abby
Proun - "Coloring Pages"
"Coloring Pages" is about the heaviness of coming out as trans and the lightness that followed, and both of those sensations come to bear on it. The rhythm section has a basement-show grit to it, defined by rumbling bass that steers Proun into an eerie post-hardcore trajectory. But the song also move with an aerodynamic grace around its darks twists and turns, lit by twinkling guitar flashes here and there. And when the music breaks open around the 1:50 mark, this band achieves liftoff. —Chris
ear - "Ne Plus Ultra"
New York's hottest club is wherever ear are playing. Like Chanel Beads or james K, ear's releases are less songs than they are blitzy sonic collages that hold the listener captive. "Ne Plus Ultra" is the IDM-indebted duo's first release since last year's buzzy The Most Dear And The Future ("Real Life," especially, is a banger), and it builds on their liminal world of intriguing idiosyncrasies and alluring textures. Even though it's short, it feels like a special glimpse into something cosmic. —Danielle
