The 5 Best Songs Of The Week

Kelela doesn’t need much to make a song feel deeply lived-in; her voice seems imbued with the tears of a thousand melting candles. “Outta Time” capitalizes on the sacred power of sparseness, pairing her with A.K. Paul’s weeping guitar and satin-smooth vocals. The track unfolds like a celestial ballad with a Prince-like sensuality, liquids colliding, melodies dissolving into one another. There’s an ominous sense of time pursuing her, a quiet dread beneath the beauty, as she confronts the realization that “somethin’ is wrong with the seed that we’re sowin’.” With little more than claps, vocals, and a touch of suspended magic, the song achieves a remarkable gravity, finding profundity in the spaces most artists rush to fill. —Margaret

Perennial are devoted to rocking out in a way that transcends space and time, interlacing different eras of music into one big, overflowing banger. "What's New On The Beat Scene" is an unrestrained dance-punk anthem that takes influence from the '60s R&B/jazz group Booker T. & The MGs. Armed with a fuzz bass, mellotron, and Vox organ through a wah-wah pedal, the band conjures a spunky, rich sound that's distinctly theirs and distinctly fun. —Danielle

Over more than 20 years as a band, California DIY mainstays Ceremony have covered the entire punk rock spectrum, from powerviolence to new wave. They bring maximum authority to everything they do, especially a straightforward punk anthem about the inherently fascistic nature of authority itself. "Death Destruction Mayhem" trains its withering gaze on a society that celebrates violence as a means of impotent cope: "Fighting makes you feel strong! Killing really turns you on!" (You can say something similar about the hardcore scene itself, and that doesn't escape Ceremony.) John Reis produces, and Ceremony bring the kind of stoming garage-rock riffage that calls back to Reis' band Rocket From The Crypt. It's a fastball pitch down the middle, making a satisfying smack when it hits the catcher's mitt. —Tom

There is something incredibly magical about a Squirrel Flower song. Every time I hear her music, I feel closer to myself — whether it’s a version of my 18-year-old self that’s smoking weed out of an apple in the Jewel Osco parking lot or my 62-year-old self that’s sitting on a porch somewhere with a cigarette and a book.

“Reelin’” has a particular time-transcending halo around it, where Ella O’Connor Williams thinks about the many women she was, is, and will be. Woodwinds and acoustic guitar ground her as small morning rituals merge into thoughts about future plans. She envisions herself with a husband and a garden, growing a full life until life makes other plans: “Good intentions and good credit/ Till bad things come back again/ Call me back again.” Her songs — especially “Reelin’” — seem to collapse time, holding past selves, future selves, and the person standing in the middle of them all in the same gentle light. Listening feels less like remembering than recognizing that none of those versions ever really disappear. —Margaret

Lily Seabird rocks. I didn't realize this until I caught her in concert this year, but recent recordings from the Burlington singer-songwriter have made it abundantly clear. On her forthcoming album Lightspheres On Their Way, she's traded out the sparse intimacy of last year's Trash Mountain for full-fledged distortion infernos like "Election Day." As if taking inspiration from Neil Young and Pearl Jam, the song surges ahead with a huge minor-key chord progression and the rhythm section on overdrive. Atop the mix, Seabird wails like Scout Niblett waging war against dark forces, as if she's convinced this song alone will be enough to turn the tide against what ails her. When "Election Day" is playing, that kind of power does not feel entirely out of reach. —Chris