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 subscribers on Spotify and Apple Music, updated throughout the week.)
Sour Widows - "Lucky Star"
Sour Widows are masters of eerie indie rock. The uncanny riffs of "Lucky Star" are like the mechanical carriages pushing you through a haunted house while Maia Sinaiko illustrates the inside, singing of shattered mirrors, knives, soot, cracks in walls and voices, black holes, and a star that serves as a source of salvation. But the darkness is so alluring that you almost don't want to be saved. —Danielle
Classic Traffic - "My Rage"
Sounds more like classic Cheap Trick to me, but "My Rage" does blow my dick back as promised. Chug a beer, pump your fist, and play it loud. —Chris
Tramhaus - "Swarm"
Tramhaus say "Swarm" is about "the individual self, and its corresponding image — are you made by the ideas of others, or are you a product of your own thoughts?" But this doesn't matter. When a song shreds, all that matters is how uproarious the guitars get, how strained the vocalist's yowls can get, and if the song is big enough to swallow you whole. "Swarm" delivers a satisfactory amount of aggression, therefore it's a great song. —Danielle
untitled (halo) - "aimee lou wood freestyle"
Quite the convergence of proper nouns here. The new group untitled (halo) call their music California Melancholia. They're signed to Dirty Hit, the label that brought you a bunch of pop-minded rock artists (or rock-minded pop artists) like the 1975 and beabadoobee. And they named their debut single after Aimee Lou Wood, the actress who broke out via The White Lotus and will star as Pattie Boyd in the Beatles biopics. That's a whole lot of context, but "aimee lou wood freestyle" holds together under the weight. It's a fine specimen of noise-fucked guitars, booming electronics, and genre-fluid vocals that I can imagine running back many times in the coming months. —Chris
Olivia Rodrigo - "Serena Joy"
How is this an outtake? Olivia Rodrigo's new album you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love is closely built around a doomed-reationship story-arc, so maybe this Handmaid's Tale-inspired protest song wouldn't have fit the narrative. But "Serena Joy" is way more of a towering manifesto than a post-rollout throwaway.
Rodrigo has gestured in the direction of icy dance-rock in the past, but this is the moment she really dives in. Itchy drum machines and a churning bassline recall prime New Order, while Rodrigo truly sells the transition from robotic monotone to impassioned howl. And not for nothing, it does mean something for one of our dominant young pop stars to spit bars like this: "If you can't throw a punch, you can learn how to spit/ And we'll never give up, and we'll never submit." Her peers might want to take note. —Tom
