Jim Legxacy brings a little bit of everything to the table. The British genre-blender’s new single “aggressive” begins with a hilarious spoken-word message: “I just sold my last kidney for some small whip, and I feel great!” But soon enough the mood shifts to anguish as Legxacy’s fluttering falsetto enters the frame over plaintive synths and a skittering beat. “While you just get aggressive/ You throw words like frag grenades,” he sings, outlining romantic discord in utterly smooth fashion. It’s like something Drake might have dropped on the melancholy and eclectic More Life, but with vocals more like the Weeknd and the creative adventurousness of someone like Jai Paul. Yet comparisons don’t really do it justice; nobody’s making music quite like Jim Legxacy right now. —Chris

“purepurepure” feels anything but. “This song is about instinct,” Her New Knife’s Edgar Atencio explains, and the noise rock band’s debut single for Julia’s War is the sonic equivalent to finding yourself in vaguely familiar territory, albeit plagued by the sense that something here just isn’t quite right. The track begins with some off-kilter ascending riffs that seem to mimic what may or may not be the footsteps of someone behind you. As the guitars crescendo and their feedback begins to roar, “purepurepure” becomes at once more melodic and unsettling. For now, it’ll make you want to bob your head along — later, it’ll make you want to sleep with one eye open. —Abby

“Dust” lasts less than two minutes, but it makes the most of that runtime. Situated at the center of Caroline Says’ long-awaited The Lucky One, the song expertly preserves a moment of fleeting beauty. Caroline Sallee wrote “Dust” about driving through a dust storm toward the Davis Mountains, hoping to be overwhelmed by the beauty of the landscape but instead getting caught up in tender appreciation for her fellow traveler. “I never told you/ When you got the words wrong,” Sallee sings. “It didn’t matter/ I liked you singing along.” Set against a tapestry of fingerpicked guitar and more lovely instrumental flourishes than I can count, the song beams you directly into Sallee’s treasured memory, letting you bask in all its brilliant sensations too. —Chris

How can you possibly react when people are committing mass slaughter and claiming that they’re doing it in your name, for your protection? That’s the question at the heart of Ekko Astral’s six-minute freakout “Pomegranate Tree,” a howl of anguished fury from an anti-genocide band whose members were raised Jewish. Over a fractured, unstable guitar-piano-drums backdrop, Jael Holzman numbly mutters, “On the other side of the planet, my people are dropping bombs right as they proselytize.” As the chaos builds, she desperately thrashes around, haunted by nightmares and trying to make sense of her own life, before finding an uneasy mantra: “The District sleeps atoned tonight.” It’s heavy shit with no conclusion, and its fury is all the more raw for its hopelessness. —Tom

In their relatively brief history, Scowl have already mastered splenetic hardcore freakouts and soaring alt-rock choruses. With “Special,” their first single for big indie Dead Oceans, Scowl combine those two skills onto one track, shaping it into something both heavy and catchy. It’s definitely a shock to hear just how professional Scowl have become, but they always had star potential. Now, they’ve also got a track that sounds like a Paramore/Deftones fusion, so maybe it’s time to stop talking about potential and start talking about the thing that has already arrived. —Tom