On her new single “Onto the Ground,” Adelyn Strei sings, “That’s where I find my freedom, where my hands fall through the air.” It’s a track that builds on the idiosyncrasies that made her last record, Original Spring, so special: simple, sincere lyrics paired with vast accompaniment. Strei often blends meditative orchestral pieces into more traditional singer-songwriter structures, with “Onto the Ground” standing right between these two styles. Strei’s voice moves like a gust of wind, grazing the top of her falsetto range and moving in spirals, filling the background with an eerie calm. “There is nowhere to wonder in all this violent wind,” she beckons. Whether standing in a squall or sitting in silence, “On the Ground” takes a slow waltz toward winter. —Caroline Nieto
Dirt Buyer: “Get to Choose”
So, like, this is one of the best rock songs of the year, right? Hot damn. Good on Dirt Buyer for getting one up before the buzzer puts 2025 on ice. “Get to Choose” is so awesome that, while its riff was burrowing into me for the first time, I started to think, “Wait, maybe I do like New York City???” Joe Sutkowski is a madman and so is his new single, the second from the forthcoming, well-titled third Dirt Buyer album, Dirt Buyer III. Actually, “Get to Choose” is so catchy that I heard Billboard is now retroactively inserting it into the Top 40 of the Alternative Airplay chart for the week of December 16, 1995. Sutkowski says the song is about “being really, really tiny and screaming, but you’re too small and nobody can hear you.” Now I know why Dirt Buyer made the guitar lick on “Get to Choose” a skyscraper. —Matt Mitchell
FKA twigs: “Stereo Boy”
It’s easy to plot out a night out in grand, detailed set pieces—writing yourself into surrendering to the music, meeting someone, moving where the darkness takes you. If FKA twigs’ initial vision of EUSEXUA charted out these acts of transcendent movement from above, with some (perhaps unintentional) remove, EUSEXUA Afterglow shoves you headfirst into the flow state sweeping up past midnight, near-delirious in its insistence. As standout tracks like “Hard” and “Sushi,” both of which call back to the artist’s known affection for a ballroom catwalk and the four-on-the-floor pulse of UK Garage of decades past, have gotten their shine amongst fans since Afterglow first emerged, closer “Stereo Boy” has flown under the radar. If the aforementioned tracks depict the hazy grind of the morning’s wee small hours, “Stereo Boy” is the sound of city lights streaking in loud, obtrusive colors outside a rideshare window on the way home—the drowse over a failed connection once the night comes to a close, rendered in a synth-drenched art-pop exercise. Spectral, glitchy drums crush the chorus underfoot as desperate layered vocals cry out from the void, compacting hours of midnight desperation into a gorgeous five minutes of sound. The attempt depicted might be futile, but it makes for an evocative snapshot of the sun coming up after the damage is done—emerging as one of the most striking things twigs (an artist who has consistently gifted us striking work) has ever done. —Elise Soutar
Gladie: “Car Alarm”
From Cayetana to Gladie, frontwoman Augusta Koch has always excelled at turning blunt self-awareness into something sharp enough to penetrate the static, and “Car Alarm” is no exception. With bright guitars that sound like they’re smiling through their teeth and drums snapping hard enough to pass for impatience, the Jeff Rosenstock-produced track hits like a jolt of bad adrenaline. Koch’s voice comes in scraped and fraying at the edges, pushing against the bright, restless guitars as if volume alone could clear the fog. She’s not hiding the exhaustion, either: “Complaining about the traffic when I’m part of it / looking for the problem when I’m the one who started it,” she rasps, hitting each syllable like she’s finally lost patience with her own evasions. “Every day I wake up the same.” Rosenstock’s production adds pressure without clutter, letting the emotion carry the weight, allowing the song to spark with the kind of cracked clarity that feels less like catharsis than a long-overdue alarm finally going off—persistent, grating, impossible to ignore, and absolutely coming from inside the house. —Casey Epstein-Gross
Lifeguard: “Ultra Violence”
Lifeguard have never been shy about speed, but “Ultra Violence” feels like they’ve stripped the brakes off entirely. The Chicago trio recorded their upcoming maxi-single straight to 8-track in their practice space, and you can hear the immediacy of it in every beat: guitar scrambling forward, bass and drums lunging after it, everything slightly overcranked but never sloppy. It’s not “raw” in the romantic DIY sense so much as genuinely combustible; every part sounds a little too hot, a little too close to short-circuiting. What keeps it from collapsing is the band’s instinct for structure inside the chaos. Kai Slater’s voice cuts through in clipped, urgent bursts, while the rhythm section is littered with pockets of negative space that make the next hit feel harder. The track hits fast, burns bright, and leaves behind the kind of afterimage that feels closer to impact than memory. —Casey Epstein-Gross
Man/Woman/Chainsaw: “Only Girl”
I like every song I write about for this column, and I’ve never felt pressured to say something nice about a band or anything like that. But, I do hold dear each time a publicist emails me personally and says, “I think this is something you’ll dig.” That happened in 2024 with Man/Woman/Chainsaw, a band I didn’t think twice about naming them the Best of What’s Next a year ago last week. What do I like most about this band? I especially enjoy feeling washed-up every time they release a new song. They played Paste’s SXSW party in March and, once the first note hit, I found muttered, “Are you fucking kidding me?” under my breath. It’s five Brits—all of them on the cusp of turning 20, mind you—with more talent than any one stage is built to sustain. Their Eazy Peazy EP rocked, but “Only Girl” is the best thing they’ve ever done. Every piece of it is worth highlighting: Vera Leppänen’s towering vocals feathered into Emmie Mae-Avery’s slight and trilling piano; Bill Ward and William Doyle’s twin guitars circling each other until they blend into a gargantuan hook; the little earthquakes falling out of Lola Waterworth’s drum kit; and Clio Harwood’s stormy violin, which lends a saga of drama to the afterglow of Leppänen’s playful but provocative enunciation of “I want you undone.” In this catchy, eruptive declaration of love, Man/Woman/Chainsaw blow the pocket to kingdom come. —Matt Mitchell
Robber Robber: “Talkback”
Is a new Robber Robber record on the way? I have no idea! But what I do know is that “Talkback” fucking rules. I’ve been waiting for the Vermonters’ next transmission, considering how much I dug their debut album, Wild Guess, a year ago. “Talkback” is the real deal—a potent, exciting sign of what’s to come now that Nina Cates, Zack James, Will Krulak, and Carney Hemler have signed to Fire Talk. Fuzzy, wailing tones from Krulak’s signature axe abound while Cates’ enunciations toe-tap against the breakneck and burning edge of James’ dribbling snare. And anchoring all of that disorienting mayhem are Hemler’s crushing bass vibrations. The band’s style remains unpredictable and scratchy but never dissonant. Their song patterns reveal unignorable curiosities through scribbly, miniature sagas. You’re hearing four bandmates holding two or three conversations with their instruments at once, and “Talkback”’s topic of choice is indie-rock chaos, breathable trip-hop, and four-on-the-floor dance-punk squirming in harmony. —Matt Mitchell
Other Notable Songs This Week: Anjimile: “Auld Lang Syne II”; Converge: “Love Is Not Enough”; Danny L Harle ft. Oklou & MNEK: “Crystallise My Tears”; Dirt Buyer: “Get to Choose”; Fine: “Moment”; Gay Meat: “Love For Fun”; Girl Talk & Sauce Walka: “Real Life”; Hayley Heynderickx & Max García: “to each their dot”; hemlock: “Clothespin”; Oxis: “Guili”; Peaer: “Button”; The Soft Pink Truth: “Mere Survival is Not Enough”
Check out a playlist of this week’s best new songs below.
