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What We’re Listening to This Week

New music is the singular thread that keeps society from tearing apart like your last good pair of jorts. If you think we’re being hyperbolic, it’s because this concept requires everyone’s participation to work properly and you haven’t been pulling your weight. Because we want to save the world and you keep fucking it up for everyone, we’ve compiled a list of songs that have come out while you were listening to ‘Static Age’ or some shit for the hundredth time this week.

Lektron “She’s A War”

Matt Skiba has had a lot more free time on his hands now that Tom DeLonge has rejoined Blink-182. To celebrate he has assembled one of the best supergroups we’ve heard in recent memory, Lektron. Featuring members of AFI and Against Me!, ‘She’s A War’ plucks the most exciting aspects of each player’s sound. While that ultimately creates a fresher sound than we’re used to, Alkaline Trio fans will be especially excited to hear that this track finds Skiba still tinkering with the formula that brought us classics like ‘Private Eye’ and ‘We’ve Had Enough.’

Sylvan Esso “How Did You Know – Live At Electric Lady”

Last year Sylvan Esso released their fifth studio album, ‘No Rules Sandy.’ Its purpose was to strip down the duo to its more live roots. If you, like many of us, were underwhelmed by the effort, their new EP ‘Live At Electric Lady’ is dead set on rectifying that. Don’t believe us? Give this live version of the ‘No Rules’ cut, ‘How Did You Know,’ a spin. Just make sure you’re alone if you don’t want your friends to see your sob face when the Attaca String Quartet comes in to obliterate the album version’s original samples.

Speedy Ortiz “You S02”

Following a five-year dry spell, Speedy Ortiz are back with a new single from their forthcoming album, ‘Rabbit Rabbit.’ ‘You S02’ finds lead singer and songwriter Sadie Dupuis delivering her acerbic lines with a confidence not quite heard as of yet in this project. Much like the band’s previous work, this track brilliantly rides the line between outright pop and moody dissonance, wonderfully underpinning its themes of inauthenticity in Hollywood. The chorus wouldn’t sound out of place on the soundtrack of ‘Clueless’ had it been directed by David Lynch. That’s a compliment in case you were wondering.

Diners “The Power”

You would be forgiven for thinking this song was an unearthed recording of a Television song written by Paul McCartney. The wonderful guitar-play and retro production could whisk anyone away to a late-seventies power-pop show in some hip NYC nightclub. Fortunately for us, Diners, the stage name of songwriter Blue Broderick, is crafting this incredible music today. The excellent lead single from her forthcoming LP ‘Domino’ proves that in the eleventh year spent as a recording artist, she is still capable of cranking out some of the catchiest tunes we’ve heard since the last time she released a record.

Radiator Hospital “Cartoon Logic”

Radiator Hospital’s fantastic new record ‘Can’t Make Any Promises’ finds the band ready to get fuzzy again after 2019’s notable, but incredible, detour ‘Music to Daydream To.’ ‘Cartoon Logic’ sounds like it could have been lifted from Built to Spill’s early catalog, but manages to sound fresher than anything the band has released in recent memory. This track places Sam Cook-Parrot’s inimitable voice and lyrical stylings dead center while cradling both in a wall of overdriven guitar and dazzling harmonies. The best part is, this track clocks in at just two minutes and sixteen seconds, so you might actually be fully engaged for the entirety of the song before scrolling through Instagram in silence for hours on end.

Bring Me the Horizon “AmEN! (feat. Lil Uzi Vert and Daryl Palumbo of Glassjaw)

In ‘What the actual fuck?’ news, Bring Me the Horizon is back with their first single in three years, and… Lil Uzi Vert has a verse on it? It’s also, like, kind of a good verse. If you’re concerned that lead singer Oliver Sykes’ recent spiritual retreat might have dulled some of his lyrical leanings, don’t worry. This track is an apocalyptic jam with all its fury pointed directly at fundamentalist Christians. Though the line ‘suck a dick, heretic’ had us equally amused and worried, Lil Uzi Vert ties the message together stating ‘you fanatics prey on me, hate on me… get your head out of my ass, got me feeling like a human centipede.’ Here’s hoping he’s on every goddamn track when the full-length drops.

MSPAINT “Hardwired”

Okay, so this one came out about three months ago, but it’s been a pretty busy season and free time is hard to find. Also, let’s not pretend we weren’t all too busy listening to Turnstile to notice this one slip into the zeitgeist here. There’s no two ways about it, MSPAINT is fun as fuck. Infusing elements of hardcore, synth-punk, pop, hip-hop, and a fuckton of other genres, the band doesn’t seem to be interested in falling into a distinct category. That’s what makes their debut album, ‘Post-American,’ so exciting. If that all sounds a bit too heady for you, don’t worry. One of the album’s highlights, ‘Hardwired,’ basically only has four words, so you won’t have to think too hard when you’re blasting it in your car.

Bowling For Soup “Trucker Hat”

We’ll be honest, we kinda didn’t notice that Bowling For Soup was on this year’s Riot Fest lineup. Partly because they’re on the ninth line of the tiny font part of the flier, and mostly because we forgot they were a band. Now that we know, though, we’re definitely going to try to see their set. While the band just released a new album in April, we couldn’t help but revisit their classic back catalog, particularly the blast from the past that is ‘Trucker Hat.’ Here’s hoping they play it or literally any song to which we kind of remember the words. Riot Fest is quite the nostalgia trap this year, after all.