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 members on Spotify and Apple Music, updated throughout the week.)
Preoccupations - "Focus"
Sometimes — only sometimes — a music video makes a song better, and that's the case with Preoccupations' "Focus." The Ill At Ease lead single is a synthy jam, exuding a simultaneous infectiousness and otherworldliness. It comes with a montage of stock footage of cult leaders, adding an eerie layer to the catchy tune as Charles Manson smiles into the camera. "Focus" is both funny and tragic, but above all, it's fun. —Danielle
Cash Cobain - "Trippin On A Yacht" (Feat. Rob49 & Bay Swag)
It's "I'm On A Boat" as reimagined by the guys who brought you "Fisherrr." On the self-explanatory "Trippin On A Yacht," New Orleans' own Rob49 joins up with sexy drill standard-bearers Cash Cobain and Bay Swag to evoke the intersection of drugs, sex, and watercraft. He ingratiates himself to this world quite naturally, dropping aggressively vivid bars like "pussy super wet, it need a mop" while Cash stretches out the bass toward the horizon line. The track presents a slo-mo take on this style, lush and zonked-out, with more than enough melody and atmospherics to make up for any perceived lack of lyrical prowess. —Chris
Vundabar - "I Need You"
Before "I Need You," I thought of Boston's Vundabar as a throwback to the blog-rock era -- a time when some introverted white boys with a dumb name could suddenly show up on the scene with a ton of vaguely suspicious online buzz. But "I Need You" recalls a different side of the blog-rock era -- the moment when a howling, impassioned, idiosyncratic rock song could take you by surprise and leave you wondering if you'd just found your new favorite band. Over more than six minutes, "I Need You" soars and crashes and screams at the sky, building from one raging fuzz-guitar climax to the next. Lots of bands still try to make songs like this, but nobody has pulled it off with this panache for a very, very long time. Maybe this is your new favorite band, and maybe the name isn't so dumb after all. —Tom
Helena Deland - "Bigger Pieces"
Both songs on Helena Deland's latest Altogether Unaccompanied EP are soothing and mesmerizing. Although "Silver And Red" got the A-side/music video treatment, we're opting to spotlight "Bigger Pieces." Deland's small ensemble weaves a gentle programmed beat and even gentler arpeggios into crosshatched electro-acoustic beauty, a blanket of sound to go along with her lullaby-worthy vocal. "Amazing how fast I stop caring," she sings to kick things off. "Good to know." From there, it's one intriguing lyric after another, a peek into a personal impasse that evokes a dam about to break. —Chris
Cryogeyser - "Mountain" (Feat. Wednesday)
"I hear one door closing holds another open," Cryogeyser's Shawn Marom and Wednesday's Karly Hartzman coo on "Mountain," the final single from the former band's new self-titled album out today. It's a sort of subtle rebellion: In a civilization hell-bent on selling people the concept of marrying and isolating into a nuclear family, "Mountain" is a bittersweet ode to finding emotional security elsewhere. Over funereal drums and reverb-soaked guitars, Marom extracts freedom and fulfillment in the platonic relationships that act as a safety net when so-called "romance" fails: "I'm not here to judge you/ I just wanna listen," they sigh. Find a love more true than that. —Abby
