There’s so much music coming out all the time that it’s hard to keep track. On those days when the influx of new tracks is particularly overwhelming, we sift through the noise to bring you a curated list of the most interesting new releases (the best of which will be added to our Best New Songs playlist). Below, check out our track roundup for Wednesday, September 17, 2025.
Helado Negro – ‘More’
Helado Negro has announced a new EP called The Last Sound On Earth, which was inspired by the question, “What will the last sound I hear before I die will be?” Releasing Novemver 7 on Big Dada, the album is led by the bleary new single ‘More’. “When I wake up in the morning, I can listen to my ears tuning-in to the world around me,” Roberto Carlos Lange said in a statement. “It feels like a blanket being pulled off my eardrums. I was watching Michael Snow’s Wavelength (in increments 😅) while working on these songs and the room for interpretation of what I saw and heard felt large. Every time I watched it carved a new emotion out of me. Despair, hope and inspiration. I wanted to ask more of listeners, to want to take time — not just pause, but ask yourself can you untangle all of the mess and try again.”
Peel Dream Magazine – ‘Venus in Nadir’
Peel Dream Magazine has announced a new mini album, Taurus, comprising songs initially recorded for last year’s Rose Main Reading Room. The first preview of the record, arriving October 1, is ‘Venus in Nadir’, which is reserved and hummable in an autumn sort of way. “This is a song that I started during the Rose Main Reading Room sessions but kind of gave up on,” songwriter Joseph Stevens explained. “I revisited it after the album came out, reworked the lyrics and some of the overdubs, and ended up with this really simple twee song about a forlorn recluse who is withering away from an requited love. I imagined him confined to a log cabin, withdrawing from the civilized world, maybe because the guitar voicings felt very Nick Drake-y. ‘Venus In Nadir’ is what came out and it seemed right. I was already kicking around this astrology motif, which is mysterious to me because I’m highly skeptical of it. But that’s what’s cool about writing songs – you can take these mental images off the shelf, make a mess of them, and you don’t have to worry about putting them back when you’re done.”
Keaton Henson – ‘Insomnia’
Keaton Henson has announced a new album, Parader, sharing the quietly explosive new single ‘Insomnia’. It’s accompanied by an animated stop motion video made by Henson himself. “It’s not me pretending to be anything I’m not,” the singer-songwriter said of the record. “It’s maybe just me accepting that part of me is this. It’s louder and it has those bigger, louder, rasher sounds, but not from a performative point of view. Maybe I’m accepting that that is a part of me as well.”
The Avvett Brothers – ‘Eternal Love’
Faith No More/Mr. Bungle frontman Mike Patton is an interesting and prolific collaborator, but his latest team-up is still a surprising one. He worked with the Avett Brothers for a new album called AVTT/PTTN, out November 14, which you couldn’t necessarily tell by listening to the shimmery new song ‘Eternal Love’. “Mike’s part of our DNA, like the fabric of our youth,” Scott Avett commented, “Literally, we studied him. He’s a dear friend now, but when we were younger, I was imitating him… This is what art is. This is what making is supposed to be: in secret and with no ambition.” Patton added: “My peculiar challenge in this was to become a long distant cousin. A brother that was orphaned. Maybe they kept him in the chicken coop or some shit. They brought him out years and years later.”
Flock of Dimes – ‘Defeat’
Flock of Dimes has released ‘Defeat’, a mesmerizing new single from her forthcoming album The Life You Save. “This song represents a moment of total surrender,” Jenn Wasner shared in a statement. “It’s about the moment I finally allowed myself to accept my own powerlessness, and started the process of learning how to step back and allow others to face the consequences of their actions. It features a moment of melodic counterpoint that became a sort of mantra for myself as I attempted to make my way through this process—I’m inside it, after all. This realization—kindly first introduced to me by someone I love who sees me clearly—was something of a breakthrough for me. Learning to see myself as a part of a dynamic (rather than separate, having escaped) was an important step in changing my own behavior—which is, ultimately, the only real agent of change over which I have any sort of control. Three years after I wrote it, the work continues—I am still working on trying to see myself not as some kind of savior figure, but just another flawed human being, doing her best.”
Courtney Marie Andrews – ‘Cons and Clowns’
Courtney Marie Andrews is back after three years with a new song called ‘Cons and Clowns’, which instantly feels like a warm embrace. “‘Cons & Clowns’ is an ode to all the artists, outsiders, and shy loved ones you want to see shine!” she remarked. “In this world of growing sameness I wanted to write a love letter of encouragement to anyone who was afraid to be their wildest and weirdest self, especially amid the dark landscape of now. With a desire to embody the unencumbered playfulness of youth, I played the flute on this track, an instrument I haven’t played since my childhood.”
Rocket – ‘Another Second Chance’
Rocket have already released plenty of singles from their upcoming debut album R is for Rocket, but the latest, ‘Another Second Chance’ is as strong and hooky as the previous ones. “What if you open me up/ And decide it’s never enough for you?” Alithea Tuttle sings on the chorus. It’s “an ode to never feeling good enough,” she explained, adding that the dreamy outro is “one of my favorite moments in writing this record.”
bar italia – ‘rooster’
bar italia have a new album on the way called Some Like It Hot, and today they’ve shared another unnerving yet impassioned single, ‘rooster’. Following ‘Cowbella’ and ‘Fundraiser’, it comes paired with a video by Simon Mercer.
Hannah Frances – ‘Life’s Work’
Hannah Frances has unveiled ‘Life’s Work’, a spidery, theatrical track from her forthcoming album, Nested in Tangles. It’s enriched by production and arrangement contributions from Daniel Rossen (of Grizzly Bear), with whom Frances connected after offering to sell merch for him through Instagram DM. “‘Life’s Work’ is a haywire and whimsical exploration of familial rupture and the impacts of growing up in a dysfunctional home,” Frances said. “Featuring arrangements by Daniel Rossen and trombone by Andy Clausen, there’s a touch of theatrical gallows humor to this song as a musical juxtaposition to the interiority of pain that I am narrating. Learning to trust in spite of everything is our life’s work.”
Agriculture – ‘Dan’s Love Song’
Agriculture have previewed their forthcoming LP The Spiritual Sound with ‘Dan’s Love Song’, a foggy yet affecting wall of distortion. “This is a love song to a future child,” Dan Meyer revealed. “It is so moving to me that even though this child does not exist in the form of a child yet, all of the matter that will one day make up their being is already in the world. And of course this is true of all things that have ever existed. So even though I’m talking about a kid that I want to have one day, I’m really talking about the principle that everything is totally connected.”
bloodsports – ‘Rot’
bloodsports have released ‘Rot’, a corrosive, cathartic taste of their upcoming debut album Anything Can Be a Hammer. “‘Rot’ is about someone who has ended a relationship, and trying to justify their behavior that led to the split, blaming the other for mistakes they’ve made,” Sam Murphy explained. “Eventually it deteriorates into a self-obsessed, egotistical delusion resulting in the screamed line of ‘how can you smile, when god is my audience’. This song has existed in various forms for years, and is definitely the oldest song on the album but it’s still one of my favorites and one of the most cathartic to play live.
PVA – ‘Boyface’
PVA have announced their sophomore album, No More Like This, which arrives on January 23. It’s led by the slinky, off-kilter new song ‘Boyface, which comes paired with a music video directed by Ella Harris and Sal Redpath.
Drain – ‘Scared of Everything and Nothing’
Drain have dropped ‘Scared of Everything and Nothing’, another anthemic single off their forthcoming LP …Is Your Friend. It’s accompanied by an Eric Richter-directed video.
White Lies – ‘Keep Up’
White Lies have shared a propulsive new single, ‘Keep Up’, from their forthcoming album Night Light. “There’s a pace to this song which feels both controlled and hypnotic but also directional,” the band commented. “There is a focus on streamlining of energy and removing anything negative or distraction.”
Weirs – ‘Everlasting’
North Carolina experimental folk collective Weirs’ enveloping new single, ‘Everlasting’, is taken from their forthcoming record Diamond Grove. It was shaped out of field recordings around North Carolina and sessions at Diamond Grove Farm, where the band tracked in September 2023. Band organizer Oliver Child-Lanning explained: “The melody that we are improvising on here comes from the hymn ‘Leaning on the Everlasting Arms’ which dates back to the 1880s. It’s a favorite of my grandmother’s, who I used to sing it with as a child. Singing this and ‘Balm in Gilead’ were some of the earliest experiences I had with the idea of being held or supported by a sublime power – ‘held in the light’ as Quakers would say. This version is an excerpt of a late-night improv recorded in the living room at Diamond Grove, direct to a Zoom recorder. It later was fleshed out into a longer live version which has us sing the words of the hymn after a period of instrumental free improvisation.”
