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 Tuesday, May 12, 2026.
Bloc Party – ‘Coming on Strong’
Bloc Party have announced a new album called Anatomy of a Brief Romance, and the muscular, driving lead single serves as the seems to introduce us to the titular affair. “It’s that feeling of, I’ve had my eye on this person for a while, and then we’re finally in a situation where we can be something to each other,” Kele Okereke remarked. “And that’s such a seductive feeling. You’re not seeing their problems, and they’re not seeing your problems. You’re just shaping up and getting ready for this ride.”
Body Type – ‘Mulberry’
Body Type are releasing their third album, Tally, on July 24 via King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s p(doom) Records. The Australian punk band recorded the LP with producer Stella Mozgawa, known for her work with Warpaint and Courtney Barnett, who happen to be fitting comparisons for the new single ‘Mulberry’. It’s certainly one of the sunniest tunes they’ve laid to tape; maybe it’ll turn out to be like Wednesday’s ‘Elderberry Wine’, a deceptively pleasant preview of a much heavier album.
Show Me the Body – ‘No God’
Show Me the Body have announced a new album, Alone Together, which they worked on with producers Klas Åhlund and Kenneth Blume III (fka Kenny Beats). Following last month’s ‘Dance in the USA’ is a new single called ‘No God’, which comes paired with a video directed by Alex Huggins.
Modest Mouse – ‘Third Side of the Moon’
Modest Mouse have shared another single from their upcoming full-length, An Eraser and a Maze. ‘Third Side of the Moon’ is moodier and more minimal than the earlier cut ‘Picking Dragons’ Pockets’, highlighting Isaac Brock’s exacting lyrics and expressive performance: “I can’t remember if your eyes were green or brown or red,” he sings, “‘Cause you always spoke in a whisper and I ain’t so good at listening.”
Lightning Bug – ‘Song for a…’
Lightning Bug – now the solo project of singer-songwriter Audrey Kan – has announced a new EP, In Between Things, arriving July 14 via In Real Life Music. It’s led by the blurry yet gentle ‘Song for a…’, about which Kang said: “The song expresses the jolt, sudden awakening of falling in love. The zig-zagging between closeness and distance, among all the new unfoldings as you work out the friction of how to let someone in while keeping yourself safe. As if that’s even possible.”
Sondre Lerche – ‘Little Kids’
Sondre Lerche has announced a new album, Acrobats – out August 21 – with the lovely, nostalgic ballad ‘Little Kids’. The track features string arrangements by Sean O’Hagan (High Llamas), performed by the Stockholm Studio Orchestra. “From the first verse’s innocent rejection, to the third verse’s plunge into premature adulthood, ‘Little Kids’ is about trying to avoid looking back in anger, and instead look back with newfound empathy and perspective on adolescent attempts at stumbling towards love, friendship and intimacy,” Lerche commented. “It’s about forgiving who you were and who you were with, and that feeling we get when we see photos of ourselves and realise we were so much younger than we thought at the time. It’s personal, but highly universal.”
Caroline Rose – ‘Yip Yip Yow’
“I like to imagine this song being performed by four teenagers in a garage who are equally obsessed with The Gun Club and Britney Spears,” Caroline Rose said of the fan favorite ‘Yip Yip Yow’, newly unveiled via their independent label, SUCK Records. The bouncy, rambunctious track was produced by John Congleton. “I wrote ‘Yip Yip Yow’ 10 years ago about feeling like I was born in the wrong time, in the wrong place and probably in the wrong body,” Rose added. “10 years later the only thing that’s different is I finally have a recording of it I like. I think what’s taken me so long to put it out is a fear of how simple and nonsensical it is, but now that’s a lot of what I listen to. I love to hear all the freaks making two minute songs about rejecting cultures they never really fit into and building their own little worlds instead.”
Widowspeak – ‘Soft Cover’
Widowspeak’s upcoming album Roses is perfect for “daydreaming about someone as you’re going about your day,” which happens to be the subject of its latest single, ‘Soft Cover’. “Even if, and maybe especially if, you’ve been with them a long time,” vocalist Molly Hamilton clarifies, adding, “We brought in a Rhodes for this one, so it came in a car from Athens, then took a boat, then a donkey carried it up to the studio.” The album was recorded at the Old Carpet Factory on the Greek island of Hydra, where no cars are allowed.
Shearwater – ‘Daydream Unbeliever’ and ‘More and More’
Shearwater’s first album in four years, The New World, is on the way. After putting out records on Sub Pop and Matador, the Austin band’s latest will be self-released on July 31 with the help of Secretly Distribution, and it’s preceded today by a pair of mesmerizing tracks, ‘Daydream Unbeliever’ and ‘More and More’. The former is memorably grandiose, and not just because it features Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart smashing a gong. “If you’re like us, you wake up feeling like the world’s on fire, and hoping you could reckon with it if you knew where to begin,” frontman Jonathan Meiburg reflected. “‘Daydream Unbeliever’ and ‘More and More’ come from this uneasy place. If they help you feel a little less insane, welcome home.”
Helado Tropical – ‘Tocando’
Helado Negro and Reyna Tropical have linked up for a joint album titled Helado Tropical, which lands on July 17 via Psychic Hotline. It’s led by the sun-kissed, woozy new song ‘Tocando’. “There was never a moment where we felt super stuck,” Roberto Carlos Lange recalled. “It was just like ‘ok what’s next?’ and even within the songs, trying to create these micro worlds – we just felt excited about each moment…. It’s not about us speaking to each other. It’s about us existing in the same feeling.” Reyna added, “This particular album really was able to ground me in what movement means to me and just different characters that the range of movement, travel, environment – sun, wind, and water – has the potential to bring out.”
DJ Seinfeld – ‘If This Is It’ [feat. Dan Whitlam]
DJ Seinfeld has unveiled the title track from his upcoming album If This Is It, which features a stirring spoken word passage from Dan Whitlam. “‘If This Is It’ is about reflecting on the past without dwelling in it, and finding harmony in restlessness,” Seinfeld shared. “Through writing it, I’ve tried to turn long-held anxieties into acceptance, and I hope listeners can take their own meaning from it.”
Pond – ‘Through the Heather’
Pond have previewed their new LP, Terrestrials, with a new track called ‘Through the Heather’. It originated while the band toured Europe last year, with drummer/keyboardist Gin experimenting on Ableton. “Then him and [multi-instrumentalist + founding member] Gum worked on it more in a hotel room while watching Ice Road Truckers or something equally shit,” frontman Nicholas Allbrook recalled.
villagerrr – ‘Virginia’
“’Virginia’ is a song about trying to keep your head down and keep going even when things feel like they’re all falling apart on a grand scale,” songwriter Mark Scott said of the latest cut off villagerrr’s forthcoming LP Carousel, which wonderfully sprawls over seven-plus minutes. “The song started pretty minimal and I played everything on it, but I kept sending it to friends and they’d add to it and it kept evolving into what it is now.”
Bellows – ‘Ease Into Myself Again’, ‘Give You All My Love’, ‘Bureaucratic Tower’, and ‘Midnight’s Passing’
Bellows, the project of songwriter Oliver Kalb, recently announced a double album called Que Bello!, and he’s teasing the record in chunks. Today, we get to fear four new tracks, with the kaleidoscopic centerpiece ‘Bureaucratic Tower’ also receiving a music video filmed during the New York City blizzard of January 2026.
Alex Lahey – ‘You Don’t Think You Like People Like Me’ [feat. Tegan and Sara]
Alex Lahey has enlisted Tegan and Sara for a new version of ‘You Don’t Think You Like People Like Me’, a standout track from her debut EP. It appears on B-Grade University (Reunion Edition), the EP’s 10th anniversary edition, out July 17 on Dead Oceans. Tegan and Sara commented: “The first time I heard Alex Lahey, I remember thinking, oh—this is the artist I wish I was, but don’t quite have the lungs to pull off being. When we toured together ten years ago, I realized she wasn’t just a great songwriter and performer—she’s also weird and very funny, which somehow makes her even more of a powerhouse. Going from watching her sing ‘You Don’t Think You Like People Like Me’ from side stage to singing on it for the ‘B-Grade University’ ten-year re-release feels like a full-circle moment. If you don’t know Alex yet, congratulations—you’re about to have a new favorite. Just remember we knew her first.”
Rare DM – ‘Mean Girled’
On the new single ‘Mean Girl’, Rare DM deploys the medieval war practice of poisoning the well as a metaphor for being misunderstood. “’I hate worrying about people I don’t even care about,” the artist shared. “This song was inspired by rumination against my will, driven by what I have been told is my (ever present & very inconvienent) ‘strong sense of justice.’ The term poisoning the well (or attempting to posion the well) is a type of informal fallacy, with violent roots dating back to the black death / middle ages, and the wartime tactic of poisoning a town’s water supply to destroy an invading army’s health. Far from life or death (despite how it can feel sometimes) my own experiences with being ‘mean girled’ as an adult have been an unwelcome lesson that people committed to misunderstanding you, will continue to do so.”
The Healing Power – ‘i wait, i sink’
This is the debut single by East Anglian duo The Healing Power of Horses, who have signed with section1, the Los Angeles-based sister label to Partisan Records. If you like vaporous pop in the vein of Smerz with just a bit more bite, better tap in early.
