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, August 18, 2026.
Gang of Youths – ‘Things Take Time’
Gang of Youths are back with their first new music in five years. The aptly titled ‘Things Take Time’ is warm and earnest, a song about “the endless loop of birth, growth, death and rebirth which encases all matter and energy,” according to the band. It features David Le’aupepe on vocals and piano, Tom Hobden on violin, Donnie Borzestowski on drums, and Jung Kim on guitar and keyboards, with additional performances from Andrew Burgess (bass), Nick Etwell (trumpet), Dave Williamson (trombone) and Klara Schumann (cello).
Fontaines D.C. – ‘Marianne’
Fontaines D.C. have detailed their fifht LP, Dopamine Chamber, and shared its first single, expansive, boisterous ‘Marianne’. “I think Romance was maybe 60 per cent human and 40 per cent corrupted by automation, and a loss of feeling,” frontman Grian Chatten explained. “This one feels more like 60 per cent corrupted – the mask is wearing the face a little more. I felt it would be more powerful to leave the hope out and reflect the ugliness honestly. This one needed to feel more like a catastrophic warning.”
Squirrel Flower – ‘Cleveland’
On Friday, Squirrel Flower is releasing the new album Say A Prayer to the Gods of Getting Going, and it’s really something. The singer-songwriter has already shared several tracks off the record, and today she’s shared ‘Cleveland’, which she says is “about choosing the city over the crush, about domesticity, about the strange magnetism of the city on Lake Erie, about the promise of the rust belt as a future site for climate migration. It’s a song I originally wrote with my family band, ‘uncommon rat.’ I asked my siblings if I could use the song on my album and they both said yes.”
Julia Holter – ‘Materia 2’
This Friday, Julia Holter is releasing Materia, a companion album to 2024’s Something In the Room She Moves. On the latest preview, Holter’s voice blends ethereally with that of singer/composer Jessika Kenney.
Blondshell – ‘Fur Elise’
Blondshell has previewed her upcoming album, Violins, with an affecting coming-of-age track called ‘Fur Elise’. “You’re trying to figure out what you want your life to look like, and what you want playing at your wedding, but you don’t even know where to start. You’re picking the wrong song,” she explained.
Brennan Wedl – ‘High Priestess’
“‘High Priestess’ is a POV from behind the wheel of an aimless after-hours drive around town,” Brennan Wedl said of the latest offering from her imminent self-titled album. “‘Going for a drive’ is often code for working out some ISSUES! From a tarot perspective, the narrator obscures the deep, almost other-worldly intuition of the High Priestess card with their own human agenda. The way they bargain with the past reflects the 2 of Swords and the Magician – doing anything to obscure the reality the narrator just can’t accept. What brings you to drive down your old street? The High Priestess won’t sugarcoat that it’s time to move on.”
Bloc Party – ‘Pigwig’
Bloc Party have delivered another preview of their new album Anatomy of a Brief Romance. The nervy, infatuated ‘Pigwig’ is “about the moment of realizing that you have been hit by a very big love, almost as if it’s against your will,” according to frontman Kele Okereke. “During our relationship, Pigwig was my pet name, after the Beatrix Potter character — the partner of Pigling Bland — an inside joke that meant a lot to us at the time. Looking back, this song is probably one of the sweetest on the album, as it recalls a memory of a romantic seaside trip at the most magical point of our relationship.”
Wishy – ‘Sensational’
Wishy’s hooks are always infectious, but the quirky rhythm section of ‘Sensational’ makes the indie rockers’ latest single especially fun. The band’s Kevin Krauter wrote of the Nature’s Pill track: “hiiiii :))) we are back for press blurb no. 3!!!!!*(;( heres a mf Major Fact about this song: basically mitch wrote this killer bass line and we had to rock it out crazy style a la breeders etienne if u catch the vision 0_0 – hope everyone has fun listening lets run it up at a coworkers bday party and just see what happens <3 -kev”
fish narc – ‘Much Less Me’
fish narc – the project of Olympia, WA-based songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Ben Funkhouser – has announced his new album, Uncle, which is due October 16 via K Records. It was produced with Alex Farrar, whose by-now recognizable style seeps through the catchy lead single ‘Much Less Me’. “The title, saying ‘uncle,’ giving up–that’s sort of a tongue in cheek thing I wanted to acknowledge,” Funkhouser explained. “The record is about reflecting on the last ten years, coping with expectations, dealing with aging. You kind of blink and wake up, and you’re in your mid 30s. I understand that young people have this imperative to express themselves and that plays into how a young person’s music hits–I’m not in that lane anymore and I’m not trying to be. This is more just about me trying to give something my best shot.”
The Tubs – ‘Now and Then’
The Tubs have a new album called Hard Life on the way, and the new single ‘Now and Then’ is sung from the perspective of a persona that will be familiar to listeners of Cotton Crown and Dead Meat. Owen Williams, who shares lead vocals on the track with Lan McArdle, explained: “This is another cuck–rock tune from the classic persona, this time about a period in which I fooled myself into thinking that dating someone very occasionally but indefinitely would be a workable arrangement.”
Stef Chura – ‘Lovesick’ and ‘Thunder and Lightning’
Detroit-based singer-songwriter Stef Chura has unveiled two songs, ‘Lovesick’ and ‘Thunder and Lightning’, taken from her upcoming album Dancing Alone on the Concrete, arriving October 2 on Saddle Creek. Of ‘Lovesick’, a poignant piano ballad, Chura said: “It’s about desiring love and the journey to being lovable. It’s also about a toxic love and how it can feel addictive to want to be with someone who’s bad for you.” About ‘Thunder and Lightning’, she added: “Sometimes jealousy can turn into curiosity. Instead of becoming anxious I became a little more observant of the situation. And maybe in some ways this song was a way of having a little control over a situation I did not feel in control of.”
Jake Xerxes Fussell – ‘Boney’ and ‘Boll Weevil’
Jake Xerxes Fussell has shared two tracks from his upcoming album, The Old Beloved Path: ‘Boney’ and ‘Boll Weevil’. “‘Boney’ is believed to have been what’s known in maritime worksong tradition as a ‘short drag’ – a chantey sung to accompany & keep pace for a brief hauling task aboard a ship,” he explained. “But the song has also lived a life in the decades that have passed since the golden age of sail. The self taught musicologist Sam Eskin recorded a version of it, as did the great Paul Clayton. Listeners will recognize that the song recounts some of the bolder and finer points along the timeline of events in the life of Napoleon Bonaparte – though somewhat out of order and at times half-wrought. In some variants his dancing and cursing receive more attention than his victories or defeats, which I appreciate. Other versions will have him crossing The Rockies in addition to The Alps. I think this song is, among other things, a curiously rendered and fractured portrait of a colossal and difficult figure. Or a short drag – whichever you prefer.”
“Speaking of strange portraits, ‘Boll Weevil’ is another one, though this one’s set a little closer to home – or at least for me it is,” Fussell added. “I like Sid Selvidge’s version a lot. Charley Patton’s recording is absolutely foundational. The version I play draws a bit from the one recorded by Atlanta singer and guitarist Blind Willie McTell in the early 40s. But I took a number of different verses from a few different versions I know and I strung them together to try and make some narrative sense. This song deals with themes of encroachment, influx, growth, the invasive, the entrepreneurial, the opportunistic, the parasitic. The Boll Weevil is treated as a literal parasite in some versions of the song, in others he’s a shrewd and savvy market competitor, in some a quirky nuisance. And yet in others the singer will hold more of a sympathetic and forgiving view of the bug in question. Often the Boll Weevil is all of these things in one song. Like so many of us, he’s looking for a home.”
NOIA – ‘As Per My Last Email’
NOIA (aka Gisela Fullà-Silvestre) has returned with her first new music since her debut album, gisela. The captivating, disoriented ‘As Per My Last Email’ comes paired with a video shot at the height of the Barcelona-born, Brooklyn-based artist’s pregnancy. “It’s what happens when ‘just circling back’ becomes a way of life,” she explained. “A song about the slow collapse of hyperfunctionality, that state of being permanently ‘on,’ answering messages at midnight, running on notifications instead of sleep, until you’re less a person than a broken, over-wired robot still sending polite replies.”
Bimbo – ‘Things Keep Getting Worse’
Bimbo – the sibling duo describing themselves as “like if the White Stripes were evil, couldn’t write a song in 4/4, and were actually bother and sister” – have dropped a new single. The frantic ‘Things Keep Getting Worse’ is lifted from heir debut album, The Bimbonacci Sequence, which is out September 18 via Exploding In Sound.
