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, April 2, 2025.
Car Seat Headrest – ‘CCF (I’m Gonna Stay With You)’
Car Seat Headrest have shared ‘CCF (I’m Gonna Stay With You)’, another enrapturing single off their forthcoming album The Scholars. Like previous offering ‘Gethsemane’, it comes with its own bit of narrative backstory. “Beolco is a student of Parnassus University, a college founded in ages past by a famed playwright known as the Scop,” the band explained. “Beolco is deeply fond of both the college and the Scop, believing himself to be spiritually connected or reincarnated from the playwright. He yearns for confirmation of this secret belief.”
S.G. Goodman – ‘Fire Sign’
S.G. Goodman has teased a new album, Planting by the Signs, with the catchy, propulsive new song ‘Fire Sign’. “After touring relentlessly for 2 years, ‘living like the sun don’t shine / on the same dog’s ass everyday,’ as the song puts it, I came off the road questioning my purpose and choices,” Goodman explained. “People are quick to tell you that you are not working hard enough, but slow in telling you that you are working hard enough. That seems to be up to you, as well as your ‘why?’. Despite this burnout and other personal setbacks, I found the fire to keep pushing and to make what I believe is my best record yet. ‘Who’ll put the fire out?’ The only person who can put my fire out is myself.”
The New Pornographers – ‘Ballad of the Last Payphone’
The New Pornographers are back with a new single, ‘Ballad of the Last Payphone’. It’s the A-side of a limited 7-inch the band released via A.C. Newman’s Substack last month, which also includes the vinyl-only B-side ‘Ego Death for Beginners’. “This song was inspired by a Raymond Carver story called ‘Fat’, and tells the story of a person visiting the last payphone in NYC where it currently sits, in the Museum of the City of New York,” Newman explained in a statement. “The narrator doesn’t know why they are so fascinated by it, but to us it should be obvious. Obvious to me, at least.”
Obongjayar – ‘Sweet Danger’
Obongjayar has announced a new album, Some Nights I Dream of Doors, arriving May 30, with the infectious ‘Sweet Danger’. It comes paired with a video directed by Sophie Jones.
Aesop Rock – ‘Checkers’
Aesop Rock has announced a new self-produced album, Black Hole Superette, which arrives May 30 and boasts guest spots from Armand Hammer, Lupe Fiasco, Open Mike Eagle, Homeboy Sandman, and Hanni El Khatib. Of the hypnotic, dense lead single ‘Checkers’, the rapper said: “This is about the neighborhood outside your home being the great leveler. You can’t show up feeling one way because the world will show you otherwise.”
Djo – ‘Potion’
Djo has released a pleasant acoustic ballad, ‘Potion’, lifted from his forthcoming album The Crux. “‘Potion’ is like your favorite pair of blue jeans,” Joe Keery said. “I’d been working on Travis picking when I wrote this song, so it’s kind of like if Harry Nilsson and Lindsey Buckingham had a baby.”
Dazy – ‘Pay No Mind (To the Signs)’
Dazy has released a new song, ‘Pay No Mind (To the Signs)’, which project mastermind James Goodson co-produced with Ryan Hemsworth. This should come as no surprise if you’ve previously come across Dazy’s music, but it’s a real blast.
TOLEDO – ‘Tall Kids’
“I couldn’t sleep the night you took my hand and pulled me closer/ When I felt your arms around my neck,” begins the tender, intimate new single by TOLEDO, ‘Tall Kills’. “The sun came up and followed us until the day was over/ And I walked home the tallest kid.”
Rodeo Boys – ‘Sam’s Song’
Rodeo Boys have released ‘Sam’s Song’, a cathartic rocker taken from their upcoming album Junior. It was written from the perspective of Tiff Hannay’s best friend, who was groomed by their eighth grade English teacher for six years; Hannay went as far as to pull lyrics directly from their friend’s journals.
voyeur – ‘Eyes Full of Tears’
New York band voyeur have a new split with Los Angeles’ untitled (halo), and their contributions is the gauzy, tragic ‘Eyes Full of Tears’. “Last December, my uncle was killed by a drunk driver,” bandleader Sharleen Chidiac explained. “I was overtaken by grief, and I couldn’t move for days. Jake [Lazovick] had this guitar part he had been playing and I felt like I needed a way to release my emotions.”
untitled (halo) – ‘doomcomplex’
untitled (halo)’s ‘doomcomplex’ is a little less dark, but still, well, doomful. “My lyrics are alluding to an essay I was reading before coming to work on the song,” vocalist Ari Mamnoon shared. “I wanted to write about a dancer under the light, earth, more surrealist themes — but also just give it that spooky/sad tone that leads into Jack [Dione, the other untitled (halo) singer]’s narrative about a doom complex.”
Triathalon – ‘Down’
Keeping things ominous and atmospheric with ‘Down’, the latest offering from New York trio Triathalon. “Everything really changed last minute before turning the album in when Chad [Chilton] completely replaced the drums creating a new and refreshing change in tempo and overall feeling,” frontman Adam Intrator explained. “This altered the song as a whole and soon we decided to add an 80s metal distorted guitar tone over the whole song. It went from a very sleepy, casual demo to a very electric pop/rock anthem.” He added: “‘Down’ is about grieving those you felt would be forever in your orbit and coming to terms with them causing more sadness than joy.”
Girl and Girl – ‘Okay’
Girl and Girl have a radiant and optimistic new single out called ‘Okay’. Speaking about it, bandleader Kai James said: “You give yourself enough time, things will be okay — sometimes not great, or even good, but more often than not, things, at the very least, end up okay. And that’s okay, it’s okay to just be okay. That’s what the song’s about.”
Jess Kerber – ‘Next to You’
Jess Kerber’s ‘Next to You’ starts out a little jittery before easing you into its intimacy. “‘Next To You’ is about the ways your dreams tell you what you don’t yet know about yourself,” the singer-songwriter explained. “I wrote this song in my childhood bedroom, where hazy memories seem to always come back up to the surface.”
William Tyler – ‘Anima Hotel’
William Tyler has released ‘Anima Hotel’, a mesmerizing guitar instrumental lifted form his upcoming album Time Indefinite. “Carl Jung used the term anima to refer to the unconscious divine feminine within the man,” Tyler explained. “So often in romantic love we are seeking both the magical other and if anything, the mirror to align with the different parts of our psyche that we project. I imagine this as kind of like a love song I wrote to different people, all of us having to stay at one of those middle-of-nowhere airport motels awaiting a flight to be rescheduled.”
The Beaches – ‘Last Girls at the Party’
The Beaches have announced a new album, No Hard Feelings, which comes out August 29. They’ve also shared its final song, ‘Last Girls at the Party’, which is as joyfully defiant as the title suggests. “We’re four crazy girls who like to have fun together, and are literally always the last to leave,” frontperson Jordan Miller commented.
Allo Darlin’ – ‘Tricky Questions’
Allo Darlin’ are back with their first new music in almost a decade, the breezy, wide-eyed ‘Tricky Questions’. It finds vocalist Elizabeth Morris recalling living in Florence having left her home of London. “There’s a piazza, Piazza della Signoria, not far from where I used to live, where the Palazzo Vecchio is. You used to be able to go and walk right up to the sculptures in the Loggia, but I think now they are roped off and a guard watches over them. The city was full of tourists during the day, but after 9pm, they would all go back to their hotels. That’s when the city came alive to me, and it felt like it was just for us.”
Morris added: “I was really thinking about that place when I wrote this song. I wanted to go back there and soak it all up again. Writing about it helped me feel like I was back there, in a place that is timeless. But of course, more than being about a specific place, this song is really about a relationship and how it makes me feel.”
Common Holly – ‘Aegean blue’
The poignant, contemplative ‘Aegean blue’ leads Common Holly’s new album Anything glass, which lands June 13 via Keeled Scales/Paper Bag. “A reckoning in meaninglessness and unending pursuit. The words came in a moment of change and of reevaluating,” Brigitte Naggar reflected. “This song sits squarely in the album’s theme of orienting toward what matters most, doing things differently when they aren’t feeling right. You can hear some of the vocal doubling here–since the album was recorded live, many (all?) of the songs have doubled vocals, because I would sing live while we were performing the song, and then I would later add more vocals on top of that initial vocal. This came to be a quality we liked in the whole experience of the album.”
