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, January 21, 2026.
Sugar – ‘Long Live Love’
It’s been a few months since Sugar returned after three decades with ‘House of Dead Memories’. It’s a great song that accompanied news of some shows in New York and London, and today the Bob Mould-led band has shared another affirming single, ‘Long Live Love, and announced the Love You Even Still 2026 World Tour. “I wrote ‘Long Live Love’ in 2007 while living in Washington DC,” Mould recalled. “It was the George W. Bush era, I was deep in my DJ world with Blowoff, yet still writing pop songs on guitars. Garbage 2.0 is one of my desert island albums, so it’s not surprising that ‘Long Live Love’ reminds me of a long lost Garbage song!”
The New Pornographers – ‘Votive’
The New Pornographers’ new album, The Former Site Of, has been set for release on March 27. Lead single ‘Votive’ takes its time but grabs your attention as soon as that piercing electric guitar and driving beat kick in.
Wendy Eisenberg – ‘Meaning Business’
2026 might be the year of idiosyncratic singer-songwriters self-titling their albums. First Jana Horn, and now Wendy Eisenberg, whose new album will be released April 3 via Joyful Noise Recordings. The outwardly folky ‘Meaning Business’ was written in honor of David Lynch days after his passing. “I loved his work dearly, especially Twin Peaks/Fire Walk With Me/The Return, which is an especially important work to me and so many other people who have experienced sexual assault,” Eisenberg explained. “Recovery from the trauma of that particular horror is a hallucinatory and psychedelic process because you’re reckoning with true horror – basically, the thesis of the Twin Peaks universe. This song sees me trying to find the little kid who I was, who endured that horror, and ultimately trying to free her from being trapped in that memory (‘Find Laura’).”
Greogory Uhlmann – ‘Lucia’
Chicago-raised, Los Angeles-based guitarist, composer, and producer Gregory Uhlmann – who has worked with artists including Perfume Genius, Tasha, and Hand Habits – has announced a new album, Extra Stars, arriving March 6 via International Anthem. The quietly immersive lead single ‘Lucia’ features labelmate Alabaster DePlume. “This song began with a field recording of the waves in Big Sur. Named after the Lucia Lodge, my partner and I stayed there for a couple nights and found the sound of the waves both calming and a little unnerving. There’s an intensity to being on a point with waves crashing down around you. I wrote the piece years ago and always had Gus (Alabaster DePlume) in mind to play, but finally worked up the courage to ask him recently. What he added was perfect and beyond what I could’ve hoped for.”
Avalon Emerson & the Charm – ‘Jupiter and Mars’
Avalon Emerson & the Charm has a new album on the way: Written into Changes is out on March 20 via Dead Oceans, and it was co-produced with Nathan Jenkins and Rostam Batmanglij. Lead single ‘Jupiter and Mars’ has an emotive chorus that ensures I’ll be going back to it. “For the first album, the songs were pretty soft and kind of bedroomy, Emerson commented. “And then playing them on a big kind of festival stage was a learning experience. Coming back into the studio for a second round, it was important to think about the dynamics and energy of what we were making and how they might be performed in the future.”
Lime Garden – ’23’
The first preview of Lime Garden’s sophomore LP, Maybe Not Tonight, is bouncy and exhilarating. “‘23’ the concept was born from a dream I had where I was talking to my younger self,” vocalist and guitarist Chloe Howard explained. “In the dream I was essentially ripping into my own personality and lack of success. ‘23’ the song was born on a rainy January afternoon, a Happy Mondays–inspired jam paved the way for the main bassline.”
SPELLLING – ‘Portrait of My Heart’ [feat. Brendan Yates]
SPELLLING has enlisted Turnstile vocalist Brendan Yates for a new version of ‘Portrait of My Heart’, the title track of her most recent album. (Which featured a collab with Turnstile guitarist Pat McCrory.) “I was really happy to discover that Brendan was into SPELLLING when I saw him speaking about The Turning Wheel being his album of the year on NPR’s ‘faves on faves,’” Chrystia Cabral said. “It’s the most fun and affirming aspect of making music for me, finding out my favorite artists are also attuned to what I’m making. Turnstile brought me out to play some shows with them in 2022 and during a soundcheck I heard Brendan playfully singing ‘I hate the boys at school’. That planted the seed in my mind that a collaboration would work really well. Having him sing on this ‘Portrait of my Heart’ remix was such a cool way to capture our radically different but mutually appreciated musical expressions.”
Tinariwen – ‘Sagherat Assani’ [feat. Sulafa Elyas]
Tinariwen have announced their tenth studio album, Hoggar, out March 13, and shared the new single ‘Sagherat Assani’ featuring Sulafa Elyas. “‘Sagherat Assan’ is a traditional song carried from Sudan to the Sahara, Japonais (one of the band founders who died in 2021) and I were in Al Kufrah (a city at the border between Sudan and Libya) in 1989, when I was beginning to learn the guitar,” Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni explained. “We met a musician who was playing this song and loved it so much that Japonais learned it and began performing it again and again, allowing it to travel and endure. This version features Sulafa Elyas, an extraordinary Sudanese singer and oud player now living in exile in France.”
Knumears – ‘Fade Away’
Knumears have announced their debut full-length, Directions, to be released April 3 via Run for Cover. The dynamic lead single ‘Fade Away’ features Jeromes Dream vocalist Jeff Smith. “I think what draws us to this music, just like everyone else, is the absolute raw emotion,” guitarist/vocalist Matthew Cole remarked. “In this kind of music people can really write about whatever they want, whether it’s being super angry, super sad, super happy–all of it has something in common, and that’s feeling so strongly about it that all they can do is scream.”
Lightning Bolt – ‘CLOUD CORE’
Lightning Bolt have announced a split LP with OOIOO, the side project of Boredoms drummer YoshimiO: THE HORIZON SPIRALS / THE HORIZON VIRAL drops April 24 on Thrill Jockey. ‘CLOUD CORE’, an unrelenting freakout, is out today.
Searows – ‘In Violet’
Ahead of the release of his new album Death in the Business of Whaling on Friday, Searows has dropped one more single, the mesmerizing ‘In Violet’. “In my head, this song is visually a very dramatic tale that is not nearly as mundane as the feelings I wrote it about,” Alec Duckart shared. “The song is essentially about not living up the version of yourself you wanted to show to someone, and the various types of disappointment that go with that. But I imagine it as this fantastical epic that lives up to the weight and the drama that those emotions feel like they have in real life.”
Paula Kelley – ‘Static’
Drop Nineteens’ Paula Kelley has shared ‘Static’, a sparkly new song from her first solo full-length in over 20 years, Blinking as the Starlight Burns Out. “I had thought this was going to be a throwaway as I wrote it; just a filler song,” Kelley commented. “Then I tweaked one chord in the chorus and a whole new path opened up. I remember listening to an early mix and saying aloud, ‘Holy shit, ‘Static’ is actually good now.’ We had a helluva time getting it right, arrangement and production-wise, but I’m shocked at how well it turned out, given how it began.”
Dry Socket – ‘Rigged Survival’
Portland-based hardcore outfit Dry Socket have announced a new album, Self Defense Techniques – out March 27 on Get Better Records – with the ferocious ‘Rigged Survival’. The track “is about the suffocating reality of being priced out of your own life,” Dani commented. “It’s about waking up everyday in a system where your value is in your obedience and output. Even our hobbies, our art and joy have become a luxury most of us can’t afford. This song is that crushing feeling that this can’t be it, life should have more to it than working a job that destroys you and living with the fear of a medical bill making you houseless.”
Bloodworm – ‘Bloodlust’
Nottingham’s Bloodworm have dropped ‘Bloodlust’, their first single of 2026. “‘Bloodlust’ was written about the duality of relationships and the angst of being stuck in a small town,” frontman George Curtis said. “We had the raw excitement of starting something new and just not really caring about anything else aside from the music itself. We’ve really tried to capture the feeling of that energy in the recording.”
SUPERWORLD – ‘The Dream’
San Jose-based screamo band SUPERWORLD have announced their debut album, Super World, out February 13 via Lauren Records. It’s led by the single ‘The Dream’, which flaunts both their technical chops and aesthetic maximalism. “I think for any group working within this sort of guitar-driven music it can be easy to overengineer parts because we all have so many influences to draw upon,” SUPERWORLD guitarist Dan Vo reflected. “It felt right to lean into that tendency here. All the instruments are constantly trading lines back and forth, with contrasting layered vocals and the addition of piano and trombone. As fast and aggressive as we were playing, the melodic elements were key to keeping listeners engaged.”
Melodi Ghazal – ‘Numb’
Danish-Iranian alt-pop artist Melodi Ghazal has unveiled a new single, ‘Numb’. “I received this beautiful major folk guitar chord progression from my guitarist and friend Peter Bruhn, which I instinctively wanted to sing along with, and my melodies quickly made it a bit darker,” she explained. “With this song, I explored what the greatest inner drama might sound like when you have sort of understood that there is nothing to be done. Control is lost and you are merely an observer of a life that is yours. With that starting point, the composition is repetitive, raw, blurred, and slightly distanced.”
