Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.
Lauren Mayberry, ‘Something in the Air’
Lauren Mayberry, the frontwoman of the Scottish synth-pop band Chvrches, strikes a note of defiance on “Something in the Air,” a track from her upcoming debut solo album, “Vicious Creature.” “You come up with your stories, conspiracy theories of why we’re all here,” she sings on a soaring pop chorus, before flinging off all that paranoia with some crescendoing synths and a melody that escalates toward liberation. LINDSAY ZOLADZ
Waxahatchee, ‘Much Ado About Nothing’
MJ Lenderman’s chiming guitar sparks off the warm tone of Katie Crutchfield’s voice on “Much Ado About Nothing,” a previously unreleased track she’s been playing live on the tour for Waxahatchee’s latest album, “Tiger’s Blood.” “Oh no, I’m down and out, I’m tragically amiss,” Crutchfield sings, reaching to her warbling falsetto. But in the face of her desperation, the song’s laid-back and lived-in arrangement offers a safe place to land. ZOLADZ
Bartees Strange, ‘Sober’
What once were mainstream pop styles are now indie-rock. In “Sober,” from an album due in February, Bartees Strange reaches back to the sound of Fleetwood Mac circa 1975. The drumming is steady and unflashy yet ready to stoke crescendos; electric piano underpins guitar strumming, and lead guitar leaps out above his voice. In “Sober,” Strange works up to declarations of love and need, cursed with self-consciousness: “Our difference is astounding, running out of things to say/I’m just trying to show love, scared of being cliché.” The band crests alongside him, helping him tell all. JON PARELES
The Smile, ‘Colours Fly’
A brittle 5/4 funk beat, an octave-hopping bass line and a angular guitar line hinting at Arabic modes set up the jittery momentum of “Colours Fly” from the Smile’s second album this year, “Cutouts.” Thom Yorke predicts turbulence — “You can change your mind/Let your colors fly and start lashing out” — and gets it as the track veers toward free jazz and returns even more agitated. “We can’t escape,” he croons. PARELES
Godspeed You! Black Emperor, ‘Grey Rubble — Green Shoots’
The Canadian instrumental band Godspeed You! Black Emperor has been conjuring desolation, anxiety and dystopian grandeur since the 1990s. “Grey Rubble — Green Shoots” is from its new album, “No Title as of 13 February 2024 28,340 Dead.” It’s a waltz that begins in an echoey void, builds to a near-orchestral peak, then subsides to a tentative, quietly tolling coda — a stormy threnody and its lonely aftermath. PARELES
Ela Minus, ‘Broken’
“I’m broken,” the Colombian songwriter and electronic producer Ela Minus declares in this single from “Dia,” her album due in January. But the track denies such a gloomy thought; it’s all shimmering major-key arpeggios, bright chirps, swooping stereo glissandos and swoops and a cheery four-on-the-floor beat. “Here I am again, bending everything until it breaks,” she sings, sounding more boastful than worried. PARELES
The Weather Station, ‘Neon Signs’
Leading the Weather Station, the songwriter Tamara Lindeman ponders disillusionment, a transactional culture, lies and the persistence of desire in “Neon Signs” from an album, “Humanhood,” due in January. She sings about “Living rough in a world without trust/having to rely upon the honesty of lust” while her band gradually coalesces around her, gathering to propel her through her misgivings and melting away when it can’t. PARELES
Lizzy McAlpine, ‘Spring Into Summer’
The countryish, steady-strumming “Spring Into Summer,” from Lizzy McAlpine’s new album “Older (and Wiser),” marvels at a lifelong, intimate love: “Nobody knows what it’s like to be us,” she sings, with a touch of wonder in her breathy voice. The track starts out tentative, as if she’s unwilling to believe her good luck, but then rises to a choral affirmation. PARELES
Mdou Moctar, ‘Imajighen (Injustice Version)’
Stranded temporarily in New York City after a tour because of a regime change in Niger, Mdou Moctar and his band rerecorded the songs from their 2024 studio album “Funeral for Justice,” in real-time versions; the full album, “Tears of Injustice,” will be released next year. “Imajighen” roughly translates as “free people,” from the Tuareg language Tamasheq, and the song is a call for solidarity among Indigenous people across Africa. The new version is acoustic, slightly slower and more reflective than the previous recording, but no less committed. PARELES
Manuel Turizo and Kapo, ‘Qué Pecao’
Two songwriters from Colombia, Manuel Turizo and Kapo, try on the Dominican bachata in “Qué Pecao” (“What a Sin”). It’s a come-on that urges a woman not to give up on men just because her last boyfriend was a jerk; “Sleeping alone another night would be a sin/Knowing I can be there erasing your past,” they promise. The track is lighter than air, constantly toying with guitar tones, echo effects and a hide-and-seek bass presence — an ingenious, infectious pop bauble. PARELES
Yazmin Williams featuring Kaki King and Darian Donovan Thomas, ‘Harvest’
The acoustic guitar virtuoso Yazmin Williams is joined by a fellow guitar explorer, Kaki King, and the violinist Darian Donovan Thomas in “Harvest.” They enfold a folky melody line in ringing, keening harmonics, lace it with countermelodies and suspend it in a busy minimalist limbo before letting it linger amid birdsongs. PARELES
Sleater-Kinney, ‘This Time’
“You can’t break broken/Baby, let it go,” Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker sing in “This Time,” a song added to the deluxe edition of Sleater-Kinney’s album “Little Rope,” which was released in January. The track grapples with the ragged ending of a relationship. It’s about reflexively depending on a partner despite knowing better — “If you keep catchin’ me then I’ll keep falling” — and it revs up from a trudging march to a punky, last-chance guitar surge before reluctantly accepting what has changed. PARELES
Jerry Douglas featuring Aoife O’Donovan, ‘What Might Have Been’
Aoife O’Donovan shares an elegiac, wordless melody with the dobro master Jerry Douglas, a Nashville studio stalwart, in this track from “The Set,” his new solo album. “What Might Have Been” was composed by the jazz guitarist Mike Stern, who also recorded it with a singer; Douglas and his band nudge it toward country, giving it an extra hint of twang. PARELES
Fred Thomas, ‘Embankment’
In the nine-minute “Embankment,” Fred Thomas recalls life in his 20s as “a dichotomy of excitement and loss,” greeting new possibilities but suffused with toxic fumes from a citywide incident. “Now these new weird little headaches were accepted as part of our days,” he sings. “We breathed deeply/and watched while the atmosphere changed.” Thomas, a member of the experimental pop group Saturday Looks Good to Me, constructs a patiently layered indie-rock guitar march with distortion at its edges, then disassembles it down to its rhythm guitar. PARELES
The post Lauren Mayberry’s Lush Pop Ecstasy, and 13 More New Songs appeared first on New York Times.
