So many artists, so little time. Each week we review a handful of new albums (of all genres), round up even more new music that we'd call "indie," and talk about what metal is coming out. We post music news, track premieres, and more all day. In these concertless times, that includes daily livestreams and live concert videos we love. We publish a monthly playlist of some of our favorite tracks. Here's a daily roundup with a bunch of interesting, newly released songs in one place…
BULLY - "HOURS AND HOURS"
We're two weeks away from the release of Bully's new album SUGAREGG, and like the previously released singles, "Hours and Hours" is a killer dose of grunge revival.
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SG LEWIS - "IMPACT" (ft. ROBYN & CHANNEL TRES)
UK producer/musician SG Lewis has tapped Robyn and Channel Tres for this very fun, thumping new song that very much plays to both of their strengths.
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TOM PETTY - "THERE GOES ANGELA (DREAM AWAY)" (previously unreleased)
An expanded edition of Tom Petty's great 1994 album Wildflowers is on the way, and here's a previously unreleased song from the sessions. It's a stripped-down acoustic song that sounds way too gorgeous to have been in the vault for this long.
To hear it, you have to take a quiz on Tom Petty's website and then you can download it.
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DERADOORIAN - "MASK OF YESTERDAY"
“I think it would be cool if people lay on the floor to listen to it, and let it go through their bodies,” Deradoorian says of her new album, Find the Sun, which is out in September. “Being in that kind of space of awareness making it, I hope it evokes a physical reaction for people...that has so much to do with frequencies, vibrational relationships in sound.” Clear some space on the rug and get prone with this spectral track.
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WIDOWSPEAK - "EVEN TRUE LOVE"
Widowspeak's Molly Hamilton says she'd been “sitting with some existential dread for the last year or so" before writing "Even True Love," adding that she was "overwhelmed by the recognition that life is absurd and finite. The song itself is upbeat, kind of cruising. I was thinking about those youth-glorifying “yolo” type songs and that big mood, but also feeling like there’s so much more to it than that. Maybe because they only live once, humans tend to want to possess things: objects, success, money, experiences, people. True Love. Amassing the most and best of whatever while you can. But that never really landed with me; I think this one is more about being present with the unknown, letting things go a little more, trying not to hold on too tight.” Widowspeak's new album, Plum, is out August 28 via Captured Tracks.
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CUT COPY - "LIKE BREAKING GLASS"
Cut Copy's new album is really shaping up to be a mellow affair with further evidence from this gently percolating track. "In the beginning 'Like Breaking Glass' started out as a completely different track," says frontman Dan Whitford. "Before one weekend I was mucking around in the studio with just a drum beat and an acid bassline. I never managed to finish it, but when I came back to it the next week there was something about that beat that felt compelling, so I started writing a song over the top of it. It is about the conflicted feelings of a relationship that has begun to unravel. Where sometimes against all logic, you discover that affections run deep just as a break up becomes inevitable. It was also one of my favourite songs working in the studio with the band when we crafted the middle section of the song comprising of weird delay effects, off-beat drum hits and metallic clangs where Mitchell was throwing a box of metal objects around the room, and we stood there recording him." Cut Copy's new album, Freeze, Melt, is out August 21.
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THE WATERBOYS - "POSTCARD FROM THE CELTIC DREAMTIME"
Still led by Mike Scott, The Waterboys are set to release new album Good Luck, Seeker on August 21 and here's another early taste. “It’s a poem I discovered in a box of old writings,” says Scott of the song which has a bit of an early-'90s shuffle-beat to it. “The first line is “The storm that has howled for four days has blown itself out.” It describes the world I found at the end of Ireland, where I went to escape the pressures of the modern world and finish ‘Fisherman’s Blues’ thirty years ago.”
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NARROW HEAD - "HARD TO SWALLOW"
Narrow Head's music is clearly indebted to a handful of late '80s and '90s rock music, and they say their new single "Hard to Swallow" was specifically inspired by Helmet and Quickness-era Bad Brains. It's off their new album 12th House Rock, due 8/28 via Run For Cover.
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FORETOKEN - "HIS RAGE MADE MANIFEST"
Virginia death metallers Foretoken have a new single off their upcoming album Ruin (due 9/20 via Prosthetic), and you can read more about it at Invisible Oranges.
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BEABADOOBEE - "SORRY"
beabadoobee recently announced her debut LP, Fake It Flowers, and now she's revealed the release date, too: October 16. She's also shared a grungy new single, "Sorry," which she says is about "confessing my mistakes in a friendship and watching someone who I love breakdown and fade away as a person. It’s the idea of dismissing something because it felt too close to home and a personal reminder to never take for granted what that person could have had."
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MUSH - "DEAD BEAT"
UK indie rock band Mush will release new EP Great Artisanal Formats on August 29 for the first of three Record Store Day Drops and they've shared this track from it that jangles in a decided post-punk fashion. “Deadbeat is one of our oldest songs," say the band. "We toyed around with having it on 3D Routine but for some reason it felt more at home among the shorter, zanier tracks of the RSD release. I think when i wrote it i was still working in an office as a data monkey, it has that data driven angst to it. Thankfully those days are done.”
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PALBERTA - "SOMETHING IN THE WAY"
Skronky Brooklyn post-punk trio Palberta are back with this new single that marks the group's first time in a proper studio and finding inspiration in John Coltrane's A Love Supreme. “'Something in the Way' started as many Palberta songs do, with one person playing a drum, guitar, or bass riff and then the other two building off of that initial feeling," say the band in a statement. "As usual, we frantically but carefully guided each other to the end of the song. When we got there, we found ourselves fading into a tricked-out looped fragment of John Contrane’s 'A Love Supreme.' Coltrane’s melody has a direct connection for us to our beautiful friend Pablo Ramirez who passed in 2019. His view on life, 'LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL LIFE IS IN COLOR LIFE IS A W A Y,' impacted us all in such a positive way, and his beauty and genuine LOVE of life lives on through the thousands of people that he blessed through meeting. We dedicate this song to Psplifff and his mother, the amazing Mammasplifff, and all the beautiful people on the right side of history showing up right now. We love you!"
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SONGHOY BLUES - "BADALA"
Malian band Songhoy Blues announced a new album, Optimisme, due out October 23 via Fat Possum Records. The title of new single "Badala" translates to "I don't care" or "I don't give a shit," and is written from the perspective of an oppressed woman.
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PUP - "A.M. 180" (GRANDADDY COVER)
PUP have a new quarantine zine called -- wait for it -- Quaranzine and they also released a cover of Grandaddy's "A.M. 180," which they basically turn into a PUP song and it totally works. "Grandaddy are one of the unsung hero bands of indie rock," said PUP drummer Zack Mykula. "A best kept secret. I mean, forgive me for going ham, but this song is like a lily in an otherwise barren valley. An outstanding piece of songwriting, doing more with less than most any other song of the same caliber. So, that's why we decided to cover it." Read more about it here.
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BON IVER - "AUATC" (ft. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, JENNY LEWIS & MORE)
Bon Iver has released his second new song of 2020, featuring a lot of guests, including, yes, Bruce Springsteen. Read more here.
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MACHINEDRUM - "KANE TRAIN" (ft. FREDDIE GIBBS)
Machinedrum has announced a new album and released this great new single featuring Freddie Gibbs, which you can read more about here.
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SOLSTAFIR - "AKKERI"
Icelandic post-rock/post-black metal greats Sólstafir have announced a new album and shared this ten-minute lead single, which you can read more about here.
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ARMANI CAESAR - "SIMPLY DONE" (ft. BENNY THE BUTCHER, prod. DJ PREMIER)
Fresh off a standout verse on Westside Gunn's recently-released album Flygod Is An Awesome God 2, Armani Caesar has made her Griselda debut with new song featuring Benny the Butcher and produced by DJ Premier. Read more here.
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TOBACCO - "BABYSITTER" (ft. TRENT REZNOR)
TOBACCO has announced a new album and shared a new song featuring one of his recent tourmates: Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor. Read more about it here.
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GOJIRA - "ANOTHER WORLD"
French metallers Gojira have released their first new single since 2016's Magma, and you can read more about it here.
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THE MENZINGERS - "HIGH SCHOOL FRIEND" & "STRAWBERRY MISSION" (ACOUSTIC)
The Menzingers announced an acoustic, reworked version of last year's Hello Exile and going by these two songs, it's gonna be very cool and more than your "average" acoustic album. Read more here.
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EASTWOOD (KNOCKED LOOSE) - "FALSE START" (ft. MICROWAVE'S NATHAN HARDY)
Cole Crutchfield, guitarist of the great metalcore/hardcore band Knocked Loose, also has an indie/emo side project called Eastwood, and today he announced the project's debut album and shared this song featuring Microwave frontman Nathan Hardy. Read more and hear two other songs here.
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TOOTH AND CLAW (EARTH CRISIS, CATHARSIS, etc) - "KISS OF NIGHT"
Tooth and Claw -- a new metallic hardcore supergroup with members of Earth Crisis, Catharsis, Die Young, Sect, Magnitude, Ecostrike, and more -- have released their first song. Read more about it here.
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CAVERN - "GREY"
Cavern's upcoming album was recorded with Converge's Kurt Ballou and mastered by Cult of Luna's Magnus Lindberg, and it's like a mix of Deafheaven/Alcest-y black metal, early 2000s post-hardcore, and sludgy shoegaze, with bassist/vocalist Rose Heater's soaring, melodic vocals bringing it to a whole new level. Read more about it here.
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TIM HEIDECKER - "FEAR OF DEATH"
Tim Heidecker is a talented musician and songwriter in addition to the comedy stylings he's mainly known for, and has announced a new album, Fear of Death, which will be out September 25 via Spacebomb. Like his last two albums, this was produced by Foxygen's Jonathan Rado and it features help from Weyes Blood, The Lemon Twigs, and Drew Erickson (Jonathan Wilson, Dawes). Here's the title track.
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EARTHEATER - "HOW TO FIGHT"
Eartheater will release new album Phoenix: Flames Are Dew Upon My Skin on October 2 via PAN. The album's new single, "How to Fight," reflects the album's volcanic themes, and it's video seems to be where the album's striking, fiery artwork comes from.
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Looking for even more new songs? Browse the ‘New Songs’ archive.