14 Best Songs of the Week: Girl Scout, Amyl and The Sniffers, Magdalena Bay, Nick Cave, and More
May 31, 2024
Welcome to the 18th Songs of the Week of 2024. We didn’t do a Songs of the Week last week because of the Memorial Day long weekend, so this list covers the best songs released in the last two weeks. This week Andy Von Pip, Matt the Raven, and Scott Dransfield helped me decide what should make the list. We seriously considered over 30 songs this week and narrowed it down to a Top 14.
Recently we announced our new print issue, The ’90s Issue, featuring The Cardigans and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth on the covers. Buy it from us directly here.
To help you sort through the multitude of fresh songs released in the last two weeks, we have picked the 11 best the last 14 days had to offer, followed by some honorable mentions. Check out the full list below.
1.Girl Scout: “I Just Needed You to Know”
Swedish indie band Girl Scout is back and sounding more expansive than ever with their electrifying new single “I Just Needed You to Know,” released this week. It’s an explosive return and their first new material since their acclaimed 2023 debut EP, and it shows the band pushing in new directions.
The song sounds huge, and was mixed by the renowned Alex Farrar, known for his work with Wednesday, Indigo De Souza, and Hotline TNT. With its infectious ‘90s alt-rock vibes, explosive guitars, and a soaring chorus, this sounds like Girl Scout version 2.0.
They’ll be playing it live on their upcoming UK and European tour, where they’ll be joining Alvvays as well as headlining numerous shows and festivals.
“‘I Just Needed You To Know’ was birthed during a spontaneous jam session in the middle of rehearsing for tour,” says vocalist/guitarist Emma Jansson. “Starting with Viktor toying with the opening riff, almost the entire song was just the band playing in a room with the mics rolling. We wanted the raw energy of the song to remain, so not much has been done to it.”
“The phrase ‘it is what it is’ is one that I hear a lot amongst the older generations,” she adds about the lyrical side of the song. “To me, it feels like a way to avoid acknowledging hard times or difficult feelings. It’s such a stifling phrase. What if that’s not enough? What if I want more than to grit my teeth and move on? I think there is a clear generational divide when it comes to the language surrounding mental health, and the willingness to understand the causes behind it.” By Andy Von Pip
2. Amyl and The Sniffers: “U Should Not Be Doing That”
This week, Australian punks Amyl and The Sniffers shared two new songs, “U Should Not Be Doing That” and “Facts,” the former via a music video. Both are out now via B2B Records / Virgin Music Group. “U Should Not Be Doing That” was our definite favorite of the two songs.
The band features Amy Taylor, Dec Martens, Gus Romer, and Bryce Wilson. They recorded the songs with Nick Launay (Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Yeah Yeah Yeahs). Steven Ogg appears in the video. Described as standalone singles, the songs follow the band’s 2021 album, Comfort to Me.
Taylor had this to say in a press release: “Lyrically they’re both pretty self-explanatory. ‘U Should Not Be Doing That’ makes me laugh, but it’s also in a way poking fun at the shock that people still feel at a little bit of skimpy clothing, and the bitchy high school way that the music community still is (yes I’m talking to you random 40 year old metalheads sitting around a table doing lines and bitching about a 28 year old chick in a band for wearing shorts and ‘selling out’) but it mainly makes me laugh. It’s unconscious and meant nothing at the time of writing it but now I think it’s a comedic way of rubbing the dog’s nose in its own dog piss after it wee’d on your favorite rug or something.” By Mark Redfern
3. Magdalena Bay: “Death & Romance”
This week, Los Angeles-based electro-pop duo Magdalena Bay (aka Mica Tenenbaum and Matthew Lewin) shared a new song, “Death & Romance,” and have announced The Imaginal Mystery Tour, a U.S. tour this fall. The new single is the duo’s first release for Mom + Pop, which announced last year that they had signed Magdalena Bay. Check out the tour dates here.
The band collectively had this to say about the song in a press release: “Imagine rain pouring, streetlights glowing. You sit at home and wait for your alien boyfriend to pick you up in his UFO…but this time, he’s not coming.”
“Death & Romance” follows 2023’s mini mix vol. 3, a surprise-released a seven-song EP and an accompanying short film that featured videos for every song. The EP’s “Wandering Eyes” made our Songs of the Week list.
In 2021, Magdalena Bay released their debut album, Mercurial World, which was one of our Top 100 Albums of 2021 and several songs from the album were featured on our Top 130 Songs of 2021 list. Then in 2022 they released a deluxe edition of the album that included several bonus tracks and remixes incorporated into the main tracklist of the original album, presenting a completely different listening experience.
Read our interview with Magdalena Bay on Mercurial World here. By Mark Redfern
“Frogs” was the first song written for Wild God. “The sheer exuberance of a song like ‘Frogs,’ it just puts a big fucking smile on my face,” says Cave in a press release.
Previously Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds shared the album’s first single, title track “Wild God,” which was one of our Songs of the Week.
Wild God is Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ 18th studio album and is the follow-up to 2019’s acclaimed Ghosteen, which was #3 on our Top 100 Albums of 2019 list.
Cave and bandmate Warren Ellis produced the album, which was mixed by David Fridmann. Cave started writing the album on New Year’s Day 2023 and there were recording sessions at Miraval Studios in Provence, France and Soundtree Studios in London, England. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds are Cave, Ellis, Thomas Wydler, Martyn Casey, Jim Sclavunos, and George Vjestica. The album also features Colin Greenwood of Radiohead (who contributes bass) and Luis Almau (on nylon string guitar and acoustic guitar).
“I hope the album has the effect on listeners that it’s had on me,” Cave said in a previous press release. “It bursts out of the speaker, and I get swept up with it. It’s a complicated record, but it’s also deeply and joyously infectious. There is never a master plan when we make a record. The records rather reflect back the emotional state of the writers and musicians who played them. Listening to this, I don’t know, it seems we’re happy.”
Cave added: “Wild God…there’s no fucking around with this record. When it hits, it hits. It lifts you. It moves you. I love that about it.”
Nick Cave and Warren Ellis recently scored the new Amy Winehouse biopic, Back to Black. Two albums for the film were released, its soundtrack and its score album. In April, Cave and Ellis shared “Song For Amy,” which is found on both albums. By Mark Redfern
The band collectively had this to say about the track in a press release: “‘Raining on Your Pillow’ is a song which brings to mind the shameful past (and present) of American imperialism. Lost in a terrifying landscape, a lone soldier ruminates on the existence of a landscape of his own far removed from conflict. Does it matter if this place is real or not? Is a false sense of hope enough to give our lives meaning in the midst of despair? A looping guitar figure plays underneath a driving rhythm in a cloud of murky atmosphere of analog synths and tape loops. Menacing, doomed, and strangely hopeful.”
Also below is the video for another Frog in Boiling Water track, “Soul Net.” The band originally shared the audio of the song last October exclusively via a strange website of the same name, but more recently they shared a video of the song to YouTube.
The album’s “Soul Net” and “Frog in Boiling Water” were also shared via mysterious websites created by the band.
DIIV is Andrew Bailey, Colin Caulfield, Ben Newman, and Zachary Cole Smith. Frog in Boiling Water is the follow-up to Deceiver, which came out in 2019 via Captured Tracks. It’s been five years since that album and DIIV spent four of those making the new record, a process that a press release says almost broke the band as they strived to push their sound. This is also the first album where the band acted as a democracy. “This journey left their relationships with one another fraying, with the many complex dynamics of family, friendship and finances entangled, coupled with suspicions, resentments, bruised egos and anxious questions,” stated the press release announcing the album.
The album’s title was inspired by Daniel Quinn’s 1996 philosophical novel The Story of B. The band collectively explained more about the title in the previous press release: “If you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will of course frantically try to clamber out. But if you place it gently in a pot of tepid water and turn the heat on low, the frog will sink into a tranquil stupor, exactly like one of us in a hot bath, and before long, with a smile on its face, it will unresistingly allow itself to be boiled to death.
“We understand the metaphor to be one about a slow, sick, and overwhelmingly banal collapse of society under end-stage capitalism, the brutal realities we’ve maybe come to accept as normal. That’s the boiling water and we are the frogs. The album is more or less a collection of snapshots from various angles of our modern condition which we think highlights what this collapse looks like and, more particularly, what it feels like.”
6. Chinese American Bear: “Feelin’ Fuzzy (毛绒绒的感觉)”
This week, Seattle-based C-pop duo Chinese American Bear shared a new song, “Feelin’ Fuzzy (毛绒绒的感觉),” via a music video. It is their first release for the British label Moshi Moshi (Girl Ray, Hot Chip, Anna Meredith).
Chinese American Bear are married couple Bryce Barsten and Anne Tong and they sing in both English and Mandarin. While they started the band mainly for fun, the positive reaction to initial singles “Hao Ma” and “Dumpling” led them to be signed to China’s largest indie label, Modern Sky, and also to Moshi Moshi.
Tong had this to say about the song in a press release: “When I was writing the lyrics for this song I wanted to lean more into my experiences growing up in a Chinese immigrant household. I had a stereotypical tiger mom who had very high academic expectations and set very strict household rules. When I was a teenager I was never allowed to go to friend’s homes after school, never allowed to go to parties or school dances on weekends, and definitely not allowed to date. My days were strictly focused on studying, practicing piano, and preparing for exams. This song is about what I longed to do during my teenage years instead of the upbringing I actually had. I have very vivid memories of my mom saying the same things over and over again, reminding me to study and practice over and over again. I wanted to capture that repetitiveness in this song. I’m hoping other kids of immigrants can relate to it!” By Mark Redfern
7. Unessential Oils: “Overwhelmed and Unprepared”
Unessential Oils is the project of Warren Spicer, singer/songwriter for Montreal trio Plants and Animals. Unessential Oils’ self-titled debut album came out today via a Secret City. Ahead of that, earlier this week Spicer has shared one last pre-release single from it, “Overwhelmed and Unprepared,” via a music video.
Spicer had this to say about the song in a press release: “This song is really about the death of my parents and the birth of my children. The stories in the verses are the kinds of things that live on the surface of our conscience while the real meaning of the song is like the hidden emotions that live underneath. In death and birth we become overwhelmed and feel unprepared, we become very instinctual and pure. This is how life works, very profound experiences and mundane experiences are always combined and layered. The long instrumental section at the end is a spiritual movement, my way of connecting with the powers that flow through.”
La Luz released a new album, News of the Universe, last Friday via Sub Pop. Last week they also shared its fourth single, “Always in Love,” via a music video. Read our review of the album, which we posted last Friday, here.
The band is led by guitarist, singer, and songwriter Shana Cleveland. She had this to say about the new single in a press release: “To me this song is the heart of the album. I get emotional every time I hear it. Lyrically it’s about realizing that love is the only thing that matters and that it’s always a choice that I’m able to make. It’s hard to explain how huge that is, but if you get it you get it. In the guitar solo that closes the song I can hear myself blasting through all the fear and stress of the year before, the most difficult time of my life, and moving past all of that propelled by the dedication to live in love. The video for this song is inspired by the Japanese camp horror film House.”
News of the Universe follows 2021’s La Luz, which was released on Hardly Art, Sub Pop’s sister label, which makes this their debut on Sub Pop proper.
Cleveland was diagnosed with breast cancer two years after the birth of her son, which led to the postponement of shows in 2022.
“Seeing the cycle of life, seeing things grow out of decay, the decay of other living things—was super comforting to me. I had to get to a place where I felt more comfortable with the idea of death,” Cleveland said of the new album in a previous press release.
News of the Universe features a changing of the guard in terms of La Luz’s lineup—it’s the first appearance for drummer Audrey Johnson and the final ones from longtime members Lena Simon (bass) and Alice Sandahl (keyboards).
La Luz worked with producer Maryam Qudos (Spacemoth) on the album and the collaboration went so well that Qudos has joined the band as their new keyboardist.
“There are moments on this album that sound to me like the last frantic confession before an asteroid destroys the earth,” said Cleveland, summing up News of the Universe.
Charly Bliss are releasing a new album, FOREVER, on August 16 via Lucky Number. This week they shared its second single, “Calling You Out,” via a music video. They also announced some tour dates for this fall. Check out the tour dates here.
Charly Bliss is Eva Hendricks, Sam Hendricks, Spencer Fox, and Dan Shure. Sam Hendricks co-produced the album with Jake Luppen (Hippo Campus) and Caleb Wright (Samia).
Hendricks had this to say about “Calling You Out” in a press release: “Falling in love with someone wonderful, I didn’t know how to not fall into the same bullshit that was part of all my previous relationships—namely jealousy. I wasted a lot of time at the beginning trying to poke holes, to see if it was all for real. I think I was trying to protect myself, I’ll find the catch before the catch finds me! But there was no catch.”
Adam Kolodny directed the “Calling You Out” video and a press release states that it’s “inspired by the Beastie Boys “Shake Your Rump” music video from 1989 and Wong Kar-wai’s 1995 film Fallen Angels.”
Previously the band shared the album’s first single, “Nineteen,” via a music video. “Nineteen” was one of our Songs of the Week.
Khan had this to say about the song in a post on Facebook: “I improvised this song, all the piano and vocoder parts, from start to finish. The words are all about the hallucinatory state of being sleep deprived in the night, breastfeeding, rocking the baby: so tired, so aware that I almost have no say in this devotional nocturnal practice of caring for my child. ”
Bat For Lashes previously shared the album’s title track via a music video. It was one of our Songs of the Week. Then she shared its second single, “Letter to My Daughter,” in which she sang to her daughter. It was also one of our Songs of the Week. Then she shared its third single, “Home,” which was a cover of a remix of a song by American producer/musician Baauer.
The Dream of Delphi is the sixth Bat For Lashes album and follows 2019’s Lost Girls. The album is named after her daughter, who was born in 2020. “I thought motherhood would take me away from my art, but it opened up this massive world,” says Khan.
Bat For Lashes was one of the artists on the cover of our 20th Anniversary Issue, which you can still buy directly from us here.
This week, Brooklyn-based psych-rock quintet GIFT announced a new album, Illuminator, and shared a new song from it, “Going In Circles,” via a music video. They also announced some tour dates. Illuminator is due out August 23 via Captured Tracks. Check out the album’s tracklist and cover artwork, as well as the tour dates, here.
Illuminator is the band’s sophomore album and first for Captured Tracks. It follows their 2022 debut, Momentary Presence, released via Dedstrange. The album includes “Wish Me Away,” a new song GIFT shared in April via a music video. “Wish Me Away” was one of our Songs of the Week.
GIFT features vocalist/guitarist TJ Freda, multi-instrumentalists Jessica Gurewitz and Justin Hrabovsky, drummer Gabe Camarano, and bassist Kallan Campbell.
Freda had this to say about “Going In Circles” in a press release: “This was the first song I wrote for Illuminator that helped me realize the direction of the album. I wrote the chorus while passively playing guitar and rushed to record the idea. At that moment, something clicked and I realized where the album was going. At our shows from the Momentary Presence tour, people would stand in the crowd wide-eyed without moving. We wanted to get people moving with the new album, so we were really inspired by bands like Primal Scream, Oasis, and Massive Attack. It’s our psych-rock tribute to U.K. rave culture in the ’90s.
“The song is about the endless cycle of a relationship, the back and forth in both euphoria and doubt. The chorus “I never told you why’ is about never being able to say how you really feel, not having closure and the cycle continuing.”
Of the new album as a whole, Freda says: “We had a lot more confidence going in. The main goal was to take a big swing, embrace the pop sounds we love and clear the mist and clouds surrounding the last record to make it a lot punchier.” By Mark Redfern
12. Storefront Church: “Melting Mirror”
Storefront Church (the Los Angeles-based project of Lukas Frank) is releasing a new album, Ink & Oil, on June 28. Last week he shared another new song from it, the orchestral and theatrical track “Melting Mirror.”
Ink & Oil includes the lush, string-backed “The High Room,” which was shared in March and was one of our Songs of the Week. When the album was announced the next single, “Coal,” was shared, as well as a live video for the song. “Coal” was also one of our Songs of the Week.
The album was inspired by Frank’s great uncle, Roger, who was serving a five-year sentence for a desertion charge of the Army in 1993 when he disappeared from his cell and was never found, leaving only an orange behind. From there, things get decidely more ghostly, as a press release explains in more detail:
“When he was just 5 years old, Lukas began receiving visitations from his elusive uncle through vivid, recurring nightmares. Roger would come to Lukas in his room and try to speak with him, but Roger’s mouth wasn’t working; like it was glued shut. In his hands was a large orange, the skin peeled back, and written in the rind were words in black ink.
“The subsequent years of his life spent between LA, with family on the East Coast and a solitary sabbatical in Connecticut, have been inexplicably haunted by sensory ‘manifestations’ seemingly tied to his uncle’s presence. Images of a black rope hanging in the sky, a flock of black birds swarming inside the supermarket, and phone calls from unknown numbers asking him unnervingly prescient questions have all struck Lukas at various points. Stuck in limbo between walking nightmares and existential visions, Lukas’ perspective shifted with his return to Los Angeles while working on this body of work. Instead of feeling like the visions and dreams were intruders in the night, they became visitors—not always welcome or understood—but accepted as integral pieces of the narrative of Ink & Oil.”
Storefront Church’s debut album, As We Pass, came out in 2021 via Sargent House. That album’s lead single, “After the Alphabets,” which featured Cole Smith of DIIV, was one of our Songs of the Week. Previously, Storefront Church’s “The Gift” was featured on the soundtrack to Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit. More recently, Frank collaborated with Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier on the track “La Langue Bleue,” which was featured in an episode of the AMC series Monsieur Spade. By Mark Redfern
13. Rosie Lowe: “Mood to Make Love”
Last week, British singer/songwriter Rosie Lowe shared a new song, “Mood to Make Love,” via a music video. The self-produced single is out now via Blue Flowers. Her brother, Louis Hemming-Lowe, directed the song’s video.
Rosie Lowe had this to say about the song in a press release: “‘Mood to Make Love’ was written on a warm evening in Spain and we wanted it to sound like our surroundings. It is a moment of self love and an acknowledgement of what I have to offer my partner.”
Of the video she adds: “I knew I wanted to keep the team small and work with people I know, trust and love so I decided to collaborate with my big brother, a director, on the music videos. We wanted the visuals to feel much like a dream sequence. We shot it on a very cold January morning on a small rowing boat on a river in Devon, and somehow lucked out with the one sunny day we got in January!”
Louis Hemming-Lowe had this to say about the video: “I wanted to create an abstract, fantasy feel with hand drawn animation elements and dream sequence symbolic connectivity. Themes of nostalgia, looking back, looking forward, time and repetition, the reliving of episodes and memories, beginning and ending, life and death. I wanted the viewer to do the work to figure these out, much like waking up from a dream and trying to decipher the meaning.” By Mark Redfern
“Once in a while there’s a song that feels like I’ve been trying to write it my whole life,” says Powers in a press release. “‘Lucy’ is one of those.”
Powers adds: “My only concern now with music is bringing the inner world to life. It’s not about making something better—it’s about making something true. Songs were a lot harder to write when I hated myself. When my soul changed, my music did too.”
Powers wrote “Lucy Takes a Picture” at home in Idaho and then recorded it in Los Angeles with co-producer Rodaidh McDonald (Weyes Blood, The xx, Gil Scott-Heron). Regular collaborator Tyler T. Williams directed the song’s video.
Powers goes into deeper detail on the genesis of the new song: “In February, I walked past a bus stop and noticed a small piece of paper tucked into the bars of a metal bench. In shaky handwriting that looked both deranged and Biblical, the note said, ‘This is the tale of my resurrection. I died so I could live again.’ l found the nearest patch of grass and lay down like a dummy. This note was either a message from an angel or the ravings of a pharmaceutical junkie—maybe both. Either way it was just for me. I don’t think it’s possible to have true character without first catching a glimpse of hell. Maybe that’s what it meant? In the words of W.H. Auden, ‘Don’t get rid of my devils, because my angels will go too.’ Whatever this poetic rascal, angel or imp was getting at, these words rang the bell of my soul. I went home and wrote ‘Lucy Takes a Picture.’”
“Lucy Takes a Picture” follows another new song, “Football,” Youth Lagoon shared in January that was one of our Songs of the Week.
After releasing two albums under his given name, last year Powers revived his Youth Lagoon moniker and released a new album under that name, Heaven Is a Junkyard, in June 2024 via Fat Possum.
When Heaven Is a Junkyard was announced, Youth Lagoon shared the album’s first single, “Idaho Alien,” via a music video. “Idaho Alien” was one of our Songs of the Week. Then he shared the album’s second single, “Prizefighter,” via a music video, and announced some new tour dates. The third single was “The Sling” (also one of our Songs of the Week).
As Youth Lagoon, Powers released three albums: 2011’s The Year of Hibernation, 2013’s Wondrous Bughouse, and 2015’s Savage Hills Ballroom. Then he retired the name in 2016 and released two albums simply as Trevor Powers: 2018’s Mulberry Violence and 2020’s surprise-released Capricorn.
