12 Best Songs of the Week: The Horrors, Sharon Van Etten, Cheekface, and Hot Chip & Sleaford Mods

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12 Best Songs of the Week: The Horrors, Sharon Van Etten, Cheekface, and Hot Chip & Sleaford Mods

Plus Sky Ferreira, girlpuppy, Madi Diaz, and a Wrap-up of the Last Two Weeks’ Other Notable New Tracks

Dec 06, 2024 By Mark Redfern

Welcome to the 39th Songs of the Week of 2024. We didn’t do a Songs of the Week last week, due to the Thanksgiving break, so this week’s list covers the last two weeks. This week Andy Von Pip, Caleb Campbell, and Scotty Dransfield helped me decide what should make the list. We considered over 30 songs and narrowed it down to a Top 12. 

Issue 73 is out now. It features Maya Hawke and Nilüfer Yanya on the two covers and can be bought from us directly here.

Our Black Friday Sale continues, with 40% off subscriptions and 50% off back issues.

In recent weeks we posted interviews with The Jesus and Mary Chain, John Davis of Superdrag, Chinese American Bear, Nada Surf, and more.

In the last week we reviewed some albums.

To help you sort through the multitude of fresh songs released in the last two weeks, we have picked the 12 best the last 14 days had to offer, followed by some honorable mentions. Check out the full list below.

1. The Horrors: “Lotus Eater”

The Horrors are releasing a new album, Night Life, on March 21, 2025 via Fiction. This week they shared its third single, the seven-minute long “Lotus Eater.”

The band collectively had this to say about the new single in a press release: “‘Lotus Eater’ has had several past lives. It was one of the first songs from the Night Life sessions that we felt really excited about—Rhys’ original lyric had a feeling that made me think of ‘5 Years’ by David Bowie, and I started to build on the idea.

“A lotus eater lives in a state of blissful ignorance, and the song to me describes the moment of coming back to reality. We wanted it to have a feeling of both melancholy and euphoria, letting go of the past and starting again.

“The spoken word section was improvised in the studio, and the mid-section of chopped-up electronics came from Amelia’s world of synth programming. It feels almost like a sister track to ‘Sea Within a Sea’ in some ways, and it’s one of our favourite songs on the new album.”

Previously they shared the album’s first single, “The Silence That Remains,” which was one of our Songs of the Week. Then they shared its second single, “Trial By Fire,” via a music video. “Trial By Fire” was also one of our Songs of the Week.

Night Life will be the band’s first new album in eight years and features a revised lineup. The Horrors’ last album was 2017’s V, although in 2021 they released the Lout and Against the Blade EPs. The band still features vocalist Faris Badwan and bassist Rhys Webb, but those founding members are now joined by new members Amelia Kidd on keyboards and Jordan Cook (of the band Telegram) on drums. Original member Joshua Hayward also plays guitar on the album. Absent are original members, keyboardist Tom Furse (who left the band in 2021) and drummer Joe Spurgeon.

Badwan and Webb began working on demos in Webb’s North London flat, with recording done in Los Angeles with producer Yves Rothman (Yves Tumor, Blondshell). The album was then finished in London along with guitarist Hayward. Kidd also contributed remotely from Glasgow.

Read our 2017 interview with The Horrors on V.

Read our rave 8.5/10 review of V.

Farris Badwan was one of the artists on the cover of our 20th Anniversary Issue.

2. Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory: “Southern Life (What It Must Be Like)”

Sharon Van Etten is releasing a new album written and recorded with her backing band, The Attachment Theory, simply titled Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory, on February 7, 2025 via Jagjaguwar. This week they shared its second single, “Southern Life (What It Must Be Like),” via a music video. They have also announced some new April and May U.S. tour dates.

In a press release, Van Etten says the song is about “trying to understand people with very different perspectives and backgrounds, while also trying to be compassionate towards our past, present, and future selves.”

It was one of the first songs the band wrote for the album, after a rehearsal for the We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong tour. “After days of rehearsing the songs from the album and how to execute them live, I was getting tired of hearing myself,” says Van Etten. “I didn’t want to over rehearse the songs to death. And so, for the first time ever, I asked if the band just wanted to ‘jam,’ play without it having to be something, to clear our heads.”

Ethan Dawes directed the song’s video, which features 35mm footage from the band’s recent surprise performance at The Viper Room in Los Angeles.

Previously Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory shared the album’s first single, “Afterlife,” via a music video. It was one of our Songs of the Week.

The Attachment Theory is Jorge Balbi (drums, machines), Devra Hoff (bass, vocals), and Teeny Lieberson (synth, piano, guitar, vocals). While they have previously backed Van Etten on some of her solo work, this was the first time that the singer/songwriter/guitarist wrote and recorded an album in full collaboration with the band.

“For the first time in my life I asked the band if we could just jam. Words that have never come out of my mouth—ever! But I loved all the sounds we were getting. I was curious—what would happen?” says Van Etten in a press release. “In an hour we wrote two songs that ended up becoming ‘I Can’t Imagine’ and ‘Southern Life.’”

Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory was recorded at The Church, Eurythmics’ former studio in London, and was produced by Marta Salogni (Björk, Bon Iver, Animal Collective, Mica Levi).

“Sometimes it’s exciting, sometimes it’s scary, sometimes you feel stuck,” Van Etten says of fully collaborating with her band on the album. “It’s like every day feels a little different—just being at peace with whatever you’re feeling and whoever you are and how you relate to people in that moment. If I can just keep a sense of openness while knowing that my feelings change every day, that is all I can do right now. That and try to be the best person I can be while letting other people be who they are and not taking it personally and just being. I’m not there, but I’m trying to be there every day.”

Van Etten was on the cover of our My Favorite Movie issue.

Van Etten’s most recent album was We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong, which was released in May 2022 and landed on our Top 100 Albums of 2022 list. A deluxe edition of the album was released in November 2022.

Read our review of We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong here.

Read our in-depth interview with Sharon Van Etten on 2019’s Remind Me Tomorrow and check out our exclusive photo shoot with her.

3. Cheekface: “Hard Mode”

Los Angeles-based indie rock trio Cheekface surprise-released a new album, It’s Sorted, in March. This week they shared a brand new single, “Hard Mode,” and announced some 2025 tour dates.

“Hard Mode” follows “Flies,” another new single the band shared in October via an amusing music video. The song features Jeff Rosenstock on baritone saxophone and was one of our Songs of the Week.

Cheekface is vocalist/guitarist Greg Katz, bassist Amanda Tannen (formerly of stellastarr*), and drummer Mark “Echo” Edwards.

Katz had this to say about the song in the press release: “This song is about growth and how fucking awkward it is, and it’s about growth’s younger sibling self-awareness, which is not the same as growth, and twice as awkward. The phrase ‘living life on hard mode’ is something our touring keyboard player AJ likes to say when he does something that makes a routine task needlessly difficult, like reaching for something in a clumsy way when you could just ask someone to hand it to you.”

Katz adds: “I guess being in a band is a pretty hard-mode activity in general. I think the start of this musical idea was us wanting to do a dance song with a skittering hi-hat beat. Mandy came up with the super syncopated bassline and then I added the chunky guitar riff that became the chorus. It started as a really short song idea, maybe just two minutes long. But once the three of us started to learn it, we were having fun with the groove and wanted it to just keep going, so we stretched it out with the instrumental section…. This song also has an outro, which I don’t know if we’ve ever had in a song before––usually they just end. But we were touring this year with Yungatita and their song ‘Pick at Your Face’ has a really nifty outro. After hearing it every night for a month we were duly inspired.”

It’s Sorted includes “The Fringe,” a new song we posted last year that was one of our Songs of the Week. When the album was released they shared a video for “Life in a Bag,” which also made our Songs of the Week list.

Cheekface’s previous album was 2022’s Too Much to Ask. It included the songs “Pledge Drive” and “We Need a Bigger Dumpster.”

Read our interview with Cheekface on It’s Sorted.

Read our review of It’s Sorted.

4. Hot Chip and Sleaford Mods: “Nom Nom Nom”

Last week, Hot Chip and Sleaford Mods teamed up for two new collaborative songs, “Nom Nom Nom” and “Cat Burglar,” with their release benefiting the UK charity War Child. Both songs were recorded on the same day in Abbey Road Studios. The bands are jokingly referring to the collaboration as Hot Mods. “Nom Nom Nom” was our favorite of the two tracks and it makes the main list, with “Cat Burglar” an honorable mention below.

The two songs are being released on 7-inch vinyl via Friendly Records. They are limited to 1,000 copies, with 900 being yellow transparent vinyl available for £20 via Bandcamp and further 100 special edition copies in red available for £30 exclusively from Friendly Records Bristol.

Sleaford Mods had this to say about the songs in a press release: “It was both a surprise and a great honor to be asked to go to Abbey Road to collaborate with Hot Chip. We’ve always admired Hot Chip’s wall of sound-esque, club culture aesthetic, and obviously Abbey Road needs no introduction. On the day, we went in cold and just handed ourselves over to it. ‘Nom Nom Nom’ is a lyrical continuation of ‘UK GRIM’ over a keyboard riff from Andrew, built on by Hot Chip, finishing up with an excellent chorus from Alexis. ‘Cat Burglar’ is in the same vein, a weird Prog Rock meets B52’s jam that discusses again, the narrow corridors of modern human experience. The cover art from the great David Shrigley is the cherry on the cake, as it perfectly represents the music and lyrics. All creativity aside, most importantly we’ve donated the tunes to War Child. They’re doing important work in a time where the world is in chaos and although we can’t fix the chaos, we can do a bit to help.”

Hot Chip had this to say: “Making these songs over the course of one day at Abbey Road was a great experience. We arrived without a plan but quickly began working together in a harmonious way, with lots of improvisation and very little ego. We are very grateful to Sleaford Mods for joining us and very proud of the result.”

War Child issued this statement: “We’re so grateful for the ongoing support from Sleaford Mods and Hot Chip and for their decision to donate the fantastic tracks ‘Nom Nom Nom’ and ‘Cat Burglar.’ We’d also like to thank David Shrigley for the brilliant design. The world is more dangerous than ever before, particularly for children affected by conflict and the continued generosity of the artists we work with enables us to get children safe, deliver the vital mental health first aid they need to help them deal with the trauma they’ve experienced, and get them back into education.”

Friendly Records add: “We’ve been working with War Child for a few years now and are immensely proud of the shows we’ve put on with them, the recent run of 7-inch singles we’ve released and most of all the amount of money that’s been raised. This latest 7-inch from Sleaford Mods and Hot Chip (with the added bonus of a David Shrigley designed sleeve!) is yet another brilliant addition to the 7-inch releases and will again be raising even more money and awareness for the brilliant War Child charity.”

Hot Chip’s latest album was 2022’s Freakout/Release, put out by Domino.

Read the My Favorite Album article Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor wrote for us about Prince.

Sleaford Mods’ last album, UK GRIM, came out last year on Rough Trade,

Listen to our interview with Sleaford Mods in a 2021 episode of our podcast.

Donate directly to War Child UK here.

Or donate to their U.S. fundraising arm, Children in Conflict, here.

5. Sky Ferreira: “Leash”

This week, Sky Ferreira shared a new song, “Leash.” It is taken from the soundtrack to the forthcoming film Babygirl, which stars Nicole Kidman and will be released on Christmas Day by A24. It is also Ferreira’s first new song in two years and her first song since being dropped by Capitol Records.

Ferreira co-wrote the song with frequent collaborator Jorge Elbrecht. It follows another song the pair produced together, 2022’s “Don’t Forget,” which at the time was her first single in three years. In 2019, Ferreira shared the single “Downhill Lullaby,” which was one of our Songs of the Week.

Her acclaimed debut album, Night Time, My Time, was released in 2013. Since then, she has long promised the release of her second album, Masochism, but issues with her former label seem to have contributed to its delayed release. The album’s title was announced way back in 2015, but a press release says the album is “now set for launch, marking a significant return for the artist.”

Halina Reijn wrote and directed Babygirl, which, along with Kidman, also stars Harris Dickinson, Sophie Wilde, and Antonio Banderas. According to the press release, “the film tells the tale of a high-powered CEO who puts her career and family on the line when she begins a torrid affair with her much younger intern.” “Leash” is said to be featured prominently in the film.