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11 New Songs Out Today

So many artists, so little time. Each week we review five 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, show recaps, track premieres, and more all day. That includes a lot of tour announcements, a list of tonight’s NYC shows, and NY shows that just went on sale. 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…

THE MOUNTAIN GOATS – IN LEAGUE WITH DRAGONS (ALBUM STREAM)

John Darnielle calls the new Mountain Goats album “dragon noir” but you don’t need to own a 20-sided die or even know what “D&D” stands for to enjoy it. In League with Dragons is out Friday but you can listen to the whole thing now via NPR. and check out “Sicilian Crest” below.

ALEX CAMERON – LIVE IN SAN FRANCISCO (ALBUM STREAM)

Castle Face Records, the label co-run by Oh Sees frontman John Dwyer, wraps up their “Live in San Francisco” series with this document of Alex Cameron’s show at Swedish American Music Hall. The show was billed as semi-formal, or as Dwyer puts it “get dressed up and messed up,” and the classy nature can be heard in the mix.

L7 – “STADIUM WEST”

Grunge vets L7 will release new album Scatter the Rats — their first in 20 years — next week via Joan Jett’s Blackhearts Records and they have just shared another track from it — the driving punk number “Stadium West.” There’s even more driving in the video.

REMO DRIVE – “TWO BUX” & “THE GRIND”

Minnesota’s Remo Drive are releasing their new album Natural, Everyday Degradation on May 31 via Epitaph, and they’re currently streaming two singles, each of which shows off a different side of Remo Drive’s indie rock-oriented pop punk. Vocalist/guitarist Erik Paulson says “‘Two Bux’ is about coming of age, moral conflict, and guilt. At some point in most people’s lives, they decide they would like to try some of the things their childhood rulebook would not allow. These experiences have the power to be both pleasurable and confusing. More often than not, it is some combination of both.” And he adds that “The Grind” is “about the tensions of being in a band written in the style of a love song. Creating music, traveling, and performing are, in their center, nearly identical to the things that make romantic, familial, and platonic relationships so impactful. The aforementioned experiences are also the same things that make these relationships so difficult. It felt natural and cathartic to tie these ideas together by way of a song.” The album was produced by Hop Along’s Joe Reinhart and mixed by Peter Katis (The National, Interpol).

THIN LIPS – CARROT MILK (EP STREAM)

Philadelphia indie-punks Thin Lips released the great Chosen Family last year, and as they kick off their tour with Camp Cope and Oceanator (which includes a BrooklynVegan-presented show at Warsaw on Thursday 4/25), they’ve shared a new EP. “Carrot Milk is very different than anything I’ve ever made before, its essentially a glorified demo that i wrote entirely in my living room, then went over with a fine tooth comb re-tracking and re-amping some things at the headroom, having some amazing friends come lend their voices and then Kyle mixed it,” Chrissy Tashjian, who wrote, recorded, and produced the album, writes. “It’s a reflection of the notes that I made throughout this last year titled ‘my closest deaths.’ I started writing these reflections after my gramma died last April and I went to say goodbye to her body before the coroner came to her home to take her to the morgue. This is when I said goodbye to her because i was missing her funeral because I was going on tour. These notes range so many topics but are basically a collection of thoughts and feelings I was facing being a queer woman in a very masculine straight world where most of the people around me didn’t have bodies or genders like mine, and having a really hard time figuring out how to have confidence.This was a deep questioning of my own value system and limits. It’s something I’m still working on all the time, and is such a small blip in the world where people are facing deep oppression and injustice every day, however it is my blip, and thanks for listening <3”

ACQUAINTANCES – “AND IT ALL WENT BACK”

Chicago’s Acquaintances are something of an indie supergroup — their lineup includes guitarist/vocalist Jered Gummere (The Ponys, Bare Mutants), guitarist/vocalist Justin Sinkovich (Poison Arrows, Atombombpocketknife), bassist Patrick Morris (Don Caballero), drummer Chris Wilson (Ted Leo + Pharmacists, Titus Andronicus, Hammered Hulls) — and they’re releasing their second album 8 1​/​2 Lives on May 31 via File-13 Records. Its newest single is “And It All Went Black,” which sorta mixes arty ’90s post-hardcore with a hypnotic krautrock backbone. It’s cool stuff.

BARRIE – “GEOLOGY”

As mentioned, Brooklyn quintet Barrie are releasing their debut album Happy to Be Here on May 3 via Winspear. New single “Geology” is another slice of loungey dream-pop; about it, vocalist, songwriter and guitarist Barrie Lindsay says, “I wrote this song in 2015, a few months after I bought my first guitar. I was listening to Best Coast on Song Exploder talking about ‘Feeling Ok.’ Bethany Cosentino said she was inspired by 90s movies soundtracks like Clueless, She’s All That, 10 Things I Hate About You. It blew my mind because I loved that music but didn’t realize you could take it seriously. That’s where ‘Geology’ came from.”

BUN B & STATIK SELEKTAH – TRILLSTATIK

Southern rap vet and one half of UGK, Bun B, teamed up with the great Boston producer Statik Selektah for the new collaborative album TrillStatik, which features appearances by Big K.R.I.T., Talib Kweli, Method Man, Meechy Dark of Flatbush Zombies, CJ Fly of Pro Era, Smoke DZA, Fat Joe, Lil Fame of M.O.P., Termanology, Westside Gunn, and more. They made the album in 11 hours and 40 minutes and livestreamed the process. You can watch the whole thing now:

PRONOUN – “SADIE”

Brooklyn’s Alyse Vellturo releases her debut LP as pronoun, i’ll show you stronger, on May 24. She’s shared the final advance single before the album’s release, “Sadie,” about which she says, “I wrote this song skateboarding around SXSW 2016. I had just started the project and was meeting so many new people and musicians and everything was starting to fall into place. I was so thankful and excited to start a new life and career on my own and leave everything I knew behind.”

ACCEPT – “LIFE’S A BITCH”

Accept remain active without their original frontman Udo Dirkschneider (who has his own competing band), and though Udo’s iconic voice is crucial to Accept’s classic sound, the recent material with current vocalist Mark Tornillo has been pretty solid too. They’ve now returned with new single “Life’s A Bitch,” a party-friendly throwback that’s very much on Accept’s AC/DC side.

Looking for even more new songs? Browse the ‘New Songs’ archive.