23 New Songs Out Today

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, 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…

KILLSWITCH ENGAGE – “UNLEASHED”

Melodic metalcore vets Killswitch Engage are releasing their new album Atonement on August 16 via Metal Blade (their first for the label), and it features appearance by onetime KSE frontman Howard Jones and Testament’s Chuck Billy. The first single is the very Killswitch Engage-sounding “Unleashed.” As mentioned, Killswitch are touring with Clutch and Cro-Mags JM, including Asbury Park, Long Island, Port Chester, and more.

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THE APPLESEED CAST – “THE JOURNEY”

Post-rock/emo vets The Appleseed Cast’s first album in six years,
The Fleeting Light of Impermanence, comes out this week via Graveface and they’ve shared one last single, “The Journey.” Like the two previous singles, it’s a very dynamic, very cool song that should keep hopes high for this album.

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TORCHE – “ADMISSION”

Torche’s anticipated new album Admission comes out July 12th via Relapse, and they’re now streaming the title track. It’s melodic and atmospheric and a little shoegazy and almost sounds like a cross between Hum and Sunny Day Real Estate, but still with that thick, trademark Torche sound. Read more about it here.

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H.E.R. – “RACKS” (ft. YBN CORDAE)

H.E.R. is one of the biggest breakout R&B/soul singers of late, and today she returned with a new single featuring rising rapper YBN Cordae, whose anticipated debut project on the way. It’s a nice, laid-back song, and Cordae’s verse is great. H.E.R. is also throwing her own Lights On Festival this year.

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LUCY DACUS – “FOREVER HALF MAST”

Lucy Dacus has been releasing original songs and covers connected to different holidays to be collected in an EP, 2019, at the end of the year. The latest in that collection is the twangy “Forever Half Mast,” for the Fourth of July. “There is a daily dissonance one endures as an American wherein much of our joy is counterweighted by shame,” Lucy says, “where much of our pride lives in tandem with injustice and suffering. ‘Forever Half Mast’ is about confronting this unavoidable culpability as an American citizen and consumer. Instead of allowing this guilt to paralyze us, we should try to let it influence us in positive ways.”

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JOELL ORTIZ – “LEARN YOU” (prod. & ft. BIG K.R.I.T.)

Brooklyn rap vet Joell Ortiz is releasing his new album Monday on August 30 via Mello Music Group, and the lead single is “Learn You,” which was produced by and features Big K.R.I.T. It’s a soulful rap ballad with an auto-tuned hook that kinda sounds like something Kanye would’ve made earlier this decade, and Ortiz and K.R.I.T. pull this kinda thing off pretty well.

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JOYERO – “DOGS”

Multi-instrumentalist and Wye Oak member Andy Stack signed to Merge with his new solo project, Joyero, back in March, and now he’s announced a new album from the project. Release The Dogs is due out on August 23 via the label, and new single “Dogs” is a complex, multilayered slice of indie rock capped off by an ending horn freakout. About the song and video, which he directed and film, Andy says, “I filmed this in the back of Wye Oak’s tour van in Durham, NC, as summer temperatures crept toward triple digits, so these dogs had no problem showing me their panting, slobbery tongues and beautiful white teeth. It’s a song about longing and control, love and danger, cages we are placed into and cages in which we choose to stay. I felt at home in this box, close cuddling with dogs and hens and tarantulas, delusional from the heat and happy to stay a little longer than was probably advisable.”

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ADA LEA – “WHAT MAKES ME SAD”

Montreal singer-songwriter Alexandra Levy records as Ada Lea and will release her debut album, what we say in private, on July 19 via Saddle Creek. She’s just released another song from the album, the loping, soaring “what makes me sad.”

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CUP (NELS CLINE & YUKA HONDA) – “SOON WILL BE FLOOD”

Wilco guitarist Nels Cline and ex Cibo Matto member Yuka Honda are CUP, an experimental duo whose music doesn’t quite sound like anything either have done before. An album is in the works but you can listen to “Soon Will Be Flood” that stitches together samples, vocalizations, pinging guitars and more.

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IMPERIAL TEEN – “DON’T WANNA LET YOU GO”

Here’s another early taste of Imperial Teen’s first album in seven years. “Don’t Wanna Let You Go” is a slow-burner, see-sawing between minimal electro and fuzz-pedal rock. Now We Are Timeless is out July 12 via Merge.

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FLORIST – “TIME IS A DARK FEELING”

Florist are releasing a new album, Emily Alone, on July 26 via Double Double Whammy. Delicate, lovely new single “Time Is A Dark Feeling,” “is about looking at the ways in which we construct time,” songwriter Emily Sprague told Stereogum. “I don’t think that time really exists at all, but obviously in our reality, in our lives, we have a very rigid construct of time our whole lives. It’s something we have to exist within for the most part, but I think it’s really interesting to look at time and pick apart moments and memory and reflect on how that becomes a part of anyone’s consciousness. The things we remember, the fragments of life that make us who we are – it’s not about time anymore, it’s just about feeling.”

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CROSS RECORD – “THE FLY”

Cross Record – aka Emily Cross – will release her new self-titled album on August 2 via Ba Da Bing and she’s just shared this new single. “I was thinking about the fragility of the mind under pressure, being on a brink of collapse and being aware of that, and finding the humor in it objectively,” says Cross. “The fly in old oil paintings is a signifier of death and impermanence. The viewer sees all of the perfectly ripe fruits, flowering buds at the height of their glory–but it does all end someday. I suppose it’s a song about brinks or being close to an edge: the edge of a meltdown, the edge between life and death, the moment you think you see something beautiful but it turns out to be a plastic bag, and that’s funny sometimes.”

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SUI ZHEN – “PERFECT PLACE”

Australian artist Sui Zhen will release Losing, Linda via Cascine on September 27. On it, Sui Zhen “takes the theoretical form of Linda, a digital doppelgänger and avatar invoking the e-learning channel Lynda and its founder Lynda Weinman, as well as the humanoid robot BINA48.” The music on the album is equally as surreal as the concept, as you can hear on eerie, alluring synthpop single “Perfect Place.”

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OH SEES – “HENCHLOCK”

Get a big taste of Oh Sees’ new double album Face Stabber via the 21-minute psych-jazz-odyssey closing cut.

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BLANCK MASS – “NO DICE”

“No Dice” is widescreen electronic pop and, with a fondness for orchestra stabs and sampled HEYs, there is a distinct ’80s influence here, but it also sounds very now. This is from Violence Mild, out in August.

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BRITTANY HOWARD (of ALABAMA SHAKES) – “HISTORY REPEATS”

Alabama Shakes frontwoman Brittany Howard is embarking on a solo career, and the first single off her upcoming debut LP is “History Repeats.” Read more here.

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HESITATION WOUNDS (mem TOUCHE AMORE) – “PARAGONS OF VIRTUE”

Hardcore supergroup Hesitation Wounds — whose current lineup is Jeremy Bolm of Touche Amore, Stephen LaCour (ex-Trap Them), Neeraj Kane (The Hope Conspiracy), and new drummer Thomas Cantwell (Gouge Away, Axis) — have announced their sophomore album and released the lead single. Read more here.

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DANITY KANE – “NEON LIGHTS”

Danity Kane are back in action with the lineup of Dawn Richard, Aubrey O’Day and Shannon Bex, and they’ve now shared the new single “NEON LIGHTS,” which injects their usual R&B with a little modern EDM. They’re also touring with Aubrey and Shannon’s Dumblonde project, including a NYC show on Thursday (6/27) at Irving Plaza. All dates here.

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CASSIE – “MOMENTS” (with THE CODE)

Speaking of R&B comebacks, the great, elusive Cassie is back with a very fine new single that’s cut from the same minimalist, downtempo R&B cloth that much of her 2010s work has been cut from.

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AXIOMA – CROWN (ALBUM STREAM)

Ohio black/post-metal group Axioma (featuring Aaron Dallison of Keelhaul and Brain Tentacles) are releasing their debut album Crown this Friday (6/28) via Translation Loss, including eight original songs and a metallic cover of Massive Attack’s “Angel” (that comes in at the 23:23 mark), and the whole thing is streaming now. “Over the course of two years, we built each piece of Crown as a unique and separate idea constructed, produced and performed by the group,” guitarist Justin Meyers tells Revolver. “Lyrically the themes of the album grotesquely develop with repeated listens, ripping at the carcass of a diseased species Crown is an unrelenting passage toward our extinction. We continue to mutate and grow toward our own version of dark music.”

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WORMED – “CRYPTOUBIQUITY”

Spanish sci-fi tech-death unit Wormed are releasing the Metaportal EP on July 19th via Season of Mist, and second single “Cryptoubiquity” is out now, following “Remote Void.” Like the first single, it’s as furious and relentless as you’d expect from this long-running band.

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JUSTIN PETER KINKEL-SCHUSTER – “TAKE HEART, TAKE CARE”

Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster fronts Water Liars, is one half of Marie/Lepanto with Will Johnson (Centro-matic), and is also an active solo artist who plans to release his new album Take Heart, Take Care on August 30 via Fat Possum imprint Big Legal Mess Records. You can read more about the title track here.

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HALSHUG – “KAEMPER IMOD”

Copenhagen punks Halshug are releasing their new album Drøm on July 19 via Southern Lord, and we wrote more about new single “Kӕmper Imod” here.

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