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 update a playlist weekly of some of our current favorite tracks. Here's a daily roundup with a bunch of interesting, newly released songs in one place.
FORHIST - "II"
Forhist (Vindsval of French black metal vets Blut Aus Nord) follows recent single "I" with the second taste of their upcoming self-titled album, "II." Like the first single, it's dark, furious black metal at its finest.
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VAST AIRE & COSMIQ - "GOOD FUEL"
Vast Aire of the great underground NYC duo Cannibal Ox has returned with a new solo single, produced by Cosmiq, who helmed the bulk of Can Ox's 2015 reunion album Blade of the Ronin. It finds Vast Aire taking some shots at departed president Donald Trump and he hasn't lost his bite one bit.
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DJANGO DJANGO - "FREE FROM GRAVITY" & "FREE FROM GRAVITY (WRONGTOM'S EXPANDING SPACE DUB)
Here's the last single from Django Django's new album, Glowing in the Dark, before it drops on February 12. These guys always do well when keeping things chill and understated, and "Free From Gravity" follows suit. The dub mix by Wrongtom mellows things out further.
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ALEX BLEEKER (REAL ESTATE) - "LA LA LA"
Real Estate bassist Alex Bleeker doesn't fall too far from the tree with his solo work. That's not a bad thing at all, "La La La" is a sunny bit of jangly pop that may warm up your January just a little. It's from his new album Heaven on the Faultline which is out March 5.
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SKATUNE NETWORK - "FOR SURE" (AMERICAN FOOTBALL COVER)
One of the first Skatune Network covers to take the emo world by storm was their rendition of American Football's "Never Meant," so it's exciting that they're now back with a ska reworking of another song from AF's classic debut, "For Sure." Once again, it's great stuff.
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BEYOND GRACE - "FEARMONGER"
UK death metallers Beyond Grace have signed to Prosthetic and released a political new song/video, "Fearmonger. The band says, "Musically it's very representative of the direction of the next record - bigger riffs, heavier hooks, tighter, punchier writing - there's no filler, and everything is just more focussed and fluid. And then, obviously, the speech from Edward R. Murrow serves to reinforce how everything the song is talking about - the cultivation of discord and division, the weaponisation of ignorance and paranoia - isn't new, and reminds us that we can't allow ourselves to give in and be driven by fear."
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NEW PAGANS - "CHRISTIAN BOYS"
UK indie/post-hardcore band New Pagans are releasing their new LP The Seed, The Vessel, The Roots and All on March 19 via Big Scary Monsters, and the first single is the soaring, fired-up "Christian Boys" which the band says is about a Christian leader that singer Lyndsey McDougall had been having an affair with before he married his virgin bride. "This is shocking but what is more disturbing is that it hadn’t been the first-time similar stories had emerged. When these men were confronted, they all stated that the women were to blame, it had been their fault, they were the sinners and had led the Christian men astray," the band said.
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MOZZY - "NEVA SAID IT"
Having released two of 2020's best rap albums, Mozzy is back with another hard-hitting, incisive song.
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MARLON CRAFT - "STATE OF THE UNION"
NYC rapper Marlon Craft has shared another song off his upcoming album How We Intended, and this one's a fiery political song that feels very timely on Inauguration Day.
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BARBAROSSA - "AWAKENERS AWAKEN US"
James Mathé will release his sixth album as Barbarossa, Love Here Listen, on March 5 via Memphis industries. For it he collaborated with Ghost Culture (Daniel Avery, Kelly Lee Owens), working with analog synthesizers and analog tape. The first single is the sweeping, cinematic "Awakeners Awaken Us." "The song is basically about a relationship that I went through when I was just starting out as an adult," explains Mathé. "At the time it was all-consuming and I couldn’t see how I could recover when it ended. With perspective on it now though I can see how it helped me to know when I found the right person and how the experience taught me so much about when things don’t go to plan and that it just means to let go of outcome and trust that things will work out as they are meant to."
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MICHAEL BEACH - "DE FACTO BLUES"
Australian artist Michael Beach makes ripped-up garage punk in the sneering tradition of The Damned or Gories. "De Facto Blue" is a great first taste for his upcoming album Dream Violence (3/19, Goner Records) which Beach describes as “the sound of people totally at their wits end," adding "it was written in growing frustration with leaders failing to lead -- instead clinging to a faith in a failing economic system as justification for slow and casual destruction -- while trumpeting their own greatness.”
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HOLY - "Aries"
Hannes Ferm makes gothy, dramatic pop as HOLY and "Aries" is the new single from his second album, Ryder. “Rather than describing my feelings and memories as they are, I wanted to place them in a different context - a different landscape,” he says of Ryder. “I wanted the whole album to have a very specific setting and scenery, so that I could use this fictional world to express fragments of my own reality. I wanted it to be a kind of vessel for my own emotions.”
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BILL CALLAHAN, BONNIE PRINCE BILLY & CORY HANSON (WAND) - "NIGHT RIDER'S LAMENT"
This week in Bill Callahan and Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's rewarding collaborative covers series, they're taking on "Night Rider's Lament," the classic cowboy song written by Michael Burton that has been recorded by everyone from Garth Brooks to Jerry Jeff Walker to Nanci Griffith. For their version, the Bills enlisted Cory Hanson of Wand to record the backing, which is a very traditional country arrangement full of pedal steel and fiddle. Callahan takes lead vocal with Bonnie 'Prince' Billy coming in high on the chorus.
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BAD RELIGION - "EMANCIPATION OF THE MIND"
Bad Religion have released a new song for Inauguration Day, and you can read more about it here.
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CASSANDRA JENKINS - "HARD DRIVE"
NYC singer/songwriter Cassandra Jenkins has shared the second single off her upcoming album An Overview on Phenomenal Nature, and you can read more about it here.
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IONOPHORE (VASTUM, ETC) - "PARDIS"
Ionophore is the dark ambient project of Leila Abdul-Rauf (Vastum, Fyrhtu, Terebellum, Hammers of Misfortune, Cardinal Wyrm, etc), Janek Hendrich (Qepe, Not Quite So, Betterthief), and Ryan Honaker (Souls And Cities, Betterthief), and they'll self-release their fourth album Knells in February. You can read more about lead single "Pardis" here.
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Looking for even more new songs? Browse the ‘New Songs’ archive.