Essential Tracks This Week: Wednesday, The Armed, and more

If you’ve got some room after you finish a heaping helping of best new releases, queue up our picks for the week’s best new songs, including some indie rock heavyweights getting a little lighter, some hardcore surrealists pushing the envelope, a little shoegaze, a little neo soul, and more.

Wednesday – “Elderberry Wine”

Wednesday are ready for their closeup. Well, they’ve kinda been ready. Their 2023 album Rat Saw God was one of that year’s best, and their tour dates in support of the album pretty much all sold out handily. But “Elderberry Wine” has a sweetness to it that some of their more beastly noise-twang numbers, like “Hot Rotten Grass Smell” or “Bull Believer,” scarcely even suggest. Though still steeped in Karly Hartzman’s singular knack for storytelling, “Elderberry Wine” goes down as easy as the titular tipple, particularly when she and MJ Lenderman harmonize during the chorus. That’s the stuff. – Jeff Terich

Out now via Dead Oceans

The Armed – “Well Made Play”

I firmly believe The Armed can pull off anything they set their mind to; they made an outstanding alt-rock record, 2023’s Perfect Saviors, after establishing themselves as puzzling hardcore surrealists, and then earlier this year opened for Bernie Sanders with a Stooges cover. Seems like they’ve got things figured out. So who am I to question them when they opt to return to the scorching, sensory-overload chaos that they made their name on with new single “Well Made Play.” The first track to be released from their upcoming fifth album, The Future Is Here and Everything Needs to Be Destroyed, well, destroys. It’s two minutes of chaos, intensity, primal screams, saxophone squalls and, yeah, there’s a hook or two in there as well. Certainly. I didn’t necessarily expect them to resurrect the mayhem, but now that they have, I’m beyond stoked to welcome its arrival. – Jeff Terich

From The Future Is Here and Everything Needs to Be Destroyed, out August 1 via Sargent House

Greet Death – “Motherfucker”

What on paper suggests, incontrovertibly, a metal band making a metal song is—like Wilco’s “Heavy Metal Drummer”—a deliberate misnomer (and perhaps an in-joke too). After a six-year stretch between 2019’s New Hell and next month’s Die in Love, Greet Death sound well-rested, reassured of their talents, and even prepared to stare down the Grim Reaper when that morbid meet-up inevitably arrives. All those claims are verified by “Motherfucker,” Die in Love’s second single. Obsessed with echo effects throughout virtually the entire record, “atmosphere” is a word that must be included in any description or discussion of this sparkling song. Greet Death begin “Motherfucker” in chilled-out fashion, setting a somewhat unassuming shoegaze sound and simmering down their music to barely more than a whisper halfway through the composition. But with explosive guitar bursts that call Explosions in the Sky to mind, “Motherfucker” doesn’t make any room for boredom—only opportunities for Greet Death to take the listener under their wing and carry them to transcendent heights. – Kurt Orzeck

From Die in Love, out June 27 via Deathwish Inc.

Reginald Omas Mamode IV – “Yasiin’s Lament”

I remember when Jordan co-signed on “Umi Says” by Mos Def back in the day. The six-time NBA champion said he liked the line “I want Black people to be free,” which was about as political as Michael Jeffrey Jordan got in the fading ’90s. But his push for the song, politics, and just from a Rawkus Records hip-hop fan’s perspective—that’d be me—the most influential Black man in America, next to Denzel, was throwing some shine on, and understand this, “backpacker hip-hop.” That’s big.

Twenty-six years later, vocalist, producer, and musician Reginald Omas Mamode IV decided to update that communiqué to make it feel how 2025 racial politics hit; quite different is an understatement. “Yasiin’s Lament,” with its neo-soul meets Curtis Mayfield earthy production, runs a bit slower, acts colder, doesn’t feel as free as we used to feel when Jordan was dunking on Utah, the Knicks, gambling tables, and whomever thought they had a chance.

I know we’re in the 21st century, but isn’t it bizarre, no, disturbing how this version, less carefree and jazzy, replicates that funky-ass weight we feel every day? ‘Cause it still ain’t right. Props to Mamode for understanding what Nina once said: Art must reflect the times we’re living in. – John-Paul Shiver

From Rivière Noire, out July 18 via Melting Pot

Stereolab – “Transmuted Matter”

Stereolab’s first new album in 17 years is out today, and each of its three pre-release singles have been stellar. But “Transmuted Matter” has that extra special something, one that you’d most likely miss if it were simply floating by in the background. “Transmuted Matter” is Stereolab at peak hypnotic, their lushly grooving lounge-pop rich in gorgeously intoxicating atmosphere, as plush and luxurious as the midcentury modern dens it’s likely to score. Though it’s more pared back than the progressive pop explorations of “Melodie is a Wound,” this is the best kind of headphone candy, the art-pop equivalent of ASMR. – Jeff Terich