Essential Tracks This Week: Drain, Gelli Haha, and more

It’s Thursday and the weekend is in sight, which means it’s time to queue up some Essential Tracks. This week’s batch of bangers includes the return of some California hardcore heroes, a newcomer with a trunk full of funk, and more. Queue up the best new songs of the week

Drain – “Nights Like These”

If you’re still mystified as to why hardcore has made such a fierce comeback in the last five years, this new Drain song should make it crystal clear. Released a full five months before the LP on which it will also appear is due for release, it’s as if the Santa Cruz heavyweights couldn’t wait that long to get off their collective chest just how quickly and horrifically the U.S. is changing. Whereas Dave Grohl (a former hardcore drummer) went full circle with Foo Fighters’ syrupy “Times Like These,” vocalist Sammy Ciaramitaro reminisces, with his throat clogged with phlegm as usual, about Drain’s mayhem-filled “Nights Like These.” He’s on record saying that the two-and-a-half-minute song celebrates the camaraderie among his friends, but the mile-thick grittiness of the song indicates that November’s …Is Your Friend LP will not be all about lollipops and learning to love again. It’s gonna be riotously raging—and maybe even riot-provoking. – Kurt Orzeck

From …Is Your Friend, out November 7 via Epitaph.

Gelli Haha – “Normalize”

Gelli Haha hasn’t released her debut album yet and she’s already delivered three or four certified bangers. The latest of those thumping standouts is “Normalize,” a Nigerian soul boogie-inspired jam that’s heavy on bass and squelchy synth effects, but feels strangely distant with her voice cloaked in reverb—at least until she starts belting at the chorus. But there’s nothing particularly esoteric about “Normalize”—this is all straight to the hips, feel-good groove, a song you feel in the physical sense as much as hear, and impeccably constructed to last all summer, maybe even two of them. – Jeff Terich

From Switcheroo, out June 27 via Innovative Leisure

Pile – “Uneasy”

Pile have undergone a pretty sprawling musical journey as a band, from solo project to hard-driving post-hardcore group to more atmospheric art-rock group on their 2023 album All Fiction. Their latest single, “Uneasy,” finds them remaining in that atmospheric space, but with an immediacy and a driving pulse that makes its more ambient, electronic elements all the more accessible. Drummer Kris Kuss is the secret weapon here, providing a muscular performance that reminds us how much this band rocks, even when they’re not really rocking—not exactly anyway. But the whole thing could explode at any minute, and it’s that kind of suspense that makes it exciting. – Jeff Terich

From Sunshine and Balance Beams, out August 15 via Sooper.

Daphni – “Sad Piano House”

Does what it says on the tin, doesn’t it? With last year’s Honey, Caribou’s Dan Snaith made the line between that project and his more house-oriented Daphni alias blurrier than ever, but the return of the latter only returns the serve with an artfully strange warble of, well, sad piano over chop-up vocal samples and a heavy beat kick. It figures that after Caribou opted for nothing but warm, joyful dance music, Daphni should retreat into spooky sample loops. The boundaries between Snaith’s projects only grow more arbitrary as the producer racks up yet another phenomenal single. – Jeff Terich