Best New Releases, Oct. 25: Soccer Mommy, Fievel Is Glauque, and more
October’s almost a wrap, and there’s nothing particularly scary about this week’s batch of Best New Releases (though one or two of them are pretty intense). That said, we’re already starting to see 2025 releases start to pop up on the calendar, and well, we’re not quite ready to think about that. Nonetheless, this week’s batch is loaded with winners, from indie rock MVPs to art-pop iconoclasts and punks going solo. Here are the week’s best new releases.
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Soccer Mommy – Evergreen
Following Sophie Allison’s work with Oneohtrix Point Never on 2022’s Sometimes, Forever, Soccer Mommy has teamed up with Ben H. Allen (Animal Collective, Deerhunter) on the gorgeous Evergreen. And along with that change comes a shift in sound toward more spacious and somber ballads, the album itself a reflection on loss and grief that occasionally rises up into a familiar grunge strut on “Driver.” We’ll have more on this one soon.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
Fievel Is Glauque – Rong Weicknes
Fievel Is Glauque is a uniquely creative band, merging influences like jazz pop and yé-yé with a more intricate and complex progressive approach that draws heavily from jazz fusion, and on Rong Weicknes, they flesh it out with stunning instrumental arrangements. It’s our Album of the Week, and in our review, we said, “Somehow impossibly, even miraculously, these songs retain a breeziness and effortlessness in spite of the labyrinthine structures that hold them together.”
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
Elias Rønnenfelt – Heavy Glory
I don’t know if it’s inevitable that Iceage frontman Elias Rønnenfelt would eventually release his solo debut, but the Danish group’s sound has been trending toward more melodic, less aggressive sounds with recent efforts such as Seek Shelter. On Heavy Glory, Rønnenfelt embraces more stripped-down folk sounds alongside Dylan-meets-Suicide standouts like “Worm Grew a Spine.” It’s the start of a great new chapter, and we’ll have more on this one soon.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
Buñuel – Mansuetude
Italian noise-rock outfit Bunuel, fronted by ex-Oxbow vocalist Eugene S. Robinson, deliver an expectedly intense set of songs with their latest album Mansuetude. The album features guest appearances from the likes of Converge’s Jacob Bannon, Couch Slut’s Megan Osztrosits and The Jesus Lizard’s Duane Denison, and it rips, loaded with sharp-edged riffs and Robinson’s larger-than-life vocal presence. We recently interviewed Robinson about the album, trilogies, and living in America.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
Naked Roommate – Pass the Loofah
Bay Area group Naked Roommate delivered a delightfully irreverent set of dubby dancepunk with 2020’s Do the Duvet, and four years later they’ve reemerged with another set of spacey and playful grooves on Pass the Loofah. Rife with synths, saxophones, danceable rhythms, and elements of funk and reggae to go around, they draw a line from the dancepunk revival of the ‘00s (and ‘20s) back to its progenitors in new wave groups like Blondie. It’s fun, absurd and catchy as hell, especially when the group let the disco pulses fly on a standout like “Bus.”
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
Two Shell – Two Shell
Playful, mysterious electronic duo Two Shell announced the release of their new album with an unreadable press release that looked like a ’90s movie director’s idea of what computer hacking looked like. Which is to say their reputation as beatmaker pranksters hasn’t waned, but the music itself is some of the most remarkable of their still young career, steeped in house, bass and IDM. After a notable FKA twigs collab earlier this year, the duo keep the beats pulsing and the vocal loops in a constant state of pitch change. There are moments of gentle ambience and vibrant energy alike, one of the year’s most ecstatic dance music debuts.
Listen: Spotify
Dazy – IT’S ONLY A SECRET (if you repeat it)
Richmond’s Dazy recently released a collaborative song with MSPAINT, the kickass “It’s Only a Secret,” which pairs the former’s power pop sensibility with the latter’s synth-core intensity. It rules. Today, it’s been released as a three-song EP along with two similarly Madchester-y fuzz-pop songs built on groovy drum loops and big walls of guitar. It’s, expectedly, catchy as hell, and a cool new direction after the excellent 2022 album OUTOFBODY. It’s also only nine minutes long, so there’s no risk of wearing out its welcome. Might as well play it again!
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
AKAI SOLO – DREAMDROPDRAGON
Brooklyn emcee landed on our Best Hip-hop of 2022 list for his excellent Spirit Roaming album, via the always great Backwoodz label. He’s released three more albums since then, and this is his latest, arriving less than a year after Verticality///Singularity and Only the Strong Remains. Featuring production from the likes of Wavy Bagels, Roper Williams and August Fanon, DREAMDROPDRAGON is wrapped in a dreamlike haze, woozy and lightly psychedelic, while AKAI delivers verse after verse of breathless stream-of-consciousness reflection and observation. Another great entry in a fast-growing rap catalog.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
2nd Grade – Scheduled Explosions
Philadelphia’s 2nd Grade has an excellent track record of tuneful and super-catchy power pop records, which hasn’t changed on their latest, Scheduled Explosions. They also don’t waste a single moment on this overstuffed set of Big Star and Teenage Fanclub-style janglers, packing 23 songs into 38 minutes. That’s efficiency! And somehow they manage to pack as many hooks as possible into those 23 songs, almost as if they were trying to break a record. An outstanding set of two-minute-or-less pop gems.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
