Essential Tracks This Week: Alan Sparhawk, Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, and more

Alexa Viscius

It’s a pretty big week for new releases, but make sure to clear some time out of your busy listening schedule for our favorite songs of the week. This week, our picks include an indie rock veteran teaming up with some hometown heroes, an unlikely stoner rock and hip-hop pairing, ambient, hardcore and more. Here’s what we’re spinning on repeat this week.

Alan Sparhawk with Trampled By Turtles – “Stranger”

Alan Sparhawk’s first post-Low record, White Roses, My God, felt like both an extension of his band’s final two records, exploring eerie and abrasive electronic textures, as well as curiously brighter elements—an exploration of grief through an unabashed embrace of joy. “Stranger” is a far different beast, this time finding the singer/songwriter teaming up with fellow Duluth group Trampled By Turtles on a song that feels a bit closer to Sparhawk’s greater body of work, translated through bluegrass instrumentation. It’s a warm and layered folk ballad, performed gorgeously, channeling R.E.M.’s best moments from Automatic for the People in a lamentation on some of life’s hard truths (“You gotta put up with strangers… you gotta go through some danger“).

From With Trampled by Turtles, out May 30 via Sub Pop

Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs – “Glib Tongued” (feat. El-P)

The new single from Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs’ upcoming album Death Hilarious is a shift from the stoner rock-meets-Black Flag approach of their previous work. Instead, it’s a dystopian stomp that finds vocalist Matthew Baty barking out a grim warning that is complemented by the verse El-P from Run the Jewels steps in for, which is a pairing few of us could have easily predicted. The darker shift in their sound captures the more ominous pre-Apocalyptic turn of the world, having a mood that has more in common with Godflesh than Clutch. The party is over and the feel-bad anthems have begun. – Wil Lewellyn

From Death Hilarious out April 4 via Missing Piece Records

Planning for Burial – “A Flowing Field of Green”

After you’ve moved places a handful of times, you notice that your problems don’t evaporate. They follow you. “A Flowing Field of Green,” Planning for Burial’s first original song in eight years, depicts that revelation, disrupting the excitement of a new locale with off-rhythm drums and vulnerable vocals. While the intentions behind the track are optimistic—sole member Thom Wasluck stated that it’s about creating the reality you want, regardless of location—it presents uncomfortably. It’s the fear of moving to a relocating and learning that you’re still the same person with the same shit. Fortunately, “A Flowing Field of Green” plunges into how disorienting that revelation is rather than simply pointing at it. – Colin Dempsey

From It’s Closeness, It’s Easy, out May 30 via The Flenser

xWeaponx – “Everybody Breaks”

Louisville’s Knocked Loose was one of the leading voices as the current wave of hardcore burst into the mainstream, so it’s smart timing for bassist Bryan Garris and guitarist Isaac Hale to roll out new material by their straightedge side project xWeaponx. “Everybody Breaks” is even meaner and nastier than Knocked Loose songs, savoring long, slow, bottom-heavy passages like they’re sucking on a Werther’s Original for all it’s worth. In terms of hardcore fans, everybody will break during this two-and-a-half minute breakdown. – Kurt Orzeck

Out now via Daze

Kara-Lis Coverdale – “Daze”

The new single from Canadian electronic artist Kara-Lis Coverdale is accompanied by a visual of snow-covered ground lit by a bright orange sun, shadows of shivering plant life cast over the blanket of white. “Daze,” the piece of music that these visuals are paired with, feels similarly gentle and wintry, but with a soothing warmth bubbling up underneath. It’s gentle and gorgeous ambient music that’s melodic, on the verge of breaking into a proper rhythmic pulse but never quite making the leap. Yet it’s comforting all the same, reminiscent of the gorgeous ’80s-era new wave compositions of Midori Takada with a sense of cinematic drama driving it. It’s a stunning companion for winter’s end.