Essential Tracks This Week: Car Seat Headrest, Anika, and more

Carlos Cruz

Another Friday is here, and with it comes another batch of great new songs to fill your streaming queue. Among our favorites are the return of one of the best indie rock bands of the last decade (playing actual rock!), plus good-for-the-chakras grooves, tuneful shoegaze and more. Give a listen to this week’s Essential Track picks.

Blurbs written by Colin Dempsey (CD), Jeff Terich (JT), John-Paul Shiver (JPS) and Wil Lewellyn (WL).

Car Seat Headrest – “Gethsemane”

It’s been seven years since Car Seat Headrest were an out-and-out rock band, a dearth felt even more due to the slight misfire of Making A Door Less Open. It’s not mere rockism to praise them for their return to form on the 10-minute epic “Gethsemane.” Yes, they are back to rock music, but more importantly, they’ve returned to being one of the few bands in the space that’s advancing capital-R Rock music, big choruses, power chords, and all. “Gethsemane” is another anxiety-ridden and explosive Car Seat Headrest track that justifies its length with an overabundance of ideas. “How would we fit proggy synths into a shorter track?” they ask. “We need all these choruses,” they state while stomping their feet. Rather than a temper tantrum, Carseat Headrest deliver an opera. – CD

From The Scholars, out May 2 via Matador

Anika – “Walk Away”

Anika’s body of work tends to dwell in immaculately sculpted forms of abstraction, whether via her own solo records or as a member of the transatlantic improvisational psych group Exploded View. So it’s a bit refreshing to hear her embrace a kind of blunt openness on “Walk Away,” a statement of unguarded frustration that’ll no doubt feel familiar to anyone who’s had to tolerate more than they cared to. “The truth is I don’t really like myself,” she says in the song’s opening, “the truth is I don’t really like anyone else.” Over a dubby post-punk drive that sounds like “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” reimagined with major chords, Anika unloads about how “life can just suck,” and the need to extract oneself from the things and people that make it suck. So she walks away—but only after a few “screw yous.” It’s a cleansing, and still impossibly cool, tantrum. – JT

From Abyss, out April 4 via Sacred Bones

Vinyl Williams – “Find the Hidden”

Lionel (Vinyl) Williams continues to create music characterized by “lush, harmonious, and texturally organic sound,” crafting catchy tunes that draw you in the deeper you listen. With nine full-length albums to his name, his latest single “Find the Hidden” achieves a new level of artistry. The melodies are pleasing to the chakras, and the song features signature trippy changes that keep Williams’ vibrant style strong. Mid-tempo and flowing with melancholy, make no mistake, these vibes still rise high. – JPS

From Polyhaven/Portasymphony, out June 13 via Harmony

Glare – ”Nü Burn”

All too often shoegaze bands place their focus on finding new ways to bathe things in delay, forgetting that—in spite of the pedalboard—the emphasis is supposed to be on making rock music. Texas’ Glare puts songwriting first, less obsessed with just dialing in the authentic shoegaze sound. In doing so they bring a more aggressive backbone to provide their dreamy vocals with something to coo over, all without allowing the entire song to float off into the dusk. Hard-hitting drumming and a powerful wall of crunching chords keep the song engaging throughout, while the vocals are not an afterthought but rather balance out ambient emoting with a hooky chorus. – WL

From Sunset Funeral, out April 4 via Deathwish Inc.

Natural Information Society & Bitchin Bajas – “Clock No Clock”

I’m not sure I would have immediately imagined a pairing of hypnotic synth-psych group Bitchin Bajas and avant garde jazz collective Natural Information Society on my own, but the arrival of just such a team-up only makes perfect sense. On “Clock No Clock,” the first track released from their upcoming album Totality, bubbling synths and hypnotic drone are juxtaposed against a similarly mesmeric rhythm section, but one that’s much more exploratory and physical in its movements. Over eight and a half minutes, this juxtaposition evolves and escalates, waves of sound lapping over a muscular bass and drums workout, sending signals into space without ever losing contact with the ground below. It feels like the universe expanding and getting just a little bit smaller all within the entirety of one piece of music. – JT