Essential Tracks This Week: Deafheaven, Lucrecia Dalt, and more

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Deafheaven

It’s Friday, so that must mean it’s time to turn up the week’s best new songs. Among the standout tracks to add to your endless playlist are the return of a great metal band—actually playing metal!—as well as a stellar art-pop collaboration, and a brief but dazzling downtempo jazz exploration. Turn up this week’s Essential Tracks.


Deafheaven – “Magnolia”

Deafheaven are back! Technically, they didn’t really go anywhere, but their embrace of a more serene palette of shoegaze on 2021’s Infinite Granite suggested that, perhaps, they were done with metal. Friends, that is not the case. Not even a little bit. “Magnolia,” the first single from their upcoming sixth album Lonely People With Power, roars with a ferocity we haven’t heard from them since their 2019 single “Black Brick.” In fact, it’s pretty much all power and aggression, unusually concise at under four minutes long, and an absolute firecracker of a song. So, if you’re wondering if it rips, well yeah, it absolutely rips.

From Lonely People With Power, out March 28 via Roadrunner


Pink Siifu – “Alive & Direct’!”

Pink Siifu defied the expected release schedule flow by dropping his new album BLACK’!ANTIQUE on Monday, and it’s both epic and intense. A lot to process, and we’ll have plenty more to say about that soon. But for now, it’s hard not to focus on the menacing industrial din of “Alive & Direct’!”, a massive and terrifying roar of ominous noise rap that nods to the punk-as-fuck static and screech of his 2020 album Negro, but with an even more stunningly sculpted palette of darkness.

From BLACK’!ANTIQUE, out now via Dynamite Hill


Lucrecia Dalt – “cosa rara” (feat. David Sylvian)

Lucrecia Dalt is a stylistic shape-shifter, having crafted abstract ambient records, TV scores, playful noise-industrial collaborations and, most recently on 2022’s ¡Ay!, a stunning series of sci-fi bolero dirges that showcased the depth and imagination of her songwriting. Her latest, “cosa rara”—a collaboration with prolific art-rock artist and composer David Sylvian is the most immediate and accessible pop song she’s released to date. It feels very much aligned with her most recent album, a cinematic art-pop noir with Spanish-sung lyrics and a darkly effortless cool that portends incredible things to come.

Out now via RVNG Intl


Rwake – “The Return of Magik”

While we’re on the subject of great metal, it’s an absolute thrill to hear the return of southern sludge greats Rwake. The group’s last album, Rest, arrived way back in 2011, and they’ve released a handful of compilation tracks in the intervening years. But “The Return of Magik” is the first single from their upcoming album of the same name, and the Little Rock group are back in the agonizing swing of things, delivering thick and abrasive riffs with intense levels of catharsis and satisfying southern groove alike. It’s also 13 minutes long and takes you on the kind of dark, emotional journey that their prior records might have you suggest. It feels like a good year to feel bad.

From The Return of Magik, out March 14 via Relapse


Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes – “Frica”

After 13 minutes of soul-scorching sludge, maybe it’s time for two minutes of playfully laid-back abstract jazz? Gregory Uhlmann, Josh Johnson and Sam Wilkes are veteran players with an impressive combined resume that includes SML, Jeff Parker ETA IVtet, Perfume Genius, Sam Gendel and Chaka Khan’s band, among other projects. So make no mistake: Even if this is a relatively brief and chill song, there’s a lot happening, a stunning instrumental interplay that demands closer listening and headphone immersion, a concise preview of what a team of ringers can do when gathered in the same room.

From Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes, out March 14, via International Anthem

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