Essential Tracks This Week: Herbert and Momoko, No Joy, and more

Another Friday is upon us, and in addition to today’s best new releases, it’s time to take inventory of the week’s best new songs. This installment includes some forward-thinking electronic grooves, bright and animated shoegaze, fuzzy power pop and more.

Herbert and Momoko – “Babystar”

Forget the tropey “forward-thinking” moniker when referring to Matthew Herbert and drummer/vocalist Momoko Gill; let’s call it for what it is. When Lord Herbert pops out of his cave with a new project, it’s worth checking whether you’re down with the new or not. He’s a sound shinobi, that John Cale-type thinking man’s dance music producer, always bringing some clever aesthetic to each new project. For Clay, the collaboration with Momoko opened several windows on the stale dancefloor production process. The album is mindful, creative, at times bizarrely out, but always on time. I’m getting big record vibes with this one. “Babystar,” the serene yet still shag-rug-plush lead track, is the right balance of calm and cool, grooving with earth-tone sounds. Momoko’s cooing is a life moment I didn’t know I needed, but I so do, making flits and flutters in the buttermilk. Yep. Big record vibes indeed. – John-Paul Shiver

From Clay, out June 27 via Strut/Accidental

No Joy – “Bugland”

Enlisting the talents of a producer whose own music has a distinctive—and idiosyncratic—style all its own doesn’t necessarily guarantee the replication of those results, but the pairing of shoegazers No Joy with producer Fire-Toolz is a match made in heaven. New single “Bugland” is a blend of bubbly and bright electronics with gorgeously layered dream-pop guitars, and a surprisingly heavy bassline. It recalls the best moments in shoegaze-gone-baggy of the early ’90s, Madchester beats infiltrating a mesmerizing bed of sound. And you’re telling me there’s an entire album’s worth of this? Sign me up. – Jeff Terich

From Bugland, out Aug. 8 via Hand Drawn Dracula/Sonic Cathedral

Slow Crush – “Thirst”

In the days of The Inquisition, a slow crush of stone slabs squeezing still-conscious infidels into the point of submission or death were just two of countless, ultra-sociopathjc methods of Medieval torture that caused drool to tumble down the lips of plebes, clerics, soldiers and politicians alike. One bright spot of the world’s current chapter is that the term “slow death” can refer to either the existential but not necessarily malevolent, and sometimes forgiving passageway into death. And an even more positive interpretation is that true romance between two individuals is likened to “slow crush” of love that eventually smothers one’s entire self. On the title track to the new album by one of the leading hopefuls in shoegaze’s ascendant return, the band urges renewal in this unforgiving world we are all culpable of having realized; this time around, Slow Crush are dying—even begging—for a tsunami to befall all citizens of the world so that the can rebuild it in kinder and healthier image that would remind us of the limitless possibilities of heart and brain—and inspires us to put to be the greedy, hateful, and violent tendencies that also comprise the human race. – Kurt Orzeck

From Thirst, out Aug. 29 via Pure Noise

Liquid Mike – “Groucho Marx”

There’s no need to belabor the point: Liquid Mike play uncommonly great power pop. The Michigan band made our list of the Best Albums of 2024 for a good reason, and they’re back with a double-sider that spans a marathon three minutes and 40 seconds—total. At under two minutes long, “Groucho Marx” doesn’t stick around long, but its transition from acoustic to electric, overflowing hooks and soaring vocal harmonies does everything a great, crunchy, grungy power pop song should do. And it’s gone before you get a chance to come even close to getting tired of it. Guess you’ll just have to hit play again. – Jeff Terich

Out now.

Deadguy – “New Best Friend”

The time is right for Deadguy to return as they were straddling the line between hardcore and noise rock way before bands like Chat Pile arrived. If this song is any indication of what we are in store for when it comes to the band’s first album in 30 years, then faces should get ready to melt come June 27th. It showcases all the sonic colors they’re capable of, smacking your ears with a Slayer-like riff. “New Best Friend” climaxes with the darker passages of more depressive introspection that are mused upon for a few seconds before they are back in your face with a furious howl. If this album is not on your radar, it needs to be. – Wil Lewellyn