Essential Tracks This Week: Sumac and Moor Mother, Circuit des Yeux, and more


This week? Well… it’s been a week. But at least we have some great new songs to add to our queue of the year’s best. Among this week’s Essential Tracks are a collaboration that promises something incredible, a timely return of a singular singer and songwriter, a hook-driven punk rock anthem, and more. Spin our favorite songs of the week.
Sumac and Moor Mother – “Scene 1”
Moor Mother’s no stranger to heavy collaborations, having worked with Godflesh’s Justin Broadrick in a handful of different contexts in the past—as well as The Bug’s Kevin Martin, who doesn’t make metal but whose industrial dancehall production is as heavy as it gets. But her first single with avant-garde metal trio Sumac is something different entirely, a dense, crushing, yet drumless set of razor’s edge drone metal that provides a tense score to her powerful spoken-word delivery about systemic violence against Black people. And while drummer Nick Yacyshyn is notably absent here, it nonetheless feels like one of the heaviest things that either artist has made—which says a lot, especially given the enormity of last year’s The Healer.
From The Film, out April 25 via Thrill Jockey.
Circuit des Yeux – “Megaloner”
With the release of her 2021 album -io, Haley Fohr, aka Circuit des Yeux, paired dark orchestral sounds in the vein of Scott Walker with an increasingly darkwave-inspired pulse on standouts like “Dogma.” the first single from her follow-up to that album continues down this path, roaring with distorted synth bass in an eerie dirge that feels at once like her most gothic and accessible song alike. It’s danceable but not frantic, ominous but not overwhelming, and altogether intoxicating.
From Halo on the Inside, out March 14 via Matador.
Lonnie Holley – “Protest With Love”
It feels only right that Lonnie Holley’s first single from his upcoming album Tonky, “Protest With Love,” arrives the week of the presidential inauguration. After all, we’re due for some great new protest music, and Holley’s been responsible for some great examples in the past, like, for instance, when he woke up in a fucked-up America. Well, it’s still fucked, but there’s warmth and compassion in his smooth, R&B and funk-fueled invocation to “let love be your weapon.” Sometimes you rage against the machine, and sometimes you need the machine to know that it can’t steal your joy.
From Tonky, out March 21 via Jagjaguwar.
FACS – “You Future”
Chicago post-punk trio FACS have rarely if ever released a song that can be described as “straightforward.” Their abstract constructions harbor unexpected hooks, subtle grooves, and more often than not a clever hookiness. But straightforward? Definitely not. “You Future” is maybe as close as they’ve ever gotten, which is to say only a few inches further into that direction, but a little goes a long way. Their taut arrangement of high-on-the-neck bass and repeating psych-jangle riffs lock into the kind of hypnotic, gothic groove that so much of the best early post-punk is made of. Only they reshape it in their own image, obliquely intriguing and unpredictable even in its immediacy.
From Wish Defense, out February 7 via Trouble in Mind
Scowl – “Not Hell, Not Heaven”
Scowl is the first hardcore band signed to indie powerhouse Dead Oceans (Mitski, Phoebe Bridgers, Japanese Breakfast) so it stands to reason that the second single from new album Are We All Angels leans a little further into radio-friendly punk/alt-rock hooks. And why shouldn’t it, especially when they’re this good at it? Where first single “Special” was a bit more abrasive and serrated at the edges, “Not Hell, Not Heaven” aims for more soaring heights and a chorus that bridges the gap between Warped Tour and ‘90s-era Lollapalooza. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say this was a hit.
From Are We All Angels, out April 4 via Dead Oceans

Jeff Terich is the founder and editor of Treble. He's been writing about music for 20 years and has been published at American Songwriter, Bandcamp Daily, Reverb, Spin, Stereogum, uDiscoverMusic, VinylMePlease and some others that he's forgetting right now. He's still not tired of it.