NEW ADDS: 100 gecs, Rina Sawayama, Wednesday, and Blondshell
Dumbest Girl Alive - 100 gecs
Genre: Electronic Rock, Hyperpop
RIYL: Charli XCX, Dorian Electra
100 gecs second studio album 10,000 gecs picks up right where 1,000 gecs left off with the duo’s signature electronic beats and fun lyrics. “Dumbest Girl Alive” starts the album with the instantly recognizable THX movie intro and cleanly transitions into an early 2000s rock-style guitar riff. This, however, isn’t the only major rhythm shift in the song. When members Dylan and Laura begin rapping, the music takes a distinct turn into a sampled beat from Travis Scott’s “Sicko Mode.” To cap it all off, the song quite literally ends on a bang. This song is undoubtedly a great start to an amazing album. 10,000 gecs is available now.
- Mariah
Eye for an Eye - Rina Sawayama
Genre: Pop Rock
RIYL: Miley Cyrus, Tove Lo
Not only is Rina Sawayama bringing her acting talents to the big screen in John Wick 4, she’s also bringing her vocal skills to the movie's title track “Eye for an Eye.” This is Sawayama’s first single after releasing her second studio album Hold the Girl. The song clearly mirrors the movie series’ core theme of revenge as Sawayama sings “A life for a life, I’ll see you in Hell on the other side” during the chorus. Sawayama brings her signature powerful vocals to this track and pairs them excellently with the heavy electric guitar backing. “Eye for an Eye” is available now.
- Mariah
Quarry – Wednesday
Genre: Indie Rock, Shoegaze, Alt-country
RIYL: Spirit of the Beehive, Ovlov, Great Grandpa
Hailing from North Carolina, Wednesday makes its strange concoction of indie-rock, alt-country, and shoegaze seem like a logical combination in “Quarry” from their latest album Rat Saw God. With twangy vocals, expressive steel guitar, and noisy drums as a backdrop, the band tells the stories of small-town ridden southern states with a style that falls somewhere between gothic and journalistic. Wednesday is clearly thoughtful in their lyrical selections, as the vignettes they combine showcase how small towns are quiet until they’re not. From “rain-rotted houses” with the critical old woman who hands out full-size candy bars to the preacher’s daughter who got pregnant by “the kid from the Jewish family,” there’s an intimacy on display that’s only seen in towns like these. The dynamics in “Quarry” set the mood as the band knows not only when to make noise, but also what moments require quiet. This precision captures the peculiar feeling of a quiet summer night that suddenly stops being quiet when “Mandy and her boyfriend” are busted by the cops for “a mob thing,” when the noisy drums and shrill guitar come back in for the final chorus, as Wednesday reckons how for every detail of every life, we “had to add it to the tab / to die, we’d have to settle up / so we just go until we can’t,” and so they go, sometimes loudly, sometimes quietly, but always going somewhere.
- Jonathan
Salad – Blondshell
Genre: Indie Rock, Indie Pop
RIYL: Indigo De Souza, Samia
“Salad” opens up with drums that wouldn’t sound out of place on a battle song, and Blondshell is on a warpath. But it’s not a warpath set by choice – this is a violence she is driven to. Her pain is vivid: “It doesn’t happen to women I know / God, tell me why did he hurt my girl;” the excoriating imagery tells us all we need to know: “I saw him laughing with his lawyer / in the parking lot.” That this story is so familiar is itself a reason to be angry, and “Salad” shows that even the act of driving her to this violence is violent, as she sings “You’ll make a killer of a pacifist.” The bridge is transformative, both for the song and the singer, and its first lines “Gonna get big, gonna get big / I’m so scary” is equal parts prayer, equal parts promise. “Salad” is an anthem for rage, an anthem for vengeance, and it is all deserved.
- Jonathan