Best New Tracks Of The Week: 3/31/2024
Now that I'm recovered enough to have opinions again a week full of big swings fell right into my lap. See what hit it out of the park and what completely struck out.
5. Alter Ego - Doechii (feat. JT)
This is definitely a tricky one but in a week like this, it belongs on the list. Doechii and City Girls rapper JT is a combination I was THRILLED for and boy do they deliver. The two verses on this song are intense, pummeling, verbose, and completely unstoppable avalanches of charisma and momentum. Unfortunately, no matter how many times I try I just cannot get behind this chorus. Where both rappers make the intensity of their performance sound great on the verse the hook is just purely annoying in a way that is so blown out it's difficult to swallow. It's a tricky assessment on a song that has some of the most impressive performances I've heard all year.
4. Gasping Dust - Full Of Hell (feat. Ross Dolan)
Is this song only a minute long, yes. But boy it doesn't waste a single second of that minute delivering absolutely pummeling extreme metal speed and intensity. It pulverizes you for approximately 69 seconds and you'll need the remaining length of a normal song just to recover.
3. Everyone Out - DIIV
In the past, shoegaze outfit DIIV have been the best when they're at their loudest weaving layers of thick distorted sounds into their dreamy expanse. But as Slowdive taught us just last year sometimes less can be more. This might be my favorite single from DIIV's new album yet. It really takes its time creeping through an instrumental that is much eerier than their typical constructs. What results is something that conjures the thick sentimentality of being on your way out of town expressed in the lyrics.
2. Rotations - Adeem The Artist
This may be my favorite Adeem The Artist song yet and that's high praise. It's an old fashion Dylan/Mitchell-esque ballad that isn't rewriting the book on how to make compelling folk music. But what it lacks in experimentation it makes up for in writing and performance. The dreamy guitar arrangement sounds like something Sufjan Stevens would be penning his poetry to. And the actual song itself is vivid and emotional enough to live up to that comparison. What a surprising delight.
1. Mary Boone - Vampire Weekend
These Vampire Weekend singles haven't just been good, they've been extraordinary. For varying reasons, each of the songs the band has shared from their upcoming 5th album have been both refreshing stylistic directions. That's the case on this spacey song which features some of the most surprising trip-hop drums I've heard anywhere this year outside of a Chelsea Wolfe song. But the band plays it so bright and glistening that it absolutely soars over the post-chorus. I love this song.
