New Music of the Day, January 31:

Enter Shikari, "The Sights"

The UK hard rock band Enter Shikari hadn't really been on my radar until their most recent album, but I'm loving the Everything Everything vibe of their latest singles. It's not just the sonic maximalism--squeezing a lot of different production techniques, vocal affects, and melodic hooks into a 3:20 single--that reminds me of Everything Everything. It's also the word salad of the lyrics--for instance, rhyming "petrified" with "stir-fried" and "unqualified." Or, for some reason, rhyming "Jacques Cousteau" with "Marcus Cicero" (not sure what the French explorer has to do with the Roman orator, but bonus points for using the latter's full name).

New Music of the Day, January 30:

Graveyard Club, "Ouija"

I feel like the term "dream-pop" has gotten a bad reputation in recent years. It first got used in the early 90's to refer to a lot of the British bands I loved, who fused ethereal vocals with dance beats. But now most of the times when I click on a song that a blog describes as "dream-pop," I hear something that sounds fairly pretty but puts me to sleep--a song with no melodic hooks or momentum.

"Ouija," from the American band Graveyard Club, is dream-pop in the older, much better sense. Yes, the wispy female vocals and chiming guitars are very pretty, but it also builds dramatically, and the "Time won't hold me/ Set your ghost free" chorus sticks in your head.

New Music of the Day, January 29:

Lake Malawi, "Paris"

Despite their name, Lake Malawi is a Czech band who have little to no African influences in their music. Instead, they have a crisp, slightly Anglophilic indie pop sound. With its soaring chorus and romantic lyrics, "Paris" is a great example of Lake Malawi at peak youthful exuberance.

New Music of the Day, January 28:

Alfred Hall, "I Wanna Take You Away Now"

There are some days--for instance, days when you discover that, at some point over the past month it's been stuffed in your bag, your cellphone screen shattered so bad you need to buy a new phone, even though that seems stupid because you only use your phone about once a month--that you just want to escape. And who better to take you away from your troubles than two mellow, soft-voiced Norwegian boys with bongos?

New Music of the Day, January 27:

Gang of Youths, "The Heart is a Muscle"

Ever since I woke up this morning, I've been listening live to Australian radio station JJJ's annual Hottest 100 countdown. It's been wonderful, stepping into an alternate universe where groups like Touch Sensitive, Dune Rats, and Jungle Giants are a really big deal (they all have "hits" on my MP3 player, but it's different hearing them on an actual radio station). They're up to the Top 30 right now, and I still haven't heard this song, but I expect it's coming up--Gang of Youths cleaned up at Australia's ARIA awards this year, and for good reason. Songs like "The Heart is a Muscle" are fucking epic; though it's nearly 6 minutes long, it's dynamic and rousing in the same way that early Arcade Fire songs were.

New Music of the Day, January 26:

Fly by Midnight, "Malibu"

New York duo Fly by Midnight would seem to be doing everything right. They're two extremely videogenic young men with lovely smooth, soulful singing voices. They release a steady stream of content on Spotify and YouTube, including a series of cute cover versions and medleys of recent Top 40 hits. Production-wise, their songs are on-trend, and the lyrics paint a picture of urban millennial life. In a lot of ways, they're like a more talented version of The Chainsmokers.

So why do their videos struggle to get more than 50,000 plays on YouTube? It's a mystery to me, but maybe if they keep releasing singles like "Malibu" (about the Chevy car, not the California city), they'll eventually break through.

New Music of the Day, January 25:

John Joseph Brill, "All Eyes"

It's been interesting watching the evolution of John Joseph Brill's music over the past three years (and also getting to see him in concert twice over that time). He started off as a gravel-voiced indie-folk artist with bleak lyrics. But now he's transitioned to a more electronic sound, one that reminds me a lot of classic Peter Murphy singles (although there's also a touch of more modern groups like Editors, Interpol, and White Lies). It's a big shift, but the synth-heavy production pairs brilliantly with his gravelly voice and dark lyrics.

New Music of the Day, January 24:

Spector, "Untitled in D"

2018's still young, but I doubt we'll get much better lines than "You're not like the other guys/ Institutionalized." Unless it's "Tell me everything/ I've forgotten/ Not excluding/ How to be a human being." Musically, this is very different from anthemic early Spector tracks like "Celestine" and "Chevy Thunder"--the songs that sent Fred Perry-clad lads into a slamdancing frenzy when I saw the band perform in London a few years ago. But Spector's aura of sardonic cool and witty lyrics are still intact.

New Music of the Day, January 23:

Phlake, "IKEA Episodes"

Even though I've never actually stepped foot inside an IKEA--(Shocking, right? What have I been doing with my life?)--I've still been in enough big-box retail stores to find this song's lyrics incredibly relatable: "I've been stuck in here for days/ I'm all alone up in this maze." White boy soul music usually feels a little affected; Justin Timberlake's recent output is a good example. But I think Denmark's Phlake might have the right idea about locating their soulful lament in a specifically upper-middle class milieu and malaise. In fact, I think they should record a whole album of this and call it #WhitePeopleProblems. I can just imagine some of the other tracks: "(Sometimes I Feel Like I Got) The Wrong Latte" and "Spin Class (So Sore)."

New Music of the Day, January 22:

Sea Girls, "What For"

"What For" was also the title of a 1988 single by James, and this song reminds me a LOT of British indie rock from that era. I think it's the combination of the quirky lyrics ("I could take off all my clothes/ Lay down bare in the snow/ What for?"), the percussive electronics, and the jangling guitars. But interestingly, this oh-so-1988 song also fits in perfectly with the current crop of 2018 UK indie rockers. In fact, one of my favorite bits, the barked "Hey!" in the chorus, feels very now.

New Music of the Day, January 21:

Gianni, "I'll Be Fine"

If there's one thing Millennials are good at, it's producing introspective, downbeat dance music. What separates this single from Australia's Gianni from a very large pack of similar songs are its memorable lyrics, an earworm that captures a young man's dislocation and depression: "When I wind up in the middle of night/ Walking through the streets till the morning light/ Telling me that I'm alright/ I'm not fine/ No, I'm not fine."

New Music of the Day, January 20:

GoldFish, "No One Has to Know"

South Africa's GoldFish are one of my favorite dance acts right now--I think it was their radical reworking of Nirvana's "Heart Shaped Box" that sold me on them--and this track off their new album shows them at the top of their game. "No One Has to Know" starts off as a sultry tease, with the female vocalist cooing that "No one has to know where we go, we go, now." But soon the drums kick in, the song heats up, and before long, it's wallowing in an orgy of sax.

New Music of the Day, January 19:

The Lightning Year, "Crystaleyed"

They've only released three singles so far, but The Lightning Year might just be my favorite new band of 2017. I got to see them at Great Escape in Brighton last May, and they're also a great live band, although their live sound is much rougher and more psychedelic than their sound on record. "Crystaleyed," for example, is a crisply produced pop single, which chugs along with increasing momentum for the first minute, then has a surge of melodic energy around the 1:00 mark, and an even bigger surge--the killer chorus--around the 2:00 mark.

New Music of the Day, January 18:

Denny, "Girls Like You"

I discover a lot of new bands through Soundcloud, and often there's no mention of where the bands are from. So the first few times I heard Denny's "Girls Like You," I was sure they were a British band. After all, this song basically sounds like The 1975 with the fey affectations cranked up to 11. But no, it turns out that they're from Minnesota, which evidently has its share of campy Anglophiles who love 1980's gated drum sounds.