New Music Friday: 5 Songs You Need Hear This Week (7/4)

Happy New Music Friday to those who celebrate!

Understandably, NMF falling on a holiday — especially one of the big ones like The 4th of July — doesn’t make for very many new songs, but… I found some anyway!

“BEAU” – JID

15 years into his hip-hop career, and JID is continuing to set the bar higher and higher ’til not one of his contemporaries can even see it. Think… the Armand Duplantis of rap.

Soon he’ll release his fourth album, God Does Like Ugly — the follow-up to 2022’s The Forever Story — but today, he drops the GDLU Preluxe mixtape, featuring the above song, “BEAU,” which finds the “Young, Black Rambo” proving once again that he’s in a class all his own.

“No Less Than Death” – Abigail Williams

There are several hills I’m willing to die on, and one of them is that Abigail Williams is a criminally underrated metal band. I’ve been listening to them for roughly 15 years now, and I still love these rich, heavy nine-minute epics they craft.

The band’s newest song is “No Less Than Death,” and it’s everything they do perfectly and more.

“Infinite Joy” – Nuclear Daisies

You all already know I’m a sucker for anything shoegaze or dream pop-y, and this just hits that spot like a bullseye.

Comprised of made up of Austin musisicans Rob Glynn (ex Temple of Angels), Alex Gehring (Ringo Deathstarr), and Robby Williams, Nuclear Daises brings deep, dark and ethereal togetger on “Infinite Joy,” the debut single off of First Taste of Heaven, their new album whcih is out August 1 from Portrayal of Guilt Records.

“Two Tone Trippin’” – Chase Rice and Wyatt McCubbin

OK, so here’s the deal… VICE doesn’t really do country music, at least, certainly not bro-country or any kind of country that Bo Burnham is talking about in “Panderin.’” Which is exactly why this song makes the cut this week.

In place of calling it “real country,” I’ll say it’s more backwoods Americana. The kind of song you’d hear in a roadhouse dive bar oasis, somewhere in the middle of Mississippi.

I could go on and on about Chase Rice and the new direction in his career (abandoning the bro-country archetype in favor of a path more akin to Ole 60 than Florida Georgia Line), but this song is a perfect example of how aligning himself with first-class singer-songwriters like Wyatt McCubbin was 100 percent the right move.

“Fuzzy Planet” – Arcadea

Synth-rock magnificence meets stoner-metal mastery in this new song from intergalactic-electronic groove-masters Arcadea. Featuring the voice of Mastodon’s Brann Dailor, the band’s new single “Fuzzy Planet” — from the forthcoming album The Exodus of Gravity (Aug. 22, Relapse Records) — will have you dancing against your will, and there’s nothing you can, or will want, to do about it.

Honorable Mention:
“Rock and Roll America Baby Yeah!” – Greg Zola

Let me tell you what I love about Greg Zola… everything. His whole vibe is very ’07 Tim & Eric, super lo-fi sounds and aesthetic, which already means I’ve thought about it all so much more than he has. I love that too.

Check out his satirical patriotic anthem “Rock and Roll America Baby Yeah!,” which technically came out a couple of weeks ago, but the video just officially dropped today.