This week’s New Music playlist is another genre-schizophrenic dose of fresh tracks, featuring new songs from Walken, The Coral, P.O.S., Jack Berry and more. In our efforts to widen the taste spectrum, we’ve tag-teamed a collaborative effort with our UK and Australian editors to bring you the best new songs hitting the streams this week.
Check out this week’s dose of new tracks below, with accompanying info. As always, keep up with our weekly new music finds as they arrive by subscribing to the Crave New Music Playlist on Spotify. Also check out our killer New Music mixtapes from previous weeks.
Walken – ‘Eagle Eye’
There’s something in the water up north in Queensland that seems to foster the kind of energetic punk music riffs that you can’t find anywhere else. Following in the ilk of Violent Soho and Dune Rats, comes the scintillating garage rock licks of Walken, whose latest single “Eagle Eye” is an impressive, dense follow-up to last release Even If It Kills Me.
Kudos needs to be given firstly for lyrics which rhyme ‘procreate’ with ‘masturbate’, but the new song splooges more then just killer lyricism with one of the catchiest guitar riffs of the year so far and some on point falling and rising percussion which give you just enough breathing room to gather yourself before being hurled into the next block of unadulterated thrash. – Mitch Feltscheer, Crave Australia
Jack Berry – ‘Bad Dog’
While Nashville rocker Jack Berry shares his hometown with a bedrock of legends and another blues-demon Jack making headlines, we’ve got a feeling that this captivating firestarter won’t have much trouble carving out his own place on the wall alongside the greats in due time.
Crave proudly premiered “Bad Dog” from Berry earlier this week, a blues-rocking searing passion kindred to Reignwolf, with platinum sonic sensibility. Berry’s honed, howling thrust of emotive aggression crackles with a thrashing electric energy and delicious rising-sound tension. Spin up the volume knob and give “Bad Dog” a first-ever listen, from Berry’s upcoming EP Mean Machine – due out in May. – Johnny Firecloud, Crave Music Editor
The Coral – ‘Million Eyes’
After a lull in what many anticipated was going to be the tail-end of their career, 14 year veterans The Coral have returned with new LP Distance Inbetween, and it serves as a pleasant reminder of why the band’s early ‘00’s output remains a fixture of every BBQ playlist we’ll curate until Earth has finally been eaten up by its sun.
‘Million Eyes’ is a psych pop exploration of the Merseyside quintet’s most enduring traits, from their effortlessly euphoric musicianship through to frontman James Skelly’s everyman vocals. – Paul Tamburro, UK Editor
Diarrhea Planet – ‘Life Pass’
As the inevitable dance-domination movement continues its steady climb, a few guitar-driven rock outfits remain with lava-firehose intensity concreting the case for their continued survival. One driving example is Diarrhea Planet, who defy their cringeworthy name with head-banging, windmill-rocking, shredding-bliss rock n’ roll. With squealing guitars, classic rock-bro poses and boiling moshpits a constant at their shows, a Diarrhea Planet party is always an absolute blast. The band’s new album Turn to Gold arrives via Infinity Cat on June 10, but “Life Pass” offers up a buoyant taste of what’s to come. – Johnny Firecloud, Crave Music Editor
Swimwear – ‘Heartbroken’
Slip on your togs and dive right in because Swimwear – the solo project of Dappled Cities’ Tim Derricourt – has just dropped his new EP High Summer the second in Swimwear’s summer series. This new record is a lighter accompaniment to its predecessor, and is filled with such sun-drenched, infectious pop tracks, it’ll make you forget it’s actually Autumn here in Australia now. (Someone pls DM the weather gods, they don’t seem to have gotten the memo).
My personal fave cut is its opener, “Heartbroken”: a jaunty track that defies its nomenclature. Built around catchy hooks, disco vibes and honey-toned vocals, a broken heart never sounded so, well, fun really. – Nastassia Baroni, Crave Australia
P.O.S. – ‘Sleepdrone/Supersposition’
Minneapolis spitter P.O.S. has laid low on the solo releases since he kicked the shit out of 2012 with We Don’t Even Live Here, but as evidenced from last year’s Doomtree release, the man known to family as Stef Alexander has done anything but kicked back. His new track “Sleepdrone/Supersposition” is a roaring banger of a comeback jam, clocking in at nearly nine minutes and rallying Lizzo, Astronautalis, Allan Kingdom and Bikini Kill punk icon Kathleen Hannah to add potency.
He jettisoned the depression rap and pushed for progress, brought some friends along for a state-of-all track and turned out a killer that touches on everything from his post-kidney-transplant fight back to normalcy to the current police war on black America. – Johnny Firecloud, Crave Music Editor
WARHOLA – ‘Lady’
There’s some really dark, demonic electro-pop coming out of Belgium right now and this man WARHOLA has a lot to do with it. He’s produced for a number of Belgian artists but now he’s turned his attention to his own project and this latest cut “Lady” is a slam-dunk. It’s a haunting tune but it’s sweetened with WARHOLA’s vocal manipulation which pairs his perfect falsetto with Bon Iver-tinged auto tune.
It’s almost as if James Blake spent a whole year in a dark room and starting speaking to dark spirits and while that’s a weird thought, it actually sounds damn good on record. It’s not likely to aid your sunny Friday disposition but it is likely to hit you right in the feels. Tip for young players – hang out for the horns right at the tail-end of the track. – Sam Murphy, Crave Australia
