Following up last year’s splendid attention-getter “Silk Chiffon” is no small task. MUNA is up to it, though. On the trio’s new single, “Anything But Me,” they tap into that sweet vein of Haimian pop, all eighties-sunshine gleam. It’s a … Continue reading This Week’s Model — MUNA, “Anything But Me”

Realistically, I’m sold from the opening riff, with its little tingle of disco-era Rolling Stones. It’s only a few seconds before the fuzzed-out, thick-bottom blues guitar really kicks in, the blaring alert that “Wild Child” is indeed the Black Keys … Continue reading This Week’s Model — The Black Keys, “Wild Child”

“Angelica,” the new single from Wet Leg, feels very current in a way that sometimes eludes modern music. There’s not a lot of reinvention in the music itself; it’s splendid indie pop with a well-deployed wash of chunky guitar on … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Wet Leg, “Angelica”

So I’ll admit that my weekend plans might make me especially partial to song called “Back to the Radio” at this very moment. But it’s no mere convenience of personal association that makes the new single from the Brixton band … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Porridge Radio, “Back to the Radio”

Hailing from Melbourne, Australia, Romero makes big swaggering power pop. The opening riff of the newly issued track “Turn It On!” surges with a hard rollercoaster turn of guitar-slinging confidence, and then lead singer Alanna Oliver makes her own assertion, … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Romero, “Turn It On!”

Sometimes what I really need is a lush piece of throwback dream pop, tinged with post-punk sensibility and somehow melancholy and triumphal simultaneously. I suspect there is a time when we all need that. That time is February. The band … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Wings of Desire, “Perfect World”

Promoting her new single on Instagram, Arlo Parks told her fans to “get ready to throw yourselves around your bedrooms with aching! glowing! hearts!” And ain’t that the truth. Bobbing on a cool neo-soul groove, “Softly” is an emotional accounting … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Arlo Parks, “Softly”

It’s that burbling riff at the beginning of the song that really gets to me. A little bit Uncle Tupelo, a little bit Meat Puppets, the guitar makes the song sound like its flopping into wakefulness, still addled over the … Continue reading This Week’s Model — MJ Lenderman, “Hangover Game”

Built on a groove that is at once loosely easygoing and tick-tock steady, “Keep That Same Energy,” the new track by Homebody Sandman, radiates cool. Sure, it’s a pleasure to hear someone rhyme “less tension” with “George Benson,” but the … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Homeboy Sandman, “Keep That Same Energy”

Alynda Segarra, the creative wonder behind Hurray for the Riff Raff, knows how to pack feelings into a song. So when she explains that her new single “Pierced Arrows” is about felling discombobulated when knocked asunder by heartbreak, there’s little … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Hurray for the Riff Raff, “Pierced Arrows”