Latto is aiming for a big radio hit with ‘Sunshine’, the buoyant summer anthem from her new album ‘777’. Gospel-influenced backing choruses and a breezy hook collide with topical guest verses from Lil Wayne (“Don’t make me Will Smith me a n****”) and Childish Gambino (“I bought a .9 when that COVID hit / She said my Gucci don’t go with it”) in this standout cut from the LP.
‘Blood In The Snow’ is the first preview of ‘When The Lights Go’, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs’ first new album in just over a decade. Of this crystalline, meticulously produced single, TEED – aka Orlando Higginbottom – had this to say: “This song is about melting glaciers and wanting a daughter, where to put love in this tailspin.”
For her upcoming third studio album ‘Sometimes, Forever’, Soccer Mommy sought the help of a somewhat unexpected collaborator. Electronic experimentalist Oneohtrix Point Never has been busy in recent years fleshing out off-kilter cinematic universes with The Weeknd and the Safdie brothers, so it’s a little surprising to learn that he produced ‘Sometimes, Forever’, whose luminous first single ‘Shotgun’ arrived late last month. “‘Shotgun’ is all about the joys of losing yourself in love,” Sophie Allison said in a press statement. “I wanted it to capture the little moments in a relationship that stick with you.”
If you’ve ever been called out for your ‘RBF’ (‘resting bitch face’), then this Blossoms tune should resonate with you. “I once saw a Blossoms fan page describe me as ‘The Sulking Poet’, and I thought that was a great name for a song,” frontman Tom Ogden explained in a statement. “I have been told that I need to smile more from time to time. This song touches on the imposter syndrome I’ve sometimes felt in the past. How did I get here? Do I deserve it? Should I be enjoying myself more?’” From its funky bassline to its singalong-primed chorus, this single from Blossoms’ upcoming album ‘Ribbon Around the Bomb’ tries its hardest to put a smile on your face.
Karen Elson will release her third studio album ‘Green’ at the end of the month. Trailed by the single ‘Broken Shadow’, Elson shows herself grace. “‘Broken Shadow’ is about recognising that we’re all flawed, complicated, and a little bit fucked up and making peace with that,” she said of the track, which is also on the soundtrack of the new HBO Max movie Moonshot. “It’s about loving the broken parts of yourself.”
Crunching guitars are the order of the day on ‘Nothing Is Real’, the title track of Coach Party’s third EP. Frontwoman Jess Eastwood said that, for this project, the Isle of Wight band “wanted each song to be its own event, and to make a record which couldn’t be played from start to finish without demanding attention”. With this song, at least, they succeeded.
The influence of the late SOPHIE shines through on LEG’s new single ‘Levitation’. All chrome and neon, synths stuttering and blaring in equal measure, this single from the duo’s upcoming album ‘Two Ribbons’ is “about feeling all over the place, escaping to your imagination and being in a disorientating and surreal mental state, which can be both scary and elevating somehow – everything feels more creative and things look brighter”.
Holly Minto, the singer of Liverpool band Crawlers, recently told NME that their anthemic song ‘I Can’t Drive’ was written in the wake of a “very terrible mental health crisis”. “I have psychosis and generalised anxiety disorder, and then went through a break-up on top of that. I couldn’t cope at all.” ‘I Can’t Drive’ is proof that you can survive – and thrive – even after your lowest lows.
MUNA’s ‘Anything But Me’ is a synth-pop kiss-off that combines warm tenderness with stunning snark. The trio do their best Shania Twain impression on this single from their self-titled album, which is dropping in June: “You’re gonna say that I’m on a high horse / I think that my horse is regular-sized… You’re gonna say I asked for the moon / I think it was you with your head in the sky.”
On ‘Child Of God’, Moses Sumney provides angelic guest vocals for Chance The Rapper. This track is a devout statement of intent from Chance, who is readying his comeback following on from his underwhelming 2019 album ‘The Big Day’.
