Throughout the week, we update our Best New Songs playlist with the new releases that caught our attention the most, be it a single leading up to the release of an album or a newly unveiled deep cut. And each Monday, we round up the best new songs released over the past week (the eligibility period begins on Monday and ends Sunday night) in this segment.
On this week’s list, we have the second single from Snail Mail’s upcoming album Valentine, the raw and emotionally conflicted ‘Ben Franklin’, which is set against crisp percussion and flickering synths; Black Country, New Road’s fittingly chaotic yet surprisingly accessible ‘Chaos Space Marine’, the lead cut off their forthcoming sophomore LP; Emma Ruth Rundle’s strikingly minimal and evocative ‘Blooms of Oblivion’, from her upcoming fifth album Engine of Hell; Cate Le Bon’s ‘Running Away’, whose entrancing yet rigid progression mirrors the feeling of being drawn to something that’s gone; and Hamilton Leithauser and Kevin Morby’s joint track ‘Virginia Beach’, a “modern take on a dark country song,” in Leithauser’s words, which manages to be both eerie and transportive.
Best New Songs: October 18, 2021
Cate Le Bon, ‘Running Away’
Song of the Week: Emma Ruth Rundle, ‘Blooms of Oblivion’
Black Country, New Road, ‘Chaos Space Marine’
Snail Mail, ‘Ben Franklin’
Hamilton Leithauser and Kevin Morby, ‘Virginia Beach’