Remember when songs on movie soundtracks could blow up big? This week’s selection contains two songs from movies along with some decidedly angsty punk along with a tune from a guy who broke his hip running a marathon.
1. Mike Shinoda, In My Head feat. Kailee Morgue
Single (Warner)
RIYL: What Linkin Park might have been
Since Linkin Park has said they’d never consider performing live without Chester Bennington, the band is never coming back (outside of the special release of older songs like the recently-issued archive track Lost). Mike has been the most active of the surviving band members when it comes to releasing new music. He wrote this for the Scream VI soundtrack.
2. Tame Impala, Wings of Time
Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves (soundtrack)
RIYL: Twangy psych
Another soundtrack song. This appears as Kevin Parker recovered from a broken hip suffered during a marathon in Mexico City earlier this month. This injury was severe enough that it required surgery. Fortunately, he’s on the mend and has already performed some gigs propped up on crutches. Hey, the show must go on, right?
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3. Temples, Afterlife
Exotico (ATO Records)
Recommended If You Like: British psych
Temples had a method of getting into the right headspace to write and record this album. I quote the band’s Thomas Walmsley: “As we were putting the tracklist together we envisioned a jet or spaceship arriving on the island and then some sort of journey across this imagined place.” Got it. The song was produced by Sean Ono Lennon, so there’s some Beatles-adjacent pixie dust in here. The album will be out on April 14.
4. FIDLAR, On Drugs
That’s Life EP (Stem Disintermedia)
RIYL: Drugs instead of therapy
Trending Now
FIDLAR is far and away my favourite SoCal punk band of the last five years and can always be heard coming out of my car during the summer. There’s a great backstory to this new record, too. The band was looking for answers during the dark pandemic days of 2020, so they sought out an ayahuasca ceremony in hopes of achieving some sort of enlightenment. That remained elusive, but the lyrics for this EP poured out during the experience. The EP was produced by Dave Sardy who has worked with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, LCD Soundsystem, and Spoon.
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5. ThxSoMch, Spit in My Face
Single (Indie)
RIYL: Viral hits
Up until recently, ThxSoMch was an obscure Canadian artist dabbling in a sound best described as Goth alt-pop. But then a clip of this song was posted on TikTok back in October. When the song was released in full a few weeks later, it exploded. There are shades of The Cure, Joy Division, and The Rapture present. Are we looking at a new generation of darkwave bands? Possibly.
