10 Best Songs of the Week: Tunde Adebimpe, Fontaines D.C., Goon, illuminati hotties, and More
Apr 18, 2025
Welcome to the 12th Songs of the Week of 2025. This week Andy Von Pip, Caleb Campbell, Marina Mallin, Matt the Raven, and Scotty Dransfield helped me decide what should make the list. We considered over 25 songs and narrowed it down to a Top 10.
Recently we announced Issue 74, The Protest Issue. It features Kathleen Hannah and Bartees Strange on the two covers and can be bought from us directly here.
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To help you sort through the multitude of fresh songs released in the last week, we have picked the 10 best the last seven days had to offer, followed by some honorable mentions. Check out the full list below.
Of the new video, Adebimpe simply had this to say in a press release: “I’m positive I fell asleep on a couch with the TV on sometime in 1982 and fever dreamt this exact thing.”
Three Black Boltz includes “Magnetic,” a new song Adebimpe shared in October via a self-directed music video. It was one of our Songs of the Week. When the album was announced in January he released its second single, “Drop,” also one of our Songs of the Week. Its third single, “God Knows,” also landed on Songs of the Week.
Adebimpe produced the album with Wilder Zoby, and Zoby executive produced it. There was additional production and contributions from TV on the Radio members Jaleel Bunton and Jahphet Landis. Landis produced “Drop,” for example.
TV on the Radio also features David Sitek and Kyp Malone. In a press release Adebimpe says that when writing and recording music with the band he can rely on the other members to help finish his initial ideas, but with his solo album he was out on his own limb.
“I’ve been doing this thing with this group of people for so long, that I can just have a vague sketch of a concept and I know Jaleel or Kyp will have five brilliant ideas on where it can go,” he says. “But for Thee Black Boltz, I didn’t have that scaffolding to hang on. That was both terrifying and exhilarating.”
Adebimpe is also an actor, having appeared in last year’s blockbuster Twisters, as well as in Rachel Getting Married and the recent Disney+ show Star Wars: Skeleton Crew.As a solo musician he’s also collaborated with Massive Attack, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Run the Jewels.
After several years of inactivity, last September TV on the Radio resurfaced with plans to put out a 20th anniversary reissue of their debut album, Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes, as well as the announcement of their first shows in five years. The reissue includes five bonus tracks and in September they shared one of them, “Final Fantasy.”Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes (20th Anniversary Edition) came out in November via Touch & Go. The band’s last album, Seeds, came out a decade ago in 2014.
We first interviewed TV on the Radio in Issue 5 of Under the Radar in 2003, in honor of their debut EP, Young Liars. That article isn’t online, but you can revisit our 2008 interview with the band.
The deluxe edition also includes “It’s Amazing to Be Young,” which the band shared in February and was one of our Songs of the Week. There’s also a stripped back version of the album’s “Starburster” and melds into a cover of David Lynch’s “In Heaven (Lady In The Radiator Song),” from the soundtrack of Lynch’s 1977 film Eraserhead.
In a press release, the band’s Conor Curley had this to say about the new single, which was produced by James Ford: “‘Before You I Just Forget’ is a song that started with a vision of this really blown out sound, something that heaved and shifted with new details, becoming apparent every time you would listen. Like never being able to step in the same river twice, the song morphs and changes, finishing with an incredible string part by Grian [Chatten].”
“Before You I Just Forget” was originally released as a B-side on the “It’s Amazing to Be Young” 7-inch single.
Fontaines D.C. features Grian Chatten (vocals), Carlos O’Connell (guitar), Conor Curley (guitar), Conor Deegan (bass), and Tom Coll (drums).
Fontaines D.C. were interviewed about Romance in our previous print issue (Issue 73). Check out our in-depth interview and photo shoot with the band by buying the issue directly from us.
Romance is the band’s fourth album, the follow-up to 2022’s acclaimed Skinty Fia (which was #1 on both the UK and Irish album charts), 2020’s Grammy-nominated A Hero’s Death, and 2019’s Mercury Prize-nominated Dogrel. It finds them working with producer James Ford for the first time.
The band was formed in Dublin but is now based in London. Ideas for the new album started to form while they were touring the U.S. and Mexico with Arctic Monkeys. Then the band members went their separate ways for a while, before reconvening for three weeks of pre-production in a North London studio and one month of recording in a chateau near Paris.
In 2023 Chatten released his debut solo album, Chaos For the Fly. Read our interview with him about it here.
3. Goon: “Closer to”
On Wednesday, Los Angeles-based four-piece Goon announced a new album, Dream 3, and shared its lead single, “Closer to.”Dream 3 is due out July 11 on Born Loser.
As its title suggests, Dream 3 is the band’s third album. Goon began as a solo project for singer and multi-instrumentalist Kenny Becker but has since grown to feature Andy Polito on drums, Dillon Peralta on guitar, and Tamara Simons on bass.
The album was born of heartbreak. “I began this record so excited,” says Becker in a press release. “The songwriting was less scripted, letting me loosen up the reins a little and follow whatever idea seemed most interesting. It started off as a really joyful recording process. Then came the most devastating time of my life.”
Album opener “Begin Here” features the lyric “Let me cry to Tamara,” in reference to the band’s bassist. “The song started as a little reversed guitar progression that I had kicking around for a while,” explains Becker. “I showed it to our bass player, Tamara, who had a strong reaction to it and insisted we flesh it out. When I sing, ‘Let me cry to Tamara’ at the end, that’s because it’s what I was doing all the time we were recording it. To me, that song has this sunny, upbeat melody, but it’s coming from a place of total despair. I like that tension.”
4. illuminati hotties: “Wreck My Life” (Feat. PUP)
The project of Sarah Tudzin, illuminati hotties this week announced a new EP, Nickel on the Fountain Floor, and shared a new song from it, “Wreck My Life,” which features PUP, in particular the band’s Stefan Babcock. Check out illuminati hotties’ upcoming tour dates, including some with PUP here. Also watch her recent Tiny Desk Concert here.
Nickel on the Fountain follows illuminati hotties’ 2024 album, POWER.
Tudzin had this to say about the new EP and single in a press release: “There are a handful songs that I couldn’t quite figure out how to squeeze on to POWER—they live in a nearby neighborhood to POWER or perhaps weren’t fully formed in time, and ‘Wreck My Life’ was a tune that lay crying on the cutting room floor for a rework. I’m honored to be joined by the unmatched talent of Stefan from PUP on this tune, who took it to another level. You ALL know someone that fits the ‘Wreck My Life’ description and I PRAY you never let them (wreck your life).”
On Wednesday, quirky Welsh indie rockers The Bug Club released a new single, “How to Be a Confidante.” It is the latest track from Very Human Features, the band’s new album, due out on June 13 via Sub Pop. Check out the band’s upcoming tour dates, including some newly announced dates with labelmates Omni, here.
The initial core of The Bug Club is composed of Sam Willmett (vocals/guitar) and Tilly Harris (vocals/bass). Tom Rees produced and mixed Very Human Features, which was recorded at Rat Trap Studios in Cardiff, Wales. It is the band’s fourth album.
6. caroline: “Tell me I never knew that” (Feat. Caroline Polachek)
On Tuesday, London-based eight-piece caroline announced their sophomore album, the fittingly named caroline 2, and released a new single from it, “Tell me I never knew that,” which features guest vocals from another Caroline, Caroline Polachek.
The band’s own Jasper Llewellyn, Casper Hughes, and Mike O’Malley produced caroline 2, which was engineered by Syd Kemp, mixed by Jason Agel, and mastered by Heba Kadry.
“The first record was a compilation, but this one is a declaration,” says Llewellyn in a press release. Llewellyn adds that this album also feels more like a full-band affair. “We were just about an eight-person band on the last one, but now we’re a proper eight-person band.”
Llewellyn, Hughes, and O’Malley founded caroline in 2017 and over time the lineup grew to include trumpeter and bassist Freddy Wordsworth, violinists Magdalena McLean and Oliver Hamilton, percussionist Hugh Aynsley, and flute, clarinet, and saxophone player Alex McKenzie.
Of the new single and collaborating with Caroline Polachek, the band collectively had this to say: “We used to call this one ‘Backstreet boys’ because the opening top line felt like a Backstreet Boys song. The main riff was written by Casper on acoustic guitar and stuck out as a really catchy, bouncy, hypnotic thing. We wrote the opening top line together and straight away we thought ‘this sounds like a melody that Caroline Polachek might sing’ in its hooky-ness. We sort of joked that we’d ask her to sing it but didn’t think it’d actually be on the cards, until about a year later when we sent her the half-finished song and she was up for it!
“Caroline was amazing. She wrote a load of extra parts that gave the whole thing such a lift, and then spent a few hours tracking a load of more improvised parts. We were still recording at about 1.30am when we decided to call it, but there was no indication that Caroline was the slightest bit tired or that she had lost any momentum in her ability to sing, even though she’d been singing for about 6 hours. It was an inspiring thing to witness! We did a little bit more re-ordering together with Caroline a few weeks after the session and then the song was finally there.”
Of the song’s video, the band add: “This video collates footage from the last few years from the phones of lots of people that we love. Putting it together was a rush of euphoric nostalgia. We hope you enjoy.”
7. Deradoorian: “No No Yes Yes”
Deradoorian (full name Angel Deradoorian) is releasing a new album, Ready for Heaven, on May 9 via Fire. On Tuesday she released its fourth single, “No No Yes Yes,” via a music video. Jennifer Juniper Stratford directed the video.
“This album is partly about watching humanity erode,” Deradoorian says in a press release. “It’s about mental struggle, and it’s avowedly anti-capitalist. I mean; would we have all these identity labels we have to live by, if we didn’t live in a capitalist world?”
In regards to her process, she adds: “I love the production more than the songwriting…. In fact, I don’t even feel like a songwriter at times, I feel like someone who is just inspired by so much music. And I want to try it all out! Like Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Mingus, or ESG and Silver Apples, or making weird Krautrock and industrial music. I love dub, and Sly and Robbie. I love the productions of those records and the collective energies released by their creators in the studio. It’s just a weird thing to do it by yourself!”
This is Deradoorian’s first album for Fire, but the British label is already home to Decisive Pink, Deradoorian’s project with Russian musician Kate Shilonosova (aka Kate NV). They released their debut album together, Ticket to Fame, in 2023 via Fire. The album’s single, “Dopamine,” which satirizes consumerism and online shopping addiction, was #1 on our Songs of the Week list.
In 2020, Deradoorian released the album Find the Sun via ANTI-. She was formerly the bassist/vocalist for Dirty Projectors.
On Thursday, Chicago-formed psych-rock band Post Animal announced a new album, IRON, that sees them reuniting with their former bandmate Joe Keery (who also releases music as Djo). The album’s first single, “Last Goodbye,” was also released. IRON is due out July 25 on AWAL and on vinyl via Polyvinyl.
Keery left the band in 2017 (after recording the band’s When I Think of You in a Castle, released in 2018) to focus on his acting career, most notably playing Steve Harrington on Stranger Things since its first episode. The fifth and final season is expected this year on Netflix. He also played Deputy Gator Tillman in the fifth season of Fargo and Walter “Keys” McKey in the 2021 sci-fi/action/comedy Free Guy (also starring Ryan Reynolds and Jodie Comer). He also plays Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus in the experimental musical biopic concert film Pavements, which premiered at the Venice film festival last year.
The rest of the band—Dalton Allison, Jake Hirshland, Javier Reyes, Wesley Toledo, and Matt Williams—continued on after Keery’s departure and remained friends with their former bandmate.
Post Animal’s last album was 2022’s Love Gibberish. In 2024 they reunited with Keery to record IRON. Allison engineered the album with Charles Glanders and mixed it with Djo co-producer Adam Thein. Hirshland mastered IRON.
“This record felt like a revitalization of our friendships and our band,” Hirshland says in a press release. “We always work collaboratively, but it’s amazing how reintroducing Joe into the mix brought back that dynamic from 2017.”
Keery reflected why it was the right time to return to the band, saying: “When we made When I Think of You in a Castle, that was near the start of Stranger Things. And now with it kind of coming to an end in my own life, we all felt it’d be great to do something like that again, to go somewhere and be isolated and work on music together. It was a labor of love.”
Toledo says they tried to have realistic and relaxed expectations about the reunion: “We all agreed that even if we went and just hung out, we’d be happy with it. We’re just heartfelt, sentimental, and emotional, but there was a real positivity and optimism among us.”
Keery adds: “We’re all still such great friends, but now everybody has a lot more experience under their belts. I was just appreciative to be spending this time, knowing we might not get another chance to do this the way we’re doing it right now. The record reflects that enjoyment, and you can feel the fun.”
Previously Djo shared The Crux’s lead single, “Basic Being Basic,” via a lyric video. It was one of our Songs of the Week. Then he shared its second single, “Delete Ya,” which also made it on Songs of the Week. Its third single was “Potion.”The Crux is the follow-up to 2022’s DECIDE and his 2019-released debut solo album, TWENTY TWENTY.
9. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard: “Deadstick”
On Tuesday, Melbourne-based psych-rock group King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard officially announced a new album, Phantom Island, and shared a new song from it, “Deadstick,” via a music video. Phantom Island is due out June 13 on the band’s own p(doom) label. Check out the album’s tracklist and cover artwork, as well as the band’s upcoming tour dates, including their previously announced shows with a 29-piece orchestra, here.
Phantom Island follows Flight b741, a new album King Gizzard released in 2024. The initial tracks for the new album were recorded at the same time as the sessions for Flight b741, but still needed more work. In a press release, the band’s Stu Mackenzie says they “were harder to finish. Musically, they needed a little more time and space and thought.”
“The songs felt like they needed this other energy and color, that we needed to splash some different paint on the canvas,” Mackenzie adds.
And so they enlisted their friend Chad Kelly, who is a British historical keyboardist, conductor and arranger. “He brings this wealth of musical awareness to his chameleon-like arrangements,” Mackenzie says. “We come from such different worlds—he plays Mozart and Bach and uses the same harpsichords they did, and tunes them the exact same way. But he’s obsessed with microtonal music, too, and all this nerdy stuff like me.”
Guy Tyzack had this to say about directing the “Deadstick” video: “I started off wanting to create a frame that looked like a landscape painting with many different people and set pieces dotted about. Deadstick refers to when a plane propeller stops midflight so I decided to have a massive plane made out of cardboard crash land into a beautiful location. The song is big and chaotic so then I went about casting swing dancers and eccentric extras to fill the landscape.”
Summing up his change of approach to music these days, Mackenzie says: “When I was younger, I was just interested in freaking people out, but as I get older, I’m much more interested in connecting with people.”
On Wednesday, UK band Black Honey announced their fourth album, Soak, set for release on August 15. The announcement came alongside their new single “Dead.”
Following their previous records influenced by Quentin Tarantino and Wes Anderson, Soak takes a Kubrickian approach with retrofuturistic and unsettling visuals. The album promises dynamic shifts between gothic and psychedelic sounds, all led by frontwoman Izzy B. Phillips.
Phillips, now two years sober and working as a tattoo artist, brings deeper self-understanding to her songwriting. She describes the album: “Soak is me processing a decade of touring and creating music and art as an addict. It’s me picking at the layers of messy, romantic, confusing, woozy, beautiful and fucked up things. Who I thought I was, who I was supposed to be and who looks back at me now are all so different but I’m kind of here for it.”
The announcement follows their previous single “Psycho,” which featured a dystopian video depicting Phillips escaping from artificial realities—a commentary on our digital lives in 2025. By Andy Von Pip
Honorable Mentions:
These songs almost made the Top 10.
Julien Baker & TORRES: “Bottom of a Bottle”
Matt Berninger: “Breaking Into Acting” (Feat. Hand Habits)
Militarie Gun & Dazy: “Tall People Don’t Live Long”
M83: “A Necessary Escape (Part 2)”
Billy Nomates: “Plans”
Jon Spencer: “Come On”
Jesse Welles: “Domestic Error”
Yumi Zouma: “Bashville on the Sugar”
Here’s a handy Spotify playlist featuring the Top 10 in order, followed by all the honorable mentions:
