10 Best Songs of the Week: Ladytron, Man/Woman/Chainsaw, David Byrne, plantoid, and More

News
All

10 Best Songs of the Week: Ladytron, Man/Woman/Chainsaw, David Byrne, plantoid, and More

Plus Art School Girlfriend, GIFTHORSE, Westside Cowboy, and a Wrap-up of the Last Week’s Other Notable New Tracks

Nov 21, 2025 By Mark Redfern (with Andy Von Pip)

Welcome to the 41st Songs of the Week of 2025. This week Andy Von Pip, Matt the Raven, and Scotty Dransfield helped me decide what should make the list. We considered over 30 songs and narrowed it down to a Top 10.

We need to close the funding gap for our next issue and are offering 25% off subscriptions, 50% off back issues, and up to 70% off print ads. We need to raise $7,000. Find out more here.

Issue 74, The Protest Issue, is out now. It features Kathleen Hannah and Bartees Strange on the two covers and can be bought from us directly here.

In recent weeks we posted interviews with She’s in Parties, Flock of Dimes, Wolf Alice (a digital cover story), Idlewild, Elbow, and more.

In the last week we reviewed some albums.

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.

1. Ladytron: “Kingdom Undersea”

Earlier today, Liverpool-formed electro-pop band Ladytron announced a new album, Paradises, and shared a new song from it, “Kingdom Undersea,” via a music video. Paradises is due out March 20, 2026 on Nettwerk.

Ladytron is Helen Marnie, Daniel Hunt, and Mira Aroyo. Fellow founding member Reuben Wu left the band in 2023. Ladyton’s last studio album, Time’s Arrow, came out in 2023 via Cooking Vinyl.

Hunt produced Paradises, which was mixed by long-time collaborator Jim Abbiss.

“When I heard the demos for Paradises, I was truly blown away,” says Abbiss in a press release. “The variety in songwriting and arrangements reminded me of Witching Hour, but with its own unique atmosphere, sonics, and attitude.”

Marnie adds: “It was like a homecoming. We just fit. His enthusiasm is contagious, and having that in the room really creates a kind of magic.”

Paradises was written and recorded over five months starting in late 2023, with it finished in early 2025. They worked on it in Liverpool, São Paulo, Montrose, Dalston, and at Dean Street Studios in Soho, London.

Aroyo says: “I wanted to write from that perspective and channel that fun feeling of first working together back in the late ’90s when we had nothing to lose.”

Marnie adds: “Feeling at ease brings the best out of us, and there was a buzz in the studio about the material that felt new.”

Says Hunt: “Every time I went into the studio, I’d come out after an hour with a new track. The key motivation was fun. Everything became fun again…. There’s an itch we never scratched, which is that despite our origins in the DJ world, we never actually made a ‘disco’ record. Albeit, ‘disco’ in our context has a somewhat different meaning.”

Paradises includes “I Believe in You,” a new song the band shared in September that was one of our Songs of the Week. It also features “I See Red,” a song they released in October that also landed on Songs of the Week.

For Record Store Day Black Friday (on November 28) Ladytron are also putting out Nightlife, a remix collection on 2LP milky clear vinyl. It features “classic remixes from Ladytron’s early career, and rare or unreleased mixes of some of their most loved tracks.” Some of the remixers include Tiësto, Soulwax, Sasha, Josh Wink, Erol Alkan, Zombie Nation, Underworld’s Darren Emerson, Playgroup, Simian Mobile Disco, and others.

Read our 2019 interview with Ladytron on their self-titled album.

Read our First Issue Revisited interview with Ladytron on their debut album, 604, from our 20th Anniversary Issue.

Read our review of Time’s Arrow. By Mark Redfern

2. Man/Woman/Chainsaw: “Only Girl”

This week, Man/Woman/Chainsaw unveiled their new single “Only Girl,” their first release for Fiction Records and a standout of their recent live sets. Recorded at RAK Studios with producers Seth Evans and Margo Broom, the track marks one of the band’s most immediate and joyfully unrestrained releases to date.

Man/Woman/Chainsaw are: Billy Ward (vocals, guitars), Emmie-Mae Avery (vocals, keys/synths), Vera Leppänen (vocals, bass), Clio Harwood (violin), Lola Cherry (drums), Billy Doyle (guitars).

Leppänen, who takes lead vocals on the single, says: “‘Only Girl’ is our playful love song. Built around a ripping violin top-line and birthed from a grungy guitar jam, it gradually became something more boisterous and altogether more joyful—a total declaration of love. We had a lot of fun making it.”

The single arrives off the back of a sold-out Scala and UK tour, two sold-out runs this year alone, plus live sessions for KEXP and Steve Lamacq at BBC 6 Music. The band also made a triumphant first appearance at SXSW in the spring.

Alongside this week’s release, the group confirmed a free-entry London show at Omeara this December, with further headline dates set for February. Their debut album is slated for 2026.

Read our review of their debut EP here. By Andy Von Pip

3. David Byrne: “T-Shirt”

David Byrne released a new album, Who Is the Sky?, in September via Matador. This week, the former Talking Heads frontman has shared a new song, “T-Shirt,” which he co-wrote with regular collaborator Brian Eno.

Previously Byrne shared Who Is the Sky?’s first single, “Everybody Laughs,” via a music video. It was one of our Songs of the Week. Then he shared its second single, “She Explains Things to Me,” which also landed on Songs of the Week. The album’s third single, “The Avant Garde,” was again one of our Songs of the Week, Then he shared its fourth single, “What Is The Reason For It?,” which features Hayley Williams from Paramore and also made our Songs of the Week list.

Who Is the Sky? also features St. Vincent and The Smile’s Tom Skinner. It was one of our Best Albums of September 2025.

Kid Harpoon (Harry Styles, Miley Cyrus) produced the album and members of New York-based chamber ensemble Ghost Train Orchestra arranged the songs. Byrne’s last album was 2018’s American Utopia, which became a Broadway show and a performance film directed by Spike Lee.

Summing up Who Is the Sky?, Byrne says: “At my age, at least for me, there’s a ‘don’t give a shit about what people think’ attitude that kicks in. I can step outside my comfort zone with the knowledge that I kind of know who I am by now and sort of know what I’m doing. That said, every new set of songs, every song even, is a new adventure. There’s always a bit of, ‘how do I work this?’ I’ve found that not every collaboration works, but often when they do, it’s because I’m able to clearly impart what it is I’m trying to do. They hopefully get that, and as a result, we’re now joined together heading to the same unknown place.”

Read our 2020 interview with David Byrne. By Mark Redfern