Best New Songs (March 13, 2025)

At Paste Music, we’re listening to so many new tunes on any given day, we barely have any time to listen to each other. Nevertheless, every week we can swing it, we take stock of the previous seven days’ best new songs, delivering a weekly playlist of our favorites. Check out this week’s material, in alphabetical order. (You can check out an ongoing playlist of every best new songs pick of 2025 here.)

billy woods: “Misery”

Following 2023’s excellent Kenny Segal produced Maps, it’s been two long years since we’ve had a full-length billy woods record, but the wait is finally over: the New York rapper will be back with GOLLIWOG on May 9, and it’s already evident that it’s going to be a doozy. Alongside the album announcement, woods released the lead single “Misery,” a grim, gnarled track that likely takes inspiration from Stephen King’s 1987 novel of the same name. Reconnecting with long-time collaborator Segal on production, woods spins a twisted tale of sex taken to its gory extreme (“Ragged holes in my throat,” woods spits, “But I love to see those lips shiny with blood) atop jazzy inflections and a languid drum line. Complete with references to MF Doom (the refrain “I re-up on bad dreams, bag up screams in fifties” is taken straight from “Gas Drawls”) and an outro sampling the 1998 film adaptation of Toni Morrison’s Beloved, “Misery” paints an entire evocative world in just over two minutes. Watch out, everyone; woods is coming for that AOTY title once more. —Casey Epstein-Gross

Coltt Winter Lepley: “The Bandito”

The bank-robbin’, wrong-doin’, somehow never-dyin’ outlaw is likely the most enduring character in the American canon—you’ve heard his story a million times over. You probably haven’t, however, heard Coltt Winter Lepley—he’s just a folkie from the Appalachian mountains of Pennsylvania, hanging out on somebody’s front porch with his guitar in hand, assuming a Crosby, Stills & Nash-like air of humility. He only has one song on streaming platforms, “The Bandito”—which, true to its name, follows a desperado figure with a penchant for bad women and bad behavior. If you’re expecting a rehashed, dusty little ditty rehashing the vagabond tale we’ve all heard a few times too many, I understand, but let me tell you: You should be prepared for Lepley to blow those expectations right out of the water. He’s a convincing, enthralling performer, singing with a gravelly rasp that’ll scratch you up in all the right ways. It a testament to his magnetism that the music swelters and simmers in response to each chapter of his story—guitar arpeggios unravel around his otherwise unaccompanied croon at the end of each verse, allowing his cry of immortality to explode with a chorus colored by whooshing drums, weeping fiddle, sun-stroked pedal steel coils and castanets that crackle like a rattlesnake’s tail. In short: Coltt Winter Lepley is a damn good songwriter, and quite an intriguing character—according to his website, he’s also a folklorist, poet and former racecar driver. I only discovered him this past weekend, but he’s already welcome to play on my front porch. —Anna Pichler

feeble little horse: “This is Real”

Babe, wake up. New feeble little horse just dropped. After two years of periodic touring, not to mention a brief yet alarming rumor that the band had disbanded altogether, our favorite Pittsburgh noise-poppers are back with “This is Real.” It’s their first single since 2023’s Girl With Fish, which we named one of our favorite albums that year, but “This is Real” sees the band decidedly coloring outside the lines of their sophomore LP. The song unfolds like a Pompeii-level eruption—one second Lydia Slocum is nonchalantly singing about smoking in the back of a car, only to quickly pummel us with waves of double kick drum, bit-crushed guitar and a near-screamo pre-chorus of “Like I could be the moon / Like I could be the moon / Like I could be the moon.” Then, just like that: The detonation is over, punctuated by a warped acoustic guitar and a calm, warm outro. When I say I was floored upon my first listen, I’m putting it lightly (I didn’t know Slocum had it in her to scream like that, but it was absolutely awesome, and I hope this isn’t the last we hear of it). “This is Real” manages to feel both more structured and more spontaneous than anything feeble little horse has done so far—like it’s mutating unpredictably with every inharmonious guitar note. I also can’t get enough of the cybercore meets webcore, late ‘90s aesthetic that ties together the whole release. If “This is Real” is a launchpad for feeble little horse’s next album, I’m fully on board and I want more of it as soon as possible. I get it though, genius takes time. —Gavyn Green

Florry: “Hey Baby”

Back in 2023, we named Florry’s “Drunk and High” the #7 song of the year. It was the crown jewel of their album The Holey Bible, and I’ve been clamoring for a follow-up ever since. LP3—Sounds Like…—is coming out in May, and lead single “Hey Baby” finds Florry’s full-band sound growing ten-fold, with Colin Miller behind the boards and influences of the Jackass theme song and country-fried Minutmen serving as a raw-hemmed, honking template for Francie Medosch and their crew. “Hey Baby” is an up-to-no-good, fully-cooked country-rock ditty beefed up with a raving guitar solo and Medosch’s barmy vocal. “If I could turn back time,” they sing over and over, and Florry nearly gets all the way there—uniting the sounds of Philly, Asheville and the Santa Monica Mountains into one blistering, catchy-as-all-get-out, jerried barn-burner. —Matt Mitchell

HAIM: “Relationships”

The wait for HAIM’s follow-up to Women in Music Pt. III is still ongoing, but the sisters appear to be nearing its release, thanks to the recent unveiling of “Relationships,” a refreshingly dextrous, bubbly dance-pop track produced by Danielle Haim and Rostam Batmanglij. The phrase “return to form” doesn’t quite apply to HAIM, because they’ve been incredible for the 13 years we’ve known them, but “Relationships” sounds like everything that makes the band click. The smooth, R&B-inspired harmonies; the featherlight, quasi-funk beat stirred from a drum machine; the ooey-gooey catchiness; the lean disco attitude; Danielle’s lyrics about a broken romance—it’s quintessential and undeniably timeless in subject, as the track argues that relationships aren’t bad, they’re just confusing and messy as hell. “Is it just the shit our parents did?” Danielle sings, before pivoting to “Maybe that’s just how it goes when you’re not fully grown.” “Relationships” will be a song of the summer contender. The single’s cover art, a nod to Nicole Kidman’s oft-memed post-divorce paparazzi, is a great touch, too. —Matt Mitchell

Hannah Cohen: “Dusty”

“Everywhere you go, now, there you are,” Hannah Cohen repeats on the chorus of her latest single, “Dusty.” It’s a piece of advice we’ve all heard so often that it can go in one ear and right out the other, but Cohen takes time to really sit with the phrase, stretching the words to their limits to see how they taste on her tongue, before chirping them out in one breath—as though a revelation has suddenly hit her, sparking an unexpected jolt of bliss to ripple throughout her core. Evocative of the peace she’s found in solitude, a bossa nova-inflected groove wraps around her lilt like a plush blanket, while delicate flute notes twirl around her like birds in an unobstructed sky. In this serene soundscape, she finds that her own thoughts flutter and fade as naturally: “You won’t believe the things you’ll find / Laying around there with your mind,” she muses, the notion dripping from her lips like a sweet, golden nectar. There’s a sparkle of sincerity to her voice that easily gains your trust. —Anna Pichler

Lady Gaga: “Vanish Into You”

When Lady Gaga said that Mayhem is a “pop album,” she was using that description loosely. It’s not a sibling of The Fame, or Born This Way, or Chromatica—even though all of those titles have mothered Mayhem into existence. Gaga, who is knocking on the doorstep of 40, has finally drawn from her greatest wellspring of inspiration, be it the chaos of counterculture punk, the panging, crushing metallic walls of Nine Inch Nails, Prince’s output with the New Power Generation or, unequivocally, David Bowie’s discography, namely Fame. With the help of Andrew Watt and Cirkut, she returns to the spaces of Chromatica, pulling from boogie and French house; she restores the sleazy, crooked divinity of The Fame with a potent dose of sex, power and resistance. And yet, “Vanish Into You” is none of those things. It’s a daring pop song because it doesn’t flutter once. It’s my favorite thing she’s made since “Judas,” potent with a high-pitch, glass-breaking chorus and picture-perfect, sugary production. It’s also the most joyous Gaga has sounded on a track in more than a decade, all but confirmed in “Vanish Into You”‘s emphatic, “We were happy just to be alive” chorus. —Matt Mitchell

Matt Berninger: “Bonnet of Pins”

Paste writer Candace McDuffie praised National frontman Matt Berninger’s debut solo effort, Serpentine Prison, in 2020, writing that the album “displays infinite promise from an artist who has already given us a catalogue that has made a lasting impact on rock music as we know it.” With “Bonnet of Pins”—the first single from his sophomore solo record Get Sunk—Berninger lives up to that expectation. The song boasts the lived-in texture of a Neil Young song, but delivered with a rush of rock fervor that sits distinctly in The National’s sonic palette. Beaming, arena-ready guitar shines even brighter thanks to spacious synths, bringing light to the narrator’s somewhat dark vignette about encountering an old flame. “Never thought I’d ever see her here / Never thought I’d see her again,” Berninger intones wistfully. He recounts their exchange on the chorus, their conversation brought to life by the addition of a female vocalist. As melancholic as the lyrics can be (“The closest thing she’s ever found to love / Is the kind you can’t get rid of fast enough”), this expansive stadium rock moment exposes the seemingly small stories of normal people as the emotional epics they really are. —Clare Martin

Sally Shapiro: “The Other Days”

When you first hear Swedish synth-pop duo Sally Shapiro, it’s like you’ve happened to tune into a forgotten radio station from another time, the anonymous singer’s voice reaching out with a haunting delicacy and sending shivers down your spine à la the late Julee Cruise. This unknown vocalist and producer Johan Agebjörn have been releasing music since their 2007 debut album Disco Romance, and their newest single “The Other Days” thrums with that same indescribable magic that makes Sally Shapiro more than your average Italo disco-inspired project. Her dreamy, gossamer voice floats atop a bed of vibrant synths and insistent drum machine, all wistful and bittersweet as she reflects on a love gone sour. We’re ready for more sad floor-fillers from the duo on their new album Ready To Live A Live, out May 30 via Italians Do It Better. —Clare Martin

The Gotobeds: “Goes Away”

The Gotobeds clearly took their own advice. After their 2019 album Debt Begins at 30, the band seemingly disappeared, going on a six-year hiatus until just last week, stepping back in with bed-head and all. Their return came with the announcement of a new record Masterclass (due out May 16 via 12XU), and its jolting lead single “Goes Away.” I didn’t even realize how much time had passed until “Goes Away” shook me awake like a car alarm outside my apartment window (trust me, I’m well-versed in that feeling). It’s a raucous return to form for the Gotobeds—a jagged adrenaline shot of noise-rock guitars, shout-along hooks and relentless rhythms that push the track through its loaded three-minute runtime. Amidst the clang and clamor, frontman Eli Kasan delivers each line with his signature deadpan snarl, embodying his inner David Byrne with just a touch of the Fall’s Mark E. Smith. His words spill out like notes scrawled in the margins of a beat-up spiral bound—fragments of frustration and dark humor shaking hands as he sings, “What do you feel / if it isn’t real?” On the chorus, Kasan lets himself drown beneath the ensuing sonic street fight, simply repeating, “That goes away. That goes away.” The Gotobeds continually refuse to smooth out the rough edges of their work. They like it angular, unpolished and cryptic, but this is exactly what sets them apart from the rest of Pittsburgh’s post-punk miscreants. —Gavyn Green

Other Notable Songs This Week: Adult Mom: “Crystal”; Avalon: “Harder to Reach Than God”; Bells Larsen: “Blurring Time”; Ben Kweller ft. Coconut Records: Depression”; Boyfriend: “Fight”; BRONCHO: “I Swear”; Cole Pulice: “After the Rain”; Cross Record: “Led Through Life”; Daughter of Swords: “Strange”; Florist: “Moon, Sea, Devil”; Fly Anakin: “The Times”; Freddie Gibbs: “The Big 2”; Gentle Leader XIV: “Fawning”; JENNIE ft. Dua Lipa: “Handlebars”; Joni: “Still Young”; Lucky Cloud: “Invitation”; Lucy Dacus: “Talk”; Maia Friedman: “Russian Blue”; Mister Romantic: “Dream”; Palmyra: “Palm Readers”; Provoker: “Another Boy”; Robert Forster: “Strawberries”; Sarah Mary Chadwick: “Take Me Out to a Bar”; Sextile: “S is For”; Sunflower Bean: “Nothing Romantic”; The Convenience: “Opportunity”; Ty Segall: “Fantastic Tomb”; Weaving: “Keep Trying”

Check out a playlist of this week’s best new songs below.