Starting now: Each month we trawl the furthest corners of the web in search of the best new music so you don’t have to. Here are our picks for February 2023. —Jackson Todd

* * *

*Click each title to get hyperlooped*

FOOD FOR WORMS - SHAME

Written hastily over the course of two weeks in early 2022 as a challenge intended to cure a lingering case of writer’s block, Food for Worms sees London’s Shame doubling down on the frenzied and passionate energy of their previous release Drunk Tank Pink, while also exploring new musical territories and textures.

“Fingers of Steel” opens the record with a sparse piano hook I could’ve sworn I heard in an Arcade Fire song before evolving into a cathartic dance-punk romp reminiscent of early New Order. The downtempo and melancholic “Adderall” features a nearly inaudible vocal contribution from a certain indie pop supersensation (initials P.B.), while “Alibis” swaps this gooey sentimentality for urgency and anger (“I let my friends rise above me, and then I let them fall”).

All in all, Food for Worms is the finest release yet from one of the most important bands in “contemporary rock”, if such a distinction even means anything anymore. We just wish we could’ve been there for that secret gig on the River Thames.

NEW YORK CITY - THE MEN

The Men have spent the better part of the last decade boldly hopping from one genre to the next, including but not limited to: flowery acoustic soft-rock (New Moon), organ-driven power blues (Mercy), and brutalist psych-punk (Leave Home), all built on the group’s modest garage rock foundations.

But their latest effort New York City strips away any evidence of prior evolution; Put simply, it sounds like the result of four dudes getting together in a basement to make an album over the course of one sweaty, PBR-soaked all nighter. No synths, no drum machines, no frills… just rock and roll. De-evolution triumphs again.

THIS STUPID WORLD - YO LA TENGO

Yo La Tengo will never be a “legacy act”. Their latest LP This Stupid World serves as proof of that - despite 40 years atop the indie rock royalty-heap - the group is still as relevant and transgressive as any of their younger peers/competitors/copycats.

Seven-minute litanies, feedback-swamped folk ballads, tasteful krautrock homages… think early Velvets meets Can, with a slight dash of Peter, Paul, and Mary.

HONED BLADE, ATTAINABLE - GEL

I’ve never been curb stomped.

But I am a fan of Gel, and through listening to their music, I feel like I’ve acquired a pretty accurate sense of what that might feel like.

They’ve been called “the most important band in hardcore right now”, a title that - if the two new singles off their upcoming full length debut Only Constant are any indication - is well deserved. Both of these tracks couple the ferocity of hardcore with the bubbly production quality you might find on a Harry Styles record, which I know sounds awful on paper, but it’s done here in a way that retains the hard-hitting “fuck-you” attitude Gel is known and adored by punks across the country for.

Truth be told, we aren’t 100% on board with that NIN-style techno breakdown towards the middle of “Attainable,” but we’ll let it slide. It’s about time someone shook the formula up a bit, anyways.

* * *

[First photo: Shame, live on the River Thames, taken by Ben Beauvallet]