BEST AND WORST NEW TRACKS OF THE MONTH 23/05/2025: Guerilla Toss, Go-Jo, Humour and more…

This week, I decided I would attempt to get through the hundreds of music submissions in my inbox – some of which stretch back all the way to March. The music quality has been surprisingly good recently, which has made it harder to narrow down my favourite songs. STOP SENDING ME ALL THIS GREAT MUSIC. Here are 12 songs that I thought were worth writing about.  Artists featured this week include Guerilla Toss, Go-Jo, Humour, Lawn, Lawn Chair, Those Fucking Snowflakes, Ocean Flor, 100%WET, The Dream Eaters, Icarus Phoenix, Tom Caruana and Kanye West.

THE BEST:

‘Psychosis Is Just A Number’ – Guerilla Toss ft. Stephen Malkmus

This skronky New-Wave-flavoured track from NY-based rock band Guerilla Toss is an absolute blast. The chromatic bassline sounds like they let a spider loose on the fretboard and the trumpets sound like they’re being played by a demonic clown. I have no idea what ‘psychosis is just a number’ is supposed to mean, but it’s exactly the type of wonderfully nutty thing I expect from lead vocalist Kassie Carlson. Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus plays guitar on the track, although the riff doesn’t sound like a Pavement riff at all.    

‘Milkshake Man’ – Go-Jo

Did you watch Eurovision last weekend? I personally didn’t think that there were enough zany acts this year. There was the Estonian guy with the long tie and the Italian rock singer with the oversized piano, but that was kinda it. The most fun entry – Australian contestant Go-Jo’s ‘Milkshake Man’ – didn’t even make it to the final. Tragic. Check out the video above if you haven’t already had a taste of the milkshake man.      

‘Neighbours’ – Humour

Glasgow five-piece Humour won me over a couple years ago with what might still be the most unhinged vocal performance I’ve ever heard in a post-punk song. Too unhinged for most regular music listeners I feel. So it looks like they’ve decided to tame their sound a bit. ‘Neighbours’ still featured a manic screeched verse, but contrasts this with a more melodic chorus for a satisfying yin-yang effect. Their other two new singles ‘Plagiarist’ and ‘Memorial’ are pretty thrilling too.

‘Sports Gun’ – Lawn

New Orleans rock band Lawn are the latest act to sign up with Exploding In Sound. Their new single ‘Sports Gun’ revolves around a groovy hypnotic bass riff and builds up into an exciting climax of dissonant slide guitar (Tom Breihan describes it as an ‘incendiary trumpet’, but I’m pretty sure it’s a guitar). Coincidentally, they are not the only band with a lawn-themed name this week…

‘The Next Big Thing’ – Lawn Chair

Need some Lawn Chair to go with your Lawn? The last time I featured German-American art punks Lawn Chair on the blog was about two years ago with their highly entertaining single 'Lover And A Fighter'. This new track, ‘The Next Big Thing’, is a groovy song about the dream of making it big with a charming DIY music video, infectious chorus and a flock of seagulls on guest vocals.  

‘No Sky For Rishi’ – Those Fucking Snowflakes

Lancastrian rock band Those Fucking Snowflakes (read my interview with them here) have dropped this belated farewell track to Rishi Sunak. Last year, the ex-PM opened up to ITV News about how he had to grow up with no Sky TV. This song is dedicated to the many hardships that Rishi no doubt faced during his childhood. My favourite line: ‘No poos for Rishi/ his family only has two toilets’. You could argue the song it totally irrelevant now (made worse by the fact that I’m several months late reviewing it), but I still got a good chuckle out of it.  

‘Never Let You Down’ – Ocean Flor

Berlin-born-Malaga-based musician Ralf Schmidt and Gibraltar-based musician Jess Trinidad make up the duo, Ocean Flor. Their latest exciting single melds icy synths and beatboxed percussion. The sparse lyrics ‘I’ll never let you down’ were inspired by Ralph having to race back home to look after his sick girlfriend. The repetition combined with the intense production helps reflect the sense of urgency to get back home. I kinda get a James Blake vibe from it.

‘Leave It’ – 100%WET

We’ve been to the Ocean Flor and now we’re 100%WET. This Copenhagen duo describe their sound as ‘hypergaze’. It’s like shoegaze but with punchy electronic beats. The way the song rapidly shifts between textures and keys makes it really exciting – I feel like I got blindsided by that dreamy section at 2:30. Their new self-titled album is out now and worth a listen.  

‘Program Me, I’m A Machine’  - The Dream Eaters

‘Program Me, I’m A Machine’ is both an upbeat synthpop bop and a terrifying commentary on female submissiveness. It’s sang from the perspective of an AI partner (think ‘Her’ or ‘Blade Runner 2049’) that can be programmed to do anything. However, there’s an icy undertone to it all that makes you wonder if the machine is doing it all reluctantly. It’s like some dark version of Aqua’s ‘Barbie Girl’.

‘The World That We Live In’ – Icarus Phoenix

Optimism is in short supply right now and society seems to be going backwards. This song by Baltimore indie band Icarus Phoenix is all about the inner battle to find hope so that change can be made. Nuggets of wisdom are contrasted with cynical defeatism as the song constantly shifts tempo. And yet it ends positively with the lines: ‘The world that we live in/what we’ve been given/but we can change it/we can remake it’.

‘Hits Hits Hits’ – Tom Caruana ft. Jehst

Veteran hip hop producer Tom Caruana is dropping a new album next Friday titled Salsa Verde. This single ‘Hits Hits Hits’ features UK rapper Jehst delivering some playful and colourful references to everything from Crash Bandicoot to Siouxsie and the Banshees. It’s accompanied by a sinister sax loop and some hard-hit-hit-hitting drums.

THE WORST:

‘Heil Hitler’ – Kanye West

The Diddy feature wasn’t enough. His desperation for attention has no bounds. But where can he go from here? Should I even care? Or is it time to boycott Kanye completely? I’ve already stopped listening to his albums, and it might be time to stop covering these singles too. Starving him of attention – as many blogs and publications are already doing – might be his only cure. But it might also kill him.