Whoa, we're going crazy. Hi, everyone. Anthony Fantano here, Internet's busiest music nerd. I hope you're doing well. And it's time for another weekly track roundup. My thoughts and feelings on a bunch of tracks that have dropped over the past week or so. Let's get into it.

Bam, bam. Worst tracks.

We have this new one from Thom Yorke and Mark Pritchard that is a little bewildering, in my opinion. It seems like they're doing butt rock vocal riffs over very stiff, cold, icy, old-school, Kraftwerk-style electronic music instrumentation, and it is just not working. I don't really feel like this is the combo, honestly. If there's more to come from this collaboration, I hope the rest of it does not sound like this. I'll leave it there.

All right, we have a new one from Jack Harlow, "Set You Free", break up song from our boy Jack, and he knows it's good for him. He knows it's important to end this relationship, but he's still afraid to do it over some very plucky, plain, generic acoustic guitars and a bit of a low-key dance beat, I suppose. A very half-hearted, understated vocal delivery. Nothing really to write home about. It's just okay. It's just okay. A very somber and low-key, wallpaper-type break-up song, and we can just leave it there.

All right, Drake, PartyNextDoor, their new project, Sexy Songs 4 U. It's out and it's about. And there are some highlights on this thing. There are some stinkers. One I would most definitely want to highlight is the track "Meet Your Padre", where Drake proves that he most likely failed high school Spanish by trying to write a tune with a mix of Spanish words and English words, but it's very basic words that I feel like he should know in Spanish, and he's trying to flirt in Espanol. It's just not working. It's like a worse version of Bad Bunny. It's quite awful. I have no idea what he was thinking. All right.

And Addison Rae posting feet on the timeline. Why? Why? "High Fashion" is her brand new single. With each new Addison Rae song, I feel like she goes in a different sonic direction. The only thing that truly remains the same are how awful the lyrics are. The lyrics on this track are some of her worst yet, point blank, period. But why does the vocal delivery and the instrumental sound like she's really into the new FKA twigs album? Why does it sound like that? It sounds like she's just really crazy about that new FKA, and just heard it a week ago and was like "You know what? This is it. This is what I'm doing, doing this now." I don't know. Just every track, every single just sounds super derivative of a different, modern left field pop thing. And then in addition to that, the writing is just bad. The "slut for shoes" bit. I mean, I get the concept of the song, not wanting to be treated like dirt or objectified or used by somebody in a relationship or a sexual context. So you prefer to indulge in high fashion instead. I get it. I understand. I just think the way she writes around that topic is very trite, and I'll say that, and laughable on a few bars, too.

Okay, let's move on to...

The tracks that I was meh on.

Not crazy about, but maybe you'll dig them more than me. They are as follows.

Selena Gomez, Benny Blanco. New collab album on the way. They both have big backgrounds in music, obviously, so I feel like a collaboration from them makes sense. Their own little Double Fantasy type moment. I like the lyrics on this track. I like the chemistry on this track. I like the way their vocals meld on the cut, too. The one major issue that I have with it is that it is so dang short, and the instrumental sounds like some royalty-free YouTube early 2010s, like, jam instrumental. I don't really get why the instrumental needs to sound this bland. It's like if Bright Eyes was fronted by an Instagram influencer is how the music sounds. I'm not crazy about just the instrumentation, but everything else I feel like is working. Hopefully, there's just better production to see on the rest of this forthcoming album.

Let's see, PUP has come through with a new cut. "Hallways" is the title. And yeah, it's a bit punky, singer-songwriter, indie rock. It's very heartbroken, big Jeff Rosenstock vibes, which I think makes sense because Jeff does feature on a deeper cut on their forthcoming album, Who Will Look After the Dogs.

We have a new Gates of Hell cut. If you're looking for some solid, loud, violent, and aggressive death core, you're definitely going to want to check this one out, even if it does sound maybe a bit too close to the last track that they dropped. "Crazed Killer" is the name of the cut.

Moving on from there, we have Japanese Breakfast. Brand new album, For Melancholy Brunettes, and the latest track from it is "Mega Circuit". I feel like this one has a slight country twang to it. Just feels like some, I don't know, plain 2000s indie singer-songwriter stuff, maybe a little Grizzly Bear-influenced. It's okay. It's all right for what it is. It's not doing too much for me, honestly. I mean, it's a tried and true sound. I just don't really feel like the song stands out all that much, nor is JBrekkie doing anything super profoundly crazy with this sound. I feel like she's come out with better singles in the past. I'll say that.

bbno$, hitting us with a fun, bouncy little cut that is maybe a little basic, and the War "Low Rider" sample is really thrown in your face. But it has its moments, and I'll say that, and I'll leave it there.

Okay, best tracks of the week.

They are as follows. Here we go. Let's dig into it.

We have SPELLLING, who's come through with a brand new track titled "Alibi". With this track and the previous single, it has become clear that I feel like this forthcoming album from SPELLLING is going to be her rock opus. She's rocking on this album, and not just any rock. It's very mystical, whimsical, theatrical rock music that sounds like something from a Disney channel original movie where the lead actress in the film is a misunderstood, maybe a little witchy main character who does not get along with everyone at school. But then when she fronts a band and wins the battle of the bands, she comes into her own and wins everyone over who previously had been her hater. I feel like that's the vibe and energy that this track is giving off, and I'm liking that. So I'm going to leave that there.

All right.

Sabrina Carpenter has come through with a new deluxe edition of her latest LP with a bunch of additional tracks, a couple of which I feel like are as good, if not better, than the best highlights from the actual album. "15 Minutes" is one of those songs. "15 Minutes", like, damn. The chorus goes hard. The lyrics are funny and very quippy and sexual in a tee-hee way, per usual for Carpenter. Yeah, I just feel like it's got a little bit of a nice, I would say, slight disco energy to it, too, with some of the segues and transitions and the beat. I'm liking it a lot. Liking it a lot. I feel like this is a really great one from Sabrina, and I'll leave it there. Okay.

Cameron Picton. Formerly of Black Midi Fame, has a new band, a new project out that is making headway on the Bandcamp platform. And the name of it is My New Band Believe, "Lecture 25" is the name of the track. The drums go hard as hell, of course. But yeah, it is a proggy and artsy little rock song with a lot of hurried and tense passages of drums and guitar. And yeah, I'm liking the energy. It's odd, like many a great Black Midi song had been when the band was still together. Now all their music is awful, obviously, since they've broken up. No, I'm kidding. It's still great stuff. But yeah, I'm excited to hear this new path forward. Sort of sounds like Cameron's putting his best foot forward on this I'll say that.

Okay. Men I Trust has come through, interestingly, with a new album of just live performances, like live in studio-esque type performances of many of their best tracks. "Sugar" is one of said performances that I would like to point to down below because it's just a nice little session performance of the song. And yeah, it's just cool to hear such a chill, laid back, breezy, beautiful, indie pop band doing some cool live stuff. There you go.

Okay, we have a shout out to frigging Kyle Gordon, with Cody Red Wing and the Broken Hearts. Kyle Gordon has been making quite a name for himself in the online space for a minute now, doing, frankly, these ingenious little parody songs where he just jumps from style to style, genre to genre. And man, does he nail that millennial, whoop, folky, pop, rock, meaningful, going to fill you with hope, bullshit anthem on this one. It's a little Mumford & Sons. It's a little Lumineers. It's a little fun. And while I know all of those groups have come out with music that is respectable, he really boils it down to all the worst elements and stereotypes of that vibe, of that sound, of that energy, and packs it all into this just soaring, but also deeply cringe, intentionally cringe song. I just love how much he nailed this vibe on this track. You really have to admire the guy's attention to detail for him to pull this off so accurately. Yeah, I'm just amazed. And hopefully, the song really takes off because I've genuinely heard some recent artists bringing this sound back, and I feel like this happened. We don't need a second helping of it. We can just let it die. If a track like this takes on, it could hopefully innoculate people, do a comeback for this thing. It was fine once. We don't We need it twice. We do not need it two times.

Okay, we have avant-garde metal outfit, Imperial Triumphant. Coming through with a brand new track and single featuring Dave Lombardo and Tomas Haake. "Pleasuredome" is the name of the song. It's this multifaceted, theatrical, thunderous, just like a tangled metal experience with a lot of field recordings and sound effects and so on and so forth as you move from section to of the song. It really does feel like a movie in terms of it playing out in a lot of ways. Yeah, it's heavy, it's grim, it's dense, it's technical like many a great Imperial Triumphant song is. I'm just loving the continued creativity from the band, and we will move on.

Freddie Gibbs has come through on Valentine's Day with a little new material. "Nobody Like You" is a track that he has seen fit to he put out in celebration of the holiday. I mean, I wouldn't call it the most romantic song in the world, but I feel like a track like this, lyrically speaking, is about as romantic as Freddie gets. Yeah. He's very tied up over a woman on this track, but still quite... He's a bit of a dog. You know what I'm saying? The bars are certainly there, though. The bars are there. It is Freddie, so the bars are there. He's rapping his ass off. All right, moving on from there.

Shout out to the Callous Daoboys who are really building out their sound and getting quite creative and moving on from purely their hardcore and math core roots and incorporating elements of alt metal and some soaring melodic vocals on the chorus. And it's sounding pretty good. It's sounding eccentric, it's sounding sick. It's really feeling like they're holding on all those creative, crazy, experimental underground post-hardcore bands from the 2000s, but doing something a little more accessible from it. I'm liking the novelty, I'm liking the revivalism all at the same time, coming together all at once. Yeah, for a minute, I've been really wanting to be blown away by this band because I see the potential in what they do. This track has me really pumped for their forthcoming album, so I'll leave it there.

Okay, and finally, shout out to Bon Iver, Justin Vernon has a new album on the way after serving us up a fantastic EP last year. We got our first taste of it in the form of E"verything is Peaceful Love". It's a bit of a syrupy, almost blue-eyed soul, Michael McDonald-esque ballad, but very slow. I feel like this is an entirely new song for Justin because that old project or collective he was involved in, Gayngs, used to have some influences and vibes similar to this, if I remember correctly. But yeah, it's cool to hear him go headlong into this thing. The ballad is great. Vocal performance is great. Keys are killer. Again, liking the syrupy production. It's a little lo-fi, but I think it adds to the softness and sweetness of the whole thing. Good tune all around. Looking forward to hearing more from Mr. Vernon as he continues to switch it up, going into a singer-songwriter mode on this forthcoming album.

All right, I think that's going to be it for the Weekly Track Roundup.

Anthony Fantana, Weekly Tracks, Forever.