All right, everyone. I'm feeling a little under the weather, but it is still time for a Weekly Track Roundup. My thoughts, my feelings, my opinions on a bunch of tracks and songs that have dropped over the past week or so. Yeah, it's back. It's back, by the way, because new songs are rolling out every week. Industry is back at it again.

Let's just get into the worst tracks of the week.

The only one that I really wanted to shout out was the new Tommy Richman and Hass track over here, "WEDDING CAKE". "Weddings are just a funeral with cake" —like, what? It sounds like a bad Kanye song from around the 808s era, but it never really grew past, or developed past, demo status is what it comes across to me as. Yeah, maybe there's something here as far as the tune at its core, but it just doesn't really amount to much of anything because it's not brought far enough to really sound all that great, to really come across all that great. It's just an awkward listen.

Meh...

The songs that I was on the fence with, but you might like them more than me, they are as follows.

We have a new one from By Storm over here, formerly known as Injury Reserve. They have a new album on the way via Dead Air. It's really an experimental, like psychedelic hip hop, abstract meditation. It's almost like if you had the outfit, Young Fathers producing a song for Jay-Z and Kanye's Watch the Throne, that's the sense that I get from it. Parker and Ritchie continue to have just really unlikely chemistry, and they're making music that, stylistically, is almost impossible to pigeonhole or define, honestly. There's a lot of notions of different styles going into what they do, but are they distinctly making any one single style with all of these recent By Storm tracks? Not really. It's just honestly, completely off the map in so many ways and quite daring, which is why I think this track could definitely grow on me in the context of their upcoming album. We'll just have to see. But as of right now, it definitely brings something to the table, but when it's gone, it doesn't leave a super strong impression on me. But who knows? We'll just have to see.

All right, from there, we have "DANCE...", brand new track from Slayyyter, which the production definitely carries some cool, groovy vibes going on with the beat, with the synths and all that. But the writing and the vocals just do nothing for me whatsoever. I feel like the singing feels almost improvised in a way. Again, pretty impressed with the instrumental, but everything else, not really.

Also, a new one from Peaches over here, "No Lube So Rude". It's quirky, it's horny, it's strange. It's Peaches doing what Peaches does, pretty much. Does it come across a little grating, a little novelty here and there? Yeah, which does turn me off maybe just a touch, but it's still fun. It's still doing something that not a lot of other artists are willing to, I'll say that.

We also have Mitski over here hitting us with the first teaser from her forthcoming LP. "Where's My Phone?" is the track. We're really hearing an interesting juxtaposition, I would say, on this song. At its core, I feel like we have what's essentially a really jaunty Baroque pop track, but the execution is completely different as Mitski tries to essentially feed that into this super sloppy, loose, grunge-y sound with lots of roaring guitars. Whether or not it works, I feel like, is going to be heavily dependent on your musical preferences, your taste, what sounds in pop and rock you tend to gravitate toward. Personally, I feel like I would have much rather something just a bit of a pop song in a presentation, not maybe in all cases, but specifically with this track, I just felt the guitars and the singing just didn't really complement each other all that much. I think there's a way of doing this song in a way that's super chaotic and aggressive and super loose and messy, and maybe still have it work. But I don't know if this version did exactly that, even if the weird mismatching of the writing and the execution is intentional.

All right, we have "Fake Jeezy", new one from Maxo Cream. I would say pretty standard Denzel Curry feature on this one, and I guess JPEGMAFIA is involved with the production on it. It's not too bad. Something that's not trying to sound too commercial in the hip hop space right now. It's definitely worth a spin.

We also have Kim Gordon, brand new album on the way from underground rock legend, Kim Gordon. First taste of her forthcoming album is, "NOT TODAY". It's a very synth-heavy indie pop rock rocker, very Future Islands-esque. But if you could take out any pretense of a chorus or anything like that and have it ride along, just like a very linear progression. I don't know if I'm dying to go back to this track anytime soon, but I'm definitely curious to see if more songs on this forthcoming LP do something along these lines for sure.

All right, we also have Charli XCX treating us to more material from her forthcoming Wuthering Heights soundtrack, "Wall of Sound", is this one, and it's not too bad. Lots of moody vocals, lots of moody strings. Definitely something that's for sure going to be complementing a scene pretty well, even if it doesn't stand on its own as a pop song or anything like that.

We also have Arlo Parks, who is hitting us with a little bit of a synth-heavy, dance-centric bedroom pop on this "2SIDED" that's pretty nice on the ears. Nothing too crazy on that one.

We have the best tracks of the week following all of that.

These the ones that really stood out to me and stopped me in my tracks, they are as follows. Boom.

Sunn O))), brand new Sunn O))) album, self-titled on the way via Sub Pop records. "Glory Black" is the 10-minute teaser track to drop first from the record. It's got to be some of the fastest chord changes I've ever heard on any song. Then it goes into a drone-y piano passage, which provides quite a bit of versatility. It's very heavy, it's very bold. Maybe one of the most triumphant Sunn O))) tracks I've ever heard. It's a bit brighter, it's definitely a change of pace, and again, quite thick, quite heavy, enjoying it.

We also have this new one from The Olympians over here. If you're liking some instrumental music, some funky, soulful jams with some nice brass on it, you are going to like this song from their forthcoming LP, "Strawberry Kiwi".

Also liking this new set of tracks from the one and the only, Jill Scott, who has a new album on the way, "Beautiful People", is quite a nice one. But "Pressha" is really the one that stood out to me. It's the funkier and more hooky of the two tracks over here. Jill gives incredible vocal performances on both of these songs for sure.

Also enjoying hemlocke springs, who has a new album on the way very soon. She has decided to treat us to another teaser, "w-w-w-w-w". It's a very funky, Prince-influenced drum heavy, synth funk, synth pop, epic with some just very bold production all around, killer vocals. She just continues to smash it with one new song after the next, one of my favorite pop and underground pop artists, generally speaking, right now.

We also have Hellripper, who has a new record on the way as well. I'm actually not very deeply into or well-initiated with Hellripper stuff, so I'm acclimating a little bit. But I was wowed by this "Kinchyle" track, which has been dropped. It has a nice rock and roll, I would say, Motörhead vibe going on, but then also black metal style guitars and vocals. It's very fast, it's very intense, it's very anthemic, very fun, and a very dynamic performance as well. Really a roller coaster ride of a song that stays fresh throughout.

Also, Gorillaz have hit us with a couple of new tracks. A bit of a moody transitional cut, and then that goes into "Orange County", which is very much more the bop of the two songs and actually features some cool vocal passages from none other than Kara Jackson, which is pretty fantastic. The vocal interplay between her and 2-D, I thought was really cool. Very cool, actually. The more I hear from the Gorillaz record, the more I am either excited or just straight up intrigued because they're really going after some new sounds and pretty conceptual ideas that it's going to be interesting to see the full picture once the entire record, The Mountain, drops.

We also have Fcukers, "L.U.C.K.Y.", their new track, which I guess has got some Kenny Beats production on it, Dylan Brady production on it as well. I mean, big Daft Punk Homework vibes for sure. The chorus is there. I guess I just wish there was more development to it. I love these '90s house vibes for sure. But I feel like a classic song in this style back in the day would have really gone the distance, taken you on a journey, would have been super immersive. I feel like there's just not enough meat there on the bone to truly, like, lock me in; however, I still do like it as a single, and it has me wondering if maybe we'll get a dance mix or remix, or will there be all these songs reinforcing each other on the forthcoming album? I don't know. Fingers crossed that we get a bit more, I guess, distance from some of these other cuts, especially if the grooves are going to continue to be this good.

We also have dälek over here, some real classic, grimy, underground, noisy, like backpack 2000s hip hop shit over here on this cut, titled, "Better Than", that I think you guys will very much get a lot out of.

And then Converge over here, who I want to shout out as well. We have another song from their forthcoming album, Love Is Not Enough. And now this one is, "We Were Never The Same". Really great refrains, great riffs, cool hammer-on guitar passages, band absolutely killing it on this new track and sounding ferocious, sounding fun, sounding catchy, too.

And then closing it up with J. Cole, whose new teaser track to the forthcoming, The Fall Off, I enjoyed quite a bit this "Disc 2 Track 2" song. There's been a lot of weird discourse around this track. Personally, I think the instrumental is classy, and I think even though J. Cole didn't write his catchiest number over here or anything like that, the concept, lyrically, that he's going for here on this track is quite interesting. He's going over his life in reverse, and he does so with a lot of detail, a lot of attention to detail, and he's going over every single moment from his funeral to his birth, essentially his childhood, and passing by his career, his relationships, his own children, so on and so forth. It's an interesting exercise. There's not a final moment that explains all of it, but this is supposed to be a pretty big two-disc project. I imagine it's going to be very personal. I imagine it's going to be very diaristic and conceptual. So what the greater picture is going to be, I'm sure, will be revealed as we hear the rest of this project. I know, at least for me, this song has me pretty intrigued with what he's going to be doing here, what he's going to be trying to pull off, especially with the ambitious attempt here, he's making what is supposed to be his best album, his best work. This is not a statement on who J. Cole is better than and so on and so forth. This is about J. Cole outdoing himself. This is about J. Cole putting out J. Cole's best work. I hope that's the case. I hope he delivers on that promise.

There you go. That is pretty much going to be it for the Weekly Track Roundup. Those are the songs. Let me know what you thought about all of these tracks. What are some of your favorite tracks of the week? I'm going to end this video before I sneeze.

Love you all. Forever.