It’s Friday! And that means Singles of the Week. So, here are our favourite recently released singles, from the musically varied Panoptic team – enjoy and let us know what you’ve been listening to! You can listen to our Spotify playlist, and follow us, here.
EJ Oakley, ‘Little Dark Age’ by MGMT
Ah, goths. For a while, they were at the height of fashion. Then, they were nothing more than walking memes; embarrassing lycanthrope-wannabes who shopped at Hot Topic and complained about being unable to practice pseudo-Wicca at the dinner table. Thankfully, that phase is now over, and even indie-psych high society like New York’s MGMT are embracing that oh-so-recognisable Gothic aesthetic. Andrew VanWyngarden’s monotonous drone fed through a vocoder punctuates ‘Little Dark Age’, speaking of unseen beings “breathing in the dark, lying on its side” and finding someone standing stock still by their side when waking in the middle of the night. Taking after both David Bowie and The Horrors’ more recent material, the single is a perfect introduction to darker and more industrial releases. But if anything, its status as Baby’s First Psych-Goth Track hardly undermines the fact that the song is a hands-down banger. Break out that red-and-black eyeliner and don’t skimp on the lace, now – the neo-Goth renaissance is here at last, and couldn’t have been soundtracked better.
Freddie Metherell, ‘Petals’ by TOPS
TOPS, a Montreal based band, have dropped a real groover as the latest single from their newest album Sugar at the Gate. Petals is a glimmering pop-rock tune packed full of funk licks that are bound to get you foot tapping. Their sound is lush and glossy despite the no-frills nature of the band. Whilst the melody is so free-spirited, it is juxtaposed by vocalist Jane Penny’s vocals. She tells tales of a phone full of numbers but no one to call as she spends nights alone, trapped with painful memories. There is a comforting kinship to this familiar narrative that is oh so relatable. This bounces off the instrumental and, for me, makes this tune really quite enlivening.
Brooklyn Jones, ‘Taken a Tumble’ by Stereophonics
This new track from the Stereophonics’ new album Scream Above the Sounds has a lot of elements to it that scream E.L.O (the band behind Mr. Blue Sky) which I love. This song takes on some more romantic elements, and if you didn’t know better you’d assume it was from some indie rom-com from 6 years ago. It’s classic, not aged, and will probably end up on some soundtrack or another by the end of the year.
Image: MGMT, taken by Joe Lencioni
