Nothing but the best after a six-month hiatus.

1. “Strangers” by Black Country, New Road
   
   This is the song I’ve been waiting for from BC,NR. It brings together all their virtues–unique instrumentation, mystically profound lyrics, and thoughtful composition of multiple movements–without their sometimes-fatal tendency to “overbake” songs. “Strangers” strikes the perfect balance: a song too complicated to imagine writing yourself yet approachable enough to be fully enjoyed without extensive analysis.
   
   One line from the song really sticks with me: “Perfect jeans with shallow pockets.” This is the spirit of BC,NR at their best–seeing perfection as containing the flaw, neither free of it nor ignorant of it.
   
   At times poignant, at times uplifting, this one goes down easy on the first listen and ages well. Pay special attention to the role of the percussion, which is the single element that drives a varied texture through an otherwise repetitive song.
   
   
   
   
2. “Dark Out” by Frog
   
   I have not yet done a full listen-through of the new album, Frog for Sale (released yesterday), but this pre-released track has been in my heavy rotation for long enough that I had to plug it regardless.
   
   The naively jaunty piano-driven tune is the perfect vehicle for a song that is self-consciously insecure and defensive. As a poem, it reads as a bold apologia for big feelings laid bare and a treatise against the stifling social conventions of modesty and “playing it cool.” But the timid and shaky falsetto vocals complicate the story beautifully.
   
   Eloquent and insightful, the song nevertheless ends with the same catch-22 with which it began: “They always say you don’t call the night after you meet him at all / But you know that if you don’t talk, you’re never gonna see him at school.” We complete the circle, but the net result is not zero. Enjoy the trip.
   
   
   
   
3. “Otra Noche de Llorar” by Mon Laferte
   
   A real candidate for the best song of 2025, which I regret not finding sooner. The title (which I’ll translate as “Another Night of Crying”) says everything there is to say about the emotional center of the song: raw heartbreak exposed in a haunting moonlit soliloquy.
   
   With big, aching vocals backed by a lush brass band, the song is operatic in its intensity and staggering in its power. Listening to Laferte sing, one thinks less of the voice and more of the human body that produces it with every line. This is devastation made flesh.
   
   I am hoping eventually to write a full review of the entire Femme Fatale album from which this song comes, as there’s a lot more to be said about the confluence of the sleek, urban bolero and the gritty, vulnerable ranchera styles throughout, a fusion that reflects Laferte’s own Chilean-Mexican heritage. The album also arrives on the heels of her recent turn as Sally Bowles in Cabaret in Mexico City last summer, which shows in its theatrical sweep.
   
   While “Otra Noche de Llorar” is the definitive centerpiece, the closing track “Vida Normal” is just as powerful, and there really isn’t a bad song on the lineup. As the title suggests, themes of feminine identity run heavy through the album, but they refuse easy summation or reduction. It is certainly one of the most “complete” albums in recent years and likely one of the best.