2026

Let’s be honest: there’s something knowingly fun about something that admits you’re about to make a bad decision and then sets out to make that decision sound absolutely irresistible. Miss Verona’s “Bad For My Reputation” fully commits to that contradiction, morphing betrayal, temptation and otherwise unadvised romantic entanglements into a glossy, dance-driven pop record. The […]

Modern-day rock ’n’ roll could use a little more attitude and a lot less pretending. Thankfully, there are bands that are more than willing to say it out loud, and Segrëgates does exactly that on their latest release, No Rhyme or Reason. Segrëgates formed around 2010 with Motorhead serving as a major influence, and they’re

There’s something wonderfully stupid about the insult “poser” when you really think about it. It is basically someone saying “You are pretending to be the thing you want to become” as though everyone who has ever tried to reinvent themselves simply woke up one morning already finished. BLØSMM’s “Poser” takes that accusation and turns it

Some rappers take ages to curate an image, and then there is Spoony-B, whose response to all this artistic branding, to me, seems to have been-well, what if I just sound like a public safety risk? And yes, that is part of the enjoyment. The South Philly rapper (born Brandon Baich) is an artist who

There are songs that want to make you feel good, songs that want to make you dance, and songs that apparently looked at the fentanyl crisis and went, “Right, we’re going to need guitars for this.” That is “Salt,” the single from Washington, D.C. artist G Sharp BIG 40. Inspired by a news story about

Picture this: a metalcore song built around the idea that you have to keep moving or everything falling apart. It sounds like the sort of motivational poster that would be hanging in a gym run by a man who owns seven protein shakers. Except Audiosvora’s “Motion” takes that idea and makes it considerably more aggressive: