In the second installment of Friday Night Jukebox, the In Between Drafts staff have collected their choices for best new music of the past few weeks into one place. This week features a mix of alt rock, hardcore, hip hop, electronica, and other genres.
Bladee – “Magic Misery”
Bladee songs have this ability to completely ensnare you in their world. He manipulates synth and dark-trap ambience like a modern-day sorcerer, giving credibility to his fantastical nom de plume. Bladee’s latest single, “Magic Misery,” traps you in a vibe made entirely of dark nights lit up only by starlight and the waves of color that rush through your head while you listen. The rapper’s voice pierces through the clouds like a lightning bolt, striking and alarming yet somehow entirely natural. It’s impossible not to at least understand the appeal behind Bladee’s entrancing style once you give this one a listen.[Adonis Gonzalez]
Boy2000 – “I Can Remember”
The Y2K resurgence is officially in full swing. While bands like After are taking cues from trip-hop and mid 2000’s pop stylings, boy2000’s music is indebted to the turn of the trance music that was a staple at the turn of the millennium. While he’s only released one full-length album at this point, he’s already created a sound that has only become more textured, dreamy, and lush. His new EP ultraspirit is a step up in every way.
“I can remember”, the second track on the project, sounds like menu music for a Xbox 360 racing title. The record is fairly short, less than 2 minutes, and yet so much gets packed into its quick runtime. It’s a song that unapologetically shimmers and dares you to dream of a better future. Nostalgia is an easy way to drum-up emotions, but there’s something pure about the way boy 2000 makes this music. The best trance music from that era was light, bubbly, and playful. There was an optimism to it that not only made you want to dance, but compelled you to share space with others.[Mark Wesley]
Cola – “Hedgesitting”
Immediately following the breakup of Ought, the most ambitious post-punk band of the 2010s, came the formation of Cola, a more minimal take on the same sound featuring half the members of Ought. “Hedgesitting,” the lead single for their upcoming third album, Cost of Living Adjustment, thrills as it finds the band stepping back into the more energetic realm of rock and roll that they had purposefully backed away from over the last five years. Featuring shimmery guitars, a shuffling drumbeat, and hypnotically repetitive vocal hooks, it is an easy song to get lost in without ever becoming ambient enough to lose focus. If this single is a genuine indicator of what’s to come with the rest of the album, then it should be the one to break them through to the mainstream audience they deserve.[Quinn Parulis]
Failure – “The Air’s on Fire”
Failure, an iconic ‘90s grunge/shoegaze band who mounted a successful comeback in the mid 2010s, always seemed ahead of their time. Their 1996 album Fantastic Planet was a critical hit, but they never took off the way some of their peers did. Even the success of their comeback albums couldn’t propel them into a wider audience. “The Air’s on Fire”, the lead single for their upcoming seventh album Location Lost, is a sprawling track that retains their signature space-rock sound while sounding a little darker than their older releases ever got. Occupying a space somewhere between the gritty hooks of Nirvana and the celestial soundscapes of Hum, the song is a fantastic reintroduction to a band that is poised for a late-career breakout, something that shouldn’t be too hard if the rest of the album is as good as “The Air’s on Fire”.[Quinn Parulis]
Femtanyl – “HELLTARGET”
Femtanyl, a duo consisting of Noelle Stockwood and Juno Callender, has been making some of the decade’s finest digital hardcore and breakcore records for the past It’s chaotic, abrasive, and bit-crushed to hell. “HELLTARGET”, off the duo’s debut album MAN BITES DOG, begins with what sounds like an android being fed through the garbage disposal before rebuilding itself and setting off for revenge. The frantic pace of the song is bolstered by a punishing array of industrial sounds and Noelle’s killer vocal performance attempting to pierce through the noise . It’s one of those songs that will melt your face and not feel even slightly bad about it. Fans of Machine Girl and Jane Remover will feel right at home here.[Mark Wesley]
horsegiirL – “Only the Best”
It’s the year of the horse but even if that weren’t the case, horsegiirL would still slap just as hard in 2026. Her Y2K-inspired glitzy girlypop hyper EDM is both easily accessible and incredibly detailed. The equestrian-themed DJ spins “only the best” with her signature mix of popping drum and bass and synths that sound like they belong on the dancefloor of a club in the middle of a spring meadow. I can’t fully describe that vibe to you; you just have to listen and get it.[Adonis Gonzalez]
I Am the Avalanche – “Horror Show”
It feels good to be a Long Island native this week with the new I Am The Avalanche single that was released. “The Horror Show” showcases Vinnie Caruana’s lyric writing at its best – visceral, punchy, and gut-wrenching. “The coldest summer / The blackest blue / There’s no way forward / Except to go through” is the perfect description of what it feels like to grieve someone you were once close to and Caruana confirming that the lyrics are about a friend who died suddenly, makes them hit that much harder. Mike Ireland is a king on guitar as well, creating the heavy atmosphere that you expect with the lyrics. His ability to bring that atmosphere to life within such a short song is nothing short of amazing. As a core part of the Long Island hardcore scene, it’s nice to see IATA still put out bangers like this.[Kayla Chu] [Kayla Chu]
Knumears – “My Name”
Knumears makes the kind of muscular and soaring screamo that is rarer these days than it used to be, despite the successful reunions of genre legends like City of Caterpillar and Gospel. While their lead single for upcoming album Directions earned them a stamp of approval through a feature from the singer of Jeromes Dream, the newest preview for the album, “My Name”, is the kind of barn-burner that stands toe to toe with its most obvious influences. Quick and to the point, the song starts off with a sprint, settles into a rhythmic breakdown, then bursts through the finish line with an explosion of layered screams and a heavier take on the riff that runs throughout the song. A thrilling callback to a classic sound, any fan of the heaviest end of emo should be jumping on Knumears immediately.[Quinn Parulis]
Makthaverskan – “Louie”
Makthaverskan, from Sweden, plays a mixture of post-punk styles. They have a bit of Cocteau Twins dream pop, a dash of Sundays jangle, and a whole bunch of Jesus & Mary Chain reverb. They don’t play shoegaze, but that’s a lot of the same stuff that powers My Bloody Valentine. On “Louie”, a single from their upcoming album Glass and Bones, the band sound like they’ve taken the toy piano that powers “100,000 Fireflies” by the Magnetic Fields and turned it into a perfect piece of rainy day indie pop. The band has a knack for turning something chaotic into catchy pop, and “Louie” has a melody that will get stuck in your head, like their best work.[Ryan Gibbs]
Poison the Well – “Everything Hurts”
Poison the Well, one of the early 2000s most interesting and experimental post-hardcore bands, are releasing their first album in 17 years, Peace In Place, next month. Following a lead single that leaned more into their early heavier sound, its follow-up “Everything Hurts” finds them trading the furious growling and angular riffs for the more brooding and atmospheric grunge style they had started to incorporate on their final album, 2009’s The Tropic Rot.
Those contrasting styles are the cornerstone of their success, and it works much better here than on the first single – the clean vocals are smoother, and they intertwine with the song’s more patient and midtempo atmosphere in a way that makes the much heavier bridges hit with the impact of brick to the head. A band that always deserved more acclaim for their willingness to expand their sound beyond anything their peers were willing to mess with, Peace In Place is shaping up to be one of the most exciting early releases of the year.[Quinn Parulis]
The Scythe (Denzel Curry, TiaCorine & Ferg) – “The Scythe”
Denzel Curry is currently enjoying one of the hottest streaks of any rapper in the modern scene. With the stylish diversity of his last few releases (the run of Ta1300 through Melt My Eyez See Your Future will leave you with immensely satisfying genre-whiplash), it is always worth checking out what sound he is going to hop onto next. For the first time in a while, it seems like he is staying in the same lane as a previous release. In this case, that means sticking to the good-time looseness of the mixtape King of the Mischievous South Vol. 2, a love letter to the Southern Rap scene the Florida rapper got his start in.
Taking the feature-heavy sound of that release a step further by forming the collective/group/crew called The Scythe, featuring himself, Ferg, TiaCorine, Bktherula, and Key Nyata as the primary members, and the tracklist for their debut album, Strictly 4 the Scythe, promises plenty more collaborators. The first single, “Lit Effect,” was an energetic rager, and its follow-up, “The Scythe,” doubles down on that. Featuring the most energetic and fire-up Ferg bars since his ASAP days and an icy smooth verse from TiaCorine, the supremely cool track is centered around a gang-vocal shoutalong in the declarative style of “Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthing ta F’ Wit” that throws down the promise for a potential rap album of the year, or at the very least the one guaranteed to be the most fun.[Quinn Parulis]
Silversun Pickups – “Au Revior Reservoir”
It’s been 20 years since Carnavas, and Silversun Pickups are still the torchbearers of modern rock radio. They’ve been a constant presence on what remains now of the root of the alternative rock ecosystem since “Lazy Eye,” and they’ve never put out a bad album in all that time. For three of their last four albums, though, the best cut has come not from lead singer and guitarist Brian Aubert, but bassist Nikki Monniger, whose bass lines already serve as the crucial foundation of the band’s sound. It’s not for nothing that she plays the main riff on “Panic Switch,” their biggest hit.
“Circadian Rhythm” on Better Nature and “Alone on a Hill” on Physical Thrills were the highlights of those respective albums, by giving Monniger the spotlight and let her take over the band’s melodies normally buried by their shoegaze-lite sound. This pattern continues with “Au Revior Reservoir,” a rocker she sings on their Tenterhooks. It’s the kind of propulsive rocker that harkens back to earlier Pickups hits like “Well Thought Out Twinkles” and boasts the catchiest hooks and best chorus on the entirety of Tenterhooks. Silversun Pickups are one of the last rock bands who still care about alternative radio, and this song with its Veruca Salt propulsion is one of their best love letters to the format yet. [Ryan Gibbs]
Labi Siffre – “Far Away”
With the announcement of Far Away, Labi Siffre’s first album in almost 3 decades, comes the release of its title track, an uplifting piano centric song with classically soaring vocals that invokes the kind of timelessness that only comes with being a lifelong pro. An 80 year old British folk/soul singer-songwriter who over the last couple of years has enjoyed a surprisingly huge resurgence with modern younger audiences, Labi seems poised to capitalize on that popularity with an album that promises to make the wait worth it.
“They don’t make them like this anymore” is the thing that comes to mind the most frequently while listening to “Far Away”, but nearly as dominant a thought is how incredible his voice still sounds, something doubled down on by his live performance of the sound for the BBC Radio 2 Piano Room, which is a must hear for any fan of classic crooners and soulful ballads.[Quinn Parulis]
Alan Sparhawk Solo Band – “JCMF”
Following the tragic passing of his wife, Mimi Parker, Alan Sparhawk’s primary musical collaborator in their band Low, it seemed unclear for a moment if we were going to be getting any new music from the slowcore legend. Instead, with this release of a surprise double-single following three solo albums in the same number of years, it seems like he’s taken the opposite approach.
After last year’s collaborative album with bluegrass group Trampled by Turtles saw him shed the electronic experimentation that characterized the last few Low albums in favor of stripped-down acoustic bucolia, the A-side for the new release, “JCMF”, sees him pivot into even more unfamiliar territory. Over a blown-out and rumbling guitar line fit for a doom metal band, he ominously croons, “When Jesus comes back, all you mother fuckers are gonna pay,” a reckoning apt for the turbulent era we are all currently trying to adapt to. An angry song for equally upsetting times, here’s hoping that this is the sign of a new era for one of indie music’s most experimental flagbearers. [Quinn Parulis]
SUPERWORLD – “Locked Room”
SUPERWORLD makes the kind of classic homespun emo music that dominated the scene in the late ‘90s and mid-2010s, where the genre-required angst manifested more in fury than in wallowing, while still making room for the off-kilter quirks and playfulness that set the scene apart from the machismo and seriousness of hardcore and metal.
Featuring mathy guitar lines, weird drum patterns, and vocals that sound like they are genuinely harming the singer, the songs on “Super World” are a little more uplifting and fun in a way that calls to mind the most playful of the emo veterans like Algernon Cadwallader and Cap’n Jazz, a sound most successfully balanced on the album’s lead single “Locked Room”. Destined to fly under the radar like most of their forebearers, here’s hoping that this release is just the start of an exciting career and not fated to be a burning-bright one-and-done like so many of the best emo bands tend to be. [Quinn Parulis]
venturing – “In the Dark”
Jane Remover has tackled a variety of sounds since the start of their career that ranged from wall of sound shoegaze to electronic reverb-drenched post-rock and heartfelt indie rock, but 2025 saw them split those sounds cleanly in two with the release of “Ghostholding,” the debut album of their side project venturing. While “Revengeseekers,” the Jane Remover album released the same year, leaned as hard as possible into exclusively representing the raging digicore elements found in prior releases, “Ghostholding” showed off the guitar-focused side of musical identity, giving us an album of heartfelt and contemplative ‘90s-styled indie rock.
“In the Dark”, the new one-off under the venturing name (almost exactly a year after “Ghostholding” came out) could have easily slotted neatly into the album. Starting out as a mid-tempo ballad with pretty guitars and layered vocals, it eventually builds to an explosive conclusion backed by huge buzzing guitars that buoy the forlorn vocals to something that could have soundtracked the climax of a 90s indie movie, which at this point is exactly what I want from a venturing release, and hopefully this is an indication that this is a side project that doesn’t stay quiet for too long. [Quinn Parulis]
