new songs – A fresh batch of releases hits today, from The Strokes and the Mountain Goats to Tove Lo, Eartheater, and new solo work.
Fresh releases are landing at such a clip it can feel impossible to choose—so here’s a carefully picked set of new tracks out on Wednesday, May 13, 2026, spanning indie rock, pop, experimental art-pop, and singer-songwriter worlds.
The Strokes arrive with ‘Falling Out of Love,’ the second single from their first album in six years.. It follows last month’s ‘Going Shopping. ’ and the band plans to debut the new song live on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert the following day.. The track is described as a midtempo ballad lasting over six minutes. with Julian Casablancas’ vocals noted as being heavily filtered—an approach that could shape how fans experience the song both on record and in a live setting.
From the more haunted. hook-forward end of indie is the Mountain Goats’ ‘Charlie Sheen Reaches Out to the Feds.’ The title reads like a tease. but the lead single also signals that the band’s just-announced album. Days. has plenty more energy to offer.. It’s positioned as driving and catchy. and the band’s frontman. John Darnielle. frames the songwriting through a contrast: many songs in major keys. he suggests. can be misleading. with darker turns waiting on the other side of each “bridge.”
Tove Lo’s new single, ‘I’m your girl right?’ arrives as a preview of her forthcoming album Estrum, due September 18. It continues her pattern of writing that treats romance as both intimacy and negotiation, with the question in the title already doing the emotional work before the first chorus.
Hovvdy returns with ‘Try Try Try,’ the lead track from their new album Big World.. The band’s tone here is both bleary and propulsive, leaning into momentum without losing haze.. Will Taylor’s comments emphasize a kind of certainty between bandmates—“answers” rather than “questions” when it comes to making music—and that steadiness becomes part of how the track is framed as more than just a sound. but a working relationship.
Eartheater also shares a release built around memory and return.. ‘Paradise Rains’ is out today alongside the announcement of Heavenly Body: If I’m the Bottle You’re the Message. set for July 12.. The album’s themes center on pregnancy and motherhood. with co-production from Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio and a guest appearance from Oklou.. In the accompanying remarks. Alexandra Drewchin links the song directly to a personal arc: buying back a childhood farm after being estranged for 20 years. conceiving her baby the day they returned to the property. and describing how old tensions were softened by the feeling of being back—love. recalibrated. with showers as the metaphorical catalyst.
Alex Cameron steps into weathered intensity with ‘Red Hook Rain. ’ the lead single from his fifth studio album Late to Set. arriving July 24.. The track’s description leans elemental and violent—“written on the edge of a hurricane. ” with the sky shaking like disapproving gods—imagery that suggests both pressure and judgment. and hints at how the album might keep turning that same weather system into emotion.
mmj brings a new chapter through Megan James. one half of Purity Ring. with ‘nobody knows. ’ her first single as a solo project.. Signed to Captured Tracks. the song is framed as subdued and hypnotic. with James describing it as “close to the sun. ” shifting meaning each time she plays it.. Her description of the lyrics underscores a theme of limited knowledge and selective denial. while also pointing to survival—what can be seen. what should be faced. and what people might deserve individually and together.. The track is also presented as “circular” and “fractal. ” as if the song’s loop is built to keep rearranging what you think you heard.
Sari Lightman’s solo debut. The Way I Saw You. arrives June 26. and the title song is described as delicate and inward-looking.. Lightman’s background includes her work in Tasseomancy and Lightman Sisters with her twin sister Romy. while production connections on the new single extend to Meg Duffy and performance contributions from Pat Kelly. Aaron Otheim. Jesse Quebbeman-Turley. and Evan Cartwright.. The artistic seed. though. is literature-adjacent: Lightman says the song was inspired by Eve Babitz. specifically during Babitz’s reclusive period after an accident left her disfigured.. Through her remarks. Lightman returns repeatedly to the idea of myths around artists—how women are treated as they age—and chooses instead to go “down a theological rabbit hole” centered on the rose. looping in images from Dante’s Paradise and “feminine saints” imagined inside petals.
Brian Fallon. known as the frontman of the Gaslight Anthem. shares two new tracks at once: ‘Not Bad For New Jersey’ and ‘Better Before.’ Each song carries the stamp of lived geography and lived time.. On the New Jersey song. Fallon frames it as celebration of what he does and where he’s from. written from the perspective of looking back after nearly losing everything in a crash—trying to understand how he made it through “still here” and “still in one piece.” The result is a pair of additions that read less like news than like personal documents.
Jacques Greene’s new single ‘What You Say’ comes with a feature from umru. pairing two electronic voices for an “exhilarating” release.. Greene describes the collaboration as following a familiar pattern—umru arriving in Montreal. the track forming quickly. and the result providing energy for months afterward.. With ‘What You Say’ described as having been made in his studio the previous year. it also comes across as material that has stayed lodged in the creative process. waiting for the moment it’s ready to ignite the next cycle.
Rounding out today’s list is Baby Rose with ‘But, Nvm,’ leading a new album titled YEARNALISM.. The project arrives July 10 via Secretly Canadian, while the single is presented as strikingly laidback.. A music video accompanies the release. directed by Amaya Segura and Rae Blackman. adding a visual layer to a track that already signals an attitude of relaxed insistence.
What stands out across this set is how release schedules—album rollouts. single drops. and TV-performance debuts—now function like cultural choreography.. The Strokes’ plan to bring a long. filtered ballad to late-night television underscores how “where” a song is heard can become part of its identity. while artists releasing simultaneously from indie rock to experimental pop show how audiences are mapping taste across genres rather than treating them as separate scenes.
There’s also a clear throughline in the way many of these tracks use life events as creative fuel.. Eartheater’s ‘Paradise Rains’ treats motherhood and return as both literal and sonic weather; Sari Lightman’s Babitz-inspired approach turns a writer’s public myth into a more complicated. intimate reverie; and Brian Fallon’s New Jersey songs convert near-disaster reflection into music that aims for persistence rather than nostalgia.
Meanwhile. collaborations and solo reinventions signal a wider creative trend: established identities are being reconfigured without fully leaving the past behind.. mmj’s solo start. Hovvdy and Eartheater’s continued album-building. and Greene’s pairing with umru all point to a music culture that values continuity—while still insisting on fresh angles. new textures. and new ways of telling familiar stories.
new songs The Strokes Mountain Goats Tove Lo Eartheater mmj music releases