"Who the fuck is Lauren Ruth Ward?” reads the descriptive text teasing the 31-year-old American singer and guitarist’s website. Ward is a firecracker, a Scorpio, a water sign. What do Maggie Rogers, Father John Misty, and Lauren Ruth Ward have in common? Their voices read like anachronisms, under-processed, floral, not limited to modernity or copying what came before. They make music that’s difficult to place but electric to absorb. What’s more, all three artists hail from Maryland, a state that isn’t classically associated with rock music, and one that also happens to be where I grew up. On the Mason-Dixon line, this is a place where country music is charred with a rock sensibility, or in the case of Ward, rock is infused with a smokey folk flavor. Prior to moving to Los Angeles, Ward, who rocks Angel Olsen bangs and tie-dye hair, worked as a hairdresser in her native town of Baltimore. “Water Sign” is a song that you feel throughout your whole body. “I'm living in my personal hell / I don't need your ammunition / Everybody say ‘Oh, I can tell’ / Can only see my own vision,” drawing out the last syllables into a growl. Ward sings of emotional volatility: being vulnerable to the moods and actions of people trying to swerve into her left lane. Single lines speak volumes, with punctuated pauses and Ward’s sharp tongue (“I did it my sentence it was cruel but I finished it”). If you’re in New York, don’t miss Ward’s upcoming show at Rough Trade in April.

After putting out a single every month of 2017, Twin Peaks is finally teasing a new full-length album, Lookout Low, out September 13. The second single, “Ferry Song,” fully embraces a musical direction introduced in the Sweet ’17 Singles. “Ferry Song” was inspired by singer Colin Croom’s daily trips across the Mississippi River on a visit to New Orleans, but the song is steeped in the rich tradition of Chicago soul. With blaring choruses, gentle verses highlighted by rolling piano chords and lilting acoustic guitar riffs, a deeply groovy syncopated drumbeat, and the addition of a classic horn section, Twin Peaks is sounding more and more like their Windy City contemporaries, Whitney. Early comparisons may have pointed more towards The Rolling Stones, and the raucous outro provides some hints as to why. But it’s clear, as it will be if you catch them onstage on their upcoming tour, that Twin Peaks is mostly concerned with a good time—“Two dollars ain’t too bad / When you’ve got nowhere to go.”

LA-based Hana Vu returns with a new single “At the Party.” The post-punk-disco-synth track is danceable yet detached. Vu is vying for someone’s attention as she sings “I hope you’re at the party / when you hear my song.” The meta-narrative continues as she wonders if hearing her song will drive this person back to her, but her subdued droning vocals add a laissez-faire quality to the otherwise desperate call for attention. The 19-year-old artist blends the meaning with the sound—using a variety of synths and driving basslines to create a song that could feasibly be heard at a college party. The track is slow, deep, and sensual as she asks “does it make you fall in love with me?” “At the Party” is the first single from Hana Vu’supcoming double EP Nicole Kidman / Anne Hathaway due out October 25.

At some point before the first in their newest line of three singles, Roofers Union’s impressive back-catalog disappeared from Spotify and thus, seemingly, from existence entirely. Their full-length album with song titles like “Man Kills God, Man Creates Dinosaur” and “Godzilla Does Dallas,” their wild music videos, everything, poof, gone. There is no clearer sign of an attempt at rebirth, and by all accounts, they are starting anew with a rekindled drive. The first new single, “Karate,” finally fulfilled so many indie bands’ dreams of being recognized by Pitchfork, and they continue now with “Friends.” “You were probably right / When you told me I am in control,” sings frontman T.C. Tyge, so close to reaching some kind of inner understanding—“I just don’t know if it’s up to me.” Despite the weight of the lyrics, Roofers Union still puts so much effort into its unpredictable sound as the kind of band that prides itself on its “deeply bonkers multimedia show.” Their characteristic undercurrent of wackiness still defines the backbone of “Friends”—a wackiness that, when combined with their electronic influences, drummer Robby Bowen’s stunted breakdowns, and Tyge’s peculiar croon—makes Roofers Union sound like an able successor to alt-J, and it’s a treat to hear them in any form they find.

Singer-Songwriter Molly Sarlé impresses us once again with her recent single “This Close”, the second in a string of new releases off her forthcoming album Karaoke Angel. While this is her first solo endeavor, Sarlé isn’t the new kid on the block. She is one-third of the folk outfit Mountain Man, which also includes bandmates Alexandra Sauser-Monnig (who just launched her own project Daughter of Swords) and Amelia Meath (who founded Sylvan Esso.) “This Close” widens the compelling space that Sarlé is making for herself, marked with a mix of pointed, striking songwriting and ethereal, billowing sonic landscapes. The flowing track is an ode to the “what could’ve been” scenario that we’ve all had when we meet someone special, but things don’t ultimately align the way we wish they had. There’s an underlying sense of self-awareness in Sarlé’s lyrics, “When everything happens / at once / Isn’t that / What we love / Are we really this close / Or is it just / The drugs / You’ve been working yourself up into a state.” Her words aren’t weighed down by wishful wallowing but instead amplified with reflective gratitude. Karaoke Angel is out 9/20 on Partisan Records.

Chastity Belt’s newest single “Elena” is a tribute to the enigmatic Italian novelist Elena Ferrante. It is slow and droning with Lydia Lund and Julia Shapiro layering vocals over fuzzy guitar, gentle basslines, and the soft crash of cymbals before gaining momentum in the second half. The track is an intricate web of sounds yet somehow it avoids feeling too engineered. They explore the feeling you have when your friend falls for someone who doesn’t deserve their attention, “his only intrigue was the lack of him / fill in the blanks with what you see fit.” It’s painful, infuriating, and somehow always makes you feel like a teenager. “Elena” is the newest single from Chastity Belt’s upcoming self-titled album due out September 20.

In advance of their upcoming album, The Cormorant I, the first album in a two-part project following two characters from birth to death after a visit from an ominous bird, Brooklyn chamber-pop group San Fermin has released the second single, “The Living.” The scale of the ambition of their projects is almost comical until you hear how beautifully it’s matched by the ambition of their music. Ellis Ludwig-Leone is a master of orchestration, constructing avant-garde indie rock songs with pop hooks and classical arrangements. After recording three albums with largely the same group of musicians—a group that started out as a piecemeal orchestra gathered specifically to record the self-titled debut and whittled down to a leaner band— what is most impressive is the way Ludwig-Leone employs each member's talents in the larger scope of the song. When Allen Tate, in his bone-rattling baritone, sings the song's memorable tongue-in-cheek lyrical wink—“It’s for the living / We don’t have to try / ‘Cause aren’t we alive?”—the wink in the lyrics is matched by an unexpected chord change, a smirk as the first hint of San Fermin’s more artful composition shines through. “The Living” is the album’s penultimate track, moments away from the inevitable fulfillment of the circle of life, and the band proceeds to its most bombastic as the characters spiral towards their inevitable conclusion.

Angel Olsen: a true, witchy beauty with a musicality like Sharon Van Etten and Fiona Apple (and the wardrobe of a goth Jenny Lewis) is blessing us with a new record on October 4, titled All Mirrors. She dropped the title track on July 30. Tonally intact but musically different, "All Mirrors" is all synth-punk and dreamy. Angel's vocals are as crass, girly and undeniably authoritative as ever, but this song falls more accurately into an 80s pop strain than an alt-rock one. That being said, it's still Angel. "All Mirrors" is still fraught with emotionalism and that rich, velvety darkness that we find in most of her music. The music video features Angel sitting atop a rotating platform in a white gown, singing to the camera in a black-and-white frame. Perhaps the rotation is an echo of the monotony and ache of time as she sings, "Standing, facin', all mirrors are erasin' / Losin' beauty, at least at times it knew me." She's kicking off her North American tour this fall—check out the dates here.

From Bon Iver's newest LP i,i comes "Naeem," a track likely named after Justin Vernon's collaborator and co-writer Naeem Hanks. More rhythmic and brimming with vocal warmth than some of the other tracks on this album, "Naeem" feels emotional and omnipresent: a cinematic departure from Vernon's otherwise loftier songwriting. This is not to say that this song is shallow in any sense. On the contrary, it feels more authoritative and defining. During an interview with BBC Radio 1, Vernon describes this particular track as signifying a crucial turn in the album: "I think it’s like the end of the first act. It ends the first side […] It was kind of too rambunctious, too energetic, or too Les Mis to end the record. It’s the end of the first act, the end of the first breadth of songs. It kind of gives you a chance to start over again on the second side." Bon Iver released i,i on August 9, 2019.