Best New Tracks

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  Beyoncé

  Beyoncé: "XO"

  Columbia

  By Lindsay Zoladz; December 17, 2013

  "Probably won't make no money off this, oh well," Beyoncé shrugs on her new album's moody, amorphous second track, "Haunted." And I say this with the requisite curtsy to the Queen, but: bullshit. True, in both content and form, Beyoncé is a risk—an emotionally candid, unconventionally structured experimental pop record that was released digital-only with absolutely no promotion—but we know now that she is going to make a little bit of money off this. Still, how could you not know all along that you've got a blockbuster on your hands, when there is a song on your record like "XO"?

  "XO" is one of those big, boundary-obliterating pop songs that demands to be projected onto the sky, like the aural equivalent of a firework. There will be a supercut of people all over the world lip-syncing and doing cute hand motions to "XO" by the end of this week. It's the Beyoncé cut that Ed McMahon would ride for. One of the guys from Skeleton Crew is going to propose to his girlfriend while "XO" is playing and she will say yes. "XO" is the reason why anyone you know who has said, "Yeah, but where are the hooks on Beyoncé?" did not listen to the entire album. Chris Martin is listening to "XO" right now, crying. And, because perfection is overrated, all of the flawlessness here is brilliantly undercut by that gravelly croak in her lower register when she growls, "Baby love me, lights out." You kill us, Bey.

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  Burial

  Burial: "Come Down to Us"

  Hyperdub

  By Nick Neyland; December 12, 2013

  Over six years have passed since Burial’s Untrue, and since then he’s expanded his vision over a series of EPs and collaborative works. He’s often stretched his sound out into 10-minute-plus segments on those EPs, a length he reaches for again on “Come Down to Us”. It utilizes some of the same samples as the prior “Hiders”, and even loops back to “Loner” from last year's Kindred EP, which uses the same snatch of dialogue (“There’s something out there”). The beginning resembles something like an alien torch song, with familiarly wobbly vocal passages set to a beautifully sluggish rhythm. From there it heads into the stratosphere, dipping into moody slow-drag atmospherics and reaching an icy pop high in its center.
  
  “Come Down to Us” tackles identity and loss, ending with Burial’s most overtly political statement yet, via a speech from the 2012 Human Right Campaign gala by transgender filmmaker Lana Wachowski. The wild shifts in tone of the track form an appropriate mirror to the contrasting mood of the vocal snippets, which range from optimism (“You are not alone”) to a quite disturbing degree of despair (“Excuse me, I’m lost,” a scared, lonely voice intones). It’s all executed with layer upon layer of sampled noise, providing a depth that makes it feel like you’ve barely scratched the surface even after countless plays. 

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  EMA

  EMA: "Satellites"

  City Slang / Matador

  By Katherine St. Asaph; December 11, 2013

  Erika M. Anderson’s Past Life Martyred Saints was quietly one of the best albums of 2011: lo-fi but cavernous, even its barren confessional tracks sounded weightier than most, while its Lou Reed beat tangents (“California”) hit with artillery force. But there’s nothing quiet about “Satellites”, EMA’s first release since; if Past Life Martyred Saintswas spiky, then “Satellites” is like an oncoming broadside of spikes. 

  The track begins and ends alternating from distorted shredding to a looming drone, like the sound that’d underscore an (astronomically loose) space opera’s approaching black hole. In between, “Satellites” pulls in sounds with equally operatic force: a gothy piano throb, industrial drum loop and synth squall, sawing violins, landline feedback. Anderson towers above, throaty and multitracked to ten feet of swagger. It’s discontent composed to Carl Sagan proportion, and it’s easily the most bracing thing yet from an artist already more bracing than most. 

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  St. Vincent

  St. Vincent: "Birth in Reverse"

  Loma Vista

  By Devon Maloney; December 9, 2013

  Leave it to Annie Clark, forever if possible, to electrify the mundane. Over the past six years, the guitarist, who refers to her forthcoming self-titled fourth solo album as "A party record you could play at a funeral," has become a master of turning domestic images into vivid commentary—weird, militant licks into wild declarations of both complicity and rebellion. St. Vincent's first single, "Birth in Reverse", continues that tradition in vibrant, evolved color.
  
  Employing itchy percussion to poke a reluctant protagonist—rather violently—out her own front door, "Birth" maligns America's fearful regressiveness while simultaneously attempting to shake off that easy, laughable banality herself. (An "ordinary day" consists of taking out the garbage and masturbating, a routine that verges on sitcom fodder.) The challenge of abandoning comfort in exchange for the unknown is daunting (who knows when we'll have time to pleasure ourselves?), but amidst her signature, inexorable groove, she sings, "Laugh all you want, but I want more/ What I'm swearing I've never sworn before." The leader of the charge has never been more powerful, or more resolute.
  
  

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  The War on Drugs

  The War on Drugs: "Red Eyes"

  Secretly Canadian

  By Jeremy Larson; December 4, 2013

  Adam Granduciel writes songs that stretch out over ears, concert halls, long roads, and certainly over time—there's just so much acreage. As guitarist and principal songwriter for the War on Drugs, his 2011 album Slave Ambient came out as a hazy approximation of Americana, like one long, lingering vision of Springsteen album just before a kush coma. "Red Eyes", as the title might imply, reengages into a familiar Bossgaze gear as before.
  
  Fighting against something between heartbreak and keeping the car running, Granduciel sings, "I would keep you here, but I can't," with that same kind of heroic melancholy that Petty and Dylan mastered back in the day. Textures of low woodwinds, synths, acoustic guitars and pianos living in fog between the pistons of the drums and Granduciel's voice. "Red Eyes" is one wide net to capture a memory—both of something you might've heard on the car radio that one time, and the exact feeling that kept you driving.

  The War on Drugs: "Red Eyes" (via SoundCloud)