David Roach, lead vocalist for the Los Angeles heavy rockers Junkyard, has died. “After a courageous battle with cancer, David passed away peacefully last night at home, in the loving arms of his wife,” his bandmates wrote on Instagram Saturday. According to Express he was 64, though Rolling Stone says he was 59. Roach had gotten married just two weeks before his death.
Lookalike contests — they’re still happening. It all started in October of last year when New Yorkers yearned for Timothée Chalamet copycats, but the trend has taken the world by storm. Yesterday knockoff Conor Obersts gathered in the Bright Eyes frontman’s hometown of Omaha. Like at the Chalamet competition, the singer himself showed up, but he did not win.
Dancer are back with another post-punk banger to preview their forthcoming record More Or Less. We’ve heard “Just Say Yes” and “Happy Halloween,” but the newest offering “Baby Blue” is the most invigorating one yet.
Last year, Caroline Polachek performed a beautiful rendition of Radiohead’s “True Love Waits” at Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris. On Thursday (July 31), the experimental-pop musician covered Nick Drake’s “River Man” at the Aspen Art Museum in Colorado as part of the inaugural AIR festival.
Erik Wunder, the leader of the black metal band Cobalt and the dark folk rock group Man’s Gin, has died. The news was shared by Nachtmystium’s Blake Judd and Abigail Williams’ Ken Sorceron yesterday. He was 42.
Lucy Dacus is living her best life on her Forever Is A Feeling Tour, officiating fans’ marriages, bringing out Hop Along’s Frances Quinlan, and covering Fontaines D.C. Last night she played Montreal’s Osheaga festival, and the singer-songwriter joined the Killers’ set for the Sam’s Town cut “Read My Mind.”
West Coast rap hero YG is building up to the release of a new album called The Gentleman’s Club. It’s the same album that kicked off its rollout with “2004,” the uncharacteristically vulnerable song where YG rapped about being sexually assaulted by a 30-year-old woman when he was 14.
Bay City, Texas rap animal That Mexican OT is building up to the release of a new album called Recess, and he dropped the Lil Wayne collab “Baby Mad At Me” earlier this year. Today, OT has a new song with his fellow East Texas rapper Peso Peso, a regular collaborator. If he wanted, Peso Peso could call himself That Mexican PP, but it wouldn’t really look right.
Some songs woo you into escape. Such is the case with the latest single from Hether — producer and multi-instrumentalist Paul Castelluzzo. A relaxed beat and hazy vocals usher us into something that feels like a mildly hallucinogenic daydream. “We can evacuate and escape from a world so gone,” he sings. “Let’s fly up to Jupiter/ See what we left back home/ Nothing but fear and repetition,” he continues over slippery guitar riffs (or maybe even pedal steel?). It’s a cozy getaway.
Every week the Stereogum staff chooses the five best new songs of the week. The eligibility period begins and ends Thursdays right before midnight. You can hear this week’s picks below and on Stereogum’s Favorite New Music Spotify playlist, which is updated weekly. (An expanded playlist of our new music picks is available to members on Spotify and Apple Music, updated throughout the week.)