Three years ago we named the Rochester death metal monsters Undeath a Band To Watch. We last heard new music from that crew last September, though guitarist Tommy Wall popped up in the new supergroup Blood Monolith back in March. Now Undeath have returned with two more blood-gargling churns of their own.

All those new Hayley Williams songs are officially out now — but no, they don’t constitute a new album. On Monday, the Paramore singer uploaded 17 new password-protected tracks to her website. Instead of organizing them into a tracklist or even a playlist, she made each one a clickable file, like the ones you might see scattered across your computer’s desktop. Today, those songs have all seen official release.

Last Friday, the iconic hip-hop producer DJ Premier and the underground-legend emcee Roc Marciano announced they were teaming up on an album called The Coldest Profession, due out Aug. 8. Today, with that release date looming about a week away, the duo has revealed details on the project and shared its lead single. The eight-song tracklist is available now, and lead single “Prayer Hands” is here for the listening. It’s an artful twist on the sort of blustery boom-bap you’d expect from this pairing, with some well-placed scratches from Premier and some verbal agility from Roc Marci delivered via slightly tweaked vocals.

Good lord, I guess I have to summarize this latest Sydney Sweeney ordeal. Sweeney, the actress who has become a culture war touchpoint because some conservatives decided her buxom figure represents the end of woke, appears in a new ad campaign for American Eagle jeans called “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans.” In one short commercial from the campaign, the camera traces across the figure of a denim-clad, reclining Sweeney as delivers this monologue: “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color.” When the camera reaches her face, she pauses, then says, “My jeans are blue.”

Back in April, Nas’ record label Mass Appeal announced the impending release of seven new albums from seven iconic rap acts. The Legend Has It… initiative has thus far led to a Slick Rick comeback album and the first new Raekwon album in eight years. And three weeks from now, it will give us Supreme Clientele 2.

At Glastonbury last month, Gracie Abrams covered the Cure, only to watch her pop-star peer Olivia Rodrigo cover the Cure with Robert Smith. Abrams and Rodrigo are both playing Lollapalooza at Chicago’s Grant Park this weekend, and Abrams wasn’t about to let this festival slip by without a high-profile cameo.

When Jimmy Fallon introduced a PinkPantheress performance on last night’s Tonight Show, I thought that he couldn’t possibly be right. PinkPantheress has already spawned a whole mini-generation of insular dance-pop imitators, so she must have been on TV before that. As far as I can tell, though, Fallon was actually correct. It makes sense. PinkPantheress began her career during the pandemic, when she’d never even been inside a club. When she started playing live shows, there was a goofy little mini-controversy about how she didn’t seem to care about the process one bit. Maybe her people were actually trying to keep her off of TV until she was ready. But now, she has played tons of big venues and festivals, and she also just got an honorary doctorate. I guess it was time.

A couple weeks ago, They Are Gutting A Body Of Water announced their new album LOTTO and unveiled the single “trainers,” which we very much enjoyed. It followed May’s “American Food,” and now the Philly band is back with a new tune called “my car is singing like a locust,” which is not on the LP because they’re just that generous.

Little by little, the Drumpocalypse is being mitigated. Following Josh Freese’s firing in May, Foo Fighters will be replacing him with drummer Ilan Rubin, and Freese will return the favor by filling in for him on Nine Inch Nails’ tour.

Last week, Spanish fashion designer Miguel Adrover made a post about refusing to work with Rosalía due to her silence on the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Today, the Spanish superstar addressed the situation.