12 Greatest Songs of the Week: Saint Etienne, Suede, The Final Dinner Occasion, Ladytron, and Extra
Plus Hatchie, Kneecap, Cate Le Bon, and a Wrap-up of the Week’s Different Notable New Tracks
Sep 05, 2025
Welcome to the thirty first Songs of the Week of 2025. This week Andy Von Pip, Caleb Campbell, and Dom Gourlay helped me determine what ought to make the listing. We thought of over 40 songs and narrowed it right down to a Prime 12.
Subject 74, The Protest Subject, is out now. It options Kathleen Hannah and Bartees Unusual on the 2 covers and may be purchased from us immediately right here.
In latest weeks we posted interviews with Nova Twins, Fashionable Nature, Mocky and Feist, Open Mike Eagle, Gwenno (a My Firsts), and extra.
Within the final week we reviewed some albums.
That will help you kind by means of the multitude of contemporary songs launched within the final week, we’ve picked the 12 finest the final seven days needed to supply, adopted by some honorable mentions. Try the complete listing under.
1. Saint Etienne and Confidence Man: “Model New Me”
British indie-pop trio Saint Etienne launched a brand new album, Worldwide, which they’re describing as their closing album, at the moment through Heavenly.
Earlier this week they shared its third single, “Model New Me,” which is a collaboration with Australian electro-pop band Confidence Man and comes with an animated music video. Kyle Platts and Matt Lloyd directed and animated the video, which was impressed by traditional Hanna Barbera cartoons. And is that Jarvis Cocker of Pulp we spot as one of many judges on the expertise competitors?
Saint Etienne are Sarah Cracknell, Pete Wiggs, and Bob Stanley.
Cracknell had this to say concerning the new single in a press launch: “I obtained a message from Danny Mitchell at Heavenly Recordings, Saint Etienne’s non secular residence, about an Australian band that they had signed known as Confidence Man. Danny informed me they had been followers of our music and would love to fulfill and chat a few potential collaboration. We met backstage at a pageant and instantly hit it off, kindred spirits! Making ‘Model New Me’ was a variety of enjoyable and I believe it’s an ideal mash up of each our band’s kinds.”
Confidence Man is fronted by Sugar Bones (aka Aidan Moore) and Janet Planet (aka Grace Stephenson). They put out a brand new album, 3 AM (LA LA LA), final yr through Casablanca.
Beforehand Saint Etienne shared Worldwide’s lead single, “Glad.” “Glad” options Jez Williams of Doves on guitar and was co-written and produced with Tom Rowlands of The Chemical Brothers. It was shared through a music video and was one in all our Songs of the Week. Then they shared its second single, “Take Me to the Pilot,” through a music video. Paul Hartnoll of Orbital co-wrote and produced the music, which additionally made it on Songs of the Week.
The band say they aren’t precisely breaking apart and stay finest pals, however a press launch says “they don’t really feel like they need to go on eternally and wished to exit with a bang.” Does this imply they’ll proceed to tour and play exhibits? Does it actually imply that in 10 years they’ll reform and put out a brand new album? All we all know is that the band are calling this their closing album and we’ll take them at their phrase.
Worldwide was co-produced with Tim Powell (previously of Xenomania) and includes a slew of different visitors, together with Confidence Man (whose Janet Planet duets with Cracknell on “Model New Me”), Erol Alkan, Vince Clarke, Nick Heyward (who duets on “The Go Betweens”), and Paul Hartnoll of Orbital.
The album is the short follow-up to The Evening, which solely got here out final December however was extra of a chillout immersive album supposed to be listened to in a single sitting than a daily Saint Etienne album. The album earlier than that was 2021’s I’ve Been Making an attempt to Inform You.
Learn our 2025 interview with Saint Etienne on The Evening.
Learn our 2017 print journal interview with Saint Etienne.
Learn our 2017 prolonged Q&A with Saint Etienne.
2. Suede: “Damaged Music for Damaged Folks”
Suede have launched a brand new album, Antidepressants, at the moment through BMG. Stream the entire thing right here. Learn our assessment, which we posted at the moment, right here.
The entire album’s pre-release singles made our Songs of the Week lists, however “Damaged Music for Damaged Folks” is our favourite album observe not beforehand launched as a single and it makes this listing.
In Dom Gourlay’s rave assessment, he writes: “On steadiness, Antidepressants appears to be a document Suede have been aching to make for years, perhaps even a long time.”
Beforehand Suede shared its first single, “Disintegrate,” through a music video. It was one in all our Songs of the Week.The band additionally beforehand launched a dwell video for the album’s title observe, recorded final yr at their present at London’s Alexandra Palace. Then they shared its second single, “Trance State,” additionally one in all our Songs of the Week. Then they shared its third single, “Dancing With the Europeans,” once more one in all our Songs of the Week.
Antidepressants is the Britpop band’s tenth album and follows their 2022 album, Autofiction. Suede are Brett Anderson (vocals), Mat Osman (bass), Simon Gilbert (drums), Richard Oakes (guitars), and Neil Codling (keyboards).
Anderson had this to say concerning the album in a earlier press launch: “If Autofiction was our punk document, Antidepressants is our post-punk document. It’s concerning the tensions of contemporary life, the paranoia, the nervousness, the neurosis. We’re all striving for connection in a disconnected world. This was the texture I wished the songs to have. The album known as Antidepressants. That is damaged music for damaged folks.”
Suede recorded the album dwell within the studio with longtime producer Ed Buller, who they first labored with on their debut single, “The Drowners,” approach again in 1992. The band recorded at Belgium’s ICP Studios, in London at each RAK and Sleeper Sounds, and at RMV in Sweden.
“It’s genuinely thrilling being on this band. It seems like we’re nonetheless pushing creatively,” says Anderson of the brand new album.
Osman provides: “It is a widescreen and bold document. It’s a giant stage document and it’s taking it up a gear.”
Learn our rave assessment of Autofiction right here.
Learn our interview with Suede on The Blue Hour.
Learn our 2013 interview with Suede’s Brett Anderson on Bloodsports.
In 2019 we mirrored on the twenty fifth anniversary of Suede’s second album, Canine Man Star, and also you learn that retrospective right here.
3. The Final Dinner Occasion: “The Scythe”
The Final Dinner Occasion are releasing their second album From the Pyre, on October 17 on Island. At this time they shared its second single, “The Scythe,” through a music video. Fiona Jane Burgess directed the video.
The band’s Abigail Morris initially wrote “The Scythe” as a young person coping with a breakup. Morris had this to say concerning the music in a press launch:
“This music started 9 years in the past, like a prophecy. I wrote it earlier than I had identified something of grief or heartbreak, how a relationship ending feels precisely the identical as that individual dying. As soon as you know the way it feels to lose somebody you enter a brand new realm from which you’ll be able to by no means return. You’re making an attempt to achieve them telepathically by means of psychics or music lyrics (typically these two change into the identical) and typically they offer you a reply. It may possibly take 9 years to understand you’re even grieving in any respect however when you do you see them in every single place—in a robin, in a avenue fox, in a Wim Wenders movie. ‘The Scythe’ comes for everybody and also you shouldn’t be afraid about what’s on the opposite aspect.”
Of the video, Morris provides: “The music video for ‘The Scythe’ is one in all our proudest and most intimate. From one angle it’s a celebration of all of the relationships that make it thus far you each really feel like you’ll be able to dwell eternally, from one other it’s the fantasy of imagining what it might appear like in case your dad and mom had been in a position to develop previous collectively.”
Beforehand the band shared From the Pyre’s first single, “This Is the Killer Talking.” It was one in all our Songs of the Week.
From the Pyre is the short follow-up to the band’s 2024 launched debut album, Prelude to Ecstasy, which was one in all our Prime 100 Albums of 2024.
You possibly can learn our album assessment right here, and really probably their first interview with an American publication right here.
4. Ladytron: “I Imagine in You”
Liverpool-formed electro-pop band Ladytron returned at the moment with a brand new single, “I Imagine in You,” launched through a music video. The one is out now on Nettwerk. The band have additionally introduced some new 2026 UK exhibits. Try the tour dates right here.
Ladytron is Helen Marnie, Daniel Hunt, and Mira Aroyo. Fellow founding member Reuben Wu left the band in 2023. Hunt directed the “I Imagine in You” video.
Ladyton’s final studio album, Time’s Arrow, got here out in 2023 through Cooking Vinyl. Across the identical time “Destroy The whole lot You Contact,” initially launched on Ladytron’s 2005 LP Witching Hour, discovered new life but once more after being featured in Emerald Fennell’s movie, Saltburn. In 2023 additionally they launched a brand new Christmas music, “All Over By Xmas.”
Learn our 2019 interview with Ladytron on their self-titled album.
Learn our assessment of Time’s Arrow.
5. Hatchie: “Lose It Once more”
This week, Hatchie, the shoegaze/dream pop undertaking of Australian musician Harriette Pilbeam, introduced a brand new album, Liquorice, and shared its first single, “Lose It Once more,” through a music video. Melina Duterte (aka Jay Som) helped produce the album, which is due out November 7 through Secretly Canadian.
Liquorice is Hatchie’s third full-length album and follows Giving the World Away, which was one in all our Prime 100 Albums of 2022.
“This album feels just like the fruits of every part I’ve wished to do with this undertaking since I first began it,” says Pilbeam in a press launch. “I centered on the finer particulars of the trajectory of affection discovered and misplaced, impressed by my favourite tragic romance movies. I’ve by no means felt extra aligned with an album and might’t wait to share the expertise with everybody.”
Pilbeam and her longtime bandmate/romantic accomplice Joe Agius had been primarily based in Los Angeles for a time, however determined to cease touring and return to Australia.
“Finally, the inspiration for the album got here from dwelling a quite simple life and having time to reconnect with myself and be alone with my ideas,” says Pilbeam.
The album was recorded at Duterte’s residence studio and options Stella Mozgawa (Warpaint, Courtney Barnett) on drums. Alex Farrar (Wednesday, MJ Lenderman) blended the album, which was mastered by Greg Obis (Dutch Inside, Gradual Pulp, Wishy).
Jeremy McLennan (Orchin) co-wrote “Lose It Once more” and Agius directed its video.
“I wished to see my limitations as strengths that inform my type,” Pilbeam says about embracing her influences on Liquorice.
Learn our interview with Hatchie on Giving the World Away right here.
Learn our rave assessment of Giving the World Away right here.
Giving the World Away is Hatchie’s second full-length album, the follow-up to her acclaimed debut album, Memento, which got here out in 2019 through Double Double Whammy.
Hatchie was featured on Below the Radar’s twentieth anniversary compilation album, Covers of Covers, the place she covers HAIM’s “FUBT.”
Learn our rave 8.5/10 assessment of Memento right here.
Learn our 2018 interview with Hatchie on her EP Sugar & Spice.
Learn our My Favourite Album interview with Hatchie on Carole King’s Tapestry.
6. Cate Le Bon: “About Time”
Cate Le Bon is releasing a brand new album, Michelangelo Dying, on September 26 through Mexican Summer time. This week she shared its third single, “About Time,” through a music video. Fellow Welsh musician/common collaborator H. Hawkline directed the video..
Le Bon beforehand shared Michelangelo Dying’s lead single “Heaven Is No Feeling.” It was one in all our Songs of the Week. Then she shared its second single, “Is It Value It (Pleased Birthday)?,” through a music video. It additionally landed on Songs of the Week.
Michelangelo Dying is Le Bon’s seventh full-length and the follow-up to Pompeii, which landed on our Prime 100 Albums of 2022 listing.
Le Bon produced Michelangelo Dying with collaborator Samur Khouja.
Le Bon, who has labored as a producer with St. Vincent, Wilco, and others, stated in a earlier press launch: “There’s this concept that you can do every part your self, however the worth of getting somebody you fully belief, as I do Samur, be your co-pilot lets you get fully misplaced figuring out you’ll get pulled again in on the proper second. We’ve got come to quietly transfer as one within the studio.”
Learn our interview together with her about her 2022 album Pompeii right here.
7. Kneecap: “Sayōnara” (Feat. Paul Hartnoll)
8. Softcult: “16/25”
9. Vona Vella: “Bear Lure”
10. Steve Gunn: “Almost There”
11. The Divine Comedy: “Invisible Thread”
12. David Byrne: “What Is The Motive For It?” (Feat. Hayley Williams)
Honorable Mentions:
These songs nearly made the Prime 12.
The Antlers: “One thing within the Air”
The Belair Lip Bombs: “Don’t Let Them Inform You (It’s Truthful)”
Blue Flexible: “Poke”
Billy Bragg: “Hundred Yr Starvation”
Clark: “Blowtorch Thimble”
Lower Copy: “Belong to You” (Feat. Kate Bollinger)
Daphni: “Eleven”
Eades: “Exterior Nothing”
Subject Music: “I Must Get Sick on You Now”
Jane Inc.: “freefall”
Knitting: “Fold”
Kelly Moran: “Echo within the Subject”
John Maus: “Decide It Up”
The Mynabirds: “Ramona, Patron Saint of Silence”
Sparks: “Porcupine”
Tame Impala: “Loser”
Whitmer Thomas: “On a Roll”
Right here’s a useful Spotify playlist that includes the Prime 12 so as, adopted by all of the honorable mentions:
(Observe: The songs by Billy Bragg, Subject Music, and The Mynabirds aren’t on Spotify and so aren’t on the playlist.)
