New Music — the songs you need to hear this week

Maisie Peters and Julia Michaels — “Kingmaker”

This song appears on Peters’ upcoming album “Florescent,” out May 15. The vocals are gentle but lock in with each other nicely. Michaels has a knack for writing big pop records (“Issues,” “If the World Was Ending,” and she co-wrote Justin Bieber’s “Sorry”). What you might expect to turn into a big pop moment actually holds off on itself. But it works—especially when stacked against the other releases Peter has rolled out from the new album.

They’ve got it when it comes to writing a song together. Wouldn’t be surprised if they circle back to it later.

Lucy Dacus — “Planting Tomatoes”

We know Dacus for her voice, too, which feels like a quiet sermon of sweetness, full of the kind of words that land like sweet nothings. On “Night Shift,” maybe her biggest hit, the bridge lands hard: the tide hits the rocks and the track just kind of decelerates into something heavier and more reflective. We think we see it again here on “Tomatoes,” when the arrangement pulls back at the bridge and gives everything a bit more space to breathe.

Also, what really works for Dacus is the simplicity in her lyrics. “Planting tomatoes in the empty lot/Someone practicing saxophone down the block/They are not good yet/They are not good yet,” she sings. We tune our attention to the use of “yet” here and what it might suggest about holding on to hope anyway. One small word ends up changing the entire lifeline.

Noah Kahn — “The Great Divide” (Album)

Noah Kahan’s new album is here and it’s a lot to take in but we’ll do our best to break it down right now. We can say it’s been running on repeat all day long.

We had already picked two of the prerelease tracks as our favorites (“The Great Divide” and “Porch Light”) and we’re running our hands through the pages, trying to find what else stands out as a favorite among these great picks. First up is the opening track “End of August,” which might sound a bit obvious to say, but the piano and the faint buzz of insects drop you straight into the small town you’re already preparing to leave. The pre-chorus lands with Kahan’s humming and a bit of piano momentum building, a familiar “Stick Season” moment as we tilt our heads out the sunroof at dusk. The song closes out with the zip code of Kahan’s hometown.

We’ll also include “Doors,” which seems to be getting the single treatment as Spotify releases the project. There’s something about the melody in “Paid Time Off” that made us sit up a bit more the first time through. It gives off a real campfire song vibe, if we can say that. “We Go Way Back” has Kahan practically begging for something deeper than just fame and it really feels like a plea. “Tell me I don't need options/that I have substance/that I'm important,” he sings. It’s that recurring crisis where even being on stage doesn’t quite fill the gap anymore. So, what does Kahan do with that feeling? Does getting away from his hometown actually help him make sense of it? Somewhere across “The Great Divide” he’s starting to offer up an answer.

So we highlight what stands out as the album’s key track. “Dan” leans into that idea of youth and that feeling of hometown friends you never really lose. “Cause I’m with my best friend Dan now/Camping on the county line,” Kahan sings. It begins as a camp moment but quickly slips into high school nostalgia and bigger questions about what happens when we die. The answer might not come but Kahan doesn’t seem afraid to ask it anyway. So in a record about fame and life in the glare of stage lights, Kahan still finds space under a calm open night sky. You keep leaning into that one friend and maybe that is how you make it back home…