The 18 best rock songs right now

DIIV are back and they’ve hit us with "Skin Game," a murky song about addiction and recovery that maintains a sweet, pop-adjacent center.

Nihilistic bedroom pop from Norway's finest purveyor of the art.

Sleater-Kinney's new album cycle is proving more than a little bumpy, but don't get distracted — The Center Won't Hold is shaping up to be essential listening.

There is lots to love about David Berman’s first new album in over a decade and his mastery of the instantly iconic song title is high on that list.

British band Squid make a maximal form of post-punk where the philosophy seems to be: "Why have one good idea when you can have seven?" "The Cleaner" is their latest brain-melter.

Londoners Black Country, New Road have nearly nine minutes to play with on "Sunglasses," and they fill their wiry and tense song with mentions of everything from Scandi-noir and Big Pharma to the deep-seated fear of turning into your parents.

The world is melting and The 1975 have teamed up, Avengers-style, with Greta Thunberg to try to wake people up to that reality before it's too late.

Nobody does wistfulness quite like Angel Olsen.

Montreal singer-songwriter Brigitte Naggar knows how to hook you in. “With a trash can full of blood and hair/ You had to get yourself out of there,” she sings over delicately finger-picked guitar. What follows is a slightly less dramatic, though perhaps more relatable, tale of big city burnout.

I need to know more about the person who commented on YouTube that this song “absolutely levitates in the whip but also in the headphones while lying in bed 😥🐇.”

Emily Sprague’s latest album as Florist deals with the grief of losing a parent in admirably brave fashion. “M” is a highlight, with Sprague delicately coming to terms with something other-worldly over sparse piano that glimmers in the darkness.

May sounding like Elliott Smith never, ever go out of fashion.

Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon said in a statement that new album i, i (due August 30) is “more honest and generous” than the band’s previous work. “Jelmore” speaks loudly to that idea with its sleek blend of experimentation and warm songwriting.

Jenny Hval returns and — whisper it — she’s gone pop. Sure, “Ashes to Ashes” touches on burials, grave-digging, and “boys nude magazines,” but this synth-pop moment is the most down-the-line the Norewgian experimental artist has maybe ever sounded.

If “Sunday” jingle-jangled any more, The Cure might have cause to call their goth-pop lawyers. This “Friday, I’m In Love”-esque tune is a beautiful highlight from the recently-released Remembering The Rockets.

The Caroline Polachek album can't come soon enough.

Shout out Clairo for making a song that touches on three separate eras of The Strokes in three minutes.

Vivian Girls' welcome return proves it's always 2009 somewhere.