Friendship is a powerful, mysterious force. Sometimes, you love your friends so much that you just need to make a skronky noise-blues jam about it. When you do that, though, you really have to commit. You have to make sure your guitars clang and scrape and sputter with as much disruptive force as possible. You need to bellow about chillin’ with your friends at the top of your lungs. You and your band need to build this vamp into a chaotic skree-squall until everything just dissolves. If you don’t do all that, how will your friends even know how you really feel? —Tom

Copenhagen’s dreamy music scene continues to flourish with artists like Astrid Sonne, ML Buch, Snuggle, and Fine. Since releasing her debut full-length Rocky Top Ballads last year, Fine has shared some great tunes, including April’s absolutely enrapturing “I Could.” “Portal” is less mischievous, more vulnerable; it doesn’t need a lot going on when her vocals serve as a captivating centerpiece as she navigates a floundering relationship in a direct manner. When a flute comes in toward the end, though, it only adds to the enchantment. —Danielle

My Wonderful Boyfriend billed “I’m Your Man” as “equal parts ‘Just What I Needed’ by the Cars and ‘All My Friends’ by LCD Soundsystem,” which is certainly an enticing description. To me, the NYC band’s latest sounds more Replacements-meets-Rentals, its scrappy desperation cut with catchy keyboards and raspy hooks galore. Leonard Cohen is the ghost hanging over a song called “I’m Your Man” that climaxes with a chorus of “Hallelujah,” but old Lenny never would have written something this jubilantly neurotic. Whereas some tunes start with a bang but rapidly wear out their welcome, my journey with this one followed the opposite trajectory: I was mildly amused at first, but by the time it wrapped up, my love for it was bordering on fanatical. Bestow it upon your favorite Weezer fan this weekend and watch them glow. —Chris

On the final preview of Cate Le Bon’s forthcoming album Michelangelo Dying, she sounds at ease. There’s a magnetizing lightness to “About Time,” as if Le Bon’s made peace with something. The synths flutter and minimal guitars ripple like light skimming across water — a tone that would make Robin Guthrie grin. But there’s a slight tension that weighs down Le Bon’s weepy vocals. Nothing she sings about is particularly light: She wants to “sing about regret,” and declares that she’s “not a gracious daughter” or “not religious on the water.” Still, there’s a healing acceptance to the song. She repeats a vague mantra through the song’s final stretch: “Collect yourself/ Rigid, collapse.” It’s a sparkling ode to the inevitability of life’s entropy. —Margaret

Relative to the one-two-punch of singles that preceded last year’s Short N’ Sweet — the breakthrough hit “Espresso” and the chart-topping “Please Please Please” — Sabrina Carpenter’s new record Man’s Best Friend arrived with suspiciously little fanfare. That probably benefited “House Tour,” a surprise late-album highlight tucked far into its second half like a gate-secluded celebrity mansion. Over razor-sharp synths that evoke Control-era Janet for the TikTok generation, Carpenter eschews the trope of feminine domesticity: She can’t be bothered to bake you cookies from scratch, but working late as a singer has sure paid off exponentially.

And because this is Carpenter, after all, “House Tour” comes loaded with double-entendre — her “back door” isn’t just the one with hinges, and her “waxed floors” aren’t just the type you walk on. At the same time, she’s not flaunting the luxury of her three-story digs as much as she’s reveling in the dominant power of owning a space and the liberty of electing who enters it. So, wanna come over? —Abby