“Red Flag To Angry Bull” plays like an unhinged cartoon, quirky and lightning-fried from Kassie Carlson’s lead vocal down to the colorfully lurching rhythm track. Producer Stephen Malkmus singing over studio owner Trey Anastasio’s lead guitar could almost pass for a joke. Yet the new Guerilla Toss track is no gag, nor is it out of control. It’s the work of a band fully in control, bursting with bizarro majesty as it bounces toward anthem status. —Chris

“I quit smoking/ But I cheated/ And had a cigarette,” is how Eliza McLamb’s new song “Quitting” begins, and also how my day went (I don’t regret a thing. The Yellow Spirit tasted amazing). “Quitting” has the restless excitement of a coming-of-age movie as the singer-songwriter compares nicotine addiction to love (the latter is harder). The 24-year-old’s wit is sharper than ever: “Wrap me around a streetlight like a teenage car,” she sings with glee. The complications of romance only make the situation more fun; sneaking around and breaking promises only add to the intensity. Dare I say the song is… addictive? —Danielle

The titular phrase “Jamie Oliver Petrol Station” is sheer gibberish to most Americans. Jamie Oliver is a celebrity chef, petrol is gas, and some gas stations over there sell Jamie Oliver-branded food at their convenience stores. Even with all that context, “Jamie Oliver Petrol Station” comes out sounding like a free-associative spew, and the Irish belter CMAT knows it. She keeps reminding herself that “this makes no sense to the average listener” and trying to rephrase whatever she’s saying. The presumably-stoned thought goes something like this: She hates seeing Jamie Oliver’s face everywhere, and she has to remind herself that he’s a human being, not just some cultural abstraction: “OK, don’t be a bitch! The man’s got kids, and they wouldn’t like this!” But when you can howl over a tremendous slow-build groove like this, you really don’t need to make any sense. You don’t need to explain yourself, either. Jamie Oliver is a grown man. He can handle it. —Tom

The headline news here is Pusha T calling out Travis Scott, warning him of the existence of some mysterious footage that could always end up on TMZ. It’s a hilarious bully move, a stray swirly for a guy who has no ability to craft an effective response and who is, at best, a peripheral character in Pusha’s larger resentments. In interviews, Pusha continues to double down on his criticisms, and the phrase “print can’t do justice to the disdain in Pusha’s delivery” has already entered the lexicon. But Travis Scott is ultimately immaterial to the great Clipse revival. His stardom, his existence, is merely an inconvenience to these two cold-blooded shit-talkers who are not afraid of one person on the face of the planet. Pharrell’s beat, with its Arabic chants and string-swirls and backwards 808s, is hard as hell, and these guys only make sense on something that’s hard as hell. It’s the only way they know how to be. —Tom

After Rat Saw God blew up so big, I was worried Wednesday’s signature style would start to seem played-out, as if Karly Hartzman’s unmistakable songwriting might start to seem too much like a predictable formula. Nope! “Wound Up Here (By Holdin On)” has all the key ingredients of classic Wednesday, but rather than sounding tired, this particular combination has rarely felt more vital. Hartzman keeps finding new details to observe from unglamorous Southern life: “Weeds grew into the springs of the trampoline/ You saw a pitbull puppy pissin’ off a balcony.” Her wailing vocal on the chorus hits like pop music while retaining the piercing, barely-in-control quality that has always made Wednesday so explosive. And when the huge guitar assault descends, her gnarled heavy-shoegaze interplay with Jake Lenderman still hits like a hurricane. Hartzman calls this stuff “Wednesday Creek Rock,” and “Wound Up Here” gives me hope that the bed might never dry up. —Chris