It’s been a rough music week. As you can imagine, I have been listening to a lot of Frightened Rabbit’s music. Their songs always had a difficult quality to them. Those elements have been amplified since Scott Hutchison’s death.

But it is time to move on, so here are some new tunes for you. No video this week, as I’m waiting on our fourth visit from AT&T this week and videos aren’t loading right now. (Update: dude was here for three hours and was unable to completely fix the situation. Apparently we have a rogue wire that is hidden behind some ductwork that may need to be fished out at some point. But this involves holes in walls so we’re going to put that off for now.)

“I Am a War Machine” – SONTALK. / “Lake Erie” – Wild Pink. These two tracks have both been highlighted by music writers as songs for people who are into The War on Drugs. They each hit different parts of TWOD’s sound, and do so rather nicely. The SONTALK track probably hews a little closer to classic TWOD. The Wild Pink track veers more towards Americana, although that late solo is pure Adam Granduciel. They’re both nice songs.

“Howlin’ Heart” – Richard Edwards. Indy’s Edwards had a rough few years. He became very ill. His marriage ended. In this song you can hear both heartache and hope.

“Special” – Angel Olsen. I didn’t devote too much attention to Olsen’s Phases album, which came out last year and featured leftover tracks from other projects. This one is quite good, though. I love how it smolders and builds and eventually roars to the finish.