BEST AND WORST NEW TRACKS OF THE WEEK 18/03/2015: Tame Impala, Death Grips, Muse and more...

This week Death Grips trade electronica beats for psychedelic rock whilst Tame Impala trade psychedelic rock for electronica. Meanwhile, big names such as Muse and Kanye West also have new singles out (plus Kendrick Lamar and Earl Sweatshirt, although I didn't deem either good or bad enough to make this week's selection).

THE BEST:

'Let It Happen' - Tame Impala

This kaleidoscopic seven-minute electronica adventure sees the Australian five-piece rock band dropping their guitars for epic synthesizers. The entire second half is practically one big ever-evolving outro. I'm particularly liking the broken-record looped part in the middle and Animal-Collective-flavoured vocal harmonies towards the end.

'On GP' - Death Grips

The experimental hip hoppers have surprised everyone yet again by going down a new sonic avenue - psychedelic rock. By Death Grips standards the track is fairly soft. MC Ride also offers some depressive and unexpectedly human lyrics. The song is set to be the ninth track on Death Grips' up-and-coming semi-album, Jenny Death, which may or may not be released on March 29th.

'Psycho' - Muse

The lyrical message is about as subtle as a sledgehammer and the Full-Metal-Jacket-drill-sergeant-skit-thing could ideally be cut out, but sweeping all that aside this is a hefty and badass rock song from the UK trio with a riff that makes me want to beat my chest and smash furniture up and generally act like a psycho. The absence of operatic warbling and wubs is also a plus.

'Reflections' - Django Django

Like Tame Impala, Brit rockers Django Django seem to going more synthy. There's a real bounce to this track and the out-of-the-blue saxophone section is really cool.

'Never Awake' - Drenge

This new track from Derbyshire duo, Drenge, seems to be a step into cleaner production, which is worrying considering the rawness of their debut was half their appeal. Fortunately, the instruments are still sounding primal even if the sound quality isn't, and the lyrics are still top notch.

THE WORST:

'Awesome' - Kanye West

Another week, another new Kanye song. This time it’s a cheesy auto-tuned ballad dedicated to his bae, Kim. Lyrically, it's not his best work, lines like 'I'm gonna cook, you'll be dessert' coming across like bad chat-up lines. He even manages to dedicate a few lines of the love song to himself towards the end: ‘I’m also awesoooome!’. He just can't help himself, can he?