There’s no shortage of new music every Friday, but only a few songs earn a second, third, or tenth listen. Welcome back to On Repeat, where I round up the three new music releases that stayed with me long after I closed my laptop.
Tom Morello featuring Roman Morello – “Date Night”
My favorite song this week, and the one I’ve had on repeat more than anything else, is “Date Night” from Tom Morello featuring his son, Roman Morello. Tom’s forthcoming solo album arrives September 25 via Mom + Pop Music, and if this single is any indication, it’s shaping up to be one of his strongest solo records yet.
Tom Morello has spent his entire career writing songs about activism, injustice, and resistance, so hearing him tackle those themes again isn’t necessarily surprising. What did surprise me was just how much this song exceeded my expectations.
Part of that comes from Roman Morello, who wrote the massive opening guitar riff that drives the entire track. It’s one of those riffs that immediately locks you in and refuses to let go. Loud, technical, and relentlessly satisfying, it reminded me at different moments of Audioslave, Queens of the Stone Age, and even Bush. More than anything, though, it sounds like a song written by people who genuinely love guitars.
The lyrics are remarkably economical. Rather than competing with the instrumentation, they almost read like a poem, brief but powerful. The song tells the story of three young Dutch women who joined the resistance against the Nazis during World War II, transforming a little-known piece of history into a rallying cry that feels just as urgent today.
Morello recently said he writes anti-racist songs for anti-racists and anti-fascist songs for anti-fascists, and “Date Night” embodies that philosophy without ever becoming heavy-handed. The message is clear, but it’s the musicianship that keeps pulling me back. The guitars do as much of the storytelling as the lyrics themselves.
I also love what this collaboration represents. Rather than simply appearing alongside his father, Roman Morello immediately establishes himself as a songwriter and guitarist with his own voice. There’s a natural chemistry between them that makes this feel less like a novelty collaboration and more like the beginning of something with real creative potential.
More than anything, I can’t wait to hear this one live. “Date Night” has the kind of enormous, riff-driven energy that practically demands an audience. If it’s any indication of what’s to come, I’m looking forward not only to Tom Morello’s new album, but also to seeing where Roman Morello’s own musical path leads next.
Remi Wolf – “Twiggy”
My second favorite song this week comes from Remi Wolf, and I have to admit, this one completely caught me off guard.
I’ve always liked Remi Wolf. My appreciation for her has never really wavered, but there have been moments where I’ve questioned where she was headed creatively. Then I saw her at BottleRock last year. It was a beautiful afternoon set on the main stage, and while I still enjoyed it, something didn’t quite click for me. I walked away thinking I liked Remi Wolf more as a recording artist than as a live performer.
“Twiggy” changed that.
Now I’m dying to hear this song live because if she can recreate even half of what she captured in the studio, it’ll completely reshape how I think about her as a performer.
This is exactly why I started On Repeat. Every so often, a song comes along that refuses to leave your head. “Twiggy” has been that song all week.
I’ve always had a soft spot for queer love songs, and this one immediately joined that conversation. It has all the yearning, uncertainty, bad decisions, and emotional push-and-pull that make the best queer songwriting feel so universal. I could easily imagine this song living somewhere in the worlds of Chappell Roan or Lola Young, but Remi Wolf makes it entirely her own.
What I love most is the way it builds. It begins almost cautiously, inviting you into the story without revealing too much. Then, almost without realizing it, the momentum starts to build. By the second chorus, the song has completely taken off. The closest comparison I can think of is opening up the throttle on a motorcycle or galloping a horse across an open field. It never explodes all at once. It simply gathers speed until, by the final chorus, it feels almost impossible to catch your breath.
That’s remarkably difficult to pull off as a songwriter. So many artists mistake loudness for momentum. “Twiggy” understands that anticipation is often more powerful.
It’s also one of those songs that arrives at exactly the right time of year. It feels like late summer beginning to drift into early fall, when everything is still warm but you can feel the season starting to change. I could just as easily imagine it anchoring the emotional centerpiece of a coming-of-age film as I could blasting through the car speakers on a late August drive.
More than anything, “Twiggy” feels like another step forward for Remi Wolf. The songwriting feels more focused, the emotional stakes feel higher, and the finished product is one of the strongest things she’s released to date.
Tom Morello ultimately took my top spot this week, but it was incredibly close. “Twiggy” is one of my favorite songs of the year so far.
Porch Light – “Under Under”
Rounding out this week’s On Repeat is “Under Under” from Minneapolis indie rock band Porch Light, and I cannot overstate how excited I am about this band.
Porch Light has been building serious momentum ever since “Arctic” started taking off online, and for a band whose current lineup came together after finding their vocalist at a karaoke night, they’ve developed remarkable chemistry in an incredibly short amount of time. They already sound like a band that’s been playing together for years.
“Under Under” only reinforces that feeling.
On paper, they’re an indie rock band, but that description barely scratches the surface. Their music carries the melodic sensibilities of indie rock while pulling in the grit of ’90s alternative and flashes of post-hardcore intensity. There’s distortion where it needs distortion, melody where it needs melody, and just enough edge to keep everything from becoming too polished.
Like Tom Morello’s “Date Night,” this is another song that hooks me almost immediately. Within the first few guitar chords, I was completely in. The riffs are memorable, the vocal performance has real conviction behind it, and the entire song moves with a confidence that feels far beyond where a young band should already be.
What impresses me most is that Porch Light understands restraint. They know when to let the guitars breathe, when to lean into the melody, and when to turn up the intensity without overwhelming the song. That’s a balance a lot of emerging rock bands spend years trying to find.
Their recent Lollapalooza debut feels like a sign of where things are headed. Everything about this band suggests they’re moving quickly, and deservedly so.
If you haven’t spent time with Porch Light yet, now is the moment. “Under Under” is one of the strongest rock releases I’ve heard in recent weeks, and it’s left me incredibly eager to hear what they’ll do on a full-length record. If this is the foundation they’re building from, the debut album is going to be one to watch.
That’s another week of On Repeat in the books. I’ll be back next Wednesday with three more songs that earned a permanent place in my rotation. Until then, keep listening.
Featured image credits to the artists.
