Welcome again to Weekly Guitar Essentials, your roundup of 10 of the best new guitar-driven tracks from the past seven days, from the biggest names to some artist you might never heard before, this is everything you need to keep your finger on the pulse of guitar culture

This week, we’ve got everything from the latest Mitski album to shoegaze bliss from Fazerdaze. You can follow the playlist on our Spotify, or check out each track in more detail below!

Wilco – Cousin

Wilco’s new Cate Le Bon-produced record is arriving later this month, and the title track dropped on Friday. Her influence is all over it, but it’s still quintessential Wilco – dreamy guitar textures and strange, catchy hooks abound.

McClusky – Unpopular Parts Of A Pig

McClusky just casually dropped four new songs, their first in 19 years. That near two-decade break from releasing stuff has done nothing to diminish their clever lyricism or sheer noisy energy.

Corey Taylor – We Are The Rest

Corey Taylor is a busy bloke, and inbetween all the new Slipknot material he’s found time to make CMF2, his second purely solo effort. Things take on a decidely pop-punk flavour here, albiet one balanced out by his brutal-as-ever screams, but importantly for guitar nerds like us, he’s playing a bloody Novo in the video.

Big Thief – Born For Loving You

Big Thief’s razor-sharp, emotive songwriting is basically unparalleled. Every track is a masterclass. Born For Loving You is no exception.

Mitski – I’m Your Man

Speaking of unparalleled – the new Mitski album came out on Friday. It is, obviously, fantastic. Listen to I’m Your Man, and then listen to the whole thing, if you know what’s good for you.

Blood Incantation – Obliquity of the Ecliptic

Part-time death-metallers, part-time ambienters Blood Incantation have dropped a new two song (and nearly 20 minute) single, which showcases both their riffy and their new age sounds – with plenty of the freaky psych-out passages they’re known for. Fittingly for the times, this is the kind of death metal that’s beamed down into the desert from a UFO. Or are we saying UAP now?

Snail Mail – Easy Thing

Marking two years since their excellent LP Valentine, Snail Mail have announced a new collection of the demos that would go on to form the basis of that album – all sparsely recorded in an attic, but no less sharply written, if Easy Thing is anything to go by.

Fazerdaze – Bigger

Throughout Bigger, lo-fi, grungey guitars chug away, keeping things grounded as warbly synths take things out into weird, spacey sonic territory – until everything folds into itself in like a dreampop jacknife.

Brutus – Love Won’t Hide The Ugliness

A track that rocks as hard as much as it gives you goosebumps – pretty much Brutus’ speciality. Drummer/vocalist Stefanie Mannaerts could sing over an ambulance siren and it would sound good, but in lieu of that guitarist Stijn Vanhoegaerden and bassist Peter Mulders provide sparse, shoegazey metal underneath her soaring vocals.

Myrkur – Mothlike

Chameleonic musician Amalie Bruun, AKA Myrkur, has given us another taste of her upcoming album Spine. Mothlike blends synthy new wave, chilly nordic folk, and (spoiler alert) – duelling tremolo-picked guitar solos.

Check out the full playlist: