Songs of the Week - 12/10/2026

These are the essential tracks you need to check out this week!

Photo Credit: Adam Marsden

Finn Forster - 'Blame It On You'

"Blame It On You is a song that follows the breakdown of a relationship I had. Moving through blame and accountability. I wanted to tell a raw and honest story but not through the style of a traditional sad break up song. It’s cool, hooky and anthemic and meant to be played loud"

Finn on the track

Marisha Wallace & Tody Gad - 'Don't Let This Be You'

“While reading her biography, I became fixated on a specific image: Etta [James] at one of the lowest points of her life—her career slipping, in and out of rehab, her husband serving a ten-year sentence, money running out—and still, she’s expected to walk onstage and give the performance of a lifetime. No pause. No grace. Just perfection on demand. That image became the foundation of this album. Because that expectation didn’t stay in her time—it followed me into mine. As a Black female artist in 2026, I recognise that same pressure to be exceptional in the middle of uncertainty, to turn pain into performance, to be consumed but never collapse. Every song on ‘James Etta’ is an original response to moments like that. Not a retelling, but a confrontation. A dialogue between who she was allowed to be and who I am still fighting to be."

Marisha on upcoming album 'James Etta' which will feature 'Don't Let This Be You'

AFTERDRIVE - 'Fake License Plates'

"Fake License Plates is a song we wrote a little while back and we’ve been playing it in our shows and so many of our fans wanted it released so very excited that’s now being shared with everyone. Fake License Plates is about that late night headspace where you're already wired and reckless, about doing something you shouldn’t be doing and somehow getting away with it, like you’re invisible from all the consequences”

AFTERDRIVE on the track

Lois - '9 to 5'

"I lost touch with reality for a while. I felt so out of place in the world and couldn’t seem to find the point in all this anymore. One night I decided to go to Pleasure Maxxx, a queer nightclub event. And it was as if I’d found everything I’d been searching for all at once. Togetherness, anonymity, body on body connection, joy, sensuality, love and lust and sweat and tears. From then I became addicted to it. It was on dance floors and in dark corners that I found what I’d been starved of - feeling."

Lois on the track

Liily - 'FOREVER'

"'FOREVER' is about me trying to find humility in an industry of comparison while struggling to define our sound. It’s been hard to deprogram the negativity that comes with being a struggling band. 'EVERYDAY' sounds self-deprecating, but is part of my journey of introspection and becoming a more confident person. I speak about underperforming as a person, a son, a bandmate, and a partner, and trying to be more mindful of my place in my own life and the lives of others."

Vocalist Dylan on the track and its companion single EVERYDAY

Caitlin Starr - 'Piece of Clay'

"The song grapples with the urge to discard what you’ve been made into and the pain of realizing the framework that defines your value is hard to escape. It’s about the cyclical return to where you began, despite the furious desperation to be remade. It's climactic and bittersweet, and grand — both vulnerable and inevitable."

Caitlin on the track

ISQ - 'Angela'

"Many songs about domestic abuse focus on either the victim or the perpetrator but 'Angela' is about the neighbour, the friend or the family member who suspects something is wrong and isn't sure how to help. That ambiguity at the end reflects the reality faced by many survivors. Angela is both hopeful and tragic. It is a song about violence, but also about the possibility of freedom, surviv"al and a future beyond abuse."

ISQ on the track

PÆRISH - 'What You Want'

“[What You Want] is born from the desire to stop overthinking and simply have fun writing music again. By fully embracing its influences and keeping things direct and simple, the track became an energetic, live-oriented song about toxic work relationships and the struggle to keep moving forward creatively."

Vocalist Mathias on the track

Amelia Coburn - 'I Just Want To Say'

"While writing and recording the notoriously ‘difficult’ second album, I found myself wrestling with something far more difficult than the record itself: my relationship with myself. Like many people, there are parts of myself that I prefer not to acknowledge: selfishness, jealousy, obsession, resentment, and ultimately the distressing fact that I am capable of acting in ways I do not recognise. I had spent a long time trying to suppress these facets of my personality, but realised that the more I tried to suppress them, the more insistently they would resurface"

Amelia on the track

Shobsy - 'Perfect'

"At the time of writing it felt too close to the bone. Over time friends have convinced me to release it. It's a warm goodbye to someone I've loved for a long time. It's a raising of a glass to them as life and paths shift."

Shobsy on the track

Juli von Lou - 'To A Girl From West Virginia'

“To A Girl From West Virginia is probably the most important song I’ve written so far. It’s a song that changed my life. About a woman that changed my life. She made me realise that it was possible to fall in love again. And that love doesn’t have to feel like a heart attack. In fact it shouldn't. I saw so much of myself in her, but I loved her. I did not love myself. I could not save myself because I didn't feel like I was worth saving. So I clung on to the idea that I was gonna save myself, if not for me then for her.”

Juli on the track

Calvaria - 'Ghost'

"Ghost is probably as emotionally raw as we’ve gotten as a band so far. It’s about carrying the weight of a memory or a person, from your past that still haunts you and navigating the complex feelings and emotions surrounding the situation, almost in a sense of learning how to grieve but being unable to fully let go as the ‘Ghost’ is always there."

Calvaria on the track

Fools & Sages - 'Safe Haven'

"'Safe Haven' is a metaphorical and literal exploration of grief, but it is also a message of reassurance: that even in the vacancies left by loss, we can find the quiet resolve to make peace. 'Safe Haven' is a retelling of what it means to feel this loss so completely and the questions we ask ourselves in the face of it."

Fools & Sages on the track

Morgan La Fae - 'Echo Chamber'

"Echo Chamber takes a look at the downsides of living in your own fantasy world. Overthinking, self doubt, and getting lost in thoughts that seem impossible to switch off. It captures the all encompassing intensity of living inside your head, where every thought can become louder than the world around you. Echo Chamber ultimately reminds us that sometimes the hardest place to escape is our own mind."

Morgan on the track

Aderyn - 'Please'

"I have a voice memo of me writing this song, and top to bottom I wrote it in twelve minutes. That's how you know there's a monster of emotion inside you that needs to work its way out. It's built into human nature to love without reciprocation - to pour ourselves into deities or people that don't give us clear answers. Once I started treating religious faith as an allegory for how I felt towards this person, the lyrics poured out.”

Aderyn on the track

ivies - 'equinox song'

"This song tackles the confusion and frustration with not being able to move on from a relationship that was never even labeled as one. The anger is turned inwards and the battle becomes with oneself instead of the other person - knowing from the beginning that this was never a real relationship to then experiencing what feels like proper heartbreak when it ends. To me it is a heartbreak song (or as close as I'll hopefully come to writing one), and I feel like the song almost passes through the different stages of grief as it goes on. Whilst the idea of a situationship can seem juvenile, the understanding and processing of emotions is very real and taxing."

Vocalist Alice on the track

Pryti - 'Corner of Midnight'

"[Corner of Midnight] has a healing frequency like Zero. It’s about wanting a long lost love back. I had the title corner of midnight in my head for years as I was watching the series Night Agent. I wrote the song about Peter and Rose - it was originally a ballad but when I got in the studio with Justin Hill I was like 'it’s got to sound big' and the song became something more. It’s dedicated to Night Agent fans who love the Peter and Rose relationship."

Pryti on the track

MARIANNE - 'Hiding in Plain Sight'

"‘Hiding in Plain Sight’ is a haunting and confessional indie pop ballad that explores toxic dependency within a relationship. This song is a reckoning of sorts. It’s about finally looking in the mirror and seeing things as they are, what's been hiding in plain sight.”

MARIANNE on the track

Destroya - 'Means To An End'

"Means To An End represents the never ending pattern of self-destruction through the desire to please everyone. Time and time again I’ve given my entire being to others, only to have my emotional space stolen. Yet again, my compassion fed them, at once starving me of my very self. This song channels the once-simmering, now-imploding exasperation both at oneself and at the world; at myself for allowing this social self-mutilation to overflow and drown my voice, taking any remnants of bliss I once owned, and at the world for ceaselessly knocking down the doors of my own safe space. By undulating between hammering thrash riffs and lighter sarcastic rhythms, Means To An End conveys these tumultuous waves of emotional burden."

Destroya on the track