We’re almost a month into the new year, and a whole bunch of great new music is starting to roll in. Let’s dive into some of the best tracks to drop last week!

The Wonder Years – “Year of the Vulture”

The Wonder Years are kind of in their Mark Hamill-esque side quest era, where they’re just running around doing whatever kind of music they want. Dan Campbell had his solo album and Aaron West side projects, the band as a whole has Loneliest Place On Earth, which is part record label, part music nerd outlet, all cool; and now they have a single they wrote for WWE

“Year of the Vulture” is a pretty hard song as far as The Wonder Years go, especially given that their latest album, The Hum Goes On Forever, doesn’t really stand out to me as a heavier offering from the band. I don’t know anything about wrestling, but I know a good TWY song when I hear it, and I hope it gets setlist plays in their upcoming live shows.

Wallows – “Your Apartment”

I have been waiting for a new Wallows track since 2022 when they released the one-off single “Wish Me Luck”, which ended up being one of my Top Songs of 2023 and one of my favorite songs from the band. They have plans to release their third full length album this year and I’m stoked. From the sounds of “Your Apartment” they’re backtracking from the more synthy-side of things that came with their last album and leaning more toward an indie rock vibe that dominated their earlier releases.

“Your Apartment” is the first official single from the project, though they did play two other unreleased tracks at shows last year. I feel like I always attach myself to an easy-to-listen-to indie pop band and Wallows is so effortlessly cool that they’ve been my main go-to for the past five years now. When I don’t know what I’m in the mood for, you can bet that I’ll fall back on Wallows. There isn’t an official release date or title for the album yet, but Wallows is on the move and I’m following close behind.

Twenty One Pilots – “Overcompensate”

After posting a four-minute video last week that could be described as anything BUT cryptic, Twenty One Pilots is back with “Overcompensate”, the first single from their upcoming release Clancy, out May 17th. They have released the tracklist, which does include a song with the tag “(Jenna’s Version)”, continuing with the theme of there being a song dedicated to his wife on each album, as well as a mention of drummer Josh Dun by name. I know I’m reading into everything but they’ve trained me well in my tenure as a TOP fan.

Over the past eleven years of going from a mega fan as a teen, to ebbing and flowing back and forth through my adulthood with each release, there’s never been a day during a TOP release campaign that could be described as chill. But with this, they’ve laid it all out for us. We got the video that recapped the entire story of the past few albums, and then they made a Youtube playlist that put their music videos in chronological order of where they fall in the timeline. It almost feels too easy. They must have more in store for us. Friends, welcome back to Trench.

by Nadia Alves

Nadia Alves has been a music enthusiast since she can remember. Going to shows is her main pastime. The other is being upset when she can’t go to shows. This is her first official venture into writing about music. You can follow her on Twitter.