Review: In urgent new single, Foo Fighters reflect on late drummer Taylor Hawkins

POP/ROCK

Foo Fighters, "Rescued"

The first new song Foo Fighters have released since the sudden death of the band's beloved drummer Taylor Hawkins in March 2022, seems to address that tragedy and the remaining members' grief. "It happened so fast, and then it was over," Dave Grohl sings before unleashing one of those signature screams that manages to be throat-lacerating and melodic: "Is this happening now?" Hawkins' absence is a gaping void in "Rescued," the first track from a June album, "But Here We Are." But perhaps because of it, the Foos sound more focused than they have in a while, driven by a fresh sense of pathos and urgency.

LINDSAY ZOLADZ, New York Times

Florence + the Machine, "Mermaids"

"I thought that I was hungry for love," Florence Welch sings at the beginning of a menacing new song, adding, "Maybe I was just hungry for blood." The dark, brooding track sounds of a piece with "Dance Fever," the group's 2022 album that often found Welch threading her personal recollections and musings into a more mythical tapestry. That contrast emerges in the second movement of "Mermaids," when Welch sings memorably about long nights of London debauchery and "hugging girls that smelt like Britney Spears and coconuts."

LINDSAY ZOLADZ, New York Times

Grupo Frontera x Bad Bunny, "Un x100to"

Bad Bunny, proudly from Puerto Rico, is determined to expand his music into a pan-Latin coalition. With "Un x100to" ("One Percent"), he joins Grupo Frontera, a Mexican-rooted norteño band from Texas, for a song about using the last 1% of his cellphone power to call an ex and confess that he misses her. Grupo Frontera's section of the song is a traditional-flavored, accordion-backed cumbia. Bad Bunny arrives with a different, rap-informed melody over arena-scale electronic chords. But with Grupo Frontera working, he returns to the clip-clop beat and chorus of the cumbia — another strategic alliance certified.

JON PARELES, New York Times

Nathy Peluso, "Tonta"

The Argentine singer enlisted hitmaking producer Illangelo (the Weeknd, Post Malone) for the furious kiss-off "Tonta" ("Foolish"). A thumping, clattering beat propels her indictment of her ex from seething to sneering to a well-placed scream. She also shows some gleeful scorn as she overdubs her voice into a mocking horn section, trumpeting "tararatata" as she demolishes any hopes of reconciliation.

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