Singles Going Steady: Veruca Salt, Jessie Ware, Eels

Welcome back to Singles Going Steady, a weekly playlist of songs we recommend you checking out this week (or more specifically, this very moment). Some were chosen because the artist is appearing in the Valley some time in the next week. Others were chosen because they're new. The only thing they have in common is that we enjoyed them and we thought you might enjoy them, too.

1. Veruca Salt, "It's Holy"

If this song kind of makes you feel like 1997 just came knocking at your door and asked if you could maybe hug it out, well, there's a reason. Nina Gordon left Veruca Salt in 1998 after admitting "The Seether's Louise" on the brilliantly self-referential nod to the Beatles' own brilliantly self-referential "Glass Onion," a single called "Volcano Girls." And this is their first new material since Gordon returned to the fold in 2013. You could buy it in April on Record Store Day as the flip side of "The Museum of Broken Relationships." But we've featured it now because, well, there's a video that offsets footage of Veruca Salt at play with fan-submitted footage of people enjoying the record on their own terms. It's a celebration of a brand new day, setting the tone with, "Hello world, here comes your girl" and tossing in another -- yes, another -- "Seether" reference: "Seether's gone to church, buried in the dirt / They're calling off the search and here we come."

2. Jessie Ware, "Tough Love"

This haunting synth-pop ballad makes the most of the U.K. singer's trembling vocal, sighing and cracking in all the right places, for an overall effect that feels like something Prince would have given away in the '80s -- either to someone like Sinead O'Connor or someone who showed up to work in fancy lingerie. It's that good, that soulful, that vulnerable and that contagious, bathed in so much reverb you can almost hear her lips part when she sings.

3. White Lung, "Down It Goes"

This track explodes on impact like a White Lung single should. Then Mish Way grabs the microphone and spotlight in the same breath, defiantly sneering, "I'm not as strong as you but I am everywhere" on her way to a shoutalong chorus of "Down it goes then to the precious middle." It's hard to make out everything she says because the mix is just that devoted to documenting the reckless abandon of young punks firing on all cylinders. But you don't need a lyric sheet to feel her when she sings.

4. Eels, "Don't Stop Believin'"

I'm sure some Eels fans are starting to wonder if maybe Mark Oliver Everett is taking his new public bromance with Journey's Steve Perry a little too far when he starts slipping Journey songs into the set on nights when Perry isn't even in the house. But don't stop believin'. Recorded in Amsterdam during an encore, this fan-made video finds Everett reinventing Journey's anthem as a melancholy, acoustic-guitar-driven ballad, investing the words with a very Eels-like sense of pathos by slowing it down to a crawl until it feels like there's no reason to believe at all, which only makes the fact that he won't stop believin' that much more poignant.

5. The Rentals, "Thought of Sound"

The Rentals haven't put a proper album out since 1999, although they self-released new music in 2009 as part of a yearlong mutlimedia project called "Songs About Time." This single is the first taste of their long-awaited followup to the "Seven More Minutes" album. And by their, I'm talking Matt Sharp and a whole new cast of Rentals, including Ozma's Ryen Slegr and Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney. Despite those lineup changes, though, it sounds just like the Rentals -- chugging, post-Cars New Wave pop hooks that would have sounded right at home on any John Hughes Brat Pack movie soundtrack, all while Matt Sharp celebrates his own return to form with, "There is nothing more beautiful right now than the thought of sound."

6. Drake, "0 to 100"

We can't post this song because, well, Drake. Take the opening line: "F--k being on some chill s--t / We go zero to 100, n---a, real quick." There's plenty of bragging -- again because, well, Drake. But he's made a career of bragging and he sounds good doing it. After painting a scene in which his girl is "all up in my phone" and really does not want to see those pictures, he pulls off rhyming "She ain't ready for it" and "If I ain't the greatest, then I'm headed for it." And because he's Drake, it's all delivered with a shrug that says he doesn't care if anyone thinks less of him because of what he's rapping.

7. EMA, "So Blonde"

EMA is Erika M. Anderson, who delivers the opening verse in a half-whispered pout. She's "living underground" and alone in the city" and by the time she hits the chorus she's traded that subdued delivery in for something more cathartic, screaming her vocal cords raw on the chorus hook about this girl she knows the first time through ("She's so blonde!") and, later, a boy, also blonde. She's playing Phoenix Saturday, so don't miss out.

Details: 8:30 p.m. Saturday, June 28. Crescent Ballroom, 308 N. Second Ave., Phoenix. $14; $12 in advance. 602-716-2222, crescentphx.com.

8. Philip Selway, "Coming Up for Air"

This is the first we've heard from Radiohead drummer Philip Selway's second album, "Weatherhouse," and the electronic sense of atmosphere should speak to anyone who knows the man primarily through his day job (also known as "damn near everyone"). It's less experimental than anything Radiohead has done since the '90s, though, its haunting melody and introspective lyrics suggesting a clear affinity for Pink Floyd's most successful efforts while also sounding a bit like something the Soundtrack of Our Lives might do.

9. Wye Oak, "Glory"

Their new album, "Shriek," finds the Baltimore duo embracing a synth-driven sound to chilling results, especially on this brooding highlight, Jenn Wasner setting the tone with an aching delivery of "I see his eyes movin' away from me / Oh no, is this another albatross?" Her most inspired line comes later, though. "We share the cold embrace of cousins." They're playing here Tuesday.

Details: 8 p.m. Tuesday, July 8. Crescent Ballroom, 308 N. Second Ave., Phoenix. $19; $16 in advance. 602-716-2222, crescentphx.com.

10. S. Carey, "Crown the Pines"

"Range of Light," the new album from Bon Iver sideman S. Carey, is, like its predecessor, best enjoyed on headphones, allowing Carey's richly textured sense of haunted atmosphere to seep into your dreams, a fragile blend of post-rock, jazz and Steve Reich worship with choir-like vocal arrangements and indie-folk levels of intimacy. "Crown the Pines" is more a mood piece than a single, suggesting the soundtrack to some melancholy art film out to break your heart. But take your headphones off next week to see how Carey's music holds up live.

Details: 8 p.m. Thursday, July 10. Crescent Ballroom, 308 N. Second Ave., Phoenix. $15; $12 in advance. 602-716-2222, crescentphx.com.