For their edition of Best Songs, New York City shoegazing rockers MX LONELY delivered us a slate of bangers. From Hole to Creed to their friends They Are Gutting A Body Of Water, whose label—Julia’s War—is releasing MX LONELY’s debut album, it’s a rock barnburner from start to finish. Check out their selections and listen to "Return To Sender" below. All Monsters comes out February 20th.

Best song for headbanging?

“Man In The Box” by Alice In Chains

I can’t unsee this video of them playing it live in NYC in 91. Best unison headbanging ever maybe? Primo grunge fashion era—not a shirt in sight, all wearing cons and torn blue jeans.

orrr “Throw Yourself to the Sword” by Die Spitz

This whole record goes crazy—the fact that an Austin psych/punk band did a record with (post) hardcore/shoegaze royalty producer Will Yip is absolutely insane. This song sounds like Electric Wizard meets Beastie Boys. Video is sick as well.

Best song for dealing with the New York City winter?

“Hiding” by Trembler

This is a song from one of MX’s favorite records—probably gets spun 10-15 times every tour. Best song for driving through the snow. We had the pleasure of touring with Trembler in late 2024. Easily one of our favorite bands doing it (and wonderful ppl as well). This record was also produced, engineered, mixed and mastered by Corey Coffman, a really talented recording engineer based out of Colorado who runs a studio called Deep Down. (He also mixed and mastered All Monsters.) 

Best song that you might be able to describe as a “guilty pleasure”?

“Higher” by Creed 

Anything by Creed. Whenever we get asked for walk-on music choice, it’s always “Higher” by Creed. I don’t think we feel too guilty about this though, haha.

Best song by an underrated grunge band?

“Violet” by Hole

Courtney Love is a true icon, period.

Best song for playing really loud?

“But Does It Work” by Drug Church

This song just makes me wanna punch every boss I’ve ever had.

“Loud Bark” by Mannequin Pussy

This was one of our favorite records of the past few years. Missy’s voice gives me shivers.

Best song for playing really quiet?

“Lovesick” by V0id B0ys 

Probably gauche to pick a track of your own, but “Lovesick” came to mind immediately. This is a song Rae and I wrote in the first few months of knowing each other about some pretty heavy childhood trauma they went through. It’s one of my favorite quiet songs—it feels both pretty and disconcerting at the same time.

“Clementine” by Elliott Smith

Elliott is one our biggest influences—the “Clementine”tuning is used on every song on All Monsters. No one could deliver a quiet song with more intensity.

Best song to listen to while you are at the grocery store?

“Tired Of Sex” by Weezer

Best song by a friend’s band?

Can’t do just one here:

“Starpower” by Shower Curtain

“Rot” by bloodsports

“Fix” by Caitlin Starr

“Shoulder Pads” by Gleemer

“Birdshot” by Shallowater

“kittyriff” by Her New Knife

“horseglue” by Ekko Astral 

“SPIT” by Nodding Off

“Wiring 3” by Wiring

There are too many good bands in our friend group or scene or whatever you wanna call it to count!

Best song with a spoken word monologue in it?

“The Happening” by Pixies

orrr 

“Popular” by Nada Surf

This song was a huge influence in the writing and recording of Big Hips—we knew we wanted to have a spoken word section in the second verse of the song, and went back and forth a lot about how to record it/how much to bury the vocal … In the end referencing “Popular” made us want to bring the lyrics out front a bit more and hit you with them.

Best song that makes you excited about 2026?

“The Chase” by They Are Gutting A Body Of Water

This record [LOTTO] came out at the end of 2025. Doug asked us to release All Monstersvia Julia’s War back in April of last year, and started rolling out singles from his band’s record a few months after. The rawness and honesty of LOTTOmade a huge impression on me—everything from the spoken word elements, the barebones production style with a heavy emphasis on the feeling of “the band in a room,” to the rollout and videos. It’s really cool to see something super strange, non-linear and personal done at scale without an effort to appease the masses or masters in this weird ass business. Hearing the singles from LOTTO start to come out was a deciding factor in wanting to work with JWAR. Feels like a good home for punks, anti-conformists and individualists. MX is a band that prides itself on working as much as possible on our own terms, and making music that feels honest first, and I feel like records like this latest release by TAGABOWare helping pave the way for weirder music to make it to the mainstream.