Atwood Magazine is excited to share our Editor’s Picks column, written and curated by Editor-in-Chief Mitch Mosk. Every week, Mitch will share a collection of songs, albums, and artists who have caught his ears, eyes, and heart. There is so much incredible music out there just waiting to be heard, and all it takes from us is an open mind and a willingness to listen. Through our Editor’s Picks, we hope to shine a light on our own music discoveries and showcase a diverse array of new and recent releases.

This week’s Editor’s Picks features Matt Maltese, sombr, Hannah Cohen, OSLO SLOW, Wafia, and Fontaines D.C.!

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“Buses replace trains and white lines replace planes, but there’s no replacing you and I.” Matt Maltese has long had a way with words, but his latest release is something special: A gorgeous, timeless, heartrending addition to the ever-growing pantheon of great love songs. Released in mid-April, “Buses Replace Trains” finds the beloved British singer/songwriter at his most tender and poetic, spinning scenes of departure and distance into a quiet, breathtaking meditation on love’s permanence in a world full of change. With his signature warmth and wistful candor, Maltese turns everyday images into something sacred, capturing the ache of love in transit – and the gravity of what it means to truly miss someone.

Close ain’t close enough
I wanna’ tiptoe in your mind
Forever is too short
I wanna’ make love in the afterlife
And time won’t stop being kind
Minds won’t stop changing minds

Buses replace trains and
White lines replace planes but
There’s no replacing you and I
Buses replace trains and
Highways replace lanes but
There’s no replacing you and I
Oh, I’d like to see them try

“It’s probably one of the purest love songs I’ve ever released,” Maltese tells Atwood Magazine. “A close Welsh friend of mine has an uncle who always wanted him to call his band ‘Buses Replace Trains.’ I remember hearing that phrase – I’d seen it before while traveling, but there was something so mundane about it… In a long-term relationship, you realize you’re just making the boring beautiful half the time. It’s about the everyday, the small things. I thought it was the perfect title for a love song. I was able to be incredibly earnest and passionate under the guise of a ridiculously drab British phrase.”

There’s a soul-stirring beauty in the way Maltese captures love’s smallest moments — the ordinary spaces that fill with depth, history, and meaning over time. “You brush your teeth, I do the dishes / It’s these exchanges that I miss,” he sings, wrapping domestic mundanity in a blanket of longing. “Buses Replace Trains” is a love song not of grand gestures, but of constancy and care — the rhythms of cohabitation, the comfort in routine. Lines like “Don’t need fireworks or setting suns / Just someone who won’t try to run” strike with unvarnished honesty, distilling affection into its most essential form: Presence.

Every single morning
You wrap- you wrap your legs around mine
And satellites light above,
mythological crеatures run
Just to catch a glimpse of her

And busеs replace trains and
White lines replace planes but
There’s no replacing you and I
Buses replace trains and
Motors replace sails
But there’s no replacing you and I
Oh, I’d like to see them try

A lush, expressive orchestral arrangement courtesy of legendary arranger Rob Moose (Bon Iver, Paul Simon, Taylor Swift) heightens the song’s emotional impact, his string swells complementing both Maltese’s lilting piano performance and his tender, sentimental vocal delivery — elevating the track’s intimacy into something cinematic and lasting – an instant modern classic.

With “Buses Replace Trains,” Matt Maltese doesn’t just write about love — he honors it. Majestic, profound, and effortlessly moving, this song is a reminder that some of the most powerful expressions of devotion live in the margins: In the missed mornings, the mundane exchanges, the spaces left behind. “I know it’s not that simple, but it is,” he repeats in the outro, distilling life and love into a single, soul-stirring truth – a mantra we can carry with us, in our hearts and on our tongues.

The latest single off Maltese’s upcoming fifth studio album Hers (out May 16^th via The Orchard), “Buses Replace Trains” is the kind of song that lingers long after the final chord – a soft ache, a knowing smile, a held breath – and in its simplicity, it says it all.

I know it’s not that simple
But it is
I know it’s not that simple
But it is
I know- I know it’s not that simple
But it is

“I don’t wanna get undressed for a new person all over again.” With one simple, gut-punch of a line, sombr captures the exhaustion and hesitancy of opening your heart after heartbreak. Released March 21^st via Warner Records, “Undressed” is dreamy and aching through and through — an irresistibly catchy indie pop reverie wrapped in bittersweet longing. Glistening guitar loops and honeyed vocals mask a quietly devastating emotional core, as the 19-year-old singer/songwriter and producer confronts the weight of intimacy, memory, and emotional renewal.

You had a dream, you wanted better
You were sick of all the holes in your sweater
You looked to me and wondered whether
I was the lamppost to which you were tethered

I’m lookin’ at you, and you’re lookin’ at me
But the glimmer in your eyes
is sayin’ you wanna leave
You’re sayin’ to me what you’re sayin’ to me
But the glimmer in your eyes
is telling me other things

“This song is about longing for a past love and navigating the feelings and effort needed to start over with someone new,” sombr explains, and that longing bleeds into every beat. There’s a gentle vulnerability embedded in the track’s soft shimmer, a heavy-hearted nostalgia woven into its breezy pulse. “Undressed” lingers like a bruise – warm and melodic on the surface, but aching just underneath.

I don’t wanna get undressed
For a new person all over again
I don’t wanna kiss someone else’s neck
And have to pretend it’s yours instead

While the LA-based, New York native (née Shane Boose) has been on the rise for quite some time, recent singles like “back to friends,” “do i ever cross your mind,” and “undressed” seem to be tipping sombr fully into the mainstream spotlight – and it’s just as well: His latest touches a tender human core, resonating with anyone who’s ever had to pick up the pieces and try to love again.

“Losing you is a mountain of stillness.” So begins Hannah Cohen’s “Mountain,” a dreamy, aching requiem to a lost friend that finds solace in sorrow and beauty in grief. Featured on her stunning new album Earthstar Mountain, the song is pure, honest, and raw — a gut-wrenching meditation on absence and remembrance. “I miss you bad, I miss my friend,” Cohen laments in the chorus, her voice buoyed by rich harmonies and warm, glowing textures that evoke both the pain of loss and the tenderness of love that lingers on.

Losing you is a mountain
Of stillness
A distant star flashes
Your mischief
A nasty thought rises
And I feel sick
I won’t ask questions
Forgiveness

I’ll just play it on over and over again
A love like that won’t ever end
We could be like this or that instead
I miss you bad I miss my friend

“It’s hard for me to talk about because I lost a friend really suddenly… and that was my way of processing it,” Cohen shared with Atwood Magazine. “When you lose someone out of nowhere, your nervous system is still attached to them and connected to them, and your nervous system is still sort of searching for them. And so in a way, you always wish the things that you could have said to them, or that you want to say to them.”

“That was my way of kind of dealing with – and being able to express – the grief that I was experiencing. It’s about how grief can be so pervasive and it can feel like you can’t escape it.” That ache courses through every lyric — from the gentle plea of “Hold on to me like you mean it” to the ghostly image of a soul untethered: “I know you’re free, I can feel it / Your feet don’t touch the ground.” With touches of Fleetwood Mac warmth and her own distinct vulnerability, Cohen crafts a song that doesn’t shy away from hurt, but moves with it — a breathtaking tribute to the kind of love that never truly leaves.

Bright, bold, and beautifully dazzling, “SUN EYES” feels like sunshine in song — a moment of pure, golden clarity captured in sound. OSLO SLOW’s debut single is blissful and glowing, dreamy and deep: A wash of tender vocals, ambient textures, and reverberant guitars swells into something intimate and all-consuming. The London and Essex-based duo of James Kellegher and Chris Lehane (formerly of Eliza and the Bear) step into the spotlight anew, offering a radiant reflection on life’s fleeting, formative moments — the kind that flood the heart and stay with you forever. “Sun eyes, you saturate me / Soak me in the moment that I realise my clarity,” they sing, wide awake in the light.

Sun eyes,
I’m feeling what you’re doing to me
Sun eyes,
I’m feeling what you’re doing to me

Sun eyes, you saturate me
Soak me in the moment
that I realise my clarity
It’s a fine line, this timeline is perfectly flawed
This moment is fleeting, so take it; it’s yours
Running in dreams and I’m breaking through walls
I’m wide awake now I’m with you
Sun eyes, I’m feeling what you’re doing to me

“‘SUN EYES’ is a song about little moments in your life that make you feel something intensely,” OSLO SLOW share. “They may only be a second or a few seconds at the time, but you spend an infinite more time thinking and reflecting back on them. The exact moment you realised you were in love, when you decided you were going to propose to that person, the first time seeing your newborn baby. Sometimes they don’t even have to be hugely significant events, it could just be being in the car with family or a friend/group of friends, but at that specific time you felt completely content.”

That sense of vivid, present-tense memory fuels every layer of “SUN EYES” — made all the more meaningful by the loss that helped reshape it.

“When we initially started writing this, a friend of ours, Geraint John, lost his wife, Debs, to cancer. He posted pictures, recorded podcasts and provided updates all through their journey, all the ups and downs, with little stories and anecdotes. There was something so profoundly beautiful in what was, and still is, such a horrible situation and set of events. His and his family’s journey really resonated and completely changed the direction of what and how we were writing. It changed the way of thinking more generally outside of music too; it made us re-evaluate how we handled grief in our own lives and whether we really had processed it in the first place. It turns out we hadn’t. There’s something poetic in that though isn’t there? Someone who is no longer here is continuing to have an impact and better other people’s lives. We hope this song, and this interview, can continue to extend that to others too.”

Can we stay here?
Pause this moment like
we don’t get to take it ’round a second time
Can we stay here
in this blinding light?
I’m wide awake,
I’m wide awake, I’m wide awake here

(That’s when I felt love)
I’m wide awake here

The song’s production mirrors its emotional breadth: Lush, organic, and subtly experimental. Produced by Harvey Carter (aka Tutara Peak), “SUN EYES” incorporates field recordings, clapping CD cases, and even outdoor vocal takes, blurring the lines between art and atmosphere.

“Harvey asked us certain questions about us and the song that nobody else had come close to, which showed to us how deeply he wanted to immerse himself and how differently his mind works. Another piece was that we were all very keen on experimenting sonically to try and enhance the songs. You’ll hear some of this in ‘SUN EYES – a recording of a car passing through a tunnel at around the 30 second mark, backing up snares with clapping CD cases together, recording vocals outside etc. The whole process of experimenting and the idea of no ideas being off limits was really exciting and honestly just made us love writing and playing music again.”

That collaborative energy extends to the stunning short film accompanying the single, created by UK director Olly Fawcett.

“We really wanted the song to accompany the video and not the other way round; we think Olly and the rest of the team did a great job. It looks stunning. At the start of OSLO SLOW we always said we wanted to ensure that we get to work with a small set of interesting and innovative creatives along the way. Creatives that are genuinely nice to spend time with and explore artistically with; ones that you feel completely confident in to know will add incremental value to what you’re working on. Both Harvey and Olly are emblematic of that. We’re moving into a new world now, and it’s never been more important that creatives continue to support other creatives where they can.”

In both spirit and sound, “SUN EYES” is a luminous debut: A heartfelt meditation on presence, perspective, and the emotional clarity that arrives like a sudden beam of light. OSLO SLOW don’t just make you feel; they make you feel alive. What’s more, this song is a creative marvel — the result of bold experimentation, radical honesty, and a deep commitment to capturing life’s micro-moments in all their vivid, fleeting beauty. “SUN EYES” explores what the band call “positive photokeratitis of the heart and soul”: That sudden, blinding clarity that comes when everything — love, loss, light, meaning — falls into place, even if only for a moment.

“SUN EYES” isn’t just a song — it’s a snapshot of the sublime, and the start of something truly special.

“Whatever you do, I wanna do it with you gently. I’ll follow you wherever you go if you let me.” Wafia hits like a warm breeze to the chest on “Background,” the third track off her long-awaited debut album Promised Land. A sun-kissed, quietly radiant love song, it embraces the beauty of selflessness in relationships — of loving someone so deeply that you’re content to stand beside them, not in front. Soft synths and breezy acoustic strums swirl around Wafia’s tender vocals as she sings from the sidelines with grace, vulnerability, and devotion.

Last night, I made out with you
on your couch in the attic
Felt all the stars in my eyes turn to static
Maybe I got too high or maybe it hit just right
But I held your hand
as we watched the world shatter
Melt into blackness, then, back into matter
I found the brighter side
right when I lost my mind

Whatever you do, I wanna do it with you gently
I’ll follow you wherever you go if you let me
Keep me closer at your fingertips
And if you need me now
Baby, I’ll be in the background

“Historically, I’ve fallen in love with people who worked ‘behind the scenes’ and would eventually grow disdain for how much I loved what I did. And till my current relationship, I’d never been with anyone that felt the same way,” says Wafia. “We’re both these big, dramatic, applause-loving artists, but with that comes a balance we both need to navigate, taking turns in the limelight so this partnership can work. It was the first time I felt what my exes had felt being backstage at my shows, only being someone’s partner to someone else. And honestly, it was humbling. I think any good relationship has to have that push and pull. This song is about wanting to follow someone through it and seeing it from the other side.”

And it’s no secret you love my ego
No stealing the show
‘Cause we’re good with taking turns
You make it easy to feel so comfortable
I like doing both
It’s just the way I love you

That emotional shift — from center stage to accompaniment — is exactly what makes “Background” so moving. There’s something so refreshing about a love song that doesn’t beg to be seen, but instead offers steady presence and support. “Background” is exactly that: A gentle, earnest ode to being a part of someone else’s life — not the main character in their story, but a chapter they can always count on. Wafia’s delivery is light but resolute, filling the song with emotional weight while keeping its atmosphere effortless. It’s the heartfelt recognition that love isn’t always about leading, but knowing when to follow. It’s love without ego, and in its softness lies its power.

Whatever you do, I wanna do it with you gently
I’ll follow you wherever you go if you let me
Keep me closer at your fingertips
And if you need me now
Baby, I’ll be in the background

“It’s the cost that brings you down, but it’s amazing to be young.” That line hits like a punch to the chest — sharp, aching, and profoundly true.

Fontaines D.C. have always dealt in raw truths, but “It’s Amazing to Be Young,” the Irish indie rock band’s February single (part of ROMANCE’s recently-released deluxe edition), is something else entirely: Visceral and vulnerable, brutal and blissful all at once. It feels like a slow-burning catharsis, a post-punk lullaby with battle scars. As the band trades snarl for tenderness, they find power not in rage, but in resolve — in the decision to still believe in beauty, in youth, in something worth protecting.

Sometimes I wake up and it’s dark
Perform the ritual that puts me in the part
But I sang them every word I had
Seems like they’re never gonna understand

“‘It’s Amazing to Be Young’ is a song that was written in the presence of a newborn child — Carlos’ child,” bassist Conor Deegan III shares. “It sounded more like a lullaby or a music box then, but with the same lyric — ‘it’s amazing to be young.’ The feeling of hope a child can give is profound and moving, especially for young men like us. That sense of wanting to create a world for them to grow up in happily. It’s a feeling that fights against the cynicism that can often overtake us in the modern world. So we wanted to declare which side we were on — it really is amazing to be young. We are still free, and want to make that feeling spread. We want to protect it for the others around us, and maybe in doing that, can also help protect it for ourselves.”

That the cost
Brings you down
But it’s amazing
To be young

Sometimes I wake up and it’s dark
Perform the ritual that puts me in the part
But I sang them every word I had
Seems like they’re never gonna understand

That declaration becomes the soul of the song – an intense, immersive, aching anthem for resilience in an age of disillusionment. It’s not a denial of darkness, but a refusal to give in to it. There’s existential angst woven into every line — a quiet confrontation with the weight of being alive, the cost of simply moving forward — but Fontaines D.C. don’t surrender to it. Instead, they reach for light, however fleeting, and hold it close. Fontaines D.C. still believe in wonder, in youth, in hope. And in this moment, so do I.

That the cost
Brings you down
But it’s amazing
To be young

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