2023 was an exceptional year for noise rock, if only because the singular force of the fretboard velocity known as Marnie Stern finally returned back into our orbits with her first new album in a decade, the listmaker and rightfully-titled The Comeback Kid. Not shocking: The listen put the dizzy all around today’s guitar rock valleys in building space-reaching peaks with her electric current, and not that any of it could have left your galaxy mind unsatiated, but the emergence of “Sixteen” — a single recorded during the album’s same sessions that will soon be available as a west coast tour-exclusive flexi-disc — really throws her return over the top. Sometimes, songs stand out as their own beasts of creativity, and the listen is the kind that evolves its way into a bigger bang in its thrash pools and rock stomp that reverberates into the furthest corners of the universe. “You’re the god / You’re the sun / You’re the king of everything,” she proclaims in its bridge, and while her emotions may be a gravitational pull into a different direction, it’s hard not to imagine we’re the ones spinning around Marnie here…

West Coast Tour:

Marnie Stern’s “Sixteen” single is available now on Joyful Noise Recordings.