We’re officially halfway through 2025, and it’s already been a fantastic year for new music. To mark the occasion, we’ve put together a list of our 40 favorite albums released between January 1 and June 30 (plus one from December) and they range from rising DIY indie bands to alternative legends making long-awaited comebacks to underground rap icons to caustic metal bands to the biggest band in hardcore and beyond. We didn’t rank them (we’ll save that for the end of the year), but read on for the list in alphabetical order.
For even more on several of these albums and a handful of honorable mentions, we also break down our favorite albums of 2025 so far by genre and discuss them on the new episode of our BV Weekly podcast.
Ancient Death – Ego Dissolution
Profound Lore
If you like the proggy death metal of recent records by Blood Incantation, Tomb Mold, and Horrendous, or classics from the likes of Cynic and ’90s-death Death, make sure you’re tuned in to Massachusetts band Ancient Death. Following a 2022 EP and a 2023 split with German band Putridarium, they released their debut album Ego Dissolution this year, and it balances out a heaping dose of badass riffage and beastly growls with dizzying prog excursions, a hint of doom, and the occasional soaring clean vocals from bassist Jasmine Alexander. It’s an album that’s as crushingly heavy as it is thoughtfully crafted. [A.S.]
Annahstasia – Tether
drink sum wtr
“I’ve come into the power of my voice as a medium,” LA artist Annahstasia said when announcing her debut album. “As a tool of expression, I am able to shape the emotional space around me.” What a voice—acrobatic and expressive—but what an emotional space she’s created for it on Tether. Working with producers Jason Lader (ANOHNI and the Johnsons, Frank Ocean), Andrew Lappin (Cassandra Jenkins, L’Rain), and Aaron Liao (Moses Sumney, Raveena), Annahstasia has made a record that is lush and delicate, one that defies easy categorization—blurring the lines between folk, rock, modern classical, R&B, and pop. The album includes vocal assists on two of its most affecting songs—Obongjayar on “Slow” and Aja Monet on “All Is. Will Be. As It Was.”—but there’s never any doubt who’s in charge here. Tether sounds more like an artist’s third or fourth album, not their first. And with good reason: Annahstasia has been honing her craft since she was a teenager and spent the last decade trying to make a record her way. Clearly, she’s done it. [B.P.]
Anxious – Bambi
Run for Cover
For Anxious singer Grady Allen, their 2022 debut album Little Green House and the endless touring that followed didn’t feel like the start of something; it felt like the culmination of everything the early-twentysomething had been working towards since he formed the band as a young teenager. He needed some distance from music so he enrolled in college–the kind of decision that could easily derail a band’s career. But for Anxious, it actually ended up saving them and it made them even stronger on their sophomore album Bambi.
With Grady needing space, guitarist Dante Melucci contributed more songwriting and stepped into a role that could qualify as co-lead vocalist. On songs like “Head & Spine” and “Bambi’s Theme,” Anxious have some of the most inspired emo dual vocals this side of Tell All Your Friends. Other songs, like the ballad-driven “Some Girls,” find Dante contributing some of the most personal songwriting he’s ever brought to Anxious. When Grady wrote his lyrics, the subject matter that came out was impacted by where he was at in life and with music too, he says, “whether that’s disillusionment with music/hardcore subculture, or my friendships, or intimate romantic relationships.” [A.S.; read our interview for more]
Backxwash – Only Dust Remains
self-released/Ugly Hag
After wrapping up a trilogy of industrial-tinged rap albums, Backxwash was ready to change it up, and Only Dust Remains couldn’t be more of a bold new direction. As fierce as she sounded over the jagged, abrasive noise of her recent trilogy, she sounds even more powerful on Only Dust Remains, with self-production that favors the lush, soulful, organic backdrop of albums like To Pimp A Butterfly and Electric Circus. Having already referred to the trilogy as “autobiographical,” Only Dust Remains just might be even more devastatingly personal–or at least Backxwash’s ruminations on depression, faith, and personal tragedies as a trans woman come through more loudly and clearly in this setting. But Only Dust Remains doesn’t stop at introspection. On one of its most show-stopping songs, “History of Violence,” Backxwash looks at war, terrorism, and fascism, and calls for the day that Palestine is free. She raps about the suffering of others with the same raw passion as when she raps about her own, her delivery serving as a reminder that the personal and the political are truly never separable. As grand and fleshed-out as its arrangements are, Only Dust Remains retains the grit that Backxwash has always had. It’s elegant but rough around the edges. It reminds me that Backxwash once tweeted “Hoping we can get Kendrick/Trent Reznor one day.” Until then, Only Dust Remains already captures a version of what that might sound like. [A.S.]
billy woods – Golliwog
Backwoodz Studioz
The massively-prolific NYC rapper billy woods releases more music than the average person can probably keep up with, and he’s not really the type to drastically change up his style from one album to the next. And yet, you could never accuse him of redundancy or diminishing returns. He’s one of those artists whose music gets better and better the more you listen to it, and he’s also one of those artists whose newest album is usually my favorite. Every time woods drops–either a solo album or an album by Armand Hammer, his duo with ELUCID–he ropes me in all over again. GOLLIWOG is no exception, and even with all of the above being said, it feels like an especially high point of his vast catalog.
GOLLIWOG has its roots in a short horror story that woods wrote when he was nine years old about an evil golliwog, a type of rag doll that’s widely considered to be a racist caricature. “My mother read it and told me it was overly derivative and needed some work,” he said. “Here we are.” On the album, woods pulls from horror to provide commentary on real life, and as always, his observational wit finds depth in the mundane. Having made his last few solo albums with a sole producer, GOLLIWOG is the first billy woods solo album since 2019’s Terror Management to be made with multiple producers, and as a result, it’s full of musical variety. With production from The Alchemist, Kenny Segal, El-P, Conductor Williams, Preservation, Messiah Musik, Sadhugold, Ant (Atmosphere), Shabaka Hutchings, Steel Tipped Dove, DJ Haram, Willie Green, Jeff Markey, Saint Abdullah, and Human Error Club, GOLLIWOG pulls from lively jazz, experimental electronics, warped boom bap, grainy noise, and more. The beatwork keeps you on your toes as much as the knockout billy woods punchlines, and the guest appearances are just as expertly-curated as the cast of producers, with Cavalier, Despot, Al.Divino, woods’ Armand Hammer partner ELUCID, singer Yolanda Watson, and a show-stealing verse from the outlandish Detroit rapper Bruiser Wolf. As the head of the Backwoodz Studioz label, billy woods is not just a prolific rapper but also an expert curator, and it’s a testament to his overall vision that he can bring together over 20 artists with strong identities in their own right and still come out with something as cohesive as GOLLIWOG is. [A.S.]
Black Country, New Road – Forever Howlong
Ninja Tune
Black Country, New Road frontman Isaac Wood left the group just days before they released 2022’s Ants from Up There. Losing a key creative voice can cause a group to break up, but in this case they were overflowing with talented singers, songwriters, and performers. The six remaining members — May Kershaw, Tyler Hyde, Lewis Evans, Charlie Wayne, Luke Mark, and Georgia Ellery — carried on and for their Ants tour they ended up playing all new material which became the basis for album Live at Bush Hall. None of those songs ened up on Forever Howlong, their first studio album since Wood’s departure, which marks a radical departure in BCNR’s sound. Under Isaac Wood they were a prog rock band for all intents and purposes; they still are, but it’s more of the Kate Bush “Babooshka” variety, with all manner of baroque instrumentation and arrangements. Flutes and oboes flutter and voices soar, with Tyler Hyde, Georgia Ellery, and May Kershaw all writing songs and singing lead. (Production this time was handled by the very busy James Ford.) “It created a real through line for the album, having three girls singing,” says Ellery. “It’s definitely very different to Ants From Up There, because of the female perspective – and the music we’ve made also compliments that.” If you liked the more fanciful side of Ellery’s other band, Jockstrap, Forever Howlong is a lot like that except they’re played on traditional instruments. This may not be for everyone, including fans of their first two albums, but Black Country, New Road have paved a new path that is equally as surprising and enjoyable. [B.P.]
Bon Iver – SABLE, fABLE
Jagjaguwar
Last year, Bon Iver returned with SABLE,, an EP of three mostly-acoustic songs that were his most stripped-back since For Emma, Forever Ago, but with the kind of grizzled reflection that’s to be expected of the 17 years of life Justin Vernon lived since that pivotal debut album. It seemed like a return to form, but as Justin put it in a recent interview with The New York Times, it was more like “the last gasping breath of my former self that really did feel bad for himself.” Those three songs now double as the first three tracks of the new full-length Bon Iver album, SABLE, fABLE, and the rest of the album is a more modern representation of Bon Iver, which transformed over the years from Justin’s solo project into a many-membered collective. The difference is really clear by the fifth track, “Everything Is Peaceful Love,” a dose of soulful, funky, R&B-infused pop that counteracts Bon Iver’s sadboy era with positivity, joy, and rhythm. “I’m not saying nothing bad about the old stuff,” he said in that NYT interview, “but now I’m just much more like, hey, we don’t got much time left to live — let’s be sexy.”
Produced with Jim-E Stack and featuring guest vocals from Danielle Haim, Dijon, and Jenn Wasner (Flock of Dimes, Wye Oak), the latter three fourths of SABLE, fABLE generally toe the line between Phil Collins-era sophisti-pop and Frank Ocean-era alt-R&B, a crossroads that’s become as much a calling card for Justin Vernon as bare-bones indie folk. It feels a bit like a culmination of almost everything Bon Iver has done over the years, and it’s also his most direct songwriting to date, without the hazy experimentalism of 2016’s 22, A Million or the metaphor and wordplay that filled most of his previous albums. Hearing Bon Iver’s debut album felt like reading someone’s diary but it’s easy to see why Justin calls SABLE, fABLE his most personal record. Gone is the poetic diction like “only love is all maroon,” and in its place are first-person musings that are almost shockingly conversational. It’s full of familiar moments on the surface, but the deeper you dig, the more you hear that it never gets too comfortable. [A.S.]
Cameron Winter – Heavy Metal
Partisan/Play It Again Sam
As the album bio tells it, there’s an elaborate backstory to the ten songs that make up Geese frontman Cameron Winter’s debut solo album, Heavy Metal (which technically came out in late 2024). He recorded them in Guitar Centers around the New York tri-state area, or maybe in hotel room closets. He found musicians, including a five-year-old bassist and a “disinherited cousin of John Lennon,” on Craigslist. He lost his voice and fifteen pounds during the recording and mixing process. Whether or not these are historically accurate descriptions of the events feels beside the point; Heavy Metal, in its ambitions and creativity, deserves its own mythology. Winter’s solo work is overflowing with words, ideas, and convictions, peaking with his impassioned declaration about the reality of God on “$0.” Winter’s distinctive vocals tie it all together. Sometimes these songs remind me of Rufus Wainwright, sometimes a little of Neutral Milk Hotel, but mostly Winter has crafted a unique collection that stands entirely on its own and gets better the more you listen to it. [A.H.]
caroline – caroline 2
Rough Trade
“The first record was a compilation, but this one is a declaration,” said Caroline’s Jasper Llewellyn. “It’s more intentional.” As impressive as the eight-piece UK art rock band’s first album was, that sentiment rings true right from opening track “Total Euphoria” and stays that way through closer “Beautiful Ending.” The new album adds more electronic manipulation into caroline’s harmony vocals and acoustic instrumentation (a mix of guitars, drums, strings, and horns), and the result sounds kind of like a cross between Broken Social Scene’s multi-layered chamber pop and Bon Iver’s glitched-out indie folk. Caroline Polachek sings on “Tell Me I Never Knew That,” which is a clever collaboration for the two Carolines but also a perfectly-matched musical one. Caroline Polachek’s own music finds her blurring the lines between the organic and the synthetic and turning experimental approaches into blissful pop music, and that’s what caroline 2 does as well. [A.S.]
Caustic Wound – Grinding Mechanism of Torment
Profound Lore
If cavernous death metal hung out with squatters and played basement shows, it’d sound like Grinding Mechanism of Torment, the second album from this Mortiferum offshoot. Despite being vile deathgrind, a large part of the appeal here is that Caustic Wound preserve death metal’s lack of elegance. This is a knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing affair, and delightfully so. [Colin Dempsey]
Deafheaven – Lonely People With Power
Roadrunner
It’s easy to interpret the title “Lonely People With Power” as a comment on the billionaire ruling class, and political commentary is obviously part of it, but Deafheaven have always been the type to create art that’s open to multiple interpretations. George Clarke said in a recent interview with Kerrang! that “sometimes ‘loneliness’ is a stand-in for ‘ignorance’ or ‘narcissism’ or ‘spiritual vacancy,'” and that that could apply to various people with various degrees and definitions of “power,” including “close people of influence in our lives: parents, teachers and so forth.” From a more zoomed-out perspective, Lonely People With Power is about looking at the negative ways our lives have been shaped by the people who taught us the most and realizing we aren’t beholden to any particular destiny. It’s a little bit like Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers: breaking the generational curse.
Deafheaven’s last album was 2021’s Infinite Granite, a clean-vocal-oriented album that leaned most heavily into shoegaze, post-punk, and dream pop and almost entirely eschewed metal for the first time in their career. Since then, they celebrated the 10th anniversary of their 2013 breakthrough album Sunbather on a tour that had them looking and sounding even more towering than they did back then, and a couple months later they hit the road with the extremely heavy band Knocked Loose. The two tours back to back “reinvigorated that spirit of playing fast and hard,” George told Kerrang!, and for guitarist Kerry McCoy, it sparked “a real vision for bringing back that speed and heft.” Wanting to bring back the weight and extremity of Deafheaven’s early records without turning away from all the new directions they’ve gone in over the years, the band aimed to make an album that represented the entire scope of Deafheaven, and that’s exactly what Lonely People With Power is. [A.S.]
Destroyer – Dan’s Boogie
Merge
After three albums where Dan Bejar flirted with dance music, he has embraced his inner lounge and cabaret singer on the fourteenth Destroyer album. The record opens with the kind of sweeping strings you might hear at the start of an awards show in the ’70s with Dan is your host for the evening, though he’s the kind that might slide up to you afterwards and ask, “Hey mister, you wanna buy some diamond rings?” Dan’s Boogie presents a world of faded glamour, like a ’40s noir film full of seedy locales and seedier locals. Dan told us he sees this one as “a mix of Poison Season and Your Blues in a lot of ways” and while you can hear that in the songs themselves, the production is like no other Destroyer album. John Collins, who has been Destroyer’s chief sonic architect since ’90s, has really outdone himself here with the sound design. There is something in the atmosphere of these arrangements that makes the room you’re listening in sound three times bigger than it is. Collins shoots the album in widescreen technicolor, allowing us to see the stains of this tableau that would be hidden in black and white — musically speaking, of course — as Dan’s signature word salad style makes your head spin. As with the best Destroyer albums, and this is one of them, don’t worry about the details and meaning. Be like Dan at a Destroyer show: sit back, have a sip of a beverage, and revel in the world of sound he’s created. [B.P; read our interview for more]
DJ Koze – Music Can Hear Us
Pampa
As DJ Koze, Stefan Kozalla can command a massive festival crowd but his records have gotten more relaxed and idiosyncratic over the years. He’s always made laid-back tracks, even when they sport four-on-the-floor beats, but on his first album in six years he’s made a record that feels best suited for a hammock strung up between two palm trees. Music Can Hear Us feels like a cousin to Hit Parade, the 2023 album Koze made with Róisín Murphy, with its swaying, tropical vibes and warm haze coating everything. He’s still digging deep in the crates for obscure sample gold and inviting lots of guests, but this is just-before-dawn comedown music. That, or for planetarium use, as the spacey soundbath elements are strong, from the celestial “Colours of Autumn” (ft Ada), to Damon Albarn collab “Pure Love,” the wow and flutter warped tape sounds of “The Talented Mr Tripley,” and the classical guitar infused “Der Fall” (one of two songs to feature Sophia Kennedy on vocals). My favorite songs involve collabs with fellow German artists: “Wie schön du bist” is a teutonic slow jam featuring Arnim Teutoburg-Weiss & Düsseldorf Düsterboys, and “What About Us” is with The Notwist’s Markus Archer. The pace does pick up in the final quarter of the album with a triplet of bangers — “Brushcutter,” “Buschtaxi” and “Aruna” — which would be an odd tracklist placement for anyone but him. DJ Koze, idiosyncratic to the end. [B.P.]
Dutch Interior – Moneyball
Fat Possum
Too many cooks spoil the kitchen, goes the old adage, and that is probably more true than not. But sometimes another cliche is more appropriate: variety is the spice of life. Five of the six members of twangy, low-key LA band Dutch Interior write and sing and their distinctive creative and actual voices keep things interesting on their pretty, contemplative third album, Moneyball, that also feels cohesive via a love of ’90s indie rock, alt-country and slowcore (along with those genres’ original ’60s/’70s influences). The most current day analog is probably MJ Lenderman, and while Dutch Interior don’t deliver his level of quotable couplets (few do, let’s face it), songs are memorable, nicely impressionistic and full of dreamy atmosphere. The most apt comparison, though, is probably Acetone, the cult ’90s group whose influence, the band say, “is all over our discography.” You really feel that influence on songs like “Canada,” “Wood Knot” and “Beekeeping” which float slow like a lazy river, but also in the harmonies and layered guitars on “Fourth Street” and “Sandcastle Molds” which both kick up some dust. Noah Kurtz might write the most immediate songs here, but contributions from Conner Reeves, Jack Nugent, Davis Stuart and Shane Barton balance things out and allow everyone to bring their A-game. [B.P.]
FKA twigs – Eusexua
Young/Atlantic
In the cold days of January, Brat Summer made way for Eusexua Winter. Like the album that dominated 2024’s warmest month, FKA twigs’ latest LP exists at the meeting point between art pop and rave, but with a darker, icier exterior. Its heat radiates from within; eusexua, an FKA twigs-invented portmanteau of “euphoria” and “sexual,” is both the album’s title and its core theme. It’s a rush of feeling, pleasure, and physicality that plays out like a cross between Kate Bush, Erotica-era Madonna, and the post-COVID party era. Primarily co-produced with electronic futurist Koreless (and featuring contributions from Eartheater, 100 gecs’ Dylan Brady, and others), Eusexua splits its time between club-night fever dreams (“Perfect Stranger,” “Room of Fools”), avant-garde excursions (“Drums of Death”), and sensual comedowns (“Girl Feels Good,” “Sticky”). It flirts with J-pop on standout deep cut “Childlike Things” (with rapping in Japanese by Kanye’s 11-year-old daughter North West), and it stops its wild ride for the vulnerable, sentimental closer “Wanderlust,” which feels like it ends with more of a “To be continued…” than a “Fin,” with our narrator leaving us wondering if she’ll wake up Monday morning. It’s a fleeting moment of lucidity amid all the euphoric haze, and it lends itself to playing Eusexua on repeat. As “Wanderlust” fades out and the thumping bass drum of the opening title track comes back in, the rush comes back too strong to worry about Monday morning. [A.S.]
Florist – Jellywish
Double Double Whammy
Right from the artwork and title, you get a sense of what to expect from Florist’s new album Jellywish: wonder, whimsy, surrealism, kaleidoscopic color. There’s an escapist element, but it’s also all grounded in a sense of realism. Over the gentle, gorgeous folk guitar of “Levitate,” the album opens on a note of existential dread: “Every day I wake, wait for the tragedy/Imbalanced humanity.” By album closer “Gloom Designs,” nothing has been resolved: “Humanity, what have we done to this? Is there nothing left?” It gets dark, but the music’s hypnotic serenity suggests maybe there’s always a way to find a little peace amidst all the madness. [A.S.]
Florry – Sounds Like…
Dear Life
While Florry’s 2023 album The Holey Bible literally sounded like people sitting around a campfire and singing folk and country songs together, its followup Sounds Like…Florry! sounds like that same band plugging in and stepping out on a stage. Right from its jammy, guitar-solos-fueled, nearly-seven-minute opener “First It Was A Movie, Then It was A Book,” Sounds Like… is fueled by echoes of the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers at their twangiest, with a dash of Dinosaur Jr-style sludge. If that formula also sounds a little bit like MJ Lenderman & the Wind, it might not surprise you to learn that this Philly/Vermont-based band made the album with The Wind’s Colin Miller in Asheville at the MJ Lenderman/Wednesday crew’s go-to studio Drop of Sun, and they also finished writing it across three days at the now-defunct Haw Creek compound where Miller, Lenderman, Wednesday’s Karly Hartzman, and others once lived. This louder, more electrified version of Florry still manages to keep the shambolic charm of their last album intact, and the harder exterior is matched by their best songwriting yet. Florry came a long way in the last two years, having logged tours with veteran jam-friendly indie folkies like Kurt Vile and Real Estate, and it sounds to me like they’ve taken all that growth and funneled it into Sounds Like…Florry!. [A.S.]
Friendship – Caveman Wakes Up
Merge
As much as he has a knack for melody, Dan Wriggins is first and foremost a storyteller. On the followup to Friendship’s great 2022 album Love the Stranger, the band (whose members also play in 2nd Grade, Hour, and MJ Lenderman’s touring band The Wind) have a droning quality to their indie rock soundscapes, and Dan’s words spill out onto the proverbial page, in the spirit of artists like Phil Elverum and the late David Berman. Caveman Wakes Up doesn’t have “choruses” so much as it has occasional, subtle climaxes, and those can be even more effective. Like the aforementioned MJ Lenderman and Wednesday, Friendship gradually emerged as one of the brightest voices within DIY American indie rock, and they also share with those bands a knack for merging earthy Americana with classic indie guitar rock. And while we’re on the topic, two members of Friendship run Lenderman’s former label home Dear Life Records, Friendship used to be Orindal labelmates with Wednesday before both bands signed to bigger labels, and Dan Wriggins demoed parts of this album at Lenderman and Wednesday’s Karly Hartzman’s North Carolina home and wrote some of these songs on Lenderman’s classical guitar. I bring all this up not just for the fun facts, but also to say that Friendship are more than a band; they’re active members of a thriving community and you can really hear the way Friendship and their peers are influencing each other and growing in tandem. It’s no surprise that, as this new guard of DIY is getting bigger and bigger, Friendship are also getting better and better. [A.S.]
Great Grandpa – Patience, Moonbeam
Run for Cover
Great Grandpa guitarist Pat Goodwin cites Abbey Road as a parallel to their own new album Patience, Moonbeam, and it might’ve come off as an exaggerated claim if it didn’t fit so perfectly. After releasing their excellent 2019 sophomore album Four of Arrows, Great Grandpa almost did break up. Lead singer Al Menne released their debut solo album Freak Accident in 2023, guitarist Dylan Hanwright pursued a career in production, and two members moved to a different country–not to mention 18 months of lockdown began one day into their planned spring tour supporting Four of Arrows, less than five months after its release. But they gradually reconvened and started writing songs together, with all five members contributing to the songwriting process for the first time in the band’s career, and Dylan handling all the production. About two years later, they’d written an entire new album. Patience, Moonbeam indeed.
We can also largely blame The Beatles for making us want to see rock bands evolve with each new album, and Great Grandpa have spent their entire career thus far on that exact type of trajectory. Having made a significant step forward from their 2017 debut LP Plastic Cough with Four of Arrows, they make at least twice as much of a leap with Patience, Moonbeam. They may have been quiet for five years, but they clearly used that time to turn into an entirely new beast. On Patience, Moonbeam, Great Grandpa sound like a collision between Radiohead, Sufjan Stevens, and Big Thief as they take us on an art rock journey that’s as dizzying and unpredictable as any of those artists. They move from vocoder workouts to folky passages to grungy climaxes to twitchy experimentalism. Chord changes and melodies rarely go where you expect them to. The hook on “Emma” is so good that they had to sing it again on “Doom.” With every member doubling as a vocalist, Patience, Moonbeam sounds as communal and collaborative as the band says the writing process was, with harmony vocals that unveil as many new layers as the instrumental arrangements do. Lead singles “Kid” and “Doom” are mini epics themselves, and in the context of this album, they’re just the tip of the iceberg. [A.S.]
The Great Old Ones – Kadath
Season of Mist
The title of The Great Old Ones’ mammoth fifth album is a reference to H.P. Lovecraft’s The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, and the structure and flow of the album is said to mirror the classic horror tale, giving Kadath the arc and scope of a vast, immersive concept album. From moments that rival the blackened gothy theatrics of Tribulation (“Me, the Dreamer”) to a 15-minute prog-sludge epic that could sit next to classic Isis (“Leng”), Kadath kicks off on a thrilling note and continues to twist and turn and constantly surprise you. [A.S.]
Greet Death – Die In Love
Deathwish
After years of singing about death, depression, and other downer topics, Greet Death decided to write an album of love songs–their new bio cites love song master Paul McCartney as an inspiration. But before you wonder if they’ve gone full “Love Me Do” on us, this new album is not exactly chipper; it is, after all, called Die In Love. Part of that has to do with co-singer/songwriters Logan Gaval and Harper Boyhtari both losing loved ones in the lead-up to the album, and while Die In Love does spend time processing grief, it’s generally void of the nihilism that defined their earlier work. As Logan told Eli Enis in an interview for Stereogum, “It’s supposed to be uplifting. I’m sure people are gonna misinterpret that and say that it’s another sad record, but it feels different to me.”
Die In Love is also Greet Death’s first since expanding into a five-piece band, and it was recorded before (but written after) Harper came out as a trans woman. The record isn’t about that experience, but Harper said in that same interview that she wonders if some of that past anger came from “not realizing I wanted to be someone else,” and it doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch to suggest that writing a warm, cozy self-love anthem like “Country Girl” might’ve gone hand in hand with finally realizing it. “Country Girl” and the Harper-sung “Emptiness Is Everywhere” in particular have a brightness to them that really does sound uplifting (the full titular line on the latter is “emptiness is everywhere so hold each other close”), and in the context of the album they sound like the sun finally coming out after a rainy day. Other songs have more of the shoegazy haze that Greet Death are best known for, and even though they’re not particularly metallic they are very much heavy shoegaze–some of their guitar tones feel like a bag of bricks. Remarkably, their shoegaze never falls into the trappings of MBV worship or Hum worship or Deftones worship or any of the other commonly-imitated bands that the shoegaze genre has one too many of. The shoegaze songs on Die In Love are some of the most strikingly original in recent memory. And on the other side of the musical spectrum, Die In Love sounds just as impactful when Greet Death unplug entirely, as they do on the gripping acoustic songs “Small Town Cemetery” and “Love Me When You Leave.” For a band that’s always been pretty hard to neatly pin down, this is easily their most musically-varied album yet. It’s also their best. [A.S.]
Hannah Cohen – Earthstar Mountain
Bella Union/Congrats Records
What a gorgeous-sounding album this is. Hannah Cohen has created a sumptuous garden of earthly aural delights for her fourth album. The cascade of flutes and strings on “Dusty” that opens the album instantly sets the mood, conjuring rainbows and spring. (This record couldn’t have picked a better release date, as trees are in full bloom on the East Coast.) While that song is an homage to Dusty Springfield, it also brings to mind Minnie Riperton’s kaleidoscopic single “Le Fleurs” and more than holds up to the comparison. “Dusty” is a hard act to follow, but Hannah follows it with the sultry, sassy strut of “Draggin'” and “Mountain” which has serious Fleetwood Mac vibes and harmonies via Sufjan Stevens. The wonders keep flowing from there, from sunshine pop to spectral folk, groovy soul, and even a wonderful cover of Ennio Morricone’s “Una Spiaggia” with Cohen and Catskills neighbor Clairo nailing those otherworldly vocalizations. Hannah’s partner and producer, Sam Evian, did similar magic with records by Kate Bollinger and Katie Von Schleicher and helps Cohen catch those sounds she’s chasing, and no doubt those guest contributors are cool, but Earthstar Mountain is Hannah’s baby all the way. [B.P.]
Home Is Where – Hunting Season
Wax Bodega
In her own words, Bea MacDonald wanted to make a record “that you could grill to but also cry to… not cry, just feel something.” As a band who adopted the “fifth wave emo” categorization early on, Home Is Where are part of a scene that’s full of great crying/feeling-something records, but emo grilling records? Those are harder to come by. Enter: Hunting Season. As everyone from Beyoncé to Lana Del Rey to Post Malone to Julien Baker have been finding ways to embrace country music, Home Is Where found comfort in fellow Florida-born artist Gram Parsons and his band The Flying Burrito Brothers while they were out on tour and missing their swampy hometown (a town that Bea and guitarist Tilley Komorny no longer live in due to Florida’s treatment of trans people). As Bea puts it, Parsons “mixed country rock and roll, which is what we were doing–we wanted to mix punk and country and all kinds of different stuff and have it be poetry.”
For the most part, Hunting Season is a full-blown alt-country album, an album that probably wouldn’t get referred to as “emo” at all–save for the Midwest-y riffs and screamo parts of “Artificial Grass”–if not for Home Is Where’s roots in the scene. It’s heavy on strummy acoustic guitars, Dylanesque harmonica, soaring pedal steel and dobro (by Dan Potthast of Jeff Rosenstock’s band and MU330), earthy vocal harmonies (from Bea and awakebutstillinbed‘s Shannon Taylor), and some countrified piano (by Evan Bailey). Lyrically, it’s filled with vivid images of rural America, cut with rose-colored nostalgia for places and times that suck more than your memories of them do. Bea’s half-yelled vocal delivery reflects the band’s punk-informed DNA, and the harder stuff shines through in other ways too, like with the high-octane riffs of “Bike Week” (which Tilley says were inspired by Lonesome Crowded West-era Modest Mouse) and the noise freakout at the end of the 10-minute “Roll Tide.” From where I’m standing, Hunting Season looks like fifth wave emo’s answer to Meat Puppets II; it’s a swampy, noisy, country/punk crossover that suits today’s DIY scene in the same delightfully strange way that that album suited the SST era. And as that band have done for their entire career, I expect Hunting Season is gonna confound some listeners. Even in a time when artists are going country left and right, Home Is Where’s oddball approach to the genre is like pretty much nothing else. [A.S.]
Horsegirl – Phonetics On and On
Matador
One of the most promising bands of the early-’20s, Chicago trio Horsegirl released their first single, signed to Matador, and made their debut album at Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio with John Agnello while still in high school. That record, 2022’s Versions of Modern Performance, is dense and hazy in mostly the right ways — it’s terrific — but their second album is markedly better. A big part of that is Penelope Lowenstein, Nora Cheng and Gigi Reece becoming better, more confident songwriters and performers due to three years of touring and life in general, but another part is for Phonetics On and On they were paired with a kindred spirit in Welsh musician/producer Cate Le Bon. The trio spent two weeks recording with Le Bon at Jeff Tweedy’s The Loft Studio during the dead of winter in what sounds like a warm bubble of open creativity. Where their first album was loud and fuzzy, Phonetics On and On feels like the ceiling was lifted 15 feet, the curtains raised, and the distortion pedals put away, clearing the fog in the process. Horsegirl are still coming at you from odd angles, quieter but not soft. It’s more Young Marble Giants and Electrelane and less Sonic Youth, making for an album that’s easy to let play on repeat all morning long, on and on. [B.P.; read our interview for more]
Jason Isbell – Foxes in the Snow
Southeastern
Jason Isbell is on his own again, in more ways than one. Last year, he and fellow musician Amanda Shires divorced after 11 years of marriage that were filled with highly publicized ups and downs, and his first album since the separation finds him without his longtime The 400 Unit. The last time Jason went solo, for 2013’s Southeastern, also followed a monumental period in his personal life, one in which he went to rehab to beat alcoholism forever this time, and also one in which he married Amanda Shires. But that solo album and its 2015 solo followup Something More Than Free still both featured members of the 400 Unit in his backing band, and they were ornately-constructed albums that became Jason’s breakthroughs. On Foxes in the Snow, it’s just Jason and his 1940 Martin 0-17 acoustic with no accompaniment, and it’s a raw, messy album that doesn’t sound like it’s going for anything close to perfection. It sounds like it was meant to capture Jason’s wounds while they were still open, however imperfect or unflattering they may be.
The album’s opening song and lead single is a vintage-style folk-blues dirge called “Bury Me” with a tropey Country Western hook (“I ain’t no cowboy, but I can ride/And I ain’t no outlaw, but I’ve been inside”), so there’s a little escapism in Foxes in the Snow too, but the more the album goes on, the more Jason’s personal life and his new music become seemingly inseparable. On “Eileen,” he holds up a mirror to his own actions (“My own behavior was a shock to me/I never thought I’d have the nerve”). On “Gravelweed,” he ends the chorus with the kind of Isbellian tearjerker that’s made him tug at the heartstrings of so many people for so many years: “I’m sorry the love songs all mean different things today.” On “Don’t Be Tough,” he offers up an “advice” song in the spirit of 2023’s “Cast Iron Skillet.” It sounds like he’s either addressing himself, or his and Amanda’s daughter Mercy, and the wisdom within this one sounds directly inspired by the end of his marriage (“Don’t say ‘love’ unless you mean it/Don’t say ‘sorry’ unless you’re wrong”). By the album’s penultimate song, “True Believer,” he gets unpoetically blunt in a way he rarely does on record: “All your girlfriends say I broke your fucking heart and I don’t like it.” [A.S.]
John Glacier – Like A Ribbon
Young
UK rapper and producer John Glacier made her 2021 debut full-length SHILOH: Lost for Words when the world was still in lockdown–following a collaborative project with fellow UK rapper Jadasea in 2020, and followed by a project with NYC cloud rap collective Surf Gang in 2023–but now she’s performing for sizable crowds and it’s having an impact on her music. “SHILOH was more of a dampener, so with Like A Ribbon, I wanted to invite new life into people’s perception of me,” she says. “I was thinking ‘how can I interact differently with the crowd?’ and one of the main things was the music I was playing to the crowd.”
Like A Ribbon–an album of material that was rolled out for the past year across a series of EPs–is minimalistic but not clouded in haze the way SHILOH was. It’s quiet but not shy, inviting but not overeager. Even and sometimes especially her most introspective songs, like “Emotions,” “Nevasure,” and “Ocean Steppin’,” are the ones I imagine the most amount of people singing along to. Hard to pin down but easy to like, Like A Ribbon is a melting pot of future garage, UK drill, grime, atmospheric art pop, and more, like a cross between “Paper Planes” era M.I.A. and “Wilhelm Scream” era James Blake. Her Young labelmate Sampha, who played as big a role as James Blake in shaping 2010s future-garage-pop, lends his soaring voice to “Ocean Steppin.'” The album’s other guest is avant-pop oddball Eartheater, who joins Glacier on top of some chopped-up surf guitar on “Money Shows.” Those are two very different but very fitting guests for an album that occupies the space between pop music and the avant-garde the way Like A Ribbon does. It’s subtle, innovative, and also dripping with crowd-pleasing confidence that John Glacier makes look effortless. Now they’re calling her a bitch? You best believe it. [A.S.]
L.S. Dunes – Violet
Fantasy
L.S. Dunes balked at being called a supergroup from the very beginning, despite having the very supergroup-worthy lineup of Anthony Green (Circa Survive, Saosin, The Sound of Animals Fighting) on vocals, My Chemical Romance’s Frank Iero and Coheed & Cambria’s Travis Stever on guitars, and Thursday’s rhythm section (drummer Tucker Rule and bassist Tim Payne). It’s easy to see why; both their lineup and the music they wrote for their excellent 2022 debut LP Past Lives were a dream come true for fans of 2000s post-hardcore and emo, but the word “supergroup” can sometimes suggest cheesy rock star excess or an over-focus on nostalgia. Especially as a band who have found themselves in environments where they’re one of the only groups performing new music at all, L.S. Dunes have always wanted to be seen as just a band.
And in the two-plus years since Past Lives came out, it feels like they’ve accomplished exactly that. There’s no escaping who the individual members of L.S. Dunes are or what very famous bands they’ve played in, but through years of touring they’ve developed their own unique chemistry that doesn’t sound like Circa Survive + My Chemical Romance + Coheed + Thursday; it sounds like L.S. Dunes. And that chemistry fully reveals itself on Violet. More so than Past Lives, this sounds like a new band whose members also happened to play in older bands. It does often scratches a familiar itch but it also feels like something new for everyone involved, something that stands out from every other record these five musicians have ever been part of. It has its moments of post-hardcore chaos (“You Deserve To Be Haunted”) but they’re outnumbered by moments that take the band into slower-paced, ethereal, alternative rock territory. “Paper Tigers” sounds like a Smashing Pumpkins/Pixies hybrid with Anthony Green singing, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard another song that I’ve described with those words in that order. Anthony’s voice in particular is the most instantly-recognizable part of this album, just because his tone and delivery are so unique, and you can hear all the same drive and passion in it that you’d hear on any of the widely-loved records he sung on 15-20 years ago. He and every other member of L.S. Dunes really do sound like they’ve come together to push themselves into new places on Violet, and that’s why it sounds as fresh as all the members’ other bands did in their early years. The individuals have been around, but this band is new, and they sound like it. [A.S.]
Lady Gaga – Mayhem
Interscope
After 2013’s divisive Artpop, Lady Gaga seemed dead set on doing anything but making more of the sinister synthpop that defined her instant-classic early years. She tackled country, jazz, soundtrack albums, acting–you name it–and she did it all with care and finesse, proving to be not just a pop music fad but a true renaissance woman. As impressive as it all was, a lot of us craved to hear just a little more of where The Fame and Born This Way came from, and we finally got that on 2020’s Chromatica, an album that saw Gaga returning to dance-pop on her own terms. It didn’t have a single song as world-conquering as “Bad Romance” or “Poker Face,” but as a full album, it was the kind of near-filler-less artistic statement that Artpop was poised to be. Five-ish years later, we got the new singles “Disease” and “Abracadabra” that sounded even more overtly like Old Gaga, and now those songs and 12 others make up her new album Mayhem, which picks right up where Chromatica left off. Like its predecessor, Mayhem is more art pop than Artpop; it embraces the synth-fueled sounds of her early days in a way that feels more personal than even her most classic singles. “Disease” and “Abracadabra” are the first two songs on the album, and from there it goes deeper and deeper into Gaga’s tasteful love of pop music as she channels Prince, Bowie, New Order, Daft Punk, and Nine Inch Nails through her own distinct lens. She made the whole album primarily with Andrew Watt (Rolling Stones, Ozzy Osbourne), Cirkut (Miley’s “Wrecking Ball,” Charli XCX’s Brat), and her partner Michael Polansky, and one song is a collaboration with French electronic wiz Gesaffelstein (and that’s not the only song with a clear French house influence). Mayhem isn’t without filler–“How Bad Do U Want Me” sounds like an undercooked Taylor Swift imitation, and the chart-topping, Grammy-winning Bruno Mars duet “Die With A Smile” feels tacked on just because it’s already so popular–but for the most part, this is the kind of album-oriented, artistic pop music that Lady Gaga was born to excel at. [A.S.]
Marie Davidson – City of Clowns
DEEWEE
“I want your data!” Marie Davidson, who is one half of Montreal coldwave duo Essaie Pas, has made the underground club record of the year so far — a sleek, sexy, banger-filled electronic album that is also a defiant condemnation of our screen-addled times. She’s having her cake and eating it too, all while offering us a bite before yanking it away, throwing it on the floor and dancing all over it. Helping her achieve this are her Essaie Pas partner, Pierre Guerineau, and co-producers Stephen and David Dewaele of Soulwax (whose label, DEEWEE, also released the album). As with her previous records, Davidson and Guerineau have a clear idea of what she wants sonically, and there are elements of techno and minimal wave here, but this time the mid-’80s are a big influence, from underground scenes like industrial subgenre EBM and Belgium’s New Beat to high concept artists like Will Powers. Here’s where the Dewaeles’ input shines. City of Clowns sounds amazing, gleaming like polished steel, still minimal yet brutalist skyscraper huge, and every sonic element matters. It’s an instant dance classic, a concept record that works even without knowing that there is one, and may even make you dance while doing the dishes. [B.P.]
Model/Actriz – Pirouette
True Panther/Dirty Hit
Model/Actriz’s sophomore album is a coming out story in more ways than one. Lyrically, it’s a coming out story for singer Cole Haden’s confused, closeted, childhood self. And musically, it finds the NYC band bursting out of its shell in ways they never have before–no small feat for a band with a raucous debut album and a reputation for walking off the stage and directly engaging with the crowd at their unforgettable live shows. Model/Actriz’s debut LP Dogsbody is a screeching blend of industrial and noise rock with hooks that claw their way into your skin rather than jump out at you. The only semblance of Cole’s pop diva side came as a lyrical reference to Lady Gaga’s real name.
On Pirouette, the industrial/noise rock remains and so much more is worked in, including Cole unabashedly going full diva, really singing in a way he never did on Dogsbody, and other members embracing their love of electronic and dance music. The loud blasts of cacophony are offset by thumping rave beats and delicate, pretty moments like the baroque pop-leaning “Acid Rain.” If you can picture a cross between A Place To Bury Strangers, Xiu Xiu, and the new FKA twigs album, you might get the idea. Pirouette is an album that’s built to break down barriers; it’s pop music for the noise freaks, rock music for the ravers, dance music for the hardcore kids, and maybe if we’re lucky, it’ll be the most caustic album in the Main Pop conversation. Pirouette storms past fears of a sophomore slump and leaves any buzz band talk in the dust. Model/Actriz are the real deal, and this album makes that clearer than ever. [A.S.]
Momma – Welcome to My Blue Sky
Polyvinyl/Lucky Number
Longtime friends and collaborators Etta Friedman and Allegra Weingarten are back with a new album as Momma, which sounds straight out of the mid ’90s but takes place in the summer of 2022, when Momma were on their first-ever tour. More than just chronicling the breakups and new romances of that time period, their best songs shimmer with summer’s potential and immediacy, pairing easy harmonies with the punch of slacker rock. They also expand their sound into other cornerstones of that era, delivering shoegazey riffs on “Last Kiss” and hushed acoustic tenderness on “Take Me With You.” Welcome to My Blue Sky is an album that’s easy to like, and even easier to imagine blasting on a road trip with your best friend sitting shotgun. [A.H.]
Panda Bear – Sinister Grift
Domino
Coming on the tail of Reset, his wonderful collaboration with Sonic Boom, Panda Bear is back with Sinister Grift, another wonderful showcase of Noah Lennox’s ability to channel Brian Wilson while bringing something new to a very familiar style. Underneath all those layers of perfect harmony is some very trippy production — the “sinister” to this otherwise poppy album — but the weirdness stays mostly in the background, making for one of the most satisfying, breezy records of Panda Bear’s career. [B.P.]
Perfume Genius – Glory
Matador
It’s a tale as old as time, but getting famous (even indie-famous) doesn’t usually make the internal struggles go away; if anything, it usually finds a way to amplify them even more or add new ones. It’s something Mike Hadreas reckons with right at the top of his latest album as Perfume Genius when he asks, “What do I get out of being established?” and then adds, “I still run and hide when a man’s at the door.” He calls this his “most directly confessional” album, which seems like a difficult claim to make for an artist who almost always writes directly confessional albums, but there’s no doubt that this one pulls back some of the curtains that might’ve been put up on his more recent records. It’s the first “proper” Perfume Genius album since 2020’s Set My Heart On Fire Immediately, which was rolled out right around the time the world went into lockdown, and it feels inseparable from the heightened state of anxiety that a lot of us have found ourselves in these past five years. It’s also the earthiest-sounding Perfume Genius album since his 2012 sophomore LP Put Your Back N 2 It, following various ambitious art pop turns and the choreography-soundtracking excursion of 2022’s Ugly Season. Backed by a tight-knit band–including three members of Hand Habits (HH leader Meg Duffy, guitarist Greg Uhlmann, bassist Tim Carr), veteran drummer Jim Keltner, and bassist Pat Kelly–Glory often sounds like a rock band playing in a room, with enough folky acoustic guitars to give the album a down-to-earth bareness. There’s also plenty of Mike Hadreas’ trademark somber piano playing and rich embellishments like flute and guest vocalist Aldous Harding, and Hadreas moves through it all with a grace that looks more and more effortless with each passing album. It might be his most stripped-back since his early years, but it’s not a return to a past form. Like every single Perfume Genius album before it, it’s a clear step forward and a distinct new era. [A.S.]
Pissgrave – Malignant Worthlessness
Profound Lore
The balance of immediacy and extremity is the key to the Pissgrave experience. In one of the vanishingly rare and brief interviews the band has given (from 2015, if you’re wondering just how rare,) they describe their desire to create ‘reality-based death’. This approach is why it works, the concrete and dirt mangled through their music wouldn’t be as impactful attached to a prog-death concerto about aliens: life and death are the subject matter, the surface, and the substance, as it was on Suicide Euphoria and Posthumous Humiliation, and so it is on Malignant Worthlessness.
Seconds into “In Heretic Blood Christened”, and what you wanted from this album has been handed to you, the sense of hellish energy entirely preserved, the sound impressively consistent other than a new and sparingly deployed fondness for echo. What this reliability in sound does is allow us to focus on the songwriting, and it’s in this regard the band retains their greatest creative strength: from the tremolo parts on “Three Degrees of Darkness” that you will have you whistling a Pissgrave song, to the stop-start dynamics and pauses on “Dissident Amputator”, and the downward stomp of the title track’s lead riff: when faced with the level of craft and genre understanding here, Pissgrave transcend the other extreme signifiers of their existence, and become the ugliest, deadest death metal you’ve ever heard. And they do it all with sound. [Luke Jackson]
PremRock – Did You Enjoy Your Time Here…?
Backwoodz
If you’ve caught on to NYC-via-Pennsylvania rapper PremRock in the past few years, it might be because of the rise of ShrapKnel, his duo with Curly Castro. But he’s been putting out solo albums for much longer than that, and this week he returns with his first one since 2021’s Load Bearing Crow’s Feet. Prem packs so much into his lyricism–wordplay, double and triple entendres, tongue-twisters, grin-inducing references–so Did You Enjoy Your Time Here…? isn’t the kind of album that’s built to be digested quickly, but even after just a few listens, it’s clear that this is up there with any of his best work. The psychedelic, post-boom bap production is immaculate (with beats from Blockhead, YUNGMORPHEUS, Child Actor, Controller 7, ELUCID, Willie Green, and more), and Prem’s nearly-endless arsenal of thought-provoking bars are matched in impact by a very impressive cast of guests, including Pink Siifu, Cavalier, Nappy Nina, Illogic, AJ Suede, Prem’s Backwoodz label boss billy woods, and his aforementioned ShrapKnel partner Curly Castro. Prem namedrops the Wayne Shorter classic Speak No Evil near the start of this album, and it’s fitting because there are some parallels to be drawn between present-day Backwoodz and the heyday of Blue Note. Each album has its leader, but it’s the whole community of artists that comes together on album after album that makes the whole catalog so strong and unique. [A.S.]
Pulp – More
Rough Trade
“I exist to do this,” Jarvis Cocker sings on “Spike Island,” the opening song on More, Pulp’s first album in 24 years. He immediately clarifies what “this” is: “shouting & pointing.” As anyone who has ever seen Jarvis perform knows, he is very good at both. And while he didn’t stop shouting or pointing when Pulp broke up in 2002, those actions carry more purpose with the band that made him famous. The same goes for his songs. His solo work over the last two and a half decades has been good—often great—but it all hits the pleasure centers more directly as part of Pulp. Unlike 1997’s dark hangover-of-the-soul record This Is Hardcore, and 2001’s Scott Walker-produced We Love Life, which closed out the band’s original 23-year run with a pleasant whimper — the two albums that followed their 1995 masterpiece Different Class — there’s an ease, a camaraderie here that is palpable throughout. Jarvis has said that following the death of Pulp bassist and good friend Steve Mackey in 2023 he made a conscious decision to pursue happiness as best he could—which included reuniting with his bandmates. There’s also a sense of fun here that’s been missing from Pulp albums since Different Class and Jarvis and the rest of the band are not afraid to give the people what they want this time. More? Yes, please. [B.P.]
Samia – Bloodless
Grand Jury
Samia has never shied away from embracing vulnerability in her music — Honey‘s “Breathing Song” dealt with sexual assault and a miscarriage — and in naming Doechii’s video for “Crazy” as an influence on Bloodless, she pointed out the way it uses “nudity as a tool for expressing vulnerability or humanness or anger or pain separately from the context of sex.” From the almost-taunt of “wanna see what’s under these Levis, I got nothing under these Levis” on “Pants,” to passing out naked in a pool in “Sacred,” nudity is a frequent motif in these songs, as is blood. Paired with hyperspecific references throughout (Diet Dr. Pepper, a Nikon Coolpix), it makes for some of Samia’s most personal and powerful material yet. It’s also some of her most musically varied. After the pop-forward Honey, she embraced influences that range from Fiona Apple, Björk, and Mitski to Morphine this time around, to major effect. “Carousel” and “North Poles” both build from gentle folk to huge, majestic endings, with “Carousel” in particular spiraling into almost post-rock heaviness. Three albums into her career, Bloodless feels like a major level up for Samia, with songs that have both immediate appeal and layers of meaning to uncover. [A.H.]
Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory – Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory
Jagjaguwar
Over 15 years and six albums into her career, Sharon Van Etten has started a band. The seeds for The Attachment Theory were planted within the synth-fueled songs of Sharon’s 2019 album Remind Me Tomorrow, and the band’s rhythm section (drummer Jorge Balbi and bassist Devra Hoff) entered her musical orbit when she was putting a backing band together for the year-long tour behind that album. Then came COVID, Sharon’s darker 2022 album We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong, and a new touring member–Teeny Lieberson of Here We Go Magic, TEEN, and Lou Tides–and when the band finished rehearsing for their 2022 tour, Sharon did something she’d never done before: she asked the band to jam. There was no intention behind it at the time, but after they quickly ended up writing two songs together, Sharon started to see her next musical chapter unfolding before her eyes.
Those songs, “I Can’t Imagine (Why You Feel This Way)” and “Southern Life (What It Must Be Like),” are now two of the 10 songs on The Attachment Theory’s self-titled debut album. And “Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory” isn’t just a campy name; it’s a truly collaborative album, recorded live by four people with a ton of chemistry who all brought their unique voices to the table. Even the production process was collaborative, with producer Marta Salogni (Björk, Depeche Mode, FKA twigs, etc) setting up in the room with the band and co-producing it with all four members. Coming off the written-in-isolation We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong, the difference is immediately clear. Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory reflects the release of all the pent-up, post-lockdown energy, the anger directed at a world that’s still full of apocalyptic doom, and just a glimmer of hope. It goes further down the synth-fueled rabbithole, and the songs are powered by a propulsive post-punk backdrop that moves from the Cure-ish layers of “Idiot Box” to the proto-shoegaze of “Indio” to the hard-edged funk-punk of “I Can’t Imagine (Why You Feel This Way),” all delivered with a kind of telepathic momentum that only comes from a group of people feeding off of each other. (As with so many great post-punk bands, the secret weapon is Devra Hoff and her gut-punching basslines.) It’s the loudest, hardest Sharon Van Etten album yet, and her trademark singing and songwriting never gets lost in all the noise. If anything, the power of the band only elevates Sharon’s songs even more. [A.S.; read our interview for more]
Stereolab – Instant Holograms on Metal Film
Duophonic/Warp
Instant Holograms On Metal Film does just about everything you want a Stereolab album to do, checking all the boxes: VU guitar chug, motorik drumming, bleepy-bloopy analog synths, vibraphone, horns, wondrously layered harmonies, lefty lyrics, “bah-dee-dah” choruses, and titles that seem like they were generated by a random phrase creator (but in this case were at least partially pulled from the October 1970 issue of Electronics Australia). It all makes for a warmly familiar record, welcoming you like family—record nerd family—at the airport. This is the Stereolab you remember—at least the one that emerged around 1994’s Mars Audiac Quintet and made classics like Emperor Tomato Ketchup and Dots and Loops. Melody is at the forefront, all in the band’s signature style, with lots of room for instrumental zones to stretch out. For a group many still consider to be outré, Instant Holograms is kosmische comfort food—and that’s ok. They’re not breaking much new ground, but nobody else sounds like them—not imitators, and not even Gane or Sadier’s various post-Lab projects. [B.P.]
Turnstile – Never Enough
Roadrunner
Turnstile introduce their anticipated followup to Glow On with its title track, a song whose similarity to the previous album’s opening track/lead single “Mystery” is so on the nose that it has be intentional. But if its placement as lead single and opening track made you think you’re in for a ride you’ve been on before, buckle up. After the comfortingly familiar album opener, Never Enough is loaded with musical fusions that even Turnstile’s day ones might be caught off guard by. Turnstile with Latin horns and a reggaeton beat? “Dreaming.” Turnstile with new age jazz flute from genre torch-carrier Shabaka Hutchings himself? “Sunshower.” Turnstile goes The Police? “Seein’ Stars.” Turnstile goes ambient pop? “Magic Man.” A song that asks what Black Sabbath’s “Sweet Leaf” riff would sound like in Turnstile’s hands? “Slowdive.” The most pop punk Turnstile song since “Blue By You”? “Time Is Happening.” Glitched-out Turnstile with help from A.G. Cook? “Dull.” (Maybe that’s related to the Charli XCX co-sign.) A nearly-seven-minute Turnstile song with an all-timer riff, a sample of The Wire, and an IDM break? “Look Out For Me.” [A.S.]
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