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8 New Albums You Should Listen to Now: Taylor Swift, Bbymutha, Pearl Jam, and More
With so much good music being released all the time, it can be hard to determine what to listen to first. Every week, Pitchfork offers a run-down of significant new releases available on streaming services. This week’s batch includes new albums from Taylor Swift, Bbymutha, Pearl Jam, Chanel Beads, Cavalier, Ekko Astral, Lord Spikeheart, and Big|Brave. Subscribe to Pitchfork’s New Music Friday newsletter to get our recommendations in your inbox every week. (All releases featured here are independently selected by our editors. When you buy something through our affiliate links, however, Pitchfork earns an affiliate commission.)
Final Summer
For someone who’s spent nearly half his young life as a professional musician, Dylan Baldi still has solid work-life boundaries: The free jazz, ambient instrumentals, and acoustic experiments he’s posted to Bandcamp have yet to leach into the bottle-rocket pop-punk of Cloud Nothings. But the first single off their new album, Final Summer, has finally allowed one of Baldi’s extracurricular activities to infiltrate the band’s creative process. “I’m trying to [run] a marathon in every state,” he recently boasted, and while countless time trials and deadlifts have been set to “Stay Useless” and “Psychic Trauma,” “Running Through the Campus” suggests a more focused sort of cardiovascular exercise. “It’s just a thing I do for myself,” Baldi rasps, sounding like someone in tune with the discipline of physical and mental upkeep, and the usefulness of tracking incremental progress and pragmatic goals. That’s really where Cloud Nothings find themselves on their latest album, the first since Baldi entered his thirties. It’s a satisfying series of sprints from a band committed for the long haul.
This Ain’t the Way You Go Out
After giving birth to her first child, Otis, in 2021, UK songwriter Lucy Rose developed excruciating back pain. After an unpleasant encounter at the doctor’s office and months of Rose’s own research, she finally figured out that she had a rare, severe form of pregnancy-induced osteoporosis and eight fractured vertebrae. Already reeling from the depression and burnout that inspired her 2019 record, No Words Left, Rose endured months of recovery before she could again sit at the piano and write, now with Otis in her lap. Unlike the emotional intensity of No Words Left, her new music was surprisingly energetic and joyful. She would record these songs over two days with her longtime band, recruiting producer Kwes. to help her further embellish her sound. On This Ain’t the Way You Go Out, Rose expands her capabilities as a songwriter and musician while maintaining the warmth that’s made her a British folk staple for over a decade.
Taylor Swift Releases New Album The Tortured Poets Department, Plus 15 More Songs: Listen and Read the Full Credits
Some two months after announcing it at the 2024 Grammy Awards, Taylor Swift released her new album, The Tortured Poets Department, overnight. Two hours later, she surprise-released a 15-track expansion of the album, dubbed The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology. “I’d written so much tortured poetry in the past 2 years and wanted to share it all with you,” she wrote on social media. Listen to both parts in full below.
The Road to Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions
Joseph Thornalley values his privacy. On the rare occasion that the London-born artist gives an interview, he keeps his cards close, only offering enough details to foster more curiosity. Thornalley, who records under the name Vegyn, doesn’t often perform live and mostly steers clear of social media, but has worked with megastars like Frank Ocean, Travis Scott, Kali Uchis, and Dean Blunt. His music doesn’t provide many intimate details either, but it does reflect his eclectic influences, ranging from dubby ambient to lush techno to toystore electro, as well as his deep love of hip-hop. Even if it isn’t explicitly personal, his music is always meticulously constructed and frequently gorgeous, the product of a songwriter’s approach to textural electronic production. Thornalley’s new album, The Road to Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions, is another ornate but shadowy collection in his discography. It sounds incredible, but ultimately doesn’t reveal much beyond his wide-ranging taste.
The Allman Brothers Band’s Dickey Betts Dies at 80
Dickey Betts, a guitarist and co-founder of the Allman Brothers Band, died at home in Osprey, Florida, this morning (April 18), Rolling Stone reports. The cause was cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Betts’ manager David Spero told the publication. Betts was 80 years old. Born in West Palm...
Alice Glass Releases New Cover of the Smashing Pumpkins’ “Drown”: Listen
Alice Glass has shared a cover of the Smashing Pumpkins’ 1992 cut “Drown.” Glass recorded the rendition with producer and longtime collaborator Jupiter Keyes. The original Smashing Pumpkins song appeared on the soundtrack to Cameron Crowe’s Seattle-based romantic comedy Singles. Check out Glass’ version of “Drown” below.
Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard Announces New Album Harmonics, Shares Song: Listen
Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard will release a new album, Harmonics, on July 12. Today, he has shared a Nathan Castiel–directed video for the single “Moments Die,” featuring the New York singer Barrie. Other guests on the follow-up to 2017’s Electric Lines include Hayden Thorpe (formerly of Wild Beasts), Alabaster dePlume, Ibibio Sound Machine’s Eno Williams, Oranje, Jungle’s TomMcFarland, Fiorious, Falle Nioke, and Goddard’s Hot Chip bandmates Alexis Taylor and Al Doyle.
The Babies to Reunite for First Concerts in a Decade
The Babies are back. The indie-rock band—featuring Kevin Morby, Cassie Ramone, bassist Brian Schleyer, and drummer Justin Sullivan—will play its first shows since 2013. The first concert is in Los Angeles on September 18, and the second show is in Brooklyn on September 24. Opening at the Los Angeles show are PG14; Joanna Sternberg will open the Brooklyn concert. Find more details below.
Blood Incantation Tease New Album, Share “Luminescent Bridge” Video: Watch
Denver death metal band Blood Incantation have teased that their next studio album will arrive soon. They’ve also shared an epic music video for their song “Luminescent Bridge.” The clip was helmed by director and visual effects artist Miles Skarin, who crafted cosmic visual effects, and Alex Pace, who shot the group in a Dune-like desert setting. Check it out below.
Martha Skye Murphy Teams With Roy Montgomery for New Song “Need”: Listen
Martha Skye Murphy has shared a new song, “Need,” featuring a rare guest appearance from the guitarist Roy Montgomery. Below, check out Billy Howard Price’s video, in which Murphy plays various roles embodying “the most feral parts of [her] being,” as she puts it in a press release.
Arooj Aftab Announces Album and Tour, Shares Video for New Song: Watch
Arooj Aftab has announced a new album, Night Reign, and a tour. Ahead of the Vulture Prince follow-up, you can hear the single “Raat Ki Rani.” The actress Tessa Thompson made her directorial debut with the video, which is set between a photo shoot and a fleeting romantic liaison. “Interaction with the queen of the night feels unthinkable,” Aftab said in a press release. “Sometimes we must be content with an exchange of glances.” Watch the video and check out the live dates below. Night Reign is out May 31 via Verve.
Your Day Will Come
Chanel Beads is what you might call a scene band, the project of producer Shane Lavers who’s associated with the much-maligned lower Manhattan micro-neighborhood of Dimes Square. They play packed shows in lofts and bars full of kids born in 2004 taking pics on a point-and-shoot digital camera while wearing absolutely enormous pants. If you go to a bar called The River and hang out with dripped-out downtown people, someone will ask you: Hey, have you listened to the new Chanel Beads singles?
Bearings: Soundtracks for the Bardos
Ka Baird entered 2022 feeling adrift. The two years of lockdowns and shutdowns had been difficult for the artist, whose practice—an improvisatory fusion of wordless vocalizations, movement, and crackling electronics—is deeply dependent upon the intimacy of live performance. At Chicago’s Lampo foundation, they developed a new solo piece, Bearings, to be performed 10 times over the course of two nights that spring, for an audience of between one and four people. Pacing the stage, deploying disorienting shifts in lighting and sound design, alternating between bursts of flute and ghostly hissing and chattering, Baird hoped to trigger a mixture of confusion and catharsis—the kind of soul-cleansing experience that might mark a new beginning, helping artist and audience alike get their bearings in a world turned strange. Then, just weeks before the show was to launch, Baird’s mother experienced an unexpected decline in health; the diagnosis was terminal.
A Power Ranking of Everyone in the Drake–Kendrick Lamar–Every Rapper Ever Battle Royale
Pitchfork writer Alphonse Pierre’s rap column covers songs, mixtapes, albums, Instagram freestyles, memes, weird tweets, fashion trends—and anything else that catches his attention. Rap’s megastars have finally found a way to keep busy outside of chasing past glories with joint albums that should have happened a decade ago...
The Smile’s Tom Skinner Announces New Live Album, Shares Song: Listen
In 2022, Tom Skinner of the Smile released the solo album Voices of Bishara. He’s now readying a live album called Voices of Bishara Live at “Mu”. The full-length arrives on May 10, via International Anthem, and features the musician and his ensemble’s performance of the 2022 album’s tracks and more. Below, listen to a live take on Abdul Wadud’s 1970s composition “Oasis.”
Fontaines D.C. Announce New Album Romance, Share Video for New Song “Starburster”: Watch
Fontaines D.C. have signed to XL for a new album, Romance, set for release on August 23. The announcement comes with a new single, “Starburster”; check out the Aube Perrie–directed video, in which a wounded Grian Chatten goes about his everyday business, sometimes in a prosthetic mask, below. It is the band’s first LP with producer James Ford, who has recently worked with Arctic Monkeys and Blur.
Graeme Naysmith, Guitarist in Dream-Pop Band Pale Saints, Has Died
Graeme Naysmith, the guitarist of dream-pop band Pale Saints, died on April 4, the band’s record label, 4AD, confirmed. His age and cause of death were not given. Pale Saints formed in Leeds in the late 1980s, originally playing jangly indie-pop before expanding, on their 1989 debut EP, Barging Into the Presence of God, into the more atmospheric sound that would come to be associated with dream-pop and shoegaze. Debut album The Comforts of Madness, released in 1990 and reissued in 2020, minted their trademark sound, drawing the subtle harmonic complexities of the C86 sound into a whirlwind of sometimes noisy, sometimes lustrous guitar noise and filigree that they advanced, with some orchestral additions, on 1992’s In Ribbons and 1994’s Slow Buildings. The group disbanded in 1996, but Naysmith worked closely with 4AD on the recent Pale Saints reissues.
Listen to Nino Paid’s “Black Ball”: The Ones
Heart-on-sleeve rhymer Nino Paid’s new mixtape Can’t Go Bacc is throwing me for a loop. Is this where DMV crank meets cloud rap? Half of the beats have these melancholic yet fantastical Zelda-esque pianos and lush, sparkly synths that could have been on 808s & Dark Grapes II. Check out “Black Ball”: The crystalline keys make the beat feel like a rainbow appearing in the sky after a downpour. That works for Nino Paid’s writing, which is all about how the battle scars of his youth have made him stronger: “Sittin’ in school I was never a scholar/Anger problems, bruh I’m just like my father/For all of them reasons I gotta go farther/For all of my people I gotta go harder.” The way his quick, muttering flow smears the words only adds to the mistiness.
Charli XCX and Troye Sivan Announce North American Arena Tour
Charli XCX and Troye Sivan have announced a joint North American arena tour. The “1999” and “2099” collaborators will play shows together in September and October. Joining them on tour is special guest Shygirl. See the dates for the Charli XCX & Troye Sivan Present: Sweat Tour below.
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