Last week didn’t have much new music due to the Fourth of July (but if you still haven’t checked out the new Zach Bryan, Bacchae, and/or Blind Girls albums, go listen and read about them in last week’s Notable Releases), but new music is back in full force this week. I highlight 10 new releases below, and Bill tackles more in Indie Basement, including SAULT, Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard, Milly Nilsson, Font, Ynys, and new EPs from Metronomy (and friends) and Water From Your Eyes (doing covers). It’s also Sound & Fury weekend in LA, and even if you’re not attending, there will probably be tons of awesome videos to live vicariously through.

On top of those, this week’s honorable mentions include Eminem, Phish, Rema, Remi Wolf, Armlock, Common & Pete Rock, Juicy J & Xavier Wulf, Blu & Evidence, Travis, Cigarettes After Sex, Zacari, Scarcity, Berwyn, Clown Sounds (FYP/Toys That Kill), Gil Cerrone, Brijean, Chris Cohen, Jake Xerxes Fussell, Nacho Picasso & Televangel, Kučka, Mas Aya, Patrick Higgins (Zs), Tayla Parx, Color Green, $NOT, Tink, Negative Gears, Vanhelgd, O.R.B., Donovan Woods, Hannah Mohan, In the Valley Below, Hardy, Uncle Kracker, Mr. Big, Plutocracy Planet (ft. members of American Football, Braid, The Get Up Kids, Far, The Callous Daoboys, Protest the Hero & more), the Deer Tick EP, the Sophie Powers EP, the JoJo Siwa EP, the Chenayder EP, the ira glass EP, the Deal With It EP, Nu House Studios’ Trans Rights II: WE ARE NO LONGER ASKING comp, the Steve Earle live album, and the Joan of Arc box.

Read on for my picks. What’s your favorite release of the week?

Casssandra Jenkins – My Light, My Destroyer
Dead Oceans

On her anticipated Dead Oceans debut, Cassandra Jenkins crafts her own sonic universe out of jazzy sophisti-pop, indie rock, spoken word, field recordings, and more

Cassandra Jenkins’ last album An Overview on Phenomenal Nature was one of those organic breakthroughs that had its moment because it was just too special to ignore. While she was writing it, you could regularly find her opening small shows in her hometown of NYC, but since it came out, she’s found herself headlining increasingly bigger rooms, playing major festivals, landing on best-of-year lists from Pitchfork, NPR, The Guardian, and others (she was #7 on ours), and signing to Dead Oceans, where she’s now labelmates with Mitski, Phoebe Bridgers, Japanese Breakfast, and Wednesday. Her Dead Oceans debut has a few bigger-name guests on it (Palehound’s El Kempner, Hand Habits’ Meg Duffy, Strange Ranger’s Isaac Eiger), and there’s a lot more anticipation going into it than there was for Overview, but it sounds to me like Cassandra isn’t letting any of the hype and fame get to her; My Light, My Destroyer is a worthy followup from an artist who’s seemingly keeping her head down and continuing to explore her own musical universe. Like Overview, the new album hops between jazzy sophisti-pop, louder indie rock, folky singer/songwriter material, new age ambience, and spoken word, and Cassandra weaves everything together so seamlessly that you might not even notice how much it varies unless you’re really picking it apart. Produced by Andrew Lappin (L’Rain, Orville Peck, etc), it’s fleshed out by airy textures, stirring strings, sensual horns, field recordings, and an array of other subtle embellishments. It’s serene yet vivid, just like Cassandra’s lyrics, which can turn a walk through Petco into an opportunity for profound self-discovery. Like Overview before it, My Light, My Destroyer is an album with maximalist depth presented in a way that feels intimate and minimal. It’s an album where each new listen peels back a new layer, and those are almost always the albums that stick with you the longest.

Johnny Blue Skies (aka Sturgill Simpson) – Passage Du Desir
High Top Mountain

Sturgill Simpson adopts a new moniker and a familiar approach, with a country/Southern rock LP that stands tall next to the timeless greats of the late ’60s/early ’70s

Sturgill Simpson has long talked about a plan for a five-album career, and he reached LP5 with 2021’s The Ballad of Dood & Juanita (not counting the two Cuttin’ Grass albums that were made up of bluegrass versions of his own songs). Leading up to that album, he said, “I don’t want to say I’ll never make another record, but this five-album narrative was really clear when I moved to Nashville. […] But then after that, I am not sure. I love the studio. I like sleeping in my bed.” At some point, he found himself back in the studio, but it looks like he’s sticking to capping the “Sturgill Simpson” catalog at five albums, because this new LP comes out under a new name, Johnny Blue Skies. You can view it as a fresh start, but it also just sounds like a pretty natural progression for Sturgill, who’s always evolved from one album to the next.

Sturgill’s hopped around a bit stylistically over the years, and this one finds him embracing the country, blues, soul, and Southern rock of the late ’60s/early ’70s, with songs that scratch the same itch as stuff like the Allman Brothers, The Band, and Gram Parsons. It’s music that’s right in Sturgill’s comfort zone, and after leading a solo career for over a decade, he sounds as much like a seasoned veteran as his forebears did by the end of the ’70s. It’s a tight, eight-song album that’s built to fit on a vinyl LP–the kind they made back then–and each side ends with its own mini epic. Side A culminates in “Jupiter’s Faerie,” an emotional string-laden ballad that clocks in at seven and a half minutes, and Side B says farewell with “One for the Road,” an extended Allmans-worthy jam that fades out as the nine-minute mark approaches. That last one especially is a well-deserved grand finale after an album of more concise nuggets like the soulful “If The Sun Never Rises Again” and “Scooter Blues,” the countrified twang of “Swamp of Sadness” and “Who I Am,” the blues licks of “Mint Tea,” and sonic outlier “Right Kind of Dream,” an orchestral heartland rock song that kinda sounds like Springsteen by way of Arcade Fire. Like so many of the best eight-song albums, every song brings something unique to the table, there’s no room for filler, and there’s constant momentum.

Clairo – Charm
self-released

Third time’s the charm for Clairo, who goes in a vintage soul direction with some help from El Michels Affair’s Leon Michels

After shifting from Immunity‘s bedroom pop to the intimate folk of the late ’60s and early ’70s on 2021’s fantastic Sling, Clairo injects her music with a helping of vintage soul on her third album, Charm. The new direction comes in collaboration with El Michels Affair leader Leon Michels, who’s become one of the most visible modern-day torch-carriers for the style and sound of the Stax/Motown era. It’s a noticeable change from her work with former Vampire Weekend member Rostam Batmanglij on Immunity and Jack Antonoff on Sling, and the soul vibes are immediately apparent throughout the LP, from the backing croons ringing through “Terrapin,” to the horns and jangling keys on “Juna,” to the irresistible groove of “Sexy to Someone.” As ever, though, Clairo brings an intimacy and warmth to her approach. “I was really inspired by the silliness of Harry Nilsson, and the vocals of Margo Guryan and Blossom Dearie,” she told The New Yorker in a recent interview. “Those three people are all really great songwriters, and their music is very touching, but it also never feels like they’re taking themselves too seriously.” After three albums that all go in different stylistic directions, Clairo is proving that whatever type of music she’s currently working with, she makes it her own. As also evidenced by the way she won over the crowd at Radio City on her last headlining tour, Clairo has reached icon status, and she got there by operating completely on her own terms. [Amanda Hatfield]

Macseal – Permanent Repeat
Counter Intuitive

The Long Island band tap into late ’90s/early 2000s power-poppy alt-rock on their feel-good sophomore LP

Long Island’s Macseal came up in the emo scene but always had a power pop side to them, and that power pop side becomes the main focus on their second album (and first in five years), Permanent Repeat. There are parallels to be drawn to other emo-adjacent power pop bands like The Sidekicks, Hurry, and fellow Long Islanders Oso Oso (with whom they share producer Billy Mannino and who Macseals’s Frankie Impastato sometimes drums for), and also to the late ’90s/early 2000s power-poppy alt-rock that the members of Macseal grew up on, like anything from Goo Goo Dolls to Michelle Branch to Jimmy Eat World. (Gin Blossoms, Nada Surf, and Third Eye Blind all fit nicely on the Permanent Repeat mood board too.) It’s a warm, sunny-afternoon album that feels like music you’ve known your whole life (especially if you were born in or around the ’90s), and Macseal’s feel-good nostalgia is ripe for playing over and over. “Permanent Repeat” is a good name for it.

Speed – Only One Mode
Flatspot/Last Ride

Speed follow up a string of EPs a lot of hardcore-scene hype with their first full-length

Australian hardcore band Speed have been blowing up around the world thanks in large part to their much-hyped live show, attention-grabbing music videos, and more recently their use of flute, and all the chatter surrounding them is backed up by some pretty undeniable songs. Having dropped a demo and two EPs since forming in 2019, Speed now issue their first full-length, and it delivers everything the EPs did and more. They make bouncy, chuggy, bone-crushing hardcore that echoes US bands like Trapped Under Ice and Turnstile, as well as some of the same ’80s signifiers that the latter have helped re-popularize (Leeway, late ’80s Bad Brains, etc), and there’s just a little more melody (sometimes via the aforementioned flute) on the LP than Speed had on the EPs. If you’ve been sensing a split in the current hardcore scene between bands that are catchy and bands that are heavy, you might like to know that the Speed of Only One Mode is both.

Pick up our exclusive black & white vinyl variant of the Speed LP in the BV shop.

Webbed Wing – Vol. III
Memory Music

The third album from Superheaven offshoot Webbed Wing injects the former’s grungegaze with a strong dose of Lemonheads-inspired jangle

As you may have noticed, shoegaze is bigger than ever, “grungegaze” is also really big right now, and grungegaze pioneers Superheaven are also bigger than ever. Their shoegazy non-single “Youngest Daughter” went viral on TikTok and subsequently became the band’s most-streamed song on Spotify about a decade after its 2013 release, and the band currently has over 2 million monthly listeners on the latter platform. They play reunion shows here and there, but when it comes to writing new music, Taylor Madison has been saving that for Webbed Wing and his fellow Superheaven co-leader Jake Clarke (who also drums in Webbed Wing) has been saving that for Clever Hour. Webbed Wing have a lot less Spotify listeners than Superheaven, but if you’re on that band’s train and not Webbed Wing’s, you’re severely missing out. Taylor’s songwriting is just as strong and distinct in Webbed Wing as it was in Superheaven, and his stylistic choices on Vol. III nail the perfect balance between comfortingly familiar and excitingly different. The grungegazy exterior is still there, but this album also strongly embraces another ’90s love, jangly alt-rock, and if you can picture a cross between Swervedriver and The Lemonheads you’ve probably got a pretty good idea of what to expect. Without abandoning the gnarly grit that’s become his trademark, Taylor injects these songs with an underlying breezy brightness (and a subtle sense of humor) that sounds ripped from a mid ’90s teen movie soundtrack. Superheaven’s overt ’90s references have birthed a whole new generation of their own imitators, and Webbed Wing’s Vol. III reminds you that Taylor always had a couple things that so many of his followers lack: an ability to swirl together old ideas in new ways, and even more importantly, a voice of his own.

For more, read our new interview with Taylor on this album, Superheaven’s resurgence & future, and more.

toe – Now I See the Light
Topshelf

Japanese math rock vets’ first album in nine years is one of their most gorgeous yet

In certain math rock-friendly circles, toe need no introduction, but for the uninitiated: the Japanese band formed in 2000 and they went on to become one of the niche subgenre’s most widely-loved and longest-running bands. They gradually started leaving their footprint on the US scene throughout the 2000s, leading up to a 2009 split EP with Milwaukee’s Collections of Colonies of Bees (the same year members of that band teamed up with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon for their debut album as Volcano Choir), and in 2013, they signed to US label Topshelf to reissue material Stateside and they went on their first North American tour. 2015 saw the release of their first new album for Topshelf, Hear You, and now they release their first album since then (and first new music since 2018’s Our Latest Number EP), Now I See the Light. It delivers a mix of complex guitar/drum patterns, twinkling bells, and bright vocal melodies that make for some of the band’s most gorgeous songs yet. It shares as much DNA with fellow math rock bands as it does with the beautiful delicacy of Sigur Rós, and it also scratches a similar itch for me as LP3-era American Football. It’s a good reminder that technical music and pretty music can be one and the same.

Jay Worthy & Dām-Funk – Magic Hour
EMPIRE

The new collaborative album from Jay Worthy & Dām-Funk is a G-Funk party that’s as West Coast as it gets

Compton-based rapper Jay Worthy is clearly well-versed in his city’s rap history, and he’s embraced the sounds of the G-Funk era on other projects, but his new album with funk torch-carrier Dām-Funk dives fully into that era like Jay never has before. It sounds like a trip back to the days of Dre, Snoop, and DJ Quik with a modern/futuristic twist. DJ Quik actually appears on the album, as do a slew of other West Coasters including G Perico, Channel Tres, Ty Dolla $ign, Polyester the Saint, P-Lo, Tha Dogg Pound family member Soopafly, and others (and a few non-West Coasters), and the whole thing is just about as West Coast as it gets. It brings you back to the days when rap was so regional that an album like this could only come from the West Coast, and even today an album like this just doesn’t sound like any other place on earth. Especially with Kendrick Lamar putting his West Coast pride in the forefront these past few weeks, this purely fun album keeps that California love going.

Action Bronson – Johann Sebastian Bachlava The Doctor
Baklava Industries

Action Bronson delivers a very Action Bronson-y album that should only re-cement his cult-hero status

Few things captured the new generation of turn-of-the-2010s rappers as perfectly as “1 Train” did, and it’s been endlessly fascinating to spend the past 11 years watching the different paths those seven rappers and their peers have taken. Action Bronson had a brief moment where it seemed like the major label world thought they could turn him into a star, but at this point he might actually be more famous for his televised food series Fuck, That’s Delicious than for music. As a rapper, he’s become a cult fave with a strong, sizable fanbase, and he makes consistently great records and hasn’t sounded concerned with releasing a crossover hit in a very long time. His latest is the amazingly-titled Johann Sebastian Bachlava The Doctor, which picks right up where its 2022 predecessor Cocodrillo Turbo left off. With production from The Alchemist, in-house Griselda producer Daringer, and Bronson himself (plus live instrumentation from guitarist Julian Love and saxophonist Matt Carrillo), the beats stay true to the mid ’90s-style boom bap that Bronson has favored since day one, and he still hasn’t run out of charismatic, delightfully weird bars to top these songs off with. It’s a relatively brief album with 11 songs and three guests: the aforementioned Alchemist, Larry June, and two songs with Bronson’s old friend Meyhem Lauren.

Doubt – Held In Contempt EP
Get Better Records

A fiery new EP from rising hardcore band Doubt

Doubt hail from the hardcore hotbed of Baltimore and they make fast, caustic hardcore of the early ’10s-era Ceremony/Trash Talk variety (or of the more current Scowl/Gel variety). Their new EP Held In Contempt was produced by Aidan Elias from Show Me The Body’s CORPUS collective, SMTB associate Noble Spell appears on it, it’s out on the great Philly label Get Better Records (HIRS, Bacchae, VIAL, etc), and they earned a co-sign from Soul Glo’s Pierce Jordan who penned their bio. It’s easy to see why they’re in such good company; Held In Contempt is six songs in nine minutes, it’s fueled by unfiltered anger, and it’s got just about no frills besides a few subtle sound effects (referred to by the band in an interview with Stereogum as “freaky shit”). It’s a brief EP that leaves a big impact, and it’s got me very interested to see where this band goes next.

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Read Indie Basement for more new album reviews, including SAULT, Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard, Milly Nilsson, Font, Ynys, Metronomy, and Water From Your Eyes

Looking for more recent releases? Browse the Notable Releases archive.

Looking for a podcast to listen to? Check out our new ‘Best Emo of 2014’ episode ft. Home Is Where vocalist Brandon MacDonald and music critic Drew Beringer.

Pick up the BrooklynVegan x Alexisonfire special edition 80-page magazine, which tells the career-spanning story of Alexisonfire and comes on its own or paired with our new exclusive AOF box set and/or individual reissues, in the BV shop. Also pick up the new Glassjaw box set & book, created in part with BrooklynVegan.

And, if you haven’t already, subscribe to the new BrooklynVegan digital magazine for free! Our first three editions are out now, with cover stars Jessica Pratt, Mannequin Pussy and Paramore.