It’s been another eventful week in the music world, and it’s also a week that’s filled with great new albums. I highlight eight below, and Bill tackles more in Indie Basement, including Public Image Ltd, Hollie Cook, and more.

On top of those, this week’s honorable mentions include Benny the Butcher, Joell Ortiz x L’Orange, Reason, Chief Keef, Ken Carson, Laura Groves (fka Blue Roses), Jungle, Andrew Hung (Fuck Buttons), Kataklysm, Spencer Zahn, PJ Western, Cordovas, Sundressed, Hail the Sun, G Flip, the Rob Moose (ft. Phoebe Bridgers, Bon Iver, Brittany Howard & more EP), the Bad Luck EP, the Kate Teague EP, the Killah Priest EP, the Out of Love EP, the JayWood EP, the Miso Extra EP, the Kolb EP, the Liam Gallagher live album, Easy Eye Sound’s Tell Everybody! (21st Century Juke Joint Blues) comp, and the “lost” mid/late ’70s Neil Young album.

Noname – Sundial
self-released

Noname’s new album is here! Even getting to say those words feels like a minor miracle. It’s been a long five years since the Chicago rapper released her masterful Room 25, and Noname has threatened to retire multiple times since then. She even suggested she might shelve this album after announcing it, due to social media backlash about it having a Jay Electronica guest verse. That’s just one example of Noname being pressured to respond to criticism that other rappers wouldn’t be subject to, and you can feel her exhaustion from being a public figure coming through in these new songs. On “Balloons,” she laments the fact that so many fans want rappers like her to write songs about trauma. On “Potentially the Interlude,” she asserts: “People say they love you but they really love potential, not the person that’s in front of them, the person you’ll grow into.” Maybe Sundial isn’t the album you wanted Noname to make, but it definitely seems like the album she wanted to make, and that should be all that matters. It’s also a remarkable album, and I can’t imagine any fans of Room 25 not liking this one. Like its predecessor, it pairs in-depth lyrical wisdom with lively jazz instrumentation. Soulful backing vocals come courtesy of Jimetta Rose, Eryn Allen Kayne, Ayoni, and Stout, and the cast of guest rappers includes the aforementioned Jay Electronica, Common, and $ilkmoney, plus a show-stopping verse from billy woods. Sundial has no filler and whips by with a 32-minute runtime that’s about a third of the length of some this year’s biggest major label rap albums. From the sequencing to the instrumentation to the guests to Noname’s own delivery, everything about this album feels carefully considered.

Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You
Drag City

Having recently done a couple collaborative albums, Will Oldham now releases the first proper Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy album since 2019’s I Made A Place. That one was a more upbeat album for Will Oldham’s standards, and in comparison, Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You embraces his somber, melancholic side. These songs feel raw and bare-bones, even when they’re fleshed out by strings, horns, and backing vocalists, and Will remains one of the most gripping songwriters of the last 30 years.

The Hives – The Death Of Randy Fitzsimmons
FUGA

Speaking about their first album in 11 years, Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist said, “There’s no maturity or anything like that bullshit, because who the fuck wants mature rock’n’roll?” So yeah, The Hives haven’t changed one bit, and I can’t imagine anyone would want them too. Read Bill’s review for more.

Hurry – Don’t Look Back
Lame-O Records

Right now, there’s a new niche emerging within underground, DIY power pop, and Hurry’s new album Don’t Look Back has become a big part of that. Hurry have also been doing it for over a decade, and–following two noisier albums in the beginning–they put out three albums of pristine, sparkling guitar pop before this one, so nothing about Don’t Look Back is an attempt to latch onto a new trend. If anything, this new moment for power pop has been a long time coming, and Hurry’s long-running dedication to this music almost definitely has something to do with that. Don’t Look Back was named after the Teenage Fanclub song (not the Bob Dylan film), and TFC is a clear influence, as is everything from The Beach Boys to The Lemonheads to Guided by Voices to later-period Weezer albums. Hurry leader Matt Scottoline clearly has great taste, but he’s also not afraid to embrace some less fashionable influences, like late ’90s radio rock. “Those types of bands…I feel like they really cracked the power pop formula in a lot of ways,” Matt said in the bio for Don’t Look Back. “And it left such a big impression on me, as someone who was listening to the radio at that time as a tween.” The further you zoom out, the lines between Teenage Fanclub and the alt-rock on the first two Now That’s What I Call Music! comps start to blur, and Don’t Look Back is an album that should appease fans of either camp. It’s got shimmering jangle pop guitars, big choruses, George Martin-esque baroque pop arrangements, and heroic guitar solos. It’s loaded with familiar thrills, and Hurry goes all in on them without an ounce of self-consciousness. Read a track-by-track breakdown of the album from band leader Matt Scottoline.

Bandmanrill, Sha EK, & MCVertt – Jiggy In Jersey
Defiant/Warner

Jersey club has been infiltrating the mainstream, with artists like Drake and Bad Bunny nodding towards it on recent songs, but one of the strongest forces behind the genre’s latest wave is Newark producer MCVertt. MCVertt is behind one of Jersey club’s biggest crossover hits, Lil Uzi Vert’s “Just Wanna Rock” (a collaboration born out of mutual admiration, as MCVertt’s producer name was inspired by Uzi), but he spends much more of his time working with Newark rapper Bandmanrill. Bandmanrill has a sound that mixes both club music and drill, and he’s also a frequent collaborator of Bronx drill rapper Sha Ek. All three of them have teamed up for this new 27-song, nearly-hour-long project Jiggy In Jersey. The project actually kicks off with the new song that MCVertt produced for A$AP Ferg and “Pound Town” rapper Sexyy Red, which has all the makings of yet another crossover hit, and then hits Bandmanrill, Sha Ek, MCVertt, and a couple other guests (Lil Zay Osama, DJ Sliink) doing what they do best. It goes back and forth between thumping club beats and pounding drill beats, topped off by a seemingly endless amount of energy from Bandmanrill and Sha Ek. It’s a little long, but in its best moments, it shows how much magic can be made when three powerful artists come together and have this much chemistry.

Joey Purp – Heavy Heart Vol. 1
Loudsound/4N Records

Following a 2022 collaborative project with KAMI, Chicago rapper Joey Purp has released his first new solo project since 2021’s UpLate, which marked Joey’s production debut. Like UpLate, Heavy Heart Vol. 1 has no features, but this time Joey enlists an array of producers (including Knox Fortune, Smoko Ono, Thelonius Martin, DEXLVL, and more). The result is a diverse beat selection that ranges from chipmunk soul to Chicago house to trap, and Joey sounds as charismatic and versatile as ever. It’s a short project with nine songs in 18 minutes, but hopefully “Vol. 1” in the title means more is on the way.

Gloss Up – Shades of Gloss
Quality Control

Memphis rapper Gloss Up is having a big year. The GloRilla associate released her Before the Gloss Up mixtape in January, then announced a collaborative album with the whole “Shabooya” crew (Aleza, Slimeroni, K Carbon, and producer Hitkidd), and now she releases her second mixtape of the year, Shades of Gloss. It’s got a posse cut with her usual crew (“Mention Me”), and other charismatic rising rappers like Sexyy Red and Saucy Santana come along for the ride too. Like its predecessor, it’s a blast to listen to, with an onslaught of knockout punchlines and sticky hooks.

Move – Black Radical Love
Triple B Records

“The songs are meant as a call to act,” says Corey Charpentier, vocalist of Boston hardcore band Move. “I want people to listen to these tracks and then move to better their conditions, I want people to move at our shows.” Even if he didn’t say it, that would come across loudly and clearly. From its spoken word samples to its shouted lyrics, Black Radical Love is an overt piece of protest art, and it’s also a fiery hardcore album that makes it impossible to stand still. Corey adds that the album “deals with our current position living underneath the US Imperialist state specifically a Black experience,” and that side A is fueled by anger and side B is fueled by the joy of a better tomorrow. Both messages are powerful on paper, and they hit even harder when you hear Corey shouting at the top of his lungs over a pit-opening backdrop.

Karol G – Mañana Será Bonito (Bichota Season)
Bichota/Interscope

Karol G has been breaking records and setting new bars left and right this year. February’s Mañana Será Bonito became the first all-Spanish-language album by a woman to top the Billboard 200, she became the first Latin woman to headline Lollapalooza, and she embarks on her first stadium tour tonight. Amidst all of that, she releases a nine-song companion project to her latest album, Mañana Será Bonito (Bichota Season). It includes a remix of Cris MJ’s “Una Noche En Medellín” with Karol and Ryan Castro and an EDM remix of Karol’s own “Provenza” by Tiësto. Breakout Mexican singer Peso Pluma lends his unmistakable voice to the airy reggaeton jam “Qlona,” Kali Uchis joins for the psychedelic Latin pop of “Me Tengo Que Ir,” and rising Puerto Rican rapper Young Miko (who’s also opening parts of Karol’s tour) pops up on “Dispo.” Karol herself raps on the hard-hitting “Oki Doki,” and she transitions into a much more traditional Caribbean vibe on “Mi Ex Tenía Razón.” The project covers a lot of ground, keeps Karol G’s momentum going, and reminds you that her stardom is deserved.

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Read Indie Basement for more new album reviews, including Public Image Ltd, Hollie Cook, and more.

Looking for more recent releases? Browse the Notable Releases archive or scroll down for previous weeks.

Looking for a podcast to listen to? Check out our new episode with Pool Kids.