And just like that, spring is upon us: daffodils sprout, forget-me-nots remember, festivals beckon, would-be songs of the summer shake their fledgling tail-feathers, and the distant hum of a Rihanna album mingles with the birdsong. As marquee acts line up for their first major tours since before the pandemic, the release schedule has filled apace, with overdue comebacks (Everything But the Girl, Feist), long-teased debuts (Boygenius, Overmono), and crowdpleasers galore from the likes of Lana Del Rey and the National. As of March 21, all release dates have been confirmed. But, as usual, everything is subject to change.
Angel Bat Dawid: Requiem for Jazz
The Cry of Jazz, a 1959 film that links jazz history with documentary footage of Chicago’s Black neighborhoods, inspired the latest LP from the city’s eminent avant-garde jazz composer, Angel Bat Dawid. Following the film’s lead, the clarinetist and singer weaves a critique of racial politics—as well as samples from the movie—into a bracing jazz opus. Marshall Allen and Knoel Scott, whose late bandleader Sun Ra appeared in the original documentary, close the conceptual loop, contributing parts to the album’s final movement. –Jazz Monroe
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Arlo Parks: My Soft Machine
British singer-songwriter Arlo Parks is back with her second album, My Soft Machine. It’s the follow-up to 2021 Mercury Prize winner Collapsed in Sunbeams, which also earned Parks a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Music Album (not to mention Best New Artist). It’s a record that includes a new collaboration with Phoebe Bridgers titled “Pegasus” and the previously released lead single, “Weightless.” –Evan Minsker
Arooj Aftab / Vijay Iyer / Shahzad Ismaily: Love in Exile
Arooj Aftab first played a pickup set with pianist Vijay Iyer and multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily in 2018, well before her breakout success with her Grammy-winning Vulture Prince. The trio has played together only a handful of times since then. Love in Exile is the musicians’ first album together, with Aftab singing in Urdu alongside bass, synthesizers, and keys from Ismaily and Iyer. They released the nine-minute “To Remain/To Return” as the first preview of the record in February, with Iyer saying the piece “reveals not just the melody but the birth of a song.” –Allison Hussey
Avalon Emerson: Avalon Emerson & the Charm
In January, after years mapping techno’s outer reaches as an eclectic DJ and producer, Avalon Emerson swerved out of the leftfield with the delectable pop nugget “Sandrail Silhouette.” The single—an estranged sibling to the Magnetic Fields cover that unexpectedly opened Emerson’s DJ-Kicks LP—blends scruffy shoegaze with indelible, Cocteau Twins overtones, presaging a rush of pop surprises from the Berlin-based artist’s debut album. –Jazz Monroe
B. Cool-Aid / Pink Siifu / Ahwlee: Leather Blvd.
Together, Pink Siifu and producer Ahwlee are B. Cool-Aid. The duo’s debut, Leather Blvd., features an army of contributors, including L.ive, Digable Planets’ Ladybug Mecca, Quelle Chris, Fousheé, Jimetta Rose, V.C.R, Big Rube, and more. According to Siifu, his work with Ahwlee is more melodic than some of his more rap-oriented records. “It gives me space to really be on that neo-soul shit,” he said in a statement. “That’s the shit that really raised me.” The LP includes the single “Cnt Go Back ( Tell Me ).” –Evan Minsker
Bill Orcutt: Jump on It
This spring, the wily noise guitarist Bill Orcutt will release his first solo acoustic record in a decade. Jump on It sweetens Orcutt’s trademark jerky abstractions with deft melodic motifs and follows a pair of standout albums that traced a similar path from chaos into harmony: last year’s Music for Four Guitars and 2021’s Made Out of Sound, a collaborative LP with Chris Corsano. –Jazz Monroe
Boygenius: The Record
It’s been five years since Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus formed their supergroup, Boygenius, and released their self-titled EP. Their debut album, which the trio straightforwardly dubbed The Record, arrives at the end of the month. Once again, the three indie rock singer-songwriters will take turns taking the lead on each song, as can be heard on “Not Strong Enough,” “$20,” “Emily I’m Sorry,” and “True Blue.” This time around, Boygenius sound bolder and more self-assured, both as musicians and as a group, and The Record glimmers with that confidence. –Nina Corcoran
Clark: Sus Dog
What’s Sus Dog? Why, it’s the latest album from British electronic music mainstay Clark. For the first time, Clark is singing on one of his records. The album features several contributions from executive producer Thom Yorke. “The first thing he sent me was him singing about being stuck between two floors and I was already sold,” Yorke said in a statement. “To me the way he approached it all wasn’t the usual singer songwriter guff thank god; it mirrored the way he approached all his composition and recording, but this time it had a human face. His face.” Sus Dog includes the lead single “Town Crank.” –Evan Minsker
Country Westerns: Forgive the City
Forgive the City is the second album from Nashville-based trio Country Westerns, following their self-titled 2020 debut. The group reunited with Matt Sweeney to produce its latest batch of rough hewn rock songs. After last year’s single “Money on the Table,” the band announced the record with “It’s a Livin’,” and Country Westerns have since shared another track titled “Speaking Ill of the Blues.” Between full-lengths, the band issued an EP collecting a few covers and an original, “Coming Down.” –Allison Hussey
Dave Matthews Band: Walk Around the Moon
This year, Dave Matthews Band return for a massive tour here on planet Earth behind their new album, Walk Around the Moon. It’s an album with lofty song titles like “Break Free,” “Monsters,” “The Ocean and the Butterfly,” “The Only Thing,” and “All You Wanted Was Tomorrow.” If all you want is tomorrow, so you’re one day closer to hearing this whole album, here’s some good news—lead single “Madman’s Eyes” is out now. –Evan Minsker
Deerhoof: Miracle-Level
For a band that’s done so much over the course of nearly 30 years, it may come as a shock to learn there are still adventures Deerhoof have yet to tackle. Miracle-Level accomplishes two feats at once: It’s the band’s first Japanese-language LP and first full-length made entirely in a proper recording studio. Judging by “Sit Down, Let Me Tell You a Story,” look forward to more jittery percussion, new guitar pedal effects, and a treasure trove of lyrical territory from singer Satomi Matsuzaki. –Nina Corcoran
Everything But the Girl: Fuse
Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt, the married duo who comprise downtempo pop group Everything But the Girl, haven’t released an album together since 1999’s Temperamental. That changes this April with Fuse, an LP recorded in secret that the pair started writing in March 2021. They’ve shared the thumping singles “Nothing Left to Lose,” “Caution to the Wind,” and “Run a Red Light” so far, hinting at a reintroduction that will be well worth the two-decade-plus wait, arriving just as Y2K revivalism is reaching a peak. “We were aware of the pressures of such a long-awaited comeback,” Thorn said in a statement upon the album’s announcement, “so we tried to begin instead in a spirit of open-minded playfulness, uncertain of the direction, receptive to invention.” –Eric Torres
Feeble Little Horse: Girl With Fish
Make it past the prickly layer of scuzzy noise-rock in Feeble Little Horse’s music and you’re rewarded with a mellow dose of alt-pop sweetness courtesy of Lydia Slocum’s vocals. The Pittsburgh quartet broke onto the scene in 2021 with its debut album, Hayday, and signed to Saddle Creek shortly afterward. On their upcoming sophomore LP, Girl With Fish, Feeble Little Horse further strengthen their take on noise pop. Get a taste for it with lead single “Tin Man” ahead of the album’s release on June 9. –Nina Corcoran
Feist: Multitudes
Feist returned with a trio of discursive, richly detailed folk-pop songs last month as an amuse bouche for Multitudes, the Canadian singer-songwriter’s sixth LP and first in six years. The new music was written largely while Feist was on tour during a series of concerts that share the same name as the album. “The last few years were such a period of confrontation for me,” she wrote in a press statement. “And in all that reassessment, the chance to find footing on healthier, more honest ground became possible, and the effort to maintain avoidance actually felt like it took more effort than just handing ourselves over to the truth.” –Eric Torres
The Hold Steady: The Price of Progress
The stalwart indie rockers’ latest album, The Price of Progress, features “some of the most cinematic songs in the Hold Steady catalog,” frontperson Craig Finn said in press materials. Among them are the singles “Sideways Skull” and “Sixers,” which employ flashes of classic rock to spread their trademark social dioramas into more expansive territory. –Jazz Monroe
Indigo De Souza: All of This Will End
Indigo De Souza announced her forthcoming third album, All of This Will End, with the heart-shattering power ballad “Younger & Dumber,” a treatise dedicated to the Asheville singer-songwriter’s younger self. The follow-up to 2021’s Any Shape You Take, which De Souza has already called “more true to me than anything ever has,” is guaranteed to be just as gut-wrenchingly vulnerable and embroidered with sturdy guitar solos and textured production. –Eric Torres
Jana Horn: The Window Is the Dream
Jana Horn returns with a set of quiet, captivating songs on The Window Is the Dream, her second LP. In contrast to the more kinetic process of writing last year’s Optimism, Horn has said she wrote her latest material “in one room, essentially,” as she was “in the thick of a writing program.” She recorded it in studios in New York and her home state of Texas. Horn has previewed the album with “After All This Time.” –Allison Hussey
Jessie Ware: That! Feels Good!
After releasing the single “Free Yourself” last summer, Jessie Ware announced her follow-up to 2020’s What’s Your Pleasure with the new song “Pearls” in February. “That! Feels Good! stems from over 10 years of understanding who I am, and who I enjoy being as an artist and the thrill of performance,” Ware said in a statement about the album. Between LPs, she joined Kylie Minogue for “Kiss of Life” in the fall of 2021, after she’d issued a springtime extended edition of What’s Your Pleasure. –Allison Hussey
Jpegmafia / Danny Brown: Scaring the Hoes
Jpegmafia and Danny Brown are combining their collective powers on a new album, one they’ve been teasing for a while now, entitled Scaring the Hoes. The inaugural collaborative album from the Baltimore and Detroit rappers features the lead single “Lean Beef Patty,” which naturally has a bunch of Elon Musk disses. What can you expect from Scaring the Hoes? Definitely not any rapping that sounds like Batman Beyond. –Evan Minsker
Kara Jackson: Why Does the Earth Give Us People to Love?
Kara Jackson has spent the last several years as a formidable presence on the Chicago poetry circuit, taking a top honor with the National Youth Poet Laureate title for 2019-2020. With her debut album, Why Does the Earth Give Us People to Love?, she veers toward songwriting that’s insightful and wryly funny. She laments getting tangled up in her heartstrings on “Dickhead Blues,” which tumbles like a can kicked down the sidewalk on a contemplative walk home. The album also includes her first single, last year’s “No Fun/Party,” and she more recently shared the track “Pawnshop” when she announced the LP in February. –Allison Hussey
Lana Del Rey: Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd
Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd is Lana Del Rey’s first album since 2021, a year that saw the release of both Blue Banisters and Chemtrails Over the Country Club. Her new LP includes production from Jack Antonoff, Drew Erickson, and Zach Dawes, plus guest turns from Jon Batiste, Father John Misty, and more. So far, the singer-songwriter has shared “The Grants,” “A&W,” and the album’s title track, which makes reference to the Harry Nilsson song “Don’t Forget Me,” as well as the Eagles’ “Hotel California.” –Matthew Strauss
The Lemon Twigs: Everything Harmony
Brother duo the Lemon Twigs made a soundtrack for a TV show about an imaginary ’70s brother band making songs in the style of Kiss, but the show was shelved. Brian and Michael D’Addario pivoted to Everything Harmony, which features an outtake from that show, “Any Time of Day.” The brothers have said the new album was influenced by Simon & Garfunkel, Arthur Russell, and Moondog. –Evan Minsker
Lucinda Chua: Yian
The cellist Lucinda Chua cut her teeth with the Kranky duo Felix, and has spent the decade since their split conjuring her own luminous sound world (while moonlighting as a member of FKA twigs’ band). Chua’s official debut album, Yian, follows a pair of incantatory, hauntingly pretty EPs combined in last year’s compilation album Antidotes. That record’s blend of molten R&B and chamber pop is set to crystallize on Yian. –Jazz Monroe
Mandy, Indiana: I’ve Seen a Way
Mandy, Indiana catherine-wheeled out of Manchester in 2021 with a darkly alluring EP titled with only an ellipsis. In May, a new sentence begins: The British band’s debut album promises a battery of industrial noise, warehouse-ready rave beats, and antic Franglais vocals from mantra-incanting singer Valentine Caulfield. Lead single “Injury Detail,” produced by techno pugilists Giant Swan, set the tone with an incendiary display of simmering synths, menacing mantras, pounding drums, and guitars hammered horribly out of shape—a banger, in every sense. –Jazz Monroe
Mega Bog: End of Everything
End of Everything is the Mexican Summer debut of Erin Elizabeth Birgy’s Mega Bog. After breaking out with a series of idiosyncratic, folky pop records, Birgy modulates her sage observations to a synthpop frequency on the new LP. Making the album, she got sober, which evinced an impatience for the intellectualized “secret codes” of more austere songwriting. “I no longer wanted to hide behind difficult music,” she said in press materials. “I was curious to give others the same with the music I create; to make music someone could use to explore drama, playfulness, and dancing, to shake the trauma loose.” –Jazz Monroe
Metallica: 72 Seasons
Over six years after Hardwired…To Self-Destruct, Metallica return this spring with an album named for the seasons navigated in the first 18 years of our lives. “Much of our adult experience is reenactment or reaction to these childhood experiences,” James Hetfield said of the concept. “Prisoners of childhood or breaking free of those bondages we carry.” The Greg Fidelman–produced LP’s lead single and title track signaled a band content to menacingly thrash about in its tried-and-true comfort zone. –Jazz Monroe
Miya Folick: Roach
After releasing her 2007 EP last year, Los Angeles-based pop artist Miya Folick announced her second LP, Roach, in January. She described it as “an album about trying to get to the core of what life really is.” Folick released “Get Out of My House” as the first official single from the album. Roach includes all of the material from 2007 plus a few more new tracks. –Allison Hussey
The National: First Two Pages of Frankenstein
The four-year gap between I Am Easy to Find and First Two Pages of Frankenstein is the longest since the National started beavering into our hearts back in 2001. In the break, the august band’s members have variously released solo albums, collaborated (extensively) with Taylor Swift, burnished their classical repertoire, and revived Big Red Machine. The new record brings Swift along for the ride, as well as Phoebe Bridgers (twice) and Sufjan Stevens. There’s also a song called “New Order T-Shirt,” released with the obligatory cross-promotional merch item. –Jazz Monroe
The New Pornographers: Continue as a Guest
The Canadian indie rock mega-powers the New Pornographers are back with their first new album in four years, and the LP features co-writing from Destroyer’s Dan Bejar (on “Really Really Light,” a Brill Bruisers outtake) and Speedy Ortiz’s Sadie Dupuis (on “Firework in the Falling Snow”). It’s the band’s first album for Merge Records. –Evan Minsker
Noia: Gisela
Noia is the project of Barcelona-born, Brooklyn-based artist Gisela Fulla-Silvestre. Inspired by Catalan and Spanish singing traditions, Gisela, the follow-up to Habits combines those folk influences with electronics and sound design. “Noia is a reflection of all of my musical and artistic influences, but processed through my own voice,” said Fulla-Silvestre in press materials. “Noia is who I am when no one’s looking.” –Jazz Monroe
Overmono: Good Lies
Overmono broke out in the late 2010s with a string of vibrantly mushy, endorphin-rich singles in a lineage of UK dance duos like Disclosure and Bicep. Whether the Russell brothers will follow the pipeline from underground to big-tent act remains to be seen on Good Lies, their debut album; lead single “Is U” suggests they’re aiming for the rafters. –Jazz Monroe
Petite Noir: MotherFather
Congolese musician Petite Noir took some time off following 2018’s La Maison Noir / The Black House. Now, eight years after he dropped his debut LP, La Vie Est Belle / Life Is Beautiful, he’s back with his second full-length studio album and a rejuvenated outlook steering it all. MotherFather spans 10 tracks and includes collaborations with Sampa the Great and Theo Croker. On the single “Blurry,” Petite Noir sings about placing his trust in love and the ways in which it allowed him to grow, a theme that reappears across the rest of the album. –Nina Corcoran
Rihanna
In the days leading up to Rihanna’s Super Bowl stand, fans were abuzz with hopeful speculation that the marquee event would be the launchpad for a new album announcement. Instead, she revealed another major life development: her second pregnancy with A$AP Rocky, following the birth of their first child last May. Since issuing Anti in 2016, Rihanna has said that her next LP will bend toward dancehall, claiming that she’s worked on more than 500 demos for the project. As of right now, the latest major Rihanna material is “Lift Me Up,” a one-off for the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack that’s picked up a few major award nominations. “I want it to be this year,” she said of a new record in February. So do we, Rihanna, so do we. –Allison Hussey
Sparks: The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte
After getting the documentary treatment and penning a star-studded musical, Sparks are returning with a new album, The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte. Brothers Ron and Russell Mael are perhaps the greatest comedy duo to emerge from the new wave scene, and they haven’t lost their bizarro sense of humor in the past five decades. Sparks released the title track from the record along with a music video starring Cate Blanchett dancing wildly in a canary yellow suit. The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte also marks the band’s first album for Island Records in 47 years, following 1976’s Big Beat. –Madison Bloom
Squid: O Monolith
Squid electrified the UK festival circuit with an anthemic, yelpy spin on the acerbic post-punk that has prevailed since Sleaford Mods brought monologuing back into vogue. The band’s tentacles have since reached further afield, into sonically nuanced (and sometimes proggier) realms. Recent single “Swing (In a Dream),” from second album, O Monolith, shares airspace with The Bends and ’90s Modest Mouse: with bigger riffs and deeper grooves, but more fraught and intimate, too. –Jazz Monroe
The Tallest Man on Earth: Henry St.
Folk singer-songwriter the Tallest Man on Earth (aka Kristian Mattson) is gearing up to release his sixth album. So far, from the LP, he’s shared the percussive, finger-picked lead single, “Every Little Heart,” and “Henry St.” The record has production from Sylvan Esso’s Nick Sanborn and contributions from musicians Ryan Gustafson, TJ Maiani, CJ Camerieri, Phil Cook, Rob Moose, and Adam Schatz. “When I’m in motion, I can focus on my instinct, have my daydreams again,” Mattson wrote in a statement announcing the album. “When I was finally able to tour again, I started writing like a madman.” –Eric Torres
Thomas Bangalter: Mythologies
Mythologies is the first solo work from Thomas Bangalter since Daft Punk broke up in February 2021. The album is a score for a 90-minute French ballet of the same name, co-produced by Opéra National de Bordeaux and the ballet company Ballet Preljocaj. The performance ran in July of 2022, and Bangalter has been releasing recorded songs from the 23-piece project, including “L’Accouchement” and “Le Minotaure.” Bangalter last issued a solo album in 2003 with Outrage. –Madison Bloom
Tim Hecker: No Highs
Canadian electronic composer Tim Hecker is busy these days; his soundtrack to Brandon Cronenberg’s film Infinity Pool arrived earlier this year. His latest album for Kranky, No Highs, is up next. The album features uneasy music—inspired, the announcement notes, by the “muse” of negation. Song titles include “Pulse Depression,” “Anxiety,” “Total Garbage,” and “Winter Cop.” Colin Stetson joins here on saxophone. –Evan Minsker
Water From Your Eyes: Everyone’s Crushed
Since issuing their fantastic LP Structure in 2021, Brooklyn experimental duo Water From Your Eyes have signed to Matador and are readying their debut for the label. Everyone’s Crushed features the single “Barley,” a warped slice of synth-pop skewed by vocalist Rachel Brown’s deadpan delivery. Brown and musician Nate Amos are playing a New York residency this month, followed by an extensive North American tour. Revisit Pitchfork’s Rising interview “Alt-Pop Duo Water From Your Eyes Commit to the Bit.” –Madison Bloom
Wednesday: Rat Saw God
When Wednesday released their sprawling, nearly nine-minute-long single “Bull Believer” last year, it appeared it would be an outlier in their catalog. As it turns out, that song was actually ushering in a new era for the Asheville band in which the group goes bigger across the board. With Rat Saw God, their Dead Oceans debut and fourth album overall, Wednesday churn out searing country, gnarled alt-rock, and gut-punching shoegaze that demand attention, highlighted by the singles “Chosen to Deserve” and “Bath County.” –Nina Corcoran
Westerman: An Inbuilt Fault
An Inbuilt Fault is the second studio album from London-born, Athens-based singer-songwriter Westerman, following 2020’s Your Hero Is Not Dead. The new record includes last year’s single “Idol; Re-Run,” as well as the more recent “CSI: Petralona.” Westerman co-produced the latter track with Big Thief’s James Krivchenia. –Madison Bloom
Yaeji: With a Hammer
Yaeji’s long-awaited debut arrives three years after her last release, the mixtape What We Drew 우리가 그려왔던. True to the new album’s title, Yaeji appears wielding a sledgehammer on the cover art to coincide with the music’s thematic “story about me and my hammer,” per a newsletter sent to fans. The electronic artist has shared the warped lead single “For Granted,” and the rest of the record boasts guest features from London producer Loraine James, K Wata and Enayet (affiliates of New York club collective Slink), and south London–based singer-songwriter Nourished by Time. –Eric Torres
Youth Lagoon: Heaven Is a Junkyard
For seven years, while Trevor Powers continued recording under his exceptional given name, Youth Lagoon was gone—a moniker without a country. The years of hibernation are over, as the project returns in June with Heaven Is a Junkyard. Inspired by Powers’ hometown of Boise, Idaho, the first single is appropriately titled “Idaho Alien.” –Evan Minsker
