6 New Albums You Need: Wednesday, Joanne Robertson, Lola Young, and more

Wednesday’s fourth album represents both a step up to the big leagues and a tear in the fabric of the band itself. While 2023’s Rat Saw God put the Asheville band in the spotlight, it also led to the break-up of chief songwriter Karly Hartzman and guitarist MJ Lenderman. It’s that dichotomy, a band that has never been more popular contending with the end of a key dynamic within its ranks, that gets Bleeds pumping. The countrygaze sound Wednesday have helped usher in his sharpened and expanded, with songs like the buzzing “Candy Breath” and frantic “Wasp” pushing the band into spikier and discomforting spaces far away from the “indie chillout” playlist territory of their peers. Hartzman’s lyrics, similarly, remain pungent and pleasingly nasty. Bleeds occupies a world in which sushi is served at room temperature, pitbulls piss off balconies, and vomit spews inside the mosh pit. On other songs, including the bruised “Wound Up Here,” Hartzman weaves in literary references and characters from her hometown to create a vivid sense of place and perspective. It’s in these moments, where they search for personal meaning in the stories of others, that Wednesday are at their best; Bleeds delivers them in droves. — David Renshaw

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As raw as Joanne Robertson’s music is, the Glasgow-based underground singer-songwriter’s catalog, almost all of her songs carry the energy of a hard-earned flow state. On her new album Blurrr, it’s easier than ever to get caught in these impressionistic currents. The nine tracks here are less shaggy than Robertson’s comparably sublime 2023 solo release Blue Car, and less free-wheeling than 2024’s Backstage Raver, an eight-track jamble-pop release with frequent collaborator Dean Blunt. From start to finish, Robertson redoubles her commitment to the ineffable: her voice remains a fog, implicitly urging the listener to engage with it on a plain beyond language, just as her guitars straddle between outsider and virtuoso for a genre not yet defined. There are three songs with renowned cellist and experimental producer Oliver Coates; unsurprisingly, they are all revelations. The sonorous thrum of Coates’ cello is a deep shadow to Robertson’s sketch-driven approach to music. Coates highlights existing dimensions of Robertson’s music rather than adding new ones, making Robertson’s singular creative force more undeniable than ever before. — Jordan Darville

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There’s a creeping self-consciousness you feel when you listen to Lola Young’s I’m Only F*cking Myself, her first album after experiencing life-changing virality with her song “Messy.” Most artists, you’d assume, would use this critical moment to deliver something of supreme confidence and head-screwed-on-rightness as a display of their fitness level for the incoming, debilitating level of stardom. Not Lola Young. On I’m Only F*cking Myself, you get the sense that the South Londoner, who sings with a walloping mockney-accented croon, is mascara-stained-eyes stumbling through her most successful period yet: missing her (coke) dealer, having loads of unremarkable, messy sex, and pissing off everyone in her inner circle. “I should probably take my medication ‘cause it’s been days but I’ve been busy getting high,” she admits on stripped-down guitar ballad “who f**king cares?” All of these things make I’m Only F**king Myself an intense listen, but also a remarkable entrance from a breed of pop star that’s become increasingly rare: one who can sing about their struggles without it feeling like they’ve got an eye simultaneously trained on a camera lens. It might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but what can’t be denied is its bristling originality. —Steffanee Wang

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The membership and sound of Swedish collective múm has frequently fluctuated since its founding in 1997 by multi-instrumentalist/producer Gunnar Örn Tynes and composer/poet Örvar Smárason. What started as an exercise in lightly glitched indietronica has now become a chamber-pop project on History of Silence, múm’s seventh studio album. The band play swith the idea of distance across the album, a theme that’s evident as early as its outstretched opener “Miss You Dance.” Elsewhere, múm’s instrumentals drift apart in off time, though they almost always stay aligned in pleasant, major-key harmony. Silence is used wonderfully on tracks like “Kill the Light” and “Our Love is Distorting,” creating wide channels with plumes of blue-pink sound exploding across the water. Closing track “I Like to Shake” employs the same technique more subtly. A slow-plucked guitar plays a soft, tragic tune for about a minute before Hildur Guðnadóttir’s celestial voice sweeps in. “I like to shake like a leaf,” she sings, sounding at once tranquil and teary-eyed. “I like to shake your mama’s hand.” —Raphael Helfand

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Daydreaming plays a bit role in Musicality, the new project from artfully cool Copenhagen band haloplus+. The album’s title track rides a wave of glacial synths and drums that sound like bursting bubbles as vocalist Stine Victoria allows her mind drift about a partner. “Open Air Backseat,” with its gently strummed guitars and chopped and screwed vocal effects, toys again with the idea of escaping reality: “Get me in my dreams, you’re such a wannabe.” — DR. Read the full interview here

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Bakar’s new EP, BEASTIE, swaps the dark, introspective tones of his previous album for something lighter and unexpectedly playful. Across upbeat U.K. garage and acoustic riffs, the London-based artist continues to blend texture and rhythm across genres with ease. Track seven, “i got to learn chat,” reimagines Corinne Bailey Rae’s “Like a Star,” turning her lines into a personal mantra for love and heartbreak. Lead single, “Lonyo!” is full of end-of-school-year joy. It’s a short but intense journey through grief, hope, and bouncy grooves, perfect for anyone who wants to understand loss and feel joy at the same time. —Kylah Williams

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