Best New Albums: This Week’s Records to Stream

Paste is the place to kick off each and every New Music Friday. We follow our regular roundups of the best new songs by highlighting the most compelling new records you need to hear. Find the best new albums of the week below, from priority picks to honorable mentions.

Big Thief: Double Infinity

Though just nine tracks long, Double Infinity rarely feels lean or lightweight. Virtually every song on the album is as full, thought-through, and minutely detailed as their previous work, which makes guitarist Buck Meek’s claim that the recording process went “purely on instinct” all the more impressive. Perhaps the flow from performing as the backing band on Tucker Zimmerman’s album Dance of Love snuck its way back into their own work. As always, Adrianne Lenker’s songwriting is top-notch, particularly on “Incomprehensible,” a banger of an opener. The song begins with what sounds like a cannonball into a pool of metal and wind chimes before Lenker launches into a warm, mindful meditation on the past and future, replete with impeccably rhymed verses about nature and succinct, disarmingly wise philosophical musings. The songs that follow “Incomprehensible” have a similarly hypnotic effect in their spirited presentation: the upbeat, jangly, ‘90s alt-rock gallop of “Words” gives the song’s winding exploration of the ineffable some propulsion; “Los Angeles” starts its romantic, cross-country yearning with a sweet chorus of laughter and ends with a great guitar outro; and “All Night All Day” buoys its celebration of pleasure and physical touch with lovely harmonies and a groovy, twinkly bounce reminiscent of Arcade Fire’s Reflektor. “Double Infinity,” which just so happens to be the name of the place Lenker recorded last year’s Bright Future, functions as the album’s high point, with each verse ending on a present participle that reflects Lenker’s constantly shifting emotional state (“waiting,” “gaining,” “raging,” “cascading”). The song’s ruminative tone and production wouldn’t feel out of place on any of Big Thief’s other albums, yet it remains a stunning thesis for the band’s embrace of the present, bridging regret and desire, or “what’s been lost and what lies waiting.” —Sam Rosenberg [4AD]

Read: “Big Thief Achieves Greatness Once Again on Double Infinity”

David Byrne: Who Is The Sky?

When David Byrne sang the hook on “Everyday Is a Miracle,” he delivered the line with such conviction that thinking otherwise seemed unreasonable. He carries that joyous tone into Who Is the Sky?, on a dozen new songs that sound ebullient right from the start. The musical arrangements have a lot to do with that: drummer Tom Skinner of The Smile and percussionist Mauro Refosco lock down immaculate grooves (with additional rhythmic contributions from Kid Harpoon) that serve as a launching pad for the rest of the musicians. On opener “Everybody Laughs,” that manifests as a delirious riot of strings swirling through bursts of brass, the bright chatter of a marimba and layers of effusive vocals led by Byrne himself, with a guest spot from St. Vincent. Byrne’s vocals are a high point here in general. He doesn’t sing with any kind of classical purity—never has, really—but his unmistakable voice remains limber and expressive. Best of all, he still goes for it vocally, in a way that makes clear that he takes great pleasure in singing. When Byrne lifts his voice on “Don’t Be Like That” over a polyrhythmic variation on a Bo Diddley beat, it’s practically an invitation to sing along over accents from strings that lead to an instrumental break carried by horns and Byrne’s scat vocals. “My Apartment Is My Friend” is, in fact, a love letter to his apartment, while a new skincare regimen on “Moisturizing Thing” gives him the same youthful glow as a 3-year-old. Though such songs can seem silly on the surface, there’s usually some greater profundity at work. If nothing else, Byrne’s willingness to embrace the absurd and to exhibit unbridled joy is his way of pushing back against a mounting sense of fear and gloom. Bringing together so many collaborators here gives Who Is the Sky? a feeling of community, too, which extends to listeners through songs that seem intended for dancing. —Eric R. Danton [Matador]

Read: “David Byrne Embraces the Absurd on Who Is the Sky?”

Georgia Maq: God’s Favourite EP

Any day we get new music from ex-Camp Cope frontwoman Georgia Maq is a good one. Like any god-abiding music critic, I still grieve the dissolution of the beloved Australian punk trio, but I thank my lucky stars Maq won’t be stepping away from her guitar any time soon. God’s Favourite is her sharpest solo work yet: a lean, five-song dispatch from the other side of the massive upheaval that is moving across the world (specifically, from Melbourne to Los Angeles) and becoming something, or someone, new. Produced with Daniel Fox, the EP trades the glossy pop experiments of 2019’s Pleaser for something earthier, folding in folk and Americana while keeping Maq’s voice and words front and center. “Pay Per View” captures the absurd rhythm of LA dating—scooters, phones blowing up, the mantra “I’m God’s favorite” shouted until it half-sticks—while “Slightly Below the Middle” reframes the Charlie Daniels classic “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” in the same breath as it skewers modern romance once more (“oh, they want to fuck me, but they never want to love me”). What ties it all together isn’t reinvention so much as refusal: Maq writes like she sings, vulnerable in her defiance and defiant in her vulnerability. It’s both stripped down and fully alive, the kind of step forward that feels less like a pivot than a clearing of the air—and a very welcome one, at that. —Casey Epstein-Gross [1000 Rats]

Ivy: Traces of You

Most, if not all of Ivy’s fanbase likely assumed that Bar/None’s new print run of those cherished LPs would be the proper capstone on Andy Chase, Adam Schlesinger, and Dominique Durand’s work together. But, in June 2025, word broke about Traces of You, the band’s first album in 14 years. While sorting through old tapes in their Rhode Island studio, Chase and Durand found about five-dozen sketches, demos, fragments, and outlines—many of which featured the late Schlesinger, who passed away in 2020. After calling keyboardist/guitarist Bruce Driscoll, an old touring and recording buddy, for help, Ivy built 10 songs out of material dating as far back as 1994. Schlesinger is present on every song, and Traces of You is undoubtedly good—a late-career encapsulation of Ivy’s downtown sound and its agelessness. Listening to these songs, like the drum ‘n’ bass skitters of “Fragile People,” the crests of monochrome washing over “Say You Will,” and the brassy bounce of “Heartbreak,” you may not be able to distinguish Schlesinger’s parts from everyone else’s (don’t worry, the band can’t distinguish them either), but you’ll find one important confirmation: Ivy’s identity—great pop musicians who are even greater in each other’s company—remains intact and enchanting. —Matt Mitchell [Bar/None]

Read: “Ivy: A Long Talk About Their Unlikely, Ceremonious, and Emotional Return”

La Dispute: No One Was Driving the Car

I am by no means a card-carrying La Dispute fan. Even when the band was in their heyday, I was never quite sold on their sound in the same way some of my friends were. But even when their post-hardcore, mathy poetry hasn’t been my bag, I’ve always appreciated the salve it’s been for the people I love. I enjoyed their last album, Panorama, and have been looking forward to their newest: No One Was Driving the Car. Lead singles “I Shaved My Head” and “Autofiction Detail” were heavy, surging efforts, but the 9-minute, blockbuster “Environmental Catastrophe Film” laps at the wounds of burning skin and head-splitting tempos—all while reckoning with the pollution of the water running through Grand Rapids, Michigan. “Would the poison inside from the river kill you later in life? In the kitchen with your wife and your kids, eating dinner when your body gives in?” vocalist Jordan Dreyer asks, deafeningly. In a reflection on Grand Rapids’ economic reliance on furniture manufacturing, Dreyer considers the lifespan of chairs and the comfort it brings—just as the creation of life might. But the crux of “Environmental Catastrophe Film” is the history it weaves into itself, told in three parts about boys growing into men while gypsum flows through the tunnels dug beneath neighborhood streets. “Every moment passing is another one you’ll never get back,” Dreyer insists. “And you can only get older.” I know a great song when I hear it, and “Environmental Catastrophe Film” has left me thinking about one couplet in particular, words sharp like the blade on a lathe: “All those dead men, fading languages left / Last vestiges above intersect.” No One Was Driving the Car is La Dispute at its best and most uncomfortable. Presented in a three-part saga informed by Paul Schrader’s First Reformed, these songs will cast awe upon you until your body begins to squirm. —Matt Mitchell [Epitaph]

Lucrecia Dalt: A Danger to Ourselves

Lucrecia Dalt’s music may not immediately strike a listener as sexy. The Colombian-born musician’s spacious, layered production has as much in common with Tom Waits and Cosey Fanni Tutti as it does with a new class of Spanish-speaking experimentalists, such as AMORE and Mabe Fratti. But there’s something seductive to Dalt’s music, like you’ve tossed a coin down a well and, in exchange, the witch at the bottom will sing you a song. Her new record, A Danger to Ourselves trickles, hums, and cackles. Born out of a move from Berlin to New Mexico, as well as a generative new creative and romantic partnership with Japan’s David Sylvian, who appears as a producer on the album, the new songs eschew the elaborate world-building of her former work for something more primal—she describes the album as emerging from the “abyssal realm of erotic delirium.” The sensation of falling appears throughout A Danger to Ourselves. Dalt and Camille Mandoki’s haunting backup vocals on the song sound like wind rushing through your ears. Other songs like “hasta el final” and “divina” are pure adoration. “Caes” found inspiration in the work of Cuban-American performance artist Ana Mendieta, whose Siluetas series seared the contours of the artist’s body into the earth—she later fell 33 stories to her death from her Greenwich Village apartment, a crime for which her husband at the time was tried but later acquitted. The song took on new meaning when, on the same day the song was released, Dalt experienced an unexpected, near-fatal seizure that has triggered a reevaluation of many aspects of the songwriter’s life. —Karly Quadros [Rvng Intl.]

Read: “The Abyssal Realm of Lucrecia Dalt”

SG Lewis: Anemonia

SG Lewis’s third studio LP, Anemoia, centers around place and memory. “Anemoia” comes from the Greek words for “wind” and “mind,” and is defined as “the feeling of nostalgia for a time, place, or experience you’ve never known.” The title speaks directly to the kind of internal world-building that happens when you mix memories with observations and imagination. Anemoia, then, is Lewis’ soundtrack to all the times and places he wishes he’d experienced firsthand: ‘90s Ibiza nights, Studio 54’s heyday. As a self-described nostalgia addict, I’ve had my fair share of anemoia: for peak Laurel Canyon rock, for Olympia’s ‘90s grunge scene. Everything is imagined through rose-colored fragments, but feels lived, regardless. The album’s cover mirrors that liminal space: Lewis stands at the edge of an empty room high above the clouds, looking out into a pink-lilac haze. Closer “Baby Blue” creates another transportive space, this time with Oliver Sim of The xx, whose vocals cut through the haze. Lewis blends their sounds seamlessly, allowing Sim’s voice to become malleable, stretching and bellowing over the tropical house groove. Even as Lewis pushes his solo instincts further, collaboration remains at the core of his process. On Instagram, he explained, “All of the collaborations are the result of friendships I have formed over the last 10 years in music, and most of the music was made in the studio at the end of my garden in London. For that reason, this album feels like a part of me.” While Anemoia is inspired by a time traveler’s dream itinerary, it’s a London record at heart: reflective and personal, built in his flat during a rare period of stillness. Lewis transfers his pop instincts into different niches of house, trance, and disco without losing intimacy. —Cassidy Sollazzo [Positiva]

Read: “SG Lewis Dreams in Disco on Anemoia”

shame: Cutthroat

Made with legendary producer John Congleton, who has produced some of the best indie albums of the past decade for the likes of Angel Olsen, Alvvays, and St Vincent, Cutthroat takes on a larger-than-life approach, one that rewrites what it means to be a rock star and shows you don’t need to fit the traditional mold in order to make authentic, arena-ready bangers. The opening title track immediately hooks you with its thumping, in-your-face beat that feels like your heartbeat after taking a Jägerbomb. Here, Charlie Steen takes on the persona of his worst nightmare: a wanker who only cares about partying and collecting women like objects. But even while putting on a character, hints of sincerity seep through as Steen sings, “And why not / Do what you want to do?” That’s the basis of the LP: shame not allowing themselves to be boxed into what’s expected of them as a British post-punk band, instead toying with genres like country, electroclash, and even some modern Britpop. With an adrenaline-filled track like “Cutthroat,” it’s tough to follow it with something that matches its momentum. But shame pulls off the gamble of starting off their album with one of the most dynamic songs yet by following it with “Cowards Around,” a hypnotic track that builds tension through frenetic percussion, as Steen again takes on a character who is xenophobic and proudly uneducated (“Cowards are people who live in places that I’ve never been”; “Cowards are people who got a degree), while also calling out the true cowards (“Cowards are Members of Parliament”; “Cowards are politicians, criminals”). Even while calling out those “cowards,” Steen admits himself to be one in “Quiet Life,” a country-tinged track that takes inspiration from gothabilly bands like The Cramps. “I’m a coward ’cause I know / That I can’t say no / To a life ’round here / That I don’t even know,” Steen sings, as he reflects on a toxic relationship that he feels stuck in, while trying to find the strength to seek out that “quiet life” away from that partner before losing himself further. Coming after Steen has poked fun at the wankers he hates, it’s a rare, vulnerable moment on Cutthroat that shines in its simplicity, with an ultra-catchy chorus. —Tatiana Tenreyro [Dead Oceans]

Read: “Shame Are All Gas, No Brakes”

Suede: Antidepressants

Whether you say Suede or The London Suede, Brett Anderson’s band just made its best record since Dog Man Star. A lot of Antidepressants was co-written by guitarist Richard Oakes, who was just a kid when the bands that Anderson and Mat Osman were pulling inspiration from in the early ‘80s. But his historical perspective on the music, which he’s consumed like a madman in the 30-ish years since joining Suede, rubs up against Anderson and Osman’s lived-in experience, revealing a touch of The Fall and Wire where Bowie and JG Ballard once held court. The songs on Antidepressants are paranoid but defiant. The stakes feel high on a song like “Disintegrate,” as Anderson and co. try to articulate the disconnect we’ve been starved of. Initially intended to be a ballet soundtrack, Suede reworked “Somewhere Between an Atom and a Star” and “Life is Endless, Life is a Moment” to better encapsulate this raw, frenzied moment they’re in. “Sweet Kid” and “Trance State” are among the best things this band has ever done. The London Evening Standard called Suede “the most visceral live act on the planet.” Antidepressants is as good a confirmation as any. —Matt Mitchell [BMG]

Tchotchke: Playin’ Dumb

Tchotchke, the NYC trio of Anastasia Sanchez, Eva Chambers, and Emily Tooraen, are back with their first album in three years, Playin’ Dumb (produced by another Big Apple favorite, the Lemon Twigs). The band’s last full-length, their self-titled 2022 effort, was a tremendous introduction to the best contemporary translators of girl-group panache. “Did You Hear?” is diva-rock full of kaleidoscopic pop color, as the trio rise up to meet the moment, escalating their reverie of retro with cool-blue guitar riffs and Merseybeat drum fills.” The rest of Playin’ Dumb fixates on similar techniques of retro, led by “Poor Girl,” “Davide,” and “Other Boys.” Tooraen calls her and her bandmates’ work on the former as “the personas of three ungrateful and out-of-touch girls with complete stories in the span of four lines each.” In measures of sunshine pop, girl-punk, and bop-rock, “out-of-touch” may very well sum up Tchotchke’s whole deal for some. But for me, pop music’s monotony is often so unbearable that Sanchez, Chambers, and Tooraen’s reluctance to surrender to modernity sounds inventive and radical. This is an album you need to get lost in right now. It’s also got the best cover artwork of 2025 so far, an image that features a Tchotchke board game designed by Chambers herself. —Matt Mitchell [Self-Released]

Titanic: Hagen

The duo behind Titanic, Mabe Fratti and Hector Tosta (aka I. la Católica), have long lived in the mixed-genre experimental scene. As a soloist, Fratti’s songs bounce between free jazz and chamber pop, running between structure and unboundedness. Her collaborative projects with Amor Muere collective members and Gudrun Gut are similarly exploratory and complex. Tosta has contributed guitar to a variety of bands performing everything from punk to progressive folk rock, each project thornier than the last. And together, the power couple have been on a tear ever since they properly joined forces under the moniker Titanic roughly five years ago. Their songs are filled to the brim with jerky, arrhythmic guitar, cello, and drum lines, each more memorable and unexpected than the last. On their second album, Hagen, the pair’s exhilarating rhythms and soaring vocals create an edgy, foreboding style of experimental pop that’s both catchy and challenging. “Escarbo dimensiones” starts with muffled syncopation and grows into a symphony of strings and satiny guitars that would feel right at home in an old action flick about international spies or cyborgs gone rogue. Something this glossy could easily come off as gauche, but Fratti’s prismatic voice is rich with emotion as she swings from word to word. “Te tragaste el chicle” first sees her vocals spread evenly over a slow, thumping ‘80s ballad beat. She sings at a bright, level volume before belting, “Se que no me van a perseguir” (“I know I won’t be chased”). The sprightly guitar line beneath her climaxing vocals underscores the sense that Fratti’s making a much-needed declaration. As much as there is to fear in this world—she cites technological messiahs and armed monkeys—she sees no value in running anymore. The line can be read as either resignation or resolution, to give up and accept fate or stand one’s ground against enemies who aren’t really after you. —Devon Chodzin [Unheard of Hope]

Read: “Ambition and Ingenuity Make For Pop Brilliance on Titanic’s Hagen”

Other Notable New Album Releases This Week: Brian Dunne: Clams Casino; Cut Copy: Moments; El Michels Affair: 24 Hr Sports; Flur: Plunge; G Flip: Dream Ride; grandson: INTERTIA; James K: Friend; JayWood: Leo Negro; Max Richter: Sleep Circle; Primal Fear: Domination; Saint Etienne: International; Shallowater: God’s Gonna Give You a Million Dollars; Whitmer Thomas: TILT EP