Today in music news: DaBaby dropped an album and Kanye, unsurprisingly to most, didn’t. Outside the hip-hop sphere, Kentuckian country statesman Sturgill Simpson released a driving rock ‘n’ roll record accompanied by a Netflix anime special, and it’s a trip and a half. Michaela Anne released a more traditional country effort, the beautiful Desert Dove, and British rockers Temples shared their latest rock motif. Keep scrolling for the entire docket of albums out today, Sept. 27.
1. DaBaby: KIRK
Charlotte rapper DaBaby dropped a new record today, already his second out this year. KIRK is named after Dababy’s legal last name and features an incredible lineup of guests, including Nicki Minaj, Migos, Chance the Rapper, Gucci Mane and Kevin Gates. DaBaby doesn’t necessarily shake up his formula here, but his consistent rapping style and high-energy delivery make KIRK a great listen nonetheless. —Ellen Johnson
2. Girl Band: The Talkies
More than anything, Girl Band’s newest music speaks to a state of mind, one that’s quite pervasive these days: an apocalyptic anxiety, a dread that seeps into your bloodstream and quickens your heartbeat. Their acclaimed debut Holding Hands with Jamie was largely derived from vocalist Dara Kiely’s own mental health, including a post-breakup psychotic episode. Around that time, the group cancelled tour dates for their first LP due to health issues. Now they’ve returned, and are ready to revisit the gray matter floating between our ears. —Clare Martin
3. John Calvin Abney: Safe Passage
Singer/songwriter and in-demand multi-instrumentalist John Calvin Abney shares a new album today, Safe Passage, on Tulsa’s Black Mesa Records. The folk-leaning country crooner has toured with artists like John Moreland, Samantha Crain, and Lee Bains III + The Glory Fires over the last decade, but he more than holds his own as a solo artist. Safe Passage will carry you to straight to country/folk bliss. “Safe Passage is a collection of songs sewn together with familiar musical motifs, nostalgic reminders of tunes within tunes and a thread of hope,” Abney said in a statement. “I wrote most of this album with an optimistic message in mind, relating to internal forces and struggles, but in the end, the songs took on new meanings that were more global, more cosmic, more human.”—Ellen Johnson
4. Michaela Anne: Desert Dove
For her forthcoming third LP Desert Dove, country singer Michaela Anne left Nashville. In search of a more distraction-free environment, she instead decided to record the album in the beachside city of San Clemente, Calif. She and the band took their time, cutting the record steadily over a few weeks. The result is sweeping, unclouded music as wide and beautiful as the desert that inspired it. “I’m Not The Fire” is a classic, twang-fueled country song flourished with modern production elements and lots of rock ‘n’ roll guitar. Ultimately, it’s a call for happiness no matter your circumstances. “Whether you win or lose, you can be happy if you choose,” Michaela sings. It might come across as imperative, but Michaela Anne is really holding up a mirror, taking a good hard look at herself and asking the listener to do the same. —Ellen Johnson
5. Moon Duo: Stars Are The Light
Portland psych-rockers Moon Duo have shared their new album, Stars Are The Light, on Sacred Bones. The title track is an alien disco groove filled with gossamer synth tones and left-field strings peppered throughout. The duo, made up of Sanae Yamada and Wooden Shjips’ Ripley Johnson, harmonize in delicately processed vocals that add to the track’s ethereal quality. “I don’t want to stay here and fight / If I want to bring you love,” they croon tenderly. They describe Stars Are The Light as a collection of songs “about embodied human experience … rendered as a kind of dance of the self, both in relation to other selves and to the eternal dance of the cosmos” in a statement. They promise it’ll be filled with languid grooves and dreamy vocals, setting the stage for an internal exploration. —Scott Russell
6. The New Pornographers: In The Morse Code of Brake Lights
Canadian indie-rock mainstays The New Pornographers have shared their eighth studio effort In The Morse Code Of Brake Lights, the band’s follow-up to 2017’s acclaimed Whiteout Conditions and finds frontman A.C. Newman behind the producer’s chair. Lead single “Falling Down The Stairs Of Your Smile,” is a power-pop-leaning cut led by a warm bass, overdriven electric strumming and very, very lovesick lyrics: “You look just like a star maker that is not like a star / And you look good on paper / That is the cruelest part.” The track’s melodic outro is a highlight, ending on a swell of scuzzy guitars, warm keyboards, and a web of Newman and Neko Case’s harmonies. “I think it has that element of how do you deal with the ideas of love and happiness in this world right now?” Newman said of the song in a statement. “When current events are stressful, that makes a stress on people’s relationships, and you’re trying to figure out how to be happy in this loving relationship in this world that seems ugly at every turn.” —Savannah Sicurella
7. Sturgill Simpson: Sound & Fury
Sound & Fury is a brute strength record, full of needle-in-the-red guitars and vocals pushed to the edge of distortion, and sometimes past it. There has already been a lot of buzz about how this is Simpson’s “rock” album, which is true enough, but it also misses the point: Though his 2014 breakthrough Metamodern Sounds in Country Music pegged him as a latter-day country traditionalist, Simpson was neck-deep in blues and soul on A Sailor’s Guide to Earth. It’s more accurate to say that while ’70s-style outlaw country music was a starting point for Simpson, he’s not willing to let it box him in for the sake of other people’s expectations. —Eric R. Danton
8. Tegan & Sara: Hey, I’m Just Like You
Tegan and Sara are a legacy act now. No indie rock band has stepped into that role with as much creativity and aplomb as the Quin sisters—songwriters, trailblazers, LGBTQ activists and now avid self-archivists. The shift occurred around the 10th anniversary of The Con, the band’s charged and influential 2007 album, a milestone commemorated with not only an intimate tour but also a curated tribute album featuring the group’s peers. After they’d spent two decades clawing through the indie rock trenches, it was nice to see the twins finally basking in the respect they’d always deserved but not always received. Now Tegan and Sara are digging even further back in their history. Hey, I’m Just Like You, the sisters’ ninth album, arrives in tandem with a memoir about their fraught high school years titled, appropriately, High School. The album comes with an impossibly alluring origin story: While writing High School, the twins unearthed two “lost cassette tapes that had been unheard for over 20 years.” Those cassettes contained early songs the sisters wrote during the mid-to-late 1990s, when they were self-described teenage dirtbags—skipping school, experimenting with acid, shredding their fingers on their first electric guitar. Now, at 38, they’ve revisited and revised those songs with adult voices and (let’s just assume) a far heftier recording budget. Hey, I’m Just Like You is entirely comprised of those re-recordings. —Zach Schonfeld
9. Temples: Hot Motion
The follow-up to 2017’s rhapsodic Volcano, Hot Motion finds Temples on new ground, and wading into darker, deeper territory in terms of both songwriting and instrumentation. “It’s not a ten-track, relentless rock record from start to finish, it’s got a lot of light and shade and more tender moments, but that heavier, darker sound is something we wanted to explore further,” bassist Thomas Walmsley said of the album’s character in a statement. The album’s first single is a bright, brassy return to the band’s distinct psychedelic pomp, but built on a sturdier, stadium-rock backbone. The accompanying video drowns the band in warm hues of orange, red and yellow as they perform the track in a hazy funk. —Savannah Sicurella
10. Weeping Icon: Weeping Icon
New York noise punks Weeping Icon have released their debut self-titled album. “Control,” an unsettling ode to repressed rage, features an equally eerie visual accompaniment. “I’m really trying to perfect the art of screaming into a paper bag, and I want to look good doing it,” declares vocalist Sara Fantry, with careful diction and little emotion, over ominous close-ups of an electric fan. As the track moves from spoken word to garbled vocals and searing guitar, the eight-minute black-and-white video continues to transform the familiar into the unnerving as mysterious gloved hands caress an ancient, staticky television. Artist Cal Fish performs a movement piece throughout, alternately reflected in a blank TV screen and dancing in silhouette or alongside their hulking shadow on the wall. —Amanda Gersten