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.
Beth Gibbons: Lives Outgrown
Given that Beth Gibbons has played a crucial part in two of the greatest albums ever made (Dummy and Third), it’s no surprise that the Portishead frontwoman’s debut solo album is more of the same starpower that first propped her up 30 years ago. Lives Outgrown is immediate and unmistakable, woven together with stirring ballads like “Floating on a Moment” and boisterous, commanding flourishes like “Reaching Out.” Gibbons, forever a trip-hop hero, hurtles through the atmosphere on Lives Outgrown and lands in a world racked with roaring brass and string sections that act like a vortex of mayhem. And to that effect, Gibbons’ voice creeps along, swinging from unrestrained highs to haunting lows. “You said you will, you said you won’t / You can’t tell if you don’t / You stand alone on your own / Reaching out / Holding on,” she croons on “Reaching Out,” taking shape as a portrait of Gibbons’ creative mind over the decade she spent writing Lives Outgrown. When it’s all said and done, the Portishead Cinematic Universe might wind up being one of the most brilliant ecosystems of music ever. —Matt Mitchell & Olivia Abercrombie
Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard and Soft
Even in the years that Billie Eilish doesn’t release an album, she still finds a way to dominate. Her Barbie soundtrack song “What Was I Made For?” won a Grammy, Oscar and Golden Globe, catapulting her to even higher peaks of fame than that of her previous two albums, When We Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? and Happier Than Ever. Now, 2024 is set to be just another notch in Eilish’s belt—as her new record, Hit Me Hard and Soft, finds her exploring bigger and brighter sounds. The soft-spoken hush that has made her the most-decorated Zoomer musician alive is all but abandoned for stadium-sized highs. “Birds of a Feather” very well might be her best song yet, and “L’Amour de ma Vie” finds Eilish relishing an amped-up lounge-singer lilt. It’s fascinating to see her take this direction, and how joyous that Finneas’ production meets her all the way—especially on a track like “Bittersuite.” While Hit Me Hard and Soft will likely not have the cultural impact that her debut did five years ago, it’s an upgrade from Happier Than Ever and a surefire encapsulation of why Eilish is one of the best pop musicians alive. —MM
Cage the Elephant: Neon Pill
It is impossible to consider Neon Pill without contextualizing frontman Matt Shultz’s mental health journey, as it’s written throughout it. Neon Pill reflects this personal growth in its mature sound. While glimmers of their heavier earlier work shine through, this is their cleanest album to date. It kicks off on a high note with “HiFi (True Light),” a sonically refreshing track that stands out amongst a series of melancholy tunes on earlier albums. The song leans into pop influences but remains true to the band’s grunge rock core. “Rainbow” follows suit, pushing forward with tight, steady drum beats from Jared Champion and groovy guitar rhythms from Brad Shultz. The song leads listeners into the title track and leading single, which nods at Matt Shultz’s struggles with mental health. He sings, “Like a loaded gun, my love / I lost control of the wheel / Double-crossed by a neon pill.”
Arriving at just under 40 minutes, Neon Pill is some of their most polished work to date—an emblem of the delicate care for their craft and community that was funneled into creating it. Fans looking for a classic rock track may find solace in “Metaverse,” but Neon Pill is no Cage the Elephant or Melophobia. Instead, it is a mixture of their most successful elements, such as the nonchalant rock that propelled “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” into legendary status, and newer, indie pop elements fitting for a younger generation’s taste. —Alyssa Goldberg
Crumb: AMAMA
Unorthodox song structure is truly the name of the game on Crumb’s AMAMA, which allows Lila Ramani to flex her storytelling chops. Her lyrics are sparse, but make sure to be worthwhile where they are present. “Side By Side” is particularly confessional, as Ramani ruminates on her existential turmoil brought on by touring: “I change myself, degrade my health / For you, for you / So you can keep on doing well / We made this thing a mess / I drank away the stress” she sings over a juxtaposing, sick ass breakbeat and bright synths. The lyrical ethos of this record follows the group’s several years of touring, which often sparked fairly novel encounters.
The amount of fun the band had in the studio making this record is palpable on tracks like “Genie” and “Crushxd,” the latter being a song dedicated to a turtle named Sam that was accidentally killed by Crumb’s tour van. Despite its silly premise, “Crushxd” has one of the most killer instrumentals on the whole project. Jonathan Gilad’s jazz-inspired drumming keeps up impeccably with the racing synth lead and fiery distorted electric guitar. I’m sure that dead turtle would be proud. “Genie” has similarly impressive drumming (Gilad is truly the star of AMAMA), and absolutely earns its near six minute runtime, acting as a prime centerpiece for the album. They do well on their promise to try as many synth patches as possible, reminiscent of any given fan favorite MGMT deep cut. AMAMA is a record that reminds me that music is supposed to be fun – it doesn’t need some greater cultural indication or grand artistic statement to be good and worthwhile. Sometimes you just want to listen to some quirky synths over really well mixed drums with vocals nearing Cocteau Twins levels of indiscernibility. Rest in peace to Sam the turtle. You would’ve loved AMAMA. —Lead Weinstein
Ghostly Kisses: Darkroom
Darkroom, the sophomore album from Québec duo Ghostly Kisses—the project of musicians Margaux Sauvé and Louis-Étienne Santais—is understated and picturesque, with Sauvé’s hushed vocals colliding with Santais’ technicolor arrangements. The result is a collection of muted, sublime club tracks best-suited to be listened to alone. It’s that duality that makes songs like “On & Off,” “Crimson” and “Keep It Real” shine, as flourishes of electronica set aglow beneath Sauvé’s voice. There is a gentle composure running throughout the record, a profound intensity that never ruptures. An emotional anchor arises from Sauvé and Santais’ chemistry, allowing Darkroom to exist as an epic portrayal of post-modern pain told through the voice of lurid synths and a crushing, hypnotic lilt. With songs inspired by Sauvé’s “Box of Secrets” open forum that she shares between the duo and their fans, the 12 chapters of Darkroom feel crushingly intimate and familiar. —MM [Read our full feature]
Lip Critic: Hex Dealer
On Hex Dealer, all money is dirty money, and each act of buying and selling feeds an insatiable ego. Dead-on in their ruthless parodying, Lip Critic amp up ideals of capitalist individualism to their most over-the-top extremes, revealing the true ridiculousness of the notion that the ability to buy a new car or a designer outfit or a custom-made sandwich is the pinnacle of freedom and self-determination. Lead vocalist Bret Kaser begins “It’s The Magic”—a blown-out, descent-into-Hell of an opener—bemoaning “I thought I’d feel free in my brand new jeans” and later begs “open up your pockets and show me a thing or two.” On fan favorite “In The Wawa (Convinced I Am A God)” Kaser’s power trip descends into an ego death of sorts when he’s faced with his own alienation: “They wouldn’t give it to me / A vision of myself / So I drink the image that they sell on the shelf.” It’s this kind of thrilling, tinnitus-inducing, sensory overload that magnifies just how dense and charged a mundane interaction (or transaction) can be.
The characters that populate the songs on Hex Dealer are often these larger-than-life pastiches of already-cartoonish figures we’re well familiar with. The cult leader intoning over ominous, left-right panned sampler feedback from Kaser and Connor Kleitz, and Danny Eberle and Ilan Natter’s dark, pounding drums on “Sermon” is recognizable as any number of celebrities whose unchecked egoism gets repackaged as spiritual wisdom (one might even wonder if the “silver surfer man” mentioned could be a reference to a certain Ye interlude). As the track falls into an earsplitting, increasingly unintelligible outro, so too does its crooked protagonist. The titular “Milky Max” kicks off with distorted animal noises that bleed into a glitchy melody and, lyrically, comes off as a parody of a manosphere, “billionaire mindset”-type of guy—the kind you’ve probably seen preaching from behind a podcast mic. Our narrator—the Virgin to Milky Max’s Chad, if you will—looks us to this figure as a symbol for all the ways he himself has failed to achieve the valorized ideals of masculinity that this man embodies (“He’s that Barbie movie Ken / He seems to have all that I lack”) but eventually reveals just how flimsy and arrested these ideals are (“There he goes / On the hooves of the cattle / With a feather in his hand / Still clutching a rattle”). —Grace Robins-Somerville [Read our full review and full Best of What’s Next feature]
Phoebe Go: Marmalade
Marmalade, the eight-song debut album from Melbourne singer-songwriter Phoebe Go, is a courageous, intoxicating collection of slow-burn folk-rock and pop. Phoebe and producer Simon Lam (Charli XCX, Armlock) combine here to awe at every turn, and few debut records this year have been bolstered by such a strong arrangement of teaser tracks (“Something You Were Trying, “7 Up,” “Leave,” “Stupid”). “Leave” is an especially catchy chapter, pairing pop hook sensibilities with a stripped-back, sublime, guitar-centric instrumental that sounds congruent to the last decade of catchiness and bolsters an affecting solo. Likewise, “Good Fight” is a devastating ballad that ruptures from plainsong quiet into a riffing missile of healing. “I’m scared and bored at the same time,” Phoebe sings, before lunging headfirst into an ocean of swirling catharsis. —MM
The Avett Brothers: The Avett Brothers
On their first new studio record in nearly five years, the Avett Brothers are happy to put their poetry chops on display, stripping away some of the new-age production elements they tried out on 2016’s True Sadness and 2019’s Closer Than Together and allowing the lyrics to air out. They’re still working with legendary producer Rick Rubin, who some fans have held partly responsible for some of the Avett Brothers’ less impactful music of the last 10 years, but their new self-titled album sounds more like the Avett of old than the previous two. There’s a return to the punk-inspired screams they’ve employed on a few of their best ever songs (“Talk On Indolence”) on “Love Of A Girl,” the old-time music of their early days on “Country Kid” and the voice recordings of the Mignonette era on “Cheap Coffee.” The synths take a puzzling turn on “Forever Now,” but for the most part the music is a welcome nod to the music of their origin story—strings and singing.
But the subject matter, primarily, is most definitely new Avett. On their last two albums, they made less withdrawals from their love song bank and turned their attention to life’s big questions, often examining them through a faith perspective. The strongest example of this quest is “No Hard Feelings,” a truly moving song about laying down hate at the end of one’s life and finally facing a “savior true.” In pondering matters of the soul on The Avett Brothers, they never quite replicate the achievement of “Feelings,” but they get close on “Forever Now” (“How far is heaven? Is it in the air we breathe?”), “Never Apart” (“Death is not an issue / It cannot break my heart / And I don’t have to miss you / We’ll never be apart”) and “We Are Loved,” which evokes a hymn in the best way. These are high points delivered with gentleness. —Ellen Johnson [Read our full review]
Various Artists: Everybody’s Getting Involved: A Tribute Album
The celebration of Stop Making Sense’s 40th anniversary continues with Everybody’s Getting Involved, a 16-song compilation of other artists covering the Talking Heads’ setlist from their legendary concert film. As far as tributes go, you can’t get more diverse than this record—as everyone from Miley Cyrus to Kevin Abstract to the National to Paramore are, quite literally, getting involved. With a melting pot that deep, it’s no surprise that the tracklist features a lot of ambitious, experimental approaches to such bulletproof rock songs—especially Abstract’s take on “Once in a Lifetime,” Lorde’s cover of the Talking Heads’ cover of Al Green’s “Take Me to the River” and Teezo Touchdown’s “Making Flippy Floppy.” Some real stick-to-the-basics covers arise here, too, like the National’s “Heaven” and BADBADNOTGOOD’s “This Must Be the Place.” Paramore steals the show with their cover of “Burning Down the House,” however, and their performance is so damn good that they’ve been playing it every night while opening up for Taylor Swift in Europe this month. —MM
Other Notable New Album Releases This Week: Ani DiFranco: Unprecedented Shit; DRAAG: Actually, The Quiet is Nice EP; Guppy: Something is Happening…; Guster: Ooh La La; Kate Hudson: Glorious; Little Feat: Sam’s Place; Mach-Hommy: #RichAxxHaitian; Of Montreal: Lady On The Cusp; Rapsody: Please Don’t Cry; Shellac: To All Trains; Slash: Orgy of the Damned; Wolfacejoeyy: Valentino; Zayn: Room Under the Stairs