9 New Albums You Should Listen to Now: Queens of the Stone Age, Killer Mike, Sigur Rós, and More
With so much good music being released all the time, it can be hard to determine what to listen to first. Every week, Pitchfork offers a run-down of significant new releases available on streaming services. This week’s batch includes new albums from Queens of the Stone Age, Killer Mike, Sigur Rós, Meshell Ndegeocello, Pat Metheny, Asake, Fust, Bonny Doon, and Bettye LaVette. Subscribe to Pitchfork’s New Music Friday newsletter to get our recommendations in your inbox every week. (All releases featured here are independently selected by our editors. When you buy something through our affiliate links, however, Pitchfork earns an affiliate commission.)
Queens of the Stone Age: In Times New Roman… [Matador]
For Joshua Homme, the creation of Queens of the Stone Age’s new album, In Times New Roman…, came during a custody dispute, a cancer diagnosis, and the deaths of friends. “I think this is the first time I didn’t want to make a record, but I was dealing with a lot of stuff in my personal life,” he said in an interview. “We recorded a lot of stuff. I think I was doing it because when I’m in trouble, this is what I do. This is where I go to get right.” The follow-up to 2017’s Villains includes the singles “Emotion Sickness,” “Paper Machete,” and “Carnavoyeur.”
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Killer Mike: Michael [Loma Vista]
Following the success of Run the Jewels, Killer Mike decided he had something left to say as a solo artist. “I realized, sitting at home during the pandemic, that I’d never gotten a chance to introduce people to Michael,” he said in a recent interview. “Now, I have an opportunity to show people the experience of a 9-year-old boy on that album cover with the halo and the horns, that little mischievous motherfucker who knows the word of God.” The album, Michael, features Young Thug, El-P, André 3000, Future, 2 Chainz, Ty Dolla $ign, and more.
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Sigur Rós: Átta [BMG]
At the beginning of the week, we didn’t know we’d be met at week’s end by a new Sigur Rós album. Today, Átta is here—the first Sigur Rós album to feature returning keyboardist Kjartan “Kjarri” Sveinsson since his departure in 2012. He joins Jónsi and Georg “Goggi” Holm on an album they’ve described as “sparse” and “floaty.” Featuring assistance from the London Contemporary Orchestra and Icelandic brass musicians Brassgat í bala, the album includes the single “Blóðberg.”
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Meshell Ndegeocello: The Omnichord Real Book [Blue Note]
After spending all of her 2018 album, Ventriloquism, interpreting R&B radio hits from the 1980s and ’90s, Meshell Ndegeocello digs into her own past for her new LP, The Omnichord Real Book. Inspired by the various ephemera left behind by her late parents—including the first “Real Book” her father gave her—Ndegeocello wrote the record alone in her attic with a gifted Omnichord. She then brought it to life in the studio with a coterie of gifted improvisers, including Jeff Parker, Jason Moran, and Joel Ross. On the early single “Virgo,” Ndegeocello is beckoned to embark on a cosmic pilgrimage to the stars with harpist Brandee Younger and Julius Rodriguez on the organ.
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Pat Metheny: Dream Box [Modern]
Pat Metheny compiled his new album of “quiet electric guitar” from a series of solo recordings made over the years that he recently rediscovered. The guitarist and composer pulled out his favorites—nine nocturnal instrumentals of improvised electric wandering over acoustic harmonic parts—and arranged them into a melancholy whole. “These are really moments in time, and in fact I have almost no memory of having recorded most of them,” Metheny said in press materials. “They just kind of showed up.”
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Asake: Work of Art [YBNL Nation/Empire]
Rising Afropop singer Asake shared his debut album, Mr. Money With the Vibe, only last year, but is already a global star. He looks to capitalize on that momentum with follow-up Work of Art. With early single “Amapiano” as an indication, he continues to fuse the titular South African style of dance music with his own brand of Afropop.
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Fust: Genevieve [Dear Life]
Fust’s full-length debut of questing, hearty alt-country is full of love songs that burrow into the quiet thrills and anxieties of living a “small life,” as they put it in press materials. The six-piece mostly recorded the album in its native Asheville, North Carolina. Guests on the album include Indigo De Souza and MJ Lenderman.
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Bonny Doon: Let There Be Music [Anti-]
Hailing from Detroit, Bonny Doon served as Waxhatchee’s backing band on the Saint Cloud tour; the band’s Bill Lennox and Bobby Colombo also worked with Katie Crutchfield on that album. “The experience raised the ceiling on our imagination,” Colombo said in a statement. Bonny Doon’s new album, Let There Be Music, was led by “On My Mind” and the title track.
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Bettye LaVette: LaVette! [Jay-Vee]
“It began with me falling in love with the writing of Randall Bramblett,” soul legend Bettye LaVette said of how her new album came to be, which exclusively features songs written by the Georgia-based songwriter. “I was able to go forward because my producer Steve Jordan and his record label and team at Jay-Vee Records believed in it as well.” LaVette! features the lead single “Plan B.”
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