6 albums you need to hear this week

In the age of streaming, it’s never been easier to listen to new music — but with over 60,000 new songs added to Spotify every day, it’s also never been harder to know what to put on. Every week, the team at Rolling Stone UK will run down some of the best new releases that have been added to streaming services.

This week, we’ve highlighted records by Wretch 32, Blondshell, NewDad, Låpsley, PUP and Model/Actriz.

Wretch 32 – HOME?

Wretch 32’s sixth album sees the vaunted Tottenham MC sixth album drilling into a broad theme — the complex perception of ‘home’ for British-Caribbean and Black British people. The result is a record that is as thrilling as it is incisive. On ‘Black and British’ he explores heartbreaking episodes in his own childhood, while ‘Home Sweet Home’ offers an irresistible team-up with Kano. It’s a brilliant piece of work from one of Britain’s boldest storytellers.

Listen on: Spotify | ‎Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music

Blondshell – If You Asked for a Picture

Dogfish, the 1986 poem by the American writer Mary Oliver, gives the second album from Blondshell its title. In it, Oliver ponders how much of herself to share through her art and how much to keep for herself. The album, If You Asked for a Picture, sees the singer named Sabrina Teitelbaum grappling with the same quandaries. Burned out from touring and “from just existing,” the record has an existential tilt and is written from the end of a tether. It gives If You Asked for a Picture – an album of great, strong indie-rock songs – its intriguing, conflicted narrative.

Listen on: Spotify | ‎Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music

NewDad – Safe EP

On their first offering since debut album ‘Madra’, Irish shoegazers NewDad take the sound to the next level, giving a sense of the lofty ambitions that the Galway group clearly hold. By their own admission, there’s sonic touch points such as Pavement and Sonic Youth to broaden their horizons too. Until album two arrives, it’s a brilliantly tantalising taste of where the group’s future lies.

Listen on: Spotify | ‎Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music

Låpsley – I’M A HURRICANE I’M A WOMAN IN LOVE

On her latest record, Låpsley delves into a sonic patchwork of indie-pop, folk, and electronic sounds to dissect the reality of a break-up. By her own admission it channels “the energy of Bruce Springsteen, Haim, Muna and King Krule”, resulting in a record that is as endlessly curious as it is inventive.

Listen on: Spotify | ‎Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music

PUP – Who Will Look After the Dogs?

The titular question of the new album by Toronto punks PUP came to frontman Stefan Babcock after “my life imploded” and he went through a breakup right after the announcement of their previous album, 2022’s The Unraveling of PUPTHEBAND. On follow-up Who Will Look After the Dogs?, Babcock sifts through the wreckage with sincere but suitably hilarious forthrightness, backed by a band writing their most urgent songs to date. It sees the frontman sending himself up as much as others, with traumas turned into punchlines. “That overblown stuff we all say in our dark moments can be hilarious once you’ve cooled off a bit,” he offers. “I don’t know if anyone else thinks it’s funny, but sometimes you gotta laugh at yourself. It’s the only way out of the abyss.”

Listen on: Spotify | ‎Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music

Model/Actriz – Pirouette

Pirouette, the second album from Brooklyn quartet Model/Actriz, gets closest yet to distilling the power and punch of their legendary live show. To look at, the band play traditional rock instrumentation, but are hellbent on using this formulaic base and then twisting it thrillingly into thoroughly unrecognisable shapes. Vocalist Cole Haden said the album is built around ideas of “tension and fluidity, dissonance and harmony” and the in between spaces that Pirouette exists in are mined wonderfully.

Listen on: Spotify | ‎Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music