8 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 from Wolf Alice, Stray Kids, Mac DeMarco, Laufey, Deftones, Water From Your Eyes, Nourished By Time and Royel Otis.

Wolf Alice – The Clearing

The glorious and sweeping strings that open Wolf Alice’s fourth album are the first hint at the sense of freedom that defines The Clearing. After becoming one of the UK’s biggest and best new bands with 2015 debut My Love is Cool and follow-up Visions of a Life, the band took another step forwards with 2021’s Blue Weekend, a divine third album that also left its scars. Blue Weekend was a revelation of an album, one that grappled with the tumult of your late twenties. On The Clearing, with the band all now in their thirties, they bask in the self-understanding that can come with ageing, and the work they’ve put in.

Read our full review of The Clearing here and revisit the Rolling Stone UK cover feature with Wolf Alice here.

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

Stray Kids – KARMA

Big concepts run wild on the fourth album from these K-Pop giants, which was unveiled at a press conference earlier today, no less. In this case, it’s an album purportedly set in the year 2081 and revolves around an grand annual sports event called Karma Sports, a kind of Olympics equivalent. Throughout the record, each member – Hyunjin, I.N, Bang Chan, Lee Know, Seungmin, Han, Changbin, and Felix – battles to reclaim their titles in the 2081 games. It’s hifalutin and wildly futuristic stuff, but you sense their fans will lap it up. One of the lead tracks, ‘Ceremony’, ranks among their most ambitious to date.

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

Mac DeMarco – Guitar

Since becoming a goofy indie superstar in the 2010s, Mac DeMarco has stripped things back and brought them closer to home. Among his recent projects was the 199-track, eight-plus-hour One Wayne G, and his singular path continues on new record Guitar. Written inside a month alone at home in Los Angeles, the record is the purest distillation of DeMarco’s new outlook and process. He says: “I think Guitar is as close to a true representation of where I’m at in my life today as I can manage to put to paper.“ I’m happy to share thdis music, and look forward to playing these songs as many places as I’m able.”

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

Laufey – A Matter of Time

Laufey’s third album sees the prodigious Icelandic star lean into the classic jazz stylings for which she’s received rightful acclaim across the globe, but it’s injected with a kaleidoscopic twist which allows the singer to show just how limitless her potential really is. The opening track ‘Clockwork’ leans joyously into big band sounds, while ‘Lover Girl’ feels like the soundtrack to a timeless sixties romance. But the true highlight arrives in ‘Snow White’, a slow-burning bewitching ballad that sees the singer address her Icelandic-Chinese heritage. “The world is a sick place,” she posits on that track. She’s got a point, but voices like Laufey’s will always make it seem *that* much better.

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

Deftones – private music

On their tenth album, Deftones prove they’re still leaders of the pack in delivering reliably pummelling rock and, by extension, a sonic kick up the arse at a time when we need it the most. Having reunited with producer Nick Raskulinecz, they deliver a record that wastes no time in getting down to business. The crunching ‘Lock Club’ comes packed with Chino Moreno’s trademark swagger, while recent single ‘my mind is a mountain’ is bound to be a crowd favourite when they return to these shores for a huge arena tour next year. Instead of going gently into that good night, these rock veterans sound more powerful and vital than ever.

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

Water From Your Eyes – It’s a Beautiful Place

Nate Amos, of the experimental duo Water From Your Eyes, distils the unknowing but undeniable magic at the heart of their music in a lofty but entirely relevant quote about new album It’s a Beautiful Place. “A song can feel like everything, communicating vast emotional landscapes,” he says, “but your favourite album is less important than any person. That person is less interesting than any dinosaur. That dinosaur is less important than any mountain. That mountain is boring compared to any planet. That planet is only a part of a solar system. That solar system is microscopic next to any galaxy. If music and all other human practices are meaningless on a cosmic scale why does it still feel so important?”

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

Nourished by Time – The Passionate Ones

After emerging with his sublime take on alt-pop with 2013’s lauded Erotic Probiotic 2, Nourished by Time – aka Baltimore songwriter Marcus Brown – makes his full-length XL Recordings debut on The Passionate Ones. An album that shoots for pop perfection but retains all the intriguing eccentricities that he’s made his name on, it excavates feelings on late-stage capitalism but manages to not be buried under the weight of its subject matter thanks to sugary melodies and buoyant beats.

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

Royel Otis – hickey

According to Royel Otis, they chose the title of their second album “because love bites harder than any other emotion in the world.” It’s groan-worthy stuff, but there’s enough here to win you round otherwise. ‘Say Something’ offers up breezy indie-pop sounds, while the slower ‘Jazz Burger’ – all summery sunset vibes – is far better than the awful title might initially suggest. It won’t change the world, but it’s perfectly pleasant and could well be a decent soundtrack to any Bank Holiday BBQs this weekend.

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