9 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 Olivia Dean, Mariah Carey, President, Zara Larsson, Doja Cat, SCALER, Perrie and Geese.

Olivia Dean – The Art of Loving

In her recent interview with Rolling Stone UK about her second album, Olivia Dean paraphrased bell hooks’ book All About Love. “For some reason, it’s seen as this mystical, untouchable thing that we’re all supposed to just have a go at and figure out,” Dean said. “bell hooks is like, imagine if we had a class in primary school that was, like, emotional studies? So that we could teach each other a bit of etiquette, and how to fill each other with care?”

On The Art of Loving, Dean interrogates her own experiences and feelings of love, why she loves who she does and in the way she does. Through her impeccable, sugary voice and instrumentation that places her somewhere between neo-soul star and old-style jazz singer, she presents something close to that 101 of love that should be taught in schools.

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

Mariah Carey – Here for It All

It’s little surprise to report that the long-awaited 16th album from Mariah is well, Mariah being Mariah. You won’t find any reinvention of the wheel or any sonic left-turns here, but songs like the endearingly cheesy ‘Nothing Is Impossible’ show off her powerhouse vocals and box them in the form of an empowerment anthem. Elsewhere, ‘My Love’ – her cover of Paul McCartney and Wings’ classic – is genuinely touching.

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

President – King of Terrors

So, who’s behind the mask then? That’s been the question on the lips of metalheads across the land ever since this mysterious masked band emerged earlier this year. The smart money suggests it’s Charlie Simpson, even if the Fightstar and Busted man is refusing to be drawn on it. Either way, the mixture of guttural screams and more drawn out symphonic moments on tracks like ‘Rage’ suggest they’re an extremely interesting proposition. Sleep Token, their fellow masked metallers, are on the verge of headlining stadiums. There’s very little here to suggest that President couldn’t do the same in time too.

Listen on: Spotify | ‎Apple Music  Amazon Music

Zara Larsson – Midnight Sun

After a 20-year career of hopping around genres, styles and energy, Zara Larsson went back to the beginning for new album Midnight Sun. “Making this album brought me back to the very beginning, my first EPs when I started making music, because it was all about having fun and just creating and speaking honestly,” she says. “I really felt no pressure. I think that made things not only feel more fun for me, but the songs feel more authentic, too. The people who will love this album will love a very true part of me, something that I am very proud of and excited about.”

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

Doja Cat – Vie

The fifth album from Doja Cat sees the US megastar lean into 80s sounds for a record that ends up becoming the most pleasant of surprises. Though an unexpected avenue for the singer/rapper, producer Jack Antonoff ensures that this new avenue feels like the place where she was meant to be. That’s certainly true of her SZA collab ‘Take Me Dancing’, while the euphoric ‘Stranger’ is underpinned by the sound of a saxophone, just as all great eighties records should be.

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

SCALER – Endlessly

After making their debut album, 2022’s Void, entirely remotely in lockdown, Bristol’s SCALER embraced jamming and collaboration for its follow-up, Endlessly. As they told us in a new Play Next interview, the record “takes every extreme from our previous music pushes it as far away as we can. The heavy bits are going to be heavier, the faster bits are going to be faster, the pop bits are going to be catchier.” Their music, which started as an amalgam of techno and metal, now incorporates trip-hop, dub and, most excitingly on the catchy and bright ‘Sinking In’, pure pop.

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

Perrie – Perrie

Earlier this year, Perrie told Rolling Stone UK how she had previously reached an impasse with her solo career and realised it was time to hit the reboot button in favour of songs that she believed to be a more authentic reflection of the sound she was truly aiming to achieve. That’s only too clear on her debut, which bounds along with confidence, pop-fuelled flair and the sense that she’s capable of reaching the big leagues. ‘Miss You’ shows off confident balladry, while ‘If He Wanted To He Would’ allows her to own a chorus that isn’t a miles away from the highs of Little Mix. Hitting reboot, in this case, was a masterstroke.

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

Moon Panda – ‘Dumb Luck’

There’s a steady mix of Copenhagen meets California on this third album from Danish-American outfit Moon Panda. “‘Dumb Luck’ is probably the most collaborative album we’ve made as a band. It has little pieces of all of us within it and feels really special,” says singer Maddy Myers. “Like this little mix of all our different characteristics – it’s got my softness and introspection, Gustav [Moltke, guitarist]’s humour and explosiveness, Josh [Cabitac, drummer]’s thoughtful precision, and George [Godwin, bassist/keyboardist]’s wonky wizardry just kind of blankets over everything. I hope people can feel the care and love that went into these songs that mean so much to us as a collective.”

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

Geese – Getting Killed

Alongside the burgeoning solo career of frontman Cameron Winter, New York band Geese have become one of the most exciting young rock bands around. New album Getting Killed sees the band build upon the post-punk sounds of debut album Projector and the country-tinged follow-up 3D Country to make something weirder, more experimental and even more powerful, all narrated by the brilliant and enigmatic Winter.

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