9 albums you need to hear this week
With music from Gorillaz, Bruno Mars, Paul McCartney, BLACKPINK, Mitski, Iron & Wine, The Dream Machine, Maria BC and Rosie Carney
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 Gorillaz, Bruno Mars, Paul McCartney, BLACKPINK, Mitski, Iron & Wine, The Dream Machine, Maria BC and Rosie Carney.
Gorillaz – The Mountain
The Mountain sees Gorillaz facing death in the face. After bereavements for both members, Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett headed to India to work through their grief. The country, its energy and its musicians ended up becoming a vital part of the new album, as Hewlett told Rolling Stone UK last year: “Visually, if you’re an artist and you go to India and it doesn’t blow your mind, then you must be blind, you know? Everything is insane and rich and colourful and mad and tragic and beautiful.”
Read our full review of The Mountain here.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
Bruno Mars – The Romantic
Ten years might be a hell of a wait between albums, but Bruno Mars proves that his first full solo outing in a decade is well worth the wait. From the soaring disco-pop of ‘I Just Wait’ to the soul-baring drama of ‘Something Serious’, here’s a record which unrepentantly heads in the direction that Mars sees fit. It’s the sound of an all-time great, joyously doing things on his own terms.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
Paul McCartney – Man on the Run
The soundtrack to Morgan Neville’s excellent documentary about Macca’s post-Beatles years with Wings, this soundtrack features fresh remasters of tracks such as ‘Mull of Kintyre’, an unheard version of ‘Live & Let Die’, and even an unheard rarity in the form of ‘Arrow Through Me (Rough Mix)’. It’s a true treat for McCartney completists and casual Wings fans alike.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
BLACKPINK – DEADLINE
BLACKPINK makes a triumphant return with their third mini album, cementing their place as K-Pop world-beaters. There’s familiarity in recent single ‘JUMP’, while the rest of the EP goes far in showing their ability to offer a diverse sound and an irresistible energetic edge.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
Mitski – Nothing’s About to Happen to Me
After moving into more sweeping, regal sounds on the majestic The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We in 2023, Mitski returns to the crunchy indie-rock she made her name on for new album Nothing’s About to Happen to Me. Circling around a woman who lives alone in a shabby house, it’s a record that while musically is somewhat of a back-to-basics album, lyrically sees her stretching herself even further.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
Iron & Wine – Hen’s Teeth
“To me it suggests the impossible,” Sam Beam says of the title of his eighth album as Iron & Wine. “Hen’s teeth do not exist. And that’s what this record felt like: a gift that shouldn’t be there but it is. An impossible thing but it’s real.” Arriving as a sister album to 2024’s Light Verse, it arrived after a period of writer’s block. Inspired by the meeting place of jazz and folk, it was pushed forwards by collaboration, including with his daughter, Arden Beam.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
The Dream Machine – Fort Perch Rock
On their album, this Scouse outfit deliver, by their own admission, “a rollercoaster ride through voodoo, fairground attractions and ghostly premonitions”. Read: exhilarating alt-pop which demands your attention. That’s certainly true of recent single ‘Angel Heart’, which comes complete with an excellent Ghostbusters inspired video. The references and indeed their sixties indebted sound might look to the past, but their sound is something which belongs perfectly in the present.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
Maria BC – Marathon
“Sometimes when I write songs, I imagine the voice that’s singing is a kind of spirit,” Maria BC says of their work. “Someone from up above or down below calling out to us in warning – ‘You can’t go on like this.’” On excellent new album Marathon, this warning comes in the form of expansive, atmospheric songs that go from acoustic and soft to fizzing with life. The album is named after the Marathon petrol stations, one of which was at the end of Maria’s childhood street. “That this logo, even with all the evil it connotes, can invoke nostalgia – can be a beacon – is very sinister to me,” they say, capturing the dichotomy at the heart of the album.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
Rosie Carney – Doomsday… Don’t Leave Me Here
In the time before creating her fourth album, Ireland-based singer Rosie Carney began experiencing “severe existential dread, and feeling like I’m about to die”. This hopelessness, as well as the exaggerated and overblown stories of the true crime podcasts her producer was listening to and sharing during recording, gives Doomsday… Don’t Leave Me Here a dramatic edge. The balance of light and dark, a hopefulness amongst the despair, was brought out by Carney’s new collaborator, The 1975 bassist Ross MacDonald.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music