4 albums you need to hear this week
With music from Madonna, Sienna Spiro, Mary in the Junkyard and PS Hitsquad
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 Madonna, Sienna Spiro, Mary in the Junkyard and PS Hitsquad.
Madonna – Confessions II
On Confessions II, Madonna returns to the floor, the place where she always goes to rediscover herself. It’s a sequel to one of her most beloved albums, Confessions on a Dance Floor, her 2005 collaboration with the London disco master Stuart Price. But it’s also her best album since the original Confessions 21 years ago. It’s a 64-minute nonstop groove that flows like a club-DJ set, each song fading into the next, drawing from all over the history of dance music. You might hear a flicker of ‘I Feel Love’ here, or ‘Apache’ there, but it’s a history lesson that she turns into her musical autobiography.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
Sienna Spiro – Visitor
After a huge year so far for Sienna Spiro, including a Rolling Stone UK cover, her debut album sees the star in full flight and showing off her prodigious vocals. It’s true that recent standout single ‘Die On This Hill’ is among the record’s best moments, but the romantic longing of the title track will stir your soul too. “Any love song I write, I’ve got to flip it – it’s always got to have some sadness to it,” she told us. That sadness makes for an album packed with an almighty and occasionally brilliant punch.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
Mary in the Junkyard – Role Model Hermit
“I used to go out for hours and hang out with myself and speak to myself. I thought that I was crazy for a while,” Mary in the Junkyard vocalist Clari Freeman-Taylor told us recently. “I still talk to trees all the time. When I see a tree that’s really beautiful, I feel like I’m looking at an extremely beautiful person. I get the butterflies.” This fantastical sense of wonder flows through the band’s immersive debut album Role Model Hermit. Early comparisons to Radiohead persist, but are paired with moments of avant-garde experimentation and an earthiness that recalls Big Thief. Like its artwork, which sees Freeman-Taylor made up as an elderly bearded man from some sort of psychological horror movie, this is an album of endless imagination.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
PS Hitsquad – Life on License
The artwork of Peckham drill star PS Hitsquad’s long-awaited debut album sees him raising up an ankle, tag included, from a metaphorical burial and exploring life above ground. “In prison, I feel a sense of peace. It sounds so crazy but sometimes I get to breathe a sigh of relief,” he says on an inmate phone call to open an album that doesn’t shy away from thorny and conflicted topics. On top of intoxicating drill beats, the rapper excavates what he wants from his life on the outside and moves towards becoming a new UK rap star in the process.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music