Written by With so much good music being released all the time, it can be hard to determine what to listen to first. Every week, Pitchfork offers a run-down of significant new releases available on streaming services. This week’s batch includes new albums from Charli XCX, Feng, Jill Scott, August Ponthier, and more. Subscribe to Pitchfork’s New Music Friday newsletter to get our recommendations in your inbox every week. (All releases featured here are independently selected by our editors. When you buy something through our affiliate links, however, Pitchfork earns an affiliate commission.)
Charli XCX: Wuthering Heights [Atlantic]
When director Emerald Fennell needed to hire a musician to score her Wuthering Heights adaptation, only one person came to mind: Charli XCX. Not only did the British pop star accept the offer, but she used her soundtrack to capture love in all of its grandiose, moody, elusive ways. As she described the soundtrack on her Substack, it’s a “dive into persona, into a world that felt undeniably raw, wild, sexual, gothic, British, tortured and full of actual real sentences, punctuation and grammar.”
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Feng: Weekend Rockstar [Regularisperfect]
“I take the mundane things and feelings in life and make them interesting,” Feng told Pitchfork’s Alphonse Pierre late last year, fresh off the release of his breakout mixtape of hazy vignettes and off-the-cuff adventures, What The Feng. “I know there’s people out there who think I’m lame for it, but I don’t care. I think I’m cool.” The Croydon rapper moves to maintain this homespun ethos on his debut album Weekend Rockstar, out now on his own label-cum-collective Regularisperfect. Co-produced with Bilal Hamdi, it traverses twee pop production and the breeziest drill imaginable without losing sight of a greater purpose, spelled out in Feng’s off-the-cuff flow: getting to Friday.
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Jill Scott: To Whom This May Concern [The Orchard]
Jill Scott released her last album, Woman, in 2015. That record folded in emotional blues, the strutting horns of ’60s funk, and organ-filled R&B that sounded like it was recorded from right behind the pulpit. Then Scott went away to live life. Returning on her sixth studio album, To Whom It May Concern, the Philadelphia native brings in immeasurable wisdom, blossoming into the effortless positivity and authenticity of past albums—the kind that has assisted multiple generations on their respective healing journeys. Guitar chords and strings laze through love jams, Scott raps over boom-bap, and she even brings in DJ Premier and Tierra Whack to kick off a multi-generational party. Listen to Scott when she reiterates on the opener: “I be good / I do dope shit.”
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August Ponthier: Everywhere Isn’t Texas [Nowhereland Sounds]
August Ponthier’s Everywhere Isn’t Texas captures the cheeky yet polished country-pop of Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan. But in this subgenre, Ponthier embraces the role of an outsider, singing lyrics fantastical enough to satisfy sci-fi enthusiasts while penning Gen Z non-binary ballads to cry to. Across 10 tracks, Ponthier sings like an old friend unloading their worries at a dive bar: They are self-conscious about their youth slipping away, they worry they’re too much like their father, and they wonder whether they want to be with the handsome man everyone loves or be him.
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Angel Du$t: Cold 2 the Touch [Run for Cover]
The music Baltimore’s Justice Tripp makes as Angel Du$t can often feel like a reprieve; in contrast to the hard-shelled hardcore he slings with his band Trapped Under Ice, Angel Du$t sounds perkier, more playful, and even poppier. But Cold 2 the Touch isn’t interested in hardcore “crossover:” this is the spiky, shouted real thing. Sure, there are still forays into the zonked-out psych rock Tripp explored on 2023’s Brand New Soul (at one point, the band even goes for a full-blown funk breakdown). But the core thread of no-fuss no-muss punk remains strong here, in part thanks to guest vocalists from Terror, American Nightmare, God’s Hate, and Restraining Order. Each new featured player swoops into Angel Du$t’s heady world like a bat out of hell—if hell were someone’s garage rehearsal space.
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Converge: Love Is Not Enough [Epitaph]
Calling Converge veterans of the Boston metalcore scene might be an understatement; their new album Love Is Not Enough marks their 36th year playing together. Although the opening suite sticks close to the “no frills, no BS” ethos frontman Jacob Bannon presented in a recent interview, Love Is Not Enough’s back half expands into lingering melodies and longer-form riffs. Throughout, emotion churns and chafes against a backdrop of political unrest, corporate malfeasance, and the everyday horrors that erode modern life. Even after nearly 40 years, Converge keep on cutting through the bullshit.
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Hemlocke Springs: The Apple Tree Under the Sea [AWAL]
When we last heard from Hemlocke Springs, she was a subterranean Rapunzel with a bass synth, in chains and all too aware a dashing rescue was “miles away” on the new wave-indebted single “Sever the Blight.” Captive narrator aside, that 2023 track unlocked the idea for the Nigerian American pop artist’s new album, The Apple Tree Under the Sea, a full-blown concept record that casts her not as a damsel in distress, but an Odyssean heroine. According to a press statement, it follows brave Hemlocke as she ”confront[s] the chaos and repression of her past in order to claim the full, liberatory life she once didn’t even know was possible.” One thing’s for sure on this quest: baroque strings and balladeering will be involved.
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Worm: Necropalace [Century Media]
The black-metal band Worm are back four years after the release of their their last album, Foreverglade. Expect the never-ending guitar solos and monstrous growling members Phantom Slaughter and Wroth Septentrion are known for—plus one sprawling, 14-minute track featuring Marty Friedman. Before you listen, we present to you a disclaimer written in Necropalace’s press release: “Enter if you dare but be warned, the darkness may consume your mortal soul forever. The ultimate evil has returned…”
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Sk8star: Designer Junkie [W4th/Island]
A cosign from Young Thug? Baseless rumors he’s from England based on his taste for Vivienne Westwood vintage? “Executive produced by Richie Souf??” As far as Atlanta rap upstarts go, Sk8star has all the goods, and his new tape Designer Junkie synthesizes them into one of the smoother leaps into the big leagues. Save for drop-in contributions from fellow ØWay collective members Tezzus and diamond*, Designer Junkie is a solo outing steeped in local lore: check the hometown ode “Macon” and Young Scooter homage “RipScooter.” Whether sliding over twinkling keys, bristling rage beats, or championship horns, his eye remains trained on hip-hop’s upper echelon (and yes, there is a song called “Upper Echelon”).
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Danny L Harle: Cerulean [XL]
Despite releasing a solo album back in 2021, Danny Harle is positioning Cerulean as a debut. It’s at the very least a shift in form and approach, largely ditching the sliced-and-diced pop and trance of his earlier work for prog, electro, and layered chorale arrangements influenced by Philip Glass’ Einstein on the Beach. One thing that remains unchanged, however, is his roster of vocal muses: regular collaborators Caroline Polachek and Oklou join newer recruits Clairo, Dua Lipa, and Julia Michaels across the guest list.
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Femtanyl: Man Bites Dog [entitii]
Femtanyl is a polarizing band. The music is unabashedly loud, abrasive, and chiptune, the kind you might expect to hear blasting through speakers on a Saturday night at Trans Pecos. Not that palatability was ever the end goal here. Either way, their debut album might finally convince the duo’s haters to join the devoted flock of “femtanyl truthers.” Drawing from much more than the caustic hardcore the group have made their name on, Man Bites Dog throws jock jams, late-aughts electro-pop, and industrial into a huge Margaritaville-sized blender. The 10 songs zip by in a little over 30 minutes, charging through bite-sized loops with as much energy and rage as they start out with.
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Brent Faiyaz: Icon [ISO Supremacy / UnitedMasters]
Since 2017, Brent Faiyaz has developed a reputation as a debaucherous player; you might know him as the favorite singer of the most toxic person you know. Icon, his fourth album, unveils a new level of maturity from Faiyaz, who ponders marriage, how to weather the storm of an enduring relationship, and basks in the comfort of having someone to come home to. He looks to the oldies to capture his new romantic glow, channeling Michael Jackson’s power and sincerity on “World is Yours,” while crooning over nu-disco, dusty ’80s toms, and twinkling guitar that recalls the best of ’90s Usher. Settling down looks good on him.
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