6 albums you need to hear this week
With music from Stray Kids, Childish Gambino, Los Campesinos!, Lava La Rue and Soft Play.
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 Glass Animals, Stray Kids, Childish Gambino, Los Campesinos!, Lava La Rue and Soft Play.
Glass Animals — I Love You So F***ing Much
“The sequel’s gonna hurt,” Dave Bayley sings before ‘Show Pony’, the opening track of Glass Animals’ fourth album, bursts into life. I Love You So F***ing Much is a post-mortem of a few years that made the Oxford quartet the biggest British band in the United States, breaking every record under the sun with mega-hit ‘Heat Waves’. Told through the prism of sci-fi and with a distinctly 80s feel, it’s a record that moves away from the tropical pop of the band’s biggest hits and towards crunchier rock sounds that reflect this recent turbulence.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
Stray Kids – Ate
Off the back of their massive headline show as part of London’s BST Hyde Park last week, Stray Kids return with Ate, their ninth mini-album. A play on both the album’s eight tracks and the number of members of the group, the record is another step on the genre-fluid, energetic octet graduating to K-pop’s top table.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
Childish Gambino — Bando Stone & the New World
Childish Gambino has been dead, in retirement or soon-to-be-ending for years now, but Donald Glover insists his new album Bando Stone & the New World – a soundtrack album to his new film of the same name – really does signal the end. In line with this theme of endings, the album and film fictionalises the end of the world and sees Glover continue to push the envelope with his moniker’s swan song, a theme of Gambino’s unusual but mighty tenure.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
Los Campesinos! – All Hell
Los Campesinos! can rightly be called the UK’s biggest cult band, and while their recorded material has become scarcer over the last decade – new album All Hell is their first in seven years – they recently played the biggest gig of their 20-year career at London’s Troxy and are being lifted by a new generation of Gen Z fans. All Hell hits all the musical and lyrical sweet spots that the band have become adored for – niche football references, wry takes on romantic woe, sweet melodies and crunchy guitars – while slowly evolving their sound and embracing the extremes.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
Lava La Rue – Starface
Lava La Rue has described their debut album, Starface, as trying to be “a lesbian version of Ziggy Stardust,” and the record – released on Dirty Hit – sees the west Londoner swinging big. The record is a 17-track concept album about a queer alien landing on earth, and Lava pulls off this ambitious concept through strong songwriting and an impressively exploratory nature that sees her switch genre and mood all while stitching things together around its unique and captivating theme.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
Soft Play – Heavy Jelly
Soft Play – the Kent duo FKA Slaves – are both funny and deadly serious on fourth album, Heavy Jelly. One minute, they’re diving into the mundane on ‘Bin Juice Disaster’, while laying out grief on the soft and touching ‘Everything And Nothing’. Both modes suit the duo well, and bring an exciting new era into focus.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music