6 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, to kick off 2025, we’ve highlighted records by Victoria Canal, Jasmine.4.t, Rose Gray, Kele, David Gray and Mac Miller.

Victoria Canal – Slowly, It Dawns

“Putting out an album does feel like jumping out of the nest for the first time, and my teeny tiny wings are still gaining muscles,” Victoria Canal told Rolling Stone UK of debut album Slowly, It Dawns. “That’s naïve, but it doesn’t mean I’m not going to try anyway. A songwriter who made her name with piano covers and that is frank about her adoration of Coldplay, the singer’s debut album honours this stripped-back approach, but also – most interestingly – goes towards shiny, drunken pop music about messy nights out and queer experiences, leaving her future wide open.

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

Jasmine.4.t – You Are the Morning

Jasmine.4.t’s debut album You Are the Morning – produced by boygenius and released via Phoebe Bridgers’ label Saddest Factory – was described to Rolling Stone UK by the Manchester-based singer and songwriter as being “about joy in the face of all the shit”. To do this, she has brought together a live band and creative collaborators from the trans community, helping flesh out her sound – which, at its core, is that of an open and honest songwriter in the mould of her hero Elliott Smith.

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

Rose Gray – Louder, Please

On her debut album, Londoner Rose Gray cements her place as one of dance music’s most exciting new voices. There’s all out fun on ‘Hackney Wick’, while ‘Damn’ – an unsettling and somewhat darker beast – shows that Gray is capable of effortlessly evolving her sound too. It could be one of the year’s defining dance records.

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

Kele – The Singing Winds pt. 3

While his band Bloc Party have been celebrating two decades of their defining debut album, Silent Alarm, frontman Kele Okereke has quietly been releasing a three-part opus of solo work that shows how far he’s come. The Singing Winds pt. 3 is the final part of the series, dubbed ‘The Elements’, following The Waves pt. 1 (2021) and The Flames pt. 2 (2023). “Apart from the vocals, every sound you hear on these records is made by my guitar,” he explained, and these limitations lead to an album of soul-bearing experimentation.

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

David Gray – Dear Life

David Gray has said his latest record is inspired by White Ladder, his mammoth 1998 breakthrough which became the fifth best-selling album of the 2000s in the UK and is cited as a major inspiration for the likes of Ed Sheeran and Adele. While it’s fair to say that the sonic DNA of that record is present here, it’s reflected in the weighty themes too. ‘That Day Must Surely Come’ is a powerful riff on mortality, while ‘Future Bride’ riffs on planets smashing against each other. Still, there’s lighter joy to be found in ‘Plus & Minus’, a delightful duet with rising folk star Talia Rae.

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

Mac Miller – Balloonerism

Posthumous releases can be the strangest of propositions. Too often, we’re faced with a work that feels incomplete, shallow and reminds us of the towering talents we’ve lost all too soon. It’s a relief then, that this second album since Mac Miller’s untimely passing in 2018, feels like a full bodied and complete tribute to his talents. It’s a tough listen too, Balloonerism was recorded at a time when Miller was struggling with the drugs and mental health issues that would eventually claim his life. It’s shown on the forthright ‘Do You Have a Destination’, while ‘Rick’s Piano’ sees him wonder “What does death feel like?”

There’s solid soul and jazz beats that keep the record bounding along too and this is precisely why the upbeat ‘Dollar Pony Ride’ arrives as the record’s sole single. This is a record that Mac Miller devotees will find incredibly rewarding.

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