8 albums you need to hear this week
With music from Vampire Weekend, The Libertines, Bob Vylan, Griff, Mount Kimbie, Khruangbin, The Black Keys and Palace.
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 Vampire Weekend, The Libertines, Griff, Bob Vylan, Mount Kimbie, Khruangbin, The Black Keys and Palace.
Vampire Weekend – Only God Was Above Us
Vampire Weekend’s fifth album begins with the lyric “fuck the world,” but as Ezra Koenig told Rolling Stone UK in our new issue, it’s less of an admission of cynicism and more an aim to move past it. “It’s a journey from cynicism to optimism; from scepticism to faith,” he said of the band’s first album in half a decade. Musically, this is manifested on a record of contrasting styles, where the band’s signature crystal clear melodies and sprightly rhythms meet with a new distorted and cloudy feel. It’s a record that brings every part of Vampire Weekend together more coherently than ever, while also pointing excitingly to their future.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
The Libertines – All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade
On their fourth album, The Libertines bottle the highs of their first two albums, but ensure it’s delivered from the perspective of four newly middle-aged blokes. On the lead single ‘Run Run Run’, the group firmly look back at their noughties infamy, crying over garage rock guitars: “You’d better run, run, run boy / Faster than the past / Through the looking glass.” Similarly, Doherty’s obsession with the concept of Albion (the Old English term for Great Britain) is given an interesting spin on ‘Merry Old England’, which tackles the refugee crisis and, by extension, social issues in a way that the group have never managed before. It’s brilliant.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
Bob Vylan – Humble as the Sun
As that beaming smile of Bobby Vylan on the cover suggests, this latest record from Bob Vylan is big on empowerment, betterment and self-love. But don’t think they’ve gone quiet into that good night. ‘Bob Vylan got robbed for the Mercury!’, they howl on early highlight ‘Reign’. However, ‘Dream Big’ is the closest to a self-empowerment anthem they’ve ever managed. Punk and peace? We’ll take it.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
Griff – vertigo vol. 2
On last year’s vert1go vol. 1 EP, Griff gave a first taster of a debut album on a four-track collection that used restraint as its greatest weapon. Its follow-up, the second piece of the puzzle, is more bullish and energetic in its outlook. It’s led by first single ‘Miss Me Too’, where she sings about how when you move on from a relationship, you grieve for not only that person’s place in your life, but the previous version of yourself that has also disappeared. In the same way Lorde did on ‘Green Light’, its power comes from its thunderous synths and Griff’s irresistible energy.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
Mount Kimbie – The Sunset Violent
Over a decade ago, Mount Kimbie started out as an electronic duo dealing in minimal, dub-influenced creations. Since then, Kai Campos and Dom Maker’s project has shape-shifted significantly. Between 2017’s third album Love What Survives and now, the pair released separate ‘solo’ albums under the Mount Kimbie name – Die Cuts and City Planning – dubbed MK 3.5, and take another stark turn on The Sunset Violent. The group – now a permanent four-piece – incorporate lo-fi guitar and indie rock into their alluring sound, while new collaborations with longtime partner King Krule provide ties with the past.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
Khruangbin – A La Sala
Long regarded as creating the smoothest sound around, psych trio Khruangbin keep the wheels rolling on A La Sala, their first album in four years. The album’s title translates as “to the room,” and it’s the trio’s first album recorded without any external collaborators. That could have signalled a more back-to-basics sound, but A La Sala largely sees the band treading a similarly gorgeous path to the one that has made them such a cult force on record and on stage. More of a refinement than a reinvention, A La Sala pushes Khruangbin forwards into new spaces while retaining their core appeal.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
The Black Keys – Ohio Players
The twelfth album from The Black Keys is rich on variety, even if their defiant blues-rock spirit remains the core thread throughout it. That means a soulful cover of William Bell’s 1968 hit ‘I Forgot to Be Your Lover’ on one side. But on the other, they’re looking firmly at the future on Beautiful People (Stay High) – a catchy banger that is just one of many to be written by Beck.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
Palace – Ultrasound
Raw emotions and personal trauma is channeled into this powerful third album from the London band. As frontman Leo Wyndham explains, it’s a direct reflection of his own journey navigating grief after his wife suffered a late-stage miscarriage.
“It was incredibly hard to comprehend what had happened, how to deal with it and how to move forward,” he said. “The album is the journey of that experience – starting with a loss, then a period of processing, and then finally acceptance, release and growth. And being in awe of women within that. Their dignity, strength and courage in how they can deal with these things that feel beyond a man.”
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
One you may have missed: Love Fame Tragedy – Life Is A Killer
The latest solo release from The Wombats’ frontman Murph is lyrically melancholic and misanthropic, but it’s wrapped up in brighter sounds – electropop and bounding synths are in no short supply here.