8 albums you need to hear this week
With music from Everything Everything, Yard Act, Liam Gallagher and John Squire, Another Sky and more.
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 Everything Everything, Yard Act, Liam Gallagher and John Squire, Kaiser Chiefs, Another Sky, Sheer Mag, Mannequin Pussy and Lovebreakers.
Everything Everything – Mountainhead
Across their 15-year career so far, Everything Everything have always been pushing musical and technological boundaries, creating unusually radio-friendly hits out of distinctly leftfield ingredients. After using lyrics created by ChatGPT for 2022’s Raw Data Feel, the band push things forwards against on new album Mountainhead. As they told Rolling Stone UK, the new record is inspired by the desolation of late-stage capitalism and, uh, viral road rage icon Ronnie Pickering. Once again, they manage to twist these incongruous reference points into music that is catchy and immediate despite its inherent weirdness. It’s the quartet’s ongoing defining characteristic.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
Yard Act – Where’s My Utopia?
On their second album, Yard Act dare to dream big. The post-punk of their debut is dialled down in favour of bonafide dance-floor bangers, as shown on the soaring ‘Dream Job’. As the title suggests, it’s also a record written through the eyes of Smith while searching for his own personal wonderland.
This means there’s soul-searing honesty on the brooding ‘Petroleum’, which was inspired by the moment when Smith turned on an audience at Butlins in early 2023 after experiencing burn-out from intense touring. Elsewhere, ‘Down By The Stream’ sees Smith turn the gaze on his own childhood – peppered with an unexpected hip hop groove.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
Liam Gallagher & John Squire – Liam Gallagher & John Squire
In typical LG style, Gallagher said upon the announcement of his collaborative album with The Stone Roses’ John Squire that it “pisses all over [The Beatles‘] Revolver”. While it inevitably doesn’t hit those unrealistic heights, the bravado that would even allow Liam to give that sort of quote is still on full display. The much-needed freshness that Liam Gallagher & John Squire needed comes from Squire’s psychedelic canvases, that add new textures for the Oasis frontman’s never-changing voice. As our review of the album said: “You sense that their die-hard fans will have few quibbles.”
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
Kaiser Chiefs – Kaiser Chiefs’ Easy Eighth Album
For their latest album, Kaiser Chiefs have plumped for an album title that proves unexpectedly on the nose. ‘Easy’, in this case, translates to nine tracks that are, for the most part, a paint-by-numbers take on everything that made them so great in the first place. ‘Burning In Flames’ is an undeniably fun piece of 80s tinged pop, but you can’t help feel that they know they’re on to a record-shifting winner from their legions of fans already – so why switch up the formula?
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
Another Sky – Beach Day
As they tell us in a new Rolling Stone UK feature, Another Sky’s second album was borne out of difficult and distressing circumstances. “Album two is a documentation of us really going up against it,” guitarist and producer Jack Gilbert said, and it sees vocalist Catrin Vincent turning the lens on herself during a period of isolation. It all bursts out in an album defined by its fiery nature and crunching guitars, swapping the band’s previously signature chiming post-rock noise for something more feral and nasty. It’s a sound that suits them, and one led – as always – by Vincent’s remarkable voice.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
Sheer Mag – Playing Favorites
Sheer Mag’s first album for their new label home, Jack White’s Third Man Records, started its life as a disco EP that the band wrote to try and lift themselves out of personal troubles by writing the most euphoric music possible. The final product is closer to their throwback brand of righteous ’80s rock’n’roll, but the sheen of disco can still be felt. It sees the Philadelphia rockers retaining their signature energy but pushing their sound forwards in exciting new directions.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
Mannequin Pussy – I Got Heaven
Discussing the mission statement behind fourth album I Got Heaven, Mannequin Pussy vocalist Marisa Dabice said: “There’s just so much constantly going on that feels intentionally evil that trying to make something beautiful feels like a radical act. The ethos of this band has always been to bring people together.” On I Got Heaven, there’s anger and defiance in the lyrics (“Not a single motherfucker who has tried to lock me up could get the collar round my neck” on ‘Loud Bark’) but also tenderness in the music. The dual emotions are transmitted carefully and superbly.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
Lovebreakers – Wonder
In the same week they support Green Day side-project The Coverups at two London shows, Birmingham rockers Lovebreakers have topped it all off by releasing their second album. It’s easy to see why Billie Joe Armstrong and co have fallen for this lot, their second album is a heady mixture of rock and power-pop, delivered with a whole lot of spirit. Recent single ‘Dirt Nap’, in fact, could well find a natural place on a Green Day album.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music