Notable Releases of the Week (3/28)

It’s that time of year where the new music is starting to really ramp up. Last week was big, but this is by far the biggest release week of 2025 so far, with multiple AOTY-list contenders all out at once. I dive into eight new ones below, and Bill tackles more in Indie Basement, including Destroyer (who he also interviewed), The Darkness, Snapped Ankles, Sacred Paws, Dean Wareham, Korine, Hannah Cohen, and Population II.

On top of those, this week’s honorable mentions include Will Smith, Mumford & Sons, Boldy James (his fourth of 2025, made with Antt Beatz), Timbaland’s new Afrobeat album, Yukimi (Little Dragon), CocoRosie, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Underoath, The Warriors, Lil Yachty, Lil Durk, NAV, Dead Meadow, Dan Meyer (Agriculture), Joe Armon-Jones (part 1 of a two-part album), Bryan Ferry & Amelia Barratt, Alison Krauss & Union Station, Real Bad Man & Willie The Kid, Whitney Johnson & Lia Kohl (Matchess, Moon Glyph), Carlos Santana, Chloe Moriondo, Butcher Brown, Girlpuppy, James Elkington, Aya, DJ Python, Jessie Reyez, Free Range, Cactus Lee, Eiko Ishibashi, Apparitions, Arch Enemy, Aien Weaponry, Memphis May Fire, Sandwell District, Ultra Deluxe, Forlorn, Niis, Termanology & Bronze Nazareth, Babyfxce E, Nemzzz, Yawners, Half Gringa, Serebii, Fusilier, Holger Czukay, Branford Marsalis, YT, Ohyung, Gloin, Field Music & The NASUWT Riverside Band (now on streaming), the Amenra double EP, the Satsuma (ex-The Reptilian) EP, the Anna St. Louis EP, the Wallows EP, the Medium Build EP, the Noonzy EP, Drag City’s archival release of ’80s NYC post-punks Bag People, Ministry’s re-recordings of early material, The Squirrely Years, the deluxe edition of Ariana Grande’s Eternal Sunshine, the 30th anniversary edition of Unrest’s Perfect Teeth, and a longer version of Playboi Carti’s already-30-song Music.

Read on for my picks. What’s your favorite release of the week?

Deafheaven – Lonely People With Power (Roadrunner)
After swinging the pendulum all the way towards clean-vocal shoegaze on their last album, the black metal mavericks are back with an album that touches on everything they’ve ever done. 15 years and 6 LPs in, it just might be the ultimate Deafheaven album.

It’s easy to interpret the title “Lonely People With Power” as a comment on the billionaire ruling class, and political commentary is obviously part of it, but Deafheaven have always been the type to create art that’s open to multiple interpretations. George Clarke said in a recent interview with Kerrang! that “sometimes ‘loneliness’ is a stand-in for ‘ignorance’ or ‘narcissism’ or ‘spiritual vacancy,'” and that that could apply to various people with various degrees and definitions of “power,” including “close people of influence in our lives: parents, teachers and so forth.” From a more zoomed-out perspective, Lonely People With Power is about looking at the negative ways our lives have been shaped by the people who taught us the most and realizing we aren’t beholden to any particular destiny. It’s a little bit like Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers: breaking the generational curse.

Deafheaven’s last album was 2021’s Infinite Granite, a clean-vocal-oriented album that leaned most heavily into shoegaze, post-punk, and dream pop and almost entirely eschewed metal for the first time in their career. Since then, they celebrated the 10th anniversary of their 2013 breakthrough album Sunbather on a tour that had them looking and sounding even more towering than they did back then, and a couple months later they hit the road with the extremely heavy band Knocked Loose. The two tours back to back “reinvigorated that spirit of playing fast and hard,” George told Kerrang!, and for guitarist Kerry McCoy, it sparked “a real vision for bringing back that speed and heft.” Wanting to bring back the weight and extremity of Deafheaven’s early records without turning away from all the new directions they’ve gone in over the years, the band aimed to make an album that represented the entire scope of Deafheaven, and that’s exactly what Lonely People With Power is.

Lonely People With Power doesn’t abandon the clean-vocal shoegaze of Infinite Granite; it incorporates it with the post-rock-infused black metal grandeur of Sunbather and the extreme fury of New Bermuda. And in some ways, it feels like a direct sequel to 2018’s Ordinary Corrupt Human Love, which similarly aimed to be all versions of Deafheaven at once. Yes they toured with Knocked Loose last year but they also shared the stage with Interpol, and Interpol’s Paul Banks lends spoken word to the third of three interlude tracks, “Incidental III.” (The album’s other guest vocalist, Boy Harsher’s Jae Matthews, softly sings on “Incidental II.”) Paul’s zone-out-and-you’ll-miss-it contribution feels more symbolic than anything else; this is a black metal band that can brush shoulders with Interpol without anyone batting an eye.

Seeing Deafheaven on that Sunbather anniversary tour, I was reminded of why this really is a once-in-a-generation band and why Sunbather was so successful at breaking down barriers between genres and scenes. But I left that show thinking two things: 1) that Deafheaven are an even better band than they were 10 years ago, and 2) even though Sunbather is The One for so many people, it really isn’t the ultimate Deafheaven album. It really doesn’t tell the whole story. I’m glad that, 15 years and six albums into their career, they’ve just released an album that does.

Pick up our exclusive “honeyed heat” vinyl variant of this album, limited to 500.

Great Grandpa – Patience, Moonbeam (Run For Cover)
A five-year hiatus comes to an end with Great Grandpa’s third and best album, an art rock journey unlike anything they’d released prior.

Anyone who watched The Beatles: Get Back has more insight than ever into how Abbey Road turned out the way it did. Faced with either breaking up or making the most collaborative album of their career, they chose the latter, and it also turned out to be one of the most finely-crafted albums of their career. Despite a desire to get back to where they once belonged, it was one of the clearest steps forward by a band who almost never looked back.

Great Grandpa guitarist Pat Goodwin cites Abbey Road as a parallel to their own new album Patience, Moonbeam, and it might’ve come off as an exaggerated claim if it didn’t fit so perfectly. After releasing their excellent 2019 sophomore album Four of Arrows, Great Grandpa almost did break up. Lead singer Al Menne released their debut solo album Freak Accident in 2023, guitarist Dylan Hanwright pursued a career in production, and two members moved to a different country–not to mention 18 months of lockdown began one day into their planned spring tour supporting Four of Arrows, less than five months after its release. But they gradually reconvened and started writing songs together, with all five members contributing to the songwriting process for the first time in the band’s career, and Dylan handling all the production. About two years later, they’d written an entire new album. Patience, Moonbeam indeed.

We can also largely blame The Beatles for making us want to see rock bands evolve with each new album, and Great Grandpa have spent their entire career thus far on that exact type of trajectory. Having made a significant step forward from their 2017 debut LP Plastic Cough with Four of Arrows, they make at least twice as much of a leap with Patience, Moonbeam. They may have been quiet for five years, but they clearly used that time to turn into an entirely new beast. On Patience, Moonbeam, Great Grandpa sound like a collision between Radiohead, Sufjan Stevens, and Big Thief as they take us on an art rock journey that’s as dizzying and unpredictable as any of those artists. They move from vocoder workouts to folky passages to grungy climaxes to twitchy experimentalism. Chord changes and melodies rarely go where you expect them to. The hook on “Emma” is so good that they had to sing it again on “Doom.” With every member doubling as a vocalist, Patience, Moonbeam sounds as communal and collaborative as the band says the writing process was, with harmony vocals that unveil as many new layers as the instrumental arrangements do. Lead singles “Kid” and “Doom” are mini epics themselves, and in the context of this album, they’re just the tip of the iceberg.

Patience, Moonbeam by Great Grandpa

Perfume Genius – Glory (Matador)
Mike Hadreas delivers his most stripped-back album since his early years without ever looking backwards.

It’s a tale as old as time, but getting famous (even indie-famous) doesn’t usually make the internal struggles go away; if anything, it usually finds a way to amplify them even more or add new ones. It’s something Mike Hadreas reckons with right at the top of his latest album as Perfume Genius when he asks, “What do I get out of being established?” and then adds, “I still run and hide when a man’s at the door.” He calls this his “most directly confessional” album, which seems like a difficult claim to make for an artist who almost always writes directly confessional albums, but there’s no doubt that this one pulls back some of the curtains that might’ve been put up on his more recent records. It’s the first “proper” Perfume Genius album since 2020’s Set My Heart On Fire Immediately, which was rolled out right around the time the world went into lockdown, and it feels inseparable from the heightened state of anxiety that a lot of us have found ourselves in these past five years. It’s also the earthiest-sounding Perfume Genius album since his 2012 sophomore LP Put Your Back N 2 It, following various ambitious art pop turns and the choreography-soundtracking excursion of 2022’s Ugly Season. Backed by a tight-knit band–including three members of Hand Habits (HH leader Meg Duffy, guitarist Greg Uhlmann, bassist Tim Carr), veteran drummer Jim Keltner, and bassist Pat Kelly–Glory often sounds like a rock band playing in a room, with enough folky acoustic guitars to give the album a down-to-earth bareness. There’s also plenty of Mike Hadreas’ trademark somber piano playing and rich embellishments like flute and guest vocalist Aldous Harding, and Hadreas moves through it all with a grace that looks more and more effortless with each passing album. It might be his most stripped-back since his early years, but it’s not a return to a past form. Like every single Perfume Genius album before it, it’s a clear step forward and a distinct new era.

Glory by Perfume Genius

Lucy Dacus – Forever Is a Feeling (Geffen)
The first boygenius member to return to their solo career fills her new album with strings, harp, harpsichord, and romantic gestures.

How do you follow a year like boygenius had in 2023? Lucy Dacus is the first of the trio to release a new solo album, and much of Forever is a Feeling highlights how much as changed for her since her last one, 2021’s Home Video. She moved from indie Matador to major label Geffen, worked with producer Blake Mills but not with her longtime guitar player Jacob Blizard, and most notably, is basking in the glow of a relationship with her boygenius bandmate Julien Baker. Instead of mining her past, Dacus is exploring her present, adorning it with the lush sheen of strings in addition to her usual guitar. “I wanted to connect these songs back to a history of love,” she told Los Angeles Times. “So there’s violins, there’s harpsichord, there’s harps — there’s a lot in the arrangements that make it feel older or classic or something.”

Dacus’ songs have often felt like short stories, and that’s still the case on Forever is a Feeling. “Come Out” sketches an indelible image of a “boardroom full of old men guessing what the kids are getting into,” and “Most Wanted Man” finds Dacus recounting small details from her romance with Baker with precision and care. More of those details — “your 60 day chip, and your broken gold chain, your unpaid parking ticket” — surface in album closer “Lost Time.” One of the most memorable tracks, though, is among her simplest, lyrically. “Best Guess” regularly gets stuck in my head for days at a time since I first heard it, and it seems destined to soundtrack a lot of sapphic weddings. It’s the most straightforward love song on an album full of romantic gestures, with Dacus’ warm, earnest voice making a case for a future together. Rarely has she sounded so convincing. [Amanda Hatfield]

Forever is a Feeling by Lucy Dacus

SPELLLING – Portrait of My Heart (Sacred Bones)
After three albums of intimate art pop, it’s time for Chrystia Cabral to rock out.

It’s so common to see artists pivoting away from rock music towards synthy art pop that it’s pretty refreshing to see someone doing the exact opposite. For her fourth album as SPELLLING, Chrystia Cabral made a decision: “It’s time to rock out.” Without abandoning the delicacy of her first three albums, she channelled her inner Liz Phair, Gwen Stefani, and Billy Corgan and came out with an album that showcases her as a worthy–and unique–successor to the music that all three of them were making three decades ago. The last track is a cover of My Bloody Valentine’s “Sometimes” that presents the Loveless classic like you’ve never heard it before, just as inventive as her originals and indicative that this is a ’90s-ish rock album that doesn’t actually sound like any ’90s rock albums. Made with her touring band–Wyatt Overson (guitar), Patrick Shelley (drums), and Giulio Xavier Cetto (bass)–Chrystia also tapped the current hardcore scene’s bountiful well and brought in Turnstile’s Pat McCrory and Zulu’s Braxton Marcellous to play guitar on “Alibi” and “Drain,” respectively, and the attack they bring to their own bands is felt. She also worked with three highly-sought-after producers (Psymun, Rob Bisel, and Drew Vandenberg) and duets with Toro y Moi on “Mount Analogue”–an impressive supporting cast to back up Chrystia Cabral’s reinvention as a rock star. This is an album with big energy, big hooks, and powerhouse vocal turns from Chrystia, and it’s also an album that looks inwards even when she’s belting it for the people in the cheap seats. The soaring chorus to the album-opening title track and lead single is, after all, “I don’t belong here.”

Portrait of My Heart by SPELLLING

Backxwash – Only Dust Remains (self-released/Ugly Hag)
The Montreal rapper trades the industrial noise of her recent trilogy for lush, organic instrumentals on this devastating new album.

After wrapping up a trilogy of industrial-tinged rap albums, Backxwash was ready to change it up, and Only Dust Remains couldn’t be more of a bold new direction. As fierce as she sounded over the jagged, abrasive noise of her recent trilogy, she sounds even more powerful on Only Dust Remains, with self-production that favors the lush, soulful, organic backdrop of albums like To Pimp A Butterfly and Electric Circus. Having already referred to the trilogy as “autobiographical,” Only Dust Remains just might be even more devastatingly personal–or at least Backxwash’s ruminations on depression, faith, and personal tragedies as a trans woman come through more loudly and clearly in this setting. But Only Dust Remains doesn’t stop at introspection. On one of its most show-stopping songs, “History of Violence,” Backxwash looks at war, terrorism, and fascism, and calls for the day that Palestine is free. She raps about the suffering of others with the same raw passion as when she raps about her own, her delivery serving as a reminder that the personal and the political are truly never separable. As grand and fleshed-out as its arrangements are, Only Dust Remains retains the grit that Backxwash has always had. It’s elegant but rough around the edges. It reminds me that Backxwash once tweeted “Hoping we can get Kendrick/Trent Reznor one day.” Until then, Only Dust Remains already captures a version of what that might sound like.

Only Dust Remains by Backxwash

Jivebomb – Ethereal (Flatspot)
Three years removed from their breakthrough EP, the Baltimore hardcore band deliver their first full-length.

Don’t let the title Ethereal fool you; Jivebomb haven’t caught the “hardcore goes hardcore-adjacent” bug one bit. If anything, this debut full-length tones down the catchier sides of 2022’s Primitive Desires EP and finds them leaning further into heavy, metallic hardcore. (In fact, two songs are re-recorded versions of songs from their first demo.) Outside of a little static-y noise that comes in part from working with producer Ben Greenberg (of Uniform), this is no-frills hardcore badassery without a single song that passes the two-minute mark. For more on this LP, vocalist Kat Madeira has given us a track-by-track breakdown.

FSR81 – Ethereal by Jivebomb

Doomsday – Never Known Peace (Creator-Destructor)
The Bay Area crossover thrashers would like to welcome you to Riff City.

For a double feature of no-frills hardcore–well, specifically crossover thrash in this case–here’s the debut album from Doomsday. They hail from the fertile Bay Area hardcore scene (and just contributed a non-album track to the Real Bay Shit comp), and they finally just released a full-length after a string of EPs/promos that date back to 2018. They’ve got guest solos from Ripped To Shred’s Andrew Lee on two songs (“Holy Justice” and “Remnants Of Spite”) and they’ve called Texas crossover thrash greats Iron Age “the blueprint for Doomsday,” “the only reason we decided to start our own [band],” and “the greatest band of all time.” They also regularly cite classic stuff like Metallica, Slayer, and Sepultura, and in true crossover fashion, they channel it all through the grit and brevity of hardcore. Or, as vocalist Charlie D. puts it, “Riff City, baby.”

Never Known Peace by Doomsday

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Read Indie Basement for more new album reviews, including Destroyer (who he also interviewed), The Darkness, Snapped Ankles, Sacred Paws, Dean Wareham, Korine, Hannah Cohen, and Population II.

Looking for more recent releases? Browse the Notable Releases archive.

Looking for a podcast to listen to? Check out our new episodes with Turnover and Bayside about the 10th anniversary of Peripheral Vision and the 20th anniversary of Bayside self-titled, respectively.

Pick up the BrooklynVegan x Alexisonfire special edition 80-page magazine, which tells the career-spanning story of Alexisonfire and comes on its own or paired with our new exclusive AOF box set and/or individual reissues, in the BV shop. Also pick up the new Glassjaw box set & book, created in part with BrooklynVegan, and browse the BrooklynVegan shop for more exclusive vinyl.