In this segment, we showcase the most notable albums out each week. Here are the albums out on March 7, 2025:
Lady Gaga, Mayhem
Lady Gaga is back with Mayhem, her much-anticipated return to pop. The Bruno Mars collab ‘Die With a Smile’, ‘Disease’, and ‘Abracadabra’ preceded the follow-up to last year’s Harlequin, which spans 14 songs. Not only does Mayhem deliver Gaga’s freakiest and tightest pop material in at least half a decade (it’s been that long since Chromatica), it also still finds space for a few idiosyncratic left-turns, with help from producers such as Andrew Watt, Cirkut, and Gesaffelstein. “I thrive in intensity,” Gaga told Stereogum. “That’s a big part of what this album is all about — vulnerability and aggression at the same time. That’s where I live.”
SASAMI, Blood on the Silver Screen
After embracing nu metal on 2022’s industrial-leaning Squeeze, SASAMI sought to make a pop record with Blood on the Silver Screen. Once again, though, she demonstrates a playful curiosity about the genre, and her versatility is on full display. “This album is all about learning and respecting the craft of pop songwriting, about relenting to illogical passion, obsession, and guiltless pleasure,” SASAMI explained. “It’s about leaning into the chaos of romance and sweeping devotion—romanticism to the point of self-destruction.” It was preceded by the singles ‘Honeycrash’, ‘Slugger’, ‘Just Be Friends’, and the Clairo collab ‘In Love With a Memory’. Read our track-by-track review of Blood on the Silver Screen.
Fust, Big Ugly
North Carolina band Fust have released Big Ugly, the follow-up to 2023’s Genevieve, via Dear Life Records. Produced by the great Alex Farrar, the LP features contributions from Merce Lemon, the Deslondes’ John James Tourville, and the War on Drugs’ Dave Hartle. “I like starting with something very negative and trying to milk it for its beauty, helpfulness, or sensitivity,” bandleader Aaron Dowdy said in our Artist Spotlight interview about the title of the record, which is conflicted yet aspirational. “Linguistically, it sets me up for the narratives I like to tell: an ugly situation that has a lot of heart. I thought it was a great name for those thematic tensions, but it’s also a great name for the spatial things going on in this record – small towns, an almost documentarian sense of people living their lives.
Bob Mould, Here We Go Crazy
Bob Mould has returned with Here We Go Crazy, his first album since 2020’s Blue Hearts. “On the surface, this is a group of straightforward guitar pop songs,” he said in a press release, though those guitar pop songs are also reinvigorating and dynamic. “I’m refining my primary sound and style through simplicity, brevity, and clarity. Under the hood, there’s a number of contrasting themes. Control and chaos, hypervigilance and helplessness, uncertainty and unconditional love.”
Hamilton Leithauser, This Side of the Island
The Walkmen’s Hamilton Leithauser co-produced his wonderful new album, This Side of the Island, with his wife, Anna, and The National’s Aaron Dessner. “To be honest, after I worked with Aaron I remixed the other two with his input in mind, so his fingerprints are really on the whole thing!” Leithauser explained. “I can’t thank Anna and Aaron enough for their input, I couldn’t have finished without them. I bounced ideas off Anna for 8 years and I know I drove her insane. When I had finally gotten to the point where I didn’t know which end was up, and I think maybe Anna was thinking about throwing me out of the house, I drove upstate last Spring to visit Aaron at his beautiful Long Pond Studios. We listened through to all the songs, and he offered immediate, clear and supportive ideas that finally brought the record over the finish line.”
Star 99, Gaman
Out now via Lauren Records, Gaman is the sophomore LP by Star 99, the power pop outfit made up of best friends Saoirse Alesandro, Chris Gough, Jeremy Romero, Thomas Calvo, and Aidan Delaney. The follow-up to 2024’s Bitch Unlimited is as riveting as it is heartfelt and as catchy as it is poetic. Described as “an exploration of the deep feelings that come from relationships with family, friends, and lovers and learning to persist despite hardship,” the record includes the early singles ‘Kill’ and ‘Pushing Daisies’. Check out our Artist Spotlight interview with Star 99.
Jason Isbell, Foxes in the Snow
Foxes in the Snow, Jason Isbell’s first album since filing for divorce from his violinist and backup singer, Amanda Shires, is as raw as he’s ever sounded. He laid the record to tape during five days in October 2024 at New York’s Electric Lady Studios, using the all-mahogany 1940 Martin 0-17 acoustic guitar throughout the process. The intimacy of Foxes in the Snow is starkly moving, even coming from a singer-songwriter who’s never shied away from earnestness. “Now that I live to see my melodies betray me,” he confesses on ‘Gravelweed’, “I’m sorry the love songs all mean different things today.”
Alabaster DePlume, A Blade Because a Blade Is Whole
Alabaster DePlume delivers some of his most beautifully stirring work to date on A Blade Because a Blade Is Whole, his new record out on International Anthem. Following 2022’s GOLD, the London-based saxophonist and singer-songwriter recorded the 11-track LP at London’s Total Refreshment Centre with a group of musicians including electric guitarist Conrad Singh, drummers and vocalists Donna Thompson and Momoko Gill, cellist Hannah Miller, pianist John Ellis, violinists Macie Stewart and Mikey Kenney, and bassists Rozi Plain and Ruth Goller. “A blade, because a blade is whole, it has forgiven itself, and because it will take a small piece of our opposite, for us to be complete,” reflected. “A blade has marked out these former selves on my hand, a blade made the lines that divine us and the blade is whole. A blade. While I forgive myself, and heal, and lead us in healing. We can only forgive each other once we forgive ourselves. We can only heal each other while we heal ourselves.”
Clara Mann, Rift
“It only hurts from when I wake to when I fade away/ It only hurts,” Clara Mann sings on the opening track of her debut album, Rift, her voice rising to a quiver. It’s a disarming way to kick off the follow-up to the London singer-songwriter’s 2022 EP Stay Open, which mellows and aches for the rest of its runtime. The gorgeously delicate record was tracked at the 4AD Studios in London, with production and mixing by Fabian (Martha Skye Murphy, Ex:Re, Fabiana Palladino).
Other albums out today:
The Tubs, Cotton Crown; JENNIE, Ruby; Will Stratton, Points of Origin; Vundabar, Surgery and Pleasure; Charlie Hickey, Could’ve Been Anyone; Kedr Livanskiy, Myrtus Myth; Moreish Idols, All In The Game; JJULIUS, Vol. 3; Lust for Youth & Croatian Amor, All Worlds; FROGG, Eclipse; Takuro Okada, The Near End, the Dark Night, the County Line; JB Dunckel & Jonathan Fitoussi, Mirages II; Violeta Garcia, IN / OUT; Nicole McCabe, A Song to Sing; Chase Petra, Lullabies for Dogs; Myrsini Kalle, some interesting experiences; Left Hand Cuts Off the Right, Every Movement; Alessandro Barbanera, In Darkness Let Me Dwell; Eilis Frawley, Fall Forward; evilgiane & Harto Falion, The Hurtless; Tokimonsta, Eternal Reverie; Marina Zispin, Bianca Scout & Martyn Reid, Now You See Me, Now You Don’t; Frog Eyes, The Open Up; Melin Melyn, Mill On The Hill; Rose Betts, There Is No Ship; Staticlone, Better Living Through Static Vision; Tobacco City, Horses; Franc Moody, Chewing the Fat; Arny Margret, I Miss You, I Do; Caylee Hammack, Bed of Roses; Emily Jeanne, Call of the Sea.
