In this segment, we showcase the most notable albums out each week. Here are the albums out on March 28, 2025:
Lucy Dacus, Forever Is a Feeling
Lucy Dacus is back with her fourth album and major label debut. Produced by Blake Mills, Forever Is a Feeling follows 2021’s Home Video. Rather than expanding or polishing up her sound, it charts an ongoing evolution by refining the subtleties and zoning into the minutiae of her songwriting, whose reflections of love, fame, and trust now concern some of the very people helping to bring it to life. The record is about traveling long distances and trying to transcend them, about tasting forever in the throes of change, taking the gamble on love when you’re caught between fantasy and truth. Read the full album review.
Perfume Genius, Glory
Perfume Genius’ latest album, Glory, has arrived. It was led by the confident ‘It’s a Mirror’, which marked a shift from the diffuse grooves of 2022’s Ugly Season but still succumbed to the feeling of “a siren, muffled crying/ Breaking me down soft and slow.” Yet if there is a weariness seeping through the familiarly lush and vibrant tapestry of Glory – which reunites Mike Hadreas with producer Blake Mills, while elevating his backing band of Meg Duffy (Hand Habits), Greg Uhlmann, Tim Carr, Jim Keltner, and Pat Kelly – it’s not at the expense of catharsis, freedom, or indeed glory. The album is tender-hearted and open-ended, loosening into a level of directness that not only feels new for Hadreas, but gives even its heavier subjects a weightless air. Read the full album review.
Destroyer, Dan’s Boogie
Destroyer has returned with a new album, Dan’s Boogie. In our interview with Dan Bejar around the release, the singer-songwriter talked about Billie Holiday, Tom Waits, Bi Gan, and more as inspirations behind the follow-up to 2022’s Labyrinthitis. “I think for Destroyer songs in general, outside art is crucial,” Bejar said. “It’s the tapestry of the world in the background of those songs – the world they live in. Not to say that it exclusively feeds off other people’s art, but it’s definitely not scared to.”
Great Grandpa, Patience, Moonbeam
Patience, Moonbeam, Great Grandpa’s first album since 2019’s Four of Arrows, feels both buoyant and homespun, channeling intimate, tangled emotions through fantastical songwriting and gorgeously expansive arrangements. All members of the quintet – Al Menne, Dylan Hanwright, Pat and Carrie Goodwin, and Cam LaFlam – wrote lyrics for the record, which was preceded by the singles ‘Kid’, ‘Doom’, ‘Junior’, ‘Ladybug’, and ‘Never Rest’. Making the band’s most collaborative album might have taken time, but it’s well worth the wait.
Hannah Cohen, Earthstar Mountain
Hannah Cohen has released her first album in six years, Earthstar Mountain, via Bella Union/Congrats Records. The Welcome Home follow-up was produced by the singer-songwriter’s longtime partner and collaborator Sam Owens, aka Sam Evian, and features Sufjan Stevens and Clairo. “I think working on music with him is a way we connect and bond together,” Cohen said in our Artist Spotlight interview about working with her partner. “Of course, I’m going to write things about him – or sometimes I don’t, but parts of our lives come into our music. So we’re talking about them through music in a way, which is sort of therapeutic for us.”
Deafheaven, Lonely People With Power
On their sixth album, Deafheaven reconcile the luminous sound of 2021’s Infinite Granite with the boundary-pushing heaviness the California band made its name on. Rather than a return to form, Lonely People With Power showcases the duality of a band writing some of its most scorching, unrelenting tunes – ‘Incidental II’ is a standout in that regard – while still making space for expansive, softer atmospherics. Guests on the LP include Interpol’s Paul Banks and Boy Harsher’s Jae Matthews.
SPELLLING, Portrait of My Heart
Chrystia Cabral has put out her fourth LP as SPELLLING, Portrait of My Heart. She was joined by touring bandmates (performing as the Mystery School) to record The Turning Wheel follow-up, which boasts some of her most direct and electrifying songs to date. “When the lyrics for the title track came together, it really started to morph everything in this more energetic direction, instead of this more whimsical landscape that I’ve worked with before,” Cabral said in press materials. “It started to become more driven, higher energy, more focused. And I have a big affection for it because of that. I love that it feels like it withstood transformation, which is something I always want to aspire to with things that I make. I want them to have this sense of timelessness. It could exist like this, or like that, or like this, but this is the one for right now.”
Niis, Niis World
The Los Angeles punks Niis have come through with a album, Niis World, via Get Better Records. Pronounced “Nice,” the band blends hardcore punk, lo-fi garage, and grunge to blistering effect. “The powers that be want us to pit against each other, they don’t want us to connect, well, it’s actually more punk to not be pitted against each other, it’s more about community, connecting, and being good to each other,” guitarist Ryan McGuffin said in press materials.
Backxwash, Only Dust Remains
Backxwash has put out a new album, Only Dust Remains, via the Zambian Canadian rapper and producer’s own label, Ugly Hag. It follows 2022’s His Happiness Shall Come First Even Though We Are Suffering, which completed a trilogy that also included 2021’s I Lie Here Buried With My Rings and My Dresses and 2020’s God Has Nothing to Do With This Leave Him Out of It. It features the previously unveiled singles ‘Wake Up’ and ‘9th Heaven’.
Unknown Mortal Orchestra, IC-02 Bogotá
Unknown Mortal Orchestra have unveiled a new album, IC-02 Bogotá, via Jagjaguwar. Recorded at Estudio Naranja in the Colombian city with the group’s new keyboard player, Christian Li, the latest entry in their instrumental series is described by the band as “possible background music for some strange parties and night drives in your future.” It’s worth sticking around for the 14-minute closer, whose percussive stops and starts render it one of the most riveting songs on the LP.
Other albums out today:
Eiko Ishibashi, Antigone; Free Range, Lost & Found; Yukimi, For You; Aya, Hexed!; Bryan Ferry, Loose Talk; Alison Krauss & Union Station, Arcadia; Dean Wareham, That’s the Price of Loving Me; Boldy James & Antt Beatz, Hommage; Snapped Ankles, Hard Times Furious Dancing; Cactus Lee, Cactus Lee; YT, Oi!; Ohyung, You Are Always on My Mind; CocoRosie, Little Death Wishes; Sandwell District, End Beginnings; Holger Czukay: Gvoon, Brennung 1; Ohyung, You Are Always on My Mind; The Darkness, Dreams on Toast; James Elkington, Pastel De Nada.
