In this segment, we showcase the most notable albums out each week. Here are the albums out on July 11, 2025:
Justin Bieber, SWAG
Justin Bieber has surprise-released a new album: SWAG boasts guests spots from Dijon, Lil B, Sexyy Red, Druski, Gunna, Cash Cobain, 2 Chainz, and more. Last year, it was reported that Mk.gee was in the studio with the pop singer, and he contributes production on the record, along with Carter Lang, Dylan Wiggins, Daniel Caesar, Dijon, Daniel Chetrit, Eddie Benjamin, Knox Fortune, and more. Tobias Jesso Jr. co-wrote several songs on the LP, which follows 2021’s Justice. It spans 21 tracks, and before you say it, the penultimate one is called ‘TOO LONG’.
Clipse, Let God Sort Em Out
Clipse’s first LP in 16 years, Let God Sort Em Out, has arrived. Entirely produced by Pharrell, the 13-track record features the early single ‘Ace Trumpets’ as well as guest spots from Kendrick Lamar, Tyler, the Creator, John Legend, Nas, and more, reprising the duo’s vivid lyricism and meticulous flow while offering surprising glimpses of vulnerability. Recording was split between a studio in Virginia and the Louis Vuitton headquarters in Paris, France.
Wet Leg, moisturizer
On the first song of their sophomore album, Wet Leg reevaluate: being in love isn’t a feeling you “kinda like.” It’s an emergency that makes you sound ravenous, maniacal, silly, and melodramatic, all adjectives that describe moisturizer even as the band maintain their deadpan humour and off-beat aesthetic. Yet the record, once again produced by Dan Carey, softens into and soaks up its pleasures and contradictions, the way it can appear fantastical even as the sobering reality kicks in. What ‘Being in Love’ describes as “some kind of fucked up trip” is just “happy comatose,” which isn’t a bad slogan for moisturizer. Apply gently; it just might do you good. Read the full review.
Gina Birch, Trouble
Two years after her first solo album, 2023’s I Play My Bass Loud, the legendary Raincoats co-founder is back with a new album called Trouble. Flexing toward experimental R&B and psychedelic pop, the record is appropriately rambunctious and off-beat. “It’s a bit out there, a bit off the tracks, and I always like to go there,” Birch commented in press materials. “I unofficially subtitled the album ‘Trouble I’ve Caused and Trouble I’m In’, so the songs are based around that feeling—that dangerous place to be.” It was previewed by the singles ‘Doom Monger’ and ‘Causing Trouble Again’.
Sister., Two Birds
Sister.
, the second album by the Brooklyn-based indie band Sister., is as disarming as it is revivifying in its intimacy. Singer-songwriters Hannah Pruzinsky and Ceci Sturman, who met as college roommates, stopped living together for the first time in nine years while making the record; the band is rounded out by James Chrisman and Florist/Told Slant’s Felix Walworth. “I feel like the theme of most of our conversations at that time, at least from my perspective, was a lot of fear about growing apart,” Hannah Pruzinsky shared in our Artist Spotlight interview. “I think we both shared that, and it was a really sad time because this was our normal. Living together seemed to somehow in our brains solidify the emotional relationship in a way. But I think the songwriting then was a way to distill some hope from that fear; it felt like a reassurance over time and a way to come through it with hope.”
Goon, Dream 3
Goon have released a striking new album, Dream 3, via Born Losers. During the making of the album, bandleader Kenny Becker’s marriage ended, and the songs he had written took on a heart-wrenching resonance. “I began this record so excited,” he explained. “The songwriting was less scripted, letting me loosen up the reins a little and follow whatever idea seemed most interesting. It started off as a really joyful recording process. Then came the most devastating time of my life.” Of the lead single ‘Closer to’, for instance, he noted: “I had written ‘next one is a big one’ thinking it could be a cool thing for someone else to hear, when in fact I, unknowingly, was the one who needed to brace myself and truly had no idea my life was about to change.”
Matt Jencik & Midwife, Never Die
Midwife’s Madeline Johnston and Matt Jencik (Don Caballero, Slint) have teamed up for a hauntingly elegiac collaborative album titled Never Die. After a number of ambient-heavy instrumental records, Jencik challenged himself to write songs with prominent vocal parts, initially working alone in his basement and recording directly to a four-track cassette. Drawn to Johnston’s minimalist rendering of vast emotions, he invited her to be the vessel for his reflections on mortality, her voice serving as a guiding light on Never Die. “Even though I was not the songwriter on this project, the work falls in line with all the themes that Midwife explores,” Johnston shared. “Each song tells a story, an experience documented and preserved, like a moment trapped in a snow globe.”
The Swell Season, Forward
The Swell Season, the Oscar-winning duo of Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, have returned with their their first new album in 16 years. Forward was produced by Sturla Mio Thorisson and features eight songs, including the early singles ‘Stuck in Reverse’ and ‘Factory Street Bells’. “After our whirlwind that led up to the Oscars and after, we were so busy and with that came a pressure that neither of us particularly wanted, and ultimately we kind of drifted in the middle of all of that hard work and celebration. We remained good friends, helping on each other’s records, keeping up with each other’s families. While touring my last record, I realized I just missed her. I remember calling Markéta and saying, ‘Do you feel like doing some gigs?’” Hansard explained. “From there the idea was to do a little recording and not put any pressure on it, just see what happens, and suddenly we found ourselves making a record.”
Other albums out today:
Open Mike Eagle, Neighborhood Gods Unlimited; Florence Road, Fall Back; Gwenno, Utopia; Ava Mendoza, gabby fluke-mogul, & Carolina Pérez, Mama Killa; Burna Boy, No Sign of Weakness; Mal Blum, The Villain; Rip Van Winkle, Blasphemy; Barry Can’t Swim, Loner; Africa Express, Africa Express Presents… Bahidorá; Aho Ssan & Resina, Ego Death; Allo Darlin, Bright Nights; GIVĒON, BELOVED; Nina Cobham, Basis of a Pinky Promise; Mike Polizze, Around Sound; Ólafur & Talos, A Dawning; Aunt Katrina, This Heat Is Slowly Killing Me; Half Japanese, Adventure; Worlds Worst, American Muscle; Nate Mercereau, Josh Johnson, & Carlos Niño, Openness Trio; World’s First Cinema, Something of Wonder; Horror Movie Marathon, DISCOUNT DEATH MASK; Mark Stewart, The Fateful Symmetry; Cecil Taylor & Tony Oxley, Flashing Spirits; Calva Louise, Edge of the Abyss.
