1/12 Lily Seabird – Alas, (independent)

Burlington, Vermont-based artist-to-watch Lily Seabird calls her sophomore album “an expression of grief, but it’s also for letting go.” Inspired by loss, coming of age, and lingering sadness, Alas, is the indie folk singer/songwriter and producer’s follow-up to 2021’s Beside Myself, and promises to be an achingly intimate and all-consuming experience: An album leaning hard into grief, healing, and one soul’s unbridled, unabridged reflections on what it means to live, to love, and to exist in this world. – Mitch Mosk

1/12 Harrison Storm – Wonder, Won’t You? (Nettwerk Music Group)

Eight years and five EPs into his career, Australian singer/songwriter Harrison Storm invites audiences everywhere to join him on a deeply introspective journey of inward connection. Produced by Dustin Tebbutt, Wonder, Won’t You? is at once expansive and insular: An emotive ten-song journey aching with glowing acoustic guitars, colorful, subtle sonic beds, and Storm’s own gentle, glistening, shiver-inducing voice. – Mitch Mosk

• •

1/12 Marika Hackman – Big Sigh (Chrysalis Records)

Marika Hackman’s Big Sigh is an ode to anhedonia, taking its place as a sympathetic friend in the anthology of numbness. Returning to the intimacy of her earliest projects, the English singer/songwriter’s latest revolves around a slew of bittersweet instrumentation paired with perceptive production, accounting for all the little details. – Nasim Elyasi

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1/12 The Vaccines – Pick-Up Full of Pink Carnations (Thirty Tigers)

British indie legends The Vaccines are back with their sixth record, Pick-Up Full of Pink Carnations. Blending the sounds of their first and fourth records, Pick-Up Full of Pink Carnations is achingly introspective, grounded, and focused on loss felt during human existence. The band pull apart the fabric of who they are as musicians and people in a record set to define the course of their futures. – David Roskin

• •

1/12 Vacations – No Place Like Home (Nettwerk Music Group)

Newcastle, Australia DIY woozy pop group Vacations had nothing short of a breakthrough in 2023, and are riding that sweet momentum into 2024 with the January 12 release of their third record, No Place Like Home. A representation of “fall[ing] back in love with music and so much else in [his] life,” lead singer and guitarist Campbell Burns along with the rest of the band dive into a beautiful discussion of personal growth with the perfect blend of lofi-synth, indie-poppy hooks and bright melodies. – Miles Campbell

1/12 Nailah Hunter – Lovegaze (Fat Possum)

1/12 Wild Child – End of the World (Reba’s Ranch Records)

1/12 Kid Cudi – INSANO (Republic Records)

1/19 Keyon Harrold – Foreverland (Concord Jazz)

With his third album, Foreverland, trumpeter and composer Keyon Harrold will keep his brand of hip-hop-tinged trumpet-playing alive and strong. “I am hoping that people will get a chance to hold on to this piece of art and are inspired by the vibrations, the words, and the musicality that’s been put down on this album,” Harrold shares. “I hope that you’re able to take away the positivity, that you take away from the love, that you’re able to give and spread love, that people are able are ultimately able to be inspired by my life, my music, my journey, my approach.” Featuring contributions from Robert Glasper, Common, Laura Mvula, PJ Morton, and many more notable guests from both the jazz and hip-hop communities, Foreverland is without a doubt a musical paradise. – Josh Weiner

• •

1/19 Swimming Bell – Charlie (Permanent Records)

A lilting and lush indie folk reflection on the ebbs and flows of a life lived in the moment, Swimming Bell’s sophomore album marks a tender return for LA-based singer/songwriter Katie Schottland. Charlie gently stirs the heart while simultaneously nourishing the soul as Schottland treats listeners to ten intimate confessionals – a personal collage of her last three years, which included an impactful move from Brooklyn to California. For her, this record is a “time capsule… full of love, grief, loss, daydreams, and the untethered feeling of change.” Littered with little sparks of musical magic, Charlie is a heartwarming, smile-inducing folk record ready to soundtrack winter’s cold nights. – Mitch Mosk

1/19 Lil Dicky – PENITH (The DAVE Soundtrack) (BMG)

1/19 Green Day – Saviors (Warner Records)

Two decades after Green Day reached what remains its commercial and cultural pinnacle with American Idiot, their fourteenth studio album, Saviors, demonstrates that there is life in them yet as a veteran rock group – and one that still has plenty of bones to pick with their home country. – Josh Weiner

1/19 Brown Horse – Reservoir (Loose Music)

Norwish, England’s Brown Horse ache from the inside out on their debut album Reservoir, a hauntingly beautiful alt-country record full of turbulence and tenderness, born from an inescapable inner turmoil and an undying love of folk, alternative rock, and country music. It’s a dreamy, emotionally charged reverie that pays homage to the band’s folk roots, while establishing them as sonic kinfolk to groups like Lucero and Big Thief – contemporary acts that have, in their own ways, broken the mold and charted their own unique paths in the music world. – Mitch Mosk

1/19 Eliza McLamb – Going Through It

1/19 Sleater-Kinney – Little Rope (Loma Vista Recordings)

1/26 Courting – New Last Name (Lower Third)

1/26 Future Islands – People Who Aren’t There Anymore (4AD)

Future Islands are a band to grow with, a band to embrace both heartbreak and joy, dark and light, sometimes one right after another. It all comes to a head in the group’s beautiful, yearning and cathartic new LP People Who Aren’t There Anymore. – Beau Hayhoe

1/26 Goth Babe – Lola (Mom + Pop Music)

1/26 ISMAY – Desert Pavement (independent)

1/26 junodream – Pools of Colour (AWAL Recordings)

Straddling darkness and light, past, present, and future, Junodream’s debut album Pools of Colour aches with unadulterated emotion, unfiltered depth, longing, hope, and wonder. The dream rock band confront, contemplate, and comment on modernity and the human condition without drawing conclusions – facilitating open-ended conversations (and reflections) on the state of things that provoke us to, in turn, dig deeper into ourselves and the many ways in which we do and don’t connect with the world. – Mitch Mosk

• •

1/26 Katy Kirby – Blue Raspberry (ANTI- Records)

1/26 Large Brush Collection – Off Center (independent)

1/26 Mall Girl – Pure Love (Jansen Records)

1/26 NewDad – MADRA (Atlantic Records)

Heavy, achingly raw, and emotionally charged, MADRA is an unrelenting alternative album built on fragility, vulnerability, and the dark depths of human experience. NewDad’s debut album finds them dwelling in the deep end of the sonic and emotional spectrum, picking their worlds apart as they comprehend the sheer weight of living through a haze of grunge, shoegaze, and dreamy indie rock. – Mitch Mosk

• •

1/26 The Smile – Wall of Eyes (XL Recordings)

1/26 Ty Segall – Three Bells (Drag City)

1/29 Conchúr White – Swirling Violets (Bella Union)

2/2 Britti – Hello, I’m Britti (Easy Eye Sound)

2/2 Giant Rooks – How Have You Been? (Mercury / Republic Records)

Giant Rooks’ second full-length effort How Have You Been? sees the German indie rock quintet fully leaning into their knack for creating high-energy earworms, yet maintaining a sense of intimacy and realism in its exploration of social and personal themes. – Isabella Le

2/2 Joe Wong – Mere Survival (independent)

2/2 MORGXN – Beacon (Nettwerk Music Group)

2/2 Shannen James – Patchwork

Life’s little moments deserve their time to shine, and on Patchwork the ephemeral becomes eternal as Australian singer/songwriter Shannen James turns her rays toward our intimate, innermost experiences. It’s a record of poetic self-expression and radiant revelry: A charming collection of songs ready to be the soundtrack to our own dusty roads as James soaks up the full spectrum of life experience, crafting a ‘patchwork’ record that stitches together the stories of her life to date. – Mitch Mosk

• •

2/2 The Last Dinner Party – Prelude to Ecstasy (Island Records)

The Last Dinner Party’s debut album Prelude to Ecstasy cements the London group’s status as an indie pop band with ambitious imagination, melding genres and references of their choosing into a wild and mellifluous collage, taking musical maximalism to an extreme in both lyrical content and sonic arrangement. – Olivia Martinez

• •

2/9 1999 WRITE THE FUTURE – hella (˃̣̣̥╭╮˂̣̣̥) ✧ ♡ ‧º·˚: (88rising / RCA Records)

2/9 Brittany Howard – What Now (Island Records)

2/9 Chelsea Wolfe – She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She (Loma Vista Recordings)

2/9 Cj Pandit – One Lost English Boy (Lost Language)

2/9 Declan McKenna – What Happened to the Beach? (Tomplicated Records)

2/9 Katelyn Tarver – Quitter (Nettwerk Music Group)

Through careful lyricism and sonically crafted production, Katelyn Tarver has managed to create a timeless piece of work with Quitter, a beautifully vulnerable record that asks big questions of the future while reflecting on the past, all while trying to figure out what we’re all trying to figure out; how it all makes sense. – Kelly McCafferty Dorogy

2/9 Loving – Any Light (Last Gang Records/MNRK)

Loving, the British Columbia-based duo of Jesse Henderson and David Perry, utilize free-flowing experimentation to explore love, depression, and uncertainty with their third record, Any Light. – Miles Campbell

2/9 Madi Diaz – Weird Faith (ANTI-)

Even with the uncomfortable themes or difficult things that Madi Diaz is unpacking in her songwriting on Weird Faith, she does so with an incredible tact so that the album, even in its most unflinching moments of honesty… is never uninviting or inaccessible, and is continually compelling – an extraordinarily personal journey that also serves as a refreshingly bold and, yes, audacious, artistic statement. – Kevin Krein

2/9 Mk.gee – Two Star & The Dream Police (R&R Digital)

2/9 Royel Otis – PRATTS & PAIN (Ourness)

2/9 Tom Snowdon – Lonely Tree (Pieeater)

2/16 Daniel Ellsworth & The Great Lakes – HIGH LIFE (Deer Head Music)

2/16 Danielle Durack – Escape Artist (independent)

Simultaneously distant and intimate, singer/songwriter Danielle Durack’s third album Escape Artist almost mimics the act of moving on, where at times heartbreak can feel like it is almost forgotten, and other times it can feel like it is breathing down your neck. It is at once that urge you have to pick the scab, and the slow-gained, hard-fought control that allows you to resist. – Hannah Burns

2/16 Friko – Where we’ve been, Where we go from here (ATO Records)

Chicago band Friko channel inner tension and turmoil into breathtakingly bold indie rock songs on their debut album Where we’ve been, Where we go from here, a charming and churning debut that aches with the weight of being alive. – Mitch Mosk

2/16 Frontier Ruckus – On the Northline (Loose Music)

2/16 IDLES – TANGK (Partisan Records)

2/16 Jordan Mackampa – Welcome Home, Kid! (AWAL)

Warm, sun-kissed, and soul-stirring, Jordan Mackampa’s sophomore album WELCOME HOME, KID! is his most intimate and candid endeavor yet – an unapologetic artistic homecoming celebrating the person he’s still becoming and embracing the communities he’s proud to be a part of, all while reckoning with the trials and tribulations life has thrown along the way. – Mitch Mosk

2/16 Middle Kids – Faith Crisis Pt 1 (Lucky Number)

2/16 Mother Mother – Grief Chapter (Warner Records)

2/16 San Fermin – Arms (Better Company Records)

2/16 serpentwithfeet – GRIP (Secretly Canadian)

2/16 Talk Show – Effigy (Missing Piece Records)

Intense, intoxicating, and all-consuming, Talk Show’s debut album Effigy is a darkly alluring post-punk fever dream: An all-consuming homage to the nightclub, that sacred, seductive space of connection, release, and full-bodied catharsis. – Mitch Mosk

2/16 Varsity – Souvenirs (independent)

The capstone to a year of monthly singles releases, Varsity’s fourth album Souvenirs is a captivating collection of cherished memories, intimate emotions, and fleeting moments brought to life through an expansive indie rock soundtrack. – Mitch Mosk

2/23 Allie X – Girl With No Face (Twin Music Inc)

Girl With No Face‘s eleven tracks sound as though they were pulled straight from the soundtrack of a campy slasher film that exists only on a dust-covered VHS tape hidden in the musician’s basement. An entrancing aura devours all self-control and leaves you a victim of sporadic dance – all hail Allie X. – Marissa DeLeon

2/23 Colouring – Love to You, Mate (Bella Union)

2/23 Erick the Architect – I’ve Never Been Here Before (Architect Recording Company)

2/23 Ghetts – On Purpose, With Purpose (Warner Music UK)

2/23 iDKHOW – GLOOM DIVISION (Concord Records)

2/23 Jazmin Bean – Traumatic Livelihood (Interscope Records)

2/23 Little Kid – A Million Easy Payments (Orindal Records)

2/23 MGMT – Loss of Life (Mom+Pop)

2/23 Psymon Spine – Head Body Connector (Northern Spy Records)

2/23 Red Rum Club – Western Approaches (Modern Sky UK)

2/23 The Snuts – Millennials (Happy Artist Records)

3/1 Abby Sage – The Rot (Nettwerk Music Group)

Abby Sage’s ambitious debut album, The Rot, shows her at the pinnacle of her potential, full of propulsive electronics, hypnotic harmonies, and lyrics that combine trippy imagery with bare-hearted confessions. – Kate Millar

3/1 Dekker – Future Ghosts (Useful Fictions)

3/1 Faye Webster – Underdressed at the Symphony (Secretly Canadian)

3/1 Games We Play – Life’s Going Great (Fueled By Ramen / DCD2)

3/1 Hollow Coves – Nothing to Lose (Nettwerk Music Group)

3/1 lake j – Dizzy (independent)

3/1 The Narcotix – Dying (independent)

3/1 RIP Dunes – RIP Dunes (independent)

3/1 San Cisco – Under The Light (Nettwerk Music Group)

3/1 Yard Act – Where’s My Utopia? (Republic Records)

3/8 Amelia Coburn – Between The Moon and The Milkman (independent)

3/8 Ariana Grande – eternal sunshine (Republic Records)

Eternal Sunshine, Ariana Grande’s first album since the pandemic, finds her singular, powerful vocals laid atop glossy beats as effectively as ever, with everything that’s been on her mind post-divorce laid bare as well. – Josh Weiner

3/8 Bleachers – Bleachers (Dirty Hit)

3/8 brother bird – another year (Easy Does It Records)

3/8 Haux – Blue Angeles (Ultra Records)

Indie folk singer/songwriter Haux – the alias for the Berkshires’ Woodson Black – continues to blanket the ears in warm, soul-stirring atmospheric wonders in his sophomore album Blue Angeles, the long-awaited follow-up to 2020’s breathtaking debut Violence in a Quiet Mind. A twelve-track answer to the question, “What happens when we stop running away?” Blue Angeles promises to be a haven of intimate introspection, spiritual connection, inner healing, and self-discovery – all expressed through a dreamy, cathartic, introspective and vulnerable lens. – Mitch Mosk

3/8 The Jesus and Mary Chain – Glasgow Eyes (Fuzz Club Records)

3/8 Konradsen – Michael’s Book on Bears (777 Music)

Cathartic and comforting, Konradsen’s sophomore album Michael’s Book on Bears is a soul-stirring exhale of intimate Scandinavian introspection: A sentimental, smoldering indie folk seduction that finds Norwegian duo of Jenny Marie Sabel and Eirik Vildgren at home and in their element as they channel a sense of familiarity, connection, and homecoming into beautiful and breathtaking music. Says the band: “When you live in a quiet place, sometimes you want to make more noise. Even though we live more quietly, there is plenty of sound.” Mitch Mosk

3/8 Krooked Kings – Shiver (Nobody Gets It Records)

3/8 Lake Saint Daniel – Small Thoughts

3/8 Moor Mother – The Great Bailout (ANTI- Records)

3/8 The Northern Belle – Bats in the Attic (Die With Your Boots On Records)

3/8 Slow Hollows – Bullhead (Danger Collective)

3/8 Torrey – Torrey (Slumberland Records)

3/8 Tomato Flower – No (Ramp Local)

3/15 Fetch Tiger – Walking to Camera (independent)

Brooklyn-based indie pop duo Fetch Tiger describe their debut album as their most honest work yet, stepping out from behind the made-up characters of their first two EPs and telling “stories about our own, real, tangible experiences.” Unapologetically autobiographical and nonetheless enchanting, Walking to Camera sees the band – comprised of Lorenzo Montali and Tanner Davis – at their most intimate and unleashed, delivering tender, turbulent feelings with a dynamic and spellbinding force thanks to a dazzling combination of jangling electric guitars, glittering synths, driving drums, and Montali’s evocative, enchanting voice. – Mitch Mosk

3/15 The Fourth Wall – Return Forever (DevilDuck Records)

3/15 Gouge Away – Deep Sage (Deathwish Inc.)

3/15 Kacey Musgraves – Deeper Well (Interscope Records / MCA Nashville)

3/22 Adrianne Lenker – Bright Future (4AD)

Adrianne Lenker of the band Big Thief is known for quiet destruction. Her sixth solo LP Bright Future is a powerhouse of an album, with waves of energy and dips of sorrow. Lenker does not shy away from confounding poetry and quirky instrumentals, drawing on her experiences with Big Thief to flesh out her already well-established solo work. The album is springtime, with blossoming buds and fleeting freezes. – Madeleine Eggen

3/22 Bendigo Fletcher – Two Things At Once (Elektra)

3/22 Brimheim – RATKING (Tambourhinoceros)

3/22 Close Talker – The Sprawl (Slow Weather)

3/22 Doris Club – There’s Still Time (Nettwerk Music Group)

3/22 Fletcher – In Search of the Antidote (Capitol Records)

3/22 Francis of Delirium – Lighthouse (Dalliance Recordings)

Burning bright and fueled from a fire within, Francis of Delirium’s debut album Lighthouse is a beautifully radiant and spirited record: A cathartic coming-of-age reverie that comes alive as Luxembourg’s Jana Bahrich learns to let love’s light into her life. – Mitch Mosk

3/22 Gary Clark Jr. – JPEG RAW (Warner Records)

3/22 Good Morning – Good Morning Seven (Polyvinyl Records)

3/22 Julia Holter – Something in the Room She Moves (Domino Records)

3/22 Lana Winterhalt – Recovering Theatre Kid (independent)

3/22 Lauran Hibberd – Girlfriend Material (Virgin Music)

3/22 Rosali – Bite Down (Merge Records)

3/22 Rosie Tucker – UTOPIA NOW! (Sentimental Records)

3/22 Saint Saviour – Sunseeker (VLF Records)

3/22 Sam Evian – Plunge (Flying Cloud Recordings)

3/22 Shakira – Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran (Sony Music)

3/22 The Staves – All Now (Nonesuch Records)

A product of passion and perseverance, soul-searching and self-knowing, All Now is an emboldened, cathartic release that sees The Staves basking in beautiful folk rock pastures as they take on the world, one song at a time. Produced by John Congleton, the band’s fourth studio album is a spirited and expansive joyride filled with moments of light and love, grief and wondering, and that cheeky, biting English humor that, quite literally, kicks off the whole record with the simple, loaded phrase: It’s all now, isn’t it exciting? – Mitch Mosk

3/22 The Veronicas – Gothic Summer (Big Noise Music Group)

3/22 The Wandering Hearts – MOTHER (Chrysalis Records)

3/22 Waxahatchee – Tigers Blood (ANTI-)

3/29 A Country Western – Life on the Lawn (Crafted Sounds)

3/29 Beyoncé – COWBOY CARTER (Parkwood Entertainment / Columbia records)

3/29 Gamblers – Pulverizer (independent)

3/29 Harmless – Springs Eternal (Nettwerk Music Group)

3/29 Holiday Ghosts – Coat of Arms (FatCat Records)

3/29 Jeremiah Fraites – Piano Piano 2 (Dualtone Records)

3/29 Love Fame Tragedy – Life Is A Killer (Bright Antenna Records)

3/29 Niamh Bury – Yellow Roses (Claddagh Records / UMI)

3/29 Peel – Acid Star (Innovative Leisure)

3/29 Teens in Trouble – What’s Mine (Asian Man Records)

3/29 Yot Club – Rufus (Amuse)

4/4 Arsun – Babe I Hear Thunder In Your Heart (Dirty Laundry Music)

4/5 Beatenberg – The Great Fire of Beatenberg (Leafy Outlook)

4/5 The Black Keys – Ohio Players (Nonesuch/Warner Records)

4/5 Bnny – One Million Love Songs (Fire Talk)

4/5 Dana Gavanski – LATE SLAP (Full Time Hobby)

4/5 Drahla – angeltape (Captured Tracks)

4/5 Grace Cummings – Ramona (ATO Records)

4/5 Gustaf – Package Pt. 2 (Royal Mountain Records)

4/5 Katie Pruitt – Mantras (Rounder Records)

4/5 Khruangbin – A LA SALA (Dead Oceans)

4/5 Lizzy McAlpine – Older (RCA Records)

4/5 Maggie Rose – No One Gets Out Alive (Big Loud Records)

4/5 Medium Build – Country (slowplay / Island Records)

His major label debut, Medium Build’s fifth studio album Country is filled with singer/songwriter Nick Carpenter’s “goddamn DNA” as he spills his heart and soul in twelve intimately vulnerable and irresistibly catchy songs. “I wanted Country to have a human touch,” Carpenter says. “I want Country to be something you love with and dance with and cry with and sleep with and lean into.” – Mitch Mosk

4/5 Marcus King – Mood Swings (American / Republic Records)

4/5 Motel Breakfast – I Promise I’m Having Fun (independent)

4/5 Mount Kimbie – The Sunset Violent (Warp Records)

4/5 Novo Amor – Collapse List (AllPoints)

4/5 RiTchie – Triple Digits [112] (independent)

4/5 Sinkane – We Belong (City Slang)

4/5 Vampire Weekend – Only God Was Above Us (Columbia Records)

4/5 X Ambassadors – Townie (Virgin Music Group)

4/12 Aaron Lee Tasjan – Stellar Evolution (Blue Élan)

4/12 Asha Jefferies – Ego Ride (Nettwerk Music Group)

4/12 Bad Bad Hats – Bad Bad Hats (Don Giovanni Records)

4/12 The Ballroom Thieves – Sundust (Nettwerk Music Group)

4/12 BODEGA – Our Brand Could Be Yr Life (Chrysalis Records)

4/12 Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard – Skinwalker (Communion Records)

4/12 English Teacher – This Could Be Texas (Island Records)

4/12 The Feeling – San Vito (Kartel Music Group)

4/12 girl in red – I’M DOING IT AGAIN BABY! (Columbia Records)

4/12 Humbird – Right On (Nettwerk Music Group)

4/12 Louisa Stancioff – When We Were Looking (Yep Roc Records)

4/12 mae krell – (i think) i might be grown (independent)

4/12 Maggie Rogers – Don’t Forget Me (Capitol Records)

4/12 MELTS – Field Theory (Fuzz Club)

4/12 METZ – Up on Gravity Hill (Sub Pop)

4/12 Minor Moon – The Light Up Waltz (Ruination Record Co.)