13 new albums to stream this week
The new albums from Jill Scott, Nashpaints, and August Ponthier should be at the top of your queue today. Tap in and find a new obsession.
Photo of Jill Scott by Kennedi Carter
Paste is the place to kick off each and every New Music Friday. We follow our regular roundups of the best new songs by highlighting the most compelling new records you need to hear. Find the best new albums of the week below.
Angel Du$t: Cold 2 the Touch
Brand New Soul didn’t grab me two years ago, but I’m buying into Angel Du$t now. Cold 2 the Touch is a poppy, icy take on the hardcore music Justice Tripp makes with his other band, Trapped Under Ice, and, for someone whose tolerance for the aforementioned genre is as low as mine, that’s a good, inviting thing. I wouldn’t call Tripp’s latest effort “accessible,” but the barrier to entry does feel a lot thinner. Cold 2 the Touch sounds like an amped-up version of everything he does well under other names. This vertical is especially exciting, thanks to a few colors of psych-rock tones and head-strong punk energy. “Pain Is A Must” and “I’m the Outside” will break your neck and dance on your corpse. I’m especially floored by “DU$T,” which slowly builds into this colossal, splintering blast. The guest list on Cold 2 the Touch is a good one too, thanks to appearances from God’s Hate, Restraining Order, American Nightmare, and Terror across the tight, punchy tracklist. Baltimore’s doing all right. —Matt Mitchell [Run For Cover]
August Ponthier: Everywhere Isn’t Texas
The year is still young, but Everywhere Isn’t Texas is the best country album of 2026 so far. Ponthier’s style isn’t that of an outlaw, but a sci-fi phantom lassoing the stars (and mingling with a green alien or two). Their music exists in the same vein as CMAT or Chappell Roan, or even Sabrina Carpenter (from three years ago more so than recently)—Western ideas tinged with awesome pop superstardom. Listening to Everywhere Isn’t Texas, you get the sense that August Ponthier is going to be a big deal. I think this record is going to be huge for non-binary Zoomers and Millennial two-steppers alike. Ponthier arrives on the album with impressive confidence, singing about their childhood without ever dipping their head into the drink. They love good-looking guys and dream of becoming a good-looking guy. These are stories you can dance to, and I think you ought to. The honky-tonk bar just got a whole lot queerer. —Matt Mitchell [Nowhereland Studios]
Cardinals: Masquerade
I’ve been waiting on Cardinals’ debut record since the Irish band played our SXSW party last March. They’re a talented bunch of players who traffic in noisy indie-rock that excitedly spills all over the place. Finn Manning’s accordion is an incredible yet unexpected anchor in melodies like these. “I Like You” grows into a splintered pocket I haven’t yet climbed out of. Shoegaze, gothic, slacker, and folk rock carries through. Calexico and slowcore ideas bubble to the surface, too. The seams come undone on “The Burning of Cork,” while brutality is top of mind during “Anhedonia.” Walking the paths Fontaines D.C. paved before them, Cardinals evoke Modest Mouse, Beirut, and Neutral Milk Hotel while buttoning up a sound that is greatly their own. Masquerade does everything it ought to. —Matt Mitchell [So Young]
Charli XCX: Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights isn’t Superfly or Shaft, but Charli XCX’s latest record at least belongs near the conversation. Her latest uses Emerald Fennell’s recent adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic novel as a framework but not a rulebook. With The moment currently in theaters and this record now on the shelves, I’d say Charli’s moved on from brat for the most part. Now, she’s entangled in the gothic, brooding romance of Catherine and Heathcliff, making avant-garde pop songs with John Cale and Sky Ferreira. Auto-Tune and industrial clangs abound but this is not your usual take on Romanticism. Charli makes it known quite explicitly that her songs about BDSM and disassociation are not meant to be faithful companion pieces to Wuthering Heights the novel but “Wuthering Heights” the film—and even then, that relationship has distance. These are icy and disruptive songs, including the sinister, Cale-assisted “House” and the alluring “Chains of Love” ballad. —Matt Mitchell [Atlantic]
Converge: Love Is Not Enough
Converge has been swirling around in our coverage since last autumn, when Jane Doe showed up in our best albums of the 21st century so far list and, recently, Kurt Ballou appeared on our greatest guitarists of all time ranking. I have high expectations for the best living metalcore band, and Love Is Not Enough meets them all. Ballou, Jacob Bannon, and their bandmates have been together for 36 years, and this record is an embodiment of that. Love Is Not Enough stabs and sprawls. Everyday life is a terror, thanks to corporate cesspools, American inequities, and widespread political turmoil. Converge makes an effort to translate all of that without flowering up the language. Like everything in the band’s catalogue, Love Is Not Enough is no frills, no bullshit. —Matt Mitchell [Epitaph]
Danny L Harle: Cerulean
Labeled a debut by the man who made it, Cerulean is tagged to be the first proper Danny Harle record. For the sake of this blurb, I’ll choose to briefly forget that he put out a solo album four years ago. Cerulean is a proggy, chorale experiment that’s closer to Philip Glass than his PC Music mate A.G. Cook. The “Harlecore” beat is transportive pop suspended in exciting digital textures and synthetic dance tones. Cerulean is light on hooks but heavy on pop ambition. It’s got a loaded guest list too, including Caroline Polachek, Clairo, Dua Lipa, Julia Michaels, and Oklou, and Harle makes spacious use of each and every voice. —Matt Mitchell [XL]
Naomi Udu’s maximalism—in this case, her intertwining of Biblical references with her serpentine range of stylistic choices—is most effective when her seemingly disparate ideas cohere into a sonically and emotionally satisfying whole. “moses,” for instance, begins with an arresting gospel acapella harmony before slinking into a woozy Matrix-y breakbeat, infusing some futuristic, apocalyptic flair into Udu’s identification with the titular prophet. The peppy, punchy drum fills and baroque-turned-electronic thrum that color “sense(is)” and “w-w-w-w-w” are well-calibrated to Udu’s spirited vocal delivery and high-drama lyrics. Penultimate track “set me free” finds Udu looser and friskier than she’s ever been before, mixing the stuttering, sensual R&B stylings of a Timbaland-produced Aaliyah cut with the humid percussion of a Solange/Blood Orange collab. On top of being the most rewarding offerings musically speaking, these tunes are also Udu’s most revealing in how they reckon with her sheltered ideological conditioning and her current pursuits as an independent adult, whether that’s avoiding the traps of marriage (“I can’t even fathom / Waking up the man on Sunday morning”) or tapping into sexual curiosity (“Lead me into bliss and love me with your lips / Leave me with no words to say”). —Sam Rosenberg [AWAL]
Don’t let this week’s best record slip past you. To Whom This May Concern is Jill Scott’s first album in 11 years, after 2015’s Woman, and it’s a museum of ‘60s funk, ‘70s R&B, and ‘90s boom-bap. Philly soul runs through Scott’s hottest intuitions; “Beautiful People” slinks while “Pressha” glides. Poetry, jazz, and rap fill up the margins while Scott’s fascinations with love, phrasing, and futurism, sung with hypnotic, nostalgic vintageness. “Right Here Right Now” turns into a deep house loop. Etta James’ “At Last!” is perfectly interpolated into “Don’t Play.” To Whom This May Concern is the only party I’m going to this weekend. And, with names like Tierra Whack, Trombone Shorty, JID, Too $hort, DJ Premier, and Ab-Soul in the booth alongside her, Scott decorates us with historical, strutting, horn-laden blues. Get on the guest list or get out of the way. —Matt Mitchell [The Orchard]
“Three people will die listening to this album,” the Bandcamp description of Nashpaints’ first record since 2020, Everyone Good is Called Molly, reads. “Zzz they will endup in the same place.” There’s no backstory to Finn Carraher McDonald, only mystery and angelic voicings spread across decaying pop tapes with a butter knife. Lead single “Boyfriend First” is this seven-minute mass of swirling noise with guitar streaks you’d have to break your nails just to make. There’s a lot of color in here even as the static fattens and the synths undress, because McDonald has melodies coming out the eyes. “Boyfriend First” sounds more like Natalie Imbruglia covering Deerhunter—or maybe it’s Deerhunter covering Natalie Imbruglia—in a sewer tunnel than the Duretti Column, my bloody valentine-type guitar reverb sewn into most of Blindman the Gambler five years ago. I’m just typing words now. Go listen to Nashpaints and find out if you’ll live to say you did. —Matt Mitchell [Self-Released]
Throughout Clearly Cursed, these dark moments are frequently undercut by a touch of lightness. “Freezer” and “Superglue” both wrestle with jealousy, but their jangly crunch-pop choruses sound almost innocent; they evoke less a feeling of toxic resentment and more the open-eyed, youthful jealousy of not quite knowing your own place in the world and looking towards others to figure out who you’re meant to be. On the title track, Sam Bielanski recounts life spent under a dark spirit—frozen in time, ignored as an uncracked spine, tracing the same spot over and over—yet her voice, instantly evocative of Leigh Nash’s from Sixpence None the Richer, is gorgeously dreamy and earnest. Clearly, being cursed has never sounded sweeter. There’s a youthful energy that courses throughout Clearly Cursed, lending its tracks a smack of coming-of-age storytelling. “Hot and Mean” is punchy, with a mean little guitar riff and a performance that leans best into Bielanski’s bratty, saccharine voice. It can be a little cutesy, sometimes recalling a Disney Channel original movie rebel—striped tie over a T-shirt and everything—but its concerns are genuine, grappling with the unsettled emotional messiness of both relationships and feeling rough around the edges. And even in a cursed life there are bright spots; here, that’s “Brilliant Blue,” another album highlight that’s sticky and giddy as a Starburst, practically oozing with the type of young infatuation that stains your tongue blue raspberry. —Lydia Wei [Take This To Heart]
Five albums in and the Nude Party are still among country-rock’s most consistent teams. There’s a lot of Stones and Lou Reed tribute going on here, but the band runs those touchstones through a cosmic filter. The guitar solos are relaxed, the bluesy, twangy vocals are relaxed, and their struts are more sentimental than ever. Pedal steel player Jon “Catfish” Delorme makes his strings talk on “Love Is Electric,” and it’s good to hear him do it (I dug his contributions to Cactus Lee’s self-titled record last year). The “wherever you’re going is where I wanna be” lyric in “Juarez” feels apt for what purpose the Nude Party serve in 2026: their rock and roll is satisfying enough to hang around. Years ago I tuned in to watch the band’s Paste Session from the college library I was working at. I’m glad they’re still kicking up the dirt with ramshackle tones that howl through the dust. —Matt Mitchell [Alternate Side Records]
Foreverglade is a goddamn adventure. Worm (good band name) gives black metal something to get excited about, thanks to the efforts of Phantom Slaughter (great name) and Wroth Septentrion (incredible name). The album, the band’s first in four years, is more of the good stuff that’s powered their past efforts: guitar solos, guitar solos, and guitar solos. Of course, Slaughter and Septentrion’s throat-shredding yowls are an exciting, soul-snatching top layer, but Worm’s latest works best when it’s merging horror with folklore. The 14-minute “Witchmoon: The Infernal Masquerade” features contributions from Megadeath’s Marty Friedman, which is a collaboration I didn’t know I wanted. Worm is nearing Blood Incantation levels of metal supremacy. One more release like this and we’ll have to pin a sludge-covered medal on them. —Matt Mitchell [Century Media]
Harmless Melodies got a lot of mileage in my college dorm room ten years ago. “Gap in the Clouds”? Still holds up, in my opinion. Yellow Days has bounced around since then, dropping records regularly this decade. But Rock and a Hard Place is a pretty nifty breakthrough for the Englishman. It reminds me of early-career King Krule. “Special Kind of Woman” has got some dirty jazz vibrations. Yellow Days sings like the rent’s due (and it probably was, considering this record arrives after five years of “financial, creative and personal crises”). These are high-tempo, slinky funk songs. They stick. “Sharon,” “Baby, I’m For Real,” “Daylight Miracles”—the guy’s grown up and grown into his talents. Rock and a Hard Place doesn’t break new ground but it doesn’t need to. Songs about sobriety, hedonism, romance, and wealth bolster bluesy fusions that melt the synapses. Rock and a Hard Place is a well-made, well-toned album by a guy who’s earned his stripes and licked his wounds. —Matt Mitchell [Independent Co.]
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