3 new songs and 3 new albums to check out this weekend

Lorde drops the second single from her upcoming album, Ben Kweller teams up with MJ Lenderman, and Alan Sparhawk collaborates with Trampled By Turtles.

By Jen Lennon  |  May 30, 2025 | 5:00pm
Images from left: Lorde, "Man Of The Year" (Universal Music Group); Lucrecia Dalt, A Danger To Ourselves (RVNG Intl.); Ben Kweller, Cover The Mirrors (The Noise Company)
Music Features 3 new songs and 3 new albums
3 new songs and 3 new albums to check out this weekend
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Welcome to our weekly music post, where we spotlight our favorite new songs and albums. Hop in the comments and tell us: What new music are you listening to?

Lorde, “Man Of The Year”

“My babe can’t believe I’ve become someone else / Someone more like myself,” Lorde sings on “Man Of The Year,” the second single from her upcoming album, Virgin (out June 27). In the lead-up to Virgin, Lorde has talked about her expanding gender identity in interviews, but this is the first time she has addressed it in her music. In the video, Lorde, wearing only a pair of men’s jeans and a gold chain around her neck, tapes her breasts down with duct tape. That look, she told Rolling Stone, “was fully representative of how [her] gender felt” when she wrote “Man Of The Year.” It’s an emotional and triumphant ballad that packs a punch.

Alex G, “Afterlife”

Fresh off providing the surreal score for Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw The TV Glow, indie singer-songwriter Alex G returns with a new song and a new album—his major-label debut, in fact. Headlights drops July 18 via RCA, and the first single, “Afterlife,” has some correspondingly slick production. Even though that’s at odds with much of Alex G’s past work, it helps highlight his bright vocals and the twang of his mandolin.

Lucrecia Dalt, “divina”

Colombian experimental musician Lucrecia Dalt makes truly singular sci-fi art pop, and her new single, “divina,” adds a noir twist on top of that. It’s not lost on us that we’re using mostly cinematic terms to describe Dalt’s music, but according to the artist, that’s by design. “In the past, I often turned to movies and texts as mirrors to shape my stories, guiding me away from revealing too much from within, inventing isolated fictions. This time, I wanted to create music that flows cinematically and sets a landscape to tell a love story that flirts with improbability, the miraculous and the mysterious,” Dalt said. Her new album, A Danger To Ourselves, drops September 5.

Ben Kweller, Cover The Mirrors

Just a few days before the release of his new album, Cover The Mirrors, Ben Kweller unveiled “Oh Dorian.” The song is about his 16-year-old son, Dorian, who died in a car crash in 2023, and it embodies everything that makes this record special. It’s devastating and uplifting at the same time, finding hope even in the most profound grief. The whole album plays with that dichotomy; it’s just as likely to make you smile as it is to make you sob.

caroline, caroline 2

London-based experimental octet caroline return with their sophomore album, appropriately titled caroline 2. Every caroline song is a journey on its own, and listening to a whole album covers more sonic ground than should be humanly possible. “One of the fundamental themes [of caroline 2] is the idea of different things happening at once, things that are very different from each other but also simultaneous,” singer Jasper Llewelyn said in a press release. The band has made an art of melding disparate sonic landscapes into something cohesive, and that ability is on full display with caroline 2.

Alan Sparhawk, With Trampled By Turtles

Former Low frontman Alan Sparhawk has teamed up with fellow Duluth, Minnesota, natives Trampled By Turtles for a new collaborative album. The partnership came at a vital time for Sparhawk: After the death of his wife, creative partner, and Low bandmate Mimi Parker in 2022, Trampled By Turtles invited Sparhawk out on tour, where he could be surrounded by friends and love. That led to the recording studio, where everything fell into place. As Sparhawk said in a note on Bandcamp, “When the opportunity seems right, you jump.”

 
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