This New Music Friday is one of the most exciting in recent memory, with appointment listening-level albums everywhere you turn, including several of Paste’s most-anticipated August LPs. The biggest ticket is Halsey, whose Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross-produced If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power finds the pop star reinventing themselves in epic fashion. But synth-pop stalwarts CHVRCHES’ fourth LP Screen Violence, the career-best effort from Baltimore hardcore outfit TURNSTILE, and a stellar second outing from Asheville’s Indigo De Souza are not to be overlooked by any stretch of the imagination. Clear your queues and feast on this release week’s entire eye-popping spread below.
Big Red Machine: How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last?
Making music, more often than not, requires more than one set of hands. But for Aaron Dessner, in particular, collaboration isn’t just necessary for pulling notes off the page—it’s a life force. Similarly, Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon can be frequently found creating alongside fellow heavyweights, be that at his Eaux Claires Music Festival in Wisconsin or appearing on a Kanye West track. So it wasn’t a complete shock when Vernon and Dessner released 2018’s Big Red Machine on the label they created with Bryce Dessner, 37d03d. They began working on the follow-up to Big Red Machine’s debut at Dessner’s Long Pond studio in 2019, and the resulting album carries the same collaborative spirit and brings even more familiar faces along for the ride. How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last? is a complex celebration of collaboration, and it’s a continuation of Dessner and Vernon’s ever-growing musical community. —Ellen Johnson
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The Bug: Fire
Kevin Martin (aka The Bug) makes music that feels tangible, creating textures that are devastating and claustrophobic. Martin’s utilization of dubstep as an area of experimentation is still present throughout his work, even as an early innovator of the genre. The combination of dubstep with grime and industrial makes for a captivating listen, reflecting on the world’s tension while being the perfect sonic representation of that friction. Fire is Martin as his most realized throughout the entirety of his “urban triptych” series, with everything finally in place for his vision to be fully understood. —Jade Gomez
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Chubby and The Gang: The Mutt’s Nuts
West London punks Chubby and The Gang are back with the follow-up to their 2020 standout LP Speed Kills, The Mutt’s Nuts, produced by Fucked Up’s Jonah Falco.
Despite the explosion of critical acclaim that accompanied their debut, Charlie “Chubby Charles” Manning-Walker, Tom “Razor” Hardwick, Meg Brooks Mills, Ethan Stahl and Joe McMahon are ever the underdogs, ripping through hardscrabble rock tracks about working-class concerns in London and beyond—”How can you prove ‘em wrong if no one even gave you a chance?” Manning-Walker howls on “Coming Up Tough,” his sandpaper vocals scratchier than ever. But there’s also a newfound tenderness here, from the subdued blues of “Take Me Home to London” to the emotional vulnerability of “Life’s Lemons.” Like Speed Kills before it, The Mutt’s Nuts is the ideal soundtrack to a rowdy night out at your local, but with a depth of feeling that stays with you into the morning after. —Scott Russell
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CHVRCHES: Screen Violence
Though CHVRCHES do little to shake things up or present even previously explored ideas in a compelling way on their fourth album, Screen Violence isn’t without its shining moments. Opener “Asking for a Friend” recalls the anthemic vigor of their first two albums, and it serves as a reminder of why CHVRCHES attracted the attention of so many in the first place. It also sets the template for one of Screen Violence’s major motifs: admitting past wrongs and coming to terms with them. “So what do you say when you lose your way? / The past is in the past / It isn’t meant to last,” Lauren Mayberry sings over sparkling synths and a vocoded harmony. “California” is also a highlight, and it continues the thematic thread of finding “freedom in the failure” and recognizing the solace of imperfection. “Violent Delights” is another one of Screen Violence’s best tracks, opting for a darker sound with filtered breakbeats that burst into a wave of festival-ready impact in the chorus. —Grant Sharples
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Halsey: If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power
Purists of alternative ’90s music cringed upon the announcement that Halsey was working with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and it was hard not to be worried after finally escaping that Chainsmokers song. However, Halsey always had it in them to ease into this sort of dark, brooding pop, laced in the macabre elegance that only Reznor and Ross can provide. On If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power, Halsey evolves their artistry without feeling like a desperate attempt at retconning their poppy roots. The album strikes a happy medium between the two, with such a dynamic production duo creating a gothic wonderland woven between Halsey’s delicate vocals. This does not sound like a Nine Inch Nails album, and it speaks to the duo’s versatility as they ease into a new sphere of music. Explosive pop hooks find their place next to trip-hop glitches, and Halsey masters it all. It is their most impressive work to date, adjusting to the pervasive sense of despair in the youth they have connected with, showing a darker side to life that cannot be ignored. —Jade Gomez
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Indigo De Souza: Any Shape You Take
Asheville, North Carolina, singer/songwriter Indigo De Souza clears the sophomore slump by leaps and bounds on Any Shape You Take, the follow-up to her 2018 self-released debut, I Love My Mom, and her first LP for Saddle Creek. Any Shape You Take, a fitting title for the multitudes that De Souza and her new songs contain, is about the difficulties and joys of pushing through the growing pains of change: “I’ll be here to love you / No matter what shape you might take,” De Souza sings on “Way Out,” an all-encompassing declaration of unconditional love. De Souza and her co-producer Brad Cook (Bon Iver, Waxahatchee), who recorded Any Shape You Take at Sylvan Esso’s Chapel Hill studio, couch the album’s confessionals in vivid, dynamic sonic rollercoaster rides, from the vocoderized synth-pop of opener “17” and the palm-muted harmonics on “Darker Than Death” to the peaks and valleys of “Late Night Crawlers” and the explosive emotions of the closing cut, “Kill Me.” De Souza’s singular voice is the invaluable core running through it all: She can do pure pop on “Die/Cry,” get downright operatic on “Bad Dream” and slip into an effortless falsetto on “Pretty Pictures,” taking any shape she likes. —Scott Russell
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Nite Jewel: No Sun
Written in the wake of divorce and the burgeoning stages of a PhD in musicology, Ramona Gonzalez’ excellent new album as Nite Jewel, No Sun, puts pain and lament at the forefront. Rituals surrounding grief and mourning take the form of lush, ambient textures paired with electronic beats and Gonzalez’ commanding voice and sorrowful, blunt lyrics, imbuing each track on the album with a tender, vulnerable emotionality. Opener “Anymore” introduces the album’s themes of loneliness with a slow-building song that makes dynamic use of space and silence as a sonic element—a move that heightens the feelings of isolation. The more pop-infused tracks like “Before I Go” and “To Feel It” offer more levity in the form of dance, but lose none of the songwriter’s gift for emotional potency. No Sun is an impressive ode to the transformative power of suffering as a means for finding greater truths within ourselves, and the irrevocable effects it can leave behind. —Jason Friedman
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QRTR: Infina Ad Nausea
On her second full-length album Infina Ad Nausea, Brooklyn-based producer QRTR offers an array of dazzling, hypnotic beats inspired by downtempo, D&B and classic house, but shaken up by elements of noise and experimental ambient textures. When QRTR aims for the club, like on the raging beats of “Running From It” and “Fractals,” the artist’s talent for including dynamic motion in her tracks is notable and on full display. Infina Ad Nausea similarly finds success in the lush, experimental opener “The Outer Edge” and the head-spinning rhythmic complexity of “Rewind” due to the thoughtful and rich production, as well as QRTR’s inherent understanding of dance music sequencing, making for an exciting, unique and psychedelic project. —Jason Friedman
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TURNSTILE: GLOW ON
One of the most conspicuous musical trends of 2021 has been quiet introspection. Across genres, artists have folded inward. Clairo relinquished the indie-pop of her 2019 debut in lieu of a softer style that evokes ‘70s singer/songwriters like Stevie Nicks. Vince Staples deserted his high-energy delivery (and producer Kenny Beats abandoned his frantic arrangements) for something more lo-fi and muted. Though records such as these are captivating in their own rights, it’s also interesting to hear artists go against that current. That’s exactly what the Baltimore-based hardcore band TURNSTILE have done on their latest album, GLOW ON. With production from Mike Elizondo and co-production from TURNSTILE’s vocalist Brendan Yates, GLOW ON is the group’s most fully realized work yet. They use the full-throttle blueprint of their sterling sophomore album, 2018’s Time & Space, and expand upon it. —Grant Sharples
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Water From Your Eyes: Structure
Call it cliché, but the only muse Brooklyn duo Water from Your Eyes follow is their own. Try pinning down the exact genre in which Nate Amos and Rachel Brown operate, and you’ll wind up sorely out of luck—acoustic daydreams often precede gently grating electronics, and ballads co-exist with quirky dance numbers. Theirs is the kind of music that feels acoustic when it’s electronic and electronic when it’s acoustic. A great example is how “Saw Them Lie,” a highlight of the pair’s 2018 sophomore album All a Dance—named after one of the album’s most invigoratingly arrhythmic DIY dance-punk tracks—sounds like a synth-pop whisper even though it’s mostly built from guitars. Following that album’s lovably sloppy experimentation, its refinement with 2019’s Somebody Else’s Songs and a dissonant spoken-word detour with last year’s 33:44, Structure is Water from Your Eyes’ first record to boast something consistent: excellent production and melodies across the board. —Max Freedman
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And don’t forget to check out … Baba Ali: Memory Device, Evan Wright: Sound From Out The Window, Keaton Henson: Fragments EP, Madi Diaz: History of a Feeling, Marisa Anderson & William Tyler: Lost Futures, Martha Wainwright: Love Will Be Reborn, Men I Trust: The Untourable Album, Penelope Scott: Hazards EP, Rentboy: Head in Unlit Homes EP, Steve Gunn: Other You, Tré Burt: You, Yeah, You EP, TSHA: OnlyL EP, Westside Gunn: Sincerely Adolf
