4 New Albums You Need: Little Simz, Addison Rae, Turnstile, and more

The stakes for a new Little Simz album have likely never been higher since the London rapper’s 2016 debut. Over the last two years, she’s been mired in a conflict that has threatened to mire her position as an artist with unrivalled self-knowledge that helps her to navigate the labyrinth of Black musical tradition to become one of the world’s most consistently brilliant hip-hop musicians. The betrayal she claims to have suffered at the hands of her former friend and longtime producer Inflo (who she’s suing for £1.7 lawsuit, citing unpaid loans) was a shattering experience, and the pressure to make a new album as the drama unfolded — an imposing new test of the fearless confidence she’s flexed for years — almost became too much to bear. Lotus lays it all out from the jump: “I was under the spell and now my spirit’s awakened / My life can’t be controlled by no pagan,” she snarls on the detail-laden album opener “Thief” amidst a backdrop of Kill Bill guitar and nightshade orchestral funk. Simz navigates the trauma with range: lead single “Flood” is witchy and defiant, while “Lonely” reckons with writer’s block, mourns the loss of a fruitful creative partnership, and ultimately emerges rejuvenated. Her voice still carries a wounded streak on ostensible swagger reclamations like “Lion,” but overall Lotus accomplishes its main goal: providing Little Simz with a lifeline in stormy seas, and putting her on the path to brighter horizons. — Jordan Darville

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music

The debut album from the former TikTok star turned pop it girl is filled with streaks of Britney, Janet, Madonna, and Lana without feeling lazily referential. Where did Addison Rae get this newfound “taste” from, anyway? Her team of producers from Max Martin’s songwriting camp? Her new BFF Charli XCX? After spending several days with the album, criticisms surrounding “authenticity” stem from a refusal to engage with the material. The ultimate charm of Addison is that it *does* sound like Rae in all of its songs. From her simple, airy vocals down to the songs’ unwrought writing, Addison sounds exactly what a TikToker with secret ambitions of being like Britney would make with access to industry superstars. Opener “New York” is a Brat-reminiscent anthem to the city that goes no deeper than “I love New York.” “Money is Everything” is a winking trap-pop bop where she name-checks Marilyn and coos, “Can’t a girl have fun?” They make moments like “In The Rain” and “Times Like These,” where she sings about feeling misunderstood and unmoored in her fast-moving life, feel even more startlingly personable. These songs are easy, unfussy, designed to just make you just feel good, and it’s to Addison’s credit she hasn’t positioned them as anything deeper than what they are. At a time when pop has thoroughly wrung out words “honest” and “confessional,” hearing something that isn’t trying to be feels more real than ever. — Steffanee Wang

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music

At Coachella this year Charli xcx brought the curtain down on Brat summer by suggesting her fans have (among other names) a Turnstile summer instead. The hardcore scene, meanwhile, has been enjoying its Turnstile era since the Baltimore band dropped their era-defining album GLOW ON in 2022. That breakout album, which worked as much because of its broad arena rock bombast as its gnarlier mosh pit moments, took them to festival main stages and the Grammys. It was a rising tide that lifted hardcore bands across the world while also acting as an off ramp to the group that made it. NEVER ENOUGH, then, is a leap further into the unknown. The music is euphoric and unrestrained, taking in icy funk pop (“Seein’ Stars”), mournful synth ballads (closer “Magic Man”), and at least one song that would make for great WWE theme music (“Birds”). Guitarist Pat McRory strides confidently through most songs with ascendant guitar solos and tidal wave-sized riffs. Where NEVER ENOUGH sprawls musically, it feels more locked in lyrically. Frontman Brendan Yates cycles through themes of death and romance with a detachment that belies his assorted yelps, barks, and croons. On “Time Is Happening,” Yates talks about how he “lost my only friend.” Things briefly look more positive on “Sunshower,” he’s “right where I wanna be,” but “can’t feel a fucking thing.” On “Light Design,” Yates collapses and has to “hold his head and cry.” If this is the summer of Turnstile, NEVER ENOUGH ensures it will be one filled with ups and downs with plenty of thrills along the way. — David Renshaw

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music

Sitting in the cavernous Kings Theater in Flatbush on a Wednesday evening in May, fingerstyle guitarist Hayden Pedigo openly acknowledged his nervousness. He’s always been transparent about his experiences with the music industry, his mental health struggles, and his chronic stage fright. Nevertheless, he launched into “Long Pond Lily,” the “most difficult track [he’s] ever written” and the opener to his new album, ripping through its insanely technical runs with maximal finesse and minimal mistakes. On the rest of I’ll Be Waving As You Drive Away, he slows things down a few clips, opting to showcase the more openly emotional aspects of his masterful playing instead of further demonstrating his virtuosity. “Houndstooth,” which he told the Kings Theater crowd was his attempt to write a John Fahey song, is a lilting number that pauses poignantly at its loveliest moments. Halfway through, he’s joined by a fiddle that adds deeply felt flourishes to his already heartbreaking harmonies. It’s not the only time he’s joined by an outside instrument: A keyboard gives a steady feel to “Hermes,” allowing Pedigo to slide around the neck of his guitar without losing his thought. And a pedal steel peppers some of the record’s most forlorn phases, hints of Jim O’Rourke and Daniel Lanois peeking through Pedigo’s perfectly self-contained runs. Before closing with “End Credits,” Pedigo gives us the album’s tearjerking title track, a song that alternately wallows in gorgeous grief and cruises through passages of joy, forming a shape that looks a lot like the long arc of life. — Raphael Helfand

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp