Notable Releases of the Week (10/10)

This week in the music world, we were inundated with takes on the new Taylor Swift album, and as if that wasn’t enough to argue about, Rolling Stone went ahead and put up a list of the best songs of the 21st century so far. We discuss both of those things, and more of this week’s new music and music news on the new episode of BV Weekly. Not discussed on BV Weekly (because it wasn’t announced yet when we recorded) is the exciting news that No Doubt are back!

As for this week’s new releases, I highlight nine below, and Bill tackles more in Indie Basement, including Richard Ashcroft (of The Verve), The Besnard Lakes, Hollie Cook, Long Fling (Pip Blom, Personal Trainer), Lorelle Meets the Obsolete, The Utopia Strong, Club 8, Brian Eno & Beatie Wolfe’s third album of 2025, Goat’s remix album, and English Teacher’s remix album (ft. Fontaines D.C., Daniel Avery, Water From Your Eyes & more).

On top of those, this week’s honorable mentions include The Orb, Madi Diaz, Zero Boys, Sanguisugabogg, Dead Heat, Blawan, Perturbator, Princess Nokia, Flock of Dimes, Fading Signal, Vile Apparition, Rhett Miller (Old 97’s), Avery Tucker (Girlpool), Not For Radio (The Marías), The Autumn Defense, Great Lake Swimmers, The Cool Kids, Amber Mark, Other Lives, The Necks, HAAi, Robert Finley, Soul Blind, Khalid, BIA, Dust, Olivia Barton, Silly Goose, NYC Shootout, Friendship Commanders, Nightbus, Feeo, NoSo, TiaCorine, Charlie Kaplan, Jerskin Fendrix, The Telephone Numbers, Madison Cunningham, Electric Guest, Harvey Sutherland, Car Culture, Greg Jamie, Rich Amiri, Gabriel Kahane, St. Paul & The Broken Bones, Don Was And The Pan-Detroit Ensemble, The Wytches, Celeste, Jacob Collier, Babygirl, The Ramona Flowers, LANY, SOHN, Yellowcard, the Heavy//Hitter EP, the Dry Socket / Violencia split, the PinkPantheress remix album (ft. Kylie Minogue, Oklou, Ravyn Lenae, Kaytranada, Nia Archives, Sugababes, Basement Jaxx, Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard & more), Laura Veirs’ live album with a French children’s choir, Emily Sprague’s (Florist) ambient album, the John Lennon & Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band box set, the 50th anniversary edition of Patti Smith’s Horses, and the expanded version of Lucy Dacus’ Forever is a Feeling.

Read on for my picks, and stream the new episode of BV Weekly for more of this week’s new music and music news. What’s your favorite release of the week?

Black Eyes – Hostile Design (Dischord)
The DC art punk vets are as chaotic as ever on their first LP in 21 years.

Black Eyes returned in 2023 for their first shows in 19 yers, and now the DC/Dischord post-hardcore/art punk vets are back with their first album in 21 years. Hostile Design is fueled by social and political critiques of our present day, but it also sonically makes it feel like no time has passed since their 2004 sophomore album Cough. It was produced by Ian MacKaye, who also helmed the band’s first two albums, and it finds Black Eyes sounding as chaotic as ever. There’s shouting, screaming, sax freakouts, and double-drummer cacophony, and the album ends with a seven-minute foray into Haitian chants and Afro-Caribbean jazz, “Tomtom.” It’s an album that actually sounds as confrontational as its subject matter. Even in the context of punk and hardcore, Black Eyes still sound like the misfits that they were 20+ years ago.

Hannah Frances – Nested In Tangles (Fire Talk)
The rising folk singer gets proggy with help from Grizzly Bear’s Daniel Rossen.

Hannah Frances’ breakthrough 2024 album Keeper of the Shepherd was compared to timeless folk rock legends like Joni Mitchell, Sandy Denny, and Nick Drake, and that old-soul quality carries over into Nested In Tangles, but the arrangements on this album are far more ambitious. She cited avant-garde composers like Steve Reich and Phillip Glass and progressive rock bands like Gentle Giant and Yes as influences, and the album’s prog-indie-folk might also make you think of Grizzly Bear, whose Daniel Rossen contributed to “Life’s Work” and “The Space Between.” It’s a gorgeous, instantly-timeless-sounding album that constantly keeps you on your toes.

Weakened Friends – Feels Like Hell (Don Giovanni)
This DIY band continues to make some of the best ’90s-style radio rock of the 2020s.

Weakened Friends’ first album had a guest guitar solo by J Mascis and this new one (their third) has one from Buckethead. Is this your favorite guitar hero’s favorite band? They just might be. Vocalist/guitarist Sonia Sturino is no slouch with an axe either, but what’s even more remarkable are Sonia’s massive, catchy, top-of-the-lung hooks that make Weakened Friends a DIY band who could easily dominate on the radio if given a chance. Feels Like Hell ends with a sludgy cover of Natalie Imbruglia’s (or Ednaswap’s) “Torn,” and it’s full of original songs that would’ve sounded as good next to that one on ’90s radio as it would next to Olivia Rodrigo on current radio (or playlists or whatever). Even with the world of ’90s alt-rock revival getting more and more oversaturated, this band continues to stand out.

The Antlers – Blight (Transgressive)
The latest album from Peter Silberman & Michael Lerner is steeped in post-apocalyptic melancholy.

Like a lot of people, Peter Silberman has been thinking about the destruction of the natural world, and our increased lack of connection with it. It’s appropriate, then, that The Antlers’ new album Blight sounds pretty far removed from the era of ‘for you’ algorithms and doomscrolling. Like 2021’s Green to Gold, Peter made it with longtime Antlers drummer Michael Lerner, while Peter himself handled vocals, piano, guitar, bass, synths, and production, and it’s a gorgeous, ethereal, slow-moving indie rock album that sounds like no other band in the world. It all builds up to “A Great Flood,” an electronically-manipulated hymn-like song in the vein of late-period Low or Bon Iver’s “Woods” that imagines a world after a flood of biblical proportions. As the song segues into instrumental album closer “They Lost All of Us,” the post-apocalyptic melancholy is damn near cinematic.

Jay Som – Belong (Polyvinyl)
Jay Som’s first album in six years is also her most collaborative, with help from Hayley Williams and Jimmy Eat World’s Jim Adkins.

In the six years since releasing her 2019 album Anak Ko, Melina Duterte’s own music has taken a backseat to collaborations: she played in boygenius’ live band, released projects with Palehound’s El Kempner and Chastity Belt’s Annie Truscott, and contributed to Lucy Dacus’ most recent album, among other production and engineering work. She brought some of that collaborative spirit back to Belong, which is her first album to feature guest vocalists. It has also has some of her catchiest and most immediate tracks yet, which include two of those collabs. On the Hayley Williams-featuring “Past Lives,” Duterte and Williams’ rising vocal harmonies propel the song into a full-on alt-rock explosion. Jimmy Eat World’s Jim Adkins makes a subtler but no less essential contribution to the irresistible “Float,” which chugs along with its propulsive repeated chorus of “float, don’t fight.” Duterte has described her work as “headphone music” and true to that it’s rich with layers and unexpected details, like the downtempo, vocoder-laden “A Million Reasons Why.” Simpler songs like the lilting and sweetly acoustic “Appointments” feel just as carefully crafted, though, and “D.H.,” another standout, builds a dark squall around just a few repeated lines of lyrics. Even on her most collaborative release yet, Duterte’s individual vision has never been stronger or clearer. [Amanda Hatfield]

Weatherbox – The Compass EP (DHCR)
The indie-emo cult hero is still doing it like nobody else on his first release in over a decade.

Brian Warren’s Weatherbox project is truly a cult classic, a band feverishly loved by some and sadly ignored by most. If you’re in the former camp, “new Weatherbox EP” is all you need to hear to get excited, and if you’re in the latter, The Compass is as good an entry point as almost as any of his other records. Weatherbox’s early work sounded like a cross between Piebald and Say Anything, and the project evolved into a quirky mix of indie rock and emo that doesn’t sound like any other band in the world. Adding to the mystique is how elusive Brian’s become; his career has become defined by a series of unexpected hiatuses and returns, and The Compass (released alongside a remastered reissue of 2011’s Follow The Rattle Of The Afghan Guitar EP) marks his first new release since 2014’s Flies In All Directions, which itself was hailed as a triumphant comeback. Made up primarily of songs debuted during Weatherbox’s 2019 Half Way Home Session, The Compass finds Weatherbox sounding as strange as ever but also a lot more catchy and welcoming than you might expect from a project described as “quirky” and “cult classic.” There’s still nobody doing it like this, and Weatherbox is still as delightfully out-of-step as he was during his late-aughts rise.

Christian Science Reading Room – Under the Bed and In the Eyes of Another EP (Decapitator)
Members of Greet Death and Bristletongue come together for this gorgeous EP.

Greet Death already released one of our favorite albums of the year so far with Die In Love, so it’s exciting that now we’re getting even more new music from co-vocalist Harper Boyhtari in the form of Christian Science Reading Room, Harper’s new project with Bristletongue’s L Morgan. If you liked the softer songs that Harper brought to Die In Love (“Country Girl,” “Emptiness Is Everywhere”), I have a feeling that you’re gonna like this EP too. It’s cut from a similar cloth, as Harper has about as much chemistry with L as she does with her Greet Death partner Logan Gaval.

Mobb Deep – Infinite (Mass Appeal)
Havoc carefully constructed the first Mobb Deep’s album since Prodigy’s death, with help from The Alchemist, Nas, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Clipse, and more.

Mobb Deep are having a real moment right now. Their 1995 album The Infamous topped Pitchfork’s 100 Best Rap Albums of All Time list just in time for its 30th anniversary, and surviving member Havoc is also celebrating that anniversary on a joint co-headlining tour with Raekwon, who will be celebrating the 30th anniversary of his own 1995 classic Only Built 4 Cuban Linx. On top of all that, Mobb Deep have just released their first new album since Prodigy’s untimely 2017 death. The release is thanks in part to fellow Queensbridge rapper Nas, who released the album on his Mass Appeal label as part of the label’s ongoing Legend Has It series. The album uses verses that Prodigy recorded before his death, and it was completed by Havoc, who handled almost all the production, just like he did on The Infamous. The only other producer is The Alchemist, who first worked with Mobb Deep in the late ’90s before becoming a frequent producer for Prodigy’s solo career. Just like The Infamous, Nas, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, and Mobb Deep associate Big Noyd are all on the album. The only other guest verses come from Pusha T and Malice of Clipse (who are in the midst of their own massive comeback this year), plus R&B hooks from Jorja Smith and H.E.R. I don’t know if I see Infinite having the same type of impact that the new Clipse album did, but I like that Mobb Deep is in the air this year and it feels like this album was a lot more carefully and respectfully constructed than a lot of other posthumous albums. We’re lucky to have it.

Testament – Para Bellum (Nuclear Blast)
The ’80s thrash veterans are back with their darkest and most career-reinventing album in recent memory.

Of all the ’80s thrash veterans, very few are making consistently great new records the way Testament are. But Para Bellum isn’t just quality execution of an established sound, like Testament’s last few records have been; it’s a reinvention. As some of their darkest work, it prompted at least one reviewer to ask, “Is this Testament’s black metal album?” It rivals current thrashy bands far more often than it sounds like an ’80s thrash band resting on its laurels. I could be saying this out of recency bias, but it feels like Testament’s most noticeable shift since 1999’s death metal-infused The Gathering. Do not take this one for granted.

For even more records to bang your head to this week, two honorable mentions for Notable Releases’ metalhead readers: Ohio gore-and-violence-obsessed death metallers Sanguisugabogg‘s Hideous Aftermath and Oxnard crossover thrashers Dead Heat‘s Process Of Elimination.

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Read Indie Basement for more new album reviews, including Richard Ashcroft (of The Verve), The Besnard Lakes, Hollie Cook, Long Fling (Pip Blom, Personal Trainer), Lorelle Meets the Obsolete, The Utopia Strong, Club 8, Brian Eno & Beatie Wolfe‘s third album of 2025, Goat‘s remix album, and English Teacher‘s remix album (ft. Fontaines D.C., Daniel Avery, Water From Your Eyes & more).

Looking for more recent releases? Browse the Notable Releases archive.

Looking for a podcast to listen to? Check out the latest episodes of our weekly music news podcast BV Weekly and the BV interviews podcast.

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