Preorder: Bandcamp
Lorde
TBD
About six months after she told fans that the death of her dog Pearl had disrupted the timeline for a new album, Lorde returned with brighter news in May, sharing that she’d been working on new material with Jack Antonoff. Although the COVID-19 pandemic further scuppered their plans to collaborate, she promised fans, “The work is so fucking good, my friend,” in her newsletter, adding, “I am truly jazzed for you to hear it.” The singer-songwriter instead released a photo book documenting her 2019 trip to Antarctica to tide fans over in the meantime. –Allison Hussey
Madlib Invazion
Madlib: Sound Ancestors
January
Old friends Otis Jackson Jr. and Kieran Hebden decided to rejoin forces over dinner one night. Hebden, aka Four Tet, had floated the idea of a Madlib solo album of “tracks that could all flow together,” rather than beats for rappers. Whether or not he was volunteering himself, Hebden was deemed perfect for the job, and Jackson proceeded to send him hundreds of unfinished tracks to “arrange, edit, manipulate, and combine” into a full-length. The result, preceded by the fiendishly addictive “Road of the Lonely Ones,” will be the first extensive collaboration between the pair, and follows Four Tet’s 2005 EP of Madvillainy remixes. –Jazz Monroe
Temporary Residence / Rock Action Records
Mogwai: As the Love Continues
February 19
Mogwai have been a band for 25 years, but the process of making their tenth studio album, As the Love Continues, presented the Scottish group with a new set of challenges. Separated from producer Dave Fridmann by the COVID-19 pandemic, the band holed up in Worcestershire, England to record the followup to 2017’s Every Country’s Sun. Guests on the album include saxophonist Colin Stetson and Nine Inch Nails’ Atticus Ross. With live shows on hold for the foreseeable future, the band’s Stuart Braithwaite hopes the album can be transforming, “unless you are somewhere really amazing and then why are you listening to some weird music like this?,” as he says in a press release. –Quinn Moreland
Preorder: Bandcamp
Noname
TBD
The follow-up to Room 25 feels long-awaited, even if its predecessor came out just over two years ago. This might be because its fate has hung in the balance: Over the past two years, the beloved rapper has shied from the spotlight after amassing a giant following as both an artist and public figure, launching her own book club and using her Twitter feed to patiently highlight the ills of modern capitalism. Her latest transmission lasts just 70 seconds, but “Song 33” swells with the sort of understated wisdom and world-weariness that most legacy rappers would gape (or balk) at. –Jazz Monroe
Palberta: Palberta5000
January 22
Art-punk trio Palberta recorded their fifth album Palberta5000 in Peekskill, New York. The follow-up to 2018’s Roach Goin’ Down is, at least partly, pop-inspired, with Lily Konigsberg telling Stereogum, “I kind of only listen to pop music.” Ani Ivry-Block added, “The way we play and our production will always be weirder than mainstream pop allows.” –Allison Hussey
Palberta: Palberta5000
Phoenix
TBD
It had seemed as though the Frenchmen of Phoenix were stirring again with the August release of “Identical,” a new song recorded for Sofia Coppola’s comedy On the Rocks. The track even came with a video directed by Roman Coppola. But despite scoring the film, Phoenix have otherwise kept quiet on their plans for more music. The band’s most recent record was 2017’s Ti Amo, and, in 2019, they released a book about their development titled Phoenix: Liberté, Égalité, Phoenix!. –Allison Hussey
Rihanna
TBD
Rihanna gave us a crumb of fresh material in March, joining PARTYNEXTDOOR on his PARTYMOBILE track “BELIEVE IT.” Otherwise, it’s been a long few years without any new music from the singer, who issued ANTI in 2016 and has focused her attention on her lingerie and makeup enterprises of late. In 2018, she insisted that she was working on a reggae album that would arrive the following year; she has yet to update the public on her progress. –Allison Hussey
Shame: Drunk Tank Pink
January 15
Drunk Tank Pink is the second record from the English rock band Shame, who made their debut in 2018 with Songs of Praise. The James Ford–produced album includes “Alphabet” and “Water in the Well.” Frontman Charlie Steen wrote much of Drunk Tank Pink in a small pink room that he called “the womb.” –Allison Hussey
Shame: Drunk Tank Pink
slowthai: TYRON
February 5
UK rapper slowthai’s 2019 album Nothing Great About Britain was nominated for a Mercury Prize, resulting in a spectacle where the grime rapper hoisted an effigy of Boris Johnson’s severed head at the awards ceremony. In February, he’s back with more rabble-rousing on TYRON, which includes “nhs” and “feel away,” featuring James Blake and Mount Kimbie. Skepta, A$AP Rocky, Denzel Curry, Deb Never, and Dominic Fike all make guest appearances elsewhere on the double-disc record. –Allison Hussey
slowthai: TYRON
St. Vincent
TBD
The last time we heard new music from St. Vincent, she delivered a pair of radically different albums. There was 2017’s MASSEDUCTION, which found Annie Clark teaming with Jack Antonoff for the most immediate and danceable music of her career. And then there was the companion album, 2018’s MassEducation, which reimagined those songs in stark, solo piano arrangements. Her as-yet-untitled follow-up appears to be another reinvention, with Clark citing Stevie Wonder, Sly and the Family Stone, and Martin Scorsese’s 1976 classic Taxi Driver as influences. “Can’t wait for you to hear it,” she teased. The feeling is mutual. –Sam Sodomsky
SZA
TBD
Since releasing her breakout Ctrl in 2017, SZA has kept to collaboration, working with a roster that’s included Kendrick Lamar, Justin Timberlake, the Weeknd, Post Malone, DJ Khaled, and more. But, in September, she returned with “Hit Different,” a Neptunes-produced track featuring Ty Dolla $ign, along with a video she directed herself. The video teased another new song, which turned out to be “Good Days,” released on Christmas. Although the singer had tweeted and deleted posts about having a tense relationship with her label Top Dawg Entertainment, it seems like more music will get released, one way or the other. –Allison Hussey
Teenage Fanclub: Endless Arcade
April 30
The first album in five years from Teenage Fanclub is also their first without bassist and vocalist Gerard Love. In his place, the group recruited Euros Childs of the Welsh band Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci. “The whole process of making this album was very invigorating,” guitarist and vocalist Norman Blake said in a press release. After a 2018 vinyl reissue series put many of their iconic albums back in print, Endless Arcade looks to be another welcome reintroduction to Scotland’s power-pop giants. –Sam Sodomsky
Teenage Fanclub: Endless Arcade
Travis Scott: Utopia
TBD
Having completed 2019 with his JACKBOYS label compilation, Travis Scott spent 2020 collaborating with just about everybody: Kanye West, Big Sean, Kid Cudi, Rosalía, Christopher Nolan, LeBron James, PlayStation, McDonald’s. By fall, Scott had teased that his fourth studio album was on the way. Likely titled Utopia, with a to-be-determined release date, it could include his singles “HIGHEST IN THE ROOM” and “FRANCHISE,” which features M.I.A. and Young Thug. –Allison Hussey
Viagra Boys: Welfare Jazz
January 8
Stockholm six-piece Viagra Boys look to cement their reputation as the raucous post-punks du jour with January’s Welfare Jazz. After the slightly calmer Common Sense EP, recent single “Ain’t Nice” (about “a long-term relationship, taking drugs every day, and being an asshole,” according to lead grunter Sebastian Murphy) doubles down on the snark and rascalry of their debut, Street Worms, using gags to conceal a reputed social consciousness. In the single’s video—a send-up of the bewigged bourgeoisie and Swedish polite society—a scootering Murphy is engulfed in flames, and a shopping cart mysteriously sinks into a giant swimming pool. What does it all mean? Stay tuned for answers, maybe. –Jazz Monroe
Viagra Boys: Welfare Jazz
The Weather Station: Ignorance
February 5
After she finished touring in support of 2017’s The Weather Station, singer-songwriter Tamara Lindeman engaged in local climate-change activism, which led to a new set of songs that address the turmoil of reckoning with environmental devastation. The result, Ignorance, is her fifth full-length as the Weather Station and her first on Fat Possum. Lindeman composed most of the songs on piano rather than her usual guitar, once again writing string arrangements, too. She also self-directed the videos for the first two singles, “Robber” and “Tried to Tell You.” –Allison Hussey
The Weather Station: Ignorance
Weyes Blood
TBD
The only thing we know for sure about Weyes Blood LP5 is that it’s on the way. Natalie Mering recently revealed that she’s been “locked away the past few months” in a new studio, taking psychedelics and working on the follow-up to Titanic Rising. Last year’s Fear of Death, her collaborative album with comedian Tim Heidecker, tapped into the ’70s singer-songwriter vibe for which Mering has become known. And given that she’s been listening to everything from King Crimson to Lionel Richie while in isolation, we should expect some surprises on her next solo record. –Noah Yoo
Wild Pink: A Billion Little Lights
February 19
Wild Pink’s sophomore album, 2018’s Yolk in the Fur, cemented their reputation for contemplative lyrics in the style of early Death Cab for Cutie melded with the surrealistic highway anthems of the War on Drugs. The New York band’s follow-up, A Billion Little Lights, enlists producer David Greenbaum—who’s won Grammys for his work on two Beck albums—as well as a host of guest musicians. Julia Steiner of Chicago’s Ratboys lends a lilting vocal harmony to breakup strummer “You Can Have It Back,” while “The Shining But Tropical” has a trippy majesty, like if Tame Impala remixed a vintage E Street Band outtake. Fittingly, frontman John Ross has said, “I wanted to have something very lush and just bigger than anything that I’d done before.” –Marc Hogan