6 New Albums You Should Listen to Now: The Chicks, Lianne La Havas, Dehd, and More

With so much good music being released all the time, it can be hard to determine what to listen to first. Every week, Pitchfork offers a run-down of significant new releases available on streaming services. This week’s batch includes new albums from the Chicks, Lianne La Havas, Dehd, Protomartyr, Blu & Exile, and Crack Cloud. Subscribe to Pitchfork’s New Music Friday newsletter to get our recommendations in your inbox every week. (All releases featured here are independently selected by our editors. When you buy something through our affiliate links, however, Pitchfork earns an affiliate commission.)

The Chicks: Gaslighter [Columbia]

After a brief pandemic-related delay, Gaslighter is the comeback album from the Chicks, who dropped “Dixie” from their name in late June. Addressing the fallout of her divorce, frontperson Natalie Maines returns to hell-raising form along with founding members Emily Strayer and Martie Maguire and co-producer Jack Antonoff. Read Pitchfork’s Best New Track review of “Gaslighter.”

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Lianne La Havas: Lianne La Havas [Nonesuch]

Lianne La Havas has said that her third album is “the closest [she’s] gotten to a pure expression so far.” The singer-songwriter produced the self-titled record, which follows 2015’s Blood. In addition to “Paper Thin” and “Bittersweet,” the album includes a cover of Radiohead’s “Weird Fishes” that La Havas said inspired much of her creative direction for the project.

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Dehd: Flower of Devotion [Fire Talk]

A little more than a year after releasing their debut album Water, Chicago trio Dehd have shared the follow-up Flower of Devotion. The album’s themes touch on isolation, although the band recorded the LP before the stay-home shutdowns brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. Read Pitchfork’s Rising feature “Chicago Indie Rockers Dehd Tackle Life’s Cosmic Joke With Unpretentious Charm.”

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Protomartyr: Ultimate Success Today [Domino]

Michigan post-punks Protomartyr had to push the release of their new record from May until mid-summer due to the coronavirus pandemic. Ultimate Success Today is the group’s fifth album and it has contributions from Nandi Rose (aka Half Waif), jazz alto sax player Jemeel Moondoc, Izaak Mills, and Fred Lonberg-Holm.

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Blu & Exile: Miles (an interlude called life) [Dirty Science]

Miles (an interlude called life) is a new double album from long-running hip-hop group Blu & Exile. It’s the first full-length from the duo since Give Me My Flowers While I Can Still Smell Them was released in 2012. Both the album and its lead single are named after jazz legend Miles Davis; the record features guest spots from Miguel, Aloe Blacc, Aceyalone, and others.

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Crack Cloud: PAIN OLYMPICS [Meat Machine]

Crack Cloud are a Canadian multimedia collective made up of musicians, visual artists, designers, and filmmakers. What began as the solo project of unofficial leader Zach Choy has since grown into a more decentralized creative unit, bonded by a shared passion for working in harm reduction programs outside of their music-related work. PAIN OLYMPICS is the group’s second album, following 2018’s Crack Cloud.

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Originally Appeared on Pitchfork