Best New Releases, June 6: Pulp, Turnstile, and more

Well, damn, it’s a big release day isn’t it? For Britpop fans from back in the day, there’s a brand new Pulp album, their first in more than two decades. For those who like anthemic alt-rock with hardcore in its roots, Turnstile are back with a colossal new album. Plus our Album of the Week from Lifeguard, which we can’t say enough great things about. And so much more where that came from. Queue up our picks for the best new releases out today.

Note: When you buy something through our affiliate links, Treble receives a commission. All albums we cover are chosen by our editors and contributors.

Pulp – More

When Pulp reunited for a tour and festival appearances more than a decade ago, there was no immediate indication that they’d make a return to the studio. But after they reunited again, in the Year of Our Lord 2025—the one with the same initials as Jarvis Cocker—Pulp have gone and delivered their first new album in 24 years. And it’s great, naturally. Less conceptually driven than its predecessors, Pulp’s latest is full of their signature character sketches and lush pop arrangements, picking up where they left off while delivering some breathtaking new highlights in the form of ballads like “Farmers Market.” A much welcome return to a legendary band, who we’ll have more to say about soon. -Jeff Terich

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

Turnstile – Never Enough

Punk bands usually don’t make it into their teens. But Turnstile, arguably the most successful band to come out of hardcore over the last decade or so, are now 15 years old. So what’s their secret to staying strong and wearing Ambassadors of Hardcore medals with humility? As the title of the Baltimore band’s excellent 14-song new LP suggests, staying hungry for more knowledge about music, using lessons learned to enhance one’s own performance—and never lose interest. Luckily for everyone, Turnstile have passed that test with flying colors on their new LP in four years. It’s evident on every track that they’re striving for Never Enough to gain as massive a cultural impact as Glow On—one of the best rock records of the past 20 years—did. They come close, but with the folding in of guitarist Meg Mills and the absence of founding guitarist Brady Ebert, who left the fold three years ago, Turnstile might need another year or two to recover from those changes. Rest assured they will. – Kurt Orzeck

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

Lifeguard – Ripped and Torn

Two years after delivering their outstanding pair of EPS, Crowd Can Talk/Dressed in Trenches, Chicago trio make a stellar leap forward with the outstanding new full-length, Ripped and Torn. It’s our Album of the Week, and in our review, we said, “they’ve grown into a much more complex and versatile group, one whose emphasis on strong riffs and rhythmic chops have flourished into more experimental impulses and an embrace of even weirder and more wonderful detours and derailments.” It rules. – Jeff Terich

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)

Brian Eno and Beatie Wolfe – Luminal/Lateral

The ever-productive Brian Eno is back with two new albums, each of them a collaboration with UK multimedia artist Beatie Wolfe. They’re companion pieces, right down to the similar circle pattern on their cover art, and as such explore similarly atmospheric space—gentle, gorgeous and rife with open space. But they’re also distinctive in their approach; where Lateral is a proper ambient album, closely aligned with Eno’s body of work over the past 40 years, Luminal features more conventional songwriting, complete with guitar strums and Wolfe’s own soothing vocals. They’re both quite lovely and interesting counterparts, and we’ll have more to say on these soon. – Jeff Terich

Listen/Buy: Spotify (2) | Amazon (vinyl)

Little Simz – Lotus

A little over a year after the spectacular, ambitious Sometimes I Think I Might Be Introvert, UK rapper Little Simz kept the momentum going with the similarly excellent NO THANK YOU, which arrived just before the close of 2022. But its follow-up came in fits and starts, hampered in part by frustrations in her personal life, including a lawsuit and falling out with former collaborator Inflo. She feeds that turmoil back into this set of songs, which ranges from dreamy neo-soul (“Peace”) to Afrobeat grooves (“Lion”), intricately arranged blues (“Lotus”) and post-punk (“Flood”). We’ll have more on this one soon. – Jeff Terich

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Rough Trade (vinyl)

McKinley Dixon – Magic, Alive!

McKinley Dixon is always raising the bar a little higher. The eclectic, shape-shifting hip-hop artist delivered one of the best hip-hop albums of 2023 with Beloved! Paradise! Jazz?! and continues to build up an even bigger and more elaborate sound world with the stunning Magic, Alive! He’s joined by guests such as Quelle Chris, Pink Siifu, Blu and Shamir as he navigates grief through some of his most richly arranged jazz-rap tracks. It’s a moving and personal album that’s also just sounds phenomenal. A new personal best from an artist who never stops moving. Look out for more on this one soon. – Jeff Terich

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)

Activity – A Thousand Years In Another Way

A Thousand Years In Another Way, the highly addictive third album from Brooklyn’s Activity, reveals this up-and-coming synth-pop outfit as stellar architects of mood, texture, melody and danceability. Sort of like a more goth New Order, the songs of Activity—an indie supergroup made up of members from Grooms, Russian Baths and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart—vibe like dystopian daydreams but are also total bangers. Custom-made for a raging DIY disco, the dotted and looping electronics salvos and driving motorik grooves and rhythms are icy and ominous but the effect is a propulsive, reverb-bathed ecstasy that is mind-sticking. Activity wouldn’t be out of place gracing the stage under the dark lights and billowing smoke at The Roadhouse in Twin Peaks: The Return—that’s the extent of their stylish and mysterious bent. The breathy croon of singer/guitarist Travis Johnson and the dreamy Julee Cruise-like purrs of vocalists Jess Rees and Bri DiGioia invoke a Lynchian aura. Activity’s throbbing A Thousand Years In Another Way balances a sinister sparkle with copious hooks. Best not to sleep on this one. – Brad Cohan    

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp

Landlady – Make Up / Lost Time

You may know Adam Schatz as a touring member in Japanese Breakfast and in Neko Case’s band or as writer for The Talkhouse. But it’s in his long-running, ever-evolving pop-centric group Landlady where his splendid–and seemingly effortless–tunesmithery is fully realized. Over a handful of records since 2011, Landlady have explored Talking Heads-ish polyrhythmic funk laced with avant-jazz and proggy stylings that laid bare Schatz’s blissed-out songwriting, exuberant singing and multi-instrumental wizardry. The sprawling Make Up / Lost Time and first new Landlady album in nearly five years, is more than worth the wait. In the subsequent years since 2021’s eponymous full-length, Schatz has further fine-tuned his songwriterly prowess and made what he calls a “song cycle” a truly special musical endeavor. With Buck Meek, Kristin Slipp, Macie Stewart, Lia Kohl and more luminaries chipping in, Schatz, in his heavenly falsetto, sculpts sun-kissed, melodic orch-pop tunes that exude 1970s-era West coast vibes. Make Up / Lost Time might just be Schatz’s masterwork. Grip it and soak in the gorgeous bliss. – Brad Cohan    

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp

Hayden Pedigo – I’ll Be Waving As You Drive Away

In his 31 years, Texas folk guitarist Hayden Pedigo has already had a remarkable career, having collaborated with the likes of This Heat’s Charles Hayward and prolific experimental guitarist Fred Frith, not to mention an unlikely campaign for Amarillo City Council. And later this year, he’s expected to release a collaboration with Treble’s 2024 Album of the Year honorees Chat Pile. But his music remains a constant, which is as gorgeously intricate as ever on I’ll Be Waving As You Drive Away. There’s a sublime dreaminess to his playing style, which pairs American primitivist fingerstyle with mesmerizing ambience, a sound that’s at once mystical, meditative and grounded. It’s on moments like the title track where his approach becomes transcendent, slowly building up steam into a wistful and emotional instrumental Americana that feels bigger than the sum of its relatively sparse parts. – Jeff Terich

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Amazon (vinyl)

Austere – The Stillness of Dissolution

Since their unexpected return in 2023, Australia’s Austere have shifted away from the morose black metal that exemplified DSBM in favor of blackened metal, a subtle difference evident in their rounder sound and prominent guitar melodies. In short, they’ve grown up. The depression that dominated their much-adored second album To Lay Like Old Ashes now appears alongside Agalloch-like chords and dad rock drumming. It’s a holistic transition. Where once Austere hyperfixated on melancholy, they now take it into account and attempt to work through it. It’s still there, just better managed. – Colin Dempsey

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp

Salem 66 – SALT

Etched in the 1980s-era Massachusetts college rock history books, there are those acts who achieved success (Dinosaur Jr., Pixies) and those on the verge but who missed out on the glory (Volcano Suns, Galaxie 500). Salem 66 fell into the latter category. A staple on the Homestead label during the second half of the ’80s, the group—founded by Beth Kaplan, Judy Grunwald and Susan Merriam—were overshadowed by the likes of their labelmates in Dino Jr. and Sonic Youth but their heady folk-meets-psych jangle-rock, as heard on their output, helped jumpstart the burgeoning Boston music scene into stuff of legend status. Thirty-five years after disbanding and a long out-of-print catalog, these American underground art-rock OGs are finally getting their rightful recognition. SALT (released by the Don Giovanni imprint) tells the Our Band Could Be Your Life-worthy tale of Salem 66 by collecting ten tracks handpicked by Kaplan and Grunwald (both also contribute liner notes) across their discography plus an essay from music scribe and academic Franklin Bruno. In a just world, Salem 66 should have attained the popularity of R.E.M. or Sonic Youth. An essential, indie rock-defining compilation. – Brad Cohan 

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp