13 albums you need to hear in June, from Angel Olsen to Weezer

Angel Olsen has spent the last few years ruminating on her All Mirrors material, building it up and tearing it down again. Now, she’s moved onto much greener pastures with heavily country inspired offerings. Olsen maintains a cinematic quality in songs such as “Big Time” and “All The Good Times,” but they feel as open as the Western frontier. It’s remarkable that Olsen’s never truly ventured into big country as a genre prior to Big Time, as it’s a match made in heaven. [Gabrielle Sanchez]

Chicago’s own Horsegirl (made up of Nora Cheng, Gigi Reece, and current high-schooler Penelope Lowenstein) create the sort of cool, big-sounding, guitar-driven music that’d be easy to label classic indie rock. It’s no wonder that this, Horsegirl’s first LP, will release on Matador, nor that it was recorded at their hometown’s famed Electrical Audio, nor that the group will soon support the classic indie-rock band, fellow label mate Pavement, during that band’s reunion tour. But simply tossing out that description sells the trio short. There’s a real alchemy happening here—little magical moments when, say, the bass plays an octave higher or the drummer moves to the ride, or a clever lyric pops out of the co-lead vocals—that puts Horsegirl just a cut above the throng of other young, similarly influenced bands. [Tim Lowery]

 When The Kills stormed onto the alt-rock scene in 2003 with their debut album Keep On Your Mean Side, singer Alison “VV” Mosshart and guitarist Jamie “Hotel” Hince already had their stripped-down sound. But by the time they dropped No Wow in 2006, the English-American duo was more fully realized in their garage rock-meets-electronic pop groove and audiences were drinking up their dynamic tension. The pair’s playfully fierce flirting on stage and scarce interviews turned tracks like “Love Is A Deserter” into twisted fan-fiction that left listeners hanging on every word; the promise to “start a house fire with us in the middle” is as misguidedly romantic as the chorus command to “Get the guns out! Get the guns out!” As Keith Phipps wrote in then: “The message is clear: With some kinds of love, nobody gets out alive.” Seventeen years later, The Kills are celebrating No Wow’s anniversary with a double album reissue, featuring a fresh mix from Grammy winner Tchad Blake that will make fans of the title track vibe especially fucking hard. [Alison Foreman]

Dolly Parton’s Halos & Horns. Joan Baez’s Diamonds & Rust. And now, Carrie Underwood leans into country Barbie bona fides with Denim & Rhinestones. The multi-platinum American Idol hitmaker’s ninth studio album comes fresh off the heels of a Las Vegas residency and an appearance on Netflix’s Cobra Kai (!), and it signals a return to her sweet spot: mid-tempo, country-inflected ballads with soaring choruses designed to showcase her laser beam of a voice. The angelic melody in lead single “Ghost Story” resembles those in Underwood’s best songwriting, while the title track heralds a return “back to home sweet home” and, fittingly, name-checks Parton. [Jack Smart]

There have been years of “hot girl summer,” but now prepare for Ugly Season. Perfume Genius’ Michael Hadreas has remained relatively hushed when it comes to the forthcoming work. However, we do know that Ugly Season pairs with an accompanying short film directed by Jacolby Satterwhite (Solange’s When I Get Home). Several of the songs on the album derive from Hadreas’ 2019 immersive dance piece with , including “Pop Song” and “Eye In The Wall,” which brings us back to a more electronically influenced Perfume Genius prior to Set Fire To My Heart Immediately. [Gabrielle Sanchez]

Grand emo catharsis, folk tenderness, rap beats—Bartees Strange can do it all. The musician, born Bartees Cox Jr., resolutely refuses to be pigeonholed by petty genre constraints, shifting seamlessly from indie rock to R&B to dance music, filtering it all through his own off-kilter sensibility and hurling it straight at his ever-growing legion of adoring fans. Farm To Table, Bartees’ second full-length album and his first for the storied independent label 4AD, seems like it’ll be another major level-up moment for an artist who just keeps getting better. Early tracks like “Hold The Line,” “Heavy Heart,” and “Cosigns” already rank among the best in his catalog, and it looks like there’ll be plenty more where they came from. [Peter Helman]

“Such things should never happen, but we die / The swallow finds an oak to nest her young / Defenseless between the Earth and the sky / Uncounted beneath the vast, indifferent sun.” These poetic lyrics, intoned by Nick Cave over saintly instrumentation, are just a taste of Seven Psalms, a new spoken-word album previewed in April by the beloved Bad Seeds frontman. If you’re a Cave follower hoping for ominous gothic rock serenades in the vein of “Red Right Hand,” (a track made famous by the Scream movies and as the Peaky Blinders theme song), you may be surprised to learn that there’s no deep-baritone crooning to be found here. Much like the first half of “White Elephant” from 2021’s Carnage, this seven-track opus is all thought-provoking talk over music co-written by longtime collaborator and Bad Seeds bandmate Warren Ellis, marking their second musical project as a duo. Much like their previous outing, this project also sprung to life during the pandemic. “While in lockdown I wrote a number of psalms, or small, sacred songs—one a day for a week,” Cave said in a statement about the new LP. “The seven psalms are presented as one long meditation—on faith, rage, love, grief, mercy, sex, and praise. A veiled, contemplative offering borne of an uncertain time. I hope you like it.” Thanks Nick, we’re sure we will. [Gil Macias]

Flasher’s debut album, Constant Image, was one of 2018's most delightful surprises, a quick burst of urgently melodic songs triangulating the sweet spot between post-punk, indie rock, and new wave. Since then, bassist and co-lead singer Daniel Saperstein has departed the band, but if anything, the remaining duo’s upcoming album Love Is Yours promises to be even bigger. Their newer material swaps out some of the nervy punk energy of their debut for a smoother, chiller sound, perhaps reflecting guitarist Taylor Mulitz’s move from D.C. to L.A., but it’s just as hooky and appealing as ever—arriving just in time to soundtrack plenty of extremely cool summer BBQs. [Peter Helman]

The second of Weezer’s four 2022 efforts to stake a claim to the entire calendar year is still shrouded in mystery; despite earlier plans to release Summer’s first single, “Records,” alongside March’s Spring, all we’ve heard of the 7-song EP to date are guitar-heavy snippets played on Rivers Cuomo’s social media pages. What we do have is that Cuomo tweeted out back in April, revealing that Summer will apparently feature the “Emotion” of “Youthful Indignation,” the “Spiritual Flavor” of “uncertainty, searching; rejecting Roman pantheon but not yet Christian” and will operate in the genre of “21st Century ’90s.” So at least we’ve got that cleared up. (That being said, , so we’re cautiously optimistic that Cuomo at least knows what all this stuff means). [William Hughes]

Pop outfit MUNA made a splash last fall with the single “,” featuring none other than Phoebe Bridgers. The cheery, queer anthem branded the trio as the new bright “it” pop group. Since then, they’ve shared a set of dynamic offerings, mostly about the trials and tribulations of relationships. Lead singer Katie Gavin’s low, raspy voice adds a compelling texture to the glitzy electro-pop songs. [Gabrielle Sanchez]

As she returns with her eighth studio album, Home, Before And After, Regina Spektor remains a musician you can trust to deliver a sentimental point of view that’s consistent in philosophy but still bold and unique. From Spektor’s weird-yet-wonderful 2001 debut 11:11 to the rich variety on her 2016 album Remember Us To Life, the American-Jewish-Russian singer-songwriter spins folksy and ethereal ballads like no other. She does more of the same on her new album and, while its 10 tracks aren’t exactly revelatory, they’re a welcome addition to the charming artist’s dazzling discography with plenty of stuff she hasn’t shown her fans before. Single “Up The Mountain” is already out and offers a taste of the experimental depths the unafraid album explores. [Alison Foreman]

Soccer Mommy and Oneohtrix Point Never: two great tastes that taste great together. Sophie Allison enlisted OPN mastermind Daniel Lopatin to lend his production skills to Sometimes, Forever, the follow-up to her masterful 2020 album color theory, and the result proves to be an unlikely but potent combination. “It’s a coexistence of light and dark, not only lyrically but tonally,” Allison says of the album. “Dan once called it the angels and demons record lol.” From the swooning lead single “Shotgun,” a dizzily melodic alt-rocker about the joys of losing yourself in love, to its evil twin “Unholy Affliction,” a dark and slithering industrial electronic groove recalling ’90s touchstones like Portishead, Sometimes, Forever subtly expands Soccer Mommy’s sonic palette without sacrificing any of the specificity of Allison’s incisive songwriting. [Peter Helman]

No, it’s not a new new album by the famed art-punk outfit. It’s not filled with new material, we mean. Rather, Not About To Die is a cleaned-up, remastered version of demos that the band recorded between 1978’s Chairs Missing and 1979’s 154, ones that were passed around on an apparently shoddy, muddy, lo-fi bootleg in the ’80s. We say apparently, as we’ve yet to hear it. But if “Stepping Off Too Quick (Not About To Die) [6th Demo],” from this collection, released on the band’s pinkflag imprint, is any indication, we’re in for a treat. It’s frenetic, smart, economical (an all-killer-no-filler 1 minute and 22 seconds!)—in other words, classic early Wire, with a warm, full sound so you can appreciate the group’s dynamics. [Tim Lowery]