3 new songs and 3 new albums to check out this weekend

We might have to wait until 2025 for a new record from Sharon Van Etten, but at least she was kind enough to grace us with the first single from her upcoming self-titled album. This is the first time she’s released music as Sharon Van Etten And The Attachment Theory. (The Attachment Theory is her longtime backing band, but this is the first full collaboration project they’ve done together.) “Afterlife” is a low-key spooky romance groove, as Van Etten sings about meeting up with a lover after they’re both dead. You can hear the influence of The Attachment Theory, too, in the opening synths that blend beautifully with the drums and bass as the song builds to its climax.

Leave it to LCD Soundsystem to premiere a new song exclusively on the radio in the year of our lord 2024. The craziest thing about releasing “X-Ray Eyes” on Anu’s “Soup To Nuts” NTS radio show is that it’s been two whole days since the broadcast and LCD Soundsystem still hasn’t posted it anywhere—not on Spotify, or YouTube, or Bandcamp, or anywhere. Their last Instagram post is from three weeks ago and it’s about a tennis fundraiser. What gives, James Murphy?

Oh, the song? It’s good. It sounds like LCD Soundsystem. You’ll like it. (Skip to 19:56 in the video above to hear it.)

Lady Gaga really needs a win after the disaster of Joker: Folie À Deux and her companion album for the film, Harlequin—or at least a major distraction from it. To that end, she’s been doing a pretty good job of building hype for her new single, “Disease,” by teasing imagery and lyrics prior to its release. It’s the first song we’ve heard from her upcoming pop album, which arrives sometime in February. She told Rolling Stone the new album is “nothing like” her last pop release, Chromatica, and we’re suitably intrigued by “Disease.”

In 2020, Laura Marling released Song For Our Daughter, a collection of songs written to a fictional child. Now, Marling has a one-year-old daughter, and her new album, Patterns In Repeat, “finds Laura reflecting on her motherhood experience,” according to her Bandcamp page. Sonically, Patterns In Repeat is a natural continuation of the stripped-down style of Song For Our Daughter: It’s sparse, sad, hopeful, and beautiful all at once.

It’s been 10 long years since we’ve heard new solo music from Chuck Ragan. Sure, he’s been active with Hot Water Music in the meantime, and we’re never going to complain about more Hot Water Music in our lives, but there’s something uniquely magical about Ragan’s solo work, and we’ve missed it over the last decade. His seemingly endless empathy shines brightly on Love And Lore, especially its lead single, “Wild In Our Ways.”

Less than six months after the release of Megan, Megan Thee Stallion is back with a follow-up album subtitled Act II. Hey—now that she’s releasing her own music, she can do whatever she wants. And it’s not like Act II is just the cast-offs from Megan: the first single, “Neva Play,” which features RM of BTS, is set to be the new theme song for WWE Smackdown. The album also features guest spots from Flo Milli, Twice, and Spiritbox. Megan debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard charts, and after the success of “Neva Play,” she might just top that with Megan: Act II.