13 New Albums Out Now From Leon Bridges, Tom Morello, M83 & More

Leon Bridges released his fifth solo album, Happiness Anytime, via Columbia Records. The Texas-raised singer-songwriter teamed with producer J Lloyd-Watson and Lydia Kitto of British trio Jungle, to produce Happiness Anytime, which was tracked across three recording sessions. After crossing paths at various festivals around the world, the group decided to attempt a low-pressure writing session. Four days later, they emerged with six songs, half of the completed album. The trio was joined by bassist Pino Palladino at Chaplin Recording Studios in Los Angeles to complete the follow-up to 2024’s Leon.

“For me, happiness is not a feeling that you chase,” Bridges stated. “I want this album to be something that lingers with people and lingers in people’s bones. There’s this feeling that we have to fix the problems of the world; you feel inadequate or it can be debilitating. My role is to be light. I hope that comes across with this album.”

Tom Morello issued his first solo rock album, Everyone Gets Everything They Want, via Mom + Pop Music. The Rage Against The Machine guitarist is joined on the album by Serj Tankian of System of a Down, KNEECAP and Beartooth. Morello’s 15-year-old son, Roman Morello, who has toured with his father for the past three years, shares songwriting credit on five tracks. Production credits include Tyler Smyth, Carl Restivo, Zakk Cervini, Dan Carey and Sam Nelson Harris.

“I make anti-racist songs for anti-racists,” Tom Morello stated. “I make anti-fascist songs for anti-fascists. And I make anti-Nazi songs for anti-Nazis. ‘Date Night’ is really a ‘which side are you on?’ song. If any of that offends you, do the math. Oh, and Roman Morello wrote the killer riff in this tune.”

M83’s 10th studio album, I Wrote You A Letter, arrived today through Other Sun. The follow-up to 2023’s Fantasy was made with collaborators Joe Berry, Benoît de Villeneuve and Clément Libes, and reunites Gonzalez with de Villeneuve, whose history with M83 stretches back to 2003’s Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts.

Karina Rykman shared her sophomore album, Late Checkout. The singer-songwriter/bassist returned to Trey Anastasio’s The Barn studio in Vermont, where she cut her Anastasio-produced debut album Joyride, to record Late Checkout. She also tracked at LCD Soundsystem’s DFA Studios. The bassist reconvened with frequent collaborator Gabe Monro to work on Late Checkout along with bandmates Adam November (guitar, loopers, effects) and Chris Corsico (drums).

Hermanos Gutiérrez released their new album, Los Ojos Del Cóndor, on Easy Eye Sound. Guitar playing siblings Estevan and Alejandro Gutiérrez assembled with producer Dan Auerbach to record the album at his Easy Eye Sound studio in Nashville. >Hermanos Gutiérrez have mixed the sounds of Latin America with western flourishes over the course of a decade and six albums. The brothers focused on more of the latter for their forthcoming LP, pulling tones from Ecuador and their great-grandmother’s Peruvian heritage as well as Argentinean milonga and Peruvian-Colombian cumbia. The duo named Los Ojos Del Cóndor for the bird found on the flag for their mother’s native Ecuador.

“The condor is the bird of the Andes,” said Alejandro. “It’s like seeing something from that perspective and appreciating the beauty.”

“This is a love letter to South America,” added Alejandro. “What we want to do with this record is to invite people to come on another journey with us, this time through the Andes and to create a curiosity for this culture and for this part of the world.”

Joy Oladokun issued her new album, Hope Is A Heavy Thing, today via Concord Records. Produced by Oladokun with additional contributions from Nigerian producer Spellz, the 12-track album follows 2021’s in defense of my own happiness, 2023’s Proof of Life and 2024’s Observations From A Crowded Room. In addition to “Kind” and the previously released track “Zombie,” the album features a collaboration with Adekunle Gold on “Sage.” Oladokun provided the statement below regarding the new record:

“To understand your future you have to confront your past. This is the driving theme behind Hope Is A Heavy Thing. It’s a collection of 12 songs that I wrote to help myself find my light again after burning out. Produced in Nashville, New York, and the back of a speeding tour bus, this album is sonically an homage to all of the music that inspires me.

“On this record you’ll find music that nods the brilliance of the Soulquarians, the rawness of Bob Dylan, the rhythms of afrobeats, and the sampling prowess of J Dilla. Not to mention a callback to the Ronettes and a few songs that find inspiration in rock and roll protest music of the ’60s and ’70s.

“You’ll also find me at the most authentic I’ve been able to be as an artist. It is a record I wrote for anyone who finds themselves wondering how to hope in these times. Sometimes it means looking back and digging through the muck to find what’s worth fighting for again.”

Taylor Swift updates her latest album with The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore, a four-song expansion of her 2025 album The Life of a Showgirl, out today via Republic Records. Co-written and produced with Max Martin and Shellback, who produced the original album, the expanded edition brings the total track count to 16 and includes the previously released “Patient Zero.”

Brandi Carlile returns with an expanded edition of her album Returning To Myself via Interscope Records/Lost Highway, titled Returning To Myself (Sad Gay Version). The collection reimagines all 10 songs from the original album, with Carlile returning to Long Pond Studio to co-produce four tracks with The National’s Aaron Dessner. The set includes a collaboration with composer and electronic musician Jon Hopkins on the single “Human,” as well as a new version of Billy Joel’s “And So It Goes.” Carlile provided the following insight into the revamped project:

“When I was a teenager, I loved to toy with my own emotions by actively seeking out songs in a genre that very few are willing to call by its rightful name. The ‘Sad Gay’ genre. You don’t have to actually be gay to let it break your heart into a thousand pieces, it will do that against your will.

“I would sit at the edge of my bed and listen to ‘Everybody Hurts’ by R.E.M., ‘Language Or the Kiss’ by the Indigo Girls, or watch Sinead O’ Connor singing ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ while that single black and white tear ran down her face. I’d listen to Kate Bush singing ‘This Woman’s Work,’ Tracy Chapman’s ‘The Promise,’ the Philadelphia soundtrack, the City of Angels soundtrack. I would do this just to feel myself spiral into pure emotional self-indulgence in ways only music like this could permit, making me a very sad gay.

“Returning To Myself has been such a profound journey. It’s taken me to places I never imagined and taught me a lot about my disdain for the solitary, as well as my own ridiculous pattern of self-avoidance. Long may it continue. I reimagined this album in this way because I want to be brought back to the edge of my bed again and I want to bring you with me. I rebuilt the whole thing for you and for myself. This one is for us… the sad gays wherever you are. This is Returning To Myself (Sad Gay Version)…”

Kentucky-born singer-songwriter Tinashe released her eighth studio album, Popstar, her first major-label release since 2018’s Joyride and first full-length release since 2021’s 333. The feature-free 16-track album produced primarily by Zack Sekoff, follow’s the 2024 EP Quantum Baby.

Julia Jacklin released her fourth studio album, The Gem, via 4AD. The Australian singer-songwriter’s debut for the label was produced by Jacklin and Robert Muinos and recorded above a Melbourne pub of the same name. The follow-up to 2022’s Pre Pleasure features Jacob Diamond on guitar, Mimi Gilbert on bass and Jess Elwood, Alex Lahey and Angie McMahon.

“I want to love and be loved, but I also want to feel free,” Jacklin said. “The tension between those two things has been the central question of my life.”

Blondshell (Los Angeles singer-songwriter Sabrina Teitelbaum) put out her third studio album, Violins, on Partisan Records. Produced by Yves Rothman, mixed by Beatriz Artola and mastered by Emily Lazar, the follow-up to 2025’s If You Asked for a Picture was preceded by the title track.

“This record’s heavy in a way,” Teitelbaum said. “It’s gotten a little bit less literal. There’s more imagery. But my main goal with this record was to have songs that hit hard. I wanted big lead lines.”

Protomartyr return with their seventh studio album, Hotel Usona, out today via Domino Records. The post-punk quartet from Detroit – vocalist Joe Casey, guitarist and co-producer Greg Ahee, bassist Scott Davidson and drummer Alex Leonard – worked with accomplished producer Dave Fridmann at his Tarbox Road Studios in western New York. The follow-up to 2023’s Formal Growth in the Desert was preceded by lead single “Sounds We Cannot Hear.”

Minneapolis folk artist Humbird (Siri Undlin) issued her fourth full-length album, Morning When It Comes, via Nettwerk Music Group.Recorded in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, the album marks Undlin’s debut as a co-producer alongside longtime collaborator Shane Leonard, with bassist Pat Keen and pedal steel player Rich Hinman among the additional contributors. The 12-track album follows 2024’s Right On and was written while Undlin navigated mental and physical illness.

“I found certain melodies and rhymes to be like North Stars,” Undlin stated. “I wrote these songs when I was really sick, and it could’ve very easily been a really depressing album. But in the studio, it was important to all of us to find the ways these songs could harness mischief and exuberance – not to downplay the density of the emotions, but to represent the complexity and contradictions that occur on any given day of our lives.”