New Music This Week: May 2
- BLIGATORY
- 6 minutes ago
- 8 min read
highlighting new music by Model/Actriz, Home Is Where, Hotline TNT, Indigo De Souza, Aminé & MORE
An overwhelming amount of music is released daily, and we're here to help you weed through it all. Every week, we share select releases we are all looking forward to and personalized picks from a few of our editors.
Welcome to our new releases guide featuring the most notable music released the week of May 2.
BLIGATORY Picks
Model/Actriz - Pirouette
Industrial Rock, Dance-Punk
via True Panther Records / Dirty Hit
Home Is Where - "milk & diesel"
Country Rock, Indie Rock
via Wax Bodega
write-up by Dominick Baglivo
hunting season is right around the corner. Following last month’s “migration patterns,” Home Is Where share the album’s second single, “milk & diesel.”
Deft songwriting on all fronts, “milk & diesel” matches heartstring-tugging with a twangy, boots-in-the-mud brand of rock. Bandleader Bea MacDonald says, “This was inspired by my grandparents both getting diagnosed with dementia at the same time. It’s about how helpless you feel watching someone you love deteriorate.”
“milk & diesel” comes alongside a Texas Smith-directed music video depicting a rather strange dance party through the framing of an old silent film. The hotly-anticipated hunting season is out May 23 on Wax Bodega.
Hotline TNT - "Candle"
Shoegaze, Noise Pop
via Third Man Records
write-up by Dominick Baglivo
Ahead of their third album (and second for Third Man), Raspberry Moon, Brooklyn’s Hotline TNT present their second single of the year. Skipping along with joy, “Candle” is a catchy, breezy, and sentimental offering of fuzzy, guitar-driven pop.
About the new single, bandleader Will Anderson says:
“This song was the first thing we wrote for Raspberry Moon – it flowed out of our guitars quite effortlessly and it barely required even 1% of our power to put the parts in the correct order. Just to make sure it was as good as we thought it was, we brought the song over to Japan, and this video documents the reaction from that experiment. ‘Candle’ is LIT.”
Raspberry Moon is out June 20 via Third Man Records.
Indigo De Souza - "Heartthrob"
Power Pop, Indie Rock
via Loma Vista Recordings / Concord
write-up by Dominick Baglivo
Gradually becoming a master of power pop, Asheville-based singer-songwriter Indigo De Souza shared “Heartthrob” and announced her upcoming fourth album, Precipice. The driving pop-rock of “Heartthrob” is fiery, not only in its instrumental, but the raw and vulnerable songwriting display.
About the track, De Souza explained in a press release:
“I wrote “Heartthrob” as a way to help process something that is often hard to talk about—the harmful ways I’ve been taken advantage of in my physical memory. ‘Heartthrob’ is about harnessing anger, and turning it into something powerful and embodied. It’s about taking back my body and my experience. It’s a big fuck you to the abusers of the world. A sarcastic, angry cry for all bodies that have ever been touched in harmful ways.”
Precipice is out July 25 via Loma Vista Recordings and Concord.
write-up by Peter Doherty
write-up by Atticus Deeny
Atticus' Picks
Aminé - "Vacay"
Pop Rap, Hip House
via CLBN / 10k Projects
MIKE & Tony Seltzer - "WYC4"
Cloud Rap, Abstract Hip-Hop
via 10k
The Beths - "Metal"
Jangle Pop, Indie Rock
via ANTI- Records
Dominick's Picks
Emma Goldman - all you are is we
Screamo, Emoviolence
via Zegema Beach Records
Premier Lawn Service - Pissed Off
Garage Punk, Egg Punk
Self-Released
Real Farmer - RF II
Post-Punk, Art Punk
via Strap Originals
Armlock - "Strobe"
Slacker Rock, Bedroom Pop
via Run For Cover Records
Australian duo Armlock share their first new music of 2025 with “Strobe,” a semi-melancholic, but largely cozy slice of indie rock. In a press release, the band adds:
“Strobe’ is about cherishing the small, grounding moments amidst life’s chaos and challenges. It’s a reflection on commitments—both to others and to oneself—framed by a sense of cyclical motion, resilience, and the urge to return to what matters most. The music video was shot entirely while on tour across the US, UK, and Europe last year. It draws heavy influence from self-made, DIY lip-sync videos more common in rap than indie rock. We blended crossfaded tour footage with jarring overlays of stock visuals: fireworks, rosary beads, binary code, and relentless digitally rendered strobes. The result flirts with the uncanny sheen of AI-generated content that we’re rapidly becoming accustomed to. Rather than serving as a direct extension of the song’s meaning, the video clip is more of a time capsule. A collage of cultural references, personal inspirations, and all the backdrop of the digital-era zeitgeist.”
Humour - "Plagiarist"
Post-Hardcore, Noise Rock
via So Young Records
Glasgow five-piece Humour announce their debut album, Learning Greek, behind the punchy noise rock of “Plagiarist.”
Vocalist Andreas Christoloudis had the following to say about the lead single:
"Plagiarist is about being a lyricist and having run out of ideas and inspiration. In the song, the character is under pressure to put words to music written by the band, and realises that he can’t even steal lines from his favourite books because he has already used them all…he fears being discovered as a fraud and being punished for it with death."
Learning Greek is out August 8 on So Young Records.
Mannequin Fight - "Bad Dream" // "Jackpot 3 Trillion"
Shoegaze, Post-Grunge, Slacker Rock
via Bee Side Cassettes
Get in early! The “Maryland rock band of friendship and love,” Mannequin Fight, have announced their debut studio album. Last year, the trio released a split with Honey Stomach titled Handwoven. That project kicked off with “Jackpot 3 Trillion,” which has now been re-recorded and released alongside the brand-new “Bad Dream.”
Grungy undertones and some real thick bass (love that) can be heard on both, but the pairing still offers a nice contrast between the muddled trot of “Bad Dream” and the more upbeat “Jackpot 3 Trillion.”
Mannequin Fight’s debut studio LP, Branching Out, Reaching Forward, is out May 23. Physical copies will be available in the form of tapes via Bee Side Cassettes.
MSPAINT - "Angel"
Synth Punk, Rap Rock
via Convulse Records
Mississippi’s MSPAINT generated a fair amount of buzz with their 2023 full-length debut, Post-American. This week, they’ve announced a new five-track EP alongside lead single “Angel.” Titled No Separation, the band worked with Show Me the Body’s Julian Cashwann Pratt and Harlan Steel, who co-produced the project with MSPAINT’s own Nick Panella.
In a press release, bassist Randy Reilly explains:
“We met up with Show Me The Body in LA while we were on tour, and we went to visit this spooky studio where they were doing a “writing camp.” We didn’t even know what that was — ain’t nobody in Hattiesburg doing a writing camp. But it ended up being this really strange and cool experience, and we showed Julian and Harlan some of what we were working on. Julian hit the ground running and started offering feedback right away, so when it came time to work on the EP we remembered that and thought it was something worth exploring more.”
The No Separation EP is out May 23 on Convulse Records.
Pip Blom - "Ring"
Electropop, Alternative Dance
Self-Released
After repeated listens to this one, I’ve realized much of the best pop music will have me batting my eyelashes. “Ring,” the latest from Dutch indie pop group Pip Blom, does just that. The glittery and glitchy synths are as captivating as any, as are the simple but downright infectious lyrics.
“Ring” marks the first taste of Pip Blom’s new EP, Grip. The self-released project is set to release on June 6, shortly before the band embarks on a run of six exclusive club shows as part of a Club Grip tour, including three in the Netherlands and three in the UK.
Puffer - "Jimmy"
Hardcore Punk
via Static Shock Records / RoachLeg Records
Gritty, foot-on-the-pedal punk. The kind of riffs that’ll make you wonder, “should I buy a motorcycle?” A real fireball from Montreal’s Puffer, “Jimmy” is the lead single from their debut LP. Street Hassle is out June 13 on Static Shock Records and RoachLeg Records.
Progressive Electronic, Indietronica, Ambient Pop
Self-Released
Powerplant - "Crashing Cars" / "Never Smile"
Synth Punk, New Wave, Gothic Rock
via Arcane Dynamics
the pond - "Into The Room"
Slowcore
via Anything Bagel
Tri-County Liquidators - "Puppet"
Slacker Rock
via Smile Lonesome Records
Westside Cowboy - "Shells"
Art Rock
via Nice Swan Recordings / Heist or Hit
Peter's Picks
SENTRIES - Gem Of The West
Art Rock, Noise Rock, Indie Rock
via Eau Claire Records
SENTRIES' third album Gem of the West is, according to SENTRIES’ Bandcamp, “an album about the place where I grew up, among other things.” The Alberta-based act proves once again why SENTRIES needs to be on your radar.
In the spaces which the mind and body grew from and grew into, somewhere between the dirt and the stars. Environment shapes the mould, and experience sets it. Said environments stick around for the remainder. Said experiences repeat themselves until the day is done. Sadistic mind states, unstable psyches, peg-legged perspectives, they will all have their day.
Written, performed, produced, mixed and mastered by Kim Elliot (SENTRIES), we have a master musician and musical mind at hand right here.
Gem of the West is out now via Eau Claire Records.
Experimental Rock, Noise Rock, Post-Rock, Experimental
via Mishap Records
Shearling, the latest project to be led by Alexander Gregory Kent, release their debut album. It's 62-minutes of unadulterated and mainlined lunacy. It is “music for farms,” as the band’s Bandcamp explains, of an animalistic state. A continuous journey through a mesh of experimental feats, Motherfucker glues worlds together as it simultaneously splits them apart; it plays with the fabric of life itself. It blurs boundaries, lathers itself in over-the-top antics, and mentions horse ass many times—what's not to like?
Divisive albums are usually where the real meat is. Time will tell, as time has told.
You must be buried in order to ascend. The end is nigh.
Search Results - "Too Much Time"
Indie Rock, Art Punk
via Knob Polish
Search Results are edging closer to their second studio album. This time, "Too Much Time," with a more noisy, post-punk gusto, and an extra two minutes on previous single "Be Laurel," leaves the sing-y song-y niceness behind. A more vigorous and sparse approach to songwriting is adopted.
The music video for "Too Much Time" is a document of the band trying to find food during their first trip to London in January of 2024.
GO MUTANT releases May 23.
Ulrika Spacek - "Interesting Corners"
Neo-Psychedelia, Psychedelic Pop
via Tough Love Recordings
The neo-psychedelic sounds of Ulrika Spacek return for the first time since their 2023 album Compact Trauma. "Interesting Corners" delves deep into the sumptuous spheres that Spacek typically dive into; a Trip-Hop trail is outlined and walked down.
Ulrika Spacek's Bandcamp reads:
"We're happy to say we've been making a lot of music in the past year but this felt like a song that stood on its own, so we've decided to let it free. It's a pretty sentimental song for us as we started working on it during our last US tour, listening to it and discussing it in the van whilst travelling through the American landscape, it became a soundtrack in and of itself."
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