One, two, three, four! Happy Friday, everyone, from NPR Music. I'm Robin Hilton sitting in for Stephen Thompson, who is away this week. It is New Music Friday, and here to talk about the best new albums out on February 27th is host of World Cafe on WXPN, Raina Duras. Hello, Robin. It's great to be here. Please excuse my sort of scratchy voice. I have the same cold everybody else seems to have right now, and I'm just getting over it. So I'm happy to be here. We can do this. We're going to get through it together. This is a bonkers release day. Absolutely stacked. Mitski, Gorillaz, Buck Meek, Bill Callahan. Incredible release week. Do you ever wonder, like, what's going on? Like, are they planning this? Yeah, like, talk to each other. Spread it out, you know? I also I feel like this time of year, it's a great time to release an album because like nothing else is really happening. People aren't distracted. Yeah, we've got all the time in the world. We're going to get to as much as we can on this episode of New Music Friday. But I want to start with one of the most anticipated releases out today that we weren't actually able to hear in its entirety. It is the long awaited new album from Bruno Mars called The Romantic. and the one single that they've shared ahead of it is called I Just Might. Well, Raina, this is one album that they really kept under wraps, And I mean, you and I've got some pull, but... No, I think I asked if you guys had an advanced stream, and the response I got was, definitely not. Definitely not. But let's talk about what we do know. His first solo album in a decade, he did have that project with Silk Sonic with Anderson .Paak back in 2021. But his first album since he put out 24K Magic in 2016. And people are ready for it. This song that we're listening to, it debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. He performed it at the Grammys. Big tour plan this year. Yeah, and number one in lots of countries. I mean, Costa Rica, Kazakhstan, Belgium, Peru. Everybody loves Bruno Mars. And in this song, you know, he kind of, it's not like he's switching anything up too majorly here. It's boppy, it is groovy, it is retro, which is really where he seems to be comfortable lately, especially when you're talking about Silk Sonic. I will say I'm someone who unironically loves the song Uptown Funk. I love it. I don't know if I'm someone who would identify as a Bruno Mars fan, which is fine, I think, with an artist like Bruno Mars because it's sometimes just about the feeling and the pop single, even with this song. It's music that's for walking down the street on a sunny day when you're in a really good mood. Also, instant party. I mean, it is all the feeling with Bruno Mars. I love Bruno Mars just because I always feel better whenever I put any of his stuff on. Yes. Yeah, and I think to your point with this album, expect retro, expect nostalgia, expect deep grooves. He's also so fun to watch. Did you catch his Grammy performance? I didn't. Oh, so I like he actually didn't end up dancing as much during that set as I was hoping he would. Like I've got the kids in the room. I'm like, watch this, watch this. It's going to be amazing. And he didn't move around quite as much as I was hoping he would. But he's such an incredible dancer. I'd love to get him at the tiny desk. Oh, yeah. I'd love to see the moves he could pull back there. So the album from Bruno Mars is called The Romantic. It's out now on February 27th. Let's get to another super anticipated album out now that we were able to hear ahead of its release. It's Mitski's Nothing's About to Happen to Me. This is the first single from it. Where's My Phone? I keep thinking surely somebody will save me At every turn I learn that no one will I just want my mind to be a clear glass Clear glass with nothing still Oh where did I leave? Where did I go? Where did I go? Where did it go? Where's my phone? Where's my phone? First of all, it's her first album since 2023. The album in 2023 was called The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We. And she had this orchestra in there and it comes back for this record. I mean, I love Mitski. I think that this album really is interesting in that it marries this orchestral sound she's been working on with a more rock, Raj band sound that she originally went into the album intending to focus on. And then she said the songs kind of called to her and asked for the orchestra to come back. Side note, I just went to New York to interview Mitski on Friday about this record. So I have some insight on it. And I'm just really excited to see what people's reaction is to this. Well, I think it's another really big swing of a record for her. I mean, you hear it not just across the album, but even like in a single song, Like you take the opening song, In a Lake. For so much of this song, it has this almost like Laurel Canyon kind of folk vibe to it. Like you could, I kept picturing her playing it on an auto harp, you know, like sitting under a tree or something. But in a lake you can backstroke forever. The sky before you, the dark right behind. But then it takes this sort of show-tune Broadway turn in the back third of the song. The strings come in, horns come in. For a few beats, it becomes more conceptual. Like there's this ambient street sounds and horns honking. And then finally, at the end, it just takes this huge big turn into an anthemic rock song. Incredible. In a big city you can start over The light's all around you The dark stays inside In a big city you can start over She also was really influenced by a book called We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. And a lot of the songs follow a narrative from this character's perspective. There's a lot of tension between the outside world's expectations and your own interior life, which I think is really interesting when you're somebody like Miski, who has a very active fan base, who has set up some pretty strong boundaries around her own personal life when it comes to those fans and public interest into it. So it opens up a lot of interesting questions that she's sort of exploring on the record. Yeah, it feels like a lot of the album has to do with isolation. Not necessarily loneliness, but being alone, if that makes sense. You know, like how you make sense of the world and how you fit in it, you know, when so much of your time is just spent inside your own head. Like, there's a song called The White Cat. Yes. And it's kind of like a trippy take on P.J. Harvey, particularly about halfway through, kind of crossed with surf rock or something. Sure, yeah. But I think the song was inspired by Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House in this passage where she talks about a white cat sitting on the steps of the house. And the narrator in the story says, I could live there all alone. No one would ever find me. Gotta go to work To pay for that cat's house For the red-courcited wasp who lives in the roof When we're talking about that sort of tension between outside expectations and your own interior life and sort of the isolation of that, there's another layer there, and it's one that we talked about when I spoke to her, and that is the expectations around being a woman and how women are supposed to behave. And one of the songs that gets into that is the song Dead Women, where Mitski sings about people wanting a woman to die, basically, so that they can control their story, they can dig through their life, find their details, and take over a woman's narrative, which I think is an interesting thing to explore as a woman and also especially as a famous woman. Then emball me up Cause you're hosting the viewing Saying she gave her life So we could have her in our dreams New album from Mitski is called Nothing's About to Happen to Me out now on February 27th. Let's go next to the band Gorillaz. Damon Albarn, Jamie Hewlett, they're back with an epic new album called The Mountain. This is a song called The Manifesto. I have nothing to lose I have nothing to lose I have nothing to lose Dice yeah Crucé la puerta y hoy me siento libre Dejé el pasado y me fijé en lo simple Solo dame 21 gramos pa' sentirme firme Y yo te dejo mi legado antes de irme Cada paso una enseñanza Sigo con confianza tan rápido que el tiempo no me alcanza No busco alabanza, menos paz las esperanzas So this album sort of had its start a few years back when Jamie Hewlett had to go to India because his mother-in-law had a stroke. And he spent a bunch of time there, and he really fell in love with India and said, OK, I want Damon to come back with me. So they went out, and right before they went back, Damon Alburn's dad died. And then Hewlett's own dad, 10 days later. Like it was a bunch of deaths sort of surrounded the beginning of this album along with this trip to India. And you can hear both of those things really loud and clear on this record. They have said that the mountain is a metaphor for the journey of life. It is about life. It is about death. And it has a lot of those sort of Indian music inspirations. It's kind of like the Gorilla's White album a little bit. Yeah, it's very epic, sprawling, a very global sound. And as you say, because of the loss leading up to them making this album, you hear them sort of seeking higher truths and meaning in the wake of all of that loss. There's a song called The Hardest Thing. And you hear Albarn repeat this line, the hardest thing is to say goodbye to someone you love. He repeats it over and over. You know the hardest thing is to say goodbye to someone you love. That is the hardest thing So, like, there is all this loss, all of this searching, but I wouldn't call it a super moody album. No. Or, like, a sad album. It's more like Wondrous. It's still gorillas. Yeah, and also, like, kind of like a sense that they're just in awe, like kind of marveling at being here. Yeah. Yeah, it kind of feels life-affirming more than, like, morbid or anything like that. And there, I mean, there are lots of guests on Gorillaz albums, but the list of guests on this one is truly extensive. You have Anusha Shankar, who's Ravi Shankar's daughter. You hear her playing right away the sitar. Black Thought, Johnny Marr, Sparks, Marky Smith of the Fall. There are Argentinian EDM artists, American rappers. There's a U.S. Youth Poet Laureate on here. and which is fitting for an album that really is a meditation on life and death. There are a bunch of posthumous features, too, which is really interesting. Bobby Womack, Tony Allen, the Detroit rapper Proof, they are all on the record. And very often I think that these songs kind of assume the identity of the artists who are featured on them. Yes. It's like they're not just in service to gorillas, if that makes sense. Like their fingerprints are all over these songs. Totally. My note said they really let their guests be their guests. Yeah. You know, the song The God of Lying features Joe Talbot from Idols. And it does feel spooky. It kind of feels like a cartoon haunted house, which is a fun angle to take on a record that's about death. And, you know, when I was listening to it, I was like, I will add this to my Halloween season playlist for next year in advance. So the new album from Gorillaz, it's called The Mountain, out now on February 27th. We've got to take a quick break here, but we will have more for you right after this, including new ones from the bands Heavenly, Voxtrot, and a few others we're excited about. I'm Robin Hilton. It's New Music Friday. Raina Duras of WXPN is here. We're talking about the best albums out on February 27th. Raina, what do you got cooking up at WXPN and World Cafe that you can tell us about? Well, we've got Kate LeBon on the show today, today on Friday. And I was just in New York doing an interview and session with Mitski. So you can look for that in a couple of weeks. We have an upcoming session with Big Thief as well. And we're just, you know, we're gearing up for spring at World Cafe and at WXPN. So there's lots of stuff coming that I am not allowed to tell anybody about yet. Those are all some heavy hitters in our world. Yeah. Caleb Bond, Mitski. Yeah. Good stuff. Well, let's get to some more albums that are out today, starting with this very jangly pop band called Heavenly. They're based out of Britain. Their new album out now is called Highway to Heavenly. This is a song called Portland Town. Once again, lost in the leaves Hide my eyes and pretend I'm in a place full of misfits like me A place I could be Just who I want to be Take me down Just hold my hand as I jump To Harlem Town I wanna find myself in Portland So, Raina, I have to admit I'm a little late to this one. And when I say I'm a little late, I mean like around 35 or 40 years. Not the first time there's been a band that everyone loves that I've never heard of. But this is a band, like, I thought they were totally new. I'd never heard of them, and they've been at this for a very long time. Robin, I'm so glad you said that, because when I listened to this album before reading anything, I was like, wow, these guys are really doing a great job of sounding like an 80s or 90s tweepop band from the UK. And what do you know? They basically invented it. Yeah. Yeah. Patient zero. They were, they started like nearly 40 years ago and it's been incredibly, it's been 30 years since they put an album out. The last one was in 1996. It was called Operation Heavenly, which like, that's a, this is a thing they do. They put the band's name and all their album titles. Like they had one called the decline and fall of heavenly and heavenly versus Satan. And now we've got this went Highway to Heavenly. You know, I lived in Athens, Georgia back in the 90s, and this is a very Athens, Georgia band to me, like circa 1993. A little quirky, very homemade, you know, very scruffy, a little trippy. There's some spoken word guitar rock, like on this song Portland Town, that it almost has like a B-52s vibe, which is one of the more popular Athens, Georgia bands. But I love the vibe. And also, I mean, you picked a great track to start with. I mean, Portland Town, I feel like maybe in 2026, we're not all talking about how weird Portland is as much as we were, but they sing about it. They imagine a place for misfits and weirdos and outcasts, not unlike Portland's reputation. So, yeah, it really fits into that kind of DIY underground twee world. They did say, you know, their last album, like you said, was in 1996. Right before they put that out, their band member, Matthew Fletcher, took his own life. And then after that, they said they were going to retire the band name. So this really is kind of a big deal that they're back. And I think they just premuted some songs at a show in 2023. And that's all we've really heard from them since then. So it's interesting, I think, having a band from the 90s, like there's a twee band from then come back now in 2026. Because they came up in the 90s. And when they did, they really made a choice not to present themselves as super masculine or super feminine. because the 90s was really gendered. And now, in 2026, there are all these conversations around toxic masculinity and the idea of trad wives. And they're coming back doing this again. And it kind of feels like a magnified version of what they were initially opposed to. You can hear that in the lyrics of the song, Scene Stealing. It's addressed at a guy who's famous, who has a big ego, and whose reputation gets deservedly ruined after he sexually assaults a woman. I mean, these are really heavy topics, and at the same time, they wrap it in this, like, glittering, as you say, twee pop, that if you're just listening to it, it sounds so light and airy and fun. There's momentum to it. You take a song like Press Return, the energy in it is so good. There's this quirky little Farfisa organ or something kind of behind the guitars. Super hooky, super catchy. And then there's a song like Excuse Me. When I listened to it, I was like, well, it just kind of put this big goofy smile on my face. You know, when I first listened to it, I thought, you know, oh, they're really capturing what it's like to be young and in love. But the more I listened to it, I realized, no, they're older now. And they're remembering somebody from their past. And it's like they see someone on the street that reminds them of that person. And then the song ends with the line, we never realized that what we had would be the best we got. And now it's gone. Yeah. So there's this, yeah, just this thread of melancholy that runs through these. My mind metal apart we did all kinds of crazy stuff Today a month for you it wasn quite enough Started to slip away I didn spot Well the album again from Heavenly is called Highway to Heavenly out now on February 27th Next up is a new one from a band called Voxtrot, and this is an Austin band that, like Heavenly, is back after a really, really long break. They released their debut album in 2007. It was a self-titled album. And now, nearly 20 years later, they've got a follow-up. They're sophomore full-length, nearly two decades later. It's called Dreamers in Exile, and this is the title cut. I was a boy at 19 Going nowhere, nowhere fast You were the storm I was chasing after I thought that the weight of my dreams was a scar that would never last You gave me some skin and the gift of laughter Play disorder again while it's dark outside Before I turn into a song I saw those years with hunger in my eyes As we turned to lovers just before the dawn And I shouted under pink October skies Is there anything left of this place called home? You always say you'll be the last one Standing tomorrow when the morning comes If the music stops and I'm the last one Standing I'll know that the race was won The race was wrong second full-length album. It's incredible. Everything else was EPs and compilations and live stuff. This sounds like an album that's been encased in amber, like an unearthed by scientists who are now studying it to try to understand like what music used to sound like. But it's not like the sound of early, the early 2000s when they were first making music. It's very 80s indie rock. Like this is like college rock. You wouldn't necessarily hear this on Top 40, but the kind of band where like you and a few of your friends were lucky enough to find out about them and you're keeping them to yourselves. No one else is really listening to them. I did go back and listen to their first album because it had been so long. And in some ways it sounds like they just picked up where they left off. But thematically, I'm not so sure this is an album that they could have made before now. One reason I feel like this had to have been made now is because of front man Ramesh Srivastava is singing about a lot of personal stuff, this accumulated life experience. There's a whole bunch of different places where he does that. One of the songs is Fighting Back, where he sings about after the band broke up, he worked as a courier during Grammy and Oscar season, delivering couture from boutiques to mansions and hotel rooms, which I don't know, like your band breaks up. You have like this relative success. it breaks up and then you're delivering clothes to people winning awards that is a really maybe painful but interesting experience and the song itself has this driving beat that feels like it could be the soundtrack to a training montage like you get the feeling that this was all just like he was taking all these things and putting them inside and you know using it as fuel for when he would come back Yeah, I know you love a man who comes fighting back. I still wrestle with the vices of a teenage punk. And I know we've got the guts for the elegant age. We still set the controls for midnight. I'm ready to die to love, to let my heart for myself go. I'm ready to give my heart. I'm ready to lose control. I mean, the whole album is really like this. You know, it is so reflective, very wistful at times. There's this sense that time is moving too fast. And like he just can't hold on to it as much as he wants. Like everything is slipping away. Like if you listen to the opener, Another Fire, you know, he sings about being hungry for the kill and chasing another fire. But like how the body is letting you down as you grow older. It's honestly, it's not the kind of song you could write when you're in your early 20s, I don't think. Calm down in the blitz, the underground scene. Drinking from the source, real and from belief. The empire moans, the world's become one. Dreams of the father realized in the sun. At the same time, I do feel like this album kind of took me back there because the music itself, it has many, many cathartic moments, especially in the hooks of the songs. I'm thinking of a song like New World Romance, which ties into what you're saying. There's a line, it's a beautiful world. Can I Please Stay In It? Life Goes By in a New York Minute. There are wild roses still blooming in me. There are moments in that song where I can imagine, I can put myself back in the dance club that I went to in Toronto when they were first a band and I can imagine everybody just jumping up and exploding when the hook hits. It's a beautiful world Can I please stay in it Life goes by In a New York Minute There's wild roses still blooming in me I'm gone in my head on a dream vacation While history comes and starts the liberation Through wild romance still calling the faithless out to believe And Bobby said, give the anarchist a cigarette The album, again, is Dreamers in Exile from Vox Trot, their first in 20 years. We've got to take another quick break here, but when we come back, we're going to talk about the album I'm most excited about this week. Raina, it's from a band from Where You Are, Darren Philly. We'll have that plus our lightning round right after this. it's new music friday i'm robin hilton here with reyna duras talking best new albums out on february 27th next up is a new one i have been looking forward to this since last fall when we first heard that it was coming it's the new album from the philly band nothing it's called a short history of decay and this is the title cut We'll be right back. So this is their first new album in six years. And Raina, as I mentioned, this is one of your hometown bands, so I feel like I should kind of let you go first here. Well, you know, back in 2020, the frontman Nicky Palermo thought that maybe the band was done, but then he wanted to bring it back, he wanted to do it again. And there really kind of is a theme emerging here, Robin, in some of these records we've been talking about, about like the passage of time, getting older, maybe not being able to do all the things you once were able to do. Nicky Palermo has been open, especially around this album, about the onset of something called Essential Tremors, which is a non-life-threatening neurological disorder. it makes the body shake uncontrollably both physically and verbally so you can imagine how difficult that would be especially if you're trying to play music and that idea it's even in the title i mean decay of your body maybe not being up for what it once was it it really stretches through the whole record yeah and they wrote about it on the the closing track essential tremors you know his voice is really out in the clear it's it's not buried in reverb as much as previous records, which was very intentional. He said he wanted people to hear the tremor in his voice on this song. The closer that I can To dissecting the regret Honesty ain't free And freedom is set He really went through it after that last record. I feel like we're lucky to have this album because, as you said, Palermo thought, maybe the band's done now. We've taken it to its natural conclusion. and he struggled with substance abuse in the years since, you know, he said there were ER visits, relationships fell apart and then he developed these tremors but somehow he got through it all and found this kind of clarity that brought him back to making this album and you know i i will just say straight up i think this is the best album nothing's ever done it's more nuanced i think it's the the most honest and revealing it's the most complex emotionally and i just think musically it's the most accomplished we we get like glimpses of the softer side of the band yeah like it opens with this song called Never Come Never Mourning. And when it starts off, it sounds so beautiful. And so it's like this reflection on childhood. And I thought, oh, you know, Dominic Palermo, he's like remembering moments like hanging out on lazy days. But then you realize, oh, God, no, he's talking about growing up with an abusive father. So much pain in it. And then it just like opens up. The song opens up. It gets really big and more and more heartbreaking. And he sings about getting older and how much harder life has gotten. The ocean's wave could not keep me home. I'm glad you brought up that first song. I mean, the very first lines of that song are, When I was young, life was easy. And he has said, Nicky said, that he's writing about things on this album that he's never really talked about before, things he was scared to write about. And so while, you know, sometimes if you aren't a really big shoegaze fan, sometimes that wall of sound can feel oppressive. I think that having that sort of vulnerability and that tenderness and those quieter moments makes it more accessible for somebody who maybe has never listened to them before. I will say, lead single, Cannibal World, the drums are amazing. This song is scary. It is fast and it feels like woozy and weird. So there's that side of it too. Again, the album From Nothing, A Short History of Decay, out now on February 27th. As I said, it's an absolutely stacked release week with way more albums than we could ever get to on a single show. So we're going to do a quick run-through of some of the other notable releases out now on February 27th. Raina, what else are you loving this week? I'm really loving the Buck Meek album. It's called The Mirror. It's personal, but it doesn't come off as indulgent. He recorded it in a log cabin, but he recorded his vocals out on the porch. And honestly, that sounds like the perfect place to listen to it. You can imagine this tender, sensitive guy somewhere quiet singing to you. You can be alone and really appreciate his lovely, thoughtful, introspective lyricism. Well, normally we'd throw more albums into the mix ourselves here, but this week we thought we'd bring on some of the other brilliant curators and writers and reviewers from the NPR Music team to tell us what they're loving this week, starting with editor and close personal friend of mine, Hazel Sills. We are close personal friends. Yeah, my pick this week is the album Marathon by the artist Maria B.C. This is a very beautiful, dark album about surviving in our world today. It's full of really interesting textures. I feel like some songs sound like intense drone tracks, and then elsewhere it kind of sounds like a folk album. I just found it to be a very stunning, almost meditative release. All right, Ann Powers, host of the Plus episode for NPR Music. Hey, Ann. Hi, guys. How you doing? What do you want to flag for us this week? Well, I want to flag the new record by Bill Callahan. It's called My Days of 58. You probably know of Bill Callahan. He's been making records since the early 90s, originally under the name Smog, and then under his own name for the past 20 years or so. I have a confession to make. Early on, I was not only not a fan of Smog, but I was actively uninterested in Smog. I found Callahan's work kind of awkward and offensive, but both of us have grown since then. And now he has become one of my very favorite artists. And this album, My Days of 58, he is 58 years old. And it is such a beautiful and funny and deeply human reflection on this time in his life. This record is so fun and joyful. It's shambolic. The band is the same one that was on Bill's live album, Resuscitate. And it's just such a people record. I love it completely. I would never think to call a Bill Callahan project a people record. It's beautiful how we grow in life, isn't it? And not wonder where do they go? Like, where do they go? Let's go to Sheldon Pierce. Hey, Sheldon. Hey, Robin. You were just on All Songs Considered on Tuesday with a bunch of new jams, but what else are you loving that's out on February 27th? Yeah, my pick is the Gina record, The Pleasure Is Yours. Gina is a new duo of the experimental Texas multi-hyphenate Liv, spelled L-I-V dot E, and the Detroit drummer and producer Kareem Riggins. And their new record, which is a debut, is sort of like a marvel of modern hip-hop soul. It's full of like translucent R&B vocals and lush skipping drums. The album is kind of futuristic and throwback all at once and like seems to exist on a continuum of their respective reference points, which are Dilla, The Roots, Erykah Badu, George A.M. Muldrow. But the record is in a kind of near constant state of play and it's just light and fun. And it's one of my favorites of the year. And that's Gina, G-E-N-A. I follow you around. I follow you around. I'll take my time with you. You're taking me around. I'll let you take me to town. I'm running in circles. All right, last but not least, NPR's classical music editor, Tom Huizinga. Hey, Tom. Hey, Robin. and I've got some amazing orchestral music by composer Sarah Kirkland Snyder. It's called Forward Into Light. It's the title track from a new record performed by the Metropolis Ensemble. I think a lot of people probably know her best as the co-founder of the so-called indie classical label New Amsterdam, which has released a lot of really cool records by Missy Mazzoli and Aruj Haftab and Caroline Shaw. Snyder herself is, I think, a little bit of a late bloomer as a composer, best known for a song cycle called Penelope back in 2010. But her first opera just premiered in L.A. I just saw it in New York last month. And Forward Into Light is a piece for orchestra commission by the New York Philharmonic. And it's inspired by American women suffragists, including people like Sojourner Truth and Susan B. Anthony. But Snyder says she's not really trying to tell their story so much as what she says, quote, to distill the emotional, psychological contours of faith, doubt, and what it means to persevere. All right. Thanks, everybody. Thank you. Thanks, Rob. Thanks. Thank you. That'll do it for this week's New Music Friday. Raina Duras from World Cafe and WXPN. Thanks as always. Thank you. All right. If you enjoy the show, be sure to leave us a glowing review on Apple or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Noah Caldwell and Elmanian and edited by Otis Hart. Our production assistant is Dora Levitt. The executive producer of NPR Music is Saraya Muhammad. Stephen Thompson will be back next week to discuss new music with Nate Chinon from WRTI, also in Philadelphia. Until then, be well, take care, and treat yourself to lots of great music. Thank you.
