FEATURE:
One for the Record Collection!
IN THIS PHOTO: Kelela
Essential July Releases
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JULY is a pretty…
IN THIS PHOTO: FLO
exciting month for album releases. I am recommending from the list here. Historically, a lot of the very best albums are released between June and September. It is always a busy time for great albums. This July is no different. I am starting out with one album from3rd July. It may well be the most anticipated album of the year. It is Madonna’s Confessions on a Dance Floor: Part II. The follow-up to her 2005 album, Confessions on a Dance Floor, the releases from it so far show that she is still very much at the top of her game. An artist who has been so consistently brilliant sin e her 1983 debut. It is an album that every music fan should pre-order. There are multiple options in terms of vinyl choices and having it on C.D. or cassette. Whichever one you go for, this is going to be album that I am sure will sit alongside the best from this year:
“The new album is the continuation of the iconic counterpart Confessions on a Dance Floor. Madonna sums up her new record best by quoting the first few lines of her song, One Step Away, “People think that dance music is superficial, but they’ve got it all wrong. The dance floor is not just a place, it’s a threshold: A ritualistic space where movement replaces language.” Madonna adds “When Stuart Price and I first started working on this record, this was our manifesto”: We must dance, celebrate, and pray with our bodies. These are things that we've been doing for thousands of years — they really are spiritual practices. After all, the dance floor is a ritualistic space. It’s a place where you connect — with your wounds, with your fragility. To rave is an art. It's about pushing your limits and connecting to a community of like-minded people. Sound, light, and vibration Reshape our perceptions Pulling us into a trance-like state. The repetition of the bass, we don’t just hear it but we feel it. Altering our consciousness and dissolving ego and time”.
Four great albums from 10th July that you need to pre-order. One is from another iconic act. I shall come to them soon. I want to start out with Holy Wave’s i’m DADA. I would advise people to pre-order this album, as it is one that will stay in your head long after you have heard it. If you are not familiar with Holy Wave, they are a Austin, Texas-formed Psych-Pop band who formed in 2008. Although I am fairly new to the band, hearing their recent material confirms that i’m DADA is going to be a tremendous listen:
“Working alongside experimental duo Lorelle Meets the Obsolete at their studio El Derrumbe in Ensenada, Mexico, the sessions folded community into the album, though its emotional core had already formed over months of pre-production. Joo Joo Ashworth, mixing engineer and longtime friend, also provided a pivotal presence helping crystallize the album’s rhythmic language and subtly expanding the band’s sound. The songs began reflecting conversations about fatherhood and partnership, breakups and estrangement, the queasy acceleration of AI, and what it means to remain present and principled while the world lurches unpredictably forward.
This tension is not announced but absorbed into the music. Holy Wave stretches their familiar sense of woozy atmosphere into something leaner and more direct. There are more loops and samples woven throughout than before, grooves that feel constructed, cyclical, hypnotic. Some tracks drift toward dub’s elastic spaciousness; others pulse with cinematic downtempo gravity. There is a fresh sense of momentum throughout the record, rhythms that pull forward, dream-saturated textures, sheets of fuzz, and softly suspended vocals.
If earlier Holy Wave records often felt defined by their sense of drift, i’m DADA feels newly grounded. The album doesn’t abandon immersion; it disciplines it. Grooves settle, repetitions accrue weight, and the music is composed and unshaken amongst its heavier themes. What emerges is not reinvention but a sharpening, with Holy Wave sounding less like a band drifting through atmosphere and more like one deliberately shaping it amongst the chaos”.
An album I am really excited to hear is Kelela’s New Avatar. I really love Kelela, so it is going to be a thrill hearing her new album. Go and pre-order the album here. If you need a bit of background and personal insight into New Avatar, then Rough Trade have you covered. This also is going to be among the best albums of the year in my view. Kelela is a truly wonderful artist:
“My origin story as a songwriter and artist set the context for the catharsis I experienced while making new avatar. I wrote my very first songs in a punk house. The indie scene I was part of provided me with an outlet for genre-defying experiments that illuminated intersections I was hearing in my head. We didn’t spend tons of time on songs cuz the kids in that scene didn’t care about nailing it. It was (lowkey) about messing up, giving 0 fucks and dismantling the need to be perfect in the first place. It took the pressure off and allowed my first vision of myself to blossom. I used a similar approach with this body of work - moving through with a lot of intention while capturing the freedom and spontaneity that inspired my inception as an artist.
What you’re getting with this album is another facet of my world expressed with a new level of conviction, sometimes in the form of love+devotion and other times in the form of rage.” – Kelela”.
I am a big fan of Suki Waterhouse. Her upcoming album, Loveland, arrives on 10th July. The British-born, U.S.-based artist follows up 2024’s Memoir of a Sparklemuffin. That was an incredible album. The singles she has released from Loveland finds Waterhouse at her peak. Someone whose music instantly makes its way into your heart, do go and pre-order Loveland. Speaking with Variety recently, we get to learn more about what Loveland will offer:
“Balancing family life with her burgeoning career is one of the main topics of “Loveland,” Waterhouse’s third album, which comes out on July 10. It’s her first release after signing with Island Records, the label that’s home to reigning pop girlies like Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan and Olivia Dean.
When her contract with Sub Pop ended, Waterhouse says there was “a fascination for me of, what’s it like to be signed to a major label? I wanted to go on that ride and see for myself.”
So far, so good. Waterhouse’s collaborators on “Loveland” include “Espresso” hitmaker Amy Allen, Taylor Swift go-to Aaron Dessner and Lorde producer Joel Little, in addition to the musical partners who have been there from the start, Natalie Findlay and Jules Apollinaire. “For the first time, I had the option to work with some of the biggest people in the industry, and it’s kind of crazy,” she says. “I’m like, really?”
The 14-track “Loveland” — for which Waterhouse cites the Stone Roses, PJ Harvey and the Replacements as sonic inspiration — thematically swings between nostalgia for the wild days and nights of her youth and longing to be settled with her family. “There’s this kind of recklessness and abandon, which is always the feeling that I want to chase,” she admits. “And then there’s also this part of me that’s very much missing and yearning for the intimate, cozy moments in my life. They’re all very equally true to me.”
There’s even a track named for Notting Hill — a groovy piano-led love letter to “running around with a hangover in my early 20s” and wondering when you’ll meet your own Hugh Grant, just like in the Richard Curtis classic. Turns out, her apartment across the street is also “really where I fell in love with Rob,” she says, blushing.
“The music that I was making when I first started was very much in reaction to toxic relationships and heartbreak and that painful rollercoaster of girlhood,” Waterhouse adds. “And it’s been interesting this time around to have my heart cracked open in a different way.”
It’s not hard to tell that on “Loveland,” Pattinson is Waterhouse’s muse. The album’s opening song and lead single, “Back in Love,” is a joyous trumpet-backed ode to getting her own spark back postpartum, as well as in their relationship.
“I felt like my identity had been cut open in becoming a mother and also having a lot of expectations on myself. Internally, there’s been quite a lot of turmoil and just wondering if I’m doing the right thing. And especially, oh my God, the hormones right after you have a baby are so intense,” she says. “It’s like [I got] belief back in myself, and then also being … I don’t want to say back in love with my partner, because it sounds like I was out of it, which I was never. But it’s also a new relationship. Your old relationship has been wiped out, and so it’s building that new one and kind of celebrating the beauty in that, like, we’ve survived this”.
There are another eight or nine albums I want to cover. The next is The Rolling Stones’ Foreign Tongues. This is going to be another massive album. Madonna and The Rolling Stones releasing albums within a week or each other. Two legendary acts putting out tremendous work. This might be the final album from The Rolling Stones. Make sure you pre-order Foreign Tongues:
“Foreign Tongues, the incredibly vibrant 14-track new album from the Rolling Stones, follows less than three years after the band’s universally acclaimed, Grammy Award-winning Hackney Diamonds, which topped charts worldwide and achieved multi-platinum success. Preceded by the upbeat and infectious lead single ‘In The Stars’, Foreign Tongues was brought to life in under a month at Metropolis Studios in West London, with Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood reuniting with Grammy-winning producer Andrew Watt. The result is a dynamic and forward-looking record that captures the band’s unmistakable sound while pushing into new sonic and lyrical territory, further cementing their unparalleled legacy.
The album features standout performances from Jagger, Richards and Wood, alongside their core collaborators including Darryl Jones, Matt Clifford and Steve Jordan. It also includes a special appearance from Charlie Watts, captured during one of his final recording sessions before his passing in 2021. Additional contributions come from an impressive line-up of guest artists, including Steve Winwood, Paul McCartney, Robert Smith (The Cure) and Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers”.
Moving to 17th July, there are a few albums I am keen to spotlight. The first of the trio is Gracie Abrams’s Daughter from Hell. The Californian artist is very prolific. Her most recent album was The Secret of Us of 2024. Her debut, Good Riddance, came out in 2023. Her third album in three years, go and pre-order Daughter from Hell here. Rough Trade have provided no information on the album. However, this article quotes Gracie Abramas. She reveals more about Daughter from Hell and what inspired its title:
“Gracie Abrams opened up about the inspiration behind her upcoming album and the meaning behind its title, Daughter From Hell.
In an interview on TikTok Radio, the singer shared that the album explores the uncertainty and transition that often come with being in one’s 20s.
"This album as a whole is about this in-between decade, sort of our 20s, where one foot is in your post-adolescence and the other is in your future," she said.
The “That’s So True” hitmaker revealed that turning 26 led her to reflect more deeply on her life and relationships.
"I think that being 26, for whatever reason at this point I felt like I've been reflecting in more meaningful ways than I have in the past. I think I credit my relationships with my family for everything, especially when it comes to feeling super alone or like you're floating away from your body or something, like all of that kind of scary existential stuff," she remarked.
The singer went on to discuss her close bond with her mother, which also influenced parts of the album.
"I feel so rooted in conversations with my mom, like I Facetime her six times a day. And I think when I was like in the studio that day I had no intention on making a song that kind of referenced our relationship but I feel like we've earned the relationship that we have and kind of thank you note adjacent writing on this album," she said”.
The second of three albums from 17th July that you should pre-order is Tricky’s Different When It's Silent. Another long-running artist who is still putting out incredible work, you do need to check out Different When It’s Silent. Here is some important detail. I have been a fan of Tricky since he was part of Massive Attack and worked on their earliest albums in the 1990s:
“The legendary artist and producer Tricky announces his new album, Different When It’s Silent, via False Idols.
His 15th studio album and first full-length release under his own name in six years, Different When It’s Silent is a direct, focused record that reconnects with the distinctive sonic language that has defined Tricky’s work since his groundbreaking 1995 debut, Maxinquaye.
The album’s first single, “Out Of Place” arrives as a powerful closing moment for the record. Featuring longtime collaborator Marta, the track pairs Marta’s restrained vocal with Tricky’s urgent, almost punk-like delivery. The contrast between the two creates a dynamic finale that captures the album’s stripped back intensity. Originally written for Marta’s own album, Tricky ultimately reclaimed “Out Of Place” for Different When It’s Silent.
Different When It’s Silent follows a prolific period of activity. Since 2020’s Fall to Pieces, Tricky has released music under several different guises, including the collaborative project Lonely Guest, the Fifteen Days project with producer Mike Theis under the name Theis Thaws, and last year’s joint record Out The Way with Marta, al via his own label, False Idols. Yet returning to an album under his own name took on a different shape.
“In my mind it was another side project” he explains. But after hearing the material, his manager Alan McGee felt the songs clearly belonged to a Tricky record.
Recorded between Tricky’s home in France and sessions in Bristol, the album draws strongly on the musical community that shaped him. Central to its sound is the voice of Bristol singer Mitch Sanders, whose soulful falsetto runs through much of the record. Their connection reflects a shared musical background and an instinctive chemistry that carries through the performances.
Across fourteen tracks, Tricky blends skeletal blues, brooding electronics, distorted guitars and stark hip-hop rhythms into a sound that feels both stripped-back and expansive. The album moves fluidly across styles while maintaining the restless experimentation that has defined his work for more than three decades.
“I just love making music” Tricky says. “I’m grateful I’ve had the chance to live this life and keep creating.”
With Different When It’s Silent, Tricky delivers one of the most focused and powerful records of his career - a reminder that artists who build their own language never fall out of time”.
Four albums to recommend from 24th July. Before them, there is Yard Act’s You’re Gonna Need a Little Music. A great album due on 17th July, go and pre-order t. In terms of what you need to know, NME announced the arrival of an album from one of our best young bands. If you have not heard Yard Act, then this is a perfect moment to connect. I have never seem them live, though this is a band that I really do need to see one day:
“The Leeds band will soon return with their third album, set for release on July 17 via Island Records (pre-order/pre-save here). It’s their first new record since 2024’s ‘Where’s My Utopia?‘.
Now, they’ve shared the first taste of ‘You’re Gonna Need A Little Music’ with ‘Redeemer’, which takes Yard Act down a much darker sonic path than previously. Over a stooping bassline and skeezy guitars, frontman James Smith proclaims: “Redeemer / You stole the sun / Now you orbit is the bullshit of the damage done”.
The band worked with Nine Inch Nails bassist Justin Meldal-Johnsen on the album, and recorded it between LA and Leeds. It also marks the first time the band made an album live in the same room.
“The first two records were both laptop records essentially,” Smith said in a press statement, adding that ‘You’re Gonna Need A Little Music’ was written in an “uninterrupted five month period” of creativity. The band went on to produce “40 or 50 songs” from this time period, with Smith adding: “It felt like freedom. It felt like everything I’d wanted from being in a band”.
On 24th July, Body Type’s Tally is released. A group I have been following for a while now, I am looking forward to Tally. You can pre-order the album. One that you will want to add to your collection. Not a great deal of information around the album. However, there are recent interview like this that do give a bit more insight and explanation. A deeper look at a group that everyone should follow. They are a quartet that formed in Sydney just over a decade ago. They consist of Sophie McComish, Annabel Blackman, Georgia Wilkinson-Derums, and Cecil Coleman:
“Body Type third record Tally, via p(doom) records. Here, the everyday bits of life—taking a lift up to a boyfriend’s apartment, divvying up a bill—are transformed into sublime and surreal thrills. This is a luminous rock record, chronicling mundanity’s mystical implications, the deformations of romance and love’s confounding elasticity. Combining big, jagged riffs, moody post-punk and 60s pop, this is Body Type’s most self-assured and expansive record to date, which coincides with their 10th anniversary as a collective. It’s the sound of a band maturing and taking stock, but where wit and playfulness still reigns supreme”.
A terrific British girl group, FLO released their debut, Access All Areas, in 2024. Their second album, Therapy at the Club is going to be extraordinary. Pre-order it now. They are a London trio formed of Jorja Douglas, Stella Quaresma, and Renée Downer. A huge summer release that surely will see them play a load of festival, they are helping to revitalise the girl group market in the U.K. Alongside others like Say Now and XO, there is this new wave coming through:
“With their next chapter, Therapy At The Club, FLO expand their emotional honesty into a fully realised creative universe. The concept reimagines the club not just as a place of nightlife, but as a site of release, confession and self-possession — encompassing the moments before, during and after the night out. From mirror affirmations and pre-game chaos, to late-night Uber conversations, dance-floor catharsis and the clarity of the morning after, Therapy At The Club captures how women process desire, heartbreak, confidence and healing in real time, together. It is both fantasy and reality: cinematic, fashion-led and emotionally raw, grounded in sisterhood as a form of survival.
Sonically, the new music leans into dark, euphoric R&B and pop with sharper edges, built on vocal mastery and diaristic storytelling. Lead single “Leak It” sets the tone for the era — playful, charged and unapologetically self-aware — exploring what happens when desire spills over, secrets surface and control is reclaimed. Across the new songs, FLO move fluidly between intimacy and euphoria, turning the club into a space where vulnerability is power and feeling everything is the point.
As a trio built on discipline, joy and deep creative trust, FLO represent a new model for the British girl group: one rooted in authorship, harmony and cultural impact. Balancing softness with strength and ambition with authenticity, they are shaping the future of R&B and pop on their own terms. FLO are not looking backwards — they are setting the standard for what comes next”.
Shania Twain’s Little Miss Twain arrives on 24th July. You can pre-order it here. Last month, CountryLiving published an interview with Shania Twain ahead of appearance at the ACM Awards. The Country genre is one that has been flourishing in recent years. Artists such as Ringo Starr and Beyoncé putting their stamp on the genre:
“I feel that the new generation coming up has a more free-spirited approach to songwriting, and to their musicality,” she tells Country Living. “I feel like country music is expanding. And I feel like the windows have been opened and the air is getting refreshed.
“So we have a nice influx of fresh air, new artists, and the joy is not bringing in the new and get rid of the old, because that would not suit me very well,” she says, laughing. “I think it's all about being together.”
“Part of my excitement is always to see my old pals that have been around for years in the country music industry, but also to meet the new artists coming up,” she says. “And watch the performances, and just get a feel for where we're going. This is the excitement for me.”
To Shania, the future is bright. “Where are we going? I get inspired by seeing what's possibly to come,” she explains. “Certainly there are more females now. And that just broadens the horizons in general, also, for the audience. The audience wants to see a little bit of everything. They want to be inspired—especially the global audience. They demand it”.
There is one album from 31st July I am ending with. Before that, 24th July promises a treat in the form of Tyla’s A*POP. This is a modern great. Pre-order her second studio album here. Another album that could well make its way into the best-of-the-year lists. Tyla is a modern phenomenon. I am keeping my eyes peeled and will listen to its album when it is released, as I have admired her music for some time now:
“A*POP — is the sophomore masterpiece from two-time Grammy Award-winning, multi-platinum global superstar Tyla. A bold evolution from her debut, this 14-track album mesmerizes with Tyla’s signature sultry vocals, seamlessly blending amapiano, pop, and R&B. A*POP is both a statement and a movement — a declaration that African music is pop music, with Tyla leading the charge at the forefront of a global shift. Featuring standout hits like “IS IT,” “CHANEL” and “SHE DID IT AGAIN (feat. Zara Larsson), A*POP invites you into Tyla’s immersive, vibrant world — a defining second album that cements her as a true global icon”.
Do make sure you pre-order Ariana Grande’s petal. July is offering up an embarrassment of riches regarding quality. It is clear petal is going to win a slew of huge reviews. Grande is one of the biggest Pop artists in the world. Go and pre-order petal here. The new single, hate that i made you love me, is a tantalising window into the album. Even if you are not a fan of Ariana Grande, I would still advise you to buy the album. Such an amazing songwriter and singer, all of her albums are such an incredible experience:
“Ariana Grande returns with a new studio album Petal, the follow-up to Eternal Sunshine, is executive produced and co-written by Grande and Ilya, reuniting her with the “Problem” hitmaker.
Grande describes Petal as “something that is full of life and growing through the cracks of something cold and hard and challenging.” The album marks her return to music after a period of blockbuster screen success, notably in the Wicked franchise”.
I am going to wrap up now. There are so many great albums out next month. From Ariana Grande through to The Rolling Stones, Madonna, Suki Waterhouse and FLO, there is so much in there. Something to suit so many tastes, I hope my recommendations have provided some guidance. July providing to be a very…
HOT one for new albums.