New Music Reviews (5/25)

Each week, Music Director Chris Sanley and Associate Music Director Alex Ruder share brief insights on new and upcoming releases for KEXP's rotation. These reviews help our DJs decide on what they want to play. See what we added this week below (and on our Charts page), including new releases from aja monet, Beck Zegans, Black Milk, and more. 

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aja monet - the color of rain (drink sum wtr)
The sophomore studio album from Grammy®‑nominated poet, writer, performer, and activist aja monet is truly something to behold. Every word is movement. Is inspiration. Is hope. Is righteous indignation. Propelled by a bewitching fusion of jazz, soul, hip-hop, and R&B with meditative arrangements, the color of rain takes an unflinching look at society, as her powerful, magnetic poetry speaks rhythmic, unbridled truth. What a triumph. –CS

Beck Zegans - Engraving Of Armor (Exploding In Sound) 
The new album from Queens-based singer-songwriter Beck Zegans, fka Goo, is a dark, textured set of folk-inflected indie rock with great emotional depth. Throughout Engraving Of Armor, Zegans explores themes of desire, building barriers, and losing control through delicious guitar tones, waves of psychedelia, and her intoxicating, hazy vocals.  –CS

Black Milk - CEREMONIAL (Computer Ugly)
The ninth album from Detroit-based rapper and producer Black Milk is a groove-forward exploration of hip-hop, blending boom-bap, R&B, soul, jazz, and funk. With live instrumentation, dynamic beats, top-notch bars, and expert production, CEREMONIAL feels like a proper celebration of his career spanning more than two decades, demonstrating he has no plans to slow down anytime soon. –CS

Ecca Vandal - LOOKING FOR PEOPLE TO UNFOLLOW (Loma Vista) 
The new album, and Loma Vista debut, from South African-born, Melbourne-based singer, songwriter, and rapper Ecca Vandal is a ferocious, genre-bending frenzy. Turning on a dime between punk, alt-rock, electronic, and hardcore, her raw, angsty vocals lead the charge across LOOKING FOR PEOPLE TO UNFOLLOW, an eclectic collection in a class by itself. Bringing raw, in-your-face intensity, she shares: “I find empowerment in being loud and noisy, especially as a woman in this global moment who grew up in a culture that told me I could not be those things." –CS

Heavy Bloom - Back To Us (self-released) 
The debut album from Seattle five-piece Heavy Bloom has been worth the wait. With their sumptuous blend of R&B, soul, and indie pop, Back To Us finds the outfit reconnecting with themselves after the weight of tragedy settled heavily on their hearts. Led by Jeanie Marinella’s powerhouse vocals, this twelve-track collection boasts groovy bops, pensive slow jams, and everything in between, making for an alluring first full-length. –CS

Hyd - Hold Onto Me Infinity (Cascine)
The sophomore album from multidisciplinary artist Hyd, aka Hayden Dunham, is a shimmering, cinematic display of infectious hyperpop. Through their enchanting vocals, pulsing synths, and driving drum patterns, Hyd explores the question, “Where do the dead go, and how do we experience them in new forms?” across Hold Onto Me Infinity, resulting in an immersive and engrossing listen. –CS

JuJu Rogers - Pink Guitars, Spaceships N Voodoo Dolls (Counterkultur)
The third solo album (and first in seven years) from this Berlin-based artist is a thrilling, brilliant, and potent set of genre-colliding jams that boldly blends together hip-hop, punk, psychedelic, R&B, hardcore, and soul influences into a sound he fittingly bills as “Afrophunk.” An artist born to an American G.I. from New Orleans and a German mother with Austrian roots, JuJu Rogers explores an explosive intersection of culture, sounds and styles throughout Pink Guitars, Spaceships N Voodoo Dolls and delivers a years-in-the-making breakout statement in the process. –AR

Thee Marloes - Di Hotel Malibu (Big Crown)
The sophomore album from Indonesian neo-soul outfit Thee Marloes is sweet, sensual, and wholly seductive with a mesmerizing blend of classic soul, psych pop, jazz, and traditional Southeast Asian sonics. Di Hotel Malibu keeps listeners levitating through all fourteen tracks with hypnotic rhythms as vocalist Natassya Sianturi flexes her pristine, dreamy vocals through bilingual lyricism. File under: 40 minutes to revisit over and over and over. –CS

Thomas Dollbaum - Birds of Paradise (Dear Life) 
The latest from Tampa-born, New Orleans-based singer-songwriter Thomas Dollbaum is a breathtaking body of work that tiptoes with melancholy between contemporary and classic Americana and Southern rock. With rich guitars and propulsive percussion, his singular vocals guide listeners through this “goodbye letter to lost loved ones and former selves,” shaped by deeply emotive lyrics and vivid storytelling. Backed by MJ Lenderman, Nick Corson, and Josh Halper, Birds of Paradise is an enrapturing, expansive, and cathartic listen that ushers in an exciting new era for Dollbaum. –CS

Waves Crashing - In The Blur (Audiomanic)
The second full-length album from this Olympia trio is another solid set of brooding alternative rock that mines a melodic, enveloping, propulsive intersection of shoegaze, post-punk, and grunge. Amidst a run of late highlights is their sweet cover of Radiohead’s classic debut single “Creep.” –AR

A Good Year - Play (Escho)
The second full-length album from this Copenhagen-based duo composed of Albert Hildebrand and Tobias Laust Hansen is a stellar set of magnetic alt-pop and cinematic indie rock with a distinctive Danish touch. While it’s technically their second album, the duo consider Play their proper debut album following their 2024 instrumental-heavy album Sofina that served as a soundtrack to a self-produced “psychedelic travel movie” made as a kind of exorcism after losing a mutual best friend. Now joined by a stellar cast of friends and guest vocalists that includes kindred talents such as Horse Vision, Tiffi M, and Quiet Light, A Good Year branch out with a sophisticated genre-melding record that’s right at home on Escho alongside label mates and compatriots Elias Rønnenfelt, Snuggle, and haloplus+. –AR

Balming Tiger - Gongbu (AWAL) 
The second studio album from alt-K-Pop collective Balming Tiger is quite the trip, with a dizzying fusion of soul, pop, psych, funk, and experimental soundscapes that still crafts a cohesive whole. Centered around a fictitious research institute “Gongbu Korea,” these fourteen tracks boast entrancing percussion, mesmeric rhythms, and compelling grooves, confidently proclaiming “our vibe is magnetic.” –CS

Brown Horse - Total Dive (Loose Music)
The third studio album from UK outfit Brown Horse boasts an infectious fusion of Americana and slacker rock with a healthy dose of twang driven by pedal steel, lap steel, keys, violin, banjo, accordion, and guitars. With heartfelt storytelling and rich textures, Total Dive lingers well past its final note. –CS

Divers - Odd Dog in the Capital (Community Music)
The debut album from Melbourne quartet Divers is a thrilling adventure. Constantly shapeshifting, these odd dogs don’t stay in one lane for too long. They veer in and out of art rock, indie pop, post-punk, and experimental territory, keeping listeners on the edge of their seats at every turn with playful lyricism and densely layered, hook-filled arrangements. –CS

Greg Surmacz - Voices Through the Wall (XVI)
The latest EP from Leeds, UK-based saxophonist/producer Greg Surmacz is a sharp set of leftfield hip-hop and inventive electronic-soul-pop that features a different guest vocalist on each track who merge their unique styles with Greg’s adventurous beats, exploratory jazz spirit, versatile vision, and deft electronic programming talents. Open Mike Eagle, Nadeem Din-Gabisi, and Oscar #Worldpeace showcase their distinctive flows on the EP’s standout tunes, while UK singers Ruby Wood and Daudi Matsiko tap into their intimate, sophisticated, soulful lanes over Greg’s vibrant genre-blurring backdrops. –AR

HOTT MT - Haunted House (Mutation)
The fifth album from this LA duo composed of Nick “Spooky Tavi” Logie and Ash “Ashi Dala” Allard is a solid set of celestial psych-pop that mines elements of shoegaze, Krautrock, lounge-pop, space rock, dream-pop, and ‘90s-era electronica for their trippy, dense, cosmic, kaleidoscopic sound. –AR

Los Mirlos - The World Meets Los Mirlos (Revancha/BMG)
The latest album from this pioneering Peruvian cumbia outfit is a collaborative-heavy celebration of their torchbearer status as they connect with a super stacked roster of global talent — including Bomba Estéreo, Los Bitchos, LA LOM, Chicha Libre, and even 311 on a cover of “Amber” (!!!) — to bring a colorful, contemporary, international spin to their iconic traditional regional sound. –AR

Odd Beholder - Honest Work (Sinnbus)
The fourth album from this solo project of Swiss musician Daniela Weinmann is a solid set of arty synth-pop and sophisticated indie pop that poignantly chronicles the trivialities and absurdities of everyday life. On Honest Work, Daniela paints a conceptual picture with each song told from the perspective of a working-class and lower-middle-class individual for an album that sheds light on “people trying — and often failing — to find their way in systems that reduce them to anonymous data points, employees, and consumers.” While it’s lyrically blunt, Odd Beholder impressively twists these stories into buoyant electronic-pop tunes. –AR

Orbit 17 - Betrayer (self-released)
The second album from this PDX-via-SF band fronted by Jamie Brite is a promising set of tense, swirling, arty indie rock with a gritty alternative streak. Lyrically steeped in Jamie’s experiences growing up transgender in southern Louisiana and navigating the anxieties of living through our current climate of cultural and political tension, Betrayer carries a steady undercurrent of uncertainty and alienation that’s often gripping and enveloping. –AR

Vera Ellen - HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT TIME (Flying Nun)
New Zealand singer-songwriter Vera Ellen returns with her gripping fourth studio album. Through her clever lyricism and distinct vocals, HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT TIME touches on themes of self-acceptance, joy, and hope, all fueled by dynamic art pop and indie rock soundscapes built from layered synths, guitar, drum programming, glockenspiel, cello, and more. The result is a bright and approachable collection that highlights Ellen’s evolving artistry.  –CS

VINSON - Raw Honey (Sweet Radical Productions)
LA-based, Detroit-raised singer, songwriter, and producer VINSON unveils his captivating debut album. With an experimental blend of hip-hop, soul, house, and R&B, Raw Honey trickles out through moody, woozy atmospherics as he explores themes of the Black struggle, heartbreak, and systemic control with his expressive, breathy vocals. –CS