Writer and musician Kae Tempest has laid down a new single with Brockhampton rapper and singer Kevin Abstract to usher in their upcoming album The Line Is A Curve. The album promises to be all about “embracing the cyclical nature of time, growth, love” and More Pressure ushers it in with a flow that bubbles between determination and hopelessness. 

Imagine famed Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh wrote alt-rock songs and coat it with an underlying sense of doom and you have Jackie Down The Line, the first song from Fontaines DC’s new album Skinty Fia. With an album name translating as “the damnation of the deer”, a collection of tracks exploring their Irish identity and characteristic intensity, it sounds like we’re set for Fontaines DC’s most interesting record yet. 

We could happily live out the end of our days without another lockdown reference, but it’s all about context. FKA twigs has channelled the sense of renewal she felt from tapping into her friends’ energy and has turned it into a new mixtape that evokes “bronzer in the sink, alco pop on the side, a cherry lolly” and the pre-game before the club. She’s teamed up with Shygirl for arguably the best track on there, a heady, pleasantly premature summer banger. 

Dublin singer CMAT has a voice inspired by country music without making country haters balk and lyrics that will make you laugh and hard relate in equal measure. Her new song Lonely is the prime example, with her distinct voice both lamenting “Who needs God when I have Robbie Williams?” before exploring feelings of loneliness she first observed while working in a Manchester food hall.

Singapore-born, London-based singer, songwriter and producer Yeule continues to explore their creative boundaries with a new song that uses a jungle beat as a backdrop to a soft confession. “Some days I find myself having little to no reaction to things that happen, good or bad. It’s as though I just close off from everything. I might as well be a ghost. I’m watching everything from above, detached from reality,” Yeule explains.

After busying himself with the odd single and a role in Oscar-winning short film Two Distant Strangers, Brooklyn rapper Joey Bada$$ is back with a fully fledged new album. This week he dropped the first track, The Rev3nge, dripping with intent as it announces his return to the scene.  

In the latest song from their upcoming new album, Placebo are continuing their lyrical endeavour of exploring the disappointed parents’ manifesto: the consequences of your actions. Unlike the scolding of disgruntled boomers though, your ears will enjoy Try Better Next Time, a track that considers a world devastated by humans in which we’re left to “grow fins, go back in the water.”

Electro-pop band Cannons have read the room and given us a track that takes us out of the relentless puddles and frost of January. As singer Michelle Joy explains, Purple Sun is “a song that transports you into a warm lighthearted world where reality and dream world intertwine, sparking the desire to love and enjoy the moment fearlessly.” We’ll take it please.