The year is halfway through (we just posted our 50 favorite albums of 2022 so far), summer is here, and there's so much more music we're looking forward to these next few months. As we get ready for warm weather and more good music, we've put together a list of 56 albums that we're looking forward to hearing this summer. All but two of them have concrete release dates, and there's also some other less-confirmed stuff like Cardi B, SZA and 100 gecs that we're really hoping to hear more about soon. Read on for the list in alphabetical order, and let us know what albums you're looking forward to this summer...
due 9/9 via Royal Cream / BMG
The Afghan Whigs' ninth album, and first in five years, was made like a lot of recent records -- remotely during lockdown. Adding to How Do You Burn's mood, already darkened by the pandemic, elections and protests, is the specter of the late Mark Lanegan who co-wrote two songs and gave the album its title.
Since releasing the genre-defying Americana of 2018's To the Sunset, Amanda Shires released the debut album by her acclaimed supergroup The Highwomen (with Brandi Carlile, Maren Morris, and Natalie Hemby), and then a Christmas album, and now she's finally ready for her next proper LP, Take It Like A Man. It features her Highwomen bandmates Maren Morris and Natalie Hemby, as well as Brittney Spencer, producer Lawrence Rothman, and Amanda's husband/frequent collaborator Jason Isbell, and her twangy yet not-easily-pigeonholable sound is in fine form on the recent singles.
due 7/22 via Born Losers Records
Post-hardcore veteran Anthony Green (Circa Survive, Saosin, The Sound of Animals Fighting, etc) is a lifer who's been putting out consistently great music for over two decades, and he's not slowing down one bit. His upcoming solo album finds him going in a horn-fueled indie/art rock direction, and it's shaping up to be some of his best and most personal music yet.
due 7/15 via Oh Boy Records
Arlo McKinley's 2020 album Die Midwestern is one of the most enjoyable alt-country breakthroughs in recent memory, and recent singles suggest its followup This Mess We're In will be even better, and also darker and more melancholic (he cites both Nick Cave and Nick Drake as influences on this one).
Beach Rats is a punk supergroup featuring Lifetime vocalist Ari Katz, Bouncing Souls members Pete Steinkopf and Bryan Keinlen, Bad Religion/Minor Threat/Dag Nasty guitarist Brian Baker, and drummer Danny "Dubs" Windas, and they dish out '80s-style hardcore with a ton of authenticity, which should come as no surprise since one of their members helped invent it and the others were raised on it.
Warpaint drummer Stella Mozgawa and producer Boom Bip (Bryan Charles Hollon) met a decade ago and bonded over their love of early-'90s techno artists like LFO and 808 State. Having collaborated a few times since, they formed Belief in 2021, and the singles from their debut album both pull from those influences and push forward as well.
On her first album in six years, Beth Orton breaks free from the "folktronic" sound associated with her, instead making an experimental album with a group that includes jazz poet Alabaster dePlume, drummer Tom Skinner (The Smile, Sons of Kemet), Shahzad Ismaily and bassist Tom Herbert (The Invisible). It's also her first self-production. "This record is a sensory exploration that allowed for a connection to a consciousness that I was searching for," says Beth.
Pre-order Weather Alive on clear vinyl.
The Beths' third album is a global production, recorded mostly in New Zealand in 2021 but following a four-month lockdown interruption they then finished while on their North American tour, "mixing in hotel rooms and green rooms and in the back of the tour bus." Circumstances don't seem to have phased them much -- first single "Silence is Golden" is fantastic.
Preorder Expert in a Dying Field on canary yellow vinyl.
The six-plus year wait for a new Beyoncé album is finally about to be over. Judging by the house-infused lead single "Break My Soul," the Queen Bey has still got it, and knowing her, that song is probably just the tip of the iceberg.
Boris' recent album W is one of the band's lightest and most non-metal releases, but if you like when Boris get heavy, you're in luck. They're releasing a third installment of their Heavy Rocks series (following their 2002 and 2011 albums of the same name), and the singles very much live up to the title.
Pre-order the new Boris on gold vinyl.
When the Wind Forgets Your Name is just Built To Spill's first album for Sub Pop but it feels like a match made in heaven, or at least the Pacific Northwest. Bandleader Doug Martsch produced the album and he made it with Le Almeida and João Casaes of Brazilian psychedelic jazz rock band, Oruã. “We rehearsed at their studio in downtown Rio de Janeiro and I loved everything about it," Martsch says. "They had old crappy gear. The walls were covered with xeroxed fliers. They smoked tons of weed."
Preorder on rainforest green Loser Edition vinyl.
due 9/2 MNRK Heavy/Modern Static
The Callous Daoboys have continued to rise since releasing their great 2019 debut LP Die On Mars, an album that harnessed Botch-style mathcore and Every Time I Die/The Chariot-style theatrical metalcore all at once. Their anticipated sophomore LP Celebrity Therapist promises to be even crazier and more all-over-the-place, and the recent singles alone already deliver on that promise.
Very few people do jammy, folky indie rock like Cass McCombs does, and the singles off his upcoming album Heartmind prove that's as true as ever.
Chat Pile follow up some buzzed-about EPs and a split with Portrayal of Guilt with their first full-length, God's Country this summer. They pull from sludge metal, noise rock, and more, and if you're into stuff like Melvins, Unsane, and The Jesus Lizard, you might not wanna sleep on Chat Pile.
due 9/16 via Meat Machine / Crack Cloud Media Studio
"The name Tough Baby is an allusion to our Planet. To our Culture. And to our Selves.” says Crack Cloud singer/lyricist Zach Choy. The Vancouver collective set the bar high with their 2020 debut album Pain Olympics -- an record they made with no plans to make another -- but they are staying ambitious with another danceable, apocalyptic vision. For a taste of the album's scope, "Please Yourself" is a widescreen post-punk anthem about apathy, social media and pop culture idolization: "I don’t think you really want change / If faking’s enough to feel okay."
The Roots frontman Black Thought and superproducer Danger Mouse have been talking about a collaborative album for a very long time, and it finally arrives this August. The singles have been very promising, and it features a slew of amazing guests, including the late MF DOOM, as well as Run The Jewels, A$AP Rocky, Raekwon, Michael Kiwanuka, Joey Bada$$, Conway the Machine, Russ, Dylan Cartlidge, and Kid Sister.
Elements of black metal make Dreadnought count as a "metal" band, but shoehorning them into that box does them a disservice. As you can hear on the lead single off upcoming LP The Endless, which also brings in elements of prog, goth, folk, classical, and more.
Friendship and singer Dan Wriggins as a solo artist have been two of the most underrated names in folky indie rock for a while, so it's much-deserved that they've joined the family at iconic indie label Merge Records. Their Merge debut features re-recordings of two songs from Dan's great 2021 solo EP Mr. Chill, along with 15 others, and the few singles that are out now have been increasingly promising.
The members of High Vis hail from the UK hardcore scene, and their 2019 debut LP No Sense No Feeling leaned heavily on post-punk, but for their upcoming LP Blending, they're channelling Britpop and baggy through a hardcore lens, and they consider this to be the first time they've truly found their voice. The great lead singles back up that claim.
Hot Chip's eighth album features a couple of firsts: it's the first album they've made at their Relax & Enjoy Studio in East London that Al Doyle put together before and during the first year of the Covid, and it's the first time they've started a record together with all five members involved. Partially inspired by their cover of Beastie Boys' "Sabotage" they did on their last tour, Freakout:Release looks to bring a little more spontaneity and fun back to the Hot Chip equation.
“It is the best set of songs I have written for years," says House of Love frontman Guy Chadwick of House of Love's first album in nine years. "The pandemic ironically gave me the time and space to develop and arrange the songs.” While A State of Grace is missing textural guitarist Terry Bickers, it was made with producer Warne Livesay who worked on the band's 1992 album Babe Rainbow.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of Interpol's debut album, Turn on the Bright Lights, but the band are looking forward too with the release of their seventh album. They made it with Flood and Alan Moulder, whose combined credits include My Bloody Valentine, Nine Inch Nails and U2, to name three. Says guitarist Daniel Kessler, “The process of writing this record and searching for tender, resonant emotions took me back to teenage years; it was transformative, almost euphoric. I felt a rare sensation of purpose biting on the end of my fishing rod and I was compelled to reel it in.”
Pre-order The Other Side of Make-Believe on vinyl.
The Interrupters helped re-popularize ska-punk with 2018's Fight the Good Fight and its singles "She's Kerosene" and "Gave You Everything," and now they're finally ready to release that album's followup. Judging by the singles, this one has more addictive ska-punk anthems ("In The Mirror"), as well as more personal songs ("Jailbird"), and it's also got very cool guests, including Rancid's Tim Armstrong, 2 Tone legend Rhoda Dakar of The Bodysnatchers/The Special AkA, two members of Hepcat, and UK-based contemporaries The Skints.
Ithaca were already one of the best bands in UK's contemporary metalcore scene, and their upcoming album They Fear Us is shaping up to be their most monumental release yet. The heavy parts are heavier, but the clean parts are also a lot cleaner, and Djamila Yasmin Azzouz shows off a soaring set of pipes that you don't always year in this genre. The album also has a clear, bold vision that draws "from members’ different ancestral heritage, queer/non-conforming identities and iconic figures in avant-garde, new wave and post-punk culture."
UK duo Jockstrap -- Taylor Skye and Black Country, New Road's Georgia Ellery -- are not concerned with genre in the slightest, as they gleefully put everything that suits their fancy into the blender, from techno and R&B to folk, rock, etc etc. “I Love You Jennifer B is a collection of Jockstrap tracks that have been 3 years in the making," they say. "Everything on it is pretty singular sounding so we hope there is a track on there for everyone and something that speaks to you and says ‘I’m a banger.’”
Preorder I Love You Jennifer B, on green vinyl.
release date TBA via Columbia
Joey Bada$$'s debut mixtape 1999 turned 10 this year, and he's touting his new album -- his first in five years -- as a sequel. A lot of details are still TBA (like tracklist and release date, which was originally scheduled to be the 10th anniversary of 1999), but Joey's recent singles prove he's back with a vengeance.
After a folky debut LP (2016's Don't Let the Kids Win) and a more indie-rocking followup (2019's Crushing), Julia Jacklin "stepped away from the guitar, and wrote a lot of [her new] album on the Roland keyboard in [her] apartment in Montreal with its inbuilt band tracks." It was made with co-producer Marcus Paquin (The Weather Station, Arcade Fire), her band features members of The Weather Station, and string arrangements were handled by Owen Pallett.
Experimental artist Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith previewed her upcoming album Let’s Turn It Into Sound with the electronic avant-pop of lead single "Is It Me Or Is It You?," and if the rest of the LP is this oddly alluring, this is gonna be a good one.
Post-hardcore/noise rock band KEN mode are finally ready to return with their first album in six years, and the sprawling lead single "A Love Letter" really says "we're back."
For their third album, Toronto's Kiwi Jr looked to one of their elders, Wolf Parade's Dan Boeckner, for help in broadening their sound. Judging by the two singles released so far, Chopper has the band taking a darker turn that may put those annoying Pavement comparisons to rest for good.
due 9/23 via International Anthem / Nonesuch / XL
Modern jazz great Makaya McCraven has been very busy over the years, with an album of reworked Blue Note classics, an album of a reworked Gil Scott-Heron LP, and a deluxe edition of his great 2018 album Universal Beings, and now he's finally ready to release his first proper new album since that one. Its impressive cast of contributors includes Jeff Parker, Junius Paul, Brandee Younger, Macie Stewart, Joel Ross, and more.
“I went into writing Centrifics knowing I wanted to give myself permission," says Marina Allen of the follow-up to last year's excellent Candlepower. "I was fed up with hiding myself and a fierceness started to enter the songs, which I leaned into. The entire time I was writing, I just kept saying 'yes,' that was my only rule." We're saying yes to gorgeous first single "Superreality," which finds her folk-pop style -- steeped in The Carpenters, Linda Perhacs, and The Roches -- in excellent form.
The Mountain Goats continue to be highly prolific and consistently great. The indie folk vets' latest LP was produced by Bully's Alicia Bognanno, and band leader John Darnielle says, "I got this idea to write a bunch of songs where they were all uptempo mini-action movies. Plots, characters, heists, hostages, questionable capers, getaway cars, all that stuff." Sounds like a very Mountain Goats-y concept, and the recently released lead single finds the band's trademark sound in great shape.
It's been over five years since alt-country great Nikki Lane released an album (and in that time, she did a duet on Lana Del Rey's 2021 album Chemtrails Over the Country Club), and now she's finally ready to return with Denim & Diamonds. The album was produced and mixed by Josh Homme, and Nikki's band for the album includes three of Josh's Queens of the Stone Age bandmates, Arctic Monkeys drummer Matt Helders, Autolux/Jack White drummer Carla Azar, and Nikki's pedal steel player Matthew Pynn. Lead single "First High" is already one of the year's best country songs so far.
release date TBA via Dirty Hit/Interscope
We don't know much about The 1975's new album (besides the lyrics to the upcoming lead single), but it's The 1975, so we can only hope it'll be delightfully over-the-top, painfully earnest, and endlessly replayable.
Milwaukee sludge metallers Northless are gearing up for their first album in five years, which is their fourth overall and also follows splits with Primitive Man and Light Bearer and a handful of EPs. Members of Primitive Man and Former Worlds appear on the album, and the recently released title track nails a balance between aggression and beauty.
Long-running Brooklyn band Oneida have always had one foot in the experimental / improvisational world, but on new album Success they want to remind people that they can rock as well as be weird. “We honestly did not try to make something more straight ahead but it came out that way," says drummer Kid Millions. You may have forgotten they can do "straight ahead," too but, first single "I Wanna Hold Your Electric Hand" is a killer reminder.
After releasing three albums in 2020, OSEES took 2021 off from putting out new music. They're back though with a slight direction change from the dense, proggy territory of their last few records. A Foul Form is, in the words of bandleader John Dwyer, "brain stem cracking scum-punk" that was recorded "tersely" in his basement and "represents some of our most savage & primal instincts."
For their long-awaited fifth album, Pianos Become the Teeth reunited with producer Kevin Bernsten, who worked on their first two albums, but this is no return to the screamo form of those albums. Judging by the singles, it goes even more in the atmospheric post-rock/art rock direction than they ever have before.
Pre-order PBTT on red vinyl.
After two albums that put more of an emphasis on keyboards, Vancouver's Preoccupations fell back in love with guitars which dominate their fourth album, Arrangements. As to the album's themes, frontman Matt Flegel says, “The lyrics are pretty conspicuous and self explanatory on this one, but it’s basically about the world blowing up and no one giving a shit.”
Rico Nasty has been hyping her up her new project for a while, and now it's finally got a title and a release date. All of the singles so far have been great and very different, from the futuristic rap rock of "Black Punk" to the industrial-tinged "Intrusive," and we can't wait to hear what else this LP has in store.
Sadies frontman Dallas Good died in February but the band already had their new -- now final -- album in the can. They made it with Arcade Fire's Richard Reed Parry and Good was clearly jazzed about it. "Do any bands make their best work this far along in their career," Good wrote last fall. "I can think of artists who still make great music after all these years, but their best? Yet, here we are and that’s what I’m accusing us of."
It's been over six years since the last Santigold album, but that finally changes this year, and speaking about her songwriting process, Santi says, "I decided to create the future, to look towards where we are going, to create beauty and pull towards that beauty." She also spoke about channelling punk rock energy on lead single "High Priestess," but that "the energy [she] was looking for couldn’t be the old version of punk rock, it had to be the future sound of punk rock." The guest-filled album features SBTRKT, Rostam, Boys Noize, Dre Skull, Nick Zinner, and more.
Shygirl is ready to followup a great run of EPs, singles, and collaborations with her debut album, Nymph. It's got a handful of awesome guests and producers (including Mura Masa, Arca, Sega Bodega, Danny L Harle, Bloodpop, Vegyn, Kingdom, and more), and the singles suggest that her mix of experimental pop and rap just gets even better and more unique.
Stella Donnelly jumped to the forefront of indie rock with her 2019 debut album Beware of the Dogs, and for its followup, she's shifting her usual focus on guitar towards the piano, which she says she had hardly played since childhood. The singles suggest this approach is just as effective in its own way.
Pre-order Stella on opaque red vinyl.
due 9/2 via Warp / Duophonic UHD Disks
Stereolab put out a lot of music during their decade and a half together, and their non-LP material is still being collected on new volumes of their Switched On compilation series. Are they finally nearing the bottom of their archives? This three-LP fifth volume reaches deep into the cookie jar, and includes live tracks and pieces recorded for art installations that were never physically released. If Pulse of the Early Brain is the last volume, maybe they'll consider making new music again.
The Internet member, guitar great, and solo artist Steve Lacy is set to release his sophomore solo album this summer. Two singles are out now -- the bossa nova/funk hybrid "Mercury" and the more soulful "Bad Habit" -- and they're both stunning.
Autofiction is Britpop greats Suede's fourth full-length since reforming in 2010, and it finds Brett Anderson, Mat Osman, Simon Gilbert, Richard Oakes and Neil Codling working once again with producer Ed Buller, who has been behind the boards for all their best albums. It also has the band getting back to basics. "Autofiction is our punk record. No whistles and bells," says Anderson. "Just the five of us in a room with all the glitches and fuck-ups revealed; the band themselves exposed in all their primal mess."
Orlando Higginbottom hasn't released a Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs album since his 2011 debut, but he's making up for lost time with When the Lights Go, a 17-track double album that finds him taking a gentler but still danceable approach to electronic music. If the singles released so far, like the moody "Blood in the Snow," are any indication this will be worth the wait.
Ty Segall doesn't like to do the same thing twice, or at least twice in a row. Following 2021's great, gleaming and synthetic Harmonizer, he's chilling out just a bit on "Hello, Hi" -- his 14th album in as many years -- and heading back into the (somewhat) acoustic territory he explored on Sleeper and Goodbye Bread. Electric guitars aren't totally out of the picture though; the title track's a full-on ripper.
Pre-order "Hello, Hi" on vinyl.
The third album Sweden's Viagra Boys has them adding more of the new wave electronics that have been present in their live shows into studio recordings, working with producers Pelle Gunnerfeldt (The Hives, The Knife) and DJ Haydn. They actually had finished the record pre-pandemic, only to rework and rewrite after the tumultuous summer of 2020. "We let it marinate for a while and then rerecorded absolutely everything," frontman Sebastian Murphy says.
The lines between hardcore and death metal have been blurring more than ever lately, and one of the bands approaching the forefront of this crossover is Vomit Forth. After a promising EP on Maggot Stomp, they've now signed to Century Media and their debut full-length promises to be even more deliciously brutal.
Wake continue to transform from a grind band into a boundary-pushing post-metal band, and the singles from this upcoming album have been some of the band's most vast and ambitious yet.
While their soulful songwriting style remains on their first album of originals in four years, Spark promises to be a very different record than they've made before. After writing songs during pandemic lockdown -- which they spent in Portland, OR -- they teamed up with producers Brad Cook and John Congleton, who helped them incorporate synthesizers and sampled beats into their sound. First single "Real Love" is promising.
Pre-order Spark on white vinyl.
Having started out as pop punk devotees, The Wonder Years increasingly defied the genre with each album before fully transcending it on 2018's Sister Cities, and judging by the singles, The Hum Goes On Forever feels like a culmination of everything they've done yet, with the instant-satisfaction of their early/mid 2010s records and the maturity of Sister Cities.
Singapore's Wormrot have been one of the most punishing grindcore bands around for over a decade, and their upcoming album will sadly be their last with lead vocalist and co-founder Arif. Arif will be missed, but judging by the singles that are out now, he's going out with a bang.
Cool It Down will be the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' first album in nearly a decade, and their first release on an independent label since their early Eps on Touch & Go. Lead single "Spitting Off the Edge of the World" features Perfume Genius, and it's a slower, more ethereal song than you might expect the YYYs to make their grand return with, but a strong comeback nonetheless.
Pre-order YYYs on opaque yellow vinyl.
SEE ALSO: Our 50 Favorite Albums of 2022 So Far