3 albums you need to hear this week

In the age of streaming, it’s never been easier to listen to new music — but with over 60,000 new songs added to Spotify every day, it’s also never been harder to know what to put on. Every week, the team at Rolling Stone UK will run down some of the best new releases that have been added to streaming services.

This week, we’ve highlighted records by Enter Shikari, Benefits, Smashing Pumpkins and Everything But The Girl.

Enter Shikari – A Kiss For The Whole World

As that album title suggests, this is Enter Shikari at their powerful and euphoric best, the start of what frontman Rou Reynolds has described as ‘Shikari 2.0’, after finding the band at something
of a creative impasse during a moment of mid-pandemic reflection.

If this is the start of a new era of Shikari, then the incoming 2.0 looks very bright indeed. They remain the perennial rock underdogs and champions for the underground, but on the basis of this album at least you wouldn’t count against them lasting another 20 years.

Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music

Benefits – Nails

“For me, it’s a document of a difficult time that we happen to be living in now,” Benefits frontman Kingsley Hall recently said of NAILS in a Rolling Stone UK interview. “It doesn’t have answers, but we try not to shirk away from it, and try not to ignore what’s going on in the world.”

Over pounding electronic beats and uncompromising soundscapes, the Teesside noisemakers have created a record that captures the state of the nation and urges us all to wake up.

Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music |Bandcamp| TIDAL | Amazon Music

Everything But The Girl – Fuse

Some 23 years after their last album, Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt have returned with a record that sees them remaining at the top of their game. Their knack for creating multi-layered and intensely listenable electronica remains, but their experience of life’s challenges in that intervening period since the last album gives it a melancholy edge.

“I lost my place/ I lost my bags/ I lost my biggest client/ I lost my mother… then I just lost it,” comes Thorn’s remarkable voice on ‘Lost’.

It’s good to have them back.

Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music