{"id":565866,"date":"2026-07-24T11:49:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T11:49:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/565866\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T11:49:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T11:49:19","slug":"best-new-albums-this-week-the-strokes-charli-xcx-body-type-willow-alex-cameron-portraits-of-tracy-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/565866\/","title":{"rendered":"Best New Albums This Week: The Strokes, Charli XCX, Body Type, WILLOW, Alex Cameron, Portraits Of Tracy and more"},"content":{"rendered":"

A fairly big summer schedule Friday Charli xcx releases\u00a0Music, Fashion, Film, her first album since\u00a0Brat\u00a0reshaped the culture. The Strokes return with\u00a0Reality Awaits, their first in six years.WILLOW continues her run of exploratory alternative pop and beyond, the wry Alex Cameron returns, Aussie rockers Body Type release their album on King Gizzard\u2019s label, Baxter Dury revisits \u2018Allbarone\u2019 and Portraits Of Tracy is making some of the most interesting American indie pop of the moment.<\/p>\n

Nialler9 keeps a rolling list of Irish album releases for 2026.<\/a><\/p>\n


<\/p>\n

New Albums + EPs<\/p>\n

Album of the week:<\/p>\n

Charli xcx \u2013\u00a0Music, Fashion, Film
<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The follow-up to\u00a0Brat, and by any measure the most-watched pop release of the year. Charli spent 2024 turning a lime-green square into a cultural event, then spent the time since refusing to simply repeat it.\u00a0Music, Fashion, Film\u00a0arrives led by \u2018Camera\u2019, with an Aidan Zamiri-directed video starring Vincent Cassel, and the title alone signals an artist thinking well beyond the record as a format.<\/p>\n

Music, Fashion, Film is an inevitable comedown sonically but not much has changed in Charli\u2019s brain \u2013 even during BRAT she was questioning herself, her insecurities and her place in the world. This time around, there are lots of big names attached to the project \u2013 David Cronenberg offers advice on the closing track \u2018No One Last Forever\u2019, and the triumvirate of John Cale, Marc Jacobs and Martin Scorsese are on the cover.<\/p>\n

As promised there is a lot of \u201crock music\u201d, mostly in the form of sharpened guitar tones alongside some more PC Music-style synth textures like on the commerce galaxy brain of \u2018Card Declined\u2019, the guitar through effects on \u2018Camera\u2019, the muted emo-pop-punk of \u20182007\u2019, and the frazzled fuzz of \u2018I\u2019m Afraid\u2019 , \u2018Magic Metal Montana\u2019 is an ode to AG Cook built on a Strokes-esque lollop, and the pop punk returns on \u2018Yeah\u2019. On first listen, it sounds like a musical exorcism of the BRAT era, an album operating on unstable ground, spilling out over the edges in an honest fashion. The album she had to make? Probably.<\/p>\n

\"Charli<\/p>\n

The Strokes \u2013 Reality Awaits<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The seventh album from The Strokes, and their first since 2020\u2019s winning\u00a0The New Abnormal. Twenty-five years on from\u00a0Is This It, Julian Casablancas and co. occupy an unusual position: a band whose debut is permanently lodged in the canon, still capable of surprising people when they choose to. The gaps between records have grown long enough that each new one arrives as an event in itself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Reality Awaits, perhaps because of the gap, and the band\u2019s recent return via Coachella which seems to have increased their cultural cachet, finds the band in a slightly new reality \u2013 their old tight rock style is evident in the album\u2019s DNA, it\u2019s just pitched differently \u2013 brighter lighter \u2013 and doesn\u2019t stray too far from the sonic sound of the last one \u2013 there\u2019s a Phoenix-esque jam on \u2018Lonely In The Future\u2019, the soft neon rock of \u2018Dine\u2019n\u2019Dash\u2019, Julian Casablancas\u2019 vocal auto-tune as deliberate effect on \u2018Psycho Shit\u2019, \u2018Going Shopping\u2019 and \u2018Falling Out of Love\u2019 and classic rock on \u2018The Fruits Of Conquest\u2019. That makes sense The Strokes are the most palpable classic rock bands we\u2019ve got.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Alex Cameron \u2013 Late to Set<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The new album from the Australian songwriter Alex Cameron, whose character-driven writing has produced some of the sharpest and most funniest songs about masculinity, failure and self-delusion of the last decade. Cameron writes from inside his narrators rather than above them, which is what keeps the songs landing.\u00a0Late to Set\u00a0continues a catalogue that rewards paying close attention to the words, and that is evident in the song titles like \u2018Jesus Never Had No Porno\u2019 and \u2018Testosterone In Blue\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"Late<\/p>\n

Body Type \u2013\u00a0Tally<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The new album from the Sydney four-piece Body Type, whose scratchy, melodic guitar records sit in the lineage of Australian indie that runs through The Go-Betweens and out the other side.\u00a0\u2018And What Else?\u2019 which kicks off the record caught my ear a few months ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Body Type releasing on King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard\u2019s p(doom) records and are Sophie McComish, Annabel Blackman, Cecil Coleman, and Georgia Wilkinson-Derums.<\/p>\n

Tally by Body Type<\/a><\/p>\n

WILLOW \u2013\u00a0THE THREAD<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The new album from WILLOW whose explored alternative music for years now \u2013 moving between pop-punk, neo-soul, jazz-adjacent art-rock and back again. Each WILLOW record has landed somewhere different from the last, and\u00a0THE THREAD\u00a0arrives with that same unpredictability baked in \u2013 WILLOW is an artist of interest \u2013 always intriguing.<\/p>\n

\"WILLOW<\/p>\n

Nick Hakim \u2013 I Can See<\/p>\n

\"NickNick Hakim<\/p>\n

The new album from the Washington DC-born, New York-based singer and producer Nick Hakim, whose smeared, psychedelic take on soul has made him one of the most distinctive voices in the space around Blood Orange, Solange and the wider experimental R&B world. Hakim\u2019s records reward volume and patience, all warped tape textures and vocals buried just far enough back in the mix.<\/p>\n

\"Nick<\/p>\n

Rico Nasty \u2013\u00a0RX<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The new album from the Maryland rapper Rico Nasty, whose sugar-trap and rage-adjacent records have been a persistent influence on where aggressive rap has gone over the last five years. Rico has always been happiest at the loudest, most abrasive end of her range.<\/p>\n

\"Rico<\/p>\n

Foodman \u2013 HIKARIGASASHIKOMU<\/p>\n

\"Foodman\"Foodman<\/p>\n

The new album from Takahide Higuchi\u2019s Foodman, the Japanese producer whose fractured, playful electronic music has become a genuine outlier in club music over the last decade. Foodman builds tracks out of unlikely sounds and impossible rhythms, and the results land somewhere between footwork, ambient and something with no obvious precedent. Always worth investigating.<\/p>\n

HIKARIGASASHIKOMU by foodman<\/a><\/p>\n

Portraits Of Tracy \u2013 Q: From Where Do Our Primal Instincts Originate? A: MTV! EP<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A new EP from Jaco Pastorius-referencing Portraits Of Tracy, arriving with a loaded title, and is a short successor to Tracy Amare\u2019s 2023\u2019s Drive Home which was 18-track concept record that served as an analogy for Tracy\u2019s own journey in accepting herself as transgender and finding her voice as a Black, queer teen raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. <\/p>\n

Portraits Of Tracy\u2019s music touches on classic rock, hip-hop, R&B, soul, and psychedelic indie rock talent.<\/p>\n

Q: From Where Do Our Primal Instincts Originate? A: MTV! is a loud and playful glimpse into who I am as a person and a musician. Drawing from acts like Stereolab & The Beach Boys\u2026 to Dead Kennedys & Dag Nasty\u2026 you know it\u2019s bound to be a fun time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Portraits<\/p>\n

Also released this week<\/p>\n

Ann Peebles \u2013\u00a0Tellin\u2019 It\u00a0(50th Anniversary Edition) <\/p>\n

Apollo Brown \u2013\u00a0No Pressure, No Diamond<\/p>\n

Baby Queen \u2013\u00a0I Hope You Don\u2019t Remember Me<\/p>\n

Baxter Dury \u2013 Allbarone Versions EP<\/p>\n

Blue States \u2013 Where The Fades Meet<\/p>\n

Bootsy Collins \u2013 Metal Health<\/p>\n

Cypress Hill \u2013\u00a0Dios Bendiga<\/p>\n

Goth Fight Cage \u2013\u00a0Untaxed Vehicle\u00a0EP<\/p>\n

Lutto Lento \u2013\u00a02569\u00a0EP<\/p>\n

Punch Brothers \u2013\u00a0The Unsung Adventures of Punch Brothers<\/p>\n

Robyn Hitchcock \u2013\u00a0The Confuser<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005<\/a>. He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent,\u00a0 Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, co-founder of Lumo Club, event curator, Indie Sleaze club promoter,\u00a0 and producer of gigs and monthly listening parties & events<\/a> in Dublin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A fairly big summer schedule Friday Charli xcx releases\u00a0Music, Fashion, Film, her first album since\u00a0Brat\u00a0reshaped the culture. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,278],"class_list":["post-565866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}