Happy March! And it's almost spring... Come on, spring... come on...

Anyway! On this first release day of the month, we have seven new releases to shout out for you, ranging from mainstream pop sensations to more obscure indie folks, and everything in between. Check 'em out!

Harry Styles – Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally. [Erskine/Columbia]

Harry Styles has settled into his groove: a quiet club ripple arguably more suited to home listening with his somnambulant vocal affect and curious lyrics ("you and me are skipping sleep with dirty feet" and "you've been a baby sleeping upon a candy bar" both appears on this record). For such an ambitious album title, Styles' fourth solo record pulls inward a bit after the flamboyant funk of "Music for a Sushi Restaurant" and "Late Night Talking" earmarked 2022's actually-great Harry's House, which pocketed an Album of the Year Grammy. He's been listening to LCD Soundsystem and Radiohead, and the most extroverted track here is called "Dance No More". The most interesting one? "Season 2 Weight Loss." – Daniel Aaron

Hater – Mosquito [Fire Records]

Dream-pop has always been the natural habitat of Sweden’s Hater, and today’s new album Mosquito doesn’t entirely change that. What we get here instead feels like a cleverly reconfigured, more polished take on the Malmö-based band’s stock in trade. Mosquito doesn’t go chasing big, emotional climaxes, necessarily. Rather, it zooms in on the subtler sensations and more persistent aches of longing and love. “I don’t think we strove to write love songs really,” says vocalist Caroline Lindahl. “I was surprised when we stood with a whole bunch of them.” 

What’s notably different, too, is that they seem to be having more fun, leaning into eccentricity on songs like the vampire curse romance of “Stinger” and “Angel Cupid”, which reimagines the Roman love god as “a weak little pink worm, completely and utterly useless at shooting arrows.” It’s a change that’s mostly down, I think, to the more individual way they approached their songwriting process this time around, trading group rehearsal time for separate writing sessions, bringing out more individuality that can’t hurt to get Hater into even more ears. – Alan Pedder

Melodi Ghazal – Idol Melodies [Anyines]

Another graduate of Copenhagen’s now-iconic Rhythmic Music Conservatory (ML Buch, Astrid Sonne, Erika de Casier), Danish-Iranian artist Melodi Ghazal has finally arrived at her debut album after a long and gradual process in which she walked away from music altogether for roughly a decade.

Idol Melodies is gorgeously warm and flowing, dabbling as much in Persian cultural memory and mysticism as it does in the kind of classic, catchy, earnest pop that inspired her beginnings in music. Collaborating with Danish artist Minais B and Coby Sey in London, as well as Danish singer/songwriter Fine who helped guide the album into its final shape, Ghazal has made something compellingly unique here, and completely worth the wait. – Alan Pedder

The Scythe - Strictly 4 The Scythe [Loma Vista]

Strictly 4 The Scythe is the debut album from supergroup The Scythe, the hip-hop collective formed this year by Denzel Curry, where he joins forces with Ferg, TiaCorine, Bktherula, and Key Nyata. Producer collective Working On Dying and iloveit! helm most of the production on the LP, which continues the modern, gritty take on old-school southern rap Denzel did on 2024’s KING OF THE MISCHIEVOUS SOUTH. The record has a tight tracklist with only 8 tracks. The first half is high-octane and effortlessly cool, displaying the ensemble’s strengths, like on the title track’s chanting chorus, and Bktherula’s laid-back hook on “LIT EFFECT”, which features LAZER DIM 700 (both previously collaborated on Denzel Curry's “STILL IN THE PAINT”). The second half is an unexpected but pleasant vibe shift, taking a more melodic route (as seen on KOTMS, though much less so), with bouncy cuts that showcase The Scythe’s versatility and signal a promising future for the group. – Daniel Gonçalves Benítez.

Shabaka – Of The Earth [Shabaka Records]

Shabaka's new album is titled after the Earth, but much of it seems to be written around the idea of not only reconnecting with the planet, but with himself. After a year and a half of not playing the saxophone, the British musician came back to his instrument of choice with a fresh perspective and new appreciation for not just other instruments – like his beloved flute – but for music production as a whole. Not coincidentally, he is solely responsible for almost everything on the album: writing, performing, producing, and mixing. The result is an album that's much more low-key and textural than his last release, 2024's Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace, but it will surprise you nonetheless: Shabaka even raps on it. – Amanda Cavalcanti

Various Artists – gentle voices, vol. 1 [cloud collecting/Echoes Blue Music]

Released ahead of International Women’s Day this Sunday, gentle voices, vol. 1 is a new collaboration between ambient music makers and curators Cynthia Bernard (cloud collecting) and Anita Tatlow (Echoes Blue Music), bringing together 20 women and gender expansive artists and producers paired together across 10 exclusive, mesmerizing pieces.

Alongside some more familiar (to me) names – like Birds of Passage, Karen Vogt, and Bernard’s own marine eyes project – sit enticing new discoveries from ambient scenes the world over, from Argentina to Japan. There’s plenty to get furious about in a world that claims to want to protect women and girls while doing completely the opposite, but, as this compilation gestures, there’s always room for gentle voices too. – Alan Pedder

Various Artists – HELP(2) [War Child Records]

30 years after their first compilation record, the UK nonprofit War Child is back with a star-studded sequel, assembling a team of the biggest names in rock and pop to raise money for children across the world forced to live through war. We got some highlights from the record already in a series of single releases: the urgent Pulp original, "Begging For Change"; a Damon Albarn, Grian Chatten, and Kae Tempest collaboration with "Flags"; the steely, haunted rock track "Let's Do It Again!" by The Last Dinner Party; and, of course, "Opening Night" by Arctic Monkeys, who came together for the first time since 2022's The Car to offer a bass-heavy, lyrically viscous song.

But War Child weren't going to give all the best ideas away. Today, listeners will finally get to hear Fontaines D.C. cover Sinéad O'Connor's "Black Boys on Mopeds", Olivia Rodrigo and Graham Coxon give their own spin on The Magnetic Fields' "The Book Of Love", and Cameron Winter bellow against a flurry of strings for his haunting new song, "Warning". Black Country, New Road and English Teacher — who can be heard as background vocalists in the Pulp track — also provided original new songs that both play with the record's themes of compassion and taking action and feel exclusive to their own sounds. I could list every single person on this album simply because it could be an exciting feature for anyone, but perhaps it'd be better to listen yourself. Let your money go to something necessary. – Victoria Borlando