Welcome to another installment of Today's Release Highlights, where the TND writers room gathers up some brand new projects they want to draw your eyes and ears to.

Today, we have 9 new releases we'd like to key you into as you head into the weekend. Check them all out below.

Ba bam!

Beth Orton – The Ground Above [Partisan]

Perhaps the most beautiful thing about The Ground Above is that it proves that Beth Orton’s successful pivot to unhurried, jazzy atmospherics with 2022’s Weather Alive was in no way a fluke of reinvention. Crammed with subtle details that fully come alive on headphones, The Ground Above is, in many ways, a direct sequel to that record, pairing Orton with many of the same players and deepening their chemistry with expertly articulated warmth. The songs are more impressionistic this time around (“The moon a crumpled bag / The sun a rusted can”), built from fragments of dreams and poetic intuition, but it’s her ever mercurial voice that serves as the album’s emotional anchor, lending time-worn grace and depth to even its most ambient sections, while closing number “Otherside” proves she can still let loose when she wants to. – Alan Pedder

Butthole Surfers – After the Astronaut [Sunset Boulevard]

Butthole Surfers have one of the strangest careers in all of rock; you can read about their insane 1980s as an avant-noise freakshow in the greatest chapter of Michael Azerrad's classic Our Band Could Be Your Life, and things ground to a halt not long after 1996's fluke alt-rock hit "Pepper," a spiritual sequel to Beck's "Loser." They followed it up with 2001's roundly hated Weird Revolution, after the major label rejected this 1998 album, and the material overlaps on both. Now 30 years after "Pepper," the band has emerged from hiatus only to release the original After the Astronaut as intended, which means without the Kid Rock cowrite "The Shame of Life" or the "Sweet Jane" ripoff "Dracula From Houston." Turns out it's quite good, a surprising mélange of both their noisier side and their later experimentation with breakbeats and loops. Try the Ill Communication-esque "Venus" or the dancey deconstruction "Imbuya," which wouldn't have gotten on the radio in any decade but makes perfect sense back-to-back with the Prodigy's "Breathe." – Daniel Aaron

Chanel Beads – Your Day Will Come [Jagjaguwar]

A mantra of death, a mantra of life: the haunting title Your Day Will Come once again carves itself over the cover of a Chanel Beads record. Adopting a ‘make do’ approach, outsider pop artist Shane Lavers builds these airy, luscious, hymnal melodies from the instruments around him, never sparing a tick from the cutting room floor. The record begins with “Drums Only,” a relaxed yet clicky drum beat softened by angelic synths and scatting flourishes until they pool together to form a hypnotic drone. From there, the single “Song for the Messenger” restarts the record’s energy almost entirely; an acoustic guitar just out of time with the jangly percussion disrupts the groove, echoes of conversations flood the background layers, and the vocalist nearly screams out his declarations of fearlessness.

If 2024’s Your Day Will Come obsessed over omens, insecurity, and looming existential threat, then its 2026 counterpart projects the opposite image. The jammy, trance-like progression of additional songs like “JBL in the Fireplace,” “Outside Your Life,” and the harpsichord knockout “Spirit Showing” gleefully asserts control over the cycle of chaos. Your Day Will Come captures the pure magic of smashing three instruments together to see what comes of it, of snipping audio stems to craft a rhythm, of talking to the people in the room to channel an almost occult energy nestling in their hands. – Victoria Borlando

Dari Bay – Surprise Wish [Double Double Whammy]

Zach James must be booked and busy. James, who releases music as Dari Bay, is a member of the Burlington indie rock group Robber Robber, a drummer in Unknown Mortal Orchestra, and a session musician, playing on albums by fellow Vermonters Greg Freeman and Lily Seabird. Somehow, he also found the time to make Surprise Wish, a charming collection of slacker-rock. Surprise Wish is Dari Bay’s second album and first for Double Double Whammy. – Andy Steiner

Emperor X – Unified Field [Bar/None]

Science teacher/folk-punk polymath Chad Matheny (aka Emperor X) is one of our most astute singer-songwriters, which can lead to incredibly specialized content: the excellent Suggested Improvements to Transportation Infrastructure in the Northeast Corridor EP was literally just that: catchy DIY tunes with titles like "An Objection to the Location of the Entrance to the Girard Ave. ACME (for SEPTA)." That's what you get with a legally blind lifer who tours via public transit. His last full-length, 2022's The Lakes of Zones B and C, detailed entropy in more abstract ways than this blunt-force follow-up. Guess he realized the message gets understood faster and more widely in tunes like "Feeling Nothing," "Praise Jesus! Hail Reagan!" and "Cybertruck." That last one goes "my wife and I bought a Cybertruck / that's a lie, 'cause we're not rich enough / so instead we paid our power bills / and the lawyer for our living will." In a neat twist, though, his most outwardly aggravated album is also one of his most stripped-down and prettiest. Multitudes: contained. – Daniel Aaron

Ibeyi – Offering [IBEYI]

Having broadened their creative circle with 2022’s Spell 31, French-Cuban twin sister duo Ibeyi make no bones about the fact that this follow-up LP is very much a return to their own distinctive musical language. “I don’t make spells anymore, now I make offerings,” they say pointedly on the intro to the title track, drawing a line between the two acts of ritual – one about becoming and the other about being, presenting yourself as you already are. Released independently on their own label, Offering runs with that ambition of re-committing to the self, calling on the goddesses Olokun and Aset to kickstart the healing, facing down their shadows, and ending on an uplifting note with the closing duo of “Good Life” and “Lucky.” Impeccably produced and as adventurous as ever, with their celebrated harmonies still knocking it out of the park, it’s a welcome and often euphoric return. – Alan Pedder

Maxo Kream - O.Y.N [Persona Money Global / EMPIRE]

Maxo Kream has chosen JPEGMAFIA to take the helm as sole producer on all nine tracks of his fifth album, O.Y.N, which features Isaiah Falls, Denzel Curry, Cartel Bo, and Maxo’s young brother, Josh Kream. Maxo touches on several subjects during the project's 24-minute runtime. He talks about the challenge of sobriety and relapse on “6 Months Clean”; deals with grief on “Time Out”; and recounts the work and struggles he pushed through to get where he is now after someone gave him a backhanded compliment on “How TF I’m Lucky”. – Daniel Gonçalves Benítez

Real Farmer - Live At The Dalby Café EP [Strap Originals]

In the quest for real rock music, Real Farmer have quickly followed up their most recent record Two Wrongs Don't Make A Right with a short live EP, Live At The Dalby Café. This brief session, recorded at the historic UK pub with mixer and recording engineer Jason Stafford (Albion Rooms) and filmed by director Roger Sargent (Fat White Family, Baxter Dury, The Libertines), shoots out from a cannon as soon as the listener presses "play." Album singles like "Heart Out" and "Missing Link" maximize their already gritty and hell-raising energy on their live versions, and the Dutch four piece writhe and power through each passing minute like a 1970s proto-punk rock band at their fiery prime. The second half celebrate sdeep cuts "The Pressure of Others" and "Once More," which were featured on the debut twin set of self-titled EPs released in 2019 and 2025. Electric, grainy, blowing out every speaker in this unconventional venue, this EP goes by in a white, hot flash, and the band are more than ready to take over the underground. – Victoria Borlando

Ryan Beatty – Sweet Fortune [Atlantic Records]

Coming off of a Grammy win for his songwriting contributions to Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter, Ryan Beatty is leaning further into his country inclinations on his fourth LP, Sweet Fortune. With notable contributions from Clairo, songwriter Amy Allen, jack-of-all-trades Leon Michels, and members of Phoebe Bridgers’ crew (Ethan Gruska, Marshall Vore, Christian Lee Hutson), the record is chalk full of understated country-twinged ballads about love and desperation. – Leah Bess