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.

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

Ba bam!

Denzel Curry & Kenneth Blume - ii [Loma Vista Recordings]

Six years later, Denzel Curry and Kenneth Blume (fka Kenny Beats) team up once again for ii, the long-awaited sequel to the gritty, fan-beloved UNLOCKED EP. A "DIET_" consisting of nine tracks that fill up a 24-minute runtime, featuring JPEGMAFIA, Westside Gunn, and Yebba. A tape of sample-heavy, jazzy beats for Denzel to slide over, aiming to be grander and more ambitious than its predecessor, as Blume says: “The work Denzel and I do has never been easy, which is why it’s so rewarding. We’ve started every project on opposite sides of a coin and fought our way to the center. When I hear this album, I hear the growth and the fight in equal parts.” – Daniel Gonçalves Benítez

nate sib - Reborn [Republic Records]

Born out of his journey with sobriety and love for friends and family, nate sib's debut album Reborn shows off the young singer's commitment and heart. Poppy production cues up memories of mid-2010s EDM against his Bieber-esque crooning for his girl. He bounces between heaven and hell through tracks like "Face Card" and "All I Needed," walking us through anecdotes of infatuation and nearly dying from an overdose. nate sib has come far from being seen as merely his best friend 2hollis' tour opener and member of the music collective boyliife. His mature take on pop music invites the adventurous into his world. – Dana Badii

Weezer - Weezer [Reprise/Warner]

As much shit as Weezer has gotten over the last quarter-century(!) for not replicating their first two albums, they’ve made an unlikely amount of great music in that span, especially compared to the normies in Foo Fighters and Green Day, who’ve respectively found their stylistic ceilings long ago. Love him or hate him, don’t underestimate Rivers Cuomo’s willingness to try something new, be it multipart epics (“The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived”), writing a song with his fans (“Turning Up the Radio”), duetting with Best Coast (“Go Away”) and Lil Wayne (“Can’t Stop Partying”), fabricating Van Halen’s every move (“End of the Game”), and recreating “Billie Jean” and “Paranoid Android” note for note out of sheer geekdom. Touching on all the above-named belies a serious love of music and as a result, most everything I just cited is a Great Song, except the Lil Wayne thing. Either way, he’s always willing to mess with his formula and will do anything to entertain. And if you want Good Albums, Weezer’s color-coded self-titled resets mostly are, with the exception of the last two, Black and Teal (the latter of which isn’t bad per se, just more of an impressive stunt faithfully covering classics without much replay value). Green, Red, and White are all outstanding and underrated, and Blue you know about.

This is the Gold album, and producer Geese/Rico Nasty whisperer Kenneth Blume gets the best sound out of this band since Pinkerton, whose abrasive garage drums and swollen guitar fuzz it digitally updates 30 years on. It adds two enormous bangers to the pantheon: the exploding power-pop opener “Say Yes” and the masterful Karly Hartzman walk-on “We Might as Well Be Strangers.” Anthemic closer “The LA Sound” comes damn close, and first single “Shine Again” – written entirely by drummer Patrick Wilson(!!) – is nothing to sneeze at, either. Geese’s producer plus Wednesday are pretty shrewd cheat codes in 2026, but the rest is your usual Weezer hit-or-miss even if Blume does give it raditude. In short, a band long past their prime is unfortunately still worth your time. — Daniel Aaron

Westside Cowboy – It Goes On [Island Records/

"We're literally the most stock rock band you can get," Westside Cowboy guitarist and vocalist Reuben Haycocks confessed to The Needle Drop earlier this year. "All we got to do is write an okay song for two and a half minutes. And because we just use three chords, it's kind of hard to go wrong sometimes."

Seven months after the Manchester band spoke to us, they shared their debut album It Goes On, the first fully realized iteration of this mindset. On the surface, the album functions as an exercise in radical simplicity, breaking songs down into moments that "work," cutting out unnecessary chords and flourishes, and keeping all the songs to a basic, four-piece rock kit. In a world riddled by effects, synths, and complexity, Westside Cowboy opt for a series of feel-good, crowd-pleasing numbers, echoing the trills of beloved bands while asserting their internal chemistry with bouncy, energetic instrumental breakdowns. Cynically speaking, it's not breaking boundaries in any way: much of its DNA branches off from rock favorites like The Velvet Underground, Pavement, Vampire Weekend, Pulp, The Strokes, and some younger bands like the indie guitar groups Horsegirl and pushbike, all in service to make the record feel welcoming, communal, a part of something greater. But, even though it's unapologetically formulaic, it still sparkles with originality. Whether it's the laconic slacker glide of "Dobro," the psychedelic wonder of "Big Wheels," or the bubbling into chaotic noise in "Kick Stones (The Boys)" and "Pin Up Boys," the tracks capture the excitement and frustration with adulthood — the looming sense of failure and unknowing, coupled with the rush of learning and getting better. – Victoria Borlando