My Favorite New Albums of the Week: June 5, 2026
It’s been a relatively quiet few weeks as far as new music goes. But this week there are three great new albums I’ve listened to, so I wanted to share them with you.
Lizzo - BITCH
Lizzo is amazing. She’s a true polymath in the realm of music: she can sing, rap, play instruments, write songs, and she has a deep set of influences. This is, more than the other two in this post, my favorite album of the week.
BITCH shows Lizzo at her most versatile, most vulnerable, and most brilliant. This album draws from a wide variety of influences to make something that sounds both classic and cutting-edge. It is also a super fun and summery album!
“A Toast” starts off the album with vulnerability, toasting those who hurt her in the past, set to a classical piano melody. She then moves into “Happy 2 Be,” influenced by surf rock and classic soul. “Don’t Make Me Love U” is straight out of the Irene Cara oeuvre, with full 1980s synth accompaniment. And I love Irene Cara, so this song is great.
“BITCH” lyrically samples Meredith Brooks’s 1997 song of the same name while drawing influence from TLC. “She Stole My Man”—possibly the most fun song on the album—sings about “‘Cause she’s so pretty, obvi’, Regina George / What about me? Cady, I’m fucking gorg’” backed by a Kim Deal bass line and Janelle Monae’s vocal stylings in “Dance Apocalyptic.” “Whose Hair Is This” focuses on finding a hair of a different color in her bed and could have been on the “Dreamgirls” soundtrack. With that classic Lizzo attitude, she ends the song with “Oh shit, I did have red hair last week.” “Little Black Cat” is almost a trip-hop song at home on Portishead’s Dummy.
“Sexy Ladies” featuring Washington D.C. artist UCB is a super fun song, sampling “Sexy Lady” by UCB, and sounding fresh off an En Vogue album. “That GRRRL” is somewhere between 1980s freestyle modern trap. “Too Nice” is arranged like a classical jazz song. “Like A Crime” is a ballad, but a good one. And, finally, “Goodmorning!” is a super fun, sunny song, to finish the album off strong.
The entirety of the album is musically strong, memorable, and always has that signature Lizzo wink and nod. Everything is done with humor, even when the topics are more serious. I look forward to listening to this album over and over!
Death Cab for Cutie - I Built You A Tower
I’ve been listening to the singles on this album as they’ve been released. I Built You A Tower is a return to classic form for legendary indie rock band Death Cab for Cutie, but also moves the band forward and sounds fresh and original. They released it on an indie label! The band’s range of sound throughout their discography has been remarkably narrow, with an intense, but delicate and quiet sound being their signature. This album leans more toward 2008’s Narrow Stairs than it does the indie gentleness of Transatlanticism or Plans.
But on their new album, Death Cab is less afraid to experiment. If you replace Ben Gibbard with Eddie Vedder, “Punching the Flowers” would be at home on a mid-90s Pearl Jam album. This album has some harder rock influences than I’ve ever heard with Death Cab for Cutie.
The album isn’t going to break any records, and it’s unlikely to gain Death Cab for Cutie a whole lot of new fans, but as a person whose life has been profoundly impacted by this band since I was a teenager, I really love this album and I look forward to discovering more about it on subsequent listens. There may not be an “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” on this new album, but it’s very listenable all the way through.
horsegiirL - NATURE IS HEALING
This one was my biggest surprise this week. Mysterious, anonymous, horse-masked, Berlin-based DJ horsegiirL created an oddly compelling, deeply interesting album that sounds like hyperpop on the surface, but when you listen deeper, you discover a meaningful album about environmentalism and the beauty of our world. Kind of. “that's my beach!” is a fluffy summer beach song that won’t be popular in thatched Mexican palapas, but waterfront bars in Stockholm will play the song all summer. The album is heavily influenced by Eurodance while sounding distinct from it. It is a hyperpop album, really, but it shows a remarkable depth of influence, too. A.G. Cook collaboration “rivers run free” is breakbeat at heart, and almost downbeat.
It’s hard to believe that an artist with an entire self-created mythology regarding her horsey origins might have mainstream appeal, and I may literally just be projecting my tastes onto others, but especially when heard as a whole, NATURE IS HEALING is a really, really good album with a deep level of creativity. “only the best” is one of the strongest songs on the album and would have ruled any dance floor in Brussels in 1995 with its pan flute chorus. “an apple a day” is a mess about the health benefits of apples, halfway between gabber and happy hardcore—I’m not even joking when I say this may be the best happy hardcore song ever! “Put your motherfucking apples up!” That is some inspired shit.
The album meanders quite a bit, so much so that by the time it is over, you feel like you’ve been walking all over the place. It’s hard to tell if the creation of this album involved a lot of drugs, or just someone who is seriously inspired and deeply weird. I love weird people. I’m definitely a weird people. horsegiirL is a weird horse-girl. She might be Tina Belcher in disguise; we’d never know. And I love them for it. The humor is on the level of Lizzo’s but also drastically different. Fun, all around.