Here’s a rundown of new releases out today, including new albums and EPs on DSPs and physical releases in record shops this week.
Nialler9 keeps a rolling list of Irish album releases for 2025.
New Albums and Releases
New Albums
NewDad – Altar
Galway indie-rock band NewDad return with assured and confident followup to their debut album Madra.
Altar addresses themes of relationships, homesickness, ambition and sacrifice “and finds the trio grappling with the life they left behind in exchange for the promise of chasing their dreams”.
Altar was written over the last two years after leaving Galway for London. The band are Julie Dawson (vocals/guitar), Sean O’Dowd (guitar), and Fiachra Parslow (drums) 26-year-old producer Sam Breathwick, aka Shrink, with whom the band collaborated on the Safe EP, will be joining the live lineup playing lead guitar and synths, following the departure of bassist Cara Joshi.
The band are playing Irish gigs in October and November. European dates.
Kieran Hebden & William Tyler – 41 Longfield Street Late ’80s – 0/7
A collaborative album a long time coming. The duo previously collaborated on the once-off psych-jazz release ‘Darkness Darkness’ in 2023 but it turns out 41 Longfield Street Late ‘80s was recorded in Los Angeles in 2022 in Sargent Recorders studio.
The album was made after the pair bonded over ‘80s American country and folk music (Lyle Lovett, Nanci Griffith, Joe Ely) and the guitar player David Grissom.
A cover of the Lyle Lovett song, “If I had a Boat” was the most literal pull from this ‘80s country sound. We also recorded long improvisations around chords, patterns and tones from songs we remember from growing up. The Lyle Lovett cover ended up over 11 minutes long.
Four Tet
pôt-pot – Warsaw 480km
The Cork/Lisbon band pôt-pot are inspired by psych and kosmische bands like Neu!, CAN, Spacemen 3 and the motorik beats and drones of those forebearers, and bring psych-rock sounds with harmonium drones and vocal harmonies and those influences are widely felt on their debut album.
The band features Mykle Oliver Smith, Joe Armitage, Elaine Malone (Mantua), Sara Leslie and Mark Waldron-Hyden.
They initially started as a solo project of Waldron-Hyden before the rest of the members joined after meeting in Lisbon. A debut EP Ode to A followed on Blindhead Recordings in May 2023 for which all songs featured only contain the note A, a love letter to 440hz.
pôt-pot’s incorporation of cyclical structures comes from a perhaps unexpected place, as Waldron-Hyden notes, “One massive influence for me is James Brown and a lot of early soul and funk; those deep grooves and chantlike vocals, repeated for minutes on end, are crafted so skillfully in the way that they’re simple enough to get down to, but evolve enough to stay incredibly interesting… That kind of music makes people move and lose themselves, but also stands alone as totally original and timeless.
DUG – Have At It!
DUG are Dublin-based Californian Johnny Pickett and Scottish-American artist Lorkin O’Reilly andtheir debut album comes out today on revived Irish label Claddagh Records.
The band’s Americana, bluegrass folk and trad bursts out of the speakers with Northern Irish singer-songwriter Joshua Burnside producing the album with the duo and a band at Black Mountain Studios in Dundalk.
The album features a cover of Katie Cruel, recently popularised by Lankum, and recent singles the title track, ‘Livelong Day’ and ‘Wheel Of Fortune’, and their breakthough single ‘Jubilee’.
The band have a load of Irish and UK tour dates before the end of the year and play Tower Records tonight at 5:30pm.
Unique Freaks (THEE U.F.O) – Enjoyment Planted
The Dublin duo Unique Freaks have been expanding from their core psych-rock garage vibe lately with new single ‘Somebody Special’, in its full nine-minute form is a rolling alternative rock and vocal vista.
They say the new album is “a psychedelic pop experiment which features 12 whimsical, vulnerable and bizarre songs.”
The band will launch the album with a show at Dublin’s Anseo on Friday September 26th.
Nation of Language – Dance Called Memory
The trio of Ian Richard Devaney, Aidan Noell and Alex MacKay’s music runs through a well of synth pop minimal wave, post-punk, goth, new romantic and their fourth album has a pervading guitar-assisted melancholia written from a place of depression.
The album produced by Strange Disciple Nick Millhiser (LCD Soundsystem, Holy Ghost!) is informed by songwriter Devaney’s godfather’s passing from ALS, and the family care required to ensure diginity in death. Also palpably felt is the gulf that is left when friendships and relationships fall apart.
Devaney says “instead of hopelessness, I want to leave the listener with a feeling of us really seeing one another, that our individual struggles can actually unite us in empathy.”
Sammy Virji – Same Day Cleaning
London’s Sammy Virji is bring UK Garage, grime and bass music into the electronic pop mainstream with his debut album that features Skepta, Giggs, MJ Cole, Champion, Salute, Flowdan and more.
Kinda sounds like the UK’s answer to some of Skrillex’s recent work without the audio theatrics.
Nine Inch Nails – Tron: Ares (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Scustin – Confessions Of A Pub Talker
Dublin post-funk quartet’s debut album leans into the casual setting of a pub with songs drawn from the inside of a beer-soaked bar and Irish cultural and social life with titles like ‘The ick (Don’t Put Blackcurrant in that pint of Guinness)’, ‘The Wolf Of Harcourt Street’, ‘I’m Never Flying Ryanair Again’ and ‘Bray’s very own Casanova’.
It’s actually a concept record “that tells the story of Larry, a barman in his mid-to-late 20s struggling to find his way amidst the social and economic uncertainties of modern Irish life.”
Wednesday – Bleeds
Songwriter Karly Hartzman and guitarist MJ Lenderman didn’t tell the rest of the band they had broken up until after they were finished recording the album. Of course, Lenderman’s solo career had already taken off so they settled on the idea thar Lenderman would stepping away from touring but continue to record with the band.
Fans of Wednesday’s scuzzy Southern melodic alt rock will find much to love in the followup to the band’s 2023’s breakthrough album Rat Saw God.
“Bleeds is the spiritual successor to Rat Saw God, and I think the quintessential ‘Wednesday Creek Rock’ album,” Hartzman said. “This is what Wednesday songs are supposed to sound like,” she said. “We’ve devoted a lot of our lives to figuring this out—and I feel like we did.”
Chameleon – Call Me Twice
SexyTadhg – Sexy EP
Irish cabaret alt pop singer-songwriter SexyTadhg’s new five–track EP “dives deep into the dualities of queer experience – celebrating joy, love, and empowerment while also confronting struggle, stigma, and the need for change.”
The EP showcases SexyTadhg’s love of big band jazz, theatrical soul and lyrical concerns of mental health, social justice and resistance.
Buckingham Nicks – Buckingham Nicks
The will-they won’t-they on-off again dynamic of Fleetwood Mac’s chief songwriters Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks came long after this reissue. of their 1975 album, on which their songwriting chemistry is palpable.
Also released this week
- Ar Air Arís Vol 4 – Doubt EP
- Benny Sings – Beat Tape III
- Biffy Clyro – Futique
- Black Lips – Season of the Peach
- BOO BOOS (Mark Everett, Kate Mattison) – Young Love
- Cardi B – Am I the Drama?
- CLIPPING. -Dead Channel Sky Plus expanded edition
- Joan Shelley – Real Warmth
- Joy Crookes – Juniper
- Kabin Krew – Up The Kabin EP
- Kojey Radical – Don’t Look Down
- Lola Young – I’m Only F**king Myself
- múm – History of Silence
- Pavement – Hecklers Choice: Big Gums and Heavy Lifters
– A Pavement Collection - Patriarchy – Manual for Dying
- Stealing Sheep – G.L.O (Girl Life Online(
- The Divine Comedy – Rainy Sunday Afternoon
- The Favors (Finneas) – The Dream
- Toro y Moi – Unerthed: Hole Erth Unplugged
- Wednesday – Bleeds
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005. He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, 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, and producer of gigs and monthly listening parties & events in Dublin.
