While the wonderful music that emerged in 2019 remains in heavy rotation here at Albumism HQ, we’re already giddy with anticipation for the crop of new albums on the horizon in the new year. Here, we’ve identified the 30 albums we’re most excited to lay our ears upon in 2020, based on the information available to date, which is admittedly scarce for select titles.
As the respective album details and as-yet-to-be-announced release dates emerge, we’ll provide additional coverage, streams and reviews. In the meantime, check out the list below and be sure to let us know which forthcoming albums are on your wishlist for the year ahead!
ANTIBALAS | Fu Chronicles
Release Date: February 7th | Pre-Order
Previewed by Jeremy Levine
We haven’t heard new material from Antibalas in a while. Well, actually, millions of people heard from some of the horn section when they contributed to “Uptown Funk,” but the afrobeat group hasn’t put out a fully realized record since 2012’s Antibalas. For a group whose work is so driven by geopolitical distress (see 2010’s Who Is This America?), the past seven years offer quite a lot of fertile territory.
I wouldn’t say that I expect Antibalas to use Fu Chronicles to comment on the refugee crisis or climate change or Trumpism in particular. Instead, I’m willing to bet that the new record will distill the angst and anger around these global events into a sensibility, something urgent and dark and, somehow, celebratory.
The single “Fight Am Finish” sounds much more indebted to jazz than it does to Fela Kuti, the group’s forbear, so perhaps Antibalas is cooking up a change in direction. However the past eight years manifest itself, I’m sure that Fu Chronicles will be as creative, complex, and deep as the rest of the band’s output.
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FIONA APPLE | Title TBD
Release Date: TBD
Previewed by Sarah Paolantonio
Back in September, Fiona Apple surprised fans and critics alike by calling up New York Magazine to clarify a few things. It turned into an interview about much more—politics, the 2019 film Hustlers (featuring “Criminal”), and a new record she’s been working on “forever.” It will be her fifth studio LP and her first in eight years since The Idler Wheel…. There’s no release date yet, but she hopes it will be ready in early 2020. I can’t wait!
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MATT BERNINGER | Serpentine Prison
Release Date: TBD
Previewed by Rayna Khaitan
Details about Matt Berninger’s first solo album are scarce. Everything we know came from Berninger’s Instagram announcement last October, “Kind, patient, visionary genius @bookertjonesmusic produced and arranged my solo record. It’s called Serpentine Prison.🐍 More about it soon but basically I’m the luckiest man in the universe with lots of brilliant friends who can play instermints.”
Berninger is no stranger to collaboration. Aside from the obvious harmony he’s created with his four bandmates in The National and his wife Carin Besser, who is instrumental to the group’s lyrics, he’s also partnered with Brent Knopf of Ramona Falls/Menomena on EL VY’s Return to the Moon (2015)—not to mention participated in at least a dozen duets, many of which were handsomely featured in the band’s latest, I Am Easy to Find (2019). It’s also worth noting that Berninger and Jones worked together before on “Representing Memphis,” a song from Jones’ 2011 album The Road to Memphis, which also features the late Sharon Jones.
Although I don’t have much intel on Serpentine Prison, I’m dazzled to know it exists. From his cathartic yelps to his swooning lullabies, Berninger’s songwriting and vocal delivery set an exceptionally high bar—and I’m certain whatever album he graces with his name will amply deliver.
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BLACK STAR | Title TBD
Release Date: TBD
Previewed by Jesse Ducker
One question that’s dogged legendary emcees Talib Kweli and Yasiin Bey (f.k.a. Mos Def) for at least 20 years is “When is the new Black Star album coming out?” The two first collaborated to record the debut Black Star album back in 1998, and it appeared that they were FINALLY going to release their long-awaited follow-up in 2019. But, alas, in true Black Star fashion, the album was delayed.
However, there’s good news coming. Towards the end of 2019, both Kweli and Bey confirmed that the album is, in fact, finished, and both listen to it often. And in another piece of good news, Madlib, who was rumored to be a contributor to the project, apparently produced the album in its entirety.
While it’s still a mystery when the long-awaited long-player is coming out, here’s hoping that those many fans who having been chomping at the bit for some more Black Star goodness will have their wishes granted soon enough.
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CIRCLES AROUND THE SUN | Circles Around The Sun
Release Date: March 13th | Pre-Order
Previewed by Jeremy Levine
Circles Around the Sun (CATS) wasn’t supposed to exist. Neal Casal, along with a group of jamband support characters (Adam MacDougall of the Chris Robinson Brotherhood and The Black Crowes, Dan Horne of Grateful Shred, and Mark Levy of Hardworking Americans and the Tedeschi Trucks Band) were commissioned to compose instrumental setbreak music for Fare Thee Well, the Grateful Dead’s fiftieth anniversary “final” concert. By popular demand, the group released many of those recordings as an album (Interludes for the Dead), then released a follow-up (2018’s Let It Wander). Rather than a one-off project, then, CATS started to become a real band; this miracle was replicable, it seemed, if you put these four talents in a room together.
Casal died in August. He was not just a good guitar player. Most good guitar players drive you relentlessly somewhere you know you will arrive—in their solo, you can feel when they’re going to hit their peak and you cheer them along as they bring you there. Casal was not like that. Every line was a mystery, something you could not have heard coming because only he could dream it up.
While Casal had amazing success in many bands, CATS—a group whose very existence was unpredictable—was where he painted his masterpieces. Circles Around The Sun, the album that contains his last recordings, is all of that unpredictability that we have left.
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THE CURE | Live From The Moon
Release Date: TBD
Previewed by Rayna Khaitan
Promising to be perfectly captivating, The Cure’s fourteenth studio album is destined to land sometime in the twelve months ahead. Inspired by the 50th anniversary of Apollo’s lunar journey, the record is tentatively entitled Live From The Moon and was due to drop last year.
Last spring, Robert Smith, the principal force behind The Cure, stated he was hoping to release the album by Christmas. He mainly needed to finish laying down the vocals, maybe work out one new song and finalize the track listing. “My only dilemma at the moment is to…getting a running order that works,” he mentioned during a SiriusXM interview last May. “I’ve gone through so many different running orders. My favorite running order is so utterly bereft of hope. It’s so morose.”
Massive, thundering songs—some in the 10-minute arena—written as Smith neared his 60th birthday evoke comparisons to Disintegration, which The Cure created half a lifetime ago at Smith’s then-milestone age of 30. Calling the songs a collection of “relentless doom and gloom” born of personal loss, Smith has cited anywhere between 47 minutes to two albums worth of material. (He’s even said they actually have three albums in the works. But, dear Robert, that just hits like a major tease at this point!)
As we stare into the glittering future, I’m giddily entertaining the crumbs of news Smith has shared thus far. Here’s hoping 2020 is the year we finally experience a new, heart-shattering opus from my one and only band, The Cure.
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LANA DEL REY | White Hot Forever
Release Date: TBD
Previewed by Justin Chadwick
A convincing case can be made that Lana Del Rey kicks off the new decade as one of the—if not the—most prolific singer-songwriters working today, owing to the six studio albums she has released since 2010. Never one to compromise quality in favor of the quantity of her musical output, the New York City born, Los Angeles based songstress is also arguably among the most critically acclaimed artists, with her most recent Norman F***ing Rockwell LP deservedly garnering an abundance of accolades, including Albumism’s #5 album of 2019.
Wasting precious little time in delivering her next project, her seventh studio album White Hot Forever is set for release this year. “It probably will be a surprise release sometime within the next 12 or 13 months,” Del Rey confided to the Times of London this past summer. “I’m really excited right now. I don’t want to take a break.”
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DISCLOSURE | Title TBD
Release Date: TBD
Previewed by Justin Chadwick
Four long years have elapsed since the Brothers Lawrence blessed our ears with their sophomore studio affair Caracal in September 2015. But along the way, the duo have whet our appetites for their infectious brand of deep, soul-imbued house music with a string of one-off singles that made landfall in 2018. Although few details about their next full-length project have emerged thus far, it appears that their third long player is set to surface soon and the final track list will be culled from more than 100 songs the pair have written in the past few years.
"We've been working on this music for like two years now and we're getting to a point where we are almost happy,” Howard Lawrence told triple J radio hosts Veronica and Lewis this past August. “We've been at that 'almost' stage for a while now."
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DIXIE CHICKS | Gaslighter
Release Date: TBD
Previewed by Mike Elliott
It's hard to comprehend that it's been nearly 14 years since the Dixie Chicks last graced us with a studio album. The wait will soon be over, as Gaslighter proves to be one of the most anticipated releases of 2020.
Originally conceived as a contractual obligation all-covers project (this is their last album in a seven-album deal with Sony), reportedly that all changed with Natalie Maines' divorce from actor Adrian Pasdar. Maines revealed on the "Spiritualgasm" podcast recently: “Our last album was the most personal and autobiographical we’ve ever been, and this one is 10 times that.”
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DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS | The Unraveling
Release Date: January 31, 2020 | Pre-Order
Previewed by Mike Elliott
Following 2016's politically-charged American Band, Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley, and the rest of the DBTs return with The Unraveling on January 31st. After fighting a bout of writer's block in the interim, the events over the past few years inform much of the new album. Even a cursory glance at the tracklist reads like recent headlines: "Thoughts and Prayers," "Babies In Cages," and "Heroin Again" all point toward the type of hard-driving commentary we've come to expect from one of America's most important bands in the last 25 years.
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GREEN DAY | Father Of All Motherf***ers
Release Date: February 7th | Pre-Order
Previewed by Sarah Paolantonio
Green Day is returning with their thirteenth studio album Father Of All Motherf***ers on February 7th. Back in September when the band announced it via Instagram, Billie Joe Armstrong declared it a record about “the life and death of the party.” The album art is reminiscent of their 2004 political powerhouse LP American Idiot. It’s hard to imagine them refraining from getting political—it’s increasingly hard these days—but Armstrong says the songs are about “surviving the chaos.”
At a rumored 26 minutes and preceded by the title track, Father Of All Motherf***ers will be their shortest album and they’ll perform it live on the Hella Mega Tour, accompanied by Fall Out Boy and Weezer, later this year.
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GRIMES | Miss Anthropocene
Release Date: February 21st | Pre-Order
Previewed by Sarah Paolantonio
Anthropocene refers to the current geological age, where human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment. The aptly titled Miss Anthrop0cene is the follow-up to 2015’s Art Angels, and the cover art, temper, and timbre of the album promise to hit all the marks Grimes is known for: a skewing of reality, of melody, and technology. She continues to stretch her voice and ability behind the boards and keys to impress fans everywhere.
Four singles have already been released from the full track listing of ten songs. The latest, “4Æm,” is a galactic, polyphonic pull into her orbit.
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JANET JACKSON | Title TBD
Release Date: TBD
Previewed by Quentin Harrison
Last year was a busy one for Janet Jackson. Multiple live dates performed and accolades received—notably her induction into the Rock & Roll of Fame—have kept Jackson hopping. Two years on from the unveiling of her world music flavored single “Made for Now,” Jackson has remained characteristically mum about the shape of the full-length album (or extended play) meant to follow it. What can be certain is that whatever form new music from Janet Jackson takes, it will be as soulful and engaging as her previous outings have been.
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LA ROUX | Supervision
Release Date: February 7th | Pre-Order
Previewed by Justin Chadwick
The old adage that suggests good things come to those who wait is about to be tested—and likely validated—once again, when Elly Jackson unveils her third studio album under the La Roux moniker. A work-in-progress for nearly five years since she reentered the studio in the spring of 2015 (and scrapped the initial output of these recording sessions), the eight-track-strong Supervision is the long awaited successor to 2014’s Trouble In Paradise, one of the finest pop records to be released that year.
The album follows a period of personal and professional upheaval for the English singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, but as evidenced by lead singles “International Woman of Leisure” and “Gullible Fool,” Supervision thankfully finds her recapturing her creative, soulful spirit to delight eager ears once again.
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HAMILTON LEITHAUSER | Title TBD
Release Date: TBD
Previewed by Rayna Khaitan
Who am I without my kismet-kissed, only-in-Manhattan nights? I never knew how much I’d take to Hamilton Leithauser, but perhaps I always had an inkling. So, when I scrolled through Bandsintown while awaiting baggage retrieval at JFK last January and discovered Leithauser was playing the iconic Café Carlyle, I was determined to procure a ticket. The shows were sold out, but I had a chance at limited, first-come-first-serve bar seating. Lo and behold, I managed to score one of eight slots. And I’m so grateful. From Leithauser’s incandescent singing to the intimate venue to the instant comradery established among my fellow barflies, the show was nothing short of magical.
Ever since, I’ve become wildly enthusiastic about all things Leithauser, including soaking up the back catalogue of The Walkmen, the singer’s on-hiatus band. Specifics on his second solo record are scant, but his voice alone will make it worth the listen. I, for one, cannot wait. (P.S. Leithauser is doing another residency at Café Carlyle January 14-18. Do yourself a huge favor and go.)
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