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

Ba bam!

2hollis - Pirouette [Interscope]

“Sex with me, aren’t you curious?” come-hithers this hyper-not-quite-pop sensationalist who likes more rage-rap with his rave this time than on last year’s Star. So the hooks and beats distort with palpable delight on “The Lady in Red,” but the dynamics might cut through better on tour. For those of us at home, “Hurt” is a better Sophie homage than “Sophie,” and other tracks have some Lil Peep emo-punk swirled in as a reminder that 2hollis wants to be a star, but this is about as big as he should get. Thank goodness he claims to favor sobriety. Aren’t you curious? – Daniel Aaron

Armand Hammer - Snakes & Ladders [Backwoodz Studioz]

There’s a dance at this point. Billy Woods, sometimes with Elucid, serves up dystopian comfort music that demands and rewards multiple listens like no one else in his genre. Only this time: 1. Boards of Canada returned from 13 years of purgatory to discover Woods built not just said career but said imperial phase in their absence; 2. there’s not much year left to soundtrack; and, most crucially, 3. dystopia has been temporarily slowed by the very real comfort of serious turnover on Election Day.

It would be nice to say that Armand Hammer’s jazz album finds them in a celebratory mood, but predictably, this ain’t Louis Armstrong (much less John Philip Sousa). Woods’ skepticism remains sobering: “The meek inherit the earth when? This I gots to see.” But what if he’s not being sarcastic? “Waiting for the knife to find my throat,” grumble grumble. The colorful and imaginative cover art functions as a candy shell for the sour music at the center, though for once it carries the words along rather than the other way around. In no way does that mean the thing grooves. It stabs and pokes and administers light shocks. – Daniel Aaron

Bruiser Wolf & Conductor Williams - The Dealer Wins [Station/Bruiser House]

Following up on his album Push & Paint from just earlier this year, Detroit's own braggadocious bard Bruiser Wolf has continued his tradition of fully collaborative albums. The Dealer Wins comes with perhaps his highest-profile co-star to date, Conductor Williams. Conductor helped build Buffalo's Griselda empire to what it became and has gone on to work with artists like Tyler, the Creator and Drake. Today, his dusty loops belong to Bruiser Wolf, who consistently provides grim stories of the real world through the cartoonish lens that makes him one of the most captivating voices in the game. – Thomas Stremfel

Ecco2k - Echo [9th (Ninth)]

After six years of searching for heaven on earth, Ecco2k returns to us with an armful of meticulously selected souvenirs on Echo. His worldwide travels have brought him wisdom: musings on nature, hostility, and travel stress. There's still some glitchy texture in his beats, but Echo is not a love letter to the past. Despite one or two callbacks to previous works (he's still crushing rocks with transit cards), one can tell that he's been ruminating on much more. Transitions between tracks, especially such as those from "Cuban Heel" to "French Exit," prove this right. Ecco2k's journey across the world has been obsessively followed by fans trying to piece together why their idol's been missing. In Echo, his homecoming is celebrated with a feeding of the mind. Dig in. – Dana Badii

The Human Hearts - Faith & Credit [Dromedary]

Mountain Goats collaborator Franklin Bruno is the sort of polymath you’d expect from the pedigree: rhymes “Still in Error” with “hacienda;” authored the 33 ⅓ on Elvis Costello. Every 14 years apparently, he authors brilliant albums, as The Human Hearts, of musically far-reaching cleverness, from yacht-rock on “(Too Many) Illusions” to Remain in Light-style funk on “A Different City for a Different Life” and the punchy title track’s Wilson Pickett horns. Three of the best songs here first surfaced in 2020, when the bleak “The system isn't broken / It works the way it's made / They know that you can't change it / When you’re sad and afraid” was looking a lot more apt. Power to the people, even if some of them inevitably “do ‘The Safety Dance’ with their investment group.” — Daniel Aaron

Snoh Aalegra – Legendary Love [Stem]

Snoh Aalegra season is finally upon us, and the five-year wait was well worth it. Out now via Stem, Legendary Love is her fourth studio album, written and recorded over two and a half years. It’s split into two parts, with the first seven tracks making up Part One and the final six making up Part Two. Across both, her angelic, bubblegum-sweet vocals glide over 80s-leaning production, and the pairing feels effortless from start to finish. Lyrically, she explores love, heartbreak, and the pain of letting go of something you tried so hard to hold onto. Closing track “Greatest Of All Time” ranks among the best songs of her career, and it sends the record off on a melancholic high note. – Isaiah Gessner

Tay-K – #MonstersUnderMyBed [RR4L Worldwide / Create Music Group / Broke]

In 2017, Arlington rapper Tay-K’s “The Race” became famous and a Billboard Hot 100 charting song because it was written from real-life experiences. He was 17 years old at the time, and he was a fugitive on the run from capital murder and aggravated robbery charges in Texas. Now 26 years old, Tay-K has been incarcerated for nearly 10 years, but his fanbase and the #FreeTayK hashtag never allowed his name to fade away. #MonstersUnderMyBed is his first album since 2017’s #SantanaWorld, created over the past three years in collaboration with producers John Cunningham, Warpstr, and more. 

Tay-K wrote the lyrics in prison, speaking with producers over the phone to shape the instrumentals. Over 16 tracks, Tay-K sticks to the modern trends of rap, doing tracks that’ll start mosh pits (“Punch You Down”), Texas drill (“Spray-K”), and bubbly trap (“Letter2Kayla”). He grabs Maxo Kream, who has been championing him since his incarceration, 1900Rugrat, Baby Kia, FullyChopped, and renforshort, for features, a sign that he’s still building relationships for his budding music career. The curious case of Tay-K’s stardom is answered in tracks like “#acapella” and “Weird Dream,” where one is displaying his realness in a raw freestyle and the other his experimentation with a trippy, paranoia sound. A wider sampling of his talent, #MonstersUnderMyBed is Tay-K’s beginning of his redemption story. – Eric Diep

Westside Gunn – Heelmatic [GRISELDA RECORDS/MASS APPEAL]

DOOT DOOT DOOT DOOT DOOT DOOT DOOT DOOT DOOT DOOT DOOOOOO!

Heelmatic is everything fans have come to expect from a Westside Gunn project, and then some. The 16-track album is packed with wrestling bars, fun sample flips, infectious ad-libs, and a strong crop of features, adding up to one of the best releases of Gunn’s illustrious career. He’s long been praised as a curator, but this album is a reminder of just how impressive he is as a rapper, and he hasn’t sounded this hungry in years. Lead single “ZILLA” remains a standout, with Gunn rapping over a beat that feels ripped straight out of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. It’s badass in every sense of the word. The album’s best moment, though, is “Don Pistola,” which reunites Benny the Butcher and Conway the Machine and seemingly puts any talk of beef between the Griselda members to rest. Nas, Rome Streetz, Stove God Cooks, and Brother Tom Sos leave their mark on the project as well. As likely his only album of 2026, it’s clear the Buffalo rapper put in the time to make it count. – Isaiah Gessner