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. Today, we have seven new releases we'd like to key you into as you head into the weekend. Check them all out below. Ba bam!

Jack White – Frozen Charlotte [Third Man]

Oh, good ol' Jack White. You can always count on him to crank out riffs for days. After his surprise 2024 project No Name, he's back with the same formula: stripped-down, Stripes-style, hard garage rock. During his April appearance on SNL, White let the first two tracks off of their leashes, "G.O.D. and the Broken Ribs" and "Derecho Demonico." White’s relentless output under his own name has officially surpassed that of the aforementioned White Stripes in one respect; Frozen Charlotte is his seventh LP, while the iconic duo recorded six over their career. Although his work without ex-wife Meg isn't discussed in the same hushed tones by hipsters, indie enthusiasts, and snappy dressers, you owe it to yourself to give solo White some love – especially if you dug the hell out of No Name. –Tyler Roland

Kelela – new avatar [Warp]

On her fifth album, R&B star Kelela is dipping her toes into the waters of dream pop, UK garage, and shoegaze to make some of her most innovative and compelling work yet. new avatar – her follow-up to her acclaimed 2023 album Raven – takes the listener through a hypnotic 40 minutes of ear candy, be it from carefully crafted vocal harmonies or shimmering guitar tones. With features from the likes of PinkPantheress and Fousheé rounding out the record, new avatar harbors some of Kelela's best songcraft in every facet of the word. – Leah Bess

Magi Merlin – POWER HOUSE [Bonsound]

Montréal’s R&B revitalizer Magi Merlin delivers a messy but compellingly original statement on her debut album POWER HOUSE, dismantling genre tropes with charismatic swagger. Polish and distortion play off one another throughout, caught up in the web of contradictions she calls “broken R&B.” Building on the adventurous ideas of her earlier EPs (check out last year’s A Weird Little Dog), POWER HOUSE takes a lightly conceptual look at the identities we choose and those thrust upon us, but keeps coming back to Merlin’s core idea of owning one’s own flawed but indomitable force, alive with possibility and refusal to conform. – Alan Pedder

No Cure – It Is Going To Get Dark [SharpTone]

Birmingham, Alabama's No Cure... — Nic Huber

sad13 – 1331 [Exploding in Sound]

Sadie Dupuis of Speedy Ortiz is back with 1331, the first outing for her solo project Sad13 since 2020’s Haunted Painting, aside from her sub one-minute podcast theme “Sixteenth Minute” from the spring of 2024. The songs on 1331 were written around that same time, and are equally brief – only “Third Rodeo,” the closer, runs past 90 seconds – making this more of a 16-minute, mostly DIY mixtape than an album. In a way, it’s a small miracle that the songs got made at all. Shortly after the release of “Sixteenth Minute,” Dupuis was hit by a car while out cycling, leaving her with a shattered elbow and nerve damage that put her out action for months. Rather than tracking the songs in a short burst as she normally would 1331 took a whole year, allowing for time to dig into new production and recording styles she might never have tried otherwise. Subject matters include plagues both animal and political, being an indie-rock lifer, and the perils of being extremely online. – Alan Pedder

Twisted Teens – Florida Water Blues [Chain Smoking]

Twisted Teens were already one of 2026's best rock breakthroughs with February's Blame the Clown, a half-hour of garage-cowpunk by a duo that revives Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper's hoarse car-salesman energy with Parquet Courts' propulsion packed with hooks tight as a baseball. Their third album comes not six months later stretching its legs a bit with slightly longer, darker, less immediate songs, and they saved some good ones for the encore. These include the alligator allegory "Swamp" ("if he doesn't eat on me now he's sure gonna eat on me later"), the twangy, the Tex-Mex desert folk of "Javelina," and the careening epic title tune. They're already claiming there will be a fourth album in the fall. A band for all seasons. –Daniel Aaron

Xiu Xiu – Eraserhead Xiu Xiu [Polyvinyl]

Xiu Xiu are often worthy of the "Lynchian" descriptor, be it with their original fare or, say, a cover of Throbbing Gristle's "Hamburger Lady." Hell, their Plays the Music of Twin Peaks release was given a thumbs-up from David Lynch himself. With the group's new album, Jamie Stewart and their bandmates go all in, serving up an audio accompaniment to Lynch's first feature, Eraserhead. The obvious single, "In Heaven," shows up at the very end. Before you reach that oasis, there's plenty of soundscapes to sift through. An unsettling, black-and-white project to darken your Friday. — Tyler Roland