NPR Music - The best new albums out Sept. 12

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

Guerilla Toss. Die Spitz. The return of Spinal Tap. Raina Douris from WXPN's World Cafe joins Stephen Thompson to discuss their favorite albums out Friday, Sept. 12.The Starting 5:- Spinal Tap, 'The End Continues' (Stream)- Guerilla Toss, 'You're Weird Now' (Stream)- Die Spitz, 'Something to Consume' (Stream)- Frost Children, 'Sister' (Stream)- Mark William Lewis, 'Mark William Lewis' (Stream)The Lightning Round:- Sophie Ellis-Bextor, 'Perimenopop'- Asher White, '8 tips for full catastrophe living'- Jade, 'THAT'S SHOWBIZ BABY!'- Fruit Bats, 'Baby Man'- Kassa Overall, 'CREAM'See the long list of albums out Sept 12 and sample dozens of them via our New Music Friday playlist on npr.org.CreditsHost: Stephen ThompsonGuest: Raina Douris, WXPNAudio Producer: Noah CaldwellDigital Producer: Elle MannionEditor: Otis HartProduction Assistant: Dora LeviteExecutive Producer: Suraya MohamedSee pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

A quick note before the show, this podcast contains explicit language. Happy Friday, everyone, from NPR Music. It's New Music Friday. I'm Stephen Thompson here with Raina Duras from World Cafe and WXPN in Philadelphia. Welcome to the show, Raina. Hey, great to be here. It is such a pleasure to have you. You are hearing over our voices. You are hearing the sounds, of course, of Led Zeppelin. Led Zeppelin is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its landmark album Physical Graffiti and releasing a live, EP titled Live EP. Creative. Four classic Led Zeppelin songs live in My Time of Dying, Trampled Underfoot, Sick Again, Kashmir, 35 minutes of Led Zeppelin at its Led Zeppelinist.

I love Led Zeppelin. I've loved Led Zeppelin since I was in high school when I got a Led Zeppelin Best of compilation CD that I promptly lost two weeks later at a party. But just hearing people in a giant crowd react to a song like Kashmir. Oh my God. It's so... I will say, though, that every single proper noun in the press release for this sounds like a British parody. Like, they're in Nebworth and Girls Court.

That's where they're playing. The Nebworth Festival. But, yeah, it's so much fun. I feel like I'll listen to whatever Led Zeppelin puts out. Oh, absolutely. And I feel like this is where we should shout out the classic rock radio stations where we first heard Led Zeppelin. For me, it was the Rockin' Apple, W-A-P-L in Appleton, Wisconsin, still around, still playing Led Zeppelin. Oh, yeah. Q107 in Toronto.

Nice. That's where I probably first heard it. Well, speaking of classic English rock, we're going to kick off with the soundtrack to the new Spinal Tap movie. The movie is called Spinal Tap to The End Continues. Stonehenge, where the demon is well, where the fight to live by the blue left, well. Stonehenge. So, where a band's a band and the children who dance to the pipes and fans. Well, boomed up ride with a dragon's feet.

Stonehenge with a virgin lie and the prayers of devil fill the midnight sky, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So spinal tap two, the end continues. We find the band 40 years later after the original spinal tap. Nigel, Derek Smalls, David's, David's, Hubbins, played by Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, and Michael McKean, respectively. Robert Reiner is back as the documentarian, Marty DeBerge. And, yeah, they basically have to fulfill a contract.

Their former manager, Ian Faith has died, and he left their contract to his daughter, Hope Faith. And she finds that they have a contractually obliged show that they haven't done yet, and they have to get back together. And they've all been sort of living their separate lives. Nigel is running a cheese and guitar shop. David St. Hubbins has been doing music for true crime podcasts and phone hold music. And Derek Smalls works in a glue museum. I like you, Raina.

I am a lifelong Spinal Tap super fan. This is Spinal Tap from 1984 is one of my favorite movies of all time, period. I think, you know, for those who have a curiosity around the sequel coming out 41 years later, you know, set your expectations according. this is not the equal to this is spinal tap. Almost everybody involved in this movie has nothing to prove. Yeah. And it's sort of kind of at this point almost defined by the fact that they have nothing to prove. If you just like list the projects that the people involved in this film have done,

and you're talking about the Princess Bride, you're talking about the Simpsons in the case of Harry Shearer. And I think that's a blessing and a curse. Yeah. When it comes to kind of the actual product on screen, it is fan service. from start to finish. It's constant kind of cameos and callbacks. It brings in Paul McCartney. It brings in Elton John.

It brings in Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood for their cover of Big Bottom. There's an enormous amount of accumulated goodwill. Exactly. I think they get a lot of runway just because you're excited to see them on screen together again as those characters. Yeah.

But yeah, they're doing it for the love of the game. And you can tell that the people who are making these cameos, they just love the movie in the first place and they're fans and they're excited to be there. Probably the biggest cameo is Paul McCartney. On the soundtrack, he performs a song by himself, the song Cups and Cakes, which appeared in the original movie, but only on the radio kind of in the background. Currently residing in the Where Are They Now File?

Cups and Cakes, Cups and Cakes. Oh, what good? things mother makes. You've got to take tea. Won't you take it with me? What a gay time it will be. Cups and cakes, cups and cakes. Please make sure that nothing breaks.

The China's so dear and the street's so clear. And I'm glad that you are here. In this film, there is very little in the way of new original Spinal Tap music. The soundtrack is not sparing with new music. Yeah. There are a lot of new songs. The only one that's really explored in any detail in the film is Harry Shearer kind of taking the lead on a song called Rockin' In The Earn. Yeah, rocking in the urn about how he'll still be performing after he's dead.

It's getting near the final end, says a neighbor, says a friend. But as I take my final leave, don't protest. No, do not grieve. I promise you after I burn, I'm going to be rocking in the end. My favorite, I think, new song on the soundtrack was the devil's just not getting old. Which kind of ties into rock and in the urn because it's about aging as a rock star, which is a notoriously difficult thing to do in a world that kind of worships youth and being dangerous and being cool. Harry Shearer is 81.

Yeah. You know, and it kind of deals with, like, mortality and getting old in this kind of interesting way. He's not starting to lose his teeth. He just not. Yeah, and like how do you use the. fact that all of these actors are now getting up there in years. I mean, this is, that's the whole concept of the film, is that these guys are old. And, like, how do you incorporate that into the music in a funny way that feels true to where a band like Spinal Tap would be at this

phase of their lives? And I think the tone of a lot of the original music, as you've kind of probably been able to tell from the excerpts we've played, the phrase that I kept coming back to is, like, purged majesty. it's there's like there's like this this almost symphonic quality to a lot of these songs these big grand portentous arrangements but they're also they've the band is kind of slowed down and and their vocals are obviously not as elastic as they used to be they're sort of growly and like I said turgid but majestic it all kind of reminded me of that scene in the original movie where they go to Elvis's grave

Oh my God. And they say it really puts things into perspective. He says, yeah, a bit too much perspective. That is Spinal Tap. Their new movie and soundtrack is called Spinal Tap 2. The End Continues. Next up, a new album from Gorillitas. Grilatoss's new album is called You're Weird Now.

Shine on the class of a Christmas light is climbing up the wall. Rings of a grin running up through the wind. I attach you. Like a safety pen. So Gorilla Toss has been around for almost 15 years, formed in Boston now based in New York City, wild, frenetic, freewheeling, gleefully weird band that swirls together so many different sounds

just crashing together in this chaotic but really fun way. It's weird, and the first time I listened to this record, I was like, is this too weird? And then I gave it another go. And I ended up really enjoying it. Like, they blew the sound effects budget for this album. There's a lot going on in here. And it kind of makes sense because part of how they made this

was by doing something they called a punk lunch. So when they were recording the album, they would have a punk lunch, which was a meal they would make by kind of going to the studio fridge and making something out of whatever was left and they would make a sandwich. That's really close conceptually to girl dinner.

It is kind of. Girl sandwich. Yeah. That sounds like a spinal tap song. It does. But yeah, and they would have like guests at their punk lunch who were involved in the album like Stephen Malchmus and Trey Anastasio. They would drop by and they'd sit around eating these punk lunches with them,

which I think just really works with what the album ended up sounding like. Well, and nothing makes me happier than the idea of Stephen Malchmus, you know, from pavement and, you know, all the great work he's done since. Just breaking bread with Trey Anastasio is not necessarily, it's not necessarily something I pictured, nor would I expect those two breaking bread to help result in an album that sounds like this. And like Malchmus, as you said, he produces this record. It's recorded at a studio that Trey Anastasio owns. And they, you know, they both appear in a track called Red Flag to Angry Bull. Yeah, which might be the least insane feeling song on the album, which is strange, considering all the people on it. When we're talking about stranger songs on this album, there's a track called Crocodile Cloud, which is, I would describe it as like a collision of kind of frantic bubblegum pop and screamy hardcore.

Which, you know, there are certainly, I've heard other musicians kind of bring those sounds together, whether we're talking about pop. or baby metal or bands like that that are kind of frantically combining very dissimilar sounds. But here it just kind of pops up as yet another hairpin turn. First band I thought of when I listened to this was B-52s. Oh, wow, yeah. But then, like, B-52s with, like, punk screaming. Right. In it.

And then I also found out they opened for Primus last year. I was like, oh, this is all making so much sense to me now. The track Life's A Zoo. I also really like the musicly. It kind of sounds like a Nintendo game at the beginning, and then it collapses in on itself into like a bunch of sound effects. I can really only compare to the sound of like a computer operating system starting up. Did you just say the phrase collapses in on itself?

Yes. Raina Doris, in my notes for the song Life's a Zoo. I wrote one second. It sounds like an ad for an energy drink in 1990. The next it sounds like a video game. The next it seems to collapse in on itself. Great minds. Wow.

That is Gorilla Toss. Their new album is called You're Weird Now. We've got more great records that are out today, September 12th. But first, let's take a quick break. From NPR Music, it's New Music Friday. I'm Stephen Thompson here with Raina Duras of World Cafe and WXPN in Philadelphia. Raina, tell me what's going on with the show. in with the station. Yeah, well, we've got our big

XPN music festival coming up late this month. Sharon Van Etton and the attachment theory are playing in Courtney Barnett and War and soccer mommy and Kathleen Edwards, a whole bunch of people. And then on the show, I've got Yaya Bay coming in, who he talked about last time I was here for New Music Friday. Nice. And

I will be talking to Spinal Tap, which I am both excited about and slightly nervous for her. Wow. See, and I don't have, you know, well, I guess I'm excited for you. I don't any of the nerves, but I do have is deep, deep jealousy. Yeah, no, it's going to be great. I mean, you know, they do everything in character.

Yeah. So you've got to be, like, ready to take the ride. Yeah. So I'm very excited for that. And, yeah, that'll be up in, I'm not exactly sure when it'll end up airing, but we record that this week, so exciting. Oh, that is fantastic, Rina. Oh, I'm so jealous. Someday, we got to make a tiny desk concert happen. Oh my God. You better do it soon. They're getting very old, as you know. So, better do it soon. These actors are going to die soon. No. They're going to live forever. I wish. I wish they would. Okay. Next up, we've got a new album by D. Spitz.

D. Spitz's new album is called Something to Consume. So D. Spitz are a band from Austin. It's a group of girls are only 22 years old. Yeah. Which I find mind-blowing. They haven't been around long at all, already signed to third-man records. And they're just, they're lifelong friends. And I love this.

They decided to start a band after watching the Motley crew movie, The Dirt. That is a perfect reason to start a band. I love it. I had never heard of DeSpitz before. And I was an instant fan. I love this. They have a whole bunch of different influences

like Black Sabbath Pixies. PJ Harvey and Nirvana, you can hear all that in here. But the reason that my mind was blown when I found out how young they were and how, like, knew they were is that they sound like they've been doing this forever. It's like fully formed. The lead singer's voice is incredible. Yeah, and it's wild. I mean, obviously nowadays, you know, with the internet, you can go online and find, you know, rock from, you know, many different eras. So even though, even though you're 22, you can be deeply proficient in, you know, kind of classic rock and metal, which they really, really are. You said fully formed, I think that really puts it perfectly. There's a track on the album called Throw Yourself to the Sword, and it feels like full-on metal, and the riffs feel like right out of like a classic Judas Priest record, just big, thunderous, full-blooded sound, where like it's rock with a capital R-A-W-K. There's another one called voir dire.

which translates to speak the truth. And I think it might be my favorite song on the record. You know, on top of the sound, on top of how great they are, like, just as musicians, as performers, the lyrics, they mean something. Like, these are angry lyrics. They're frustrated with, you know, American globalism, and it is a scathing song. Like, they're talking to people who are, you know, doing nothing, who are pretending everything's fine, not speaking up.

It's quite moving. It's emblematic of the idea, like, I want people to be writing music for a reason. Like, why are you making this music? And when a band like this that comes out, they're so young, they're drawing on all these classic sounds, but there's still this sense of urgency behind it. There's still a sense of, like, we're playing music because we have stuff we want to say. And I really appreciate that. And I also appreciate at the same time, as thunderous as the riffage is, as heavy.

and gnarly as this record can sound, you get a track like Punishers, which Hasley's big, thundery guitars, but there's also a keen sense of pop songcraft under the surface of it, where it's not just blowing your eardrums out and hoping you don't notice, you know, a lack of craft. There's real craft underneath it.

There's a great quote from one of the band members, Chloe de Saint-au-Ben, I hope I'm saying that right. And she says, the four of us are free spirits with multiple interests, and there's no limit or power dynamic that can derail us. I was like, that's awesome. I love it. Long may they rain. That is Dee Spitz. Their new album is called Something to Consume.

Next up, a new album from Frost Children. Frost Children's new album is called Sister. No talking. Let's get to moving how I want to get you all on my birthday. So Frost Children is a sibling, now in New York, Angel and Lulu Prost. I guess I would describe it as hyperpop. So Frost Children is a sibling duo, originally from St. Louis, now in New York. Angel and Lulu Prost, not Frost.

Together they make, I guess I would describe it as hyperpop, thrashy, sleazy, genreless, you know, incorporating the sounds of punk, electroprose. pop, synth pop, emo, memes, you know, just a collision of anything and everything, but also kind of channeled into a sound that I think will be accessible to fans of EDM and people who just really want to hear hard-driving, hook-filled, danceable, frenetic, intense music. Yeah, this both made me feel nostalgic for the aughts and also made me feel like old, at the same time. I was like, you're going to say old, right?

Honestly, when it started, I wasn't expecting to enjoy this album as much as I ended up enjoying it. It really is unpredictable, and it's really strange. But it's also a lot of fun. And there's depth there. It's not just like, oh, it's like emo over, like, what sounds like Skrillix. There's more to it than that. Although you can really hear, like, if we want to give an example of, like, the emo influence on the vocals. A song like Falling, I think, really, really shows that.

Yeah, falling was the first track that really, really jumped out. I mean, it's early in the record where I was like, this is like EDM, you know, kind of a hook dispersal system of the variety that you would expect to hear in, you know, commercials for, for sodas or skateboards or whatever, you know, where it's like really, really driving hooks into your head with kind of this great energy and intensity. But it does feel like it's trying to sell me soda. But over time, you really get a sense that there's a method to this and that there's variety within this sound.

You know, there's a track later on called Radio, which features Kim Petrus and kind of leans into the kind of lovably trashy, joy-seeking quality that Kim Petrus puts into her music. And so it's kind of a collision of their two sensibilities through the filter of really danceable hyperpop music. That song specifically reminded me of a song by Justice called The Party. Immediately, I wanted to go out after I listened to this record. I was like, I have to go out and I have to dance. It sort of feels like, now this is maybe a reference not everyone will get, but there's a video game called Katamari Damasey. Oh, sure.

Okay. My son is a gamer. so I know it through him. You're a little guy rolling a ball, and that ball picks up. It sticks to everything in the universe. And this feels like if someone took one of those catamari balls and just rolled it through the internet from like 2006 to now. This album is barfing internet all over the place.

But it's like there are moments where I felt like the scale was going to tip and it would be too over-the-top emo or too hyper-poppy. But then they would balance it out with like these sort of deep, cool EDM beats or like glitchy, strange stuff that almost got industrial sometimes. And so like over and over again, I'd be like, whoa, this is actually really cool. Yeah, well, absolutely. It's cool and it's inventive and it's fun. And it's appropriately debauched. You know, there's a, there's a track called Dirty Girl, you know, where the song really just has this like twisted, gnarly, freaky sound befitting its title.

I mean, you keep seeing news stories right now, but how kids, the kids aren't going out anymore. They're not going to parties anymore. This album gave me hope that maybe they are, or they're partying online in the metaverse, which I hope that's not it. That is Frost Children. Their new album is called Sister. We've got one more album we want to talk about in-depth, as well as a lightning round of some of our other favorite albums out today, September 12th. But first, let's take a quick break. From NPR Music, it's New Music Friday.

I'm Stephen Thompson here with Raina Doris from WXPN and World Cafe in Philadelphia. We've got a lightning round coming up of some of our other favorite albums out today, September 12th. But first we want to talk about one more record. It is a self-titled album from the English singer-songwriter Mark William Lewis. Mark William Lewis is a singer-songwriter from London. This is his second full-length album. It's his first thing he's put out on A-24's music label, which, if you know what A-24 is, they usually release movies.

They're known for kind of putting out, I would say, either horror movies or unsettling indie movies. Elevated horror and weirdness, but very, very artistically sound. The studio has a feel to it. And not every movie studio has a feel in 2025. And I think that them releasing this album makes a lot of sense because there is certainly a sense of artistry. There is also something kind of eerie and unsettling about this record.

Mark has this great, low, sometimes, you know, almost growling voice. Like, it feels dark. But the production on it is really interesting and cool. there's a song still above where it breaks into this echoey harmonica and where it almost becomes like psychedelic and I wasn't expecting that at all it's interesting because he keeps his voice

in kind of a as you said growly but like kind of a deadpan a little bit of a you know a little bit of a deadpan but the music around him it's like a field of vines you know they're just like vines kind of constantly criss-crossing each other and tendrils reaching out.

And, you know, you mentioned the harmonicas. The arrangements are really soulful and evocative and full-blooded. And that helps make those kind of seemingly deadpan vocals even more expressive than you realize. Yeah, I mean, that is such a great way to describe it. And, you know, on top of that, sometimes he plays around with vocals in the production, too. It kind of reminded me of, like, Alex G.

and the way he'll play with vocals. If you listen to the song 17, there's this weird production with these strange little high-pitched backing vocals that come in. It makes it, again, kind of creepy, but it also adds to the atmosphere of the song. I was taking note,

kind of as this album went along, kind of laid on this record, you have a couple of songs that are really weaving in these beautiful guitar lines. There's a track called Silver Moon. where the guitar is kind of propelling the song along and this hook is kind of burrowing under your skin and that sort of lets you into this voice.

You know, he grew up steeped in poetry. You know, like kind of raised studying poetry. And that really comes through, you know, in these songs. But man, the arrangements around those poetic words are just so gorgeous. Coming back to the lyrics for a second, The song Tomorrow is perfect. When I was listening through this album the first time,

that was probably the first song that caught me. And he sings a line where it's life moves so fast these days. You never get a chance to just be alone. Now, I probably heard that while I was sitting looking at my phone at, like, Twitter or something stupid. And it really hit. I was like, oh, God. Yeah, how often are you really alone?

Very rarely. On a down. And I do think that this album is the kind of album you listen to on your own at night or like on a gray, rainy day when you want to feel sort of melancholy and introspective. I initially listened to it on a sunny Sunday afternoon and it kind of messed me up a little bit. It really brought out the clouds. Exactly. But they're beautiful clouds.

They are beautiful clouds. That is Mark William Lewis. His new album is called. Mark William Lewis. Now, Raina, we could not possibly get to every great album out today. September 12th, September is a very, very, very busy month for new music, as you of all people, know better than anyone. So we wanted to hit people with a lightning round of some of the other notable releases out today. I'm going to kick us off a couple years ago, the English dance pop singer Sophie Ellis Bexter enjoyed a major kind of unexpected. career resurgence when her song Murder on the Dance Floor was used in the very memorable final scene of the movie Saltburn. Now she's releasing her eighth album and it's full of spirited, spiky, catchy, timeless pop, but with a bit of the perspective that comes with midlife. Appropriately enough, Sophie Ellis Bexer's new album is called Paramenopopop.

Asher White has a new album called Eight Tips for Full Catastrophe Lipping, and this album is just buzzing with creative energy and emotion. I feel like this record could feel chaotic and it kind of does, but it's kind of a gorgeous chaos. It goes from overwhelming, noisy art rock to laid back and surprisingly catchy little melodies. And that contrast, it just underlines how emotional the record is. That's Asher White. New album is eight tips for full catastrophe living. Jade first found I'm from a photograph I'll into love you

like the sky is holding Jade first found success as a member of the group Little Mix. They were a British pop band formed as part of the reality competition show The X Factor. But Jade's solo work is far from prefab pop music. She's bold and strange and genre defiant in hyper, superactive songs that incorporate electro-clash, techno, theatrical Eurovision bangers, rap, and so much more. Jade's new album is titled, That's Showbiz, Baby, in all caps. This is a new album from FruitBats, and Eric D. Johnson, of FruitBats, is on this with very, very minimal accompaniment.

So it feels super intimate. It feels like you're sitting next to him at a campfire. And there's a song on it called Creature from the Wild that seems like it might be either about a stray cat or doggy had and it made me cry. The heads of fruit bats baby man. Only rain to feel your curve, stars for a roof and a stone for a pillow. Then you came to a creature from the wild, but you behaved just a child, and you saved up for a while.

Finally, the jazz drummer and all-around polymath Kasa Overall has a new album that combines his love of jazz and his love of hip-hop, specifically by covering classic hip-hop songs as jazz. That means back that as up, that means nothing but a G-thang, and that means an all-time great hip-hop song that has always nodded to jazz, digable planets' rebirth of slick, parentheses, cool like that. Kasa Overall's new album is called Cream. So, Raina, you and I, to prepare for this show, listen to a live. lot of music that is out today, September 12th. This is the part of the show where we put each

other on the spot and ask what is the one song you are most taking away from this experience that you will relive and replay and celebrate the longest. Well, you know, there's a lot to choose from, but I have to go with cups and cakes from Spinal Tap featuring Paul McCartney, partly because I got to, I heard it before anyone else, and I got to put in the the World Cafe Work Slack. Oh my God, guys. I just heard the new Paul McCartney song. It is mind-blowing.

Then I got one of them to come to my desk and play them cups of cakes and brought me a lot of happiness and joy. Cups and cakes, cups and cakes, please make sure that nothing breaks. The China's so dear and the street's so clear, and I'm glad that you are here. So for me, sometimes a good pallet cleanser ends up being more than just a good palette cleanser. I'm going to go with the big, booming, throwback metal riffs of DeSpits and their song Throw Yourself to the Sword. It's awesome to hear a bunch of 22-year-olds who seem to have listened to the same music I was listening to, like, 38 years ago when I was a small town nerd trying to look cool. D-Spits is cooler than I have ever been or ever will be. That's D-Spits and the song, Throw Yourself.

to the sword. And that is our show for this week. Thank you, Raina Doris, for taking time out of your week at World Cafe and WXPN in Philadelphia. Hey, thank you. Anytime. This is so much fun. It's always a pleasure. If you enjoyed this week's show,

we always appreciate a positive review on Apple or Spotify or whatever app you're listening to right now. This episode was produced by Noah Caldwell and edited by Otis Hart. The executive producer of NPR music is Soraya Mohamed. We'll be back next week to discuss new with Kyle Meredith from WFPK in Louisville.

Until then, take a moment to be well, give yourself a moment to be truly alone, and treat yourself to lots of great music.