Today marks the first New Music Friday of 2026. The New Year is well underway and the joy of new releases from top artists fills the air. This week was stuffed with major festival lineup drops and today brings fresh albums and singles. Here’s a look at the best new records out this week. Keep reading for a full curation of new music top picks.
The Best of New Music Friday:
Dry Cleaning – Secret Love
Dry Cleaning, the London rock band that have become the hallmark of the stream-of-consciousness lyrical style, have released their third album Secret Love. This group have capitalized on singer Florence Shaw’s witty words and wry observations for the better part of a decade. The band is very fine with having this eerie identity. With that, they decided the only thing they could do to push themselves into a more obscure realm is to join forces with someone who could challenge them into going further into that style. After interviews with countless producers, Dry Cleaning picked baroque pop icon Cate Le Bon to help make this new record even more surreal than its predecessors.
The resulting Secret Love is a match made in a mirage. If heaven is blissful, then Dry Cleaning and Le Bon are absurd.
The band announced this new album alongside the release of its lead single and the record’s first track “Hit My Head All Day.” The first few notes on this song feature deep breaths trapped in echoes, an impactful way to make Shaw’s voice sound trapped and panicky, while also evolving Dry Cleaning’s audial versions of chronic anxiety. This sound, by the way, is very prevalent in Le Bon’s discography.
Dry Cleaning’s other secret weapon is the use of effects by guitarist Tom Dowse. Dowse is the band’s founder, and many of the band’s initial releases were instrumentally written around his wiry solos and screeching tones. He begged Shaw to recite her poetry as spoken word over him. That was the first successful fusion for this very unique band.
Dowse’s guitar playing is legendary, though it is easy to view and hear it as an afterthought to Shaw’s vocal delivery. Go back and listen to every Dry Cleaning album, and it’s easy to find he’s a legend in his own right. But the best example of his work might be found on Secret Love. Not because it’s the wildest guitar playing known to man, but rather because it is contained within each verse. Dowse’s guitar playing is controlled and mastered, keeping everything tight and organized, which is also entirely true (for the first time) of this Dry Cleaning album. It creates a steady head bop on “My Soul / Half Pint” and a sense of euphoria on Secret Love’s title track. Dowse also plays a more “picky” style on this album, as shown on the song “Let Me Grow and You’ll See the Fruit.”
For fans of the band, this record is a mystery bag of new things to enjoy. They’ll take this record on the road with shows in the United Kingdom and Europe this winter and North America in springtime. The band’s live shows are excellent. Until then, Secret Love is worthy of intentional listening.
New Music Friday Top Picks:
Bruno Mars – “I Just Might” [Atlantic]
Robyn – ““Sexistential” / “Talk to Me” [Young]
Zach Bryan – With Heaven on Top [Warner]
Which of these tracks from New Music Friday will you add to your favorite playlists today? Any we missed? Let us know in the comments or on Instagram!
Ben is a music journalist living and working in Chicago. They joined Beyond The Stage as an intern and have stayed on the staff for several years. Now serving on the editorial board, Ben is proud to be BTS’ Music Projects Manager, coordinating coverage between international record labels and our staff. Ben has interviewed, photographed and written about bands from across the world. Ben has lived all over the United States working in television and media. They are an Emmy Award-winning writer. Ben can be found spinning records as ‘DJ Wearing Sunglasses’ in clubs and basements across the US.
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