Kawaii metal superstars BABYMETAL have pulled out all the stops for their sensory-overloading fifth album. It’s their first with new member Momometal (Momoko Okazaki), who joins original vocalists Su-metal (Suzuka Nakamoto) and Moametal (Moa Kikuchi) under the auspices of producer/Svengali Kobametal (Key Kobayashi). *METAL FORTH* is packed with globe-trotting guest appearances from artists as varied as Poppy (“from me to u”), German electronicore group Electric Callboy (“RATATATA”), Russian deathcore dealers Slaughter to Prevail (“Song 3”), and New Delhi metal crew Bloodywood (“Kon! Kon!”). Elsewhere, the young Japanese trio are joined by Canadian metalcore group Spiritbox (“My Queen”), Texas prog instrumentalists Polyphia (“Sunset Kiss”), and Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello (“METALI!!”).
Sabrina Carpenter spent the decade after her debut single, 2014’s “Can’t Blame a Girl for Trying,” patiently finding her voice. Her persistence finally paid off in 2024, when the absurdly catchy singles “Espresso” and “Please, Please, Please” launched the former child star into a whole new realm of pop stardom. Her sixth album, August 2024’s *Short n’ Sweet*, reintroduced the pint-sized singer as a sharp-witted diva with a honeyed voice and a fondness for campy innuendo—and earned Carpenter her first two Grammys (Best Pop Vocal Album, Best Pop Solo Performance). Just over a year after *Short n’ Sweet*’s release, the biggest breakout pop star of 2024 fires off its follow-up, *Man’s Best Friend*, which carries on her streak of concise 12-track records that draw from her love of ’70s disco and ooze snarky, self-deprecating charisma. “Oh, boy,” Carpenter chuckles to begin lead single “Manchild,” which taps the usual co-writers (Jack Antonoff and Amy Allen) for a country-tinged ode to the incompetent, unavailable men she can’t seem to shake. Romantic disappointment prevails, though the 26-year-old maintains her sense of humor as she wishes an ex a lifetime of celibacy on “Never Getting Laid” and drunk-dials old flames on the twangy “Go Go Juice.” Steeped in the nostalgic sounds of her heroes (Dolly Parton, the Carpenters, ABBA, the Bee Gees), Carpenter’s lyrics approach the drudgery of modern dating with a wink and a well-timed dirty joke. “I promise none of this is a metaphor,” she sings on the New Jack Swing-inspired “House Tour,” then she carries on: “I just want you to come inside.”
After a tumultuous 2024 that saw The Black Keys cancel their tour, Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney turned struggle into art on the duo’s aptly named 13th studio album—*No Rain, No Flowers*. “It totally kind of fucked our plans,” Carney tells Apple Music of the scrapped shows. “We took the time that we were going to be on tour, and we went back into Dan’s studio, and we just recorded a bunch of music.” The other kids from Akron ultimately decided to build on the creativity of their last full-length. “*Ohio Players* was a deeply collaborative album we made with other musicians—I guess rock stars. Beck and Noel Gallagher. Heroes of ours, you know? And guys who’ve helped us out throughout the years in different ways,” Carney says. “For this new album, we just went one step further and we wanted to do some more collaborations, and we looked at some people who had worked with artists that we liked.” That includes bringing on Lana Del Rey co-writer Rick Nowels (“No Rain, No Flowers,” “On Repeat,” and “Kiss It”) and Kacey Musgraves-favorite Daniel Tashian (“The Night Before,” “Babygirl,” “Man on a Mission,” and “All My Life”) as well as hip-hop producer Scott Storch (“Babygirl” and “Make You Mine,” the latter also with legendary songwriter Desmond Child). These fresh voices infuse Auerbach and Carney’s blend of rock with a bright passion (and more piano than usual)—but blues, disco, and psychedelia still all find purchase here. There\'s even room for throwback cuts like “Down to Nothing” and “A Little Too High,” plus some Nashville licks on “Neon Moon.” Perhaps the title track sums up their current journey best: “Live long enough, and you will be burned/But all these little messes/Are only little lessons we\'ve learned.” Or, when life gives you rain, you make flowers.
When Conan Gray announced the arrival of his fourth studio album *Wishbone*, he shared in a statement that he wrote the album in secret. While touring his 2024 album *Found Heaven*, he would finish shows and sketch demos with zero stakes attached. He showed the songs to Dan Nigro, who helped Gray record his first album, *Kid Krow*, way back in 2020. The tracks, created with the sort of vulnerability only achievable when writing without an audience in mind, ended up becoming the bones of *Wishbone*, Gray’s cathartic exploration of his foray into adulthood. With his signature blend of beautiful vocals and earworm melodies, Gray opens up his diary to sing about the way romance has changed his life—for better and for worse. The powerful “This Song” finds Gray admitting that it’s easier for him to sing about love for his unspecified partner than it is to utter the words face to face. “Romeo,” on the other hand, begins with a playful horn intro before slide guitar and a shuffling rhythmic groove betray the poison at the heart of his feelings: “You took away my will to live,” he admits.
ADÉLA refuses to be tamed. She first turned heads on the *Pop Star Academy: KATSEYE* documentary series, pairing powerhouse performances with an outspoken demeanor that kept online discourse buzzing long after the show ended. In her next act as a solo artist, the Slovakia-born, LA-based singer and dancer channels that fearlessness into her debut EP, *The Provocateur*. Across seven songs, she distills her experiences chasing stardom into maximalist electro-pop—sometimes dark and jagged, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, but always bold and unflinchingly honest. “Superscar” delivers chilling commentary on industry exploitation—“Maybe I should count myself so lucky, so lucky/All these dirty hands they wanna touch me, so touch me,” she sings—while Britney-esque club thumper “SexOnTheBeat” flips hypersexualization on its head, its chopped moans giving the track a self-aware edge. On the Grimes-produced “Machine Girl,” she turns her gaze to the audience, calling out their thirst for drama. And over the industrial churn of “FinallyApologizing,” ADÉLA leaves parasocial haters no doubt: “You won’t get what you want from me.”
Ask Chevelle vocalist and guitarist Pete Loeffler why the band decided to call their 10th album *Bright as Blasphemy* and he’ll essentially punt. “A big part of a writer’s job is to come up with cool-sounding shit,” he tells Apple Music. “Which is really hard to do, especially because so much has been taken. I hadn’t heard this one before.” If that seems like an evasive response, that’s because it is: Loeffler and his brother Sam (drums) are hoping the record speaks for itself. “Digging in and figuring it out is part of the fun,” he says. “Maybe drawing your own conclusions is the best part. I once read that when you look at a new painting, you should try to find something in it that you like, even if your first thought is that it’s not your particular style. It’s practice for being open-minded.” It’s unlikely that Chevelle fans will find *Bright as Blasphemy* to not be their style. The first two singles, “Rabbit Hole (Cowards, Pt. 1)” and “Jim Jones (Cowards, Pt. 2),” deliver the type of big riffs and soaring hooks the Chicagoland rock band has built its multiplatinum career on. Lyrically, both songs offer critiques of government, religion, and technology. “The way I see it, shouldn’t all three of those things be critiqued?” Pete says. “It’s important to be careful how much you trust and read on the internet. Searching for the truth is full of nasty craters to fall in.” The Jim Jones reference is especially poignant. The infamous cult leader convinced nearly a thousand of his followers to kill themselves (and their children) by drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid in 1978. “It’s one of the biggest abuses of power by someone who brainwashed his people,” Pete says. “It’s a reminder for us to be careful about the people that we follow and idolize.” For *Bright as Blasphemy*, the Loeffler brothers decided to produce themselves after a four-album run with Joe Barresi at the helm. “We wanted to switch it up, and ultimately we wanted to use the tools we’ve learned in writing and recording and see where we would end up,” Pete says. “The recording took place over two years’ time, \[because\] it’s not always easy to tell if something is fully cooked and done when there’s nobody to take it away from you.”
There’s some heavy reverse psychology at play in Ava Max’s third album, from the fake petition posted on DontClickPlayOnAvaMax.com (which led to a snippet of an unreleased single) to Max’s bewildering disappearance from social media in the weeks leading up to its release. Cosmic-brain marketing strategy or otherwise, the “Sweet but Psycho” singer follows up 2023’s *Diamonds & Dancefloors* with 12 tracks that split the difference between ’80s synth-pop, ’90s Eurodance, early career Gaga, and *Blackout*-era Britney. She toasts to blissful independence on “Lovin Myself” and “Sucks to Be My Ex” and goes blue jeans and apple pie mode (while channeling a-ha) for “Wet, Hot American Dream.” And over the title track’s four-on-the-floor thump, Max puts on shades, pops her collar, and reveals the trollish title’s full meaning: “If you didn’t come to dance/DJ, don’t click that.”
In 2024, Three Days Grace surprised their fans by welcoming original vocalist Adam Gontier back into the fold. The singer had left in 2013, prompting the multiplatinum Canadian rock group to bring in Matt Walst, younger brother of bassist Brad Walst, to fill the vacant lead vocalist position. After three successful albums with Walst at the helm, Three Days Grace are back with *Alienation*, their first with two lead singers. “During the pandemic, Matt and Brad were talking about the idea of me coming back,” Gontier tells Apple Music. “Brad brought it to me, and it seemed like the right time. I had a lot of life to live over the past 10 years to get to the place I’m at now, which is a good place. So the timing just seemed perfect.” As Matt Walst tells it, the transition from one lead vocalist to two was less difficult than it might seem. “It was actually pretty effortless,” he says. “We got in a room and started writing this record and it just happened so easily. It didn’t take a lot of effort to make it work.” Lyrically, Three Days Grace returned to the theme of isolation that they’ve touched upon consistently since their 2003 debut. “The idea of feeling isolated and feeling like you’re on your own, even when you’re in a group of people, we’ve written about that a lot over the years,” Gontier says. “I think it’s something we all tend to feel at some point.” Below, he and Walst discuss each track. **“Dominate”** Matt Walst: “We have a song called ‘The Mountain’ from 2018, and it’s like a sports anthem. We wanted to write another anthem that you could play in the dressing room or work out to. We played Scotland a few years back, and between every song the crowd would chant, ‘Here we, here we, here we effing go. Here we...’ It was so cool, and I thought it’d be great to put that in a song. Finally, I had my chance.” **“Apologies”** Adam Gontier: “Our drummer Neil \[Sanderson\] started this one with Dan Lancaster, one of the producers of this album. Dan brought in a few different things that we wouldn’t normally do when we’re writing, and I think you can hear that on ‘Apologies.’ It’s a little bit outside the norm for us, because the verses feel a little poppier and then it’s got a pretty deep, heavy chorus. Lyrically, it’s about people around you offering to help in certain situations when you don’t necessarily feel like you deserve that help. I know I’ve been in that state quite a few times.” **“Mayday”** Walst: “‘Mayday’ is about the state of the world and how crazy and confusing it is and not knowing who’s piloting the plane. It’s like you’re on this flight and nobody’s at the wheel.” **“Kill Me Fast”** Gontier: “It’s another one we worked on with Dan Lancaster, and another one that’s outside of the norm for us. Lyrically, it’s about being in a relationship with somebody that you feel has one foot out the door but they’re still dragging you along. The song is saying, ‘If you’re going to leave, just do it and quit dragging me along for the ride.’” **“In Waves”** Gontier: “Over the last bunch of years, we’ve all lost people in our lives that we love, and ‘In Waves’ is about that. It’s about still feeling that loss around you, feeling that person around you still, and not necessarily being able to let it go—always feeling their presence or hearing their voice. It’s a pretty personal song, and it’s definitely one of my favorites on the album.” **“Alienation”** Gontier: “I feel like ‘Alienation’ is a song that could have been on our \[2006\] album *One-X*. It’s got classic Three Days Grace vibes. Lyrically, it’s that whole thing about feeling isolated and alienated that I was talking about earlier. It’s one of those things a lot of people go through and can relate to. When I first started writing music at 14 years old, I was listening to bands like Nirvana and Soundgarden and Alice In Chains and Pearl Jam, so that whole vibe, and their theme of isolation, was a big influence.” **“Never Ordinary”** Walst: “‘Never Ordinary’ is just about finding somebody and being outcasts together, always being different or outsiders, but breaking through and just being who you are no matter what the situation.” **“Deathwish”** Walst: “This is about not worrying about tomorrow and living in the moment and not really caring what happens the next day. I feel like I used to live in that world a lot in my earlier days in my music career, when I was just partying and just going all out.” Gontier: “Yeah, we all used to do that. It’s like Matt said in an earlier interview: Probably when we were sponsored by Jägermeister. We used to just go mad without any regard for tomorrow.” **“Don’t Wanna Go Home Tonight”** Gontier: “We all really love this one. It has an older, vintage feel to it, and that was the goal. I remember driving around the small town that we lived in—Norwood, Ontario, a town of 1,500 people—driving around back roads there, just smoking joints and not caring about anything else. The song is sort of an homage to that, because we just don’t do that anymore. But those were good times, man.” **“In Cold Blood”** Gontier: It’s a song we wrote about a relationship. It usually takes two people to mess something up. You’re letting your love die together. You’re both killing it in cold blood.” **“The Power”** Gontier: “This is also a relationship song. It’s about feeling like you’re powerless because you’re so deep in the relationship and that person has so much power over you. The song is about that realization of ‘I don’t want that anymore. You have all the power, and I need to take it back.’ So it’s about getting out of that relationship to get your power back, get your freedom back.” **“Another Relapse”** Gontier: “Way back before the band was even signed, I had my issues, and I battled addiction and stuff. And it’s still a constant thing. It’s always there. So, the song is kind of self-explanatory in that way—just being aware of relapse and what it means. I was in and out of rehabs and in and out of using so many times over the years, but thankfully not anymore. Musically, this song is a little bit different too, so we thought it was a good closer for the album.”
Ten albums is a landmark in the music business, a testament to perseverance. For Chicago punk rockers Rise Against, the milestone sparked a new kind of self-awareness. “This is the first time I think I’d ever paid attention to the number of records we have, and 10 seemed like a lot,” vocalist and guitarist Tim McIlrath tells Apple Music. “Not a lot of my favorite bands made 10 records, you know what I mean?” To mark the occasion, Rise Against decided to switch things up. After making six of their last eight albums with producers Bill Stevenson and Jason Livermore, they enlisted Grammy-winning producer Catherine Marks (St. Vincent, boygenius) to take the wheel for *Ricochet*. “After 25 years, we’re sort of congealed in our way of working and sounding,” McIlrath says. “No matter how hard we try to break out of that, there’s going to be some of that still in us, which I think gives you the Rise Against sound. So we picked a producer who is really outside the box for us, and largely unfamiliar with the Rise Against world. Therefore, she’s not beholden to any idea of what we should sound like.” Lyrically, McIlrath zeroed in on the theme of interconnectedness. “What I’ve been thinking about since our last record is just how desperate we are to isolate ourselves from each other, but how unavoidable it is that we’re all connected,” he says. “We try to crawl into our own silos and listen to our own news channels and streaming algorithms, and we react to things as if we’re not connected—not realizing that everything we do is so connected. I kept picturing this room that we’re all firing guns in. You may have intended to hit this target, but you actually hit someone else—or yourself—because all the bullets are ricocheting everywhere.” Below, he details each song on the album. **“Nod”** “When our songs fall into the political bucket, they’re often call-to-action songs, but this one was less of a call to action and more of a question of ‘Are you in this with me? Are we together? Am I alone?’ And I think that our shows can feel like those rallies in a sense, where just for a moment you feel like you’re not alone. You realize that there are people that are like you next to you. ‘Nod’ is talking about the nods we give to each other, those unspoken signs we give each other to let people know, ‘Hey, I see you, you see me.’ When I grew up in the late ’80s and ’90s, if you walked on the street holding a skateboard, you were nodding to every single other person with a skateboard out there. Or maybe you’re wearing a Descendents T-shirt. I think we’re always nodding, signaling different things to each other.” **“I Want It All”** “We came up with a real simple riff that felt powerful, and we decided not to overthink it. I think that Rise Against has lots of strengths, but if I was to speak about our weaknesses, we can get lost down the rabbit hole of a song and overthink it until we’ve just sucked the life out of it. So we decided to just put this one out there—big riff, big lyrics, a statement song. Lyrically, it’s about not settling. The punk rock world is steeped in punk rock guilt, the idea that you should be ashamed of any success you have. That’s the world we all grew up in. So we turned that on its head: Whether it’s musically or politically or with your career, don’t be afraid to want it all.” **“Ricochet”** “There’s a line in the song that goes, ‘Don’t turn away as the bullets ricochet.’ I kept picturing the world turning as so many horrible things are happening in it, and the things that we find ourselves doing on a Friday night, whether it’s at a Rise Against show or at a club or whatever, and meanwhile people are starving in Sudan. The reality of life is that we certainly can’t be emotionally engaged 100 percent of the time, but sometimes I feel like we can be turning away from it too much. So it’s saying: Don’t forget what’s happening in the world. Don’t forget that the life you live is sometimes built on the backs of people who aren’t living it.” **“Damage Is Done”** “This was a fun song to put together because it’s based around a Rise Against riff that’s about 15 years old or maybe even older. It’s something we’ve been playing around with for a long time but we’d always just hit a dead end with. Usually when you hit enough dead ends, I think as a musician it’s your sign to move on. There’s lots of songs I would give up on that I never thought about again. But this one nagged at me, and we always talked about it as the one that got away. This time, we finally turned it into a song. So, for us, it’s like a throwback, even though no one’s ever heard it before.” **“Us Against the World”** “This is about how easy it is to feel overwhelmed with what’s going on in the world. And it’s a reminder that anybody who ever changed anything meaningful in society always at first felt alone. So it’s normal to feel like it’s you against the world. That’s where lots of good things get started. The song is saying, ‘Can’t you see it’s always been us against the world?’ And maybe it’ll always feel like that, but it’s okay.” **“Black Crown”** “I co-wrote this with Andy Hull from Manchester Orchestra. I flew down to their place outside Atlanta, and we just jammed and hung out and wrote this one all in an afternoon, just him and I in a room with acoustic guitars and sort of singing at each other. That was fun, because I’d never really done that with anyone outside of the band before, so the song is probably a little bit of a curveball in the Rise Against world. Lyrically, Andy had read an article about a guy who was a doomsday prepper. Instead of trying to actively fix and repair the world, these guys are trying to survive and endure. But if you survive a nuclear apocalypse in your bunker or whatever, the world won’t be a place you want to live in.” **“Sink Like a Stone”** “When I was in high school, I had a summer job as a lifeguard. Every year I had to get trained in CPR and first aid, and one of the things they would tell you is that if someone was drowning and you had to save this person, you’ve got to make sure you take care of yourself first. You can’t create a second victim. If you go out and try to save some guy who’s twice your size, he could very well take you down. And now there’s two people drowning. So you’ve got to make sure you’re looking out for yourself. If you can’t help yourself, you can’t help anybody else.” **“Forty Days”** “This one’s just about persistence and patience and dedication and commitment to something or someone. I will wait here no matter what’s coming for you. No matter what happens as the waters rise, no one’s going to make me move. I’ll be right here. It’s a commitment and a dedication to an idea or a person. As for the number, it’s the old ‘40 days and 40 nights’ thing, like Moses in the desert. I went to Catholic school K through 8, so there’s too much Bible in me no matter what I do.” **“State of Emergency”** “I feel like the news and media around us is so driven for profit nowadays that the only way to keep us really engaged is to convince us that we’re always in some state of emergency. There’s always some breaking news, there’s always something happening that’s super urgent today, right now, that you need to drop everything and be fully panicked about. And I think there are things on this planet that we should be fully panicked about, but the biggest story of the day is often something we won’t be able to remember tomorrow. It creates a lot of anxiety for people, and this is the world our kids are growing up in.” **“Gold Long Gone”** “I think this taps into some of the ideas behind our last record, *Nowhere Generation*. There’s a line in the song that says, ‘Tell me what the hell is going on/We’re digging in the mines for gold long gone.’ I have this image of people who went out to the gold rush late, and they’re just chiseling away at the rock while somebody is standing behind them knowing that there’s nothing left. Meanwhile, this person has turned their life upside down just to dig away hoping to find that gold. It’s talking about the American dream and asking if it’s still there. The idea that you’ll be rewarded if you work hard is becoming less and less true. It’s asking if there’s anything left worth working for.” **“Soldier”** “‘Soldier’ is about blind faith in an idea or a concept and how dangerous that can be, and then what it’s like to walk away from it, especially if it’s been something like an article of faith. It’s the idea of somebody tearing off their uniform, pulling off the patches and being like, ‘I’m not going to fight this fight anymore.’ It’s about critical thinking and making sure you’re doing things for the right reasons. Always be analyzing the causes you’re fighting for. You’re allowed to evolve as a human and no longer identify with those causes. It’s like an anti-follow-the-leader song.” **“Prizefighter”** “This is talking about the world that you’re thrust into if you decide to start a band, write a song, and acquire an audience. It could be any kind of art—writing, acting, anything where you rely on an audience. It’s not something I ever thought about when I picked up a guitar with my friends in a basement and started playing songs and doing this. We didn’t have any delusions of grandeur that we’d still be doing this 10 records later. But it comes with all these extra dynamics between you and your audience that no one really prepares you for. We have an amazing audience. I’ve never met a Rise Against fan that I don’t like. But we’re still our own people, our own band. We’re going to decide what we do, what we sound like, who we play with, and where we play. We’re not beholden to anybody. A prizefighter fights for themselves.”
*IVE SECRET* is the second Korean mini album of 2025 for IVE, the K-pop girl group known for hits like “LOVE DIVE” and “After LIKE.” As the title suggests, the six-track album is an exploration of the lesser-known, complex emotions behind the glossy facade of the fourth-generation team, composed of members Gaeul, Yujin, Rei, Wonyoung, Liz, and Leeseo. Sonically, this means a more subdued sound for IVE. Gone are the soaring choruses of “I AM” and “REBEL HEART.” Instead, dreamy lead single “XOXZ” builds to a rap-chant chorus of the title slang, created to mean “I love you, good night, see you in my dreams.” IVE pairs the low-key chorus with a lulling, melodic “ooh-ooh, ooh,” a subtle and powerful reminder of their vocal prowess. The album’s “secret” theme is more explicit in tracks like “Dear, My Feelings,” a song about looking back at old diary entries with fondness, and “♥beats,” a laidback electropop bop about love explored on a digital landscape. Wonyoung participated in writing the lyrics for “XOXZ,” while Liz co-wrote the lyrics for “Midnight Kiss,” a midtempo pop ballad about missing a lover.
Nigerian Canadian dynamo DEBBY FRIDAY took home the Polaris Music Prize for her 2023 debut *Good Luck* by channeling a lawless, anything-goes spirit where R&B melodies were genetically spliced with industrial-shocked electronics and dissonant post-punk textures. However, after relentless touring landed her in the sickbed with shingles, FRIDAY hit the pause button and refocused her energies into music that forsakes her jarring, genre-mashing juxtapositions for a more holistic, healing aesthetic. With *The Starrr of the Queen of Life*, she embraces rave-based therapy, and for a quick vibe check, look no further than the album’s back-to-back bangers “All I Wanna Do Is Party” and “In the Club,” which respectively deploy chirpy dance-pop hooks and sleazy ghettotech beats to help you exorcise your anxieties on the floor. But if the album sands off some of *Good Luck*’s jagged alt-rock edges, it’s still teeming with FRIDAY’s signature DGAF bravado, whether she’s flexing her rap flow amid the strobe-lit acid-house delirium of “Lipsync” or reasserting her self-worth on the euphoric, breakbeat-powered statement of purpose “Bet on Me.”
Ever prolific, Charley Crockett wasted no time plotting a follow-up to his acclaimed 2025 studio album *Lonesome Drifter*, releasing this next LP just a few months later. The second installment in Crockett’s planned The Sagebrush Trilogy, *Dollar a Day* is another compelling collection of hardscrabble road songs and down-and-out vignettes, each elevated by Crockett’s masterful voice and keen sense of detail. Once again produced by Shooter Jennings (Brandi Carlile, Tanya Tucker), *Dollar a Day* opens with its title track, an overture of sorts on which Crockett laments the hard knocks of cowboy life, with a barely-there arrangement that puts the spotlight where it belongs: on his rich, agile voice. “Crucified Son” incorporates shades of gospel and Southern rock, with a laid-back but brassy performance from the Texan singer-songwriter. Travelogues abound, as he navigates the “mighty long road” between the Lone Star State and the Rocky Mountains on the aching and soulful “El Paso to Denver,” while “Tennessee Quick Cash” tells a tale familiar to anyone who’s fallen on truly hard times.
Climbing Mount Everest isn’t for everyone. It’s one of the most challenging and expensive endeavors in the world. Which is exactly why the Grammy-winning rock band Halestorm decided to call their sixth album *Everest*. “We’ve been the same four members for 22 years,” vocalist and guitarist Lzzy Hale tells Apple Music. “We met when we were teenagers, and we’ve been on this climb up our proverbial mountain ever since. It’s like climbing Mount Everest: Why do you do it? For us, there might not even be a peak. But we enjoy the climb and the conquering of each step.” For *Everest*, Hale and her bandmates—guitarist Joe Hottinger, bassist Josh Smith, and drummer Arejay Hale (Lzzy’s little brother)—traveled to Savannah, Georgia, to record with producer Dave Cobb, best-known for his work with country musicians Chris Stapleton, Sturgill Simpson, and John Prine. “We did it in pieces over probably a year and a half or two years,” she says. “After writing the song ‘Everest,’ we realized that this album is about our personal mountain, our personal journey.” From rockers and ballads to ragers and back again, Hale took us on a track-by-track stroll up *Everest*. **“Fallen Star”** “This song was born from a riff that Joe was messing around with that we were calling ‘Reverse Jaws’ because it was kind of an inversion of the *Jaws* theme. Lyrically, the notion of the fallen star is about our relationship with our fans. It’s kind of a somber love ballad about missing them while we’re off the road, when you feel this tug toward this relationship. I never imagined we’d have so many amazing fans who tell us how this music has helped them.” **“Everest”** “This is our proverbial climb. This is the struggle. My brother and I have been doing Halestorm since I was 13 and he was 10. The 28th anniversary of the band is August 9 \[2025\], the day after the album is released. We started likening this band to people who climb Mount Everest, which is an equally crazy thing to do. There’s bodies along the way. You could die doing it. It’s the same with rock ’n’ roll—not many people make it through in one piece. Keeping your sanity, keeping away from things that could harm you or the band or your relationships, leaving a normal life behind to pursue this—it’s a crazy concept.” **“Shiver”** “I started out writing this song from the perspective of the guys in my band, trying to love me through all of my moods and my craziness. You realize there are times when you’re hard to love. And I’m so grateful for the boys in my band and the people around me that still believe in me through all of that. But once we finished the song, I realized it has kind of a double meaning. I love the life that I’ve chosen with every inch of my being. I’ve taken it so far that even if I wanted to give it up, I can’t.” **“Like a Woman Can”** “This song was inspired by an interview with Meryl Streep that I saw. She was talking mainly about being in the acting business, but she said this amazing thing: ‘For hundreds of years, women have learned the language of men. We know how to dress, we know how to act, we know how to make you love us. But for the longest time, many men have not tried to learn the language of women.’ So, this song is not a Mars vs. Venus song; it’s more asking Mars to try to understand us better. As a proud bisexual woman, that aspect comes into play, too. But it’s not an ultimatum. It’s just saying, ‘Why can’t you understand me in the same way a woman can?’” **“Rain Your Blood on Me”** “I’ve written anthems for the ladies before. That’s definitely part of my MO for almost every record, but this is our rager. It’s a song about being a woman in this business, and being a woman in general, and what it takes to let yourself be known and be seen. When we started playing in the bars, we’d be carrying equipment in, and people assumed I was the merch girl. And then, when we were shopping for labels, they would say, ‘Women in rock aren’t really a thing right now. And there’s already Amy Lee, so we’ve got one.’ So, you have to grab onto this defiance, this kind of fuck-you attitude and be like, ‘I’m going to do it anyway.’ It’s also maybe a little bit of a euphemism for period blood.” **“Darkness Always Wins”** “This was the first song we wrote for the album. Right before we got on a plane to go meet our producer, Dave Cobb, for the first time, Joe and I were sitting out on our porch, and we were just frustrated with the way the world is right now. No matter how hard you try to be a good human and put good things out there, it seems like evil always prevails and the good ones always go first. Joe said, ‘Why does the darkness always win, man?’ And I was like, ‘Write that down.’ Usually, when we write about something dark, I feel this internal responsibility to have a little light at the end of the tunnel. But the truth is, we don’t know if there will be a happy ending. All I know is that we have to get up and keep trying.” **“Gather the Lambs”** “We had a bed of music for this, and it was a little apocalyptic. But we were kind of stuck lyrically. Dave Cobb, in his infinite wisdom, said, ‘Let’s go on a field trip.’ We went to this old cemetery in Savannah, which is spooky in itself with all the Spanish moss. Dave suggested we look at some gravestones for inspiration, so the first verse of this song is almost directly from a gravestone we saw. The first line was, “Gather up the lamb of God, he’ll be here soon.’ The idea for the song became, ‘At the end of the world, who do you want to be with when it all goes down?’ For us, it’s each other. We know each other more than our own families do at this point. We’re like war buddies. Nobody will ever understand me like these guys do.” **“WATCH OUT!”** “This is such an angsty tune. It’s part pep talk for myself when I’m feeling like, ‘Can I actually do this? Can I get through whatever I’m going through?’ With every tour we do, I feel like I’m not the same person walking back in my door as I was when I walked out. It’s like you’re always putting on some new armor, but you want to show the world what you’ve got. It’s also kind of a warning. There have always been certain people in my life trying to make me into something that I’m not. So, I’m saying, ‘You never saw this coming. You have nothing to do with this.’” **“Broken Doll”** “The house studio we recorded at is right next to a river. Every now and again, we’d go out with acoustic guitars to see what magic we could capture. I had this title rolling around for a couple of days, and it ended up being almost a throwback ’90s thing. I got to kind of capture a little Courtney Love in this. But the subject matter is about getting older in this business and understanding that I’m not the new kid on the block anymore. Everything in this industry is changing, but I’m not going away. You’re going to be hearing a lot more from me.” **“K-I-L-L-I-N-G”** “This is a very ADHD type of song that was born in the studio from our rhythm section. Our guitar player was visiting his mom, who lived not too far away, and I heard the other guys jamming in the main room. I started putting a bunch of words together, just gibberish at first, but it ended up being a song about depression, and the confusion and loneliness that goes on with that. You see everyone around you as having their act together, but you see yourself as broken pieces. You’re trying to reignite yourself.” **“I Gave You Everything”** “This song is dedicated to some people in the business that I had trusted but ended up not having my best interests at heart. The blessing and the curse of me is that I will trust anyone until you give me a reason not to. Thankfully, I have some guys in my band that are the opposite, and they’ve always been protective of me with that. But I’ve been burned before, and when that happens, when that trust is broken, you feel like you’re kind of falling apart and have to put yourself back together and have the bravery to say, ‘I can’t allow you to be a part of this anymore.’ So, this was that song for me. It was very cathartic to talk about it.” **“How Will You Remember Me?”** “I’ve always wanted to write my own funeral song. With everything I’ve done in my life, if it was to all end tomorrow, what did I leave behind? My bandmates and I would also joke about, ‘Do you get to see stats?’ Like, after you die, do you get to see how many times you almost died, but didn’t? How many times did I almost fall through a grate on the side of the street? It started out as that kind of goofy conversation, but the real question is: How will you remember me? Ultimately, the only thing that matters is that you’re remembered, and that you left this world a little better than when you came into it.”
In 2025, K-pop “girl crush” group IVE released their third Japanese EP, following 2023’s *WAVE* and 2024’s *ALIVE*. The five-track album from the group known for their self-empowerment anthems (e.g. 2023 megahit “I AM”) and elegant personas includes two original Japanese tracks. “DARE ME,” an encouraging song about trying even after having made a mistake, is IVE’s first Japanese original soundtrack contribution. The upbeat track is part of the opening credits for Nippon TV series *Damemane!*, a live-action series about a former child actor who becomes a talent manager in the cutthroat entertainment world. Title track “Be Alright” takes on similar themes, with members Gaeul, Yujin, Rei, Wonyoung, Liz, and Leeseo using the comforting lines “it’s gonna be all right” and “don’t worry about tomorrow” as melodic mantras. IVE gets more vulnerable on the Japanese versions of three previously released tracks: “Acciendo,” an edgy electropop song that instructs listeners to “watch me, don’t touch me”; “Blue Heart,” a Wonyoung-penned track about staying outwardly unmoved as an idol in the face of criticism; and “WOW,” a rhythmic pop song about when opposites attract.
*hello, welcome to my album. this album is called people stories—bc each song is written about a story i was told by a fan, friend or loved one. creating this album has been tremendously healing for me bc i realized i see myself in every people story i’ve written. it’s reminded me that no matter how singular our lives feel—we all live very similar lives. being alive is a beautifully imperfect experience and i hope through this album u can come to accept and appreciate this human experience we share. i think sharing our stories is the first step in feeling less alone or broken. making this album has done that for me—and i hope listening to it can do that for you. thank you & enjoy :) ps: this album is executive produced by the lovely V Ron—thank u for creating the sonic universe of this album.*
