1. Hozier

Hozier gifted us with his self-titled album in 2014, and we finally, finally have new music. Last week, Andrew Hozier released an EP of four songs after four years. The EP is titled Nina Cried Power, including a song by the same name featuring Mavis Staples. The other three songs are titled "NFWMB," "Moment's Silence (Common Tongue)," and "Shrike." Moment's Silence is fairly similar to Hozier's sound in his first album, but the other songs seem to be moving in another (fantastic) direction. Hozier took to Twitter right before the release of the EP, addressing its sound: "this collection of songs is an example of what I've been working on in the last while and will be a small taste of what is to be expected from the upcoming album." Hozier will also be touring North America from September to October. I can't wait.

2. Childish Gambino

In May, Donald Glover took over Saturday Night Live - both as the host and as the performer, under his stage name, Childish Gambino. During his performance, he debuted a brand new song, "This is America." The song's lyrics are very politically heavy, as is the music video. Gambino got a lot of attention for the song, especially since he hadn't put out any music since Awaken, My Love! was released in 2016. Then, in July, Gambino released the Summer Pack, featuring the songs "Summertime Magic" and "Feels Like Summer." While it doesn't have a title or a release date yet, there is an album on the way before the end of 2018. Donald Glover has already started his "This is America Tour" - I attended the first night of the tour in Atlanta, Georgia last week. As soon as he came on stage, Glover told us that we were lucky to be there because "This is America" is Childish Gambino's last tour ever. Whether or not Donald Glover will continue to make music and/or tour without his stage name is unknown, which makes this last Gambino album so much more important and highly anticipated.

3. BROCKHAMPTON

The boyband announced earlier this year that their fourth album, Puppy, was to be released in June. But in May of this year, founding member Ameer Vann was accused of sexual misconduct and was removed from the band. BROCKHAMPTON decided to cancel the rest of their tour and push back the release of their album in order to figure out where to go from there. As of late, the band has renamed their album to Iridescence and announced on Twitter that the album will drop this month. Member Kevin Abstract (Ian Simpson) also took to Twitter to announce to fans that Iridescence "doesn't sound like Saturation," which is the band's album trilogy that was released in 2017. Since Ameer Vann's departure and the announcement of Iridescence, BROCKHAMPTON has put out three singles: "1999 WILDFIRE," "1998 TRUMAN," and "1997 DIANA." All three of the songs feature audio clips at the beginning. Jazze Pha introduces the band in the beginning of "1999 WILDFIRE," which he has also done for artists like Ciara. The intro of "1998 TRUMAN" features a monologue from Jim Jones, the leader of the Peoples Temple cult. An annotation by Genius Lyrics suggests that Jones's anti-government messages fit the theme of the 1998 movie The Truman Show. "1997 DIANA's" intro and outro are both a group of children counting down from ten to zero. Kevin recently took to Twitter again about the album: "not tryna lead anyone on or anything i just want us to keep making stuff we're proud of and put it out when we're ready i mean it from the bottom of my heart when i say thank you for your patience. iridescence." BROCKHAMPTON has also announced their world tour, which begins later this month (catch me at the October 14th show!).

4. Young the Giant

The band's fourth studio album, Mirror Master, is to be released on October 12th. After the release of Home of the Strange in 2016, the band got to work on the new album. They kept up with shows and festival appearances, but this is our first album in two years. So far, Young the Giant has released "Simplify" and "Superposition," both of which are very sweet and upbeat love songs. Along with their album, Young the Giant has released dates for a U.S. tour, which will occur from September 15th to December 2nd (catch me at the October 27th show!).

5. The 1975

The most obscure band on the planet. In 2016, our ears were graced with I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it and ever since then, lead singer Matty Healy has done everything in his power to confuse his fans on what comes next. But as it seems now, we have an album coming soon. November 30th to be exact. Titled A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships, the album was originally meant to be the third installment of a trilogy of albums by The 1975, but Matty now says that the album is only meant to represent "where we (the band) are now." The past few months have been filled with obscure Tweets and Instagram posts from the band, and even billboards and ads around England. The album appears to be an installment of Music For Cars, but there has been a lot of confusion on what that means exactly. But the concrete stuff that people can understand is just as exciting - like a tour! The 1975 launched a merchandise preorder today through their website that includes clothing items, accessories, and the album in different medias. The website notes that each order of merchandise comes with a digital download of the new album once it comes out, and a presale code for the worldwide 2019 tour based on your location. In addition to the tour, the merch drop also included the track list of A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships.

https://the1975store.com/products/a-brief-inquiry-into-online-relationships-cd

"Give Yourself A Try," "Love It If We Made It," and "TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME" have all already been released - and they're incredible. Their sound is changing in a remarkable way, and I'm counting down the days until the album and the tour (you know I got merch and a presale code!).