New Releases: The Weeknd, Charli xcx & Troye Sivan, FKA twigs, Tate McRae and more

Welcome to New Music Friday, your one place to discover the biggest new song, album and DVD releases.

We have a bumper release schedule this week - let's get straight in to singles.

The Weeknd makes his widely anticipated return to pop with the lead single from his forthcoming next album, Hurry Up Tomorrow. The brand new track - Dancing In The Flames - fits in well sonically with the other two records (After Hours, Dawn FM) that form a loose trilogy connected by Dante's Inferno. Which is all to say, it sounds like another stylish slice of 80s-influenced synth-pop. No-one does it better!

Italian EDM outfit MEDUZA recruit HAYLA to see out summer 2024 on sublime dance smash Another World this week.

Proving that BRAT summer truly does transcend seasons, Charli xcx & Troye Sivan team up for a glitchy remix of Talk talk, turning it into a kitschy little bop into something a little more sensual and chaotic. It's a good primer for the duo's upcoming Sweat tour. Also shoutout to Dua Lipa's duolingo!

Following her massive breakout success last year with the one-two punch of Greedy and Exes, Tate McRae is back to collect her things this autumn, It's OK, I'm OK sounds like another hit in waiting for Tate, a bumping hip-hop-leaning track produced by Swedish mastermind ILYA (Ariana Grande). 

One of the most important artists of her generation, FKA twigs has finally stumbled out from hibernation with one foot in the club. Bracing new single EUSEXUA is apparently indicative of twigs's forthcoming third album of the same name, bringing together decadent beats inspired by the queer scene in cities like Berlin with ethereal imagery and vocals.

Speaking of breakouts, it's been a thrill and joy to see Welsh pop queen CATTY release the best music of her career so far this year. With her debut solo EP on the way, as well as a headline show at Lafayette in November, CATTY debuts another acid-edged pop rock banger in the form of Actress, which tells the tale as old as time when the person you were dating switches everything up on you, and you realise you were actually dating Meryl Streep all along.

Speaking about the process of writing Actress, CATTY told us: "Being mean doesn't make me feel good, it makes me deeply uncomfortable to upset people and it's infuritating because I've let stupid people get away with stupid sh*t. Sometimes, youi have to call a spade a spade. [Actress] follows the theme of the EP, which is if you act against me, I won't be part of your downfall...but I'd be lying if I wasn't secretly hoping for it."

Let's get catty!

We're also saying a lovely welcome back to Grace Davies, who starts the campaign for her forthcoming debut studio album with the wistful A Wonderful, Boring, Normal Life, a breezy chamber-pop tune all about yearning for life's little pleasures.

When asked about the new single (and when we can expect that album), Grace said: "A Wonderful, Boring Normal Life was written on the brink of my artist career (or so I thought) when I was so ready to give up. [Making it] made me do a complete 180 and slap myself in the face for being so silly. It's the first time I've ever felt completely myself as an artist, I'm feeling like I'm finally making the music I should have all along. First single out now, album out next year. Let's go!'

Meanwhile, over on albums, we have a brand new Snow Patrol LP to dive into (The Forest Is The Path), which is the band's first record since 2018. In the time since then, member Johnny McDaid has made many, many chart-topping hits as a songwriter with Ed Sheeran, so expect big things come next chart week. 

Indie pop darlings London Grammar are also back this week. The Greatest Love will be their fourth album, and the follow-up to 2021's chart-topping Californian Soil. 

Other albums arriving tonight include moderl-turned-singer Suki Waterhouse's Memoir Of A Sparklemuffin (what a title) and Nilufer Yanya's My Method Actor.