The 80 Best New Zealand Albums of the 2020s So Far

If you happen across Dispeller, you’ll definitely be making return visits.

Ben Woods is an artists’ artist, which is something that’s becoming more and more of a rarity these days. On his beautifully crafted second album, he sounds wholly within himself, in a positive sense, eschewing mass appeal in favour of experimenting and exploring.

To listen to Dispeller is to enter Woods’ rustic Lyttelton world, searching through the shrouded abstraction for little delights, moments of light, curious details to discover.

Dispeller really is a wondrous little record. It makes so much sense that Woods was asked to support Jessica Pratt on her New Zealand tour. —Conor Lochrie

Already chosen by us as one of the best New Zealand albums of 2023, it’s no surprise to see the Auckland band’s fourth album here.

“A naturalistic songwriter with few current equals, the return of Hollie Fullbrook’s band was one of the best things to happen to New Zealand music in 2023,” we wrote at the time.

“Fullbrook has been creating some of the most moving introspective folk music as Tiny Ruins for over a decade now, each album growing in stature since the last, and Ceremony is her most fully realised project yet.”

Tiny Ruins landed their highest-ever local chart debut with Ceremony (No. 9), which also received a well-deserved four-star rating from us.

“Grief isn’t just sadness,” Hollie Fullbrook told us following the album’s release. “Funny things happen during the worst times of your life. Lightheartedness is always there. Beauty is always there.” —Neil Griffiths

Since the turn of the 2010s, Ruban Nielson has shown remarkable consistency leading Unknown Mortal Orchestra to become a global music presence, and V is the sound of an artist still discovering more about his music and himself.

V drifts through disco-funk, soft psych, and hazy Hawaiian textures with ease.

It’s a sprawling, sunlit double album from Nielson, less immediate than past UMO records, but richer in mood and memory. A vibe-heavy slow burn that rewards deep, unhurried listening. —Sarah Downs

Perhaps recency bias is a factor, but Marlon Williams’ most personal release to date already feels like an Aotearoa classic.

Some albums are about coming home — to language, to roots, to the sounds that shaped us. Te Whare Tīwekaweka, his first album fully in te reo Māori, is one of them.

On the thoughtful collection of waiata, his velvety voice glides over light bluegrass, bright pop, and gentle choir harmonies. What gives it real weight is the sense of reconnection – to whakapapa, to whenua, to the spirit of te reo.

The lyrics feel honest and open, which is no small feat for a first-time te reo songwriter. He’s supported here by artists like KOMMI, who help bring his vision to life. —Sarah Downs

What’s in a name? As Purple Pilgrims, Clementine and Valentine Nixon formed a dream pop duo that drew comparisons with such genre luminaries as Beach House and Cocteau Twins; they were creating music of a rich quality, in other words.

In 2023, however, the sisters decided to perform under their birth names as Clementine Valentine, which resulted in The Coin That Broke the Fountain Floor, a collection consisting of majestic and mythical properties.

The Purple Pilgrims sound was refined on their debut as Clementine Valentine, the sisters sounding as graceful and connected as they’ve ever been. They raise their voices to the heavens throughout, reaching higher and higher in search of divine exultation.

Perhaps because they’re now performing under their own names, the album finds the sisters delving deeper into their own history and folklore, fully embracing their place in a lineage of folk troubadours and spiritual singer-songwriters; lesser musicians could be swept away under the weight of such history, but Clementine Valentine know they deserve to continue their family’s musical tradition.

What’s in a name? A hell of a lot it seems. Long may Clementine Valentine continue making music together being truly themselves. —Conor Lochrie

Born in Lower Hutt, Vera Ellen found her way to Los Angeles for a while before returning to Wellington, where she found a stable home for her to properly pursue music.

She’s done so in style: Vera Ellen is a performer of exciting swagger, capable of producing both quiet and loud indie rock anthems at will.

If 2021’s It’s Your Birthday hinted at much to come, Ideal Home Noise was her confirmation. Born out of a troubled period of Vera’s life, her latest full-length record journeys between light and dark, hope and despair, the tracks anchored by lyrics that makes a listener feel less alone in facing their own battles.

Some artists would kill to have just one potential singalong anthem like “Homewrecker” on their album, but Ellen has another few to boot, particularly “Imposter” and “Carpenter”. The latter of these tracks is a towering achievement of songwriting and scope, a grand centrepiece to the album.

Despite facing competition from the likes of Tiny Ruins, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, and Home Brew, Ellen won the 2024 Taite Music Prize for Ideal Home Noise. —Conor Lochrie

Hey U X was a clear sign that New Zealand had another new pop superstar in its midst.

Hey U X was primarily written by BENEE and frequent collaborator Josh Fountain, who also executive produced the record. It features guest appearances from Grimes, Lily Allen, Flo Milli, Gus Dapperton, Mallrat and Bakar, evidence that the best in class wanted to work with BENEE.

The album, which firmly put BENEE on the global map, includes her platinum hit “Supalonely” with Dapperton – the obvious standout, and a track she even performed on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

But the whole album’s full of sweet, breezy pop that’s fun and easy to listen to. BENEE’s follow-up album is one of the most eagerly anticipated releases in New Zealand music.  —Sarah Downs

When she’s not performing as alt-pop wrecking ball Theia, Em-Haley Walker is TE KAAHU, a Māori language artist who can leave a listener spellbound with one waiata.

She produced one of the most beautiful debut albums in recent memory with Te Kaahu O Rangi in 2022, some of which was stunningly brought to life in a Rolling Stone AU/NZ In My Room session.

Drawing from a deep well of personal meaning, the singer-songwriter’s beautiful te reo Māori compositions are the work of an artist creating with pure and sincere purpose.

TE KAAHU racked up the accolades for the special record, including a Taite Music Prize nomination and a Best New Artist nod at the 2023 Rolling Stone Aotearoa Awards. —Conor Lochrie

David Dallas rejects excess. No fluff, no fronts, just weighty verses, beats with purpose, and a voice allergic to bullshit.

Vita, his first release in seven years, doesn’t reintroduce so much as reckon. The Papatoetoe rapper maps the cost of silence — restless, disconnected, locked in.

What follows is lean and deliberate. “First Love” cuts quick and clean. “All Gas” revs like an F1 car: slick 808s, sharp hooks, no brakes. Nick “41” Maclaren, from the Frontline days, keeps pace with the kind of precision only a duo this seasoned can deliver.

As always with Ddot, there’s wisdom tucked in the lines — if you’re listening. “They think it’s cool not to care, never saw the appeal,” he spits on “Better in Real Life”, advice worn thin by repetition. “Lose No Sleep” brushes off the fakes, while “O.T.T” cracks open a little vulnerability. But the focus never flinches: “Still the man, guess I’ll go and prove it then.”

Dallas never left. He just waited for the moment to matter. —Sarah Downs

The sixth studio album from Stan Walker was the singer’s first sung in te reo Māori — talk about monumental. Combining a selection of greatest hits alongside some new tracks, Te Arohanui was a deeply personal record.

“It was always meant to be. It happened at a time where there’s a shift within the people, within everybody who calls Aotearoa home,” Walker told Newshub. “Music is the most powerful gift and tool that we have. I feel like our reo is like poetry and waiata. It’s something that teaches, educates, heals, uplifts, breaks down and gives people permission to feel in ways that they couldn’t feel.”

After hitting the top 20 on the New Zealand Albums Chart, Te Arohanui was nominated for Best Record at the 2022 Rolling Stone Aotearoa Awards. —Neil Griffiths

“New Zealand music’s best kept secret,” we claimed about Erny Belle in 2023; two years later, that somehow still seems true.

Aimee Renata seemed to arrive fully formed as the artist Erny Belle when her independently released debut album, Venus Is Home, so impressed listeners that it was picked up for a repress by Flying Nun. Everything about her appeared to be perfectly aligned for stardom: the poetic storytelling, the idiosyncratic style, the mysterious allure.

Her second album, Not Your Cupid, is equal parts elusive and invasive, melodies evading capture before planting at the forefront of one’s mind for minutes, hours, even days. The arrangements are grander and more pristine here than on her debut album, which is what all good second albums should achieve. Her Pacific-pop palettes sound wholly original, soaking up myriad influences to create something unique.

There’s also something elementally Kiwi about the Erny Belle project. Her music is deeply rooted in rural Aotearoa, specifically her family’s hometown of Maungaturoto, the swaying songs evoking images of rolling North Island hills and quiet regional towns happily lost to the modern world.

New Zealand music’s best kept secret deserves to find wider renown. There’s an alternate musical universe somewhere where Erny Belle has ascended to the level and reach of Aldous Harding, or Marlon Williams, or Tiny Ruins. But time is on her side — as she sings in Not Your Cupid‘s haunting closing track, “I want to see the world someday / That’s where I’m going.” —Conor Lochrie

Time will be kind to Lorde’s most misjudged album.

New Zealand’s biggest music star entered the world of her third album in need of a deep reset. Melodrama (2017), and its subsequent world tour, had left her on the brink of burnout, feeling disillusioned with her increasing fame.

She returned to Auckland, retreating almost entirely from public view. She reconnected with family and friends in Aotearoa, a necessary tonic for the homesickness she experienced on tour. Then came an illuminating trip to Antarctica, where she was made physically privy to the reality of our earth’s climate crisis.

Is it any wonder, then, that the album that followed this period of Lorde’s life celebrates the natural world and revels in the quieter life? “I just had to breathe / And tune in,” as she repeats in hushed whispers in “Oceanic Feeling”, Solar Power‘s sweeping closing statement.

Before that cathartic mantra comes 10 tracks that urge listeners to slow down, slow all the way down, and find meaning and joy in the smaller things in life.

Solar Power is Lorde at her most mellow, scaling everything back — sights and sounds, lyrics and rhythms — to their rawest elements. In this way, it’s the polar opposite of the dramatic grandeur of Melodrama, swapping maximalism for minimalism, intense synth lines for blissed-out acoustic guitars.

Throughout the album, Lorde sounds serene, at peace with herself and nature, basking in the glow of sincere love songs — to the family she missed, to her dearly departed dog, and to her homeland.

Solar Power is also a very New Zealand album, which is perhaps why the reception to the record was so muted overseas.

If you really want to understand the subtle pleasures of Solar Power, maybe you need to know how it feels to always be just a couple of hours away from a beach by car; to be surrounded by immense mountains and fjords and lakes; to have memories of golden summers that will keep you warm for a lifetime.

“I hope that Kiwis can hear a bit of home in it,” Lorde — aka Ella Yelich-O’Connor — told RNZ in 2021. “Although I wasn’t trying to capture everyone’s New Zealand, I hope that there are those moments where you’re like, ‘Oh, that’s what a really early morning on a summer’s day feels like for me too.’ I hope that you have those moments.”

Solar Power may border on the self-indulgent, its holistic messaging sounding dangerously close to the words of a neo-hippie, self-help guru. But we need to remember that Lorde has been battling global fame since she was 16 — that would make any young star desire solitude.

Now though? Four years after the retreat of Solar Power, Lorde is back in the big city, ready to reclaim her identity — in more ways than one. —Conor Lochrie

While discussing his new album, MOKOTRON had a pensive thought: “2024 was the year that Māori electronic music came to the fore – is this the start of something or the end?”

Listening to WAEREA, there’s simply no way that this is the culmination of anything.

MOKOTRON is the moniker of Auckland-based Māori producer and academic Tiopira McDowell, who explores his Indigenous identity and more in bass-heavy electronic music. On WAEREA, his vision is informed by the past but his sound faces the future.

These tracks are electronic production par excellence.

Opening track “KŌKIRI” hits hard, and then the rest of WAEREA hits even harder. As McDowell told RNZ, he makes music as an outlet for his thoughts, choosing not to keep everything bottled up inside. And one doesn’t need to understand the language of these tracks to be affected by the waves of emotion, the force of feeling behind them.

MOKOTRON’s truly Aotearoa electronic sound overwhelms on record, but it’s even better in person. That’s why the artist has developed such a strong reputation in Tāmaki Makaurau’s live music scene. So put on WAEREA, be overwhelmed by MOKOTRON’s Māori Bass, but make sure you catch him playing this album live.

“There’s no way that MOKOTRON won’t be a serious contender at next year’s Taite Music Prize and Aotearoa Music Awards,” we tipped in 2024, and how right we turned out to be. WAEREA is a mighty album. —Conor Lochrie

What a difference a new decade can make. In 2017, Fazerdaze seemed primed to be New Zealand’s next breakout global success thanks to her acclaimed debut album, Morningide.

Then she disappeared from the spotlight. Fans were left to wonder what had happened to the indie-pop artist, hoping that she’d eventually return with new music. A strong stop-gap EP, Break!, was shared in 2022, satiating her fervent fanbase until her second album finally arrived last year.

The strengths and highlights of Soft Power are so many that fans would be forgiven for selfishly wishing this album had been released much sooner, but Fazerdaze wasn’t ready to give a record like Soft Power to the world back then.

The longer wait only benefited her comeback album, though, which signals an exciting new chapter in her life and career.

“[…] the Aotearoa artist broadens her lush sonic palette with heavier synths, electronics, and scuzzy rock touches, pushing the boundaries of her indie pop while retaining the raw intimacy that defined her quietly brilliant earlier work,” we praised in a four-star review.

“It’s this delicate yet powerful balance of grappling with intense change — ultimately seeking compassion for herself — interwoven with her expanded “bedroom stadium” sound that allows Soft Power to strike with gentle force, like the warm glow of sunlight breaking through after a long, dark night, recharging your spirit and lighting the way forward.”

It’s the story behind the album that means Soft Power was an unavoidable choice for the top 10 of our list.

The passing of time is unforgiving for artists, particularly female pop artists, so for Fazerdaze to return with such an accomplished, uncompromising album is a testament to her talent. New Zealand is lucky to have her back. Critics clearly agree, with Fazerdaze winning big at the 2025 Aotearoa Music Awards.

Read Fazerdaze’s recent Rolling Stone AU/NZ interview here. —Conor Lochrie

The enchanting and enigmatic Princess Chelsea still feels like a cult artist, which is baffling to consider.

Over her first four albums, Chelsea Nikkel conjured glistening pop gems with ease, and her fifth release as Princess Chelsea, Everything Is Going to Be Alright, is no different.

She explores the length and breadth of the genre on the album, brandishing baroque touches when she feels like it, performing as ethereally as Kate Bush if the moment calls for it; there hasn’t been a catchier pop song than “Forever Is a Charm” in a long time. In a just world, Princess Chelsea would be a global pop star.

Having admitted to feeling a little “underrated” in her home country, the tide seemed to change following the release of Everything Is Going to Be Alright. Following her Taite Music Prize win, she was also nominated for Best Record and Best Single at the 2023 Rolling Stone Aotearoa Awards. —Conor Lochrie

“We’re a tight-knit group,” The Beths’ lead vocalist and songwriter Liz Stokes told us in 2022. “We like being together, playing together, and touring together. You have to because with the amount of time you spend together it’s like a marriage!”

It’s lucky that the quartet that makes up The Beths — Stokes, lead guitarist Jonathan Pearce, bassist Benjamin Sinclair, and drummer Tristan Deck — get on so well, because navigating the pressure brought on by the band’s press can’t have been easy.

Just consider some of the praise the unassuming Aucklanders have received: “One of the greatest indie-rock bands of their time,” Rolling Stone wrote in 2022; one of their very best songs, the exuberant “Happy Unhappy”, was hailed as “the song of the summer” by the same publication four years earlier; “it’s an absolute thrill to think about where this young band will take their talent next,” Pitchfork pondered at the end of a highly positive review of the band’s debut album, Future Me Hates Me (2018).

Where they initially headed after that release was 2020’s Jump Rope Gazers, which earned a lukewarm reception from critics; while still a solid offering, their second album lacked the immediate infectiousness of their stunning debut, and felt like a slightly safe swerving of ‘second album syndrome’.

Their third album, though? Expert in a Dying Field sped the band forward with exhilarating abandon, chasing the thrilling hooks and adrenaline of Future Me Hates Me. The tempo was revved up, the shackles entirely removed. “The formula is being maintained,” Jonathan Pearce said. “But with this record, we’ve just completely leaned into what we think the Beths is.”

The album showcases The Beths at their absolute peak (for now). Power-pop was having quite the moment in 2022, but Expert in a Dying Field stands up to comparison with anything by Alvvays or Cheekface or any other proud purveyors of the genre.

Underpinning the world-class production and relentless energy is some of the most incisive songwriting in indie rock. Stokes forensically considers the realities of modern relationships in a way that will either have you screaming into the nearest pillow or nodding along knowingly, depending on the track. There are many relatable lyricists around, but rarely ones who write with such precision.

Focusing too much on one member, however, is anathema to The Beths’ style. Stokes is a supreme talent, certainly, but it’s the band unit that ensures Expert in a Dying Field is a truly great album. Don’t let the addictive immediacy of these power-pop anthems fool you — each track is carefully constructed, filled with intricate touches that might only be picked up with repeat listens; a drum fill here, a careening riff there. And each member is so in tune with one another that it all sounds exceptionally seamless.

“Expert in a Dying Field is the album that cements Stokes and her tight-knit cohorts’ reputation as one of the best New Zealand bands of their generation,” we wrote as 2022 came to a close. Multiple accolades and worldwide tours later, how correct that statement now seems. —Conor Lochrie