Avril Lavigne has been featured on NYLON's cover not once, not twice, but now--with this year's annual Music Issue--three times. But there's still plenty to talk about with our June/July star; not only does she have a new guy, a new record label, and a new(ish) clothing line Abbey Dawn, but also a new album. Though we have to wait until this fall to hear her fifth album, writer Liz Armstrong caught up with the Canadian singer-songwriter to get a preview. "This time it's not just all songs about relationships and dudes," explained Lavigne.

Before the issue officially hits newsstands on May 29, check out our sneak peek below along with exclusive outtakes from the shoot!

On her music industry origins:
"I wasn't the girl baring her midriff with backup dancers and a headset microphone. I came out and had a lot to say with my lyrics, and I played the guitar. I had a completely different getup, stage presence, everything."

On her new direction with this album:
"I just wanted to write songs and make something that was a little more artistic. I wanted to go down that road, I wasn't trying to write a big radio record."

On not holding back lyrically:
"Lyrically I pushed myself to talk about different subjects I haven't talked about before. I didn't want to be so simple. I tried to really express myself and go deeper."

On her fiance Chad Kroeger:
"He does what I do--he's a rocker, he plays guitar, he's onstage every night, he writes songs[....]We were having a really good time. We hit it off as writing partners, then friends, and we started dating last summer."

On always being totally honest:
"I'm so transparent. If I'm not being myself, I won't do well, and that goes for writing songs, work, relationships, everything. And if I'm not happy, people are going to know that."

Dress by AllSaints, necklace by Samira13

Shirt by Wasteland, jewelry by Vita Fede

Dress by AllSaints, necklace by Samira13

To kick off their new film division All Saints has just released New Music City--the first of many documentaries to be released by the British retailer. The film stars the Kings of Leon (try typing that band name out without getting Sex on Fire stuck in your head) and Turbo Fruits who all tell the story of why they've made Nashville their home, how they've established their new label Serpents and Snakes, and why their hair is longer than anyone else's in the industry. Watch the band and the city come alive:

Frances Rose - "Vampire"



This song by sisters Sarah Frances and Michelle Rose Cagianese first sunk its teeth into our subconscious as part of a MS MR mix late last year, and this past week the romantic-grunge-tinged electro-pop track got its official release on the heels of a buzz-filled opening gig for a secret Sky Ferreira show. Vampire bite or no, it may just live forever.

DIANA - "Born Again"



Good Listener's Canadian correspondents (we've got ears everywhere!) have been singing the praises of this Toronto art-pop quartet for months, so when the news that they'd signed with Jagjaguwar hit our inboxes this week, we were not the least bit surprised. The undulating, color-rich video for the first single off their self-titled debut is a million times more entertaining than a Magic Eye book (on acid), and provides the perfect visual counterpart to the song's sleepy yet impassioned vocals, shadowy synths, and breezy beats. We're not sure what they're being born again into, but if it's as much of a trip as this video implies, sign us up.

Badlands - "Sleeping Beauty"



Not too much is known about this dreamy downer-pop duo whose first track starting showing up on music blogs this week, but the Mazzy Star-struck track held together by a faint underwater heartbeat has got us intrigued to say the least.

Lucius - "Until We Get There"



After the demo version of Lucius' "Until We Get There" aired on an episode of New Girl last week, fans flocked to a YouTube upload of the song in the tens of thousands. We didn't see the episode in question, but from the sound of the song--a lush swirl of harmonies featuring the Lucius ladies at their most Lykke Li-like--we're guessing the soft drums kicked in at the start of a very bittersweet Nick-and-Jess montage. In exchange for an email address, get a free download of the song at the band's site, and relive whatever scene you like until the band's debut full-length comes out this fall.

Kitchen Party - 11th Floor (mix)



OK, naptime's over. Hit play on this mixtape courtesy of new Island signees Kitchen Party and get ready for a Massive Attack of spontaneous dancing.
MELISSA GIANNINI

"It's all happening--like the film, have you seen Almost Famous?" asks Tom Odell from his dressing room at the Late Show with David Letterman. The British musician is in New York for the very first time, about to appear on a US television show for the first time, and you can't blame him for getting caught in the moment.

The thing is, it's all been happening for Odell for quite some time. The classically trained pianist, after years of performing at open mic nights and playing with a band, struck out on his own and soon after was discovered by Lily Allen--who quickly signed him to her label. Before long, his music was being used in Burberry shows (Odell performed at the fall '13 show in London this past February) and helping him nab the Critics' Choice Award at the BRITs earlier this year (previous winners include Adele and Florence and the Machine before they made it big).

And now, with his debut album Long Way Down poised for release this summer, everything that's happening is now happening even more quickly, as we found out when we spoke with Odell. Here's why you should be listening, too.

Where were you a year ago? And did you ever imagine that you'd be about to perform on Letterman?
A year ago I was just beginning to start recording my album, so my head was very much in that space.

Does the album feel like a culmination of all those years you'd been performing, or does it really capture a moment for you?
I remember I wrote a song--it was the first song--and it was like from that point to when I finished writing, it's all about that period of time. It's not so much about my teenage years, it's more about what was going on when I was writing it.

What's the one thing you'd like people to get out of your music?
I want people to know that I'm not trying to hide behind anything, that I just want them to hear the emotions that are there and maybe they'll be able to relate to them. I try to make the album as raw and honest as possible with the lyrics, but also the music; I didn't want to use any auto-tune, I didn't want to add loads of sample beats or synthesizers. When I listen to the radio these days, I feel like people are like striving for this idea of audio perfection, and also lyrically music now is matching that, it's very guarded. And I really wanted to have flaws--you have all this technology around us, but it's never perfect, we're not machines and I wanted people to hear the problems of the album.

Was there anything that particularly inspired or influenced you while writing the album?
I've always been into American literature, particularly F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway and people like that, and also I like Terence Malick and Arthur Penn. I love films where you're made to empathize with a bad character and you understand him and he's got these kind of flaws, and in Badlands he's just going around killing people, but you feel him, you feel why he's kind of doing it. I love that romanticism. I'm very into my David Bowie and Elton John. I think what I like about a particular type of American music is [with musicians like] Bruce Springsteen, he writes about that sense of running from something and I can really relate to that. I think I've always related to that, and it's the freedom of it and the desperation. I come from quite a small town in England and growing up, I just had this annoying desire to get away, and I've permanently had it, and I don't know why--I love my family, I love my friends, but I found I was frustrated where I lived.

Now that you have escaped, what's the next thing you want to do?
I don't know what success is, but it's very dangerous if you start trying to please everybody, that's for sure. I always try to make music that is honest and raw--just as unguarded as possible--and also music that's just emotionally compelling and gets the hairs standing up. It's an amazing feeling and I've always tried to do that. That's what's most important to me, and anything else that comes with it? C'est la vie.
REBECCA WILLA DAVIS

Visit tomodell.com for more info.

High Wolf - "Kulti"



Fuel up for a weekend of self-discovery and wanderlust with this nine-minute psyche-island voyage of a song by High Wolf, off his new LP Kairos: Chronos, out June 4 on Not Not Fun. Reading this on Sunday? No worries. The track would also work quite effectively as a post-transcendence cool-down, I imagine. MELISSA GIANNINI

Club 8 - "I'm Not Gonna Grow Old"



If Abba were to go on "Holiday" with Madonna to the Fountain of Youth, this new track from Sweden's Club 8 would no doubt soundtrack the last leg of the trip. MG

The Love Language - "Calm Down"



Bored with your workout mix--or working out in general? Give this indie-pop track a spin and let the internal jumping jacks begin. MG

Girls Names - "Hypnotic Regression"



Model Jordann Ebbitt is appropriately "hypnotizing" in this haunting new video for "Hypnotic Regression," off the Belfast-based band's sophomore album The New Life, out now on Slumberland. MG

Wardell - "Call It What You Want"



Okay, I'll be totally honest: My brother-in-law is in Wardell, and I've known Sasha and Theo Spielberg since before I could stand on two feet. But even all nepotism and old boy's network aside, I honestly can't stop listening to Wardell. For those not yet familiar with the L.A.-based band, consider their latest track "Call It What You Want" a perfect introduction. Give it a listen--I've got a feeling you'll like this one. ALI HOFFMAN

We've been fans of Slacker Radio for some time now, mainly because it's one of the few music streaming services with content curated by humans. Meaning rather than a computer-robot-program processing what you listen to and spitting back out data of other music it thinks you'll like, there are actual radio disc-jockeys with extensive music knowledge carefully selecting which bands belong together and so forth.
And now, that person is us--well, kind off. Taking all the music featured in our last three issue (February, April, and May), Slacker's created an official NYLON station filled with all of our current favorite tunes. Oh, and did we mention it's free? Enjoy! ALI HOFFMAN

For a band named Carmen Villain, Carmen Hillestad is remarkably un-scary. The musician--she's behind just about every sound you hear on her debut album, Sleeper, which came out this spring--wanders into the NYLON office lugging around a guitar and a head full of perfectly messy hair. She towers over me--but then, that's to be expected, as before turning her attention to making dreamy-with-and-edge indie rock the half-Norwegian, half-Mexican London-based Hillestad was a model. A pretty big one, at that; she was, in fact, a onetime NYLON cover girl (check your archives for the February 2003 issue), but has since turned her attention to making other types of beautiful things. "Some people say [my music] is really dark but it's also kind of pretty," she explains, adding, "Go in there and give it a listen--I think it's best to sit down and listen to the music properly and pick out little things."

For someone who's never listened to Carmen Villain, what do they need to know going in?
It's not your little singer-songwriter, quirky, girly thing.

Sleeper definitely has a spine to it, which I love. Was having a bit of an edge to the music intentional?
It's weird because I didn't really think of a theme before; the recording process was so fluid, it wasn't meant to be an album at first and it grew and evolved as I was working on it. So it was basically more in retrospect that I was seeing [it], because I wrote everything within the same period in my life and personal crap, so it became a kind of dark place. When I look back on what I was going to name the album, I was looking and seeing if there was an overall feel, and it was certainly spinning through my mind the whole thing--yeah, it's depressing, but it feels like it represents a period of time in my life.

So there's significance to the title Sleeper?
I think it captures a few things; it's a state of mind and a state of not dissipating properly. But also, my family and my friends used to laugh because I just loved to sleep! But mainly it just feels like the right name for the overall thing.

Is there also a story behind calling the band Carmen Villain?
I wanted something else apart from my own name. Just previous associations with my name--it's weird because this feels more like me, but it's definitely not something I made to hide behind. It's definitely 100-percent me.

When was the moment you realized that you wanted to be making music full-time?
I've been doing music for a while, so it was more of an organic transition. I started out with a few songs and recorded and all that and it developed into an album and then suddenly...

Were you musical as a kid?
I played piano and clarinet when I was a kid, and guitar just kind of like everyone else, when I was 12-years-old or something--I just taught myself on guitar. But everything's average, I'm not very good at any of them, it's just like it does what I want it to do, so that's good. It kind of created this naive writing basis, and nice things come out of that sometimes when you're limited, you have to be more creative. But I'm definitely a bit better now so it's good; now I can experiment a little bit more.

But it was only recently that you decided to write an album?
We first started recording the album a year and a half ago--Jesus Christ, time flies! It's really scary. I started recording [with producer Emil Nikolaisen] not with the intention of it being an album really but just testing it out and seeing what would come of it and maybe release an EP or something. But then that turned out really well, all the songs sounded great, so the people that came by and listened to it they were like, "OK, you have to do an album." Then I went on and produced the rest and made it an album.

What's the songwriting process like for you?
It's very intuitive, but it's [also] kind of random, because sometimes a song might pop into my head and I'll be like, "Oh, great!" And then I'll try and get that out in recording and sometimes it works but most of the time it doesn't sound as good as it sounds in your head. But most of the time I'll start with an idea and then I'll build on that and that's really intuitive. Accidents happen and that sparks a whole new direction, and that's really inspiring.

Well I couldn't have you here and not ask about your NYLON cover!
Do you know what, I actually remember that quite well! I can't remember the name of the photographer now--I've a feeling it was some guy who did a lot of music photography, like an older guy? And I feel like he shot some really fucking amazing old school stuff. So I'm going to look it up! I might be completely wrong but this is in my head that's what it was. I was so young! Fucking hell, 10 years ago!

What's more exciting--being on a cover or putting out an album?
I'm definitely more excited about this now because I feel like I properly created something, but I'm really proud of the great stuff that happened, I was really lucky. I made a decent living and I paid for my own album with some of it and had some amazing experiences and met so many people. It was really good for a while! This is different, there is only so much you can apply yourself with when you're just doing modeling--for me, anyway. But it wasn't enough after a while.
REBECCA WILLA DAVIS
Click here for more info on Carmen Villain!

Bibio - "A Tout a l'Heure"



I've bookmarked this video for Bibio's serene "A Tout a l'Heure"--which features the songwriter's silhouette and backdrop filled in with contrasting super 8 footage--mainly for its ability to unmelt my brain after a week like the one I just had. Feel free to do the same. MELISSA GIANNINI

Thunderbird Gerard - "London Is a Bitch"



Thunderbird Gerard had me at "Thunderbird," but now the man sometimes referred to as the "Kerouac of Hip-Hop" has gone and released this live video for "London Is a Bitch." Even here at my desk, as I type, my hands are burning with the desire to wave in the air in a way that shows I actually do care. Because I do. F--- that bitch, London. MG

Alex Metric and Mark Yardley - "Illium"



This otherworldly, bass-y, melodic, house-ified drop-heavy track feels much larger than its three-minute container. Combined with the laser-rich, 2001: A Space Odyssey-referencing video, it's a serious trip. MG

Emeli Sande & The Bryan Ferry Orchestra - "Crazy in Love"



A couple of years ago, if you'd told me Bryan Ferry was giving Beyonce's "Crazy in Love" a Jazz Age treatment, I might have believed you, but I don't think I would've guessed that the end result (featuring British R&B artist Emeli Sande) would sound this cool. Now it's almost hard to remember it any other way. MG

Eric Saint Nicholas - "Highway Rhymes"



At an old jewelry mill in Rhode Island, artist Steep Daniels shuffles across the floor, paintbrush in hand, leaving his cubist-esque mark on the world. And with the flip of a switch Eric Saint Nicholas, the guy who gave me butterflies at 13 as he strummed his guitar on the bleachers of our middle school, hijacks the frame with unhurried finger-picking and his cavernous voice: "Highway's rolling by, I can't help but mind/ Passin' inch by inch, though we've traveled miles." It's fun to see old friends do well, isn't it? All profits from Saint Nicholas's self-titled debut full-length go to Surfer's Healing; a Southern California-based organization that helps children with autism. TAYLOR MORGAN

We all know that person: Someone who wears all black because it seems to signify something, who talks in the abstract about her "artistry," and who has obsessively memorized the lines of her favorite writers not because she loves them, but because she thinks she's supposed to love them.

That person? That's Amy, the protagonist of the new film Adult World (played by a charmingly over-the-top Emma Roberts), which screened during the Tribeca Film Festival last week. She's a straight-A student who thinks that because she's smart she's also a poet. As we quickly learn in the film's deadpan delivery, she's not.

The rest of the film, written by Andy Cochran and directed by Scott Coffey, spins out from there: Amy can only get a job at a downtown sex shop (which shares its name with the film's title), is blind to the advances of her shaggy-haired co-worker Alex (American Horror Story's Evan Peters), and becomes a de facto servant for her poetry icon Rat Billings (played by John Cusack, who steals just about every scene he's in).

The end result is a film that feels like a Girls-Art School Confidential mash-up--there's biting satire there, and may come off as verging on mean if you're a regular at your local poetry readings, but it's also the story of a girl fresh out of college who really has no idea who she is and what she wants to be (a la Hannah Horvath), so the only way she knows how to act is as if the world revolves around her.

And no matter how familiar these characters may seem, the ending has just the right amount of twist to it to keep you on your toes. Because there's nothing better than being surprised by that person.
REBECCA WILLA DAVIS

After each season of HBO's True Blood wraps, the fictional town of Bon Temps, Louisiana has taken a beating thanks to its resident vampire community; they're left with an unusually high body count, several humans "turned," and don't even get us started on those shapeshifting werewolves. But if you watched season five, you'll remember that amongst all of the fairies and the chaos was a killer (pun intended) soundtrack. True Blood: Music From the HBO Original Series Volume 4 was produced by the show's music supervisor Gary Calamar. On Volume 4 he unites rock legends with our favorite indie songstresses like Iggy Pop with Bethany Consentino and Eric Burdon with Jenny Lewis and releases new tracks from NYLON-approved bands like Alabama Shakes, Deap Valley, My Morning Jacket, The Flaming Lips, Los Labos, Warpaint, and Bosco Delrey. Since you can't read minds like Sookie Stackhouse, you'll have to take our word for it and buy the series' soundtrack on iTunes starting May 28. In the meantime, get an exclusive listen at the track "Let's Boot and Rally" by Iggy Pop and Bethany Cosentino from Best Coast. RAY SIEGEL