10 New Albums to Stream Now: Fall Out Boy, Lanco, First Aid Kit and More Rolling Stone Editors’ Picks
Fall Out Boy, Mania
The shape-shifting quartet’s seventh album is “a re-affirmation of their ability to fuse over-the-top oversharing and Queen-ly operatic stomp with an elastic vision of pop,” writes Jon Dolan. “It’s more proof of why they’re masters at turning meltdowns into jock jams.”
Read Our Review: Fall Out Boy Turn Meltdowns Into Jock Jams on Mania
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Lanco, Hallelujah Nights
Last year’s “Greatest Love Story” hit big on country radio and this Nashville band became even more invested in pushing the genre’s boundaries in unexpected ways on its debut. “You don’t want to be different for being different’s sake, because that feels cheap,” bandleader Brandon Lancaster told Rolling Stone. “But it’s like, ‘Do we like it? Does it give us that feeling inside we’ve all been chasing since we learned how to play instruments?’ If it’s giving us that feeling, let’s do it.”
Read Our Feature: “Greatest Love Story” Band Lanco on Debut Album, Writing “Truck” Songs
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First Aid Kit, Ruins
Klara and Johanna Söderberg’s fourth album has “dreamy grandeur, with touches of pedal steel and Peter Buck’s guitar atmospherics,” writes Will Hermes, “while a damaged romance bleeds across a widescreen America – it’s like a Sergio Leone film starring Lana Del Rey, doubled.”
Read Our Review: First Aid Kit, Swedish Indie-Folkers, Return With R.E.M.’s Guitarist
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Dave East, P2
East Harlem-raised, Nas-cosigned MC Dave East brings back the Rotten Apple rap aesthetic with the sequel to last year’s surprise hit Paranoia. “I’ve just been through a lot in 29 years, so I got a lot to talk about,” he told Rolling Stone. “I always tell people, I never get writer’s block because it’s coming straight from my brain, like, real-life experiences. I’m like the news. I’m just reporting it for myself.”
Read Our Feature: Dave East on Prison, Islam, Reviving Nineties-Style Skits
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Devin Dawson, Dark Horse
This YouTube-borne upstart’s debut takes a big-tent approach to country music. Opening track “Dip” takes a page from No Doubt’s reggae-electro-pop book, while “I Don’t Care Who Sees” pairs the California crooner’s twang with bedroom-pop beats.
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Tune-Yards, I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life
The first album in four years from Merrill Garbus and Nate Brenner is “determined to conjure kinetic joy while staring down our present cultural fright show,” writes Will Hermes.
Read Our Review: Tune-Yards Get Intersectional, With Mighty Grooves, on Fourth LP
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The Shins, The Worms Heart
A number of artists, including Lucinda Williams, Tracy Bonham and Tegan & Sara, have recorded beloved old albums recently. But James Mercer is the first to do it with his most recent one. He re-imagines each song on 2017’s Heartworms, flipping the running order and, in most cases, roughing up the sound. Heartworms often suggested Brian Wilson teaming up with Hall & Oates in a Portland home studio. The Worm’s Heart opens with “The Fear – Flipped,” which sounds like the Velvet Underground, then moves on to the loose reggae of “Half a Million – Flipped” and the excellent “Mindenhall – Flipped,” the latter of which evokes Jerry Lee Lewis’ ‘Great Balls of Fire” via the Clean’s “Tally Ho.” As always, Mercer’s seemingly bottomless tune-machine talent holds it all together. Jon Dolan
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Laraaji, Vision Songs, Vol. 1
Leave it to the rarity-hunters and eccentricity embracers at Numero Group to find and champion the oddity in this zither-playing ambient icon’s shimmering oeuvre. In the recent explosion of private press new age reissues, it feels like no one has gotten more love than Laraaji – his 1980 Brian Eno-produced debut re-released by Glitterbeat, the longform pieces of 1984’s Celestial Vibrations via Soul Jazz, two cassette box sets via Stones Throw’s Leaving Records and an appearance on Light in the Attic’s scene-defining I Am the Center compilation. However, Vision Songs, originally a self-released cassette issued by the busking musician in 1984, showcases him in singer-songwriter mode. The drones and zither glow are still present, but are joined with a tiny Casio for tunes reminiscent of everything from James Taylor’s tender folkie tunes to Talking Heads’ stiff new wave to the minimal post-punk of bands like Flying Lizards. Christopher R. Weingarten
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Caitlyn Smith, Starfire
Smith, a 31-year-old singer-songwriter who’s written hits for Meghan Trainor and Lady Antebellum among others, steps out on her own with this excellent debut. Smith’s own voice is strikingly potent, easily as big and versatile as any of the Nashville stars she’s worked with. On “St. Paul” she sings about being 17, driving from her native Cannon Falls, Minnesota to her first little big town (“listening to the same three Wilco tracks”) and sneaking drinks at a local punk club, while the acoustic “This Town Is Killing Me” surveys her struggles while trying to make it as an artist, including missing her grandfather’s funeral because she had to tour. The LP ends with “Cheap Date,” a sweet, funny piano come-on about forgoing the scene downtown to order Chinese and make out on a couch: “Think of all the money we’ll save,” she sings. It’s the perspective that comes from living a little before you get your shot. Jon Dolan
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Shopping, The Official Body
Twenty-first century malaise hangs in the background of this British trio’s third album: “Where will I go/to find some peace?” guitarist-vocalist Rachel Aggs wails over skittering guitars on the malcontented “Asking for a Friend,” while the stomping “Discover” underscores Andrew Milk’s petulant assertion “I’m not lonely/I’m fine” with a menacing bassline that hints at below-the-surface tumult. Shopping pairs their stinging critiques of a frosty world with jubilant, taut disco-punk, augmenting their shout-along rallying cries and jumpy guitars with touches of synth bass and programmed drums. Wiry and urgent, The Official Body offers vibrant, chaotic catharsis at an ideal moment. Maura Johnston
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