10 New Albums to Stream Now: Rolling Stone Editors’ Picks
Liam Gallagher, As You Were
The former Oasis frontman “puts his signature voice on the line in a mostly original set of strut and reflection that sticks to Oasis’ template – brawny Britpop, Beatle-esque ballads – and often invigorates it,” writes David Fricke, who adds that “it has Gallagher writing like he means it and singing like his dream isn’t over.”
Read Our Review: Liam Gallagher Sticks to Oasis’ Brawny Britpop and Beatle-esque Melodies on Solo Debut
Hear Our Interview: Liam Gallagher: Confessions of a Frontman
Hear: Amazon Music Unlimited | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal
Marilyn Manson, Heaven Upside Down
The master of the macabre “has returned to pure shock” on his 10th full-length, which “finds him singing about fighting and fucking (literally declaring ‘I write songs to fight and to fuck to’ in ‘Je$u$ Cri$i$’) over spiky, electro-hard-rock riffs that occasionally recall his glammy Mechanical Animals period,” writes Kory Grow.
Read Our Review: Marilyn Manson Gets Back to His Shock-Rock Roots
Read Our Interview: The Last Word: Marilyn Manson on Bowie, Drugs and Losing His Virginity
Hear: Amazon Music Unlimited | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal
Kelela, Take Me Apart
The debut full-length from the shape-shifting vocalist “fuses together jagged textures, vaporous synths and her versatile voice into forward-thinking R&B animated by its restless innovation,” writes Maura Johnston.
Read Our Review: Kelela’s Forward-Thinking R&B Is Restlessly Innovative
Hear: Amazon Music Unlimited | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal
Dhani Harrison, In///Parallel
The singer and composer’s first proper solo album, a psychedelia-tinged journey into modern-day disconnect, was inspired by “the cloud of humanity that hadn’t happened yet,” he tells Rolling Stone. “There are so many things we take of granted, just about the nature of night and day, space, the globe, whatever. Nobody has the full picture, and we all need to realize there’s an incredible amount about this world and being a human that no one really understands. … It’s a different world than it was. And people don’t even realize. They’re just kind of happy, walking around, looking at the crazy technocracy we live in. It’s pretty mad. It’s definitely dystopian enough to write a song about.”
Read Our Feature: Dhani Harrison Talks Dystopian Mood, Cultural Premonitions of Debut Solo LP
Hear: Amazon Music Unlimited | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, The Kid
On her sixth album, the “pastoral synth landscapist” paints a lush world “using cosmic swoops, squelches and lots of her highly processed vocals,” writes Christopher R. Weingarten, who adds, “As challenging as this avant-garde music is, it’s also warm, absorbing and gorgeous.”
Read Our Review: Synth Experimentalist Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith Gorgeously Maps the Life Cycle
Read Our Feature: Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith on The Kid, the Most Anticipated Experimental Album of 2017
Hear: Amazon Music Unlimited | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
Whitney Rose, Rule 62
This Texas-based singer’s 21st-century update of classic country’s most cherished ideals – boot-stomping rhythms and take-no-guff lyrics – is rich with sly wisdom, its full-bodied arrangements putting the spotlight on her sweetly tart soprano.
Hear: Amazon Music Unlimited | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal
Daphni, Joli Mai
The dancefloor-minded alter-ego of Caribou’s Dan Snaith returns with a second album that fidgets between house music and post-punk. It’s a tactile sound where you don’t know what’s man and what’s machine – a lively groove like Cajual Records remix of a Ze Records 12-inch. On songs like “Poly” and “Life’s What You Make It,” melodies distend and warp like Snaith is toying with analog tape, elsewhere vocals sigh like fractured renderings of freestyle. Christopher R. Weingarten
Hear: Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
Weaves, Wide Open
Since 2013, this Toronto outfit has been crafting skewed, hooky rock, and on their second full-length they flaunt their road-honed tautness and flair for channeling their experimental impulses through super-catchy choruses. “#53” combines an open-road riff with frantic drumming and vocalist Jasmyn Burke’s urgent yawp; on the hiccuping “Scream” the counterpoint gasps and growls of Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq act as a release valve for Burke’s gritted-teeth anxieties. Wide Open elevates shimmery psych-bliss (“Grass”), punky rave-ups (“Law and Panda”) and anthems for the new millennium’s Alternative Nation (“Walkaway”) into tightly wound songs that are as weird as they are catchy. Maura Johnston
Hear: Amazon Music Unlimited | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
Nazoranai, Beginning To Fall In Line Before Me, So Decorously, The Nature Of All That Must Be Transformed
The third dispatch between three titans of free music – guitarist Keiji Haino, SunnO)))’s Stephen O’Malley and drummer/composer Oren Ambarchi – is dynamic, dark and explosive, building from creepy ambience to freak-noise on “Part One.” The peaks of “Part Two” jam like a Jimi Hendrix Experience cover band obsessed with the blown-out sections. Christopher R. Weingarten
Hear: Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal
Poppy, Poppy.Computer
A YouTube star who’s chatted about online celebrity on Comedy Central and been the face of the original purveyors of kawaii Sanrio, this famous-yet-guarded Los Angeleno turns in a weirdly delightful pop debut full of brand-reinforcing ear candy that’s rich with sonic detail and brain-Velcro refrains – a She’s So Unusual for the extremely online music consumer. Maura Johnston
Hear: Amazon Music Unlimited | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal