Chris Stapleton, Logic, Blondie and 23 Other Albums to Stream Right Now
Rolling Stone Recommends:
Chris Stapleton, From A Room: Vol. 1
The country troubadour’s follow-up to the world-beating Traveller is “a taut, nine-song LP geared mainly toward spotlighting those remarkable pipes, with scant pandering to mainstream country radio. … Songs smolder rather than blaze, amble instead of bolt, and generally keep the volume reined in,” writes Will Hermes in a four-star review.
Read Our Review: Chris Stapleton’s Second Album Is Equal Parts Otis and Waylon
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Logic, Everybody
On his third album, Maryland rap phenomenon Logic extends his sing-song speed-game rhymes for a wide, inclusive view of our imploding country — if Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly was our There’s a Riot Goin’ On, then Logic’s third LP takes a step back in the timeline to take a righteous Stand! The main theme of the album originally titled AfricAryan is navigating life as a mixed race citizen (“My skin’s fair, but life’s not”), but he also shouts out suicide hotlines, shouts down MAGA, talks through his anxiety and generally fights the power with a throwback conscious-rap style. His melodic flow should be instantly enjoyable to anyone who enjoyed the cadences and tumbles of Lamar’s latest; his “music doesn’t discriminate” attitude is perfect for Chance fans; and his flecks of spiritual house music and Baltimore club give his songs a high-octane propulsion all their own. He’s not exactly the most insightful or vivid or even self-aware conscious rapper ever, often sounding like Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy if Michael Franti spent more time on the internet than in the library: “That’s what I’m taught by the media,” he raps, “Television telling my vision to get greedier.” But Logic has passion, a roster of guests with a history in righteous indignation (Chuck D, Killer Mike, Black Thought) and, most importantly, ridiculous skills. Christopher R. Weingarten
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Perfume Genius, No Shape
By his usual standards, Mike Hadreas’ fourth Perfume Genius LP feels startlingly optimistic, with pop and rock tropes queered into dream-like scenarios. “Go Ahead” conjures “Kiss”-era Prince over dyspeptic electro-funk, “Die 4 You” is goth Sade, and the darkly ecstatic “Wreath” invokes Kate Bush (“Running up that hill/I’m gonna peel off every weight”). Producer Blake Mills brings guitars to this keyboard-centric world, Rob Moose does the same with strings, and Weyes Blood drops by for a duet. And go figure: the company does this forlorn singer-songwriter well. Will Hermes
Read Our Review: Review: Perfume Genius’ Goth-Glam Gets Optimistic on ‘No Shape’
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Joan Shelley, Joan Shelley
The blue Kentucky gal is now three for three. Produced by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy with a light touch, this LP of gorgeous folk-rooted ballads is bolstered by the quietly psychedelic guitar picking of Nathan Salsburg. The difference here, helped along by drummer Spencer Tweedy, is an an English folk-rock undertow recalling groups like Fairport Convention — a sound Shelley always suggested, now made corporeal. Her voice, though, is still the main attraction, and it’s worth discovering. Will Hermes
Read Our Review: Review: Joan Shelley’s Self-Titled Fourth LP Is Exquisitely Hushed Folk
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The Afghan Whigs, In Spades
These soul punkers’ post-reunion explorations of the dark side have possessed an urgency that jolts their heady mix of ominous vibes, guitar fuzz and stomping beats. Greg Dulli’s yawp – which can curl from a coo to a sneer depending on the moment – turns the hip-shaking “The Spell” into a revival-tent meeting, while the jittery, handclap-assisted “Light as a Feather” brings him back to the corner of Fountain and Fairfax. The band’s musical remit has grown in surprising ways, too; the swaying, horn-assisted “Toy Automatic” could be the opening salvo from an alternate-universe Forever Changes, while the back-of-the-bar singalong “I Got Lost” pits a wavering drone against insistent piano in a way that sounds both lush and disconcerting. A potent, unnerving statement from one of the best rock bands elevated by the alt-rock gold rush. Maura Johnston
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Blondie, Pollinator
The 11th album from the Debbie Harry-led New York New Wave legends finds them teaming up with pop guru Sia, fellow downtown denizen Nick Valensi, and über-cool R&B producer Dev Hynes – yet remains true to their hybridized sound.
Read Our Review: Blondie Team With Sia, Charli XCX, Indie Pals on Pollinator
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Also of Note:
Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda, The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda
A collection of religious music from cassettes that the pianist and harpist distributed to late-20th-Century visitors of Sai Anantam, the ashram she launched in 1983. “The songs were a combination of traditional Hindi themes and melodies that my mother would orchestrate with her own jazz- and blues-influenced style,” saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, Alice’s son, told RS. “She would accompany these songs and create new arrangements for them. And some of the tunes were her own compositions, using some of the standard chants and praising of this particular deity or this particular god.”
Read Our Feature: Revisiting Alice Coltrane’s Lost Spiritual Classics
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Amanda Palmer & Edward Ka-Spel, I Can Spin a Rainbow
The collaboration between the TED Talk darling and the Legendary Pink Dots founder was dreamed up at the house of fellow experimentalist Imogen Heap. “The rainbow metaphor – which is also a nod to the ‘spinning beach ball of death’ on a Mac – was a wide-open image that kept popping up as a recurring theme on the record,” Palmer said in a statement. “It’s both dark and light at the same time. To me, the songs are simultaneously frightening and comforting, like a thunderstorm heard from a living room.”
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Ásgeir, Afterglow
The second album from the Icelandic composer and multi-instrumentalist shivers with precision and longing.
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At The Drive-In, in•ter a•li•a
Run ragged by the demands of the rock industry, El Paso punks At The Drive-In disbanded only months after the release of their 2000 breakthrough, Relationship of Command. This month the band makes a full-throttle comeback with their first LP in 17 years, which forges an easy transition from the post-hardcore fury of their classic. “We need to honor where we left off sonically last time,” frontman Cedric Bixler-Zavala recently told The New York Times, “and we need to honor how we used to paint outside the lines.”
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Black Lips, Satan’s Graffiti or God’s Art?
Sean Lennon produced the eighth album by this Atlanta gutter-garage outfit.
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Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Best Troubador
Like that of most great songwriters, Merle Haggard’s work shape-shifts with the singer, and this set of Haggard covers is full of surprises. There are fragile arrangements with jazzy horns – and even a flute – fluttering like sparrows over a field. And there are plenty of left-field selections, a reminder that latter-day Hag was still writing potent stuff. With his sweetly crackling vocals (and yodeling on “My Old Pal”), indie journeyman Will “Bonnie ‘Prince'” Oldham is, as always, an idiosyncratic and illuminating interpreter. Maybe there’s a Dylan-style standards trilogy in his future. Will Hermes
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Café Tacvba, Jei Beibi
The Mexican rock innovators celebrate a quarter-century of pushing boundaries with their eighth studio album. “Exploring distinct paths is a way for us to feel alive, or feel like we’re doing something different,” guitarist Joselo Rangel told RS.
Read our feature: Café Tacvba Talk 27 Years of Rock Experimentalism
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Carl Craig, Versus
The most elegantly rangy of Detroit techno’s elders, Carl Craig follows his classical music remix project ReComposed with a full-on orchestral collaboration, weaving electronics around Barcelona-based pianist Francesco Tristano and the Paris-based Les Siècles Orchestra. The set includes a brassy reimagining of his 2004 sirocco jam “Sandstorms,” with other wide-screen displays of shifting timbral colors and a sly relationship to four-on-the-floor pulse. It’s EDM for those who like their beats dressed to the nines and playing hard to get. Will Hermes
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Cayetana, New Kind of Normal
On their second full-length, the Philly emo-pop trio tackles mental health and self-preservation in spiky, hooky songs.
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Diana Krall, Turn Up the Quiet
The pianist and bandleader collaborates with three different ensembles on this collection of jazz standards.
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Forest Swords, Compassion
This goth-tinged producer record – the second full-length from critically acclaimed Liverpool studio rat Matthew Barnes – crosses the lines between ambient music, mutant techno and 20th-century composition. Its individual parts drift through all kinds of bleary and beautiful strains of contemporary hipster mood music: the lush, decaying orchestral loops of the William Basinski variety; Arthur Russell-esque cello sawing; Four Tet-style chopped up samples; and live reverbed percussion that could have come from an early-Eighties Peter Gabriel record. Christopher R. Weingarten
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Ho99o9, United States of Horror
For the last three years, New Jersey noise-rap duo Ho99o9 have been performing a post-modern bloodfeast somewhere between the horrorcore of Geto Boys, the lo-fi synth shred of Suicide and the digital hardcore pixel poison of Atari Teenage Riot. For their full-length debut, they emerge more as an anti-war, anti-capitalist machine with the politics and grind of bands like Napalm Death, Crass and D.R.I., without losing their hip-hop swagger or love of Omen-style synths. Check out the way that punk sloganeering and rap chants join in a way where Odd Future meets “No Future”: “Raw power/Rest in peace/Fuck pigs/Love your enemies/Eat the rich/’Til you make them bleed/’Til you kill ’em all/Then repeat.” Christopher R. Weingarten
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Mac DeMarco, This Old Dog
The slacker-pop hero dispenses accidental wisdom over charming bedroom-pop textures.
Read Our Review: Mac DeMarco Unfurls Wiseacre Wisdom on This Old Dog
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Nite Jewel, Real High
The first LP in five years from R&B disciple Ramona Gonzalez filters early-Nineties Janet Jackson vibes through 21st-century cool, and features assists from Dâm-Funk and Julia Holter.
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Patti LaBelle, Bel Hommage
The R&B legend takes on old-school jazz standards like “Wild Is the Wind” as well as newer offerings like Diana Krall’s “Peel Me a Grape.”
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Penguin Café, The Imperfect Sea
Released on Brian Eno’s Obscure label in 1976, Music From The Penguin Café embraced folk naiveté and pop melody on arguably the most inviting avant-garde chamber music LP ever recorded. This dreamy set by Arthur Jeffes, son of the late Penguin Café leader Simon, reboots the franchise handsomely. If its compact minimalism conjures film scores, its because soundtrack composers have been shamelessly biting the Jeffes style for decades. Good to have the café re-opened. Will Hermes
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Sigrid, Don’t Kill My Vibe
The title track of this Norwegian pop upstart’s debut EP balances her wounded balladry with a fist-raising chorus that’s equal parts Kendrick Lamar and Kelly Clarkson. Her slightly scratchy alto gives her the affect of a more world-beaten Adele, a persona only enhanced by the gimlet-eyed lyrics on gritted-teeth dance-pop like the storming “Fake Friends” and the jittery “Plot Twist.” Maura Johnston
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Slowdive, Slowdive
The British shoegaze pioneers’ first album in 22 years is full of washed-out guitars and hazy vocals.
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Taj Mahal/Keb’ Mo’, TajMo
This summit between two living blues legends features a touching, Bonnie Raitt-fronted cover of John Mayer’s stirring “Waiting on the World to Change.”
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Various Artists, Cover Stories: Brandi Carlile Celebrates 10 Years of “The Story”
Pearl Jam, Dolly Parton, Adele, Kris Kristofferson and other big names pay tribute to The Story, the 2007 album by hardscrabble troubadour Brandi Carlile, on an album benefiting the charity War Child UK.
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