10 New Albums to Stream Now: Rolling Stone Editors’ Picks
Lorde, Melodrama
The second album from the New Zealand upstart is “a modern pop record that prizes old-school intimacy,” writes Will Hermes. “Lorde’s writing and fantastically intimate vocals, ranging from her witchy, unprocessed low-register warbles to all sorts of digitized masks, make it matter. She has said the album’s conceit is a house party and its unfolding dramas; indeed, Pure Heroine’s cool snark is now a hotter passion, in its millennial-skeptical way.”
Read Our Review: Lorde’s Melodrama Is a Fantastically Intimate Triumph
Read Our Feature: Lorde’s Growing Pains: How Pop’s Favorite Outsider Wrote Her Next Chapter
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Fleet Foxes, Crack-Up
The Seattle folkies return after six years with a full-length that “sort of feels like Neil Young’s Buffalo Springfield collage-dream opus ‘Broken Arrow’ if it lasted a whole album,” writes Jon Dolan, who notes that “[t]hey’ve upped their prog ambitions – tracks wash together, song titles abound with opaque punctuation, and the sweeping melodies often wander into moody places, away from the safety of the campfire.”
Read Our Review: Fleet Foxes Up Their Prog Game on Epic Crack-Up
Read Our Feature: Inside Fleet Foxes’ Disappearance and Rebirth
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Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, The Nashville Sound
Now firmly settled in Nashville, the country troubadour has crafted an album that takes a long view of the world’s current state. “[W]ith his lyrics-heavy, unadorned narrative storytelling approach to roots music, [Isbell] has become one of the few remaining artists to find mainstream success building a career off the model of the Seventies singer-songwriter,” writes Jonathan Bernstein, who adds that the album’s vibe “hews closely to the laid-back roots-country palette Isbell has honed over his past several albums with producer Dave Cobb.”
Read Our Review: Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit Look Outward on The Nashville Sound
Read Our Feature: Jason Isbell’s The Nashville Sound: Track-By-Track Guide
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Songhoy Blues, Résistance
On their second LP, this fire-breathing Malian guitar band becomes a stylistic hall of mirrors. “Voter” detonates a West African strut with garage-rock combustion; “Hometown” is a fiddle-spiced hoedown; “Bamako” is Afro-funk with swarming William Onyeabor synths and charging Earth, Wind and Fire horns. The most startling moment, though, is in “Sahara,” a Tuareg-style desert blues in which Iggy Pop is suddenly growling about the emptiness of Western culture. “Listen, you can hear/The music of the spheres!” he insists, before stepping aside and letting the guitars shred. It’s raw power, indeed. Will Hermes
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Big Boi, Boomiverse
“Big Boi has consistently balanced Southern hip-hop tradition with pop savvy, and Boomiverse confirms a dedication to both, even though the world of pop and hardcore rap have long since meshed,” writes Christina Lee. “The guest list includes Adam Levine of Maroon 5 and Eric Bellinger, as well as Killer Mike, Gucci Mane and a posthumous verse from Pimp C.” One of the album’s more interesting outliers, the Dr. Luke produced “All Night,” is a giddy piece of part-rapped, part-sung quirk-pop in the vein of Cee Lo Green, Lunchmoney Lewis and Sean Kingston.
Read Our Feature: Big Boi Talks Boomiverse, Cosby Lyric, 10th Anniversary of “Int’l Player’s Anthem”
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2 Chainz, Pretty Girls Like Trap Music
The punchline king of Atlanta isn’t slowing down as he careens into veteran status, rhyming hard in his 10th year since breaking out with Playaz Circle’s “Duffle Bag Boy.” “I was noticing a lot of the applause for the mediocrity. I’m looking at what people like and what they accept,” 2 Chainz tells Rolling Stone. “And they basically do it because of what’s available. Why don’t I come with something new sound-wise, vocal-wise, confidence-wise that appeals to both spectrums: The beginning of the title, Pretty Girls, and then something I’m a great author at, Trap Music?”
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Royal Blood, How Did We Get So Dark?
In the three years since their self-tiled debut, the Brighton bashers Royal Blood have become one of the world’s most hotly tipped rock acts – they’ve opened for Foo Fighters and Guns N’ Roses, and they’ve received praise from the likes of Jimmy Page. So what’s a duo to do on album number two? Bassist-vocalist Mike Kerr and drummer Ben Thatcher thankfully don’t reinvent the wheel, but they do up their swagger quotient on tracks like the snaky “She’s Creeping” and the stomping “Look Like You Know,” while the pummeling riff of “Hook, Line & Sinker” gives way to a sneering, crashing chorus that shows off Kerr’s smooth falsetto. A taut, smoldering album from a pair that has distilled rock to its essence. Maura Johnston
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Rubén González, Introducing… Rubén González
Released 20 years ago, when the late Cuban pianist was 77 years old, Gonzalez’s debut LP as a bandleader was the gem of the Buena Vista Social Club boomlet abetted by Ry Cooder. This deluxe vinyl reissue adds an unreleased track, the hot dance number “Descarga Rubén Y Cachaíto,” which becomes a new highlight of an elegant set that’s only improved with age. Jon Dolan
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H.E.R, H.E.R. Volume 2
The shadowy R&B singer known as H.E.R. lets her music do the talking on her second EP – and once again, it has a lot to say. On the bedheaded “Every Kind of Way,” which winds itself around a simple guitar line; the piano-flecked “I Won’t,” which gently flips the conceit of Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me”; and the seductive “Lights On,” which punctuates its lyrical carnal demands with a steady drumbeat, the 10 Artists You Need To Know alum combines future-tense R&B with disarmingly honest lyrics and impeccable production. Maura Johnston
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Showtime Goma, Smiley Face
As vocalist for the kitchen-sink shoegaze outfit A Sunny Day in Glasgow, Jen Goma cuts through the chaos with her bubbly, acrobatic soprano. Her solo debut as Showtime Goma shows how she can cause – and helm – a commotion while working with beats borrowed from R&B and pop. The album’s precision detailing and buried-treasure sonics make for a heady listen: “What’s a Fight Look Like” shimmies underneath souped-up guitars, with Goma’s cutting lyrics offering up a counterpoint to the music’s bravado; the skeletal “Distract Me from the Work” channels its tension into synth blasts and street-corner snapping; “Come and Know Me Better Man” is all fireworks and heat, Goma and her gang of backing vocalists flying their freak flag. “Secret NRG,” the slow-building closer, filters the you-go-girl anthems that populate Lite-FM through an amped-up idea of Kate Bush’s “Hounds of Love”; it’s a thrilling, triumphant end to an album energized by its daring to dream. Maura Johnston
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