10 New Albums to Stream Now: Rolling Stone Editors’ Picks
R.E.M., Automatic For the People (25th Anniversary Edition)
The remastered edition of R.E.M.’s 1992 masterpiece, which Rolling Stone named one of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, gets packaged with demos from the band’s fertile early-Nineties period and a live recording from the 40 Watt Club, the storied rock venue located in Athens, Georgia.
Read Our Feature: R.E.M.’s ‘Automatic for the People’: 10 Things You Didn’t Know
Read Our 1992 Review: R.E.M., ‘Automatic for the People’
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Hüsker Dü, Savage Young Dü
The secret history of America’s greatest hardcore band, which became far more than a hardcore band. Three CDs and a 144-page book trace a five-year, 69-song arc from introspective pro-forma punk to the melodic white noise blast furnace of their 19-minute-long debut Things Fall Apart – included here, alongside breathtaking unreleased live sets and studio tracks. “Everything’s so fucked up/I guess it’s natural that way” howls Bob Mould near the set’s end, locating a rock catharsis the band would mine for just four more years before imploding and leaving behind an awesome legacy that just got bigger. Will Hermes
Read Rob Sheffield’s Essay: How Hüsker Dü’s Grant Hart Changed Punk Rock
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Walk the Moon, What If Nothing
The Cincinnati-based band – whose 2014 anthem “Shut Up and Dance” is one of the decade’s biggest rock hits – returns to their roots on this vibrant, noisy album. “Sonically, we’re reaching for taller, wider, and more vast, more epic sounds,” frontman Nicholas Petricca told Rolling Stone. “But the lyrics are kind of the opposite. They’re much more personal and are very close to the heart, very raw.”
Read Our Feature: Walk the Moon Get Back to Their Rock Roots On New LP
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Angel Olsen, Phases
The St. Louis native, whose Your Woman was one of Rolling Stone‘s best albums of 2016, releases a collection of demos, B-sides, and rare tracks.
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Quicksand, Interiors
During their initial Nineties run, New York quartet Quicksand channeled the fury of its members’ former hardcore bands like Youth of Today and Beyond into a taut, infectious alt-metal sound. Their 1993 debut, Slip, remains a period classic. On Interiors, the band’s first LP in 22 years, they skillfully mine a more reflective zone. Personal issues kept original guitarist Tom Capone from participating in the sessions, and his volatile leads are missed, but on tracks like “Hyperion” and lead single “Illuminant,” singer-guitarist Walter Schreifels – who often trades his old keyed-up shout for a dreamy croon here – bassist Sergio Vega (also of Deftones) and drummer Alan Cage hit on a new collective sweet spot that’s as melancholy as it is muscular. And the harder-edged songs, especially “Under the Screw,” where Vega and Cage unleash the swaggering wallop that powered vintage favorites like “Fazer” and “Brown Gargantuan,” find the band’s mosh-fueling mojo sturdily intact. Hank Shteamer
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Jidenna, Boomerang EP
A new six-song set from the “Classic Man” singer features “Bambi Too,” a remix of the swooning The Chief track “Bambi” that features Migos’ Quavo, British producer Maleek Berry and Ghanian MC Sarkodie.
Read Our Feature: Jidenna: The Remarkable Rise and Grand Visions of a Classic Man
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Eluvium, Shuffle Drones
These 23 majestic, melancholy drone variations from acclaimed ambient composer Eluvium total less than 13 minutes of music. But when played through the shuffle and loop function on your streaming player of choice, it flows mostly in 32-second waves that crest gorgeously in an infinite number of combinations. (To avoid gaps, Spotify users should go to Preferences > Show Advanced Settings > Playback, turn “Crossfade songs” on and adjust to 0 seconds). Christopher R. Weingarten
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Gregg Kowalsky, L’Orange L’Orange
After releasing two far moodier albums on Kranky, drone artist Gregg Kowalsky moves to Mexican Summer, and fittingly, opts for a brighter, more beaming, more shimmering and summery ambient. Somewhere between the digital shoegaze of early Tim Hecker, the fluttering synths of Tangerine Dream and the feel-good drones of Charlemagne Palestine, this record is a sunnier sound that’s a refreshing counterpoint to a year of melancholy drones filling up Twin Peaks, Stranger Things, Blade Runner 2049, Good Time and The Vietnam War. Christopher R. Weingarten
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Dillon, Kind
Berlin-based producer and songwriter Dillon’s third album is an intimate meditation on love that uses the space between its stark backing tracks and her spectral, hovering voice. The title track plays icicle-like chimes against warm brass, with Dillon’s weary mewl darting through the spaces between; the drones behind “Contact Us” bloom into a club-ready track that turn her into an unexpectedly commanding club diva, using the omnipresent text for getting in touch – with a person, with an artist, with a faceless company – as a mantra toward further connection. Kind is brief but potent, with Dillon’s spellbinding voice snaking through sometimes-treacherous, always-alluring textures. Maura Johnston
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Bethlehem Steel, Party Naked Forever
This Brooklyn trio spikes their low-end-heavy rumble with off-kilter guitar licks and vocalist Rebecca Ryskalczyk’s persistent wail, with tracks like the pummeling “Fig” and the charging “Finger It Out” pairing hooky choruses with an illegal-basement-show energy.
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