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Music

Stream of the Crop: 11 New Albums for Heavy Rotation

New albums from Margo Price, Bell Witch, Circuit des Yeux, and Destroyer top this week's list of essential records.
Photo: Danielle Holbert

The end of the week means a glut of new music to dig into and, while that is Extremely Good, it can be difficult to know where to start. So every week, we at Noisey put together a list of our favorite new albums, mixtapes, and EPs from the past seven days. You can listen to them all on this page. It is neither comprehensive nor fair. We hope it helps.

Margo Price: All-American Made

A big part of All American Made deals with [a] struggle—to exist in an America where it can feel like it's getting increasingly harder to make a living, to keep your family safe. Sometimes it sounds kicked back and fun, as on the funky country rocker "A Little Pain," where Price sings about suffering for what you want and invokes wisdom from the late, great drummer of The Band: "Like Levon said, I ain't in it for my health." "Pay Gap" fights for income equality, addressing the overwhelming economic disparity between white men and everyone else, and "Heart of America" details the plight of small-town farmers in the 80s. Bookended by presidential speeches, the title track saves a staggering amount of gravitas for the album's final moments; over a sparse acoustic strum and lonesome electric twang, Price sings soft and pained about the darkness that's clouded the US over her lifetime—the Reagan administration selling arms to Iran, the specter of nuclear war, Trump. The echo on her voice makes it sound so cavernous that you worry those sentiments are headed straight into the abyss. —Matt Williams, Margo Price, True American Badass, Wants Her Country to Do Better

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Bell Witch: Mirror Reaper

Dylan Desmond, singer and bassist of Seattle doom metal duo Bell Witch, has been singing about the dead since the band started. "It is always ghost stories," he says. The band's ambitious new album, Mirror Reaper, is a more haunting story than the kind often told around campfires. The record is both the band's most daring composition and a loving tribute to the group's former drummer and growling vocalist, Adrien Guerra, who passed away while it was being composed. —Joseph Schafer, Bell Witch's New LP Is a Loving Tribute to Former Drummer Adrien Guerra

Circuit des Yeux: Reaching for Indigo

Haley Fohr's fifth studio album as Circuit des Yeux is the result of a revelation. Early last year, the 28-year-old collapsed in her apartment, vomiting on the floor. After that, she came to, moved out, and had a fresh peace with the world. "A moment that fell down in the life of Haley Fohr on January 22, 2016—now in album form!" she writes of Reaching for Indigo. "Redefining and realizing the goals that were set to allow Haley become Circuit des Yeux and Circuit des Yeux to become Haley." The revelations of freedom aren't found in humming, careening electronics as they might have been on 2015's In Plain Speech; it's understated, distorted baroque that sneaks up on you, immersive by its composition and not its production. Fohr is signed to Drag City, so Apple Music is the only real streaming option. Or go buy the record at Bandcamp. —Alex Robert Ross

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Destroyer: ken

The follow-up to 2015's brilliant Poison Season has Dan Bejar at his balladic best. k en is, in part, a tribute to Suede's "The Wild Ones," a song that was originally supposed to be called "Ken" and is, according Bejar himself, "one of the great English-language ballads of the last 100 years or so." There are parallels between Destroyer's auteur and Suede's Brett Anderson: pensive, forlorn lyricism; carefully delivered existential crises; jangling guitars undone by gentle despair. But the sounds here fall back further, towards the pulsing new wave of the British 1980s, a synthetic foundation for Bejar's blissed-out fanfares. —ARR

TeeCee4800: Realness Over Millions 2

The follow-up to 2015's Realness Over Millions features an impressive supporting cast: Vince Staples, E-40, Wiz Khalifa, Marley Blu, and TeeCee4800's cousins, Ty Dolla $ign and Big TC. It's the first full length project from the LA rapper in over a year. Read Torii Macadams's piece on TeeCee4800 to learn more about his rise. —ARR

Odonis Odonis: No Pop

Corrosive, sinister, and expansive, the latest LP from Toronto three-piece Odonis Odonis is disquieting enough in a vacuum. Compare it to the band's earlier releases and it's straight-up jarring. This is no longer a band fusing surf guitars with noisy abrasions; this is a trio exploring the darker corners of industrial synth music, setting up camp, and howling at the walls. But beneath the layers (and layers) of anguish, there are beats that you can dance to, grizzly as they are. Still, maybe don't steal the aux chord and play "Nasty Boy" at a house party tonight. —ARR

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Young Dolph: Thinking Out Loud

Young Dolph is a Gucci-cosigned, Memphis, Tennessee rapper who stands out for his more straightforward and blunt delivery in the current industry field of super melodically inclined rappers. Outside of the fantastic guest verses on songs like OT Genasis's "Cut It" and Gucci's "Bling Blaww Burr," he released four projects ( King of Memphis, Bosses Up, Bosses and Shooters, Rich Crack Baby) that deserve extended praise in a year full of exceptionalism. Dolph doesn't just cut through the noise with his music; he also offers a perspective on what is true in the world. —Trey Smith, Start Paying Attention to Young Dolph Before You Look Stupid as Shit

Darius Rucker: When Was The Last Time

If you're looking for brutally honest, untamed country music, former Hootie and the Blowfish frontman Darius Rucker's fifth solo album isn't going to do anything for you. But if you're looking for something to soundtrack a conversation with your parents in which you try to convince them that you're doing wholesome stuff in the Big City—definitely not going to any parties or smoking cannabis like you once saw on TV—look no further than the dude who took the edge off of Old Crow Medicine Show. —ARR

Lindstrøm - It's Alright Between Us As It Is

Norwegian producer Hans-Peter Lindstrøm's fourth album is all future-disco shimmer. It's forward-thinking without being wild and crisp without any sort of binding realism beneath the beats, harpsichords, and whispers. His collaborations work well: "Sorry" with Frida Sundermo is hazy and dramatic, "Shinin'" with Grace Hall is tetchy and intriguing, even if it spends seven minutes plugging away without changing intensity. The highlight is "Bungl (Like a Ghost)" with Jenny Hval, whose creepy poetry is so engrossing that the plinking synthesizers have to fall back into a supporting role. —ARR

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Jessie Ware: Glasshouse

"Midnight," "Selfish Love," and "Alone," the three singles released in advance of English singer-songwriter Jessie Ware's third LP, are a fine introduction: dramatic, sultry, mostly inoffensive. Jessie Ware is a very accomplished singer whose songwriting style seems more suited to an era in which American Idol ballads tore up the charts. Closer "Sam" doesn't exactly smash the mould—it's an autobiographical acoustic ballad dedicated to Ware's husband—but the combination of artists is interesting in itself: Ed Sheeran, Nico Segal, The Who's Giuseppe Palladino, and Francis Starlight. Towards the end, when Segal starts flying off on an improv solo and everything else reverberates in the foreground, it's almost—almost—a little weird. —ARR

Wild Beasts: Punk, Drunk & Trembling

Only three songs, but significant nonetheless—after 15 years of ignoring indie rock trends and celebrating their own subtle idiosyncrasies, British four-piece Wild Beasts will call it a day with Punk, Drunk & Trembling. It's a credit to their invention that the three songs included here, each delicately propulsive and fully-formed, are outtakes from last year's Boy King. —ARR

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