Featured New Album Releases

Grimes

Miss Anthropocene

4AD

Pop/Rock

The multi-talented artist uses mythology -- as well as Bollywood music, nu-metal, country, and more -- to explore humanity's self-sabotaging nature.

— Heather Phares

Album cover for Map of the Soul: 7 by BTS

BTS

Map of the Soul: 7

Big Hit / Big Hit Records

Pop/Rock

The K-pop septet dives into concepts of identity and self through fame, relationships, and Jung.

— Neil Z. Yeung

Best Coast

Always Tomorrow

Concord / Virgin EMI

Pop/Rock

The California duo's fourth album details Bethany Cosentino's recovery and self-care set to a smooth modern rock soundtrack.

— Tim Sendra

Ozzy Osbourne

Ordinary Man

Epic

Pop/Rock

The first solo album in ten years from this longstanding icon of metal is surprisingly spontaneous and energetic.

— Fred Thomas

King Krule

Man Alive!

True Panther Sounds

Pop/Rock

Archy Marshall again turns on the bleak charm for the third and most outward-looking album under his foremost alias.

— Andy Kellman

Miles Davis

Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]

Sony Music

Jazz

The soundtrack to director Stanley Nelson's comprehensive Miles Davis documentary is a mini-aural history of the trumpeter's musical development.

— Matt Collar

Courtney Barnett

MTV Unplugged: Live in Melbourne

Mom + Pop Music

Pop/Rock

A charmingly low-key and collaborative MTV Unplugged from the idiosyncratic singer/songwriter.

— Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Wrekmeister Harmonies

We Love to Look at the Carnage

Thrill Jockey

Pop/Rock

A sorrowful but ultimately healing song cycle which manages to find positivity in the most dire situations.

— Paul Simpson

Pat Metheny

From This Place

Nonesuch

Jazz

The jazz composer and guitarist assembles a new quartet and orchestra on his first recording of new studio material in six years.

— Thom Jurek

Greg Dulli

Random Desire

BMG

Pop/Rock

Alt-rock's most conflicted ladies' man is older, wiser, but no less troubled on his first solo album.

— Mark Deming

Cerrone

DNA

Because Music

Electronic

A scientifically conscious space-disco epic from the French dance pioneer, recalling his visionary work from the late 1970s.

— Paul Simpson

Close Lobsters

Post Neo Anti: Arte Povera in the Forest of Symbols

Last Night from Glasgow / Shelflife

Pop/Rock

On their first new full-length in over 30 years, the Scottish indie rockers pick up exactly where they left off.

— Fred Thomas

Jan St. Werner

Molocular Meditation

Editions Mego

Electronic, Avant-Garde

Mouse on Mars' Jan St. Werner revisits an installation piece he composed with help from the late Mark E. Smith.

— Paul Simpson

Guided by Voices

Surrender Your Poppy Field

Guided by Voices, Inc.

Pop/Rock

Robert Pollard and his accomplices take a look back to their lo-fi experimental days while embracing ambitious song structures.

— Mark Deming

Spinning Coin

Hyacinth

Domino / Geographic

Pop/Rock

The band's second album is a wild, woolly, and weird trip that pushes them past the restrained melancholy of their fine debut towards something magical.

— Tim Sendra

Various Artists

C90

Cherry Red

Pop/Rock

Another entry in Cherry Red's year-by-year look at the U.K. pop underground captures a scene being pulled in many fascinating directions.

— Tim Sendra

France Gall

1968

Third Man Records

Pop/Rock

This exotic, enduring date proved a brazen attempt by the singer to break new ground in French pop; she succeeded in spades.

— Thom Jurek

France Gall

Baby Pop

Third Man Records

Pop/Rock

This classic from 1966 is among the singer's finest albums; with sophisticated production and a stellar array of songs, it made Gall a pop idol.

— Thom Jurek

France Gall

Poupée de Cire, Poupée de Son

Polydor / Third Man Records / Universal

Pop/Rock, Vocal

The French yé-yé singer's fifth album is chock-full of delightful and catchy songs with a hint of the maturity she would display later.

— Thom Jurek

Various Artists

I'd Love to Turn You On: Classical and Avant-Garde Music That Inspired the Sixties Counter-Culture

Él

Avant-Garde, Folk, International, Jazz, Classical

Ambitious, informative triple-CD compilation which outlines some of the key non-rock influences on several artists during the 1960s.

— Paul Simpson

Six Organs of Admittance

Companion Rises

Drag City

Pop/Rock

There's a modernistic blend of earthy stability and distractive sonic chatter on this exciting entirely solo outing from Ben Chasny.

— Timothy Monger

Lee Ranaldo / Raül Refree

Names of North End Women

Mute

Pop/Rock

The longtime collaborators share billing on a transporting set that blurs the boundaries between experimental music and pop.

— Heather Phares

Agnes Obel

Myopia

Blue Note

Pop/Rock

The Danish songwriter's most insular work to date, continuing in the vein of its predecessor with dramatic pitch-tuned vocals and Gothic chamber-pop melodies.

— James Christopher Monger

Sonny Landreth

Blacktop Run

Provogue

Blues, International

Reunited with producer R.S. Field after 14 years, the Louisiana guitar slinger delivers a killer batch of down-home grit and groove.

— Thom Jurek

Lanterns on the Lake

Spook the Herd

Bella Union

Pop/Rock

The fourth album from the masters of poignant atmosphere is fueled by political and existential tensions.

— Marcy Donelson

Mitch Ryder / Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels

Sockin’ It To You – The Complete Dynovoice/New Voice Recordings

Cherry Red / RPM

Pop/Rock

The (almost) complete catalog of one of the best and tightest blue-eyed soul bands of all time.

— Mark Deming

The Staple Singers

Come Go With Me: The Stax Collection

Craft Records

R&B, Religious

Six original albums from the gospel-soul quartet's tenure at Stax Records, capturing them at the peak of their abilities and popularity.

— Mark Deming

Sunny Jain

Wild Wild East

Smithsonian Folkways Recordings

International, Jazz

The drummer explodes the American cowboy and immigrant archetypes with his kaleidoscopic mix of Bollywood and Spaghetti Western-inspired themes, surf rock, Indian classical, and jazz.

— Matt Collar