Featured New Album Releases

The Beths

Straight Line Was a Lie

Anti-

Pop/Rock

With Elizabeth Stokes turning to self-help writing practice to conquer creative blocks, the hooky indie rockers' fourth LP is their most personal yet.

— Marcy Donelson

Blood Orange

Essex Honey

RCA

Pop/Rock, R&B

Devonté Hynes breaks from film scores and classical compositions to deliver a soul-stirring fifth album under his main alias.

— Andy Kellman

The Hives

The Hives Forever Forever the Hives

PIAS

Pop/Rock

The band's seventh album is a potent distillation of their sharp wit and steamrolling energy.

— Heather Phares

Belinda Carlisle

Once Upon a Time In California

Edsel

Pop/Rock

The Go-Go's frontwoman turned pop chanteuse covers ten glossy pop nuggets of the '60s and '70s in sincere, skillful style.

— Mark Deming

Rodney Crowell

Airline Highway

New West

Pop/Rock, Country

The great singer/songwriter rocks a bit and passes along plenty of wisdom on this LP produced by Tyler Bryant.

— Mark Deming

The Good Ones

Rwanda Sings with Strings

Glitterbeat

International

The Rwandan folk duo are complemented by two string players on this poignant and spontaneous album.

— Timothy Monger

Tift Merritt

Time and Patience

One Riot Records

Country, Pop/Rock, Folk

The gifted singer/songwriter gives fans a glimpse of her archives, including five acoustic demos of songs from Tambourine.

— Mark Deming

Eiko Ishibashi / Jim O'Rourke

Pareidolia

Drag City

Avant-Garde, Electronic

Bewildering collaboration pieced together from improvised sets during the pair's first tour outside of Japan.

— Paul Simpson

Various Artists

Joe Meek: A Curious Mind Outer Space! Horror! Death Discs! The Wild West! Demos!

Cherry Red

Pop/Rock

More tea chest finds that joyfully show off some of Meek's obsessions, while giving fans a full disc of I Hear a New World rarities.

— Tim Sendra

Lathe of Heaven

Aurora

Sacred Bones

Pop/Rock

On their second album, the Brooklyn band let a little (just a little) melodic romanticism seep into their dingy, fervent post-punk.

— Marcy Donelson

Led Bib

Hotel Pupik

Cuneiform Records

Pop/Rock, Jazz

After a six-year recording hiatus, the British ensemble returns to work their mysterious musical magic as a slimmed down quartet.

— Thom Jurek

Nicholas Krgovich / Joseph Shabason / Tenniscoats

Wao

Western Vinyl Records

Pop/Rock

A fascinating and moving collection of fragile songs that are the result of an improvised collaboration between Tenniscoats, Joseph Shabason, and Nicholas Krgovich.

— Tim Sendra

Shakti

Mind Explosion

Abstract Logix

International, Jazz

This document drawn from the ensemble's 50th anniversary tour is also a memorial for Zakir Hussain, and the band's final chapter.

— Thom Jurek

Yulianna Avdeeva

Shostakovich: Preludes & Fugues Op. 87

PentaTone Classics

Classical

Romantic, spontaneous-seeming Shostakovich preludes and fugues, with dramatic contrasts.

— James Manheim

Susan Narucki / Curtis Macomber

György Kurtág: Kafka Fragments

Avie

Classical

Fine performance of Kurtág's little Kafka settings captures not only the compressed yet expressive language but the shifting relationship between the instruments.

— James Manheim