10 New Albums to Stream Today
Photos by Tonje Thilesen, Jason Frank Rothenberg & Molly Matalon Music Lists New Albums
We’re at a loss for words right now, but we sincerely hope our readers are doing their best to weather this storm. Music has been there for us in tough times before, and it’s certainly there for us now—patiently waiting for us as soon as we’re looking for a refuge. Many artists are in a terrible financial pinch right now, so it’s never been a better time to purchase albums, merchandise or rescheduled concert tickets. At the very least, you can do your part by streaming more music than you normally would. Though many forthcoming album releases have been delayed, today’s (March 27) album releases don’t disappoint. Scroll down for 10 of today’s essential new releases, featuring Dirty Projectors, Waxahatchee, Half Waif and more.
1. Catholic Action: Celebrated By Strangers
Glasgow quartet Catholic Action released their debut album, In Memory Of, back in 2017, and it was a frequently amusing, occasionally dark collection of knobby guitar tones and hopped-up pop songs. It’s also one of those records that made you remember what it was like to actually hear irresistibly hummable basslines in guitar songs that are decidedly not funky indie-pop or stark post-punk. On their 2020 follow-up Celebrated By Strangers, the four-piece led by lead singer, guitarist and producer Chris McCrory, are firing on all cylinders again, ready to remind you that guitar solos still rule—if they’re as interesting and well-executed as these, that is. —Lizzie Manno
2. Deeper: Auto-Pain
Deeper released their self-titled debut album in 2018, and it melded frantic, abstract lyrics with nimble guitar work that bordered on indie rock and post-punk—in turn, making them a staple band in the city’s altruistic music scene. Auto-Pain does ultimately push their spring-loaded sound even further, adding buoyant synths into the mix and even stickier riffs than before, but more than that, it depicts shades of despair that aren’t always easy to articulate. Their guitarist Mike Clawson’s death puts their stream-of-consciousness lyrics of inner turmoil into an entirely new context, and though the songs were written before his passing, listeners may hear them through this especially poignant lens. —Lizzie Manno
3. Dirty Projectors: Windows Open
Dirty Projectors have been in a transitory period for some time now. With the announcement of Dirty Projectors’ new EP Windows Open, we can firmly say they’re back with a solid sense of identity. The EP features four tracks, all of which feature BOBBY member Maia Friedman on lead vocals. The EP not only embraces Friedman as the band’s new centerpiece but also welcomes in the touring members from Lamp Lit Prose as mainstays. —Austin Jones
4. Gold Cage: Social Crutch
The debut album from Los Angeles slowcore trio Gold Cage feels like you’re gently bobbing in a sailboat at sunrise. Their spacious guitar loops embrace the best of pop sweetness and harshness. Bassist Mony Katz and guitarist Cole Devine trade vocal harmonies over lo-fi rock minimalism à la Galaxie 500 and Pinebender at a quicksand pace. —Lizzie Manno
5. Half Waif: The Caretaker
Over the course of Half Waif’s discography, Nandi Rose’s music has expanded from bucolic soundscapes into icier portraits. On 2014’s KOTEKAN and 2016’s Probable Depths, Rose’s strings, pianos and powerful mezzo-soprano provided an appropriately plaintive background for her ruminations on distance and personal growth. For 2017’s boxy form/a EP and 2018’s grief-stricken Lavender, she embraced synths that resembled icicles falling onto a patio and shattering—an element previously scattered, but not placed front and center, throughout her work—in service of songs as thoughtfully composed as they were towering and immediate. Rose’s Lavender follow-up The Caretaker is smaller in scale. The album often resembles a reversion to her sparser early work and away from the cavernous jolts of her more recent output. —Max Freedman
6. Jordana: Classical Notions of Happiness
Singer/songwriter Jordana has re-released her 2019 self-released debut album Classical Notions of Happiness via Grand Jury Music. The 19-year-old musician self-produces and records her music in her bedroom, and this re-release showcases the revamped production style of her recent material. “Sway,” which follows her previous singles “Signs” and “Crunch,” is a slow-crawling, guitar-based R&B jam. Her glimmering production style leaves plenty of room for her lush vocals, which blissfully cascade over the track. It’s exactly the kind of lounge-y, downtempo and heartfelt single to soundtrack late nights spent overthinking. —Lizzie Manno
7. Margaret Glaspy: Devotion
After exploring insecurity and bringing boys to the brink of tears on her debut album, Margaret Glaspy has taken on a more ardent perspective for her second LP. Devotion encompasses various meanings of the word, and Glaspy rolls through love, lust and the confidence to play it cool on a dozen new songs. More than her outlook has changed: Glaspy transformed her approach to arranging her songs, building these tracks with digital tools that result in a decidedly different sound than the guitar-based indie-rock that characterized Emotions and Math in 2016. She toys with synthesizers, electronic beats and even vocal effects on Devotion, broadening her palette without sacrificing her identity. —Eric R. Danton
8. Nap Eyes: Snapshot of a Beginner
If there’s a single track that summarizes Nap Eyes’ new album Snapshot of a Beginner, it’s “Mystery Calling,” a five-minute evocation of the band’s determinedly laid back aesthetic. “I’ve got some work today,” frontman Nigel Chapman casually croons, as if to weigh options between writing and sorting socks. “Maybe I should forget my song, just procrastinate.” When mystery calls, what else is one to do but answer it? Snapshot of a Beginner feels like a door into Chapman’s brain and a mellowing out of Nap Eyes’ music: Each track unravels varying philosophical musings over the relaxing hum of low-key musicianship, as if the goal is to meditate rather than bop. —Andy Crump
9. Sorry: 925
Londoners Sorry were one of Paste’s 15 new British acts you need to know in 2019, and if you’re not already, it’s the perfect time to get acquainted. Today, the band released their debut record, 925, after two years of releasing stellar single after stellar single, along with two visual mixtapes that are both glossy and grungy, abrasive and anesthetizing. —Amanda Gersten
10. Waxahatchee: Saint Cloud
If Out in the Storm was a tornado of sound and emotion, Saint Cloud, Katie Crutchfield’s fifth album under the Waxahatchee alias, is the calm that comes afterwards. In some ways, it possesses little pieces of all the musical lives Crutchfield has lived before: punk-y vocals à la her once-upon-a-time rock band with Allison, P.S. Eliot, searing, Dylan-esque vocal delivery, chiming guitars straight off Out in the Storm, pastoral folk not unlike that of her 2018 EP Great Thunder. The songwriting remains impeccable. Within 10 seconds, you know—without a doubt—it’s a Waxahatchee album. But it’s also different from anything she’s ever released before. —Ellen Johnson