10 New Albums to Stream Today

Music Lists New Albums
10 New Albums to Stream Today

This list of 10 albums is far from the most important thing you’ll read today. Don’t read this list until you’ve perused our resource guide for anti-racism and donated to organizations that are fighting against injustice and police brutality. Once you’ve done that, feel free to dive into some of the best new music out today (June 5). This New Music Friday features the long-awaited Run the Jewels album (which actually dropped two days early if you’ve somehow managed to direct your attention away from the country’s unrest for a moment—though the LP touches on that as well), plus the latest full-length from eccentric Chicago rockers Ohmme, the mind-numbing EP from London duo Jockstrap and much more. From noise-punk and electro-pop to folk and rap, we’ve got you covered on the music front this week.

1. Amnesia Scanner: Tearless

Berlin-based electronic provocateurs Amnesia Scanner have released their second album via PAN, the follow-up to 2018’s Another Life. The record, titled Tearless, features popular hardcore group Code Orange as well as Lalita and LYZZA. The duo’s album was inspired by environmental issues facing their home country of Finland before the COVID-19 outbreak. Described as a “breakup album from the planet,” their new material seems increasingly relevant as we venture further into uncharted territory thanks to the universal lockdown we’re facing. —Austin Jones

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2. Hinds: The Prettiest Curse

There should be a law requiring Hinds to release all of their future albums during the summer season in perpetuity. Grant that their latest, The Prettiest Curse, drops this week out of a sober respect for the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced a reschedule from its original April 3 date. Also grant that the tone baked into every Hinds record, from 2016’s Leave Me Alone to 2018’s I Don’t Run, pairs perfectly with warm, sunny days spent driving on beachside highways with the windows rolled down, even when they’re singing about loneliness, breakups and the neverending quest for hugs and cuddles. Hinds’ usual fuzzed-up rock aesthetic bridges the gap between The Prettiest Curse and I Don’t Run nicely. The latter plays strictly in the mode of garage rock. The former reads mostly the same, but occasionally brightened with layers of pop. Effervescence is a key ingredient in all their music, but The Prettiest Curse’s bubbliness is more pronounced, the froth that shapes the band’s rising to the surface in a slightly broader coating. It’s not unusual for musicians to try updating their sound with outside influences and unexpected genres, but too often the experiment falls apart; the unfamiliar elements clang against the details that give the group character, like eating chocolate cake baked with carob. Not so with The Prettiest Curse. Hinds—Carlotta Cosials, Ana Perrote, Amber Grimbergen, and Ade Martin—have a strong grip on their musical identity, and they’re not keen on a makeover. —Andy Crump

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3. Jockstrap: Wicked City

London duo Jockstrap (aka Georgia Ellery and Taylor Skye) have shared Wicked City, their second EP and debut for Warp Records. It follows 2018’s Love is the Key to the City. Jockstrap are quite enigmatic in sound—take “The City,” for example, which fuses glitchy industrial with showtune-y piano pop and glazed post-punk, and though that sounds insane on paper, it’s not only mind-numbingly fascinating, but also surprisingly coherent. “The heavy autobiographical narrative of Wicked City is married to an expressive and limitless sound world; influenced by everything we have ever musically absorbed and moulded with a ‘fuck it’ attitude,” Ellery says. You can certainly hear that “fuck it” ethos on this EP. Their strange, harsh-meets-soft pop is paired with poetic tales, and it’s the sound of deconstruction and reinvention—both sonic and emotional. —Lizzie Manno

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4. No Age: Goons Be Gone

L.A. noise-punk outfit No Age have shared Goons Be Gone, the full-length follow-up to 2018’s Snares Like a Haircut, which Paste described as “motion, motion, motion, noise, noise, noise” and “the musical equivalent of burying your head in the sand.” Goons Be Gone is exactly the kind of layered, invigorating clamor we’ve come to expect from No Age, but it still feels fresh. Their offbeat, self-recorded samples mingle seamlessly with their rugged human elements—it’s a cacophonous album, for sure, but don’t discount the grace of its rhythms and mindfulness of its construction. —Lizzie Manno

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5. Ohmme: Fantasize Your Ghost

Sima Cunnningham and Macie Stewart of Ohmme make average rock bands sound unimaginative and unremarkable—while most bands are happy just rolling a hoop with a stick, Ohmme are reinventing said hoops, but they have far too much humility to ever point out that discrepancy. The band’s new album Fantasize Your Ghost follows 2018’s Parts, and it shows off the Chicago duo’s strengths: writing fascinatingly experimental songs with surprising accessibility and braiding their voices to a staggering effect. Both musicians are classically trained, and their live shows prominently feature their raucous violin and guitar slinging as well as their unique artistic vision. Their forthcoming album opens with the wonderfully puzzling riff of “Flood Your Gut,” followed by the seraphic vocal harmonies and guitar bleed of “Selling Candy,” and right away, you know you’re on a sonically and artistically fruitful path. Another highlight is “3 2 4 3,” where colossal strings meet their astounding vocal might and subtle yet effective guitar lines. —Lizzie Manno

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6. Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever: Sideways to New Italy

Then on the heels of two stellar EPs, Melbourne’s Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever first appeared on our radar at SXSW 2017. The marvelous quintet piled on guitars unapologetically in each of their breezy pop songs with life on the world’s roads and skies laid ahead for them. Their excellent 2018 debut LP, Hope Downs, solidified their status as a touring powerhouse, but the grind eventually made the band turn inward when writing Sideways to New Italy. “We saw a lot of the world, which was such a privilege, but it was kind of like looking through the window at other people’s lives, and then also reflecting on our own,” says singer/guitarist Fran Keaney. “She’s There” opens almost unconsciously with a nasty guitar hook that threads into a song about longing and pondering someone’s absence who might be thousands of miles away. “Falling Thunder” is a more traditional pop groove that’s still heavily stacked with guitars and asks “Is it any wonder? We’re on the outside / Falling like thunder, from the sky.” And while RBCF is shifting to make sense of their place in the world, they’re still very much committed to doing so while absolutely shredding. —Adrian Spinelli

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7. Run the Jewels: RTJ4

This week, rap duo Run the Jewels released their first album in four years, RTJ4, and due to the present explosive tension in America, they decided to share it two days early. “Fuck it, why wait?” they said in a press statement. “The world is infested with bullshit so here’s something raw to listen to while you deal with it all. We hope it brings you some joy. Stay safe and hopeful out there and thank you for giving 2 friends the chance to be heard and do what they love.” The album, which features appearances from Mavis Staples, Pharrell, 2 Chainz, Rage Against the Machine’s Zack de La Rocha and Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme, spans themes of systemic oppression and personal struggles, and though that’s nothing new for the group, these songs hit especially hard right now. Killer Mike and El-P wrote and recorded the album back in 2019, but many social media users were so shocked at its prescience that they speculated whether the album was amended after the tragic killing of George Floyd and subsequent nationwide protests. —Lizzie Manno

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8. Sarah Jarosz: World On The Ground

Folk singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Sarah Jarosz recently announced that her new album World On The Ground will arrive on June 5 via Rounder Records. Lead single “Johnny” landed on our best folk songs of the year (so far) list ahead of the next single “Orange and Blue.” Co-written with producer John Leventhal, “Orange and Blue” is a balance of longing to flee one’s small hometown and wanting to stay fully nestled in the comforts of home. Delivered over slow-tempo piano, Jarosz sings, “I think I found it now / And nothing else will do / a heart that burns to true / burning orange and blue.” Per a press release, the song was written in homage to her childhood home in Wimberley, Texas. World On The Ground is Jarosz’s fourth solo album, following 2016’s Undercurrent. In 2018, she, along with fellow roots musicians Sara Watkins and Aoife O’Donovan, released the album See You Around as the supergroup I’m With Her. —Ellen Johnson

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9. Tenci: My Heart is An Open Field

Tenci, the moniker of Chicago-based musician Jess Shoman, has released her debut album, My Heart Is An Open Field, via Keeled Scales. Shoman announced the record alongside the music video for “Joy” and “Joy 2,”—a seven-minute display of intimate sketches of friendship and idle traveling. “Joy is an emotion that’s always fleeting. You race to find it so you can fill yourself up, but just as quickly it can leave you,” Shoman says. “It’s a name that I’ve given to new love, a cake that sits out too long, the breeze, desire, solitude. The moments where you lose this feeling are just as important as when you have it. There’s comfort in knowing that Joy will always be there in between the moments of self-doubt.” —Natalia Keogan

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10 Westerman: Your Hero is Not Dead

British electro-indie musician Westerman (aka Will Westerman), who Paste named one of the 15 British Artists You Need to Know in 2019, has released his debut album, Your Hero Is Not Dead, via Partisan/Play It Again Sam, which follows his 2018 Ark EP. His debut contains themes surrounding moral, ethical and political ambiguities while also being a contemplative inward look at Westerman’s own life. —Natalia Keogan

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