Lana Del Rey
Lana Del Rey by Neil Krug

Notable Releases of the Week (3/24)

Last week was predictably a little slower for music news and new albums with much of the music industry down in Austin for SXSW–check out our list of 23 great sets we saw and pics from our day party at Mohawk–but we’re back and the new music is in full force this week. It’s a very stacked week in which I highlight 12 new albums below, Bill tackles another seven in Bill’s Indie Basement (Debby Friday, Depeche Mode, The Reds Pinks & Purples, Heartworms, Connections, Noble Rot, and Purling Hiss included), and even that list of 19 is just scratching the surface.

On top of all those, here are many honorable mentions from this week: The Bouncing Souls, Fall Out Boy, Nickel Creek, Jae Skeese, Kool Keith & Real Bad Man, Hit-Boy (ft. Nas, Curren$y, The Alchemist & more), Jasiah (ft. Denzel Curry, Rico Nasty & more), Codefendants (Fat Mike, Get Dead, Ceschi), ICECOLDBISHOP, Public Serpents, 03 Greedo, Dom Flemons, Benny Sings, 6LACK, Lankum, Yours Are The Only Ears, YoshimiO & IzumikiYoshi duO, Luke Combs, Babymetal, Kele (Bloc Party), The Natural Lines (Matt Pond), Dick Stusso, Kate Davis, Jenny Conlee, Acid King, Basil’s Kite, Telos, Blow Your Brains Out, Ben Sloan, August Burns Red, Endless, Nameless, Semaphore, The Black Watch, Aphotic, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Sophie B. Hawkins, Unlearn & MP Shaw, The Blood Of Heroes, Zack Rosen, the Ihsahn EP, the Eyewash EP, the Eaves Wilder EP, the Spectral Lore EP, the Softcult EP, the Mark Peters (Engineers) EP, the Dazy EP, the Jeff Goldblum & The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra EP, the Black Country, New Road live album, The Kinks comp, the 50th anniversary edition of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, the 50th anniversary edition of Elton John’s Honky Château, and the 11th anniversary edition of Sharon Van Etten’s Tramp.

Read on for my picks. What’s your favorite release of the week?

Lana Del Rey

Lana Del Rey – Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd
Interscope/Polydor

To quote Billie Eilish, Lana Del Rey paved the way for everyone. Her once-polarizing version of alternative pop music changed the way so many artists approached their music, from already-established giants like (recent Lana collaborator) Taylor Swift to more recent rising stars like Billie. And the more influential she gets, the more her own music seems to shy away from commercial expectations. “With this album, the majority of it is my innermost thoughts,” Lana said while talking to Billie Eilish in the same Interview Magazine interview that Billie’s quote came from. Lana has been moving towards a more personal songwriting style for a few albums now, and she really leans into it with Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd. The album is largely quiet and minimal, with piano and string balladry setting the scene for stream-of-consciousness lyricism on the large majority of these songs. And then there are the outliers, like the hip hop-leaning “Peppers” with Tommy Genesis, the gospel-leaning “The Grants,” and “Let the Light In,” a lovely Laurel Canyon-style folk duet with Father John Misty. The album ends with a reprise of Norman Fucking Rockwell standout “Venice Bitch.” (There’s also a track where celebrity pastor Judah Smith delivers a four-and-a-half minute sermon, and I dunno if I’m gonna let that one finish every single time I listen to the album but your mileage may vary.) It’s an album where Lana sounds like she’s doing whatever the fuck she wants, a phrase that basically describes multiple Lana Del Rey albums at this point. In a broader sense, you know what you’re gonna get from this album, but on a more micro level, Ocean Blvd finds many ways to surprise you.

Danny Brown & JPEGMAFIA, SCARING THE HOES

JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown – Scaring The Hoes
PEGGY/AWAL

Danny Brown and JPEGMAFIA both have reputations for making loud, erratic rap music, and their two collaborations on Danny’s 2019 album uknowhatimsayin¿ were major highlights, so the idea of an entire collaborative album from these two sounded perfect. And it’s just as perfect in execution as it is on paper. Produced by JPEGMAFIA, the album ranges from hyperpop to glitch to industrial to flipped soul samples and more, and Danny and Peggy have boundless energy as they bounce off of each other over these blaring beats. The album’s only guest appearance comes from one of the most exciting newer rappers around, redveil, who provides “Kingdom Hearts Key” with its smooth coda.

Navy Blue

Navy Blue – Ways of Knowing
Def Jam

Navy Blue has been a staple of underground, out-of-the-box rap music for a few years now, and he’s now poised to reach more people than ever with Ways of Knowing, his Def Jam debut. It’s not just coming out on a bigger label; it’s also a little brighter and little less complex than Navy Blue’s previous work, without sacrificing the elements that made him such a unique artist. It was largely produced by his longtime friend and collaborator Budgie, who Navy Blue says “challenges [him] to simplify” his writing process, and it’s not as thematically dark as some of Navy Blue’s previous projects. “I don’t really want to be remembered as this stoic guy who’s perpetually reflecting on my trauma and Black plight, you know?,” Navy Blue says. “I want to make something that makes people smile out of joy, rather than smile in grief.” Ways of Knowing definitely makes the listener smile, with remarkable production that ranges from jazz-rap to chipmunk soul to reggae, and gripping storytelling from Navy Blue. As on past projects, Ways of Knowing proves Navy Blue is a master of rap traditions but not a follower. He knows just how to take time-tested formulas and make them his own.

Lucinda Chua

Lucinda Chua – YIAN
4AD

London artist Lucinda Chua came up playing in the Kranky-signed trio Felix and acting as touring cellist for FKA twigs, and toured as an opener for Slint back in 2013, but she’s only now releasing her debut solo album–following solo EPs from 2019 and 2021–and it really feels like the first time she’s introducing herself to the world. “It’s kind of unusual to write a debut solo album in your mid-thirties,” she said in a recent interview with The Forty-Five. “I’ve already been making music for over ten years, yet releasing this album now still feels like such a birthing moment.” The album is called YIAN, which is taken from her Chinese name Siew Yian, and it finds her fully embracing her Asian culture and roots that were often absent from her life as she grew up in London. The album’s accompanying visuals were deeply inspired by Chinese dance and old Hollywood representations of Asian characters, and she recruited a group of collaborators with likeminded backgrounds to help her achieve her vision. Singaporean art pop artist Yeule is one of the album’s few guests. Lucinda self-produced and engineered eight of the album’s ten tracks herself, and YIAN largely finds her exploring stirring, atmospheric art pop, bringing to mind musicians like Tori Amos, Radiohead, and Björk. It’s an overall quiet, slow-paced album, but give it the attention it deserves and you’ll find addictive hooks and explosive climaxes weaved into YIAN‘s delicacy.

Liturgy

Liturgy – 93696
Thrill Jockey

Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix has been challenging the boundaries and purism of black metal since Liturgy’s inception, and even with the expectation that the band’s new double album 93696 will do exactly that, this colossal new project still thrills and surprises in ways that feel almost jarringly fresh. True to its name, traditional black metal very literally invokes visions of darkness, but Hunt-Hendrix uses familiar black metal tricks to make music that sounds as bright and technicolor as 93696‘s album artwork. Along with Liturgy’s current lineup of guitarist Mario Miron, bassist Tia Vincent-Clark, and drummer Leo Didkovsky, 93696 finds Hunt-Hendrix bringing in string arrangements, a children’s choir, art rock electronics, and more to push the music in all kinds of unexpected directions. She says that she aimed to make this album “sound more punk-meets-classical than metal,” and that goal is reflected in the album’s production and arrangement choices, which rarely feel typical for metal (or any other style of music for that matter). The singles for the album included a shapeshifting 15-minute song, as well as a song that features nothing more than wordless choral a cappella singing, and those tracks make even more sense within the context of this album. It’s a true journey of an album, one that can be jaw-dropping, euphoric, and antagonizing all at once.

Dawn Ray'd

Dawn Ray’d – To Know The Light
Prosthetic Records

Liturgy isn’t the only band with an album out today that challenges the boundaries of black metal. UK band Dawn Ray’d’s third LP To Know The Light interrupts its tornadic black metal with passages of traditional British folk music and serene post-rock, and their lyricism is rooted in the folk tradition of protest music, rather than stereotypical black metal themes. The band cite such core influences as Chumbawumba, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Propagandhi, Crass, and Lankum (who also have a new album out today), and you can tell that all of that impacts To Know The Light just as much as black metal does. In a genre where sticking to a very specific set of influences and sounding indecipherable is often the point, Dawn Ray’d really stand out.

Yaya Bey

Yaya Bey – Exodus the North Star EP
Big Dada

Yaya Bey released one of last year’s best albums with Remember Your North Star, and now she’s back with a new EP, Exodus the North Star. It has a similar title and similar artwork, but these songs aren’t B-sides. It’s new music that picks up where Remember left off, with a mix of neo-soul, reggae, hip hop, house music, and more, and it often improves upon its already great predecessor. Yaya considers the EP to be “a new level of vulnerability for [her],” and it finds her reflecting on personal stories in a way that feels inspiring and hopeful. It’s a lean six songs with no filler, and it keeps the momentum going for Yaya as she enters what looks to be her biggest year yet, with multiple major festival appearances on the horizon.

The HIRS Collective We're Still Here

The HIRS Collective – We’re Still Here
Get Better Records

The Philly hardcore collective HIRS stormed onto the scene about a decade ago, flipping a middle finger to homophobia, capitalism, and all other kinds of hate and oppression, and they know that there’s strength in numbers. They’ve become more and more collaborative with other artists over the years, and We’re Still Here boasts their most remarkable collaborations yet. Throughout all the dark, grindy madness, the immediately recognizable vocals of Garbage’s Shirley Manson, Thursday’s Geoff Rickly, Circa Survive’s Anthony Green, Screaming Females’ Marissa Paternoster, Paint It Black’s Dan Yemin, The Locust’s Justin Pearson, and more pop up. There’s a song where longtime friends Jeremy Bolm of Touché Amoré and Jordan Dreyer of La Dispute bounce their iconic shouts off of each other. There’s another where Soul Glo’s Pierce Jordan and Escuela Grind’s Katerina Economou trade piercing screams. And another where Anti-Flag’s Chris #2 and The Homeless Gospel Choir’s Derek Zanetti team up for one of the heaviest collaborations of either musician’s career. Also along for the ride is My Chemical Romance’s Frank Iero, Converge’s Nate Newton, Fucked Up’s Damian Abraham, and members of Melt-Banana, Full of Hell, Nø Man, Thou, Gouge Away, The Body, Bleed The Pigs, Sunrot, and more. If it sounds too good to be true, or too much of a good thing, it’s not. We’re Still Here is a super tight, super cohesive hardcore album, the standout collaborations are as thrilling as you’d hope, and the whole thing presents multiple generations of hardcore and punk musicians as a unified front, saying “fuck you” to politicians and corporations and anyone else trying to strip innocent people of their freedoms.

Caroline Rose

Caroline Rose – The Art of Forgetting
New West

Having started out as a folky singer/songwriter before moving towards synth-fueled pop on their last couple records, Caroline Rose makes yet another pivot with The Art of Forgetting. Elements of both their poppy side and their folky side remain, but The Art of Forgetting is largely a louder, edgier, more eccentric indie/art rock record. Guitars sound raw and in your face, blunt lyrics jump out at you, arrangements are unpredictable, and Caroline often brings their voice to an untamed roar. Caroline considers it a more “confessional” album, compared to their more dramatic, exaggerated earlier work (“I’m a theater kid, I love the drama”), but even still, Caroline’s theatrical side comes through and that’s a big reason why The Art of Forgetting avoids sounding like a stereotypical “confessional indie rock” album. Caroline’s energy and charisma make these songs cut through all the noise.

Angel Bat Dawid, Requiem For Jazz

Angel Bat Dawid – Requiem for Jazz
International Anthem

Angel Bat Dawid’s latest album is one of her most ambitious projects yet. It was inspired in part by dialogue from Edward O. Bland’s 1959 film The Cry of Jazz, a film that critiqued racial politics in the USA and featured live footage of Sun Ra and his Arkestra, and it began its life when Angel premiered music from the album at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival in Chicago in 2019 with a 15-piece ensemble featuring singers from Damon Lock’s Black Monument Ensemble. (Damon also designed the album artwork.) Angel then mixed and post-produced recordings from the performance, adding in interludes, vocals, and “additional sounds,” and Sun Ra Arkestra’s Marshall Allen and Knoel Scott contributed as well. The result is a sprawling album with everything from avant-garde jazz passages to electronic hip hop beats to operatic gospel vocals to found sounds and much more. “I want us to have this very wonderful conversation that Ed Bland started over 50 years ago,” Angel says. “I want to continue the conversation; because this is a loving conversation that we need to have with each other.”

Arooj Aftab Vijay Iyer Shahzad Ismaily Love In Exile

Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer, Shahzad Ismaily – Love In Exile
Verve

Love In Exile is a new collaborative album from Arooj Aftab on vocals, Vijay Iyer on pianos and electronics, and Shahzad Ismaily on bass and Moog synth. All three are widely-acclaimed musicians of South Asian descent, and between the three of them, they’ve got roots in jazz, modern classical, experimental rock, folk, Sufi music, and more. Love In Exile was recorded live in studio with little editing, and it was heavily improvisational. “Vijay and Shahzad were so locked into each other, and it was unclear whether they were doing what I was doing or I was doing what they were doing,” Arooj says. “We were like a school of fish.” The songs are lengthy, and various musicians take the spotlight at different points; sometimes it’s Arooj’s gorgeously soaring vocals, sometimes it’s Vijay’s meandering keys. It touches on most of those aforementioned styles of music, but it never really fits into any of them; it’s just living, breathing, serene music and it’s very worth listening to.

Rosalia Rauw Alejandro

Rosalía & Rauw Alejandro – RR EP
Columbia

Puerto Rican reggaeton star Rauw Alejandro and Catalan flamenco-turned-reggaeton and art pop star Rosalía have been in a relationship together for three years, but they haven’t made music together until now. Rosalía says that each of the three songs on RR “belongs to a different stage of love,” and the first two are instantly-satisfying reggaeton bangers, while final track “Promesa” finds the couple delivering a sensual slow jam. It sounds like they’ve got just as much chemistry in the vocal booth as they do in real life, and Rauw says the couple plans to write “many more songs” together. Judging by these three songs, that’s very good news. Also: the video for “Beso” appears to reveal that they’re engaged.

Read Bill’s Indie Basement for more new album reviews, including Debby Friday, Depeche Mode, The Reds Pinks & Purples, Heartworms, Connections, Noble Rot, and Purling Hiss.

Looking for more recent releases? Browse the Notable Releases archive or scroll down for previous weeks.

Looking for a podcast to listen to? Check out our new episode about classic emo albums turning 10 this year.

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