Note: This review is based on last night’s livestream of Nasir, which hasn’t been officially released at the time of publication. You can watch the stream below.

Melody’s Echo Chamber pushes its warped psych pop to new lands on Bon Voyage, while Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever debuts with the dreamy, mature Hope Downs, and Chromeo strikes the right balance on fifth LP Head Over Heels. These, plus Immersion and The English Beat in this week’s notable new releases.

What is freedom to Kanye West? The answer to that question is becoming exceedingly difficult to understand. He’s always positioned himself as a free thinker in the mold of Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, and other titans of industry (without pausing to note the irony that his free thought brings him to the conclusions of the…

Zeal & Ardor forges an exhilarating new sound on second LP Stranger Fruit; Lykke Li turns inward on the hit-or-miss So Sad So Sexy; and bedroom pop gets a hi-fi makeover on Snail Mail’s full-length debut, Lush. These, plus Angélique Kidjo and Lily Allen in this week’s notable new releases.

In a way, Ye is what everyone wanted. The word “Trump” appears nowhere on the album. Kanye only acknowledges his risible claim that “slavery was a choice” obliquely, and with regrets (“I ain’t finna talk about it another four centuries”). He doesn’t attempt to fit the hateful rhetoric of his YouTube thought leaders in…

Father John Misty reaches the apex of hopelessness on God’s Favorite Customer, while Laura Marling and Mike Lindsay (Tunng) embrace the surreal on LUMP, and New York no-wavers The Dreebs take pleasure in the claustrophobic on Forest Of A Crew. These, plus catching up with A$AP Rocky’s recent Testing in this week’s…

There are harpsichords all over Age Of, electronic composer Daniel Lopatin’s eighth studio album as Oneohtrix Point Never. It’s an instrument that Lopatin derides in press materials as a “perfectly dumb machine”—one that always reverberates the same, no matter how you strike the keys. That sound, reminiscent of…

Pusha T came out of the gate fully evolved. He kicks off the intro to Clipse’s Lord Willin’, released in 2002, talking shit and pushing weight—“Playas we ain’t the same, I’m into ’caine and guns”—a statement of purpose from which he never wavered. He was 25. Over Clipse’s ensuing mixtapes and albums, he and brother…

Chvrches get a production boost on the overlong Love Is Dead, while fifth full-length V. erodes Wooden Shjips’ edge away for good, and post-punks Numb.er debut with all style and little substance.

Brooklyn quartet Parquet Courts harness their collective voice on Wide Awake!, while Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks reveal a little more of themselves on Sparkle Hard, and OOOOO & Islamiq Grrrls join forces for the intoxicating Faminine Mystique. These, plus GAS and Low Cut Connie in this week’s notable new releases.

Courtney Barnett’s debut full-length, 2015’s Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit, established the Australian indie-rocker as a potent musical force. With its tumbling guitars, ragged vocals, and grunge-punk tones—all of which coalesced on the scorching, sassy “Pedestrian At Best”—the album exceeded the…

The standard narrative goes like this: Bruce Springsteen without the E Street band is like a painter missing a color from their palette—there’s just something incomplete. His years with the band on hiatus, in this reading, were those of a musician lost in the creative wilderness. But the new remasters collection Bruce…

Six albums and 14 years in, Baltimore duo Beach House has well-established itself as masters of dream pop, with each release gradually refining and evolving its unmistakable sound: a transportive pulse of organs and swooning melodies drawing from psych pop, shoegaze, and more. Singer-keyboardist Victoria Legrand and…

Arctic Monkeys’ sixth album feels unmoored, while Tee Grizzley’s Activated sounds like the work of a budding superstar, and La Luz explores the textures of its tiki-bar sound on Floating Features. These, plus The Body and Mark Kozelek in this week’s notable new releases.

A triple LP always says something. If you’re George Harrison, whose 23-track debut All Things Must Pass set a gold standard for Beatles solo records, it says, “Those fuckers should’ve let me write more.” If you’re The Clash, whose 1980 triple-set Sandinista! came just a year after its breakout double-LP London Calling…

Ambient techno master Jon Hopkins balances dance-floor euphoria with armchair contemplation on Singularity, while German producer DJ Koze’s excellent Knock Knock feels like a day spent in paradise, and the Fiery Furnaces sound creeps back in on Eleanor Friedberger’s fourth solo LP, Rebound. These, plus Belly, Iceage,…

Janelle Monáe has devoted years to developing the saga of Cindi Mayweather, a renegade android hunted for having the gall to fall in love with a human. The meticulously crafted character is at the center of much of the Grammy nominee’s work, including the funk-opera Metropolis, and her subsequent full-length releases, …

Grouper’s Grid Of Points finds the artist at her most vulnerable, while Dr. Dog loses momentum on Critical Equation, and Okkervil River’s In The Rainbow Rain is pretty but a little schmaltzy. These, plus Speedy Ortiz in this week’s notable new releases.

A Perfect Circle’s belated Eat The Elephant is more whimper than bang, while the Melvins’ acid-drenched Pinkus Abortion Technician doubles the bass, and Exitmusic dissolves with the exhausting but honest The Recognitions. These, plus Sting & Shaggy and Alexis Taylor in this week’s notable new releases.

Manic Street Preachers live up to lofty pop touchstones on Resistance Is Futile, while Pinned doesn’t quite pack the punch of prior A Place To Bury Strangers releases. These, plus Rival Consoles and the debut solo album of Spinal Tap bassist Derek Smalls in this week’s notable new releases.