In this segment, we showcase the most notable albums out each week. Here are the albums out on May 17, 2024:
Billie Eilish, Hit Me Hard and Soft
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Billie Eilish‘s new album, Hit Me Hard and Soft, has arrived. It marks the pop star’s third LP, following 2021’s Happier Than Ever and 2019’s When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? Eilish shared no singles ahead of the release. “I feel like this album is me,” she said in an interview with Rolling Stone. “It’s not a character. It feels like the When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? version of me. It feels like my youth and who I was as a kid.”
Beth Gibbons, Lives Outgrown
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Portishead’s Beth Gibbons has released her long-awaited debut solo album, Lives Outgrown, via Domino. Co-produced by Gibbons and James Ford, with additional production from Talk Talk’s Lee Harris, the record was previewed by the tracks ‘Floating on a Moment’, ‘Lost Changes’, and ‘Reaching Out’. “I realized what life was like with no hope,” Gibbons reflected in a statement about the album. “And that was a sadness I’d never felt. Before, I had the ability to change my future, but when you’re up against your body, you can’t make it do something it doesn’t want to do.” Read our review of Lives Outgrown.
Shellac, To All the Trains
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To All Trains, Shellac’s first album in a decade, is out today. Recorded between 2017 and 2022, the follow-up to 2014’s Dude Incredible arrives a week after the sudden passing of their guitarist and underground rock icon Steve Albini. “This record will have no formal promotion,” the band wrote in a statement accompanying the album’s announcement in March. “There will be no advertisements, no press or radio promotion, no e-promotion, no promotional or review copies, no promotional gimmick items, and otherwise no free lunch.”
Crumb, AMAMA
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Crumb have followed up 2021’s Ice Melt with a new LP, AMAMA. The New York psych-rockers previewed the record with ‘The Bug’ and the title track. Commenting on the latter, singer and multi-instrumentalist Lila Ramani said: “AMAMA is dedicated to my namesake, my grandmother, whose voice is sampled throughout the song. A video sent to me over WhatsApp of her singing originally inspired the melody and ethos of the song, from which I built its glitchy, warped foundation. It’s a love song! My partner and Crumb’s creative director [Abraham El Makawy] directed the video, which combines his family’s archival footage of the neighbourhood we grew up in, home videos from the band, as well as drawings from 702 fans who helped us animate the last part of the video. The song is the title track and spiritual centre of our new album.”
Various Artists, Everyone’s Getting Involved: A Tribute To Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense
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A24 has released Everyone’s Getting Involved: A Tribute to Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense. The studio has been rolling out singles from the compilation over the past few months, including Paramore’s take on ‘Burning Down the House’, Teezo Touchdown’s ‘Making Flippy Floppy’, girl in red’s ‘Girlfriend Is Better’, and Lorde’s ‘Take Me To The River’. Now that the full album is out, we also get to hear Miley Cyrus’ rendition of ‘Psycho Killer’, the National tackling ‘Heaven’, Kevin Abstract’s ‘Once in a Lifetime’, BADBADNOTGOOD and Norah Jones reworking ‘This Must Be The Place (Naïve Melody)’, and Toro y Moi and Brijean Tom Tom Club’s ‘Genius of Love’, among others.
From Indian Lakes, Way to Be
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On May 15, From Indian Lakes, the project masterminded by Joe Vann, unveiled his new album Head Void. The follow-up to 2019’s Dimly Lit was recorded at Vann’s home studio in California, with Will Yip handling the mastering. “Once my studio was finished and I had gotten back into my drums and microphones and all of that stuff, I finally had a live space to get loud for the first time in a few years,” Vann shared in press materials. “So I just hit record and got loud.” The singles ‘The Flow’ and ‘The Lines’ preceded the LP.
One Step Closer, All You Embrace
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One Step Closer have dropped a new album All You Embrace, following 2021’s This Place You Know and last year’s Songs for the Willow EP. “I wanted to showcase One Step Closer in its fullest state,” vocalist Ryan Savitski said of the LP in a statement. “Every single part of the band, I wanted it to be there. I wanted us to be 100% ourselves and be as authentic to our band as we could possibly be.” ‘Orange Leaf’, ‘Leap Years’, ‘Giant’s Despair’, and ‘Blur My Memory’ arrived ahead of the release.
Lip Critic, Hex Dealer
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New York City group Lip Critic have put out their debut full-length, Hex Dealer, via Partisan. The album was produced by vocalist Bret Kaser and Connor Kleitz, and features contributions from Ghösh, ID.Sus, and Izzy Da Fonseca. “With Hex Dealer, we wanted to create our most cohesive and immediate project yet,” the band’s Danny Eberle told Alternative Press. “We wanted to find a balance between the fast and heavy and the melodic and accessible, and create a complete work.” The singles ‘In the Wawa (Convinced I Am God)’, ‘It’s the Magic’, ‘The Heart’, and ‘Milky Max’ prefaced the LP.
of Montreal, Lady on the Cusp
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Of Montreal have returned with a new album, Lady on the Cusp, the follow-up to 2022’s Freewave Lucifer f<ck f^ck f>ck. Bandleader Kevin Barnes and their partner, musician Christina Schneider (aka Locate S, 1), recently relocated from Athens, Georgia to the state of Vermont, and the album was written and recorded in the months before the move. As a result, the record “combines a keen reckoning with the past with hopeful glimpses of the future, all clad in Barnes’ purposefully scattershot pop kaleidoscopes,” according to a press release.
Ani DiFranco, Unprecedented Sh!t
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Ani DiFranco has issued her 23rd album, Unprecedented Sh!t, via her own Righteous Babe Records. The record was produced by BJ Burton, known for his work with Bon Iver, Low, Charli XCX, and more. It spans 11 tracks, including the previously unveiled ‘The Thing at Hand’, ‘New Bible’, and ‘You Forgot to Speak’. “All my albums are unique in and of themselves, some veer more personal while some veer more political,” DiFranco told GRAMMY.com. “Sometimes I’m more inward looking, and sometimes more outward looking. I think we all have these different moments in our life that we move through. On this album, there was a lot of looking at my society, my culture, and speaking to things bigger than I.”
Other albums out today:
Cage the Elephant, Neon Pill; Mach-Hommy, #Richaxxhaitian; Pallbearer, Mind Burns Alive; Guppy, Something Is Happening…; Slash, Orgy of the Damned; Isobel Campbell, Bow to Love; Guster, Ooh La La; Laura J Martin, Prepared; Zayn, Room Under the Stars; The Avett Brothers, The Avett Brothers; Winter Aid, Pull The Sky Inside; Idaho, Lapse; SQÜRL, Music For Man Ray; GIRLI, Matriarchy; Zero Point Energy, Titled Planet; John Oates, Reunion New Kids On The Block, Still Kids; Kate Hudson, Glorious; Ghostly Kisses, Darkroom; Rapsody, Please Don’t Cry; Morgan Garrett, Purity; Phoebe Go, Marmalade; Candy Apple, Comatose; Cold Hart, Pretty in the Dark; Sasha Alex Sloan, Me Again; Kaia Kater, Strange Medicine; Dog Party, Dangerous; Little Feat, Sam’s Place; Laci Kaye Booth, The Loneliest Girl in the World; Multiples, Two Hours or Something; Ana Egge, Sharing in the Spirit; China Forbes, The Road; Zig Zags, Strange Masters; Taylor Deupree, Sti.ll.