Every week, Vulture gathers new albums you can listen to right now. We don’t have a problem admitting it: Keeping track of everything that’s released can be overwhelming, but finding out about interesting music doesn’t have to be work. Read our picks below, and share your thoughts in the comments.
Lana Del Rey, Lust for Life (Polydor/Interscope)
“Is this the end of an era? Is this the end of America?†Lana Del Rey sings on “When the World Was at War We Kept Dancing,†off her fifth album, Lust for Life. There’s a lot to unpack in that question. Lana is at once talking to both herself and the country she’s so long romanticized. Of course, her love affair with Americana doesn’t end on this album — American cars, American cinema, and American crimes are all lyrically present — but she is wary of having been so blindly allegiant to America for so long. The country’s changing and Lana’s changing with it. And it’s all culminating in her most personal — and yet somehow still most macro — album to date, filled with songs that question how and why she falls in love, with both men and her country. She’s cautiously optimistic we’re all going to make it through these growing pains, but for much of the album, even she doesn’t sound too sure we will. —Dee Lockett (@Dee_Lockett)
Meek Mill, Wins & Losses (Atlantic Records)
Meek Mill’s latest album is a big-budget affair featuring Young Thug, Rick Ross, Quavo, Lil Uzi Vert, and many other major players. It is at times inspiring, devastating, and impressive — yet the main question I have is if people will give it the listen it deserves. Such is the peril of going up against a juggernaut like Drake. Drake beef aside, Meek Mill’s brand of rap is impressively hyperactive — it’s a style that his fellow Philadelphian Freeway also uses to great effect — he sounds perpetually out of breath and frantic, and it’s a perfect match for tracks like “We Ball,†the collaboration with Young Thug that is a heartbreaking meditation on death. It’s also an asset on the upbeat “Connect the Dots,†with Rick Ross and Yo Gotti. Wins & Losses is not going to suddenly make Meek Mill more popular than he already is, but it is an impressive showcase for a rapper with plenty to show off. —Sam Hockley-Smith (@Shockleysmith)
Avey Tare, Eucalyptus (Domino Records)
Animal Collective’s Campfire Songs was an of-the-moment document of freak-folk: a bunch of guys getting together on a porch to record a loose improvisational record that was often beautiful and sometimes frustratingly ephemeral. It also featured rain sounds. It was, ultimately, a good-bye to the more organic side of Animal Collective, who would soon fill out their sound with electronics and a bit more structure. Neither style is better or worse than the other, but Avey Tare’s Eucalyptus is a welcome return to the soft psychedelia of early AC. It’s a purposefully low-key record that exists in a dream state. If you’re feeling stressed, put it on. —SH-S
Tyler, the Creator, Scum Fuck Flower Boy (Columbia Records)
Flower Boy is a promising, mature record from an artist who made a career on being the opposite. Cohesive and surprisingly toned-down, the album is a downright celebratory progression that finally allows Tyler’s music to match and compliment the angst and depression his lyrics often cover. The rapper’s lyrics are where things might be most shocking, as tirades of epithets are far less common than on previous efforts, allowing Tyler room to seemingly question his sexuality. On “Garden Shedâ€: “Truth is, since a youth kid, thought it was a phase / Thought it would be like the phrase; ‘poof’, gone / But it’s still going on.†—Ethan Sapienza (@ClickTheMovie)
Damian “Jr Gong†Marley, Stony Hill (Republic Records)
The last time Damian Marley released a solo album it was 2005, and that album’s titular track, “Welcome to Jamrock,†was an instant all-time classic summer song. If it were the only song he’d ever made, I would feel comfortable calling his career a success, but after a couple of collaborative albums — one with Nas — he’s back with Stony Hill, a solo album that features zero songs as good as “Welcome to Jamrock.†Don’t take that as an insult, though: Stony Hill has its moments — “R.O.A.R.,†“Upholstery,†and “Nail Pon Cross†are all very solid summer songs — maybe just tack “Welcome to Jamrock†onto the end of your Damian Marley playlist anyway though. —SH-S
Nine Inch Nails, Add Violence (The Null Corporation)
The strongest of the six-song Add Violence is the EP’s opener “Less Than,†a video game rendering of the band’s driving industrial rock where Trent Reznor dwells on the demanding qualities of others. Channeling the success of “The Hand That Feeds,†“Not Anymore†builds off growling distortion into a shouting, guitar-hammering chorus. For real diehard NIN fans, Add Violence closes with the slow-moving, 11-minute track “The Background World,†which transitions from a hypnotic techno ballad into unceasing feedback. —ES
Cornelius, Mellow Waves (Rostrum Records)
Cornelius has at times been compared to Beck and the Beastie Boys for the way he cut up samples to make fractured pop music, but Mellow Waves, his first album since 2006’s Sensuous, is a, uh, mellow pop album that is simultaneously intimate and lush. Though all the arrangements are fully fleshed out and beautifully recorded, Mellow Waves actually sounds a bit like a treasure trove of Beach Boys demos — hushed, wide-eyed, and overwhelmingly pretty. —SH-S
Dizzee Rascal, Raskit (Island Records)
Dizzee Rascal’s debut, Boy in da Corner, simultaneously sounded like the future and like it was recorded inside a Gameboy. His later work gradually moved away from that sound, toward pop-crossover purgatory. After some success in that world, Dizzee finds a nice middle ground between his earliest work and his poppier sensibilities on Raskit. At its core, this is an album meant to showcase Dizzee’s tightly wound flow over modern production, and that’s mostly what we get. But Boy-throwback tracks like “Everything Must Go†— where his voice jabs at blown-out bass — are signs that the rapper hasn’t forgotten that part of what made him great in the first place was his ability to tackle beats that no one else would ever know how to approach. —SH-S