The 10 new albums you should stream right now

Sophie Allison’s second album as Soccer Mommy is focused on three themes, each with a corresponding color: blue, representing sadness and depression; yellow for physical and emotional illness; and gray, representing darkness, emptiness, and loss. What sounds like a heavy experience is lifted by Allison’s song craft and knack for coming up with killer hooks. “The production warps, the guitar solos occasionally glitch, the melodies can be poppy and deceptively cheerful,” Allison said in a statement announcing the album. “To me, it sounds like the music of my childhood distressed and, in some instances, decaying.” — David Renshaw

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In an unheard-of move for an A-list rapper, Lil Baby took 2019 off. Despite not dropping a solo project of his own for a whole calendar year, a slew of guest features ensured his star status has never been higher. Today the Atlanta rapper drops new album My Turn. His hard-boiled tales of street life are augmented by guest stars Gunna, Future, Lil Uzi Vert, Lil Wayne, Moneybagg Yo, and Young Thug. — DR

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This six-track EP, which features vocals in both English and French, is a surprise release and Chris’s first since her 2018 album Chris. Caroline Polachek appears on the title track and in the accompanying short film released alongside the EP. Directed by Colin Solal Cardo and shot at the Palais Garnier in Paris, the 14-minute video chronicles Chris’s slow descent into life as a vampire. — DR

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Producer Dan Snaith returns to his Caribou moniker after a five year break for an album of euphoric dance music with a deeply personal edge. “Sister” revolves around Snaith apologising to a sibling while a sample of his mother singing a nursery rhyme oscillates in the background. “Like I Loved You,” meanwhile, is a deceptively beautiful song from an artist whose intelligence has often taken precedence over his heart. These songs, alongside singles “Home” and You and I,” combine to create an effortlessly, and endlessly listenable album destined for many rewinds. — DR

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“It’s me spreading awareness to mental health, to PTSD,” Chicago rapper G Herbo recently told Complex about his new album, which he hopes will inspire others to seek help. “I’m a product of poverty-stricken neighborhoods. We don’t really understand, you know. I was clinically diagnosed with PTSD through my therapist, and until I was aware of these situations, it was just normal.” PTSD features guests Lil Uzi Vert, 21 Savage, Jacquees, Lil Durk, Chance the Rapper, and the late Juice WRLD. — DR

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A blissful journey back into Indiana singer and guitarist Kevin Krauter's youth, Full Hand is a remarkably hopeful record that borrows all of his teenage influences and sends them into a dream state. "I try not to hold any hostility towards my upbringing," Krauter, who was raised in the church and homeschooled until high school, tells The FADER in a new interview. "Coming out of that is just kind of trippy. It brings weird, angsty thoughts up with it." Listening to Full Hand's shamelessly sweet melodies, you'd be forgiven for thinking there's very little angst at all. — Alex Robert Ross

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The Main Thing is Real Estate’s follow-up to 2017's In Mind and marks the first time the band have worked with outside instrumentalists and featured artists. The album includes contributions from Sylvan Esso’s Amelia Meath, plus Matt Barrick of The Walkmen and Aaron Johnston of Brazilian Girls. The band will head out on a 24-date North American tour in April. — DR

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This is the consistently impressive Chicago-based jazz label International Anthem's first full-length release from a British artist, and it's a really rewarding listen. Alabaster DePlume is a Manchester-born, London-based bandleader, saxophonist, composer, and activist who has been releasing immersive jazz records for the better part of a decade, but here for the first time he's stripped of all vocals, bringing together a collection of instrumentals recorded all over the country for different projects. Conceptually the album was born from DePlume's work with the Manchester charity Ordinary Lifestyles, which helps people with disabilities to lead normal lives. Two of those people were Cy and Lee, with whom he made up melodies to "get them socializing," according to Emma Warren's excellent notes for the album. She also cites "Japanese Min’yo folk, Celtic folk, the Ethio-jazz of saxophonist Getatchew Mekurya[...] hints of the pan-human ‘ancient music’ that sat underneath Arthur Russell’s melodies on First Thought, Best Thought," and "Joe Hisaishi’s soundtrack for Studio Ghibli’s Castle In The Sky" among DePlume's influences here. After a few listens it just sounds boundless. — ARR

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New York singer-songwriter Ben Seretan's first full-length in four years builds on minimal arrangements, weaving Seretan's delicate-sounding voice into layer upon layer of guitar and flute and piano. It also spirals out of control as he digs further into the California he knew growing up in the church, leading to a series of "OH MY GOD"s at the end of centerpiece "Am I Doing Right By You?" and eventually the Fahey-esque guitar of stunning closer "Bowing Cypress." You'll follow Seretan's voice anywhere, though, no matter how completely he unmoors himself from the Earth. — ARR

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Brooklyn-born, Barbados-raised rapper Haleek Maul has been around since 2012, when, as a 16-year-old, he released a promising downtempo debut EP called Oxyconteen. Eight whole years later he's released his debut album, the impressive and diverse Errol, with features from Sean Leon, Mick Jenkins, and Ro Ransom. In a press release, Maul said that the album is dedicated to his late grandfather: "With this project I'm working through a lot of the things I've learned since I lost him, as well as speaking on the transformation I'm undergoing as an artist and person." — ARR

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