Jack White, Boarding House Reach
The new album from the rocker-turned mogul is a "messy, sprawling, daffy, howling set that sounds spiritually hungry, collectively driven and, instructively, a little bit lost," writes Will Hermes. "It's his strangest record, but per usual, it shows his continued devotion to rock's dark arts: the tangled cultural roots, 'mistake'-enhanced recording traditions, self-righteous fury and fetchingly-deranged megalomania."
Read Our Feature: Can Jack White Change His Stripes?
Read Our Review: Jack White Messes with Identity and Rock History on the Endearingly Weird, Surprisingly Relevant Boarding House Reach
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Neil Young and Promise of the Real, Paradox
The film Paradox, which stars Neil Young and was directed by Daryl Hannah, runs a gamut of themes from Westerns to sci-fi, and its soundtrack is similarly diverse, scattering a few morsels of melody amidst a medley of guitar zoodles. It's similar in some ways to Young's 1996 soundtrack for Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man, but has a bit more meat. The highlights are a loose acoustic version of the title track from 2016's Peace Trail, a somber live recording of Rust Never Sleeps' "Pocahontas," a loose, Elvis-inspired take on Jimmy Reed's "Baby, What You Want Me to Do?" and a 10-minute instrumental jam spinning out from Everybody Knows This is Nowhere's "Cowgirl in the Sand." Betwixt and between are moments of spoken word, fleeting guitar impressions and some pleasant jams with Young's current backing band, Promise of the Real. Kory Grow
Read Our Feature: Neil Young Talks Wild New Film Paradox and Why Retirement Tours Are "Bullshit"
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Chloe x Halle, The Kids Are Alright
Sister duo Chloe x Halle's profile has soared since their YouTube cover-artist days, with a co-sign from Beyoncé and starring roles on ABC Family's Grown-ish. But their aesthetic has only become more singular, as their debut full-length proves. Their quivering harmonies weave in and out over groove-heavy dream-pop; tracks like the bass-heavy "Down" and the galloping Grown-ish theme "Grown" showcasing their left-field approach to melody, which recall B's more outré hits like "Sorry" and Neneh Cherry's woozy "Manchild." While cameos from Brooklyn MC Joey Bada$$ and D.C. rapper GoldLink feel more like sops to anxious executives than essential additions to the duo's music, the smoldering verse from Los Angeles rapper Kari Faux on the plastic-people rebuke "Fake" tethers its swirl to earth. Chloe x Halle are still young – the younger Halle turns 18 next week, while Chloe is 20 this summer – and The Kids Are Alright both proves the thesis statement of its title and offers a bright future vision for R&B. Maura Johnston
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Guided By Voices, Space Gun
The ever-prolific Robert Pollard "is still remaking his rock heroes in his own image" on the latest album from his flagship group, writes Jon Dolan. "It'd totally make sense coming out after 1996's Under the Bushes Under the Stars, the last record the band made with its 'classic' mid-Nineties lineup until 2012. That lineup is here, and it clearly spurs Pollard to put the right amount of elbow grease into his songwriting."
Read More: Nineties Indie-Rock is as Alive as Ever: Great Albums from Guided By Voices, Superchunk and Yo La Tengo Prove That
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The Messthetics, The Messthetics
The taut, urgent debut from this D.C. trio is a study in balance – math-rock rigor and guitar-whiz pyrotechnics, punk economy and prog expansiveness. Bringing together bassist Joe Lally and drummer Brendan Canty (the rhythm section for D.C. DIY heroes Fugazi) and guitar avant-gardist Anthony Pirog, the vocal-free The Messthetics is kinetic and thrilling, with Pirog's six-string flights of fancy and the finely honed chug of Lally and Canty seemingly daring each other to push ever harder. Maura Johnston
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Sunflower Bean, Twentytwo In Blue
This Brooklyn trio's great 2016 debut was a dreamy, droney guitar-drunk pleasure. The new one is just as nice, from the glam stomp of "Burn It" and "Crisis Fest" to the Smiths swirls of "Twentytwo" and "I Was A Fool." Where their first album had lyrics about sitting around staring at the wall and wondering whether or not to go out, there's a little more emotional forward motion here and Seventies strut here, with bassist-singer Julia Cumming delivering her lyrics with sweet winning swagger and, on the cavernous slow jam "Only A Moment," tender girl group ache. Jon Dolan
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Sidi Touré, Toubalbero
This "flashy, urgent" new album from the Songhai star "electroshocks the acoustic folk sounds dominating his prior four albums," writes Richard Gehr. "Toubalbero is a Goa term for a large traditional drum that brings a community together, and Touré extends this sense of oversized communal enchantment in songs like 'Heyyeya,' which reflects a wedding day – 'nothing but happiness, nothing but joy' – in an increasingly frenetic skein of polyrhythmic pleasure."
Read More: Mali, Niger and Algeria Are Producing Some of the Planet's Most Vital Rock Music
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Erika Wennerstrom, Sweet Unknown
The solo debut from the leader of Ohio rockers Heartless Bastards is a spacious, starlit collection that showcases her wail over sprawling Americana. "I was at a point where I was deeply unhappy, and on a whim, I decided to do an Ayahuasca retreat," Wennerstrom told Rolling Stone Country. "Despite the idea frightening me, I felt I needed something to change within me so bad that I had nothing to lose. It really opened the door and started me on a path to many self realizations."
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Entourage, Ceremony of Dreams - Studio Sessions & Outtakes, 1972-1977
This obscure Seventies ensemble conjured the freeranging folk-jazz vibe of period kin like The Paul Winter Consort, Pentangle and Codona, and were re-discovered when sampled by Four Tet on their exquisite 2003 single "She Moves She." As a rule, Entourage presented their music as ritual-dance-theater; with music's return to gig-based economies, it's a timely approach, and this is an illuminating document, with liner notes by Rolling Stone veteran J.D. Considine. Even without the visuals, it's transporting stuff. Will Hermes
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Seth Graham, Gasp
The co-founder of Orange Milk – possibly the world's most vital cassette label right now – unleashes a collage-y pile-up of orchestral explosions and electronic noise, an unpredictable 27 minutes of violent jabs, abrupt punctuations, syllables, slurps, silence and ASMR elements. Christopher R. Weingarten
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