By [RollingStone]
Lana Del Rey, Lust for Life
While the world-weary chronicler of post-millennial love is smiling on the cover of her fourth album, sadness still lurks at the edges of its dreamy, nostalgic songs. Arriving just in time for the summer-bummer dog days, Lust for Lifefeatures cameos from the Weeknd, Sean Ono Lennon and Del Rey’s spiritual godmother Stevie Nicks.
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Nine Inch Nails, Add Violence EP
The second in a planned trilogy of EPs from Trent Reznor’s main project “contains all the aggression, abjection and self-loathing that solidified his position as alt-rock’s Original Angster, but with the measured restraint of a man his age,” writes Kory Grow.
Read Our Review: Nine Inch Nails’ ‘Add Violence’ EP Matches Angst With Restraint
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Romeo Santos, Golden
The king of bachata – newly enshrined at Madame Tussaud’s after a successful online campaign to get the former Aventura leader cast in wax – presents love songs that simmer and sigh as they combine traditional Dominican dance music with modern-day beats. A few big-name guests drop by: megaproducer Swizz Beatz assists on the sparkling “Premio”; reggaeton masters Daddy Yankee and Nicky Jam turn up the heat on “Bella y Sensual”; R&B upstart Jessie Reyez faces off with Santos on the torch-y “Un Vuelo a la”; and loverman Julio Iglesias brings charm to “El Amigo.” But Santos’ silky voice is the main attraction, sneaking between and through the intricate guitar lines that define bachata while also tempering the vibe on more club-ready tracks like “Sin Filtro.” Maura Johnston
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Meek Mill, Wins & Losses
The third full-length from North Philly’s hip-hop everyman has a stacked guest list that includes Rick Ross, Quavo, Future and The-Dream.
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Steve Aoki, Steve Aoki Presents Kolony
The showman DJ and entrepreneur’s latest collection has a slew of big-name guests from the hip-hop world, including Lil Uzi Vert, Migos, Gucci Mane and Lil Yachty. “This album was largely based on relationships and friends,” he tells Rolling Stone. “Most of these artists you can’t just call their manager and do a song with these artists, because you have to develop a relationship – most of these artists already have their favorite producers, [and] they have their own albums to attend to. If they’re going to do a feature, it’ll be with their friend, or someone that they really respect. I cultivated great friendships with a lot of these artists that, I’m proud to say, led to the completion of the album.”
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Damian Marley, Stony Hill
“Between LPs with Nas (Distant Relatives) and Mick Jagger (SuperHeavy), and more recent tracks with Jay Z (4:44‘s ‘Bam’) and Skrillex (‘Make It Bun Dem’), Damian Marley has been his late father’s rangiest ambassador,” writes Will Hermes. “His first solo LP in a decade is an inspiring 18-track tour de force, flexing authority on both roots jams and dancehall bangers, on political meditations … as well as come-ons (see the Drake-ian ‘Grown and Sexy’).”
Read Our Review: Damian Marley Keeps Family Legacy Alive on ‘Stony Hill’
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Nicole Atkins, Goodnight Rhonda Lee
This Jersey-born, Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter finds her subtle way to rethink the Fifties and Sixties – blurring Roy Orbison, the Mamas and the Papas and Aretha Franklin, suggesting an alternative history where the Brill Building opened satellite offices in in Memphis and Nashville and charming female pop crooners could sing the word “horny” and still get jukebox spins. Recorded at the same Fort Worth, Texas studio used by Leon Bridges, Atkins’ fourth LP is stately yet earthy, from the walking-after-midnight desire of “A Little Crazy” to the breezily forlorn “Sleepwalking” to the bright soul shouter “Listen Up.” The result is a charming LP that makes familiar moods feel new. Jon Dolan
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Cornelius, Mellow Waves
The first album in 11 years from the Japanese composer and musical wizard Keigo Oyamada – who’s also a member of the new-look Plastic Ono Band – is a chilled-out affair that collects mellow guitar pop and dreamily abstracted synth meditations.
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Little Silver, Somewhere You Found My Name
The elegantly understated debut from this Brooklyn band does what great, grown-up indie rock at its best has always done: It maps out states of personal, emotional and historical in-betweenness with careful, intelligent grace and rhyming guitars. You can hear trace elements of Fairport Convention and the Bats in the way Steve Curtis (formerly of the roots-y band Hem) and Erika Simonian join their voices, and while songs like “The Slowing and the Start” and “Longest Day of the Year” take their time building from muted beauty to closely held grandeur, this LP isn’t just about genteel craft: “One Stepper,” which chugs along like a chill New Pornographers, uncorks the bare-knuckled couplet “I left you shaking at the church/I let you call me a fucking jerk” and only gets more complicatedly heated from there. Jon Dolan
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Declan McKenna, What Do You Think About the Car?
Articulate 18-year-old Declan McKenna is already a rising and buzzing star in England, and his debut LP proves he deserves the hype. His songwriting can suggest a debt to the watery alt-pop of Travis or Keane, but his writing is sharp and smart in the vein of Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello. “Leelah Alcorn” is about the suicide of a transgender teen in Ohio; “Paracetamol” takes on the way the media portrays LGBT communities; “Isombard” deals with racism in policing. If he were only singing about whiling away rainy days in his bedroom or getting roughed up by the pangs of disprized love, his crisp little tunes and cute genre moves would be enough. But he’s got a world to take on: “I am everyone else,” he sings on one ringing charmer, like a radical humanist Ray Davies. Jon Dolan
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