10 New Albums to Stream Now: John Coltrane, Drake, Florence and the Machine and More Editors’ Picks

EDITORS’ PICK: John Coltrane, Both Directions At Once: The Lost Album
This previously unreleased 1963 session captures the jazz legend with his “Classic Quartet,” which was rounded out by pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones. “This set has its own scrappy, off-the-cuff appeal,” writes Hank Shteamer. “Most importantly for Coltrane buffs, The Lost Album offers compelling clues about where the saxophonist was headed.”
Read Our Review: John Coltrane’s New “Lost Album” Captures a Day in the Life of His Greatest Band
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Drake, Scorpion
This 25-track double album will make headlines for its tabloid-ready verses about the hip-hop mogul’s recent fatherhood – a big shift for the man who most personified this decade’s “millennial bachelor” ideal. But the real surprise is that releasing behemoths seems to be working for Drake; Scorpion achieves most of what he tried to do on Views, with the added benefit of sharp repackaging that’s gunning to own this summer. Brendan Klinkenberg
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Florence and the Machine, High As Hope
Florence Welch co-produced her fourth full-length with Emile Haynie (Lana Del Rey, Kanye West) – and the result is “heightened intimacy and experimentation,” notes Will Hermes. “The duo build tracks from Welch’s mostly naked voice, ramping up into her signature hall-of-mirrors gospel choirs against slow or midtempo grooves. It gets a bit samey over the course of the record, but it’s effective, and the space around Welch’s mighty voice gives every nuance room to be heard.”
Read Our Review: Florence and the Machine’s Powerfully Intimate High As Hope
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Guns N’ Roses, Appetite For Destruction: Deluxe Edition
The mega-reissue of Guns N’ Roses’ snarling debut features 73 tracks, including a bunch of demos that had only been available via unofficial channels. “Do you need any of this? No. But that’s not the point,” writes Kory Grow. “As with everything Guns N’ Roses from the period, it’s not so much all access as it is all excess. And that’s exactly what you want from a reissue like this. It’ll bring you to your sha-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-knees. “
Read Our Feature: Guns N’ Roses’ Massive Appetite for Destruction Box Set: A User’s Guide
Read Our Review: Guns N’ Roses’ Epic, Excessive Appetite for Destruction: Super Deluxe Edition
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Gorillaz, The Now Now
While last year’s Humanz was full of high-profile guest spots and clashing musical ideas, Damon Albarn’s sixth album under the Gorillaz banner is more focused in terms of songwriting, yet still politically minded, writes Will Hermes. “On ‘One Percent,’ Albarn conjures a race of people searching and listening to one another ‘on the training ground for the new world,'” notes Hermes. “It’s optimistic by his usual gloomy standards, especially compared to the apocalyptic vibe of Humanz. But it’s on point, and a pretty good metaphor for our present now now.”
Read Our Review: Gorillaz’ The Now Now Is a Focused Call for Unity In Hard Times
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Charles Lloyd & The Marvels with Lucinda Williams, Vanished Gardens
“Charles Lloyd’s engagement with rock is no passing dalliance: In the Sixties and Seventies, the saxist-flutist played the Fillmore, gigged with the Beach Boys and recorded with the post-Morrison Doors,” writes Hank Shteamer. “But even that history doesn’t prepare the listener for how graceful and engaged the 80-year-old NEA Jazz Master sounds on this program – the second release by his genre-blurring Marvels quintet – half of which features the gorgeously weathered voice of Lucinda Williams.”
Read Our Review: Charles Lloyd and Lucinda Williams Fuse Jazz and Roots on Vanished Gardens
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The Flaming Lips, Seeing the Unseeable: The Complete Studio Recordings of the Flaming Lips 1986-1990
This compilation of pre-Warner Bros. releases tracks the Lips’ evolution from scrappy post-punkers to pop-psych craftsmen. “We couldn’t even quite figure out the chords we were playing [on the Lips’ second album Oh My Gawd!!!], but we thought, ‘Let’s just record them, and we’ll figure out sounds that go with them,'” frontman Wayne Coyne told Rolling Stone. “It’s so absolutely amateurish, but we were fumbling our way thought it. And sometimes that fumbling is so beautiful. And it’s hard to capture, especially when people have abilities and are really good. You want to hear those imperfections, and with the Flaming Lips, there are so many imperfections.”
Read Our Feature: Wayne Coyne Looks Back on the Flaming Lips’ Beautifully Amateurish Early Years
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Jim James, Uniform Distortion
The My Morning Jacket frontman’s “loving tribute to old-school faves” is “informed by dirtbag classic rock and slacker post-punk,” writes Will Hermes.
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Let’s Eat Grandma, I’m All Ears
Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingworth are teenaged BFFs from Northeast England with a surrealist sense of humor, as their moniker suggests. Album two departs the willfully weird fringe for the mainstream, sorta, and is stronger for it: I’m All Ears is a set of bubblegum synth-pop with bleeding-edge production (SOPHIE, David Wrench). Make way for Generation XCX. Will Hermes
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Container, LP
On releases like 2014’s Adhesive and 2015’s LP, this Providence beatmaker threw dance music into the mosh pit and noise music onto the dancefloor. His distorted, gritty, squawking, blown-out glurpbangers had all the charred and flayed edges of your favorite power-electronics bloodletter, but they were still decidedly funky, a place where big beat rhythms met Big Muff scuzz. His fourth full-length (like the other three, also titled LP), seems a little speedier and caffeinated. It’s redolent of the corroded outsider dance music of acclaimed labels like L.I.E.S. or Opal Tapes, but only if they were subject to the speed and violence of Nineties gabber techno. Many of the tempos sprint along in the 160-180 bpm range, and slightly off-kilter rhythms are used to disorienting effect. A dance music mutator takes one step closer to chaos. Christopher R. Weingarten
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