Quick Hits

Ten new albums you need to know about now

TOUGH LOVE

House-music revivalist Andy Butler leaves smooth grooves behind for a bracing, at times beautiful, LP of dark artpop abstraction, featuring heart-ripping vocals from brilliant avant-diva ANOHNI.

PIANO POET

The New York-based singersongwriter has been killing it for years as a Joni Mitchell or Tori Amos for the Lower East Side, and this incisive, empathetic collection is among her strongest.

BIG COUNTRY

One of Nashville’s mostgifted singer-songwriters continues to expand her folk-based sound, mixing Radiohead-style atmospherics, Seventies pop melodies, and even a splash of soul.

LONG HAUL

This ambitious rock band is spreading its new 24-song release over a series of mini LPs, each worth your while; they make Southern-rock and classic-rock history seem present in our time.

SWEET SWEDE

The fourth album from this Swedish pop singer delivers Robyn-style dance-pop confessionals that can be intense (“Hardcore”), tender (“Show Me Love”), and clever (“Millennial Blues”).

DEEP SHAKE

Danielle Balbuena makes moody R&B that’s been compared to Pink Floyd (by us). Here, she stretches out further, with elegiac bangers that are all about slo-mo self-discovery.

LAID-BACK JACK

White’s second album of the year is a mostly acoustic set that reins in some of the zanier impulses of his recent work to make one of his more enjoyable LPs in a while.

TOO-HYPER POP

Psychedelic indie-pop crew Superorganism had a great hit a few years back with “Something for Your M.I.N.D.” This fire hose of arch-pop cleverness will overload even the sharpest mind.

SLIGHT SUNSHINE

The mutable roots band channels Jackson Browne and the Dead, with lots of genteel guitars and light alienation — if only the lyrics were as articulate as the melodies and playing.

BLACK SHITTY

Once a very cool post-punk band, London’s black midi take a serious detour into pretentious overreach here. The worst bit sounds like Pere Ubu doing ironic nightclub jazz.