The best new albums out April 11

It’s Friday, and that means dozens of new albums magically appeared on your favorite streaming service at the stroke of midnight — including the return of Bon Iver. SABLE, fABLE is the band’s first album in almost six years and finds Justin Vernon in a markedly less dour mood.

NPR Music’s Stephen Thompson welcomed fellow Wisconsinite Erin Wolf of Milwaukee public radio station 88Nine to discuss the new Bon Iver album, as well as a handful of other new releases worthy of your attention.

The Starting 5

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Stephen and Erin give you the backstory and best songs on the following albums:

💿 Bon Iver, SABLE, fABLE

• RIYL: Bon Iver, Bruce Hornsby

💿 Valerie June, Owls, Omens, and Oracles

• RIYL: Hurray for the Riff Raff, Joanna Newsom

💿 Gerald Clayton, Ones & Twos

• RIYL: Geri Allen, The Flaming Lips

💿 Real Lies, We Will Annihilate Our Enemies (out April 16)

• RIYL: Underworld, The xx

💿 Kills Birds, Crave EP

• RIYL: Soundgarden, Helmet

New Music Friday is a feature of NPR’s All Songs Considered podcast! Hear the discussion on the NPR App, Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

The Lightning Round

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Five more albums we wish we had time to discuss on the podcast:

💿 Turnpike Troubadours, The Price of Admission
💿 Daughter of Swords, Alex
💿 Jadu Heart, Post Heaven
💿 Casper Skulls, Kit-Cat
💿 Nell Smith, Anxious

Listen to each album’s best songs on our New Music Friday playlists on Spotify and Apple.

The Long List

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For those who want to dig even deeper, here are the week’s new albums sorted by genre:

Global

• Charif Megarbane, Hawalat
• HHY & The Kampala Unit, Turbo Meltdown
• Kuunatic, Wheels of Omon
• Kwashibu Area Band, Love Warrior’s Anthem
• Salif Keïta, So Kono
• Savina Yannatou, Watersong

Rock/Alt/Indie

• Bedridden, Moths Strapped To Eachother’s Backs
• Cassia, everyone, outside
• Clutter, Loves You EP
• Cold Specks, Light for the Midnight
• Dead Pioneers, Po$t American
• Eyedress, Stoner
• fantasy of a broken heart, Chaos Practitioner EP
• Grandmas House, Anything for You
• HONEYMOAN, Pink Hell
• Idle Heirs, Life is Violence
• Johanna Warren, The Night of the Wind
• Joni, Things I Left Behind
• key vs. locket, i felt like a sketch
• Magnolia Park, Vamp
• Mamalarky, Hex Key
• Maria Usbeck, Naturaleza
• OK GO, And the Adjacent Possible
• Painting, Snapshot of Pure Attention
• Public Body, Finger Food
• Spin Doctors, Face Full of Cake
• Tapeworms, Grand Voyage
• Tara Nome Doyle, Ekko
• Teen Mortgage, Devil Ultrasonic Dream
• The Album Leaf, ROTATIONS
• The Mars Volta, Lucro Sucio; Los Ojos Del Vacio
• The Wrecks, Inside EP

Country/Folk/Americana

• Billy Strings & Bryan Sutton, Live at the Legion
• Jon Pardi, Honkytonk Hollywood
• Kolby Cooper, Love You, Goodnight
• Muscadine Bloodline, …And What Was Left Behind
• Trousdale, Growing Pains

Rap/Hip-Hop

• Berner, Carbon EP
• Deem Spencer, yung EP
• Ken Carson, More Chaos
• V/A, Gangster Music Vol. 3

R&B/Soul

• Galactic and Irma Thomas, Audience With the Queen
• ADJA, Golden Retrieve Her

Electronic/Out There

• Briain, Cognitive Dissonance
• Carlita, fabric presents Carlita
• Guilherme Granado Goat Unity, Ghost Parades
• isolee, Chopstick! EP
• James Bright, Imaginal
• Joshua Bonnetta, The Pines
• Konalgad, Club Dream
• Larum, The Music of Hildegard von Bingen Part Two
• Lullahush, Ithaca
• Martinou, Linked EP
• Olivia Font, Invictam
• Riccardo La Foresta, ZERO,999…
• Röyksopp, True Electric
• set dressing, i can’t be alone tonite EP
• Tim Hodgkinson, Haiku in the Wide World

Classical

• Kyiv Virtuosi, Alexey Shor: Composer’s Notebook, Vol. 3
• Leif Ove Andsnes, Liszt: Via Crucis & Solo Piano Works
• Nicola Benedetti, Beethoven: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61

Jazz

• Ingrid Laubrock, Purposing the Air
• Poppy Daniels, Keep On Going
• V/A, Chet Baker Re:imagined

Credits

• Host: Stephen Thompson
• Guest: Erin Wolf, Radio Milwaukee’s 88Nine
• Producer: Simon Rentner
• Editor: Otis Hart
• Executive Producer: Suraya Mohamed
• Vice President, Music and Visuals: Keith Jenkins