New Music Friday: Stream new albums from Benny The Butcher, NewDad, and more

If anyone deserves success, it’s Benny The Butcher. In his 40th year on earth and his 20th in the rap game (his debut mixtape Tana Talk dropped in 2004), he’s made the leap from independent drops with upstate New York underground powerhouse Griselda — and Black Soprano Family, his personal imprint on the label — to a deal with Def Jam. The title of that contract’s first release, Everybody Can’t Go, acknowledges the fact that Benny is breathing rarified air. But rather than affect a false humility about his new status, he raps with the pride of an artist who’s perfected his craft through years of graft and hustle. The album has more than its fair share of star-powered guest features — Lil Wayne, Snoop Dogg, Jadakiss — and Benny sounds completely at ease in their presence, overmatching them bar for bar in many cases. For the most part, though, the best moments on the record come when he reunites with his regular crew (see “One Foot In” feat. Stove God Cooks, “Buffalo Kitchen Club” feat. Armani Caesar, and the posse cut “Griselda Express” feat. Westside Gunn, Conway The Machine, and Rick Hyde. Exceptions include the introspective solo opener “Jermanie’s Graduation,” the Wayne-featuring “Big Dog,” “Pillow Talk & Slander” with Jada and Babyface Ray, and “Big Tymers,” the project’s Peezy-assisted closer. — Raphael Helfand

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music

Pay closer attention to your stray thoughts, and you may just notice an ember of profundity waiting for some kindling. On her new album Great Doubt, a project that explores the outer limits of pop in a neo-classical spaceship, Astrid Sonne creates music that comes alive in its evocation of these small moments and the deep existential drama contained within. “Do you wanna,” the song’s second track and first with vocals, considers starting a family. The lyrics are awkward and stilted in the way self-narration frequently is: “Do you wanna have a baby / Do you wanna bring people / Into this world.” Nothing is decided upon by the song’s end, and Sonne’s slouched voice suggests that the matter will not be resolved soon; the lack of closure makes the heaviness of the song — found in its red-peaking drums and funereal strings — that much denser. Comparisons to Tirzah and her ongoing work with Micachu are inevitable, and they’re perhaps most apt in Sonne’s “Give my all,” a reworking of Mariah Carey’s “My All” that taps into a similar vein of uncanny pop eerieness. But overall, Sonne’s lyrical presence is less tied to the chart hits of days gone by — on “Everything is unreal,” you’ll hear a gripping play-by-play of a dissociative episode merging spartan and fantastical description. Even in the album’s instrumental moments, Great Doubt seems to be powered by a desperate search for external connection, with Sonne finding ties that bind us together in her poignant mining of the ephemeral. — Jordan Darville

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

Militarie Gun are one of the biggest bands in hardcore right now, although they shy away from the genre-essentialism that title might suggest. “We’re truly a punk band, in a few ways — but hardcore’s a funny word to throw on us, because we don’t have breakdowns, and we have vocal melodies,” Ian Shelton said in a recent interview. “But then Turnstile happened, so we’re now part of a moment.”

That refreshing honesty likely comes through both experience (Shelton is a lifer in the scene and also plays in powerviolence group Regional Justice Center) and success. Last year’s Life Under The Gun earned rave reviews and propelled the band to fill their touring schedule with the names of increasingly large venues. Life Under The Sun is, depending on how you look at it, an EP of new music or the bonus material for a deluxe edition of that record. Either way, it captures a band in a rich vein of form as they continue to test the boundaries they find themselves rubbing against.

Guests on the EP include Bully and Mannequin Pussy, two acts who similarly balance on the border between rock’s indie and punk sides. “Will Logic” and “Never Fucked Up Twice” are both stripped-back and maudlin, with Marisa Dabice and Alicia Bognanno’s respective voices blend nicely with Shelton’s as he brings his bark down to something more like a croon. “My Friends Are Having A Hard Time,” meanwhile, features Andy Hull of Manchester Orchestra but is more notable for its heavy use of vocal effects and electronic textures. An acoustic cover of NOFX’s “Whoops I OD’d” is a little campfire-coded but also acts as a hat tip to the punk legends who paved the way for Militarie Gun as they continue to test the waters and ride their current wave. — David Remshaw

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

Irish alt-shoegazers NewDad are haunted by many things: the ghost of past loves, inner demons, loneliness. Moody, distorted guitars and hazy dissonance swirl around Julie Dawson’s reverb-soaked vocals; there’s the melancholy of the Cure mixed in with the grunge angst of the Pixies, with a Cocteau Twins-esque yearning thrown into the mix. Heartbreak might have kickstarted Dawson’s descent into an existential crisis (some lyrics wander into Emo-with-a-capital-E territory: “It seems that I forgot how to care / About anything but my own despair”), but she uses the catalyst as a means for self-reflection and an intimate journey into her own inner psyche, asking questions about the need to simply desire. Her former paramour, and the memory of them, gets personified into a shiny object she can’t help but want to fix, a monster under her bed, a recurring nightmare. She knows she has trouble letting go; on “In My Head,” when Dawson bemoans, “When was the last time you left this place? / You’re in an awful state and I can’t stand the sight of your face,” she may as well be talking to her own reflection. — Cady Siregar

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music

Milwaukee rapper Myaap went viral last year with an infectious flip of Abba’s “Dancing Queen,” but her new EP Big Myaap Not The Lil One proves that she’s much more than just a TikTok novelty. Over seven smacking lowend beats, Myaap asserts herself as a force to be reckoned with, effortlessly switching between melodic hooks and uncut bars. On “I Ain’t Hiding,” Myaap breaks into a sing-song taunt, with a bratty snarl to her flow that’s the vocal equivalent of a dismissive hair flip, before passing the mic to Ohio rapper Mg Sleepy. You can feel Myaap’s experience as a dancer in her command of catchy earworms that push you until you can’t help but bend your knees and touch your toes. The thumping 808 bass is consistent, but the sample selection varies: “Pricey” pitch-shifts string loops until they twinkle and glisten, while “Sha’Carri” finds her flexing over a rattling Detroit-style piano line. Milwaukee’s rap scene is exploding with creatively super-charged talent, and Myaap finds serious pop potential within the city’s up-tempo energy. — Nadine Smith

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music