New Music Friday: Our Top 7 Albums Out On April 5

We open this week's New Music Friday with a quick spin of Love Keeps Kicking from the self-described queer, straight edge, vegan, anarchist punk band Martha. One of the week's best guitar rock albums, it's bursting with hooky melodies and memorable meditations on (among other things) the end of times. Also on the show: the insanely talented R&B singer and songwriter Khalid returns with his sophomore full-length Free Spirit, veteran soul singer Lee Fields delivers an ode to enduring love, and the artist known as Weyes Blood drops Titanic Rising, an album of celestial pop that will likely end up on a lot of year-end, best-of lists. Hear those and more as host Robin Hilton, NPR Music's Lyndsey McKenna, Ann Powers and Stephen Thompson run through their picks for the best new albums out on April 5.

Featured Albums:

1. Martha: Love Keeps Kicking
   Featured Song: "Heart is Healing"
2. Khalid: Free Spirit
   Featured Song: "Twenty One"
3. Lee Fields and the Expressions: It Rains Love
   Featured Song: "A Promise is a Promise"
4. Weyes Blood: Titanic Rising
   Featured Songs: "Movies" and "A lot's Gonna Change"
5. PUP: Morbid Stuff
   Featured Songs: "Morbid Stuff" and "See You At Your Funeral"
6. Molly Tuttle: When You're Ready
   Featured Song: "Take the Journey"
7. Ages and Ages: Me You They We
   Featured Song: "Just My Luck"

Other notable releases for April 5: Brooks & Dunn: Reboot; Girli: Odd One Out; Idlewild: Interview Music; Lady Lamb: Even in the Tremor; Lissie: When I'm Alone: The Piano Retrospective; Priests: The Seduction of Kansas; Reba McEntire: Stronger Than the Truth.

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