New Music Friday: The Top 8 Albums Out On May 1

Car Seat Headrest. The band's latest, Making a Door Less Open, tops our shortlist of the best new albums out on May 1. Carlos Cruz Sol/Courtesy of the artist hide caption

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Carlos Cruz Sol/Courtesy of the artist

Car Seat Headrest built its reputation on adventurous, hook-heavy and often sprawling guitar rock. But on the band's latest album, Making a Door Less Open, frontman Will Toledo turns his trademark sound upside down by building sometimes spare earworms with synths, drum machines and samples. We open this week's show with two cuts from the record, "Hollywood" and "There Must Be More Than Blood." Also on the program: the technicolor world of Chicano Batman, existential guitar rock from Diet Cig, a mind-blowing debut from actor Caleb Landry Jones and more. Host Robin Hilton is joined by NPR Music's Ann Powers, Felix Contreras and Stephen Thompson as they share their picks for the best new albums out on May 1.

Featured Albums:

1. Car Seat Headrest — Making a Door Less Open
   Featured Songs: "Hollywood" and "There Must Be More Than Blood"
2. American Aquarium — Lamentations
   Featured Song: "Me + Mine"
3. Diet Cig — Do You Wonder About Me?
   Featured Song: "Broken Body"
4. Chicano Batman — Invisible People
   Featured Song: "Blank Slate"
5. DELANILA — Overloaded
   Featured Song: "The Philosopher"
6. Damien Jurado — What's New, Tomboy?
   Featured Song: "Arthur Aware"
7. Johanna Warren — Chaotic Good
   Featured Song: "Faking Amnesia"
8. Caleb Landry Jones — The Mother Stone
   Featured Song: "Flag Day / Mother Stone"

Other notable releases for May 1: Austra — HiRUDiN; Ben Lukas Boysen — Mirage; Devon Williams — A Tear in the Fabric; The Goods — II; Hot Country Knights — The K Is Silent; Joan as Police Woman — Cover Two; Jojo — Good to Know; Kenny Chesney — Here and Now; Man Man — Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between.