Listen To Frank Ocean, Crystal Castles, And The Week's New Albums

Well, no more waiting and no more speculation. Frank Ocean has finally arrived! By now, you probably know that, but there’s no way to not acknowledge it, so here we are. And in fact, we may be getting more music from Frank than we expected. However, though it may seem that way, this is not the only release this weekend. We’ve got new music from the recently-rejiggered electronic duo Crystal Castles and young R&B heater Tory Lanez, as well as albums from Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, AJJ (formerly Andrew Jackson Jihad), Lydia Loveless, and more. Here are the albums you need to hear this week.

Frank Ocean – Endless & TBD

When you’ve got the whole music world peeved at you for not releasing your album when it was originally (supposedly) due, there’s really only one way to fix things: You have to overdeliver. Thankfully, Frank Ocean has fans right where he wants them. Some people may have grown weary of the surprise release format; it may engender bitterness or resentment toward an artist. But when you’re as good as Frank Ocean, people are just willing to wait as long as they need to.

Endless is the logical manifestation of the livestream we all saw tipping off this game of cat and mouse, and it’s an ornate and adventurous affair, even busy at times. As of this moment, it exists only in a form that may frustrate some listeners — it can only be viewed as a video — but a second, more traditional project is expected by the end of the weekend. There are those who would say “don’t hold you breath” for that, but he’s exceeded expectations thus far. And he’s one of the very few who can do that.

Watch Frank Ocean’s Endless visual album on Apple Music

Crystal Castles – Amnesty (I)

The electronic duo Crystal Castles have provided chaotic synthpop gems for the better part of a decade, but the partnership of Ethan Kath and Alice Glass similarly experienced that chaos in 2014, when the latter announced the group was breaking up. But, despite Glass’s announcement, Kath has decided to move forward with the Crystal Castles name and a new singer, Edith Frances. The twosome even reset their number count in the album title, representing a new era for the electropunks.

However, this doesn’t appear to be a vanity project for Kath to swap out singers at his whim. Frances wrote a number a tracks on the LP, including the energetic and smothering single “Concrete.” Will this new arrangement live up to the Crystal Castles of yore? Only time will tell. Alice Glass was a fiery performer who felt irreplaceable. But Amnesty feels as if it’s trying to be more different, rather than continuing on with something old. That decision serves them very well.

Tory Lanez – I Told You

When it’s been more than a year since your first hit single dropped, and it’s still popping, that says something major. This is the case for Toronto’s Tory Lanez, whose Brownstone-sampling “Say It” was one of the biggest hits of 2015 and 2016. But the rapper/singer didn’t just coast, thankfully; he continued to build with tracks like “Luv” and “L.A. Confidential,” and now all that grinding has led to the release of his first studio album, I Told You.

Lanez weaves in and out of hip-hop and R&B so easily, sort of like his fellow Canadian (and heated rival) Drake, which might burn him up to hear, but it’s true. Why lie? But I don’t say that to frame them as the same: Tory Lanez is his own artist and he’s been great so far. I Told You is a great marker of where he’s at and how high he can go.