Don't miss these great April albums
The Furious 7 soundtrack and albums from rappers Kendrick Lamar and Wale may have dominated the charts in April, but their music wasn't all that was worth hearing. USA TODAY's Brian Mansfield and Patrick Ryan pick seven April albums that should be on your radar:
Into the Wild Life, Halestorm
Having steadily scaled the career ladder for several years, this hard-rock band now appears ready for the big time. Into the Wild Life debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard albums chart, more than doubling the first-week sales of 2012's The Strange Case Of …, and Apocalyptic was the rare single by a female-fronted act to top USA TODAY's Active Rock airplay chart. Producer Jay Joyce brings out the group's full dynamic range — aggressive, tender and, when it needs to be, just flat-out loud. Plus, guitarist Lzzy Hale is in the process of taking her place as one of rock's great front women. — Mansfield
Kindred, Passion Pit
Michael Angelakos' third album as Passion Pit starts with the bubbly, sky-high Lifted Up (1985), and refuses to let up its sugarcoated assault from there on out. While 2009 debut Manners was bare-bones electropop – and 2012 album Gossamer, its rock-tinged older brother – Kindred is an unabashed attempt at top-40 glory, with a handful of anthems that are almost shrieking to be singles. And yet, Angelakos manages to make it a smooth and all-around enjoyable transition. The bright, synth-heavy Until We Can't (Let's Go) and My Brother Taught Me How to Swim are tailor-made for Passion Pit's high-energy live sets, but he also knows when to tone it down a few notches for the more low-key Whole Life Story and Looks Like Rain. The one thing that stays constant is Angelakos' infectious joy, and while he may not be breaking any new ground with Kindred, his charisma is enough to keep us listening. – Ryan
After It All, Delta Rae
On its second album, this North Carolina sextet extends its brand of folk-rock to make it simultaneously more accessible, more musically adventurous and more political. With four lead vocalists and a heavily percussive foundation, Delta Rae sometimes seems more like a theatrical cast than a pop group, but the bounty of voices gives them options many bands just don't have. The group can come across like an Americana Fleetwood Mac (Run, Dead End Road) or a chamber-pop Meat Loaf (Outlaws). Songs like You're the One for Me and My Whole Life Long sound like big old pop hits in somebody's world. Sure hope it's ours. — Mansfield
Second Hand Heart, Dwight Yoakam
One of the most exciting albums in a career that has generated its share of excitement, Yoakam's raucous new set is full of what Marty Stuart calls "hillbilly rock." Yoakam made his bones in the '80s combining California country and vintage rock sounds, and he does that again here, with the garage-rock rave-up of Liar, the Beach Boys-style harmonizing on In Another World and a roots-punk take on Man of Constant Sorrow. Second Hand Heart stands on a par with early-career smashes like Hillbilly Deluxe and This Time. — Mansfield
Synesthesiac , Jack Garratt
Falling somewhere between fellow Brit James Blake and Aussie artist Chet Faker, the U.K. electronic singer/producer dips in and out of styles with ease on his new EP. Beginning with moody instrumental Synesthesia, Pt. 1, and easing into the haunting The Love You're Given, he then does a complete 180 with glitchier, woozier dance tracks Chemical and Lonesome Valley. His expressive vocals are crisp and easily float into falsetto range, but it's his carefully crafted, unconventional production that is the true standout here. Overall, it's an impressive, under-20-minute taste of what's to come, as we await his full-length debut this fall. – Ryan
If I Could Change One Thing, Seth Glier
True sweetness is an under-appreciated quality in modern music — not the sugary confections of pop radio, but songs with a kind heart and a gentleness of spirit. Sweetness abounds in the charming fourth album from the Massachusetts-born singer-songwriter, but that's not to say Glier can't sing about weightier matters. The title track, a duet with Crystal Bowersox, plays like an elegy for a love affair, and Lift You Up, in which Glier empathizes with a lover's struggles even as he walks away from the relationship for his own safety, carries more pain than any song should have to. — Mansfield
Southern Gravity, Kristian Bush
Country singers like to talk about listening to hundreds of songs to find the dozen or so they include on an album. Kristian Bush, the male half of Sugarland, wrote that many. The ones that made the cut comprise what just might be country music's most pleasant surprise so far this year. From his Top 20 radio hit, Trailer Hitch, to the reflective House on a Beach that closes the album, these are feel-good tunes with a heart, acoustic-based melodic country songs that happen to fit neatly into the world of Kenny Chesney and Luke Bryan. If you dismiss Bush as Sugarland's Art Garfunkel or John Oates, you're seriously underestimating him. — Mansfield