Eminem’s Surprise ‘Venom,’ and 10 More New Songs

Eminem spends the start of his surprise album “Kamikaze” — which was released Friday at midnight with simply a tweet announcing its arrival — chewing over a 2017 freestyle in which he criticized fans who also happen to be Trump supporters. Later, he spends a moment mulling the negative reaction to his 2017 album, “Revival.” In between these rare pauses for critical self-reflection, the feisty, angry, unsympathetic, youth-distrusting, not-fully-up-to-date-on-his-pop-culture-references Marshall Mathers returns. “Venom,” the closing track, will appear on the soundtrack of the Marvel movie of the same name, which is about a journalist who winds up hosting an alien symbiote. Feeling like an outsider has always been part of the Eminem mythology, and on “Venom” he retells his origin story, from performing at the hip-hop festival Scribble Jam to sleeping on the floor of his friend Proof’s motel room to getting Dr. Dre’s stamp of approval. The lyrics become weirder as the track speeds on, as if whatever demon is inhabiting him this time is seizing the controls.

The fundamental impulses of socially conscious English punk — frustrated idealism curdled into disgust and fury — flare up anew in Idles, the band led by the gruff-voiced Joe Talbot; they released their second album, “Joy as an Act of Resistance,” on Friday. “Colossus” is a song of masculine self-examination — “I am my father’s son/ His shadow weighs a ton” — accelerating into catharsis: tapping, then pounding, then blasting away at a fierce drone chord, then swerving into a major-key punk confrontation as Talbot, snarling, “I don’t want to be your man,” compares himself to Stone Cold Steve Austin, Fred Astaire, Evel Knievel and, yes, Christ.

LSD — Labrinth, Sia and Diplo — set aside Diplo’s longtime pursuit of new, exotic dance beats in “Thunderclouds.” Instead, the track feels retro, summoning a girl-group bolero beat and ska horns while Sia and Labrinth debate love, trust, fidelity, suspicion, dependence and whether their tensions mean they’re breaking up. Eventually, they come to an agreement: “Don’t be afraid of these thunderclouds.”

It’s been a crazy year, so maybe we’re just about ready for Bernie Worrell to meet George Duke to meet T-Pain on a beach in Los Angeles. Brandon Coleman thinks so. During the past three years, he has brightened stages across the world as the manic, astro-funk keyboard whiz in Kamasi Washington’s touring band. In the video for “All Around the World,” from his forthcoming solo album, “Resistance,” he’s dancing blithely by the ocean with a group of young women, singing about the touring life as if it were a parade of easy living.

It’s the end of the world as we know it, and Laura Jane Grace feels fantastic. The Against Me! singer, guitarist and songwriter debuts her side project featuring bassist Marc Jacob Hudson and drummer Atom Willard with a bit of cheery folk-pop-punk about an uncheerful topic: “On top of the world, at the end of the world, with you.”

Balafon and kora, the West African marimba and harp, plink and shimmer through “Oh Man,” an endearing upbeat ditty about first love by Jain, a French songwriter (born Jeanne Galice) who spent parts of her childhood in the United Arab Emirates and the Republic of Congo. Her pitch is happily imprecise and her lyrics are in charmingly imperfect English; somehow, she can rhyme “go” with “you.” She doesn’t treat the African instruments as any more exotic than her programmed beats; it’s an interconnected world.

Madeleine Peyroux is known as an interpreter of American song, from country blues to jazz to classic rock. But “Anthem,” her new album, is dedicated to original music that came tumbling out after she traveled the country after the 2016 election. On “Down on Me,” she’s got a “Political World"-era Bob Dylan cynicism and a Betty Wright knack for real talk. Over a midtempo shuffle, she laments: “Just broke a law I never heard of before/ Landlord thinks I’m made so he bust down my door/ Used to think I was pretty damn smart/ Smart enough to see I’m falling apart/ I keep going down, down, down.”

Between his sporadic albums as Bon Iver, Justin Vernon is more prolific with collaborators — among them Aaron Dessner, the guitarist and composer in the National. Their self-titled debut album as Big Red Machine, released Friday, includes “Lyla,” a musical and verbal enigma that’s dense with polyrhythm; its underlying riff and drumbeat are in 7/8, while vocals, keyboards, guitar noise blasts and chamber-music strings have their own agendas. But it sprouts a charming chorus: “I’m already off the reservation.”

You will hear flashes of Built to Spill, Ted Leo, Elliott Smith and Telekinesis in Stoner Control’s peppy but slightly snotty indie rock (which isn’t a bad combination). The band’s second album, “Alone in the City,” was produced by one of their hometown’s luminaries: Hutch Harris of the Thermals.

Bob James’ new album, “Espresso,” his first in a dozen years, features a mostly acoustic trio. That’s not his calling card. In the 1960s and '70s he helped plant the seeds for smooth jazz as a producer at CTI Records, then reaped the rewards in his own svelte solo career. His soft funk records fed straight into early ’80s hip-hop, and they’ve been sampled widely. And the influence has flowed back: There are a few moments on “Espresso,” including the punchy original “Boss Lady,” when you’re struck by how well it fits into the landscape of current-day jazz. Still, this is rather blasé stuff, easy to catch and easy to release.

On his trio’s new record, “The Other Side,” released Friday on ECM, Tord Gustavsen toys with atmosphere and partial abstraction: He’s engaged with the tenets of Norwegian jazz, basically. But Gustavsen, a 47-year-old pianist, doesn’t buy in all the way. “The Other Side” carries its weight loosely, never sounding too sleek or too austere. On “The Tunnel,” Sigurd Hole’s bass is way up in the mix, sometimes pooling like spilled glue, elsewhere making melodies with long, mournful shapes.