Stream: New albums from Bad Suns, Eels, Neil Frances and Spaceface

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Bad Suns (Photo by Elizabeth Miranda)

Catching up with four albums that were released Friday — from Bad Suns, Eels, Neil Frances and Spaceface …

BAD SUNS, “Apocalypse Whenever”

The fourth album from Bad Suns — Christo Bowman, Gavin Bennett, Miles Morris and Ray Libby — is the perfect soundtrack for breaking free of the pandemic’s shackles — packed with hooks, relentlessly rhythmic and perceptive enough to have some meat on its bones (for instance, “Life Was Easier When I Only Cared About Me”). The quartet worked with their go-to producer, Eric Palmquist, melding anthemic rock with ’80s-styled synths for a record that sounds like a singles collection. Bad Suns headline the Fonda Theatre tonight and Thursday.

EELS, “Extreme Witchcraft”

Mark Oliver Everett is a gift that keeps on giving. On his 14th Eels album, “Extreme Witchcraft,” he sounds every bit the outsider he always has been. Fuzzy, funky, sharp and even sentimental, it makes us feel that somewhere, in some dinmension, it’s a “Good Night on Earth.” Eels headline the Fonda Theatre on May 9.

NEIL FRANCES, “There Is No Neil Frances”

The title is right, of course. Jordan Feller and Marc Gilfry are the humans comprising Neil Frances, and their debut album slinks and shimmies through ’80s-inspired synth-pop in often surprising ways. “There Is No Neil Frances” boasts inviting grooves for cozy dance floors, not big tents, and that’s its charm. Slip it on alongside Poolside and feel your feet get lighter.

SPACEFACE, “Anemoia”

A thoroughly engaging collision of psych- and dream-pop, disco-funk and soft rock, the sophomore album from Spaceface, whose members are split between L.A. and Memphis, is one of those records you can rightly label retro-futurist. “Anemoia” (dictionary definition: nostalgia for a time one has never known) suggest Spaceface are time travelers, who’ve cherry-picked elements of the ’70s and ’80s to frame their waggish observations on an era when (best falsetto voice here) “you can make memes!” Find the nearest scientist and have a “Piña Collider” on us. It’s fun and it works. Spaceface plays the Echo on Feb. 19.

For a longer look at Imaad Wasif’s “So Long Mr. Fear,” also released Friday, go here.