Album Sweep: April 4, 2015 - Part One...

I'm ready to start the first half of this week's "album sweep", sampling the records making their debut on Billboard magazine's Top Album Sales chart. As usual, I've included highlighted links to buy any of the new sets, as well as some of the artists' other major work.

Rapper Kendrick Lamar claims the #1 position with his third studio album To Pimp A Butterfly. The record sold over 300,000 copies in its first week. It's his first to top the sales chart...

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Indie-rock vets Modest Mouse return after eight years with their sixth album Strangers To Ourselves at #3. Their last release, We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank, topped the albums chart in 2007...

Welsh pop singer/songwriter Marina & the Diamonds (aka Marina Diamandis) scores her first American top-10 record with her third effort Froot at #4...

Former Dire Straits leader Mark Knopfler lands his first top-10 solo album at #5 with Tracker...

Florida-based post-hardcore band Sleeping With Sirens drops in at #6 with their fourth album Madness. It's their first since guitarist Jesse Lawson left. Their last release, Feel, went to #3 in 2013...

AWOLnation, the modern rock project of Aaron Bruno, are back at #9 with Run. It's their first in the top-40...

Religious music collective Passion ascend to #11 with Even So Come. They previously went to #4 with Passion: Take It All...

The soundtrack to the proclaimed next Oscar winner Furious 7 (snark) drives in at #21. The collection has contributions from rappers Wiz Khalifa, Flo Rida, Kid Ink, T.I., and more...

Canadian Christian rock artist Matt Maher lands at #31 with his Saints And Sinners, his first to make the top-40...

That's all for the first half of the new bunch. Out of there nine the three I'd get first are the Modest Mouse, Kendrick Lamar, and Marina & The Diamonds albums...

I'll be back tomorrow with part two...