I was able to easily switch between the two in no time (the setting export/import between the apps covered some of the work).
I forgot how bloated the bottom menu bar is with view options (For You, Songs, Artists, Albums, etc). That can easily be tweaked in the settings to show what you prefer (just folders, just artists, etc.).
I noticed recently that Gramophone has a Dates tab, a list of years in increasing order that groups Songs together. So not albums exactly, but pretty cool nonetheless, it grabs a random cover for each year.
Symphony github link
It has nice UI, very polished and have folder view and lyrics support
But there's a major catch, unlike other players, you will need to keep the app open in background
Gramophone github link
Also have a nice ui, but not very polished. Absolutely usable. Have folder view and lyrics support
As an Android developer and as an user, I would prefer a standard and tested set of rules rather than reinventing everything. I know everyone have different taste, but I would trust an expert (someone who designed and defined Material rules) rather than my own judgement. Don't have an eye of a designer
A music player which "just plays whatever is in a directory". Very handy for people having a media folder with artist folders and album subfolders.
For the type of people, like myself, who focus more on tidy and disciplined storage of files instead of managing ID3 metadata etc
I use Vanilla Music. It does folder play particularly in a way I want, where it adds the songs randomly into a queue, which shows me how many songs are left, lets me manually move them around, etc.
It also seems to have a lyrics search plugin, but I don't know if that means lyrics support in the way you want.
I've been using VLC for folder based play of audio files. The UI is not ideal but it works well and the other apps I've tried didn't work out for various reasons. Unfortunately the Android Auto version of the UI doesn't have access to the folder browsing feature.
No idea if VLC has lyrics support for audio-only files.