So far, not experiencing this with 156. None of the bugs marked Fixed sound like this problem.
I uninstalled the old app before installing, this time; not sure if that makes any difference.

I pulled up a playlist from MMW on UPnP and started playing it. The black Now Playing screen background appeared but did not fill in; then it crashed, and sent logs.
I restarted; the playlist was still intact, so I started the same track again. This time the art etc. appeared, but then the art etc. disappeared again (title bar displaying OK), crash (and logs) again.

There was one scrobble from these two, less-than-five-second plays, and the Last Played date updated.

I just gave up and played tracks locally.