Music update, March 2026.

March ended with a rush of new releases and I’m still working my way through them, on top of the LPs that have already come out in April – this feels like the first big release period of 2026, with Arlo Parks, Angine de Poitrine, Snail Mail, The Twilight Sad, Brigitte Calls Me Baby, Courtney Barnett, deary, Flea, Butler Blake & Grant, Neurosis, and Avalon Emerson putting out albums in the last month that I need to listen to or that were on my to-do list.

As always, if you can’t see the widget below, the playlist is available on Apple Music and Spotify.

Young Fathers – Don’t Fight the Young. The latest War Child Records album HELP(2) has an incredible roster of names, but most of the songs are clearly throwaways for the artists who wrote and recorded them, a marked step down from their usual material. Young Fathers’ contribution, however, is on par with some of their best work, and more importantly, it sounds exactly like their usual stuff. They actually wrote several songs for the project, and if this is any indication, I hope the others show up on a future album or EP.

Snail Mail – Tractor Beam. Snail Mail is Lindsey Jordan, whose third album Richochet came out at the end of March. This single is more polished and better produced than her earlier stuff, giving her guitar a richer texture, although her vocals are still quite clear.I’ve only listened to about half of the album so far, but it’s my favorite by her to date – the stronger production values help her vocals quite a bit, and I’m getting some Velocity Girl vibes from her melodies now that they’re cleaner and more forward.

Julia Cumming – Please Let Me Remember This. Cumming is the lead singer and bassist for Sunflower Bean; her first solo album Julia is out on the 24^th. The first single, “My Life,” was fine, but this one is eight levels higher, especially musically, as there are layers and layers here, not just of different instruments but of varying beats and rhythms that tap into some 1970s pop and even light jazz.

Brigitte Calls Me Baby – I Can Take the Sun Right Out of the Sky. I adored the first two singles from BCMB’s sophomore album Irreversible, while this third one is more solid than plus for me, getting them a little too far into Smiths homage territory. The first half of the album is much stronger than the second, with the first two singles as well as “The Pit” and “Truth is Stranger Than Fiction,” while the back half started to lose some steam and felt slightly more derivative of the ‘80s new wave sounds that inspire so much of their music.

Spencer Thomas – The World is Fucked and I Love You. Thomas is a multi-instrumentalist from Mississippi who seems to be able to write songs in any genre you’d like; here he goes hard into synth-pop, sounding like Heaven 17 with a Morrissey guest vocal (1980s Moz, not the current shithead version). I really love the cover of his new album Cynical Vision.

Pond – Terrestrials. Like most great Pond songs, this one starts out in an inauspicious fashion and then blossoms into a bigger sound when it hits the chorus. It’s not quite “America’s Cup” or “Neon River,” but it’s a strong lead single for this Aussie psychedelic-rock band’s upcoming album, also called Terrestrials, due out June 19^th.

The Twilight Sad – Attempt a Crash Landing. I need to get to their latest album, It’s the Long Goodbye, but the tracks I’ve heard so far have been some of my favorites ever by them. I think I’d been too skeptical of them based on the name, but their music over the last decade or so has blended gloom with richly textured guitars and even some hints of industrial music.

SPRINTS – Trickle Down. A solid punk song of protest against late-stage capitalism and the lie of trickle-down economics (which is the disgraced philosophy behind both of Trump’s major tax cuts). Maybe not as immediate as SPRINTS’ best stuff, but still good.

The Afghan Whigs – House of I. Not sure if this is a one-off track or if it heralds another new album, but Greg Dulli – who still sounds fantastic – called it a “banger” and I think he’s right.

Tigers Jaw – Primary Colors. I see Tigers Jaw called emo and punk-pop, but I don’t know that either fits – here they’ve got classic pop melodies over a heavier guitar track that draws on post-hardcore. The contrast is the real hook.

TVAM – Love Like Glue. TVAM’s debut album, Psychic Data, was #2 on my list of the best albums of 2018, but I missed his 2022 album High Art Life completely and would have missed his latest, Ruins, if one of you hadn’t pointed me to it. I still prefer his first LP, which was more melodic and immediate, but Ruins is strong enough and really brings me back to the late goth/new wave sound; this track sounds like it came from somewhere in between Ministry’s shift from “Every Day Is Halloween” to the industrial sound of The Land of Rape and Honey.

Trashcan Sinatras – Bad Husband. This new track from these Scottish folk-rockers features Tracyanne Campbell, lead singer and co-founder of Camera Obscura; it’s the second single so far from their new album Ever the Optimist, due out on July 31^st. I’ll forever be grateful to Beavis & Butthead for introducing me to them via their mockery of the video for “Hayfever.”

Courtney Barnett – One Thing at a Time. Barnett’s first album in five years, Creature of Habit, came out on March 26^th; the three singles all point to a return to the more uptempo indie rock of her earliest work (her double EP and then her debut album). Her collaboration with Waxahatchee, “Site Unseen,” is the best track on the new album.

Metric – Time is a Bomb. I remember Metric’s first album and how XM’s Alt Nation overplayed the pretentious song “Succexy;” that was 23 years ago, and now their tenth LP, Romanticize the Dive, is coming out on the 24^th. I’ve come around on Metric as they’ve also shifted their sound slightly more towards mainstream alternative, although I think Emily Haines is a better singer than lyricist.

Jessie Ware – Automatic. Ware might be my favorite straight-up pop singer right now, as her current style, dating at least back to What’s Your Pleasure?, blends disco, funk, and ‘70s pop, mixed with some great hooks, enough to overcome the occasional lyrical clunker. This is the third single from her album Superbloom, due out on the 17^th. It reminds me of a specific track from the 1970s, but I can’t put my finger on it.

Jorja Smith – The Price of It All. This soaring ballad comes from the soundtrack to the limited series Bait, created by and starring Riz Ahmed, so why exactly have I not heard of this before? Someone’s done a piss-poor job of marketing it. Anyway, Smith remains one of my favorite vocalists, and I especially love when her voice isn’t competing with a drum machine that drowns her out.

Arlo Parks – Get Go. A small departure for Parks, with a twee-pop backing track and notably upbeat melodies in the vocals. Her third album Ambiguous Desire came out on the 3^rd.

Maria BC – Channels. This track is barely over a minute but gives me a chance to recommend their new album Marathon, which is definitely more of a single document than a set of tracks, with their voice still reminding me a ton of Alejandra Deheza of School of Seven Bells.

Miki Berenyi Trio – Island of One. Berenyi was the lead singer/guitarist for the shoegaze legends Lush, who took a sharp turn into alt-pop with their final album Lovelife and called it a day. Her latest band includes her partner Kevin McKillop, with their debut album dropping last year; it was more shoegaze-light, with her voice still a highlight. This is apparently a standalone single ahead of a new tour.

Pye Corner Audio feat. Andy Bell – Cycle. This popped up on my Release Radar because of the presence of Bell, founding guitarist of Ride and current bassist for Oasis. This track, from PCA’s upcoming album More Songs About the Sun, is shoegazey electronica; Bell contributes guitar and vocals, and he’s apparently on three other songs on the record as well.

Soft Cell feat. Nona Hendryx – Out Come the Freaks. Soft Cell was Marc Almond and David Ball, best known for their cover of “Tainted Love,” and they had reunited after a twenty-year hiatus in 2022, recording three albums before Ball’s death last year. That third record, Danceteria, comes out at some point this year, with a tour to follow, but it’ll be the last new music under the Soft Cell name according to Almond. Oh, as for Nona Hendryx, you know her, too: She was one-third of Labelle, best known for “Lady Marmalade.”

Les Big Byrd – Hökvind. I wasn’t familiar with this Swedish psychedelic rock band before stumbling on this homage to space-rock pioneers Hawkwind. It’s bottom-heavy and intricate with a real groove to it.

The Black Crowes – Profane Prophecy. Definitely the Crowes’ first appearance on one of my playlists. I’m one of the basic Black Crowes fans: I had the first album before they got famous, loved the bluesier stuff and hated “She Talks to Angels,” played the shit out of “Remedy” when that came out, and pretty much gave up on them around the release of Amorica (with the manufactured controversy over its album cover convincing me they were a joke). I happened to see a positive review of A Pound of Feathers, their newest album, and thought, “how bad could it be?” It’s fine, not as good as their first two albums, but it’s got a few memorable numbers, led by this uptempo song.

Jehnny Beth feat. Mike Patton – Look at Me. The great Jehnny Beth of Savages and Anatomy of a Fall pairs up here with the Faith No More/Mr. Bungle lead singer Mike Patton on a weird, experimental noise-rock track with an interesting video that seems to show Beth cracking up.

Armored Saint – Close to the Bone. Armored Saint is still around! I had no idea. Granted, I was never as big a fan of their heyday, as the tracks I heard were not their best (like “Chemical Euphoria,” played to death on Headbanger’s Ball). They’re still going, singer John Bush still sounds good, and their ninth album, Emotion Factory Reset, drops on May 22^nd.

The HU – The Men. This Mongolian folk-metal band has released two new tracks this year, and they’re openers on two different tours in the U.S. later in 2026 (one of which includes Marilyn Manson, unfortunately) so I assume an album is coming. Their cover of Iron Maiden’s “The Trooper”, translated into their native language, from a year or so ago is pretty badass, too.

Sepultura – The Place. Sepultura are calling it a career, releasing a four-song EP called The Cloud of Unknowing later this month that includes this crunchy, almost groove-metal track along with the mellower “Beyond the Dream.” Bassist Paulo Jr. is the only remaining original member, and I don’t think they’ve really been the same band – not worse, just different – since singer/guitarist Max Cavalera left in 1997.

Cruel Force – Whips-a-Swinging. ThisGerman band started out as yet another blackened speed metal band, but morphed into a more old-school speed metal/early thrash sound in the late 2010s. They’re back with a new album, Haneda, that sounds very 1982ish, like a band that might have inspired Kreator rather than one that was inspired by them.