Big month with five Fridays of new releases, including a couple of albums I’ve been waiting months to hear (like the first three artists below). As always, if you can’t see the widget below you can access the playlist on Apple Music or Spotify.
Wishy – Covergirl. Nature’s Pill came out at the top of the month and is easily a top 5 album for me this year, with a ridiculous number of highly catchy power-pop tracks. My favorites are still “Lovesick” and “All the Rage.”
Moses Boyd feat. Shantéh – More to Life. Songs for Sinners, Boyd’s second true solo album, came out on Friday; it’s Boyd’s fusion of the sounds of gospel music he grew up hearing with the jazz and soul that have become his trademark sound. I haven’t heard anything yet to rival “Shades of You,” my #1 song of 2020, but there are some strong tracks here powered by his always-interesting drumwork.
Olivia Trevor Control – Timewaster. OTC’s final, posthumous album The Same Place came out last week, and it’s a monster, with 27 tracks and about 70 minutes of music. Much of the album was recorded in the 2010-12 period, before Bill Doss, one of the two guitarist-vocalist-songwriters at the head of the collective, died of an aneurysm; Will Cullen Hart, the other g-v-s in OTC, died of multiple sclerosis in 2024.
Brigitte Calls Me Baby – Altitude. This B-side from the Irreversible sessions would have been a top five song on the album for me, after the first two singles, which were both outstanding.
The Tubs – Hard Life. The title track and opening single from this Welsh jangle-rock band, which features two former members of Joanna Gruesome, is a great example of the way they blend that mid-80s sound with somewhat harder rock edges.
Slow Pulp – Melodie. I was hoping for a little more of this from Slow Pulp’s latest album, also called Melodie, as the rest of the album is a mixed bag with some slower and less hooky tracks. I don’t know what I expected.
World News – Frog. ThisLondon indie-rock quartet finally released its first LP, In Purgatory, in October, with the two standout singles from 2025 (“Don’t Want to Know” and “Everything is Coming Up Milhouse Roses”) as well as “The Way It Goes,” “Sidestep,” “Vinegar Swimming Pool,” and this rousing opener.
girl in red – blue. I’ve never been a huge girl in red fan; her earnest bedroom-pop was usually a little twee for me, although she’s a big deal in her native Norway. This song has a lovely build to it and highly introspective lyrics that elevate it above other songs of hers I’ve heard.
Bluegirl – Look at All the Happy People. Bluegirl is Phoebe Xenofontos, a producer and songwriter who just released this single, her first, which has a strong bedroom-pop feel and got the seal of approval from Courtney Love.
Heartworms – Guess I’m Stuck in the Dark. Heartworms’ first new music since last year’s Glutton for Punishment gets most of its energy from Jojo Orme’s swirling, angsty vocals, with less of the electronic elements that boosted her amazing debut album. This seems to be either a one-off single or a lead track from a new unannounced album, which would be great news for 2027.
@ – Bird. Yes, the band is named @, which predisposes me to dislike them, because that’s extremely pretentious in a way Brooklyn Coffee Shop would gleefully satirize. The music is pretty good, unfortunately; they’re a folk duo who draw on psycheledic music and chamber-folk with a darker sound particularly evident on this track. Their second album, Autosmile, has earned rave reviews.
San Cisco – Miles Away. The Australian indie-pop trio returns with their first new song since 2024’s Under the Light and it’s one of their better singles of the last ten years or so.
Pardoner – Don’t Slouch. Pardoner is an indie-rock quartet from San Francisco whose music reminds me a good bit of Wishy – it’s power pop, but more punk-influenced. Their fifth album Target Practice came out last month.
Dummy – Full Spectrum Dominance. I wanted the whole Dummy album do you love the color of the sky to be made of this spacey, epic-feeling track that reminded me of sounds from just about every decade of my life, although the 1990s alternative-radio vibe was the strongest part.
They are gutting a body of water feat. Horse Jumper of Love – charter spec. This Philly shoegaze band released a new mixtape – don’t ask me how this differs from an album, I am too old to care – called Kool Faith/Loosies II, with a guest appearance by Boston-area shoegazers Horse Jumper of Love on this track.
Exploding Flowers – Information Dark Age. Rough-edged power pop with a good dose of Parquet Courts. Their fourth album, Alphabet Window, came out last month.
Dazy – Ugly. Dazy is James Goodson, but more to the point here, this song reminds me a ton of Hotline TNT with less distortion. Goodson released the second Dazy album/compliation, MAXIMUMBLASTSUPERLOUD Vol. 2, on October 23rd, his first full-length anything since 2022’s Out of Body. Uh oh y’all it’s gettin kinda dazy…
Automatic – Shadowplay. Idon’t include a lot of covers here, but Automatic’s version of Joy Division’s “Shadowplay” is good enough to make my cut, capturing the hypnotic, gothic sound of the original, leaning more into the subsequent new wave atmosphere than the post-punk vibe of Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures. Also, I learned when writing this that Automatic is now a duo, as drummer Lola Dompé (daughter of Kevin Haskins, the drummer for Bauhaus) seems to have quit the band in the last year.
Do Nothing – Smile. This is not the first Do Nothing track to make me think they’re Wild Beasts disciples, and that’s a damn good thing. I can’t believe Boy King came out ten years ago.
CHVRCHES – Overthinker. Not as strong as the first single (“Roses”) from their upcoming album, All the King’s Men, due out on January 22nd, although this time it’s the vocals rather than the music that falls a little short. I’m choosing to remain optimistic that the album will draw more on their earliest work.
BODEGA – Slow Train. I’ve had one BODEGA song on a playlist before, back in 2024, but generally have been lukewarm on their stuff. This track, off their new album All Inside Aquarium, veers into post-hardcore territory, with a chorus that seems to draw on Quicksand/Thrice, and way better guitar work throughout the song than most of their stuff.
Post Animal – Wings on the Ground. Post Animal was Joe Keery’s original band, which he left for some time (he was busy) before rejoining for their 2025 album Iron, which is relevant because this song originated in the sessions for their 2014 debut album When I Think of You in a Castle, with the music recorded along with that album but the vocals recorded fresh for this release.
Ugly – In Samphedoo. Ugly’s debut album The South Façade represents a musical shift for them – they’ve been around for ten years but their longest releases were a six-song EP in 2022 and a nine-track compilation of singles from 2017-19. Their earlier stuff was post-punk/art-rock, while this new record is extremely proggy, with jazz and folk influences, definitely the kind of songs where you wouldn’t be surprised if someone showed up with a Chapman stick or a theremin.
Shabazz Palaces – Heliocentric Immortality Manifesto H.I.M. Shabazz Palaces is now an extended solo project by Ishmael Butler, perhaps better known as Butterfly of Digable Planets (who appeared on Cadillac Chronicles last December). His latest album, It’s a Style Sport, is more structured and focused than 2024’s Exotic Birds of Prey, although I’d still call it experimental – at least, there’s no one else in hip-hop who sounds anything like this. The other track I considered for the playlist was “Ahh World (I Won the Alpha Bet).”
Sampa the Great – Location. The Zambian rap star’s latest album Nu Zamrock is her first since returning to the country of her birth after spending time in Botswana and starting her music career while living in Australia (where she won multiple ARIA awards). It features multiple appearances by her uncle, George “Groovy Joe” Kunda, one of the founding members of the band WITCH, the originators of the Zamrock sound, and that musical theme is present throughout the record, which blends Zambian and other African genres with western hip-hop and psychedelic rock. “Can’t Hold Us,” featuring her sister Mwanje, is the best track, although I regret to inform you that Sia makes a guest appearance.
Ghost Funk Orchestra – Leave Me Alone. GFO is Seth Applebaum’s project, so, yes, another white man making distinctly Black music, which … where are the Black artists in this space? Applebaum does a pretty good facsimile of 1970s funk/soul, kind of the other side of the coin from Jungle (two white men making distinctly Black music), who also mine 1970s soul but from the disco side of things. I happen to really like this song, but the broader trend here makes me uncomfortable.
Prince – Prince and the Band. The Prince estate’s decision to spike Ezra Edelman’s Netflix documentary about Prince’s life and career – which was because they didn’t want the truth about how Prince treated people, especially young women, to get out there, which seems absurd given how a biopic about a guy accused of molesting young boys just made a billion dollars worldwide – meant that the estate regained the rights to release music from Prince’s extensive vault. They released a compilation album called Timeless in August, featuring the song “Calabama,” and then in October released a four-song EP called Calabama that included a raw version of the original without the overdubbed horns (added for Timeless) along with two versions of “Prince and the Band,” which he played live but never released on any record.
Caspian – Hiraeth. I like Caspian, an instrumental, vaguely-progressive rock band, but them using a Welsh word meaning “that sense of incompleteness you feel when you’re acutely aware of something missing in your life,” particularly for something that is no longer there. You’ll also see it as described as a Welsh person’s longing for Wales. Anyway, this is a lovely song with Celtic folk-like strings over the sparse guitar lines.
Evil Invaders – D.S.S. (Death Strikes Suddenly). This Belgian thrash band is a complete throwback, almost to the point of parody, but I do love the commitment to the riff.
Forbidden – Flower of Life. This nine-minute closer from Forbidden’s self-titled album, their first new LP in 16 years, is a strong showcase of this classic Bay Area thrash band’s brand of metal, which bridges the (possibly nonexistent) gap between thrash and speed metal. The new album is their first without original lead singer Russ Anderson but does feature original guitarist Craig Locicero and bassist Matt Camacho.