November 3, 2026  ·  1 comment

Music update, October 2026.

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.

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October 2, 2026  ·  2 comments

Music update, September 2026.

Lot of big albums coming in October, I think, so September turned into a solid month of new music, with many of these songs coming from albums/artists I haven’t had on playlists this year. This doesn’t even include new albums that came out in the last few weeks from Beck, Blondshell, The Tubs, Gurriers, or Slow Pulp; the first two didn’t do much for me, and I still have to listen to the last three. As always, if you can’t see the widget below, you can access the playlist on Apple Music or Spotify.

CHVRCHES – Roses. I think this is my favorite CHVRCHES track since their second album, Every Open Eye, and maybe since their debut record, which this song really evokes musically. There’s more going on here lyrically than most of their output, even just in quantity – Lauren Mayberry is way more present here, which is nearly always a good thing. I don’t love the production on the chorus, but otherwise this feels like they’re recalling “The Mother We Share” and “Gun” as they lead up to album #5.

The War on Drugs – Who’s That. I can vouch that this song sounds amazing live, having seen TWoD’s incredible show at the Queen here in Wilmington, which was packed because you don’t often see a band this big playing at a smaller venue like that. Every time I see this song’s title, though, I want to say “BROWWWWWWWWWN!”

Moses Boyd feat. Amber-Simone – Criticise. Jazz drummer/composer Boyd announced his second solo album Songs for Sinners will drop on October 30th; this funk-tinged track is a big step up from the first single, “Say Yeah,” and gives me more hope that the album will be a worthy follow-up to the tremendous, boundary-pushing Dark Matter, which gave me my favorite song of 2020, “Shades of You.”

Wishy – Sensational. Wishy’s second album Nature’s Pill ought to be their big breakout, with two incredible singles already in “Lovesick” and “All the Rage” along with a couple of other above-average tracks like this one and “Mona Lisa.” It’s power-pop with a jangly edge to it, fun and funny lyrics, and some great back-and-forth among the vocalists.

Lambrini Girls – Bang Bang Bang. This British punk duo announced its second album, No Refunds, will be out on January 15th; this song has a tremendous, high-octane guitar riff driving it, while Phoebe Lunny’s sung-shouted lyrics are, as always, both witty and incisive.

Anxious – Secret Weapon. This emo-ish band released its second album, Bambi, early in 2025, and they’re back already with two new singles, “Don’t Move” and this one, that sounds more like harder 1990s alternative than the emo tag usually applied to them. (I feel like we’re far enough from the first emo wave that bands doing it now should get a new tag.)

Tom Morello feat. KNEECAP – Unconquered. Morello’s latest solo album Everyone Gets Everything They Want just dropped on September 25th, with some uninspiring collaborations (Serj Tankian’s song is particularly bad), and then this one that seems almost obvious in hindsight given the Irish group’s politics. It helps that Morello provides a strong guitar riff behind them.

Sampa the Great – Simon Says. This Zambian rapper calls herself great, but it’s no lie. “You say all my demons is coming/I say all my demons is dead” feels like a great call-and-response for live shows. Her third album, Nu Zamrock, comes out on the 30th.

Rakim, Kurupt, & Masta Killa – I’m Good. This hip-hop supergroup dropped The Godbody LP on September 18th, and on this and all of the tracks I’ve heard, Rakim towers over the other two rappers.

Tiakola feat. Jorja Smith – Jet Lag. Tiakola is a Congolese-French rapper, formerly a member of 4Keus, while Smith is one of my favorite singers in any genre and just released a new album this summer. This collaboration has her rapping more than singing, with her lines in English and his in French. It’s pretty catchy, with a UK garage beat behind their lyrics.

Locust feat. Natasha Morrow and Neil Halstead – Long Distance Lover. Locust is 60-year-old Mark Van Hoen, an electronic music artist from London, who just released his 13th album, Spectral+, in September. This song features Halstead, guitarist and one of the vocalists in Slowdive; and Irish singer Morrow, whose voice isn’t totally up to the challenge here, although I found the song catchy enough to put on this list.

Adult DVD – Jesus Christ Supercar. A surprising banger that draws on early new wave/post-punk while still sounding reasonably modern. “I thought I was Jesus but the drugs wore off” is one of the best lyrics of the year.

GIFT – Hand to the Flame. GIFT announced a new album, Frenzy for the Thrill, due out January 15th, with this lead single bringing their standard psychedelic-rock approach to a more uptempo beat, with more prominent guitars and a poppier melody.

World News – The Way It Goes. That little note on the last beat of every fourth measure feels like it’s straight out of 1984. They’ve got a great sense of melody, and lean hard into their 1980s influences, with Fader comparing them to Talk Talk and the Smiths. They’re more melodic and upbeat than those bands, though. In Purgatory, their long-awaited (by me) debut album, comes out on the 15th.

This is Lorelei – The Kid with the Crown. I haven’t loved Nate Amos’ solo stuff, but this song kicks ass. It’s like Belle & Sebastian tried to write a bluegrass song.

Sharp Pins – Face of Youth Today. Sharp Pins is 21-year-old Kai Slater, whose songs “are low-fidelity to the point where they often sound as if they’re being played from another room of your apartment.” (Hat-tip to Post-Trash for that quip.) Imagine if early Cloud Nothings was more inspired by 1960s pop than noise-rock and punk.

Beabadoobee feat. Hayley Williams – Nothing to Prove. Pylon might be Beabadoobee’s best album to date; it’s at least as good as her last two records, maybe a little more polished, although that cuts both ways. I have been disappointed to see how much of the publicity around the record seems to focus on her looks, which, who cares? This isn’t 1985 and MTV doesn’t play music any more.

Sports Team – Billy. I loved Sports Team’s 2022 album Gulp! and was very disappointed by their 2025 album Boys These Days; this track, for now a non-album single, sits somewhere in between the two, with more energy than the latter album and more humor, although it’s not quite as catchy as “Dig” or “The Drop.”

Soccer Mommy – Rings of Saturn. One of Soccer Mommy’s better singles, this marks her first new music since 2024’s Evergreen, with a very ‘90s vibe and a vocal line that reminds me a ton of “Tractor Beam” by Snail Mail … with whom Soccer Mommy is touring this fall.

Morphine – Cocoon. Morphine seemed like they were on the verge in the 1990s, with “Thursday” and “Honey White” gaining some crossover success, when lead singer/bassist Mark Sandman died after suffering a heart attack while performing on stage in Rome in 1999. The remaining members have completed the album Cocoon, started in 1998 but never finished, and will release it on December 4th, marking the first album of ‘new’ material from the band in 26 years. Totally unrelated, but I saw some pictures of Sandman when reading about the new album and going down a bit of a Morphine rabbit hole, and I keep thinking, man, he looks like he might have had Marfan syndrome. I don’t know anything about this stuff, so take that with a grain of salt.

Kiwi Jr. w/Protomartyr – Landscape with Limousine. I did not see this collaboration coming, but it works, producing a song that sounds a lot like … hard-rock Pavement?

Gilla Band – Alogia. I’m still working through Gilla Band’s album Pugnello, which has received glowing reviews, but is a difficult listen; I believe Paste called them “post-punk” but they’re borrowing from way more traditions than that, including early industrial like Throbbing Gristle.

Lost in Kyiv – Tróia. Theycall themselves“post-rock,” which I assume is because nobody wants to be “prog rock” in 2026 because people might think King Crimson, and that’s not the vibe here at all. It’s closer to prog metal, inspired by Russian Circles, with some Wheel or Porcupine Tree or even Dream Theater. Their latest album We’re All Going to Be Fine came out in June; this track is off the Pelagic Records compliation album The Dungeon Tapes.

I Built the Sky – The Start of Something Beautiful. I Built the Sky is the project of Australian guitar wizard Rohan ‘Ro Han’ Stevenson, who just released another album of progressive instrumental metal called Promise Me You’ll Thrive. It’s heavier than the sort of instrumental guitar records I loved as a teenager – I’m thinking of Steve Vai’s Passion & Warfare in particular – but I love both the virtuosity of his playing and the ambition of the songwriting.

Coroner – The Favorite Game. This isn’t a new track, but it was actually new to me because it only appeared on their 1995 compilation album, also called Coroner, and I really just know their albums (primarily their last two before their breakup, Mental Vortex and Grin, two of my favorite metal albums ever). This comes off the upcoming EP Ex Nucleo (The Remastered Extraction), which will include five tracks from Coroner.

Godflesh – Master and Slave. The opening track from Godflesh’s latest and penultimate album, Decay, is mostly instrumental, and reminds me of their debut album Streetcleaner but slower and sludgier. Singer/guitarist Justin Broadrick, who wrote and produced this entire album, underwent abdominal surgery this spring and is no longer able to sing live, so Godflesh won’t be touring, and this entire album has about 150 total words of lyrics.

Sleep – Arrival of the Industry Ships. The longest of the five tracks on Sleep’s newest album Hempispheres is deeper and doomier than the rest; the album has received middling to poor reviews for the mediocre lyrics (I get that, but also, no one is listening to Sleep for the lyrics) and, I think, because Matt Pike isn’t the guitarist any more. I’ve written this before, but given his embrace of antisemitic conspiracy theories I’d rather have Sleep without him.

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September 3, 2026  ·  4 comments

Music update, August 2026.

August was a monstrous month for new music in a great way, so much so that I posted a list of album grades on Bluesky covering LPs that came out in July or the first three weeks of August, which was before we got new records from Mastodon, Russian Circles, Elephant Stone, Billy Strings, flowerovlove, Interpol, and Alabama Shakes on the month’s final Friday. Anyway, as always, if you can’t see the widget below, you can access the playlist on Apple Music or Spotify.

The Afghan Whigs – House of I. The Whigs sound as good as ever, with their latest album, Soft Control, maybe their best yet, at least rivaling 2017’s In Spades, and up there with Gentlemen from the band’s first incarnation. This song and “Loose Talk” were two of the best new songs I heard all month; I picked this one because of the guitar riff that opens it.

Kiwi jr. – Pure Michigan. The answer to the eternal question: What if Vampire Weekend made a song that wasn’t twee as fuck? Anyway, this Canadian band’s latest album, Blowing Up, came out on August 14th, featuring their usual blend of jangle-pop sounds and sardonic lyrics.

Do Nothing – Act Natural. This song reminds me so much of peak Wild Beasts, whose farewell album Boy King remains one of my favorites of this century, that I have come back to it repeatedly since first hearing it a few weeks ago. Do Nothing’s sound is a similar blend of art rock and post-punk, but here with big, almost bombastic vocals. Their second album, Friend World, comes out on November 6th; they previously released another single, “Stars,” that’s a little blander and less catchy.

Squirrel Flower – Cleveland. Squirrel Flower is Ella O’Connor Williams, a multi-instrumentalist from Boston by way of Grinnell who has released five albums, with the latest, Say a Prayer to the Gods of Getting Going, among my favorites of the year so far. She blends indie folk with shoegaze elements, but the real star is her strong voice that communicates deep longing and sadness on much of the album.

she’s green – close your eyes. The final song on this Minneapolis shoegaze band’s debut album is seven minutes long, but it’s a stunner, calling to mind Slowdive and early Lush, with waves of sound washing over you beneath Zofia Smith’s atmospheric vocals.

Smidley – Love in Every Direction. Smidley is Conor Murphy, lead singer of the maybe-defunct band Foxing, who is set to release his second solo album Murphy Horse on the 25th. It’s different from most of Foxing’s work, especially their last album, and feels more like the kind of indie rock that was popular in the wake of the Killers’ massively successful debut album.

Keo – That’s Me. Based in London but with roots all over Europe, Keo will release its first album, Put A Smile On For Me, on the 25th, with this song sounding like the Gin Blossoms by way of the Amazons with a lyrical reference to R.E.M. in the chorus.

Sailor Honeymoon – Click Click. This South Korean all-girl punk band’s debut album The Worst of Sailor Honeymoon came out in August and shows plenty of promise, although it’s pretty short (27 minutes) and gets a little repetitive over 13 songs. This song, “I Wanna Leave You,” and “Bad Apple” are standouts.

Ceremony – Dark Summer. I did not like Ceremony’s latest album, Tell Me Your Dream, which has no real identity and features a lot of filler tracks. This is one of two tracks on the record I liked, along with “Other Hells,” but there’s nothing here to rival In the Spirit World Now.

DIIV – The Fountain. DIIV’s critical acclaim has always outpaced their music for me; this song, from their upcoming fifth album Zirp! (due October 30), might be my favorite song by this Brooklyn indie-rock band, blending genres while maintaining a consistently strong hook in the chorus.

Quicksand – Bring on the Psychics. The title track from this seminal post-hardcore band’s third post-reunion album is one of its strongest, and the record as a whole might be their best. It’s certainly their most cohesive, and stays true to their musical roots while tightening up some of the noise-rock elements more present in their first two records.

Elephant Stone – I Got a Pill. Elephant Stone’s latest album ASHA came out on August 28th; I’ve heard three songs, this power-pop track, the tremendous rocker “Everything Evil,” and “Fascists Killed Yer Rock ‘n’ Roll,” which made NPR’s best songs of the week list last week. I wasn’t familiar with the band before this year, but they’ve been around since 2009, and I’m a fan of what I’ve heard so far.

The Olivia Tremor Control – Garden of Light. OTC was part of the Elephant 6 collective in Athens, Georgia, that also spawned Apples in Stereo and Neutral Milk Hotel, releasing two albums of jangly power-pop before internal strife ended the band’s first run in 2000. Founding members Bill Doss and Will Hart recorded most of a third album before Doss died in 2012, and the band released two singles from the record in 2024 on the same day that Hart died at age 53. The band’s final album, The Same Place, comes out on October 23rd, including this song and the just-released “Advice from the Oceans.”

Billy Strings – Burn the Other End. Strings won the Grammy for Best Bluegrass album in February, and he’s already back with a new LP, So Much for Goodbyes, which came out in August. He also hopped on stage with the latest version of Canadian death metal band Cryptopsy at his own Ionia Freak Fair last week.

Wolf Alice – Hammond Song. How the hell is this a B-side from The Clearing? It would have been among the five best songs on the album, easily, maybe top three after “White Horses” and “Bloom Baby Bloom,” and it’s the best showcase of Ellie Rowsell’s voice of anything from those sessions.

beabadoobee – Memories. This is the third single ahead of Beatrice Laus’ fourth album, Pylon, due out on the 18th, which apparently is not a note-for-note cover of Killing Joke’s final LP.

flowerovlove – KISS KISS KISS. Joyce Cissé’s debut album MINI SKIRT WARRIOR dropped on August 28th, and it’s one of the best pure pop albums of the year. Her ear for a great melody is incredible, and the album is littered with songs that should be all over pop radio, including this one, “American Wedding,” “I’m Your First,” “girls will be girls” (featuring Willow), and “shady.” I hate the term “sophisti-pop” but it would certainly apply here.

Iben – Dead End. A Norwegian singer who just released her debut album Hulder, Iben blends folk music, atmospheric metal, and morbid lyrics for an intriguing combination that somehow also sounds … not poppy, but potentially mainstream. I can’t figure out if she’s the same Iben who released a pure pop song a few years ago called “Childish;” Spotify has them as separate artists but I wouldn’t swear those are different voices.

Heathers – Bite. Heathers is Heath Michael Thomas – there’s an Irish pop duo of the same name, but this ain’t them – who’s released three singles so far this year, with his debut album Awesome coming out on October 30th. It’s very lo-fi, DIY, garage rock; sometimes he sounds like he’s singing with his mouth pressed up against a screen door. There’s a real melodic sensibility here, though. Props to Jon Natchez from The War on Drugs for the rec.

Soft Science – Fade. More power-pop with some shoegaze elements, reminiscent of Velocity Girl and Belly, from this long-running Sacramento band whose fifth album, Sand, comes out this Friday.

Gang of Youths – Things Take Time. This one-off single is the Australian band’s first new music since 2022’s Angel in Realtime, which had a couple of stellar singles in “The Angel of 8th Ave.” and “In the Wake of Your Leave.” This feels like a lyrical throwaway, and singer/songwriter David Le’aupepe has said the song isn’t really about anything. The music’s fine, though.

Ezra Collective – Jubilee Feeling. This Mercury Prize-winning jazz quintet will release its fourth album, Here Because of Hope, on September 18th. This single is the first instrumental and third single they’ve released from the LP, after “Only Love” (feat. Pa Salieu) and “Well Organized” (feat. Lila Iké).

Jorja Smith – Dancing. I love Jorja Smith’s voice, but prefer when she leans more towards jazz or classic R&B sounds than EDM. Her latest album What Are the Odds bridges the gap between the two, with largely electronic beats but less frenetic tempos, allowing her voice to remain front and center, as on this Afrobeat-tinged dance track.

Jungle – Sunshine. The best song off Jungle’s disappointing new album is the title track, which has a good enough hook to stand out over the sea of sameness on the rest of the record. There’s no “Busy Earnin” or “Happy Man” to be found anywhere on the LP.

Rakim, Kurupt, Masta Killa, & Kokane – Goin Down. The first three MCs here have collaborated on The Godbody LP, which was supposed to be released on August 28th, and has now been pushed back to September 18th. This lead single is basically an average Rakim rhyme and some other dudes. By the way, there are a couple of new Rakim collaboration videos on Youtube that I think are AI slop – they sound entirely plausible but there’s no media coverage whatsoever and the videos are just stitched together from old clips.

CZARFACE & Frankie Pulitzer feat. Method Man – Mad Technology. CZARFACE is Inspectah Deck, 7L, and Esoteric, but more importantly, Frankie Pulitzer is Tom Hardy – and he can rap a little! He’s better than Esoteric, at least, and isn’t embarrassed rhyming after two Wu-Tang members.

Royal Blood – Ten Over Ten. This heavy-rock duo’s fifth album, Dead Company, comes out on November 13th, with this track the first single. It might be a sign they’re returning to their heavier roots from their first two albums after Typhoons went for a little more funk and pop and Stuck in the Water Below felt like a lesser version of their previous work.

Sleep – The Morrisist. Sleep’s newest album, Hemispheres, comes out today, featuring only Al Cisneros from the original lineup; guitarist Matt Pike is out, replaced by Bubba Dupree of the early ‘80s punk band Void, while drummer Jason Roeder has been replaced by Melvins drummer Dale Crover. I know some Sleep fans are pissed about this, but 1) Pike’s public comments and his embrace of antisemitic conspiracy theorist David Icke are a serious problem and 2) this song is great, so just enjoy it.

The HU – Second Face. HUN, the latest album from this Mongolian folk-metal band, is one of the best albums of the year for me – it blends a genre I know nothing about with a genre I know a lot about, classic heavy metal like that of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. It’s no surprise that the Hu covered Maiden’s “The Trooper.”

Mastodon – Snakes for Dinner. Mastodon’s latest album and their first since the death of Brent Hinds, Marrow Deep, is solid but unfocused; it’s a collection of songs, some pretty good, including “Your Ghost Again” (which, I’m calling it now, is going to get a Grammy nomination and maybe win) and this track. I only felt like one track was a miss, “A Vampire’s Demeanor,” and thought the closer “The Three Fates” was a strong finish that recalled some of Mastodon’s more ambitious and longer tracks.

Sarcator – In Search of Oblivion. This young blackened thrash band from Sweden came up with its name by combining the names of two of their favorite bands, the early death-metal act Sarcófago and German thrash titans Kreator. You can really hear the latter’s influence in the vocals on this track from the band’s upcoming fourth album, The Ones We Follow, due out October 30th.

Flotsam & Jetsam – The Edge of Nowhere. Flotsam & Jetsam were probably best known in the 1980s for being the original band of Jason Newsted, who served as Metallica’s bassist after Cliff Burton’s death; and for their commercial track “Wading Through the Darkness” from 1992’s Cuatro. Unlike many bands from that first wave of American thrash, however, they never stopped recording, and I loved “Primal” from their last album. Their newest, Rats in the Temple, seemed a little heavier to me, and thus less like the classic thrash sound I love.

Russian Circles – Seventh Seal. This instrumental metal band’s latest album, Nine, is heavy and proggy and pretty endlessly interesting, which is what I want from this kind of music. It’s seven tracks, one of which is just shy of two minutes, with the others all 4:57 or longer.

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June 30, 2026  ·  3 comments

Music update, June 2026.

June was heavy, in a good way – this list has more psycheledic rock, post-hardcore, or metal tracks than most of playlists do. If you want to rock out, I have a few songs for you. As always, if you can’t access the widget below, you can access the playlist on Apple Music or Spotify.

Mastodon – Your Ghost Again. How could I start this playlist with anything but this new track from Mastodon that pays tribute to former member Brent Hinds, who left the band (or was kicked out) in March of 2025, then died in a motorcycle crash in August?

Jack White – Dollar Bill. I’m very into this new Jack White vibe, which seems to be carrying over from 2024’s No Name, such as on that album’s “Archbishop Harold Holmes.” (That track got a surprise video last year starring John C. Reilly, who came up with the concept. It played at Tribeca this spring.) White’s new album Frozen Charlotte comes out on July 10th.

Liminal – The Crop. Unabashedly late ‘60s psychedelic rock, very in line with what Temples typically does but a little darker in tone. Hailing from the Northern Rivers region of eastern Australia, this quartet has put out two albums to date, and promised a new and more experimental one this year, with this the only song released so far.

Temples – Glimmer. Oh, hey, speak of the devils. Bliss came out on Friday and it’s more of the usual, which is a good thing in my mind, as I love Temples’ guitar-forward psychedelia.

Pond – Skyworks. More psychedelic-rock, although Pond’s flavor is more experimental than Temples’ is. This Australian band put out their latest album, Terrestrials, on June 19th, and it’s a little more pensive than their last few albums – I didn’t find anything as immediately compelling as “Neon River” or “America’s Cup,” but songs like this one, which is more powered by the beat than the guitars, still landed for me.

Les Big Byrd – Artificial Sunlight. Sticking with a theme, this is a psychedelic-space rock group from Stockholm whose latest album Ruin Everything came out on June 5th. The first track is called “Hökvind” (featured on one of my previous playlists) if you want a sense of what they sound like.

The Afghan Whigs – Jungle Roux. The Whigs will release their tenth album, Soft Control, on August 21st, featuring this driving lead single. I was never into the band in their 1990s heyday, but I’ve really enjoyed their second phase, especially 2017’s In Spades.

Suede – Emotionally Unavailable. Suede continues to evolve and surprise; this extra track from the deluxe edition of their 2025 album Antidepressants is in that album’s post-punk vein, but has a harder edge and rocks out in a way they haven’t really done much since their 1990s peak.

Quicksand – Crystallize. Another band I didn’t get into in their original tenure – which, in Quicksand’s case, lasted just two albums, and came way before I was at all a fan of what is now called post-hardcore – but whose work post-reunion I’ve loved. Their fifth album, and third since they got back together, is titled Bring on the Psychics and comes out on July 17th.

Zoh Amba – Dead End Street. Amba is a multi-instrumentalist whose previous output was mostly free jazz, but on their latest album, Eyes Full, they’ve changed it up to a hybrid of alt-country and grunge to better tell stories of their childhood growing up in Kingsport, Tennessee.

beabadoobee – Sun Has Set. Beabadoobee’s fourth album, Pylon, comes out in Septeber; this lead single is a real rocker, and while it’s still clearly her sound, it feels like there might be some Olivia Rodrigo inspiration behind it.

Big Truck – Central Reservation Blues. Big Truck is the brand-new side project by Laurie Vincent, who is half of the English punk band Soft Play (ex-Slaves), but there’s no punk at all on this jangly indie-pop song or their other released track, the jazzier “Collided.”

feeble little horse – Poison. Bitknot is probably going to end up on my top albums of 2026 list; that swirling guitar lick between the verses here is a good example of why. It’s their first album since their founding guitarist left the group, but I don’t think I’d have noticed had I not read that fact, because this is still guitar-driven rock, pop and anti-pop at the same time, with harsh and even dissonant rhythms set against sweet melodies in the vocals and some of the lead guitar.

Slow Pulp – Better Man. I was mixed on Slow Pulp’s last album, 2023’s Yard, preferring their harder, more grunge-tinged stuff to some of the material that better matches their name. This track is the former kind – heavier, very ‘90s alternative rock, with a great hook in the chorus.

Young Empress feat. Prides – Never Enough. Young Empress is a duo of two unrelated people with the surname Davies, hailing from the West Midlands; Prides is now a solo act of Stewart Brock, the only remaining member, whose distinctive singing voice helps elevate this electro-pop song to something more demanding of your attention.

Rosa Walton – Romance is Dead On. Both members of Let’s Eat Grandma put out solo albums this year; Walton’s was my preference over that of bandmate Jenny Hollingsworth (who records as Jenny on Holiday). Both record in the same experimental dance-pop vein as their main band does, though, and I didn’t find either solo album that much a departure from LEG’s stuff.

Wishy – Lovesick. Wishy’s 2024 debut album earned them plaudits all over the music press, but I found most of it lacking in hooks, other than “Triple Seven,” which landed at #91 on my top songs of that year. This one is fucking banger, though. I name-check Velocity Girl a lot around these parts because that specific sound – power pop with distinctive, bright vocals above a rougher-edged backdrop – will always speak to me, and this song does it, too.

Meg Stalter feat. MUNA – Gay. It’s a novelty song, but kind of slaps? I have to admit I always thought Stalter’s Pride Month corporate videos were a riot, so perhaps I was primed to like this.

La Sécurité – Deny. La Sécurité started as a side project during the pandemic, but their debut album Stay safe! was such a success that they’re back with a new album, Bingo!, featuring more of the same dance-punk from the first LP.

Lakecia Benjamin feat. Terence Blanchard – Beyond the Dawn. Jazz saxophonist Benjamin released her new album We Dream on June 5th; this track includes jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard, twice nominated for Oscars for his scores for Spike Lee films.

Yard Act – New Beginnings. This post-punk band’s third album You’re Gonna Need A Little Music drops on July 17th; their sound continues to evolve from their first record, which was practically an homage to Gang of Four, to something more expansive musically, merging art-rock and even alternative hip-hop with that post-punk basis. This track has a very slow start, but the back half pays off with layers of sound behind an intense chorus.

Trashcan Sinatras – Melodramatic. This was actually the third single from the Scottish band’s upcoming album Ever the Optimist, due out July 31st, and came out in May, but I prefer it to the June release “Games for the ZX Spectrum,” which is more maudlin and lacks this song’s hook.

Car Seat Headrest – Joe Drives Again. I’ve never loved CSH, mostly because of the vocals, but the vocals are more ‘normal’ here and it’s a catchy, bouncy melody. The first line of the chorus is definitely borrowed from another track that I can’t place.

Sleep – Have Spacesuit Will Travel (4;20 Flexi Edit). Sleep announced in June that guitarist Matt Pike is no longer part of the band after 25 years; their new lineup features Melvins drummer Dale Crover, ex-Void guitarist Bubba Dupree, and original vocalist/bassist Al Cisneros. I don’t know if this was related to Pike’s embrace of the work of antisemitic lunatic David Icke, but unlike most Sleep fans, I’m fine with them moving on. This song sounds a bit more commercial than what I think of when I think of Sleep, but I do like the melding of space rock and stoner metal, so I’m happy to see what else they produce.

Tygers of Pan Tang – Forevermore. Tygers of Pan Tang were part of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal in the late 1970s, churning out four albums over a three-year span, but their biggest success was a cover of “Love Potion No. 9” and they disbanded for about 13 years before original guitarist Robb Weir restarted the group in 2000. They’ve been prolific since then, with their new album Electifyed (due out in September) their eighth in 25 years, and frankly they sound pretty damn good. If you like Maiden, Priest, Angel Witch, or Saxon, this should be in your wheelhouse.

Lost in Kyiv – Liminality. Instrumental “post-rock” music from a Paris quartet, turning more towards metal on their third album (and changing the spelling of their name from Kiev). It reminds me a bit of Alcest, without the shoegaze/blackgaze elements.

Insomnium – Shadow Life. This Finnish melodic death metal band has put out some interesting stuff over their nearly 30 years, with flirtations with progressive/technical metal and even some overtly commercial elements – there are clean vocal harmonies in the chorus on this song – alongside the death growls. I can’t say I’ve listened to everything they’ve done since their great 2014 album Shadows of a Dying Sun, but this is the best track of theirs I’ve heard since then.

Warning – Night Comes Down. There’s doom metal, and then there’s Warning, who make Candlemass sound like EDM. Warning isn’t heavy like Cathedral; they’re slower, darker, more depressing musically. If you like Candlemass or Saint Vitus, check these guys out.

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June 3, 2026  ·  No comments yet

Music update, May 2026.

Thirty-six tracks might be a record for one of my monthly playlists. May was loaded beyond the normal boost from having five Fridays, and I think it’s going to be a tremendous summer for new music given how many albums were teased with strong singles this past month.

As a side note: NPR appears to have put an AI-generated track by a fake band on its latest New Music Friday playlist. I can’t promise I’ll never be fooled, but I do not intend to ever put an AI-generated song on any of my playlists on purpose, and if I do so, I’ll own up to it. They’re spreading like ice-nine.

As always, if you can’t see the playlist below, you can access it on Apple Music or Spotify.

KNEECAP – Carnival. I loved the movie Kneecap, but I thought the group’s music was a little more of a novelty – they were certainly serious about their politics, but the music itself wasn’t that sophisticated. Their latest album Fenian turns that entirely on its head; as it’s smart, experimental in places, and surprisingly polished, without losing the urgency and power of Mo Chara and Móglaí Bap’s lyrics. It’s one of the best albums of the year, buoyed by a cavalcade of guest appearances, with some incredible hooks as on this song as well as the title track.

The Waterboys – Don’t Even Have to Say His Name. A one-off track by Mike Scott – the singer, not the 1986 Cy Young Award winner – that’s about you-know-who without ever having “to say the motherfucker’s name.”

Blondshell – Heart Has to Work So Hard. Blondshell just put out her second album last year, but she’s back with this new, way more uptempo rock track that’s one of her best songs yet. There’s a new album and a big tour coming, but there are no details on the LP yet.

DMA’s – Heatin Park. This Australian trio started out as a very Oasis-like rock band, with “For Now” and “Too Soon” among their best early songs, then tried an electronic sound for a few years, but now they’re back with what appears to be a return to their roots. Their new album, just called DMA’s, comes out August 7th.

Mystery Jets – Black Sage. This is Mystery Jets’ first new track in over six years, with their last album releasing in April of 2020, so just in time to sink into the abyss of the pandemic. The British indie-rock band will release their seventh album, A Hole To See The Sky Through, in August; I don’t think I’d ever heard anything from them before, but I love the Amazons-style guitar riffs here.

Ceremony – Other Hells. Ceremony’s last album was my #1 LP of 2019, their post-punk/new wave In the Spirit World Now, with the opening 1-2 punch of the title track and “Turn Away the Bad Thing.” They’d released all of two songs since then before this single dropped in late April, and this one harkens way back to their early hardcore punk sound. No word yet of a new album.

Yard Act – Redeemer. My favorite group of Gang of Four fans return with a darker track that still features singer James Smith’s wry, sesquipedalian lyrics, ahead of their third album, You’re Gonna Need a Little Music, due out on July 17th.

Y – Duplicate. Y is a fairly new band that crosses many genres and talks about it a lot in interviews, but it ain’t bragging if you can bring it. Their music is interesting, and unusual, and seems to combine elements of several musical styles while also pushing the boundaries of what you hear in a typical radio-length rock song. This is the first track off their second EP, ENTER, released in early May. T was unavailable for comment.

1000 Rabbits – White Horse. There’s some wildly inventive music coming out of the UK right now, with My New Band Believe, KNEECAP, Dry Cleaning, Yard Act, Plantoid, JJerome87, and 1000 Rabbits, just to name a few artists, all putting out new music so far in 2026. 1000 Rabbits is a five-piece experimental rock band from Suffolk who’ve put out three singles so far, all rather out there in arrangement and song structure.

Genesis Owusu – Life Keeps Going. I liked Owusu’s last album more than his newest, Redstar Wu & the Worldwide Scourge; this record seems more electronic, more dance-oriented, although the lyrics are more political and more (appropriately) angry than his previous work. This is the best song I’ve heard from the album, with the best hook, even though it’s one of the most dance-oriented tracks on the record.

Chanpan – confessions part ii. Chanpan are a trio of Asian-American musicians who try to blend drum & bass, jazz, and indie-pop with occasional dashes of other genres. The driving bass line is the big hook here on their second single of 2026, with one EP, Endlessly, to their credit before this year.

Weird Nightmare – If You Should Turn Away. Weird Nightmare is the side project of Alex Edkins of METZ, and just dropped its second album, Hoopla, at the start of May. This song is almost a 180 from METZ’ music; it’s mellow, jangly, and subtly catchy.

youbet – Ground Kiss. Shoegazey bedroom-pop from Nick Llobet and new bassist/vocalist Micah Prussack; Pitchfork referred to part of their sound as “country-grunge” and I had a similar thought on this specific track.

feeble little horse – Dior.  FLH released their third album, bitknot, on May 26th, with this extremely Smashing Pumpkins-esque track as the lone single that I could find. It’s more straightforward than thir last album, 2023’s Girl with Fish, at least.

Swim Deep – Mud. The second single from this shoegaze/dream pop band from Birmingham is one of their strongest yet. Their fifth album, Hum, comes out in June, almost exactly two years after There’s a Big Star Outside. If you’re going to go for a slower tempo like this, vast guitar sounds like Swim Deep has on “Mud” help give the song some textural contrast.

TV Star – The Package. Speaking of “country-grunge,” that may apply to this TV Star track even more than it does to youbet’s. It’s got the acoustic guitars of the former, the lo-fi distortion of the latter, and vocals that sound like early Miki Berenyi.

Failure – Crash Test Delayed. With Location Lost, Failure has now released more albums since they reunited (four) than they did before they broke up in 1997 (three). This track reminds me quite a bit of Pinback, which is funny because 1) Pinback debuted after Failure’s first hiatus began and 2) I only really like one Pinback song, “From Nothing to Nowhere.”

Lip Critic – Shoplifting. There’s definitely a media/label push behind this dance-punk band’s second album, Theft World, as their tracks have shown up on all sorts of playlists, both curated and algorithmic, over the last month or so. The story behind the new album may be better than the album itself.

The High Curbs – RACER #23. Fun California surf-punk with a great melody and perfect run time. Also, check out the band name’s acronym.

False Advertising – Next Big Thing. I wasn’t familiar with this British duo, which features the niece of the original lead singer of Madchester band Inspiral Carpets, before this song, which comes off The Sorry Window, their first album since 2019. It’s close to a punk, with the slightly sung-talked cadence of many post-punk bands.

MUNA – Eastside Girls. MUNA’s latest album Dancing on the Wall is more MUNA-y, but I don’t think that’s necessarily better, and I much preferred Katie Gavin’s solo album to this. “Eastside Girls” is the best track here, and also a good example of the direction of this LP.

Radhika – Since Yesterday. I don’t include many covers on these playlists because they’re often boring and/or cash grabs. This is neither: It’s a cover of a wonderful 1980s new wave track by the one-hit wonders Strawberry Switchblade, sung in a late-60s folk-pop vein by an Indian-Scottish singer from Glasgow. Music is fuckin’ awesome, man.

Arab Strap – You You You. Like a dark synth-pop track sung by Brian Cox. And I’m into it.

Jorja Smith – What’s Done is Done. Smith’s vocals win every time, even when the music is just mid as it is on this electronic track. Also, she’s blonde now.

Alabaster DePlume – Bringing up the Nakba. DePlume is a saxophonist & jazz musician who often adds spoken-word lyrics with strong political content to his songs … or just gives them highly political titles, like this one, which refers to ethnic cleansing during the 1948 Palestine War.

Knats feat. Geordie Greep – Carpet Doctor. Knats are a “nu jazz” trio from the UK who sprinkle in various rock subgenres on top of many of their tracks; their latest album, A Great Day in Newcastle, was produced by Greep, former lead singer/guitarist of black midi, who also appears on this track.

Ezra Collective feat. Pa Salieu – Only Love. Salieu is the star of this track – less than two years after he was released from prison – with the Mercury Prize-winning Ezra Collective fading a little into the background with music that feels more jazzy than jazz.

Tamikrest – Imanin. Tamikrest is a desert blues (or assouf) band from Mali with a sound very similar to that of the Nigerien musician Mdou Moctar. They hadn’t released anything since 2020 before their sixth album Assikel came out last month.

They Are Gutting a Body of Water w/Horse Jumper of Love – charter spec. TAGABOW just put out an album in October, and now they’re back with this track, which alternates My Bloody Valentine-level shoegaze with what sounds like detuned guitars playing arpeggios without distortion alongside mumbled lyrics. It’s almost metal in its own strange way.

Gurriers – Nobody’s Coming to Save You. Noise-rockers from Dublin who clearly take some inspiration from post-hardcore bands like Thrice, while the chorus here reminds me quite a bit of Irish shoegaze revivalists Just Mustard. This is the title track from the band’s second album, due out September 25.

Monolord – Iodine. I’m new to this Gothenburg doom metal band, whose sixth album, Neverending, just came out on Friday, but I love what I’ve heard from them so far, including this, “You Bastard,” “Oozing Wound,” and “It’s Neverending.” It’s heavy, Pallbearer-level stuff with occasional dashes of the melodic death metal that’s a hallmark of Gothenburg bands.

Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats – I’ll Cut You Down. I thought this was a pretty dumb name for a band, but there’s some history here, as their music is heavily inspired by the proto-metal band Vanilla Fudge, which devolved into Cactus, whose lead singer Rusty Day later had a band called Uncle Acid and the Permanent Damage Band. This Uncle Acid is from Cambridge, England, and their sound is bluesy hard rock mixed with doom metal and, appropriately, a dose of psychedelia, so the result is lighter than that of Monolord.

All Them Witches – Red Rocking Chair. The opening track from this hard rock/blues/stoner band’s latest album House of Mirrors, whichcame out on Friday, is a very slow burn, bordering on doom metal in pace and heaviness.

If These Trees Could Talk – Blurry Creatures. This “post-metal” band is a metal band. I hope that clears that part up. It’s instrumental, layered, with elements of post-hardcore (a genre name I accept), with more focus on atmosphere than melody.

Karmanjakah – Diamond morning. This Swedish progressive metal band produces highly technical, textured metal tracks that incorporate less traditional elements like synths and choirs, while also working in some of the dropped-tuning riffs common to extreme metal. (I’ve seen their music called “thall,” a subgenre of technical metal.) I’m into the big riffs near the end here and the way the song builds on its earlier textures for a finish that feels conclusive.

Cemetery Skyline – Dream Delusion. A bonus track from the new deluxe edition of this metal supergroup’s lone album to date, Nordic Gothic.

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March 8, 2026  ·  2 comments

Music update, February 2026.

Whew, February turned out to be a loaded month, especially with experimental or art-rock bands, along with a decent supply of new metal and more singles from the newest War Child charity album HELP(2). As always, if you can’t see the widget below, you can access the playlist on Apple Music or Spotify.

Temples – Jet Stream Heart. This British psychedelic-rock band is good for at least one absolute banger per album, sometimes more, with this track following “Cicada,” “Holy Horses,” and “Shelter Song,” among others. The guitar riff that drives this sucker is the earworm of the year so far.

Savages – Prayer. Savages’ second album Adore Life turns 10 this year, and it’ll serve as their final music, aside from this one-off track and a bizarre piano-ballad cover of Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid.” It’s a damn shame, as their first album Silence Yourself was an outstanding work of feminist post-punk.

Arlo Parks – Heaven. Another lovely vocal track from the Mercury Prize-winning British singer/songwriter, although I’m still not as big a fan of her electronic-backed songs as her folkier early work. Her third album, Ambiguous Desire, comes out on April 3.

flowerovlove – Casual Lady. An absolute gem of a pop track; recommend this to people in your life who unfortunately love the washed-out pop of Sabrina Carpenter. The hooks are better, the lyrics are wittier, and it hasn’t been produced within an inch of its life.

Jorja Smith – Don’t Leave. Smith’s best track since her last album, 2023’s Falling or Flying, is a jazzy R&B/grime track that is, as usual, powered by her indelible voice.

Brigitte Calls Me Baby – I Danced with Another Love in My Dream. They sound so British, but this new wave-revivalist quartet is from Chicago, and I think they’re about to get huge, with the first two singles from their sophomore album Irreversible (due out on the 13th) both among the best tracks of this year – and last year, too.

Trashcan Sinatras – Bitter End. I assumed this Scottish band was done, as they hadn’t released any music since an EP in 2022 and hadn’t put out a full album since 2016, so this song, very reminiscent of their third album A Happy Pocket, was a pleasant surprise. There’s apparently a new album in the offing but I can’t find any details.

Crystal Tides – Better Weather. Crystal Tides are unsigned and released their album Toothpaste independently, cracking the British top 40 albums chart last month without the typical support you get from a record label. It’s power-pop in the vein of the Lottery Winners, and this is the album’s best track.

The Reds, Pinks and Purples – Heaven of Love. I wasn’t familiar with this band, led by Glenn Donaldson, which will release its latest album Acknowledge Kindness on April 24th. This song sounds like the Cure decided to experiment with shoegaze’s atmospheric sounds, but not the heavy distortion.

Swim Deep – Pieces of You. Speaking of shoegaze, this British band will drop its fifth album, Hum, in June, with this lead single sneaking in some jangle-pop melodies and a generally more upbeat vibe than you typically get from the shoegaze genre.

Puscifer – Pendulum. I always forget this is Maynard James Keenan’s side project because it’s so unlike anything from Tool or A Perfect Circle – and I was never a huge fan of either band. This is weird, but in a very good way, a minimalist art-rock track that showcases Keenan’s baritone.

King Tuff – Twisted on a Train. I’ve heard plenty of King Tuff’s music before but I believe this is his first appearance on one of my playlists. I just like the guitar riff.

Bedelia – Valley Sadness. This is the first single from Bedelia, a trio of members of Fleshwater, Ethel Cain, and other bands you’ve never heard of. It’s dream-pop, with spacey (fine, ethereal) vocals and a sweet melody through the chorus.

Lucia & the Best Boys feat. Lauren Mayberry – Lonely Girl. Including CHVRCHES singer Mayberry on your track isn’t a guarantee to get it on my playlist … but the song is actually pretty good even before her guest verse. There’s a little Wolf Alice here, and Lucia Fairfull’s vocals in the chorus remind me of Jehnny Beth from Savages.

Charli xcx feat. Sky Ferreira – Eyes of the World. I don’t know if Ferreira’s second album, Masochism, will ever see the light of day, but getting her on a Charli xcx track – especially one this searing – has to help at least generate some buzz.

Greg Foat, Jihad Darwish, Moses Boyd – Skipping Tones. This showed up on my Release Radar because of Boyd, a jazz drummer whose work I’ve appreciated for a decade; his “Shades of You” was my #1 song of 2020. He’s part of this new project with Foat, a jazz pianist and composer, and Darwish, a multi-instrumentalist whose talents include playing the double bass, sitar, and guitar. Their album Opening Time came out last August, but I only caught it because of the new version, Opening Time (Library Edits), that dropped last month.

1000 Rabbits – Virgin Soil. This British quintet, formerly known as Rabbitfoot (although Virgin Soil would be a better name than either of these), adds a violinist to the usual guitar-bass-keys-drums combo. Their first single starts with a quirky art-rock vibe before a sudden crescendo to a big post-punk finish.

Hen Ogledd – End of the rhythm. This Welsh experimental folk-rock quartet, which includes the solo artist Richard Dawson (not the Family Feud host, he’s dead), just released its first third album Discombobulated, which includes this clever offbeat track … and a nearly 20-minute song called “Clear pools.”

Angine de Poitrine – Fabienk. A reader asked last month if I’d heard this Québécois duo, who perform their experimental rock/jazz hybrid in disguises and under pseudonyms; the next day, they appeared on my Release Radar, because the algorithm is listening. I hear Battles, Altin Gün, even a little King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. They’re called math rock and they’re using microtonal guitars, but it’s also just catchy.

Ezra Collective feat. Greentea Peng – Helicopters. HELP(2), the latest record to support the efforts of War Child International, features 23 songs from a broad array of artists, including Arctic Monkeys, Fontaines DC, Olivia Rodrigo, Depeche Mode, and Arlo Parks. This song is one of the better ones I’ve heard so far, although it’s mid as Ezra Collective tracks go.

plantoid – Parasite. More experimental jazz-rock, which seems to be the flavor of the month for February, here with a more pronounced rock guitar in front. This song actually has words, though.

Mateus Asato – Cryin’. Some fun instrumental guitar work from this Brazilian guitarist who Wikipedia tells me rose to fame through posting videos of his playing on Instagram.

Blackwater Holylight – How Will You Feel. I’m new to this doomgaze (is that a thing?) trio, but I’m into it – it’s dark and atmospheric, but rather than veering towards death metal with extreme vocals, they offer melody and the added instrumentation of Sunny Faris’ voice.

Green Carnation – Sanguis (Blood Ties). Prog metal from Norway with a dash of growled vocals in the last third of the track, which also has a Hammond organ and a very Creeper-esque melody and vibe throughout.

At the Gates – The Fever Mask. At the Gates are pioneers of the melodic death metal sound, with their 1995 pre-breakup album Slaughter of the Soul one of the pillars of the subgenre. I liked their earlier stuff more than their music since their return; singer Tomas Lindberg, who died in September of 2025 of cancer, always had a higher-pitched death growl style, but it became screechier as he got older (and maybe because of his illness). Their final album with Lindberg, The Ghost of a Future Dead, comes out on April 26. I’ll also mention Worm’s Necropalace as an incredible album of music that unfortunately gets too extreme for me in its vocals. Former Megadeth/Cacophony guitarist Marty Friedman guests on the album closer.

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February 8, 2026  ·  7 comments

Music update, January 2026.

This playlist includes a handful of tracks from December 2025 that I heard after I compiled my top 100 tracks of the year or that didn’t make the cut, plus songs from this January, through songs released on the final Friday (the 30th), but not anything released this month. As always, if you can’t see the playlist below you can access it on Apple Music or Spotify.

Courtney Barnett feat. Waxahatchee – Site Unseen. This second single off Barnett’s upcoming album Creature of Habit features Katie Crutchfield, so it couldn’t be more in my personal wheelhouse.

Brigitte Calls Me Baby – Slumber Party. BCMB’s sophomore album, Irreversible, is due out on March 13th; they do one of the best new wave-revival sounds out there, honoring the genre without sounding overly derivative of it. It’s catnip for me.

Arlo Parks – 2SIDED. Parks will release her third album, Ambiguous Desire, on April 3rd; she has yet to miss for me, with this song leaning more into a dance sound beneath her unmistakable voice.

Daughter – Not Enough. This Irish trio’s album Not to Disappear turns ten this year, so they re-recorded one of the tracks that didn’t make the cut, “Not Enough,” which showcases Elena Tonra’s haunting voice over a typically sparse backing track that hints at electronica, folk, and shoegaze.

Makthaverskan – Pity Party. I’d never heard of this rock band from Gothenberg (a town best known for producing melodic death metal), but I love this song, which has some dreamgaze and post-punk elements, and is the lead single from their upcoming album Glass and Bones, which will be their first new album in five years.

Ratboys – What’s Right. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of Ratboys, in part because of Julia Steiner’s warbly, sometimes off-key vocals, but their best stuff can be pretty catchy folk-tinged alt-rock. Their latest album Singin’ to an Empty Chair came out on Friday.

DEADLETTER – It Comes Creeping. I loved DEADLETTER’s very Madness-like 2024 track “Mere Mortal;” and this song is in a very similar vein. Their second album Existence is Bliss comes out on February 27th.

Flea – A Plea. Flea, best known as the bassist who replaced Derf Scratch in Fear, is about to release his first solo album, Honora, in March; it’s a jazz album, featuring six original tracks and four covers, and the two singles to date – this one and “Traffic Lights” – are both fantastic, featuring Flea on bass and trumpet, with Thom Yorke providing vocals on the latter song.

Whitelands – Blankspace. Whitelands is a shoegaze band from London – aren’t they all – who just released their fifth album, but second on a proper label, at the end of January. Sunlight Echoes also includes an appearance from Lush’s Emma Anderson on “Sparklebaby.”

Tigers Jaw – Head is Like a Sinking Stone. Another new-to-me artist, Tigers Jaw hails from Scranton and they’re also about to put out their first album in five years, Lost on You.

The Cribs – Never the Same. I think the main thing I knew about the Cribs was that they’re one of the eighty-nine bands Johnny Marr has joined since the end of the Smiths. They’ve been around for over 20 years now, with their ninth album Selling a Vibe coming out last month; this is the best track I’ve heard, while the album as a whole gets a little one-note.

The Twilight Sad – Designed to Lose. It’s the Long Goodbye, The Twilight Sad’s first album since three members left the band, leaving only founding members James Graham and Andy MacFarlane, will be out on March 27th, a big day for new albums, as it turns out. This song is pretty vintage Twilight Sad, dark and a little gothic-new wave but also still informed by pop.

Butler, Blake & Grant – Lonely Night. That would be Bernard Butler (Suede), Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub), and James Grant (Love and Money). They released a self-titled album last March, while this is a folk-rock reworking of a song Blake wrote for Teenage Fanclub that that band recorded as “Dark & Lonely Night.”

Billy Bragg – City of Heroes. “When they came for the immigrants/I got in their face/When they came for the refugees/I got in their face/When they came for the five-year-olds/I got in their face/When they came to my neighborhood/I just got in their face.”

Arctic Monkeys – Opening Night. A midtier Arctic Monkeys track off the upcoming Help(2) charity album to benefit War Child, featuring other tracks from Olivia Rodrigo, The Last Dinner Party, Damon Albarn, Fontaines DC, and more.

The Format – Boycott Heaven. The Format just released their first new album in 20 years; they were Nate Ruess’ original band, before he and Jack Antonoff formed fun., which released that one album (note: and one before that, which I missed) and then broke up. I’ve always liked Ruess’ voice, even when they got stupid with autotuning it, and this track showcases it well in a great indie-pop vein.

SAULT – Chapter 1. SAULT’s latest album is full of … salt. It’s clearly a response to Little Simz’ Lotus, which was her album about how SAULT leader Inflo borrowed a seven-figure sum from her and didn’t repay it; here Inflo leans further into his religious act, with songs like “God, Protect Me From My Enemies” and “Lord Have Mercy,” along with hackneyed lyrics like “They’re jealous of what’s in your brain” and “Must go higher. I refuse to fight with fire.” But damn, nobody does ‘70s soul/funk revival like SAULT does.

TIGRA & SPNCR – Do It Like This. If you’re old enough to remember the 1980s rap duo L’Trimm, which had a couple of minor hits in “Grab It” and “Cars with the Boom,” Tigra was half of that group (as The Lady Tigra), and she’s back with an EP called Black Rice. Bunny appears on a different track, “Guillotine.”

Home Star – Come To. This track, by Evan Lescallette of the band Marietta, is perfectly fine punk-pop-emo whatever, but I couldn’t ignore an artist named Home Star.

Blackwater Holylight – Bodies. Metal in general is a male-dominated genre, and doom metal even more so, with the occasional female vocalist but very few all-women bands. Blackwater Holylight is three women, from Oregon, who put out three albums from 2018-21 and then took five years off before their fourth album, Not Here Not Gone, came out at the end of January. This track blends heavy, crunchy guitar lines with ghostly vocals to make it all much creepier than just some guy doing the Cookie Monster voice.

Maria BC – Marathon. Maria BC is an experimental singer/guitarist from Oakland whose music starts out as ambient but often goes in unexpected directions; here, their vocals sound like Alejandra Deheza of School of Seven Bells, set over dark guitar sounds like some of Alcest’s best work.

The Hu – The Real You. The Hu are a Mongolian folk-metal band that incorporates native instruments and throat singing into their music; they’ve toured with Iron Maiden and even covered “The Trooper.” Their third album will be out later this year, and yes, it’s pronounced like “the Who.”

Port Noir – Noir. Port Noir is a progressive rock band that has always at least toyed with metal, but their upcoming album The Dark We Keep seems to lean all the way into the heavy stuff – they’ve actually said on their Instagram that it’s the heaviest album they’ve ever made. Also in the metal space, The Ruins of Beverast has some great guitarwork on their newest album, but the death growls here are way too prominent for me; Kreator’s Krushers of the World had some solid stuff but also got a little clownish, as on the title track; and Sylosis’s “Erased” had some strong thrash riffs but got too metalcore for me.

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December 24, 2025  ·  7 comments

Top 25 albums of 2025.

When I started doing best-of rankings at the end of 2013 for music, I had the not all that clever idea to do a number of albums equal to the last two digits of the year and keep that going until I reached 2025. I broke that a few times, going under twice and over once, but we are now in 2025 and I think I’ll stop expanding the list after this. Finding 26 or more albums in an era when the music industry deprecates the format – even if artists still value it – is just more work than I want to put into these rankings, which remain a labor of love. So here are my top 25 albums of 2025, with I assume an unsurprising record at the top spot but I hope a few records that are new even to regular readers.

Honorable mentions: The Hives – The Hives Forever Forever The Hives, Cœur de pirate – Cavale, Black Honey – Soak, Bleary Eyed – Easy, nabeel – ghayoom, Total Wife – come back down, Nathan Salsburg – Ipsa Corpora, SAULT – 10. And since someone will ask, I didn’t care for the Beths’ album.

You can see my previous year-end album rankings here: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, and my top albums of the 2010s. My top 100 songs of 2025 will go up some time in the next week.

Unranked. Nell Smith – Anxious. This is a hard one to rank for me, because it feels like a work in progress that will never be completed. Smith died in a car crash in September of 2024 at age 17, after recording this debut album of original material and an album of Nick Cave covers she did with The Flaming Lips. There’s so much promise on this album, and a few standouts among these sparse psychedelic-pop numbers, like “Split the Sky” and “Billions of People,” but it’s very much like a prospect’s rookie season where you see flashes of their ultimate potential but they haven’t put it all together yet. I’m putting it in the last spot on the list, ahead of some albums I would be much more likely to listen to again, so more people might see and listen to it.

25. Thrice – Horizons/West. The follow-up to 2021’s Horizons/East is the superior of the two records to me, and feels more deliberate in lyrics and music, perhaps because the previous one was recorded during/right after the pandemic. Full disclosure – drummer Riley Breckenridge is a friend and we’ve hung out a few times, but I wouldn’t put the record on here if I didn’t like it. These songs sounded incredible live, too. Standout tracks include “Albatross,” “Gnash,” and “Crooked Shadows.”

24. The Tubs – Cotton Crown. This Welsh band, formed by members of Joanna Gruesome, churns out catchy jangle-pop singles that end before they wear out their welcome, with the whole nine-song album coming in just five seconds short of a half an hour. Standout tracks include “Freak Mode,” “The Thing Is,” and “Chain Reaction.”

23. Wolf Alice – The Clearing. I really prefer Wolf Alice when they rock out, because they’re so damn good at it, and Ellie Rowsell’s voice soars over big, crunchy guitar riffs, but as on pretty much every album since their debut, they’ve chosen to mix it up, with ballads (“The Sofa,” the snoozy closer) and country-tinged songs (“Leaning Against the Wall”) amidst some real bangers. I admire the ambition, even if I always want them to pick up the pace. Standout tracks include “White Horses” (with verses sung by drummer Joel Amey), “Bloom Baby Bloom,” and the very 1970s “Bread Butter Tea Sugar.”

22. Rocket – R is for Rocket. I’ve seen Momma’s album on a number of year-end lists, but I found it disappointingly derivative, to the point that several songs sound like covers (notably “I Want You (Fever),” which is so much like a Veruca Salt song it’s embarrassing). So why does Rocket, who are heavily inspired by Smashing Pumpkins and even take their name from a Pumpkins song, get zero respect, when they’re at least bringing more original melodies to a familiar sound? Standout tracks include “Crazy,” “Wide Awake,” and “Another Second Chance.”

21. Creeper – Sanguivore II: Mistress of Death. I prefer their last album, Sanguivore, as this one is a little kitschier across the board, lyrically and musically, but I’m generally so in tune with their overall sound that I liked the album even with some of its excesses. It’s 1980s hard rock with an overly dramatic, Brett Anderson-like lead singer, and I can’t not enjoy it. Standout tracks include “Headstones,” “Prey for the Night,” and “Mistress of Death.”

20. Anxious – Bambi. I guess they’re emo, or screamo, although I just hear a punk-rock band here with some screamed vocals scattered over the course of the album, which is full of melodies – just as their debut album Little Green House was. I love that their profile picture on Spotify has one member wearing a T-shirt that reads “Turning Point,” referring not to the white nationalist movement but to the straight-edge band from the early 1990s. Standout tracks include “Counting Sheep,” “Head & Spine,” and “Audrey Go Again.”

19. Portugal. the Man – Shish. Portugal. the Man is now primarily a John Gourley solo project, and this album, the band’s tenth, is a whirlwind tribute to the vastness of Alaska, calling back to the band’s earlier experimental days (pre-Evil Friends, at least) and recalling the urgent despair of Foxing’s recent work. There’s no “Feel It Still” here, sorry. Standout tracks include “Denali,” “Tanana,” and “Angoon.”

18. Just Mustard – We Were Just Here. This is real shoegaze, maybe the most authentic shoegaze by any band that wasn’t part of the original wave in the early 1990s. If you liked early Lush, or like the sound of My Bloody Valentine with a female vocalist you can hear, you’ll probably like this Irish band, who lean into the genre’s more dissonant aspects in a way that the majority of shoegaze revival acts don’t. Standout tracks include “Endless Deathless,” “Pollyanna,” and the title track.

17. SPRINTS – All That Is Over. This Irish punk quartet released its first LP in January of 2024, then returned with their second this September, showing significant growth and expansion in their sound from their punk and garage roots. Standout tracks include “Descartes,” “Need,” and “Beg.”

16. Courting – Lust for Life, Or: ‘How to Thread the Needle and Come Out the Other Side to Tell the Story’. This Liverpudlian band had one of my favorite albums of 2024 in New Last Name, then returned fourteen months later with this mouthful of an album title. It clocks in at just 25:40, with only nine tracks, and it feels more EPish to me, but still has some infectious alt-rock tracks on it like “Pause At You” (which came out in 2024), “Namcy,” and “After You.”

15. Pelican – Flickering Resonance. I’m late to this party, but Pelican rocks. This is the seventh album from the Chicago instrumental metal band, which has some progressive and post-hardcore elements, and it’s the first to include founding guitarist Laurent Schroeder-Lebec in over a decade. Wikipedia calls them “post-metal” and I have to admit I don’t really know what that means and can’t think of how it applies. This is a metal band, and a good one. Standout tracks include “Cascading Crescent,” “Gulch,” and “Indelible.” If you like these guys, check out Town Portal, whose latest album Grindwork was the #2 album of the year for Thrice drummer Riley Breckenridge.

14. Hotline TNT – Raspberry Moon. This album is the third under the Hotline TNT name, but the first recorded by a full band, rather than as a Will Anderson solo project. The result is by far their best album to date, a far more cohesive and melodic work that doesn’t hide any of its limitations behind distortion. And no, this still isn’t shoegaze, by any definition. Standout tracks include “Julia’s War,” “The Scene,” and the jangle-pop “Candle.”

13. Sunflower Bean – Mortal Primetime. This NYC-based trio returned with their first new album in three years, and first since “Moment in the Sun” became a hit thanks to the TV series Heartstopper, this time adopting a harder rock sound that draws far more from 1970s glam-rock bands like T. Rex than any of their previous material. Standout tracks include “Nothing Romantic,” “Champagne Taste,” “There’s a Part I Can’t Get Back,” and “Crashing Highs” from the deluxe edition.

12. Coroner – Dissonance Theory. Coroner were more influential than commercially successful during their brief run from 1987-1993, when they released five albums, including the technical thrash metal masterpieces Mental Vortex and Grin, the latter of which was ahead of its time but boded poorly for its popularity. The trio broke up after that and didn’t release any further music for thirty-two years, with the guitarist and bassist from those albums still on board for this new album, which sounds like almost no time has passed at all since their last record. Highlights include “Consequence,” ”Symmetry,” and “Crisium Bound.” Some other metal albums of note that I didn’t mention on this list: Castle Rat’s The Bestiary, Messa’s Spin, Testament’s Para Bellum, and Paradox’s Mysterium.

11. Automatic – Is It Now? The third album from this LA-based trio, whose drummer is the daughter of the drummer of goth-rock icons Bauhaus, is a dark electro-rock affair that’s heavy on the synth and bass lines. You can certainly hear that Bauhaus influence here, but these women also clearly have their own sound, and it deserves a far, far wider audience than it’s received so far. Standout tracks include the title song, “Terminal,” “Black Box,” and “mq9.”

10. Obongjayar – Paradise Now. The latest album from this genre-defying Nigerian singer is a sprawling epic of styles and rhythms, often but not exclusively drawn from Afrobeat, with plenty of western rock influences evident across the album. Oddly enough, my least favorite track here is the one with his frequent collaborator Little Simz, “Talk Olympics.” Standouts include “Not In Surrender,” “Sweet Danger,” and “Holy Mountain.”

9. The Horrors – Night Life. Faris Badwan & company released their first full-length album in eight years, and for some reason, it didn’t make much of a dent in the music press at all, which is bizarre given how much praise the previous album, just titled V, received. This record is a darker, more electronic affair, but nearly as compelling as its predecessor, and maybe a little more accessible too. Standout tracks include “Ariel,” “More Than Life,” “The Silence that Remains,” and “Trial by Fire.”

8. keiyaA – Hooke’s Law. There were two albums this year that made me go “WTF” in a good way; this is the first of the two on this list. I’d never even heard of keiyaA before she appeared on (I think) an NPR weekly new music list, and I was already intrigued by the album’s title, which refers to a law of physics that says that the force required to compress a spring scales linear with respect to the distance covered by the deformation. She starts from a modern soul/R&B foundation, but experiments all around it, drawing on electronic music, alternative rock, rap, noise, and more. Her lyrics aren’t always easy to make out in the cacophony beneath them, but they’re sharp and often very funny, too. Standouts include “k.i.s.s.,” “i h8 u,” and “this time” featuring the wonderfully named rapper Rahrah Gabor.  

7. Suede – Antidepressants. Suede promised this would be their post-punk album, and they delivered. This might be their best full-length in 20 years, and it’s probably their most polished and cohesive work yet. Standouts include “Disintegrate,” “Trance State,” and “Dancing with the Europeans.”

6. YHWH Nailgun – 45 Pounds. The absolute most WTF album of 2025, and even going back to it six months later I still find it perplexing and jarring. The entire album runs just 21:04, with ten tracks, none longer than 3:07, and it’s driven by drummer Sam Pickard’s use of a type of shell-less drum called a rototom, along with some complex meters and drum patterns. It’s like nothing I’ve heard before. I also don’t think they can just roll this sound out again on another album; this works once, otherwise you’re just black midi all over again.

5. Emma-Jean Thackray – Weirdo. Thackray’s second full-length album, written mostly by her (with assists on two songs), recorded and produced entirely by her, all in the wake of the sudden death of her partner of 12 years, is a sprawling nineteen-song record, a document of grief and anger at the world, showing no fear in the lyrics or the music. It’s modern jazz, with a strong funk influence and some pop notes, although she’s almost unable to finish a chord sequence in a typical pop pattern. Standout tracks include the title song, “Wanna Die,” and “Save Me.”

4. Heartworms – Glutton for Punishment. Jojo Orme’s debut album was a huge critical success, a real tour de force that blended electronic, post-punk, goth, and even classical elements across nine songs that pulse and throb and just scream their urgency. It sounds like the culmination of years of work, while also sounding like the product of a far more experienced artist. It calls upon some of the best music of my own youth – and I’m twice Orme’s age – without sounding at all derivative of any of it, or even too reliant on any particular genre. Standouts include “Just To Ask A Dance,” “Warplane,” and “Jacked.”

3. Little Simz – Lotus. This was the diss record of 2025, although I don’t think it was immediately obvious who or what it was about. Simz loaned her friend Inflo of SAULT over a million pounds to stage a concert, and he stiffed her, causing her to miss a huge tax payment to the British government and ending both their professional partnership and friendship. The first track, one of the many highlights of the record, is called “Thief,” with the couplet “You talk about God when you have a God complex/I think you’re the one that needs saving,” and it just goes from there. Other than “Young,” there isn’t a miss on the record; other standouts include “Lion,” “Flood” (both featuring Obongjayar), the title track, and closer “Blue,” featuring Sampha.

2. Sudan Archives – The BPM. Brittney Parks’ last album ended up at #2 on my year-end list in 2022 as well; she’s just wildly inventive, ignoring any restrictions of genre, and has an incredible ear for hooks. This is probably the closest I got to a no-skips album this year; “MS. PAC-MAN” is unlistenable, and a jarring departure from the rest of the record. Actual highlights include the title track, “Dead,” “A Bug’s Life,” and “My Type.”

1. Geese – Getting Killed. Obviously. Barely into their 20s, the boys in Geese have expanded beyond their very Gang of Four-ish roots from their debut album Projector, while continuing to eschew typical rock or alt-rock patterns and rhythms and even song structures. It’s post-something, and definitely experimental, but nowhere near as impenetrable as YHWH Nailgun or Yowie or Deerhoof, veering between screamed choruses with car-crash drums and 1970s-inflected vocal melodies that might trace their origins back to 10cc or Slik. Standouts include “Cobra,” “100 Horses,” “Trinidad,” the whole album, really. FWIW, I didn’t find Cameron Winter’s solo album nearly as compelling. (Also, his mother is Molly Roden Winter, author of More: A Memoir of Open Marriage, so that’s a thing.)

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October 3, 2025  ·  2 comments

Music update, September 2025.

September turned out to be a monster of a month with new albums and tracks ahead of album releases for the next two months; as it was I had a hard time keeping this list to 33 tracks. As always, you can access the playlist here if you can’t see the widget below.

Geese – Cobra. One reader-friend who’s very into music mentioned that Geese’s latest, Getting Killed, is his album of the year so far; it’s going to end up high on my list, although Cameron Winter’s vocals sometimes come across like he’s not trying, even when the music behind him is experimental and ambitious. Regardless of where the album ends up on my rankings, Geese are one of the most interesting bands around, and the members aren’t even 25 yet.

SPRINTS – Need. The first ten songs on SPRINTS’ second full-length LP All That Is Over run 32 minutes in total, and then there’s the six-minute closer “Desire,” is a strange, slow-burning, gothic/post-punk track that stands in stark contrast to the straight-on punk of the rest of the record – such as this song, where singer Karla Chubb describes the desperation of being in a one-sided relationship.

Paris Paloma – Good Boy. The song is fine, but the intro, taken from a video where Emma Thompson dramatically reads the tremendous title of this Rebecca Shaw editorial from January, is a hell of a way to get me to put your song on a playlist.

Public Circuit – Samson. Is this Heaven 17? Bronski Beat? Early New Order? Rarely does a song take me back to such a specific time period, but this is straight out of 1982, a musical era that will always be central to my existence. And there’s a sample of Monty Python and the Holy Grail too.

Kid Kapichi – Stainless Steel. Maybe not as strong as most of their past singles but I do love the driving bass & drum line that provides the foundation for this track, their first since two of the four members left the band in May.

Portugal. the Man – Tanana. Not sure if this is about Frank, but it’s got the sweeping, psycheledic-inspired feel of their 2011 album In the Mountain in the Cloud. They also put out another single, “Denali,” that I didn’t like as much as this one. Their next album, Shish, comes out November 7th.

Maruja – Saoirse. If you like Geese, you might enjoy the debut album from Maruja, Pain to Power, which also reminded me a ton of the (probably) defunct band black midi and even a little of Swans. This track is probably the most accessible, combining free jazz, punk, and even hints of chamber pop.

Die Spitz – Riding with My Girls. Something to Consume, the debut album from this Austin-based punk/metal band, came out in September, and veers between those two genres, with some straight-ahead hard-rock numbers mixed in with more punk tracks like this one and a few that call back the crossover thrash era, like “Throw Yourself to the Sword.” (Speaking of crossover, Agnostic Front put out a new song in September. It was a big month for metal bands from the ‘80s, as you’ll see below.)

Creeper – Prey for the Night. The third single from the band’s upcoming Sanguivore II: Mistress of Death, due out on Halloween, is more in line with their previous stuff and less hair-metal than the last single, “Blood Magick.”

Sunflower Bean – Crashing Highs. A bonus track from the deluxe edition of Mortal Primetime, and a pretty strong indie-pop track – maybe a little too sunny for the album proper.

shame – After Party. Shame’s latest album Cutthroat, released on September 5th, is their most expansive and ambitious yet, although I have to admit this very Yard Act-ish track is one of my favorites.

flowerovlove – I’m your first. This 20-year-old DIY pop artist from London has released at least twenty singles already, so at some point I assume there will be an album. She’s got a great ear for creating catchy pop hooks that would fit in – and improve – any pop radio station’s playlists.

Hatchie – Lose It Again. This Australian singer-songwriter’s third album, Liquourice, comes out on November 7th; “Lose It Again” is yet another catchy-as-hell dream pop number from her, as she seems to have an endless supply of them.

St. Lucia – Lights Off. I know St. Lucia is never going to get back to the heights of his debut album When the Night, but this song, off the upcoming Fata Morgana: Dusk, is the closest he’s come since 2015’s “Dancing on Glass.”

Emma-Jean Thackray – Save Me (Radio Edit). A reworking by Thackray herself of one of the better tracks on her now Mercury Prize-nominated album Weirdo, one of the best albums of the year. Other notable nominees include the latest from Wolf Alice, Fontaines D.C., and, for some reason, Pulp.

Cœur de Pirate – Mélancolie. Béatrice Martin is having a moment, as “Corbeau,” from her 2008 eponymous album, was featured on The Summer I Turned Pretty’s final season, and Martin just released her seventh album, Cavale, last month, featuring this lush electro-pop track.

Tame Impala – Dracula. Best use of the name Pablo Escobar in a song yet. This is my favorite of the three singles released in advance of this month’s Deadbeat, by far.

Prides – Dynamite. This Scottish indiepop act had one of my favorite songs of 2014 in “The Seeds You Sow,” then disappeared after 2018 other than a few scattered guest appearances. They’re back this year with several singles, all of which have been pretty promising. They rose up during the peak of “landfill indie,” but I thought they were stronger musically and melodically than most of those groups.

Sudan Archives – Come and Find You. I haven’t loved the Sudan Archives singles this year as much as I did her last album Natural Brown Prom Queen, with this newest one the strongest yet because of the violin solo (as that is Parks’s main instrument).

Emma Swift – The Resurrection Game. The title track from Swift’s first album of original material is a lovely track of sophisticated folk-tinged pop, an impressive debut for anyone but especially someone whose previous output was an album of Bob Dylan covers and some tracks with her partner Robyn Hitchcock (who is 28 years her senior).

Yttling Jazz – Illegal Hit. I found this track on an NPR weekly new-music playlist, and only later discovered that this is Björn Yttling of Peter Bjohn and John, whose song “Young Folks” was a huge (and kind of annoying) hit about 15 years ago.

Lazarus & Rakim – Not to Be Defined. I love Rakim, and I’m warming to Lazarus, a Detroit-born rapper … and physician.

Bartees Strange – DCWDTTY. It’s not a cover of the DC post-hardcore song “DC Will Do That To You” by Smart Went Crazy, just alluding to it in the title.

Sloan – No Damn Fears. Sloan’s 14th album, Based on the Best Seller, dropped on September 26th, and the early reviews seem to be quite positive, although I don’t hear anything to match “Losing California” or “Everything You’ve Done Wrong.”

The Macks – Dually of Man. I don’t even remember where I found this song, from a longstanding Portland rock band that just put out their first proper album in September, but the intro synth riff is hypnotic, and the song just builds from there, passing through jam-band territory without ever drifting off into that direction entirely.

SONS – Do My Thing. This Belgian band has been putting out music since at least 2019 in Europe, although it seems like they’re making a push in the U.S. now with this latest single, which sounds a ton like The Hives (that’s a compliment).

Thrice – Albatross. Thrice’s latest album Horizons/West dropped today, the 3rd, so I haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet, but this was my favorite of the lead singles, with a dark, ominous vibe that recalls their 2016 album To Be Everywhere Is to Be Nowhere.

Castle Rat – Serpent. Castle Rat is full of gimmickry, but this is some excellent Sabbathesque doom metal, reminiscent of The Oath/Lucifer (since both have female vocalists with similar voices).

Coroner – Symmetry. It should be illegal for a band to go away for thirty-plus years and come back sounding this good. Not just good – ferocious. I would have been excited for any new Coroner album, but I cannot wait for Dissonance Theory to drop on the 17th.

Paradox – One Way Ticket to Die. This was a big month for ‘80s metal bands; Paradox put out two albums that decade, including one of the best concept albums in metal with 1989’s Heresy, then went on hiatus for 11 years. Their ninth album, Mysterium, was (possibly) recorded entirely by singer/guitarist Charly Steinhauer, the only remaining founding member, and it’s full of tight old-school Teutonic thrash, à la…

Kreator – Seven Serpents. The sixteenth (!) album from these German thrash icons, Krushers of the World, is due out on January 16th; their first album, Endless Pain, came out forty years ago this month. They proved extremely influential on the development of extreme metal, with their early sound similar to that of Celtic Frost, all of which led to the growth of ‘death metal,’ but by their third album Terrible Certainty they’d transitioned to a variation of thrash that became known as Teutonic thrash. (Old-school metal fans might remember MTV airing “Toxic Trace” and “Betrayer” on Headbanger’s Ball.) They still sound … pretty good, actually, better than any band this old has a right to sound.

Testament – Shadow People. One American thrash band for you, as these pioneers of Bay Area thrash metal are largely back to basics with this track. Their latest album Para Bellum drops on the 10th.

Elder – Liminality. Elder released two songs in September, but they’re a combined 18+ minutes, so isn’t that an EP? This sprawling prog-doom-metal track is a whole journey, full of the stuff that made their last LP Innate Passage one of my favorite albums of 2022.

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August 10, 2025  ·  4 comments

Music update, July 2025.

July may have been the weakest month of the year for new music … or it might be that I was busier than ever between the day job and Gen Con, so I didn’t find as many new tracks or artists as I would in a typical month. Regardless of the reason, my playlist is shorter than usual, but August’s is already about to surpass this one in number of tracks. As usual, if you can’t see the widget below, you can access the playlist here.

Cerrone & Christine and the Queens – Catching Feelings. Cerrone was an Italo-French disco pioneer in the late 1970s; this new track is from a four-song EP with Rahim Redcar, who resurrected his Christine and the Queens moniker for this project after releasing two albums last year under other names. If you’re looking for a “song of the summer” that’s worthy of the title, this is it.

Jay Som feat. Jim Adkins – Float. Som’s new album Belong comes out on October 10th; Adkins is the lead vocalist and guitarist for Jimmy Eat World, and you can definitely hear his influence on the rhythm lines in this pulsating indie rock track.

SENSES – call me out. This Britpop revival band put out their latest album all the heavens last month, one of the few bright spots among July albums.

Geese – Taxes. This inventive post-punk band from Brooklyn is set to release its fourth album, Getting Killed, in September, and I don’t think any of the members is older than about 22.

Rocket – Wide Awake. Named for the Smashing Pumpkins song, this LA-based band sounds a lot like their idols, but with better vocals that also serve as a softer contrast to the darker riffs on this track. Their debut album, R is for Rocket, comes out on October 3rd.

Black Honey – Shallow. This Brighton band’s shiny take on indie-rock hooked me from the start almost ten years ago, and they’re still churning out catchy tracks that highlight singer Izzy Phillips’s sultry voice. Their fourth album, Soak, comes out on the 15th.

Iron & Wine feat. I’m With Her – Robin’s Egg. It bothers me a little that Iron & Wine is one guy, not two, or a full band, but I’ll have to get over it. He’s put out two collaborations this summer, including this track with the trio I’m With Her, a supergroup that includes former members of Nickel Creek and Crooked Still.

Wet Leg – mangetout. Once again, everyone seems to be falling all over themselves to praise Wet Leg’s new album, Moisturizer, and I think it’s more style than substance with a couple of decent tracks, including this one. I don’t find their lyrics as humorous as the majority of critics do, so their appeal comes down to the quality of their hooks – and this is one of the best on the record, but not up to “Angelica” from their debut.

Kassa Overall – Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat). Jazz drummer and occasional rapper Overall is releasing an album of jazz covers of hip-hop classics called C.R.E.A.M. on September 12th, featuring this Digable Planets cover and the titular one from the Wu-Tang Clan, along with Tribe’s “Check the Rhime” and Dr. Dre & Snoop Dogg’s “Nuthin’ But a ‘G’ Thang.”

Sudan Archives – My Type. I loved Sudan Archives’ 2022 album Natural Brown Prom Queen, naming it my #2 album of that year. This is her second single this year, more of a straight rap song with an electronic backing track, without quite the same experimentalist bent of NBPQ. Both are from her upcoming third album BPM.

Jorja Smith – With You. I’ll probably include every single Smith releases on my playlists, now and forever, but I do wish she leaned more into jazz and funk and less into this sort of EDM, which I just don’t think does her voice justice.

Luke Haines & Peter Buck – 56 Nervous Breakdowns. Haines was the leader of the Auteurs, a Britpop band who somehow get blamed for the downfall of the entire genre, and Buck was in some ‘80s alternative band before becoming best known as one of the guitarists in The Baseball Project. The two have collaborated here on an album called Going Down to the River to Blow My Mind; this song sounds much more like Haines’ prior work than Buck’s.

(The London) Suede – Dancing with the Europeans. I’d rank this third among the three singles Suede have released so far this year ahead of their upcoming album Antidepressants, just because I think it has the weakest hook of the troika. It’s still strong enough to make me more excited for the full-length record.

The Charlatans – We Are Love. One of my favorite bands of all time, The Charlatans came from the Madchester scene of the early 1990s and thrived right on through Britpop, even surviving the bizarre death of one of the founding members, but they ran out of steam around the turn of the millennium, and singer Tim Burgess’s voice, never the strongest, grew increasingly thin. That last part hasn’t improved any here, but this guitar riff is one of their best in 25 years. I saw them in concert in 2001, with Starsailor opening, and they were one of the most disappointing live bands I’ve ever seen because Burgess really can’t sing.

Wytch Hazel – The Citadel. Doom metal in the earliest sense – this song wouldn’t be out of place on a late ‘70s British hard-rock album. It’s from Lamentations, the fifth album from this relatively new band (they started up in 2011), released in July.

Blanco Teta – Perdida. This trio from Buenos Aires blends punk, noise, and experimental rock together in a frenetic blend that has some of the abrasiveness of extreme metal and the edge of early post-punk experimentalists like Art of Noise.

Forbidden – Divided by Zero. Thrash metal and math references – two great tastes that taste great together. Forbidden came up in the Bay Area along with some of their better-known contemporaries, never getting their due during their original run in the late 1980s, but I think they’re underrated. This is their first new song in 15 years, and first with new vocalist Norman Skinner, as their original vocalist Russ Anderson retired entirely from music.

Void – Apparition. This Lafayette, Louisiana, band is churning out old-school thrash in the Bay Area style, with crunchy guitars, abrupt tempo shifts, and vocals that you can still understand, mostly.

Sodom – Battle of Harvest Moon. Sodom are one of the pioneers of German thrash metal, and one fo the most prolific; this track comes from their 17th album, The Arsonist, released in June. As with their compatriots Kreator, their sound has always included elements that would later become hallmarks of death metal, without the worst of the vocals or the blast beats.

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