{"id":11113,"date":"2026-02-08T12:31:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T17:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=11113"},"modified":"2026-02-08T17:37:24","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T22:37:24","slug":"music-update-january-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/08\/music-update-january-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Music update, January 2026."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>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\u2019t make the cut, plus songs from this January, through songs released on the final Friday (the 30<sup>th<\/sup>), but not anything released this month. As always, if you can\u2019t see the playlist below you can access it on <a href=\"https:\/\/music.apple.com\/us\/playlist\/klaws-january-2026-music-update\/pl.u-oZyl4BYtlAA4K\">Apple Music<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/playlist\/5NnK2Fr0XVzonaCdFuhOgG?si=93d83365c6514bf1\">Spotify<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe allow=\"autoplay *; encrypted-media *; fullscreen *; clipboard-write\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"450\" style=\"width:100%;max-width:660px;overflow:hidden;border-radius:10px;\" sandbox=\"allow-forms allow-popups allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-storage-access-by-user-activation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation\" src=\"https:\/\/embed.music.apple.com\/us\/playlist\/klaws-january-2026-music-update\/pl.u-oZyl4BYtlAA4K\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Courtney Barnett feat. Waxahatchee \u2013 Site Unseen.<\/strong> This second single off Barnett\u2019s upcoming album <em>Creature of Habit<\/em> features Katie Crutchfield, so it couldn\u2019t be more in my personal wheelhouse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Brigitte Calls Me Baby \u2013 Slumber Party.<\/strong> BCMB\u2019s sophomore album, <em>Irreversible<\/em>, is due out on March 13<sup>th<\/sup>; they do one of the best new wave-revival sounds out there, honoring the genre without sounding overly derivative of it. It\u2019s catnip for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Arlo Parks \u2013 2SIDED.<\/strong> Parks will release her third album, <em>Ambiguous Desire<\/em>, on April 3<sup>rd<\/sup>; she has yet to miss for me, with this song leaning more into a dance sound beneath her unmistakable voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Daughter \u2013 Not Enough.<\/strong> This Irish trio\u2019s album <em>Not to Disappear<\/em> turns ten this year, so they re-recorded one of the tracks that didn\u2019t make the cut, \u201cNot Enough,\u201d which showcases Elena Tonra\u2019s haunting voice over a typically sparse backing track that hints at electronica, folk, and shoegaze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Makthaverskan \u2013 Pity Party. <\/strong>I\u2019d 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 <em>Glass and Bones<\/em>, which will be their first new album in five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Ratboys \u2013 What\u2019s Right.<\/strong> I can\u2019t say I\u2019m a huge fan of Ratboys, in part because of Julia Steiner\u2019s warbly, sometimes off-key vocals, but their best stuff can be pretty catchy folk-tinged alt-rock. Their latest album <em>Singin&#8217; to an Empty Chair <\/em>came out on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>DEADLETTER \u2013 It Comes Creeping.<\/strong> I loved DEADLETTER\u2019s very Madness-like 2024 track \u201cMere Mortal;\u201d and this song is in a very similar vein. Their second album <em>Existence is Bliss<\/em> comes out on February 27<sup>th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Flea \u2013 A Plea.<\/strong> Flea, best known as the bassist who replaced Derf Scratch in Fear, is about to release his first solo album, <em>Honora<\/em>, in March; it\u2019s a jazz album, featuring six original tracks and four covers, and the two singles to date \u2013 this one and \u201cTraffic Lights\u201d \u2013 are both fantastic, featuring Flea on bass and trumpet, with Thom Yorke providing vocals on the latter song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Whitelands \u2013 Blankspace.<\/strong> Whitelands is a shoegaze band from London \u2013 aren\u2019t they all \u2013 who just released their fifth album, but second on a proper label, at the end of January. <em>Sunlight Echoes<\/em> also includes an appearance from Lush\u2019s Emma Anderson on \u201cSparklebaby.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Tigers Jaw \u2013 Head is Like a Sinking Stone.<\/strong> Another new-to-me artist, Tigers Jaw hails from Scranton and they\u2019re also about to put out their first album in five years, <em>Lost on You<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Cribs \u2013 Never the Same.<\/strong> I think the main thing I knew about the Cribs was that they\u2019re one of the eighty-nine bands Johnny Marr has joined since the end of the Smiths. They\u2019ve been around for over 20 years now, with their ninth album <em>Selling a Vibe<\/em> coming out last month; this is the best track I\u2019ve heard, while the album as a whole gets a little one-note.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Twilight Sad \u2013 Designed to Lose. <\/strong><em>It&#8217;s the Long Goodbye<\/em>, The Twilight Sad\u2019s first album since three members left the band, leaving only founding members James Graham and Andy MacFarlane, will be out on March 27<sup>th<\/sup>, 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Butler, Blake &amp; Grant \u2013 Lonely Night.<\/strong> 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 \u201cDark &amp; Lonely Night.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Billy Bragg \u2013 City of Heroes.<\/strong> \u201cWhen 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Arctic Monkeys \u2013 Opening Night.<\/strong> A midtier Arctic Monkeys track off the upcoming <em>Help(2)<\/em> charity album to benefit War Child, featuring other tracks from Olivia Rodrigo, The Last Dinner Party, Damon Albarn, Fontaines DC, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Format \u2013 Boycott Heaven.<\/strong> The Format just released their first new album in 20 years; they were Nate Ruess\u2019 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\u2019ve always liked Ruess\u2019 voice, even when they got stupid with autotuning it, and this track showcases it well in a great indie-pop vein.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>SAULT \u2013 Chapter 1.<\/strong> SAULT\u2019s latest album is full of \u2026 salt. It\u2019s clearly a response to Little Simz\u2019 <em>Lotus<\/em>, which was her album about how SAULT leader Inflo borrowed a seven-figure sum from her and didn\u2019t repay it; here Inflo leans further into his religious act, with songs like \u201cGod, Protect Me From My Enemies\u201d and \u201cLord Have Mercy,\u201d along with hackneyed lyrics like \u201cThey&#8217;re jealous of what&#8217;s in your brain\u201d and \u201cMust go higher. I refuse to fight with fire.\u201d But damn, nobody does \u201870s soul\/funk revival like SAULT does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>TIGRA &amp; SPNCR \u2013 Do It Like This.<\/strong> If you\u2019re old enough to remember the 1980s rap duo L\u2019Trimm, which had a couple of minor hits in \u201cGrab It\u201d and \u201cCars with the Boom,\u201d Tigra was half of that group (as The Lady Tigra), and she\u2019s back with an EP called <em>Black Rice<\/em>. Bunny appears on a different track, \u201cGuillotine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Home Star \u2013 Come To.<\/strong> This track, by Evan Lescallette of the band Marietta, is perfectly fine punk-pop-emo whatever, but I couldn\u2019t ignore an artist named Home Star.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Blackwater Holylight \u2013 Bodies.<\/strong> 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, <em>Not Here Not Gone<\/em>, 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Maria BC \u2013 Marathon.<\/strong> 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\u2019s best work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Hu \u2013 The Real You.<\/strong> The Hu are a Mongolian folk-metal band that incorporates native instruments and throat singing into their music; they\u2019ve toured with Iron Maiden and even covered \u201cThe Trooper.\u201d Their third album will be out later this year, and yes, it\u2019s pronounced like \u201cthe Who.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Port Noir \u2013 Noir.<\/strong> Port Noir is a progressive rock band that has always at least toyed with metal, but their upcoming album <em>The Dark We Keep<\/em> seems to lean all the way into the heavy stuff \u2013 they\u2019ve actually said on their Instagram that it\u2019s the heaviest album they\u2019ve 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\u2019s <em>Krushers of the World<\/em> had some solid stuff but also got a little clownish, as on the title track; and Sylosis\u2019s \u201cErased\u201d had some strong thrash riffs but got too metalcore for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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\u2019t 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\u2019t see [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1495,359,609,167,1127,757,852],"class_list":["post-11113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-2026-in-music","tag-alternative","tag-hip-hop","tag-indie","tag-jazz","tag-metal","tag-music","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11113"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11117,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11113\/revisions\/11117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}