{"id":11181,"date":"2026-05-04T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=11181"},"modified":"2026-05-03T11:54:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T15:54:26","slug":"music-update-april-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/04\/music-update-april-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Music update, April 2026."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>We\u2019re warming up here, I think \u2013 the music is getting better, more albums are on the calendar, spring hath sprung, and so forth. My two favorite albums of the year so far came out in April or just before it, and I think May\/June will add quite a few more to that list. As always, if you can\u2019t see the widget below you can access the playlist on <a href=\"https:\/\/music.apple.com\/us\/playlist\/klaws-april-2026-music-update\/pl.u-oZylYNWFlAA4K\">Apple Music<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/playlist\/0yhAsOPXJePVYlAj5kONwI?si=054694bb50774efb\">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-april-2026-music-update\/pl.u-oZylYNWFlAA4K\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Angine de Poitrine \u2013 Sarniezz.<\/strong> I guess I barely got ahead of the wave of publicity from Angine de Poitrine\u2019s KEXP appearance, but including them here now feels anticlimactic. <em>Vol. II <\/em>is easily my album of the year so far, not for the outfits or the weird interviews, but because their music manages to be wildly inventive (including the microtonal guitar, which blows my mind as someone who has played a regular guitar for 40+ years and finds it challenging enough) and still melodic and hook-filled and entertaining.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Courtney Barnett \u2013 One Thing at a Time.<\/strong> Barnett\u2019s latest album <em>Creature of Habit<\/em> is a little more rock-oriented than her last proper LP, although I think her lyrics might be a little less clever? The best tracks on the record are \u201cSite Unseen,\u201d her duet with Waxahatchie; \u201cStay in Your Lane;\u201d and this song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Temples \u2013 Vendetta.<\/strong> I can\u2019t help it. I love Temples\u2019 throwback psychedelic-rock sound, and if they slip one crunchy guitar riff in there I\u2019m putting the song high on the next playlist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Snail Mail \u2013 Tractor Beam.<\/strong> Snail Mail\u2019s latest album <em>Richochet<\/em> opens with this song, its best track, and a solid introduction to Lindsey Jordan\u2019s newer sound, with better production and much stronger vocal lines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jack White \u2013 G.O.D. and the Broken Ribs.<\/strong> I like a lot of White\u2019s time-traveling experimentation, but in the end he\u2019s at his best when he drops a bluesy guitar riff and starts telling a story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Failure feat. Hayley Williams \u2013 The Rising Skyline. <\/strong>Failure\u2019s newest album <em>Location Lost<\/em> came out on April 24<sup>th<\/sup>, and yes, that is indeed the Paramore lead singer contributing a verse \u2013 and elevating the entire song out of its gloom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>My New Band Believe \u2013 In the Blink of an Eye. <\/strong>Former black midi bassist Cameron Picton has released his first album since that band went on hiatus in 2024, with a number of guest musicians supplementing him. It\u2019s not surprising that it\u2019s experimental and ambitious, crossing and blending genres; it\u2019s surprising that it\u2019s extremely catchy and seems to exist simultaneously in 2026 and 1969. So much of this self-titled album reminds me of Love\u2019s <em>Forever Changes<\/em>, from the acoustic guitar work to the tempo shifts to the musical patterns in his vocals. It\u2019s also much more coherent and less pretentious than former bandmate Geordie Greep\u2019s album. MNBB released another song earlier this year, \u201cNumerology,\u201d that\u2019s quite good but only appears on the deluxe CD version of the album.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>JJerome87 \u2013 Track and Field.<\/strong> JJerome87 is Joe Newman, primary lead singer and guitarist for alt-J, and is now releasing his first solo album, <em>The Canyon<\/em>, in June. I\u2019ve heard the whole thing already and it\u2019s better than either of alt-J\u2019s last two records, but not close to the brilliant combination of experimentalism and cohesion of <em>An Awesome Wave<\/em>. The best news is that he\u2019s turned away from some of the most commercial aspects of <em>Relaxer <\/em>or <em>The Dream<\/em>, which convinced me that the worst thing that ever happened to alt-J was when \u201cLeft Hand Free\u201d became an accidental hit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Pond \u2013 Two Hands. <\/strong>This Aussie psych-rock band will drop their xth album <em>Terrestrials <\/em>on June 19<sup>th<\/sup>; the title track came out first and is the stronger of the two, a more immediate, catchier song, while this one takes about half its run time to get fully going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Lime Garden \u2013 Cross My Heart. <\/strong>This British indie band released its second album, <em>Maybe Not Tonight<\/em>, on April 10<sup>th<\/sup>; this is the first song of theirs I\u2019ve liked enough to include, with a drum\/bass line that\u2019s extremely catchy and danceable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>World News \u2013 Sidestep<\/strong>. I loved both of World News\u2019 singles from last year, representing some of the best modern jangle-pop I\u2019ve heard in \u2026 ever? This song veers into a different space entirely, with a more atmospheric rock sound that calls back to Oasis and Stone Roses (and, of course, the DMA\u2019s).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>La S\u00e9curit\u00e9 \u2013 Snack City.<\/strong> The second Quebecois group on this month\u2019s playlist is this art-punk collective from Montr\u00e9al, about to release their second album <em>Bingo!<\/em> on June 12<sup>th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Reds, Pinks and Purples \u2013 Houses.<\/strong> I can\u2019t decide if I love the mournful, Cure-like quality of Glenn Donaldson\u2019s voice, or if it\u2019s just too depressing to work at scale. This track comes off their latest album <em>Acknowledge Kindness<\/em>, as did \u201cHeaven of Love\u201d from my February playlist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Fotocrime \u2013 Plowjob.<\/strong> I struggled a little with this one, because the music is so much like mid-80s Killing Joke, but the vocals don\u2019t measure up to it across the entire album. Fotocrime is an offshoot of Coliseum, another post-hardcore band from Louisville, and their new album has guest appearances from Barney Greenway of Napalm Death, Jay Weinberg of Slipknot, and Brian Cook of Sumac, so they\u2019ve got the right friends. I wish the vocals were stronger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>MORN \u2013 The Standard Model.<\/strong> MORN is a post-punk band from Monmouth, Wales, right near the border with England, not exactly a hotbed for new music, and this is just their second single to date. It\u2019s fast and more punk than post-punk, reminiscent of DEADLETTER and a little of Yard Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Tooth \u2013 Restless in Bloom.<\/strong> Tooth are a very new grunge-adjacent quartet from London who\u2019ve gotten a bit of music press buzz already after just a couple of singles this year. This is their best one to date, again grunge-like but not derivative of the style or any specific band.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Lambrini Girls \u2013 Cult of Celebrity.<\/strong> Good, but more of the same from this punk duo, who I think have to step up their lyrics and\/or add something musically to get to the next level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Tubs \u2013 Fade to Black.<\/strong> Yes, it\u2019s a jangle-pop cover of the Metallica song, and it\u2019s weird and ultimately I think it comes off as snarky, but it is certainly interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Downward \u2013 Drawl.<\/strong> A recommendation from Riley Breckenridge of Thrice, Downward blends post-hardcore and shoegaze with just enough melodic sense amid the gloom to make it all work. They put out a two-track single in April with this and \u201cGet Some.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Monolord \u2013 You Bastard.<\/strong> Doom metal from Gothenburg, that haven of melodic death metal, with all of the crunch and depth of that genre but clean vocals that make it way more accessible to a broader audience. They put out two tracks in April, with this the better of the two over \u201cOozing Wound.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Armored Saint \u2013 Hit a Moonshot. <\/strong>The two tracks I\u2019ve heard so far from Armored Saint\u2019s <em>Emotion Factory Reset<\/em>, due out on the 22<sup>nd<\/sup>, are making me question everything I previously thought about this 1980s metal band, who I always thought of as less interesting than their thrashier contemporaries and less catchy than some of the bands who ended up in the hair-metal bucket (like early M\u00f6tley Cr\u00fce, before they went all glam). This is better than anything from Testament since the 1980s, really.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Venom \u2013 Kicked Outta Hell. <\/strong>I\u2019ve always thought of Venom as something of a joke; they were much better known for their inane Satanic lyrics than for musical ability or great riffs, so their fan base had a lot of people attracted to the controversy rather than the tunes. Their album <em>Black Metal<\/em> gave the genre its name, but black metal, which just refers to metal with Satanic or sometimes occult lyrical themes, is itself dumb. It\u2019s all for attention, and if in 2026 you still think that stuff is either cool or controversial, man, you\u2019re about forty years behind the times. So I was surprised to hear that this new track, from a lineup with just one original member, is actually a decent song, sitting right in the middle of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (into which Venom sometimes gets lumped) and early speed or thrash metal. Go figure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019re warming up here, I think \u2013 the music is getting better, more albums are on the calendar, spring hath sprung, and so forth. My two favorite albums of the year so far came out in April or just before it, and I think May\/June will add quite a few more to that list. As [&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":[1495,359,1096,167,757,852,1114],"class_list":["post-11181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-2026-in-music","tag-alternative","tag-doom-metal","tag-indie","tag-metal","tag-music","tag-thrash","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11181","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=11181"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11182,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11181\/revisions\/11182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}