Release Day Eve: Anyone got something they're geeked about?! 🔭👀
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MadhattanJack
Just to end the list
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- #191
- Posted: 06/25/2026 20:52
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June 26 Albums
What June 19th, 2026 releases do YOU intend to use in YOUR campaign to conquer the galaxy and crush a million worlds under your mighty boot-heel? (Tomorrow?)
This is a ridiculously big new-releases week, with some people counting as many as 400 of the things, all in one go. And to make things worse, next week there's a new Madonna album, so a lot of the media attention is being hoovered up by that already while this week's stuff gets the short shrift. Shame on you, Madonna!
If we put Madonna aside for the moment though (and who hasn't?), I guess the big album this week is the new one from Muse, The Wow! Signal. Now, I'm not a big fan of these guys, and this album isn't going to change that, but I'm actually more concerned about the title since there are at least two bands named "The Wow Signal" out there as well as at least ten albums called that by other bands. Don't they have Google? This is a major act! And what's wrong with, I dunno, "The Holy Shit Signal"? Anyway, I think this is album #12 for them.
Then there's the "new" album by the Butthole Surfers, After the Astronaut. This is actually a "lost" album that was recorded in 1997, slated to be released as The Last Astronaut in 1998, but then shelved by Capitol Records for about, oh, 29 years or so. Now it has been unearthed, cleaned up, properly mixed and mastered, etc., etc., with the correct artwork and the original title and everything, coming out on digital and white vinyl, just in time for most of their original fans to play at their retirement parties. Nice work! Unfortunately, I'm not a big fan of these guys either, but I guess I never did learn how to surf.
This week's pick-of-the-week will have to be another toss-up (sorry!) between Temples and Beth Orton.
Temples, Bliss:
You might remember these guys from their highly-regarded 2014 debut album, Sun Structures, one of the best non-Dukes-of-Stratosphear 1966-68-era British psychedelic pop pastiches, like, ever — good enough to make it into the BEA Overall Top 1,500, even. Of course, you can't keep making the same pastiche over and over again, so during the past 12 years they've gradually modernized their approach with lots of synthesizers and drum machines and stuff like that. I still really like their songs though, and their singer still has that clear high tenor while refusing to sing into a clear-sounding microphone with proper EQ applied, so that's... good? Probably.
Beth Orton, The Ground Above:
If I were a music critic, I'd recommend this over the Temples LP because it's just a better album in terms of lyricism, sound/vocal quality, and general craftsmanship. I haven't heard all the others she's done, but I'd say this is just as good as Central Reservation and Sugaring Season (the two I'm most familiar with), and it may even be better — I'll know when I hear the whole thing (she didn't pre-announce this until just last week). Just a really well made LP, but definitely not as fun 'n' catchy as the Temples album.
As for the (best of the) rest...
- The Telescopes, Static Charge
Normally I'd get reasonably excited about a new Telescopes album — this is their 19th LP though (in 38 years) so it's not like there's a shortage. Also, the release dates got all mixed up, and they only put up one preview track, which frankly isn't all that great. So, expectations are a bit low for this one.
- Georgia Gets By, Heavy Meadow
Here's the full-length debut LP from New Zealand's Georgia Nott, who also sings for The Broods. The Broods are more of an electropop act though, whereas this is more folksy and acoustic, and though it often veers into "Americana" territory, the songs are much more real and memorable, and her vocals are fantastic. Again I'm concerned about the title though, since "Heavy Meadow" has been used already by multiple bands and albums (not to mention that it's a pun), and I'm also concerned that it only seems to exist on Spotify at the moment. Sometimes people just need extra time, I guess.
- Las Robertas, All We Need is Now
This six-piece band from Costa Rica does psychedelic guitar-oriented dreampop, sort of, with all the lyrics in English. Pretty good, overall — the only problem I have with this one is that they shouldn't need six people to sound like they do. At least one person is probably in there just to play tambourine or something. Also, the vocals could be better.
- Proun, Maybe Luck
Proun is a fairly interesting trio from Austin, TX, who I'd describe as "folkie-post-punk." It's another debut album where the instrumentation is minimal so that the songs will be recognizable when played live by just the three of them, but there's some fairly intricate guitar work in there that helps make up for it. The name "Proun" refers to a Russian art movement that popped up around the time of the Bolshevik revolution, so maybe they're Communists or whatever, but it might also be an oblique reference to the word "pronoun." We just don't know.
- The Pretty Reckless, Dear God
Holy smokes, this is some high-energy bad-girl hard-drivin' rock 'n' roll, straight from New Yawk City. Why can't I meet women like Taylor Momsen where I live? It's so unfair... It's their 7th album, and I'm guessing the title track is not a cover of the XTC song from 1986. Maybe that's for the best.
- LOWREV, It's Hard to Lie to Strangers
Nice, somewhat-twee indie-pop/rock debut album by what appears to be a solo act, from Pittsburgh, PA. The singer, Joshua Fiedler, reminds me of The Auteurs' Luke Haines a little bit — because I'm sitting there thinking, "okay, the vocal fry is pretty accurate, but how does he keep it going the whole time?" Pretty good guitar work too, actually.
- Cate Kennan, Shadows
She's from Los Angeles and makes a kind of ambient southwestern dreampop, like Julee Cruise used to do for David Lynch movies, only with fewer synthesizers. I like it, it's her second album, but it's not a revelation or anything.
- Daydreamers, Have You Tried Screaming?
This is a fairly commercial four-piece Britpop/Britrock band from London, and I believe this is their debut album. There's a fairly clear Coldplay influence, and that's probably all you need to know going in, really. Earlier this month we had that album from Overpass that was in the same vein, so maybe Britpoprock is making some sort of comeback. Woo-hoo.
- Some Velvet Sidewalk, Critters Encore
They're back after 30 years, and they sound pretty much the same, which is to say "energetic, but not very tight or meticulous in their musical approach." But hey, if you liked them before, you'll like them now, right? Of course! Why not.
Finally, there's this new album called Escape From God, by a solo artist named Bella from Alberta, Canada who goes by the stage name bea bea. It's almost-unlistenable lo-fi emo garage-o-rama, and she might even be a "furry" (not that there's anything wrong with that). Whether or not she actually succeeded in her escape attempt is anyone's guess (God has a pretty tight security system), but if you ask me she probably double-named herself "bea bea" just to get our attention here on BestEverAlbums.com. Well, guess what — it worked! I fell for it! Nice job, Bella.
Next week there's the aforementioned Madonna record, plus a new Robyn Hitchcock live LP, and... a new Deep Purple album! You can never get enough of those, I guess.
Last edited by MadhattanJack on 06/26/2026 06:41; edited 1 time in total
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MadhattanJack
Just to end the list
Profile
- #192
- Posted: 06/26/2026 06:33
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One more:
Chanel Beads 
Your Day Will Come (2026)
Sharp-eyed avant-pop fans with good memories might recall that Chanel Beads (aka Shane Lavers from New York, New York, "the city so nice they named it twice") released an album in 2024 that was also entitled Your Day Will Come. Apparently Shane here has little or no regard for the logistical and organizational problems of informational websites that attempt to catalogue album releases and make sense of people's discographies in the face of their insistence on clever "stunts" to draw more attention to their musical output. That said, it's an interesting little art-pop/art-rock record, mostly 4/4 and guitar-based but definitely a bit "leftfield," as they say. I hope I'm not being too offensive by stating that his voice sounds like it didn't quite "change" when he hit puberty, but that said, he does a good job with the vocals and I tend to be too offensive most of the time anyway. All in all, not up there with Temples and Beth Orton this week for me, but certainly on par with the other stuff I mentioned.
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MadhattanJack
Just to end the list
Profile
- #193
- Posted: 06/27/2026 02:30
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No surprise drops today, really. There's a new LP called This Charming Life by Communist Sex Magic that I'm pretty sure wasn't pre-announced, but that doesn't make it a "surprise," does it. The communists have been trying to use magic to force me to have sex with them for months, and I just won't do it. I've got standards, dammit! 😐
In other updates, the Temples' Bliss album has gotten some good reviews, but also a couple of pretty bad ones — Tim Sendra at AllMusic.com called it a "near total misfire," and Ruben Cross at FarOutMagazine.co.uk really trashed it, saying the album "is, unfortunately, so proud of its obnoxiousness that it bellows out its most abject qualities." So... I guess that's not good. (I still like it, though.)
I also mentioned that "expectations are a bit low" for the Telescopes' new album, and that the one preview track hadn't been "all that great." Having now heard the whole thing, I can say that expectations should have been much lower, since virtually all the tracks on it are "not that great," and I really shouldn't have added it to the BEA database in the first place. (Sorry!) Still, some people do like this sort of thing, I think? Kind-of? That's if you take enough drugs, obviously.
There was also supposed to be a new album from The 5.6.7.8.'s today called Run Run Run, and it looks like it did come out, but it's physical-media-only — at least for now, and also Japan-only. (You might remember them as the band playing "Woo Hoo" during that big fight scene in the movie Kill Bill Part II.) Apparently they're celebrating their 40th anniversary, or something to that effect. Congrats to them!
Finally, the Georgia Gets By album, Heavy Meadow, did make it onto Amazon Music and some of the other streaming services (still not Bandcamp though), so now that I've heard that, I have to say it's one of the prettiest records I've heard in quite some time — but it's even slower and quieter than I'd thought, and it gets slower and quieter as it goes along. It's a good album for sitting on your porch at your backwoods home in October and watching the leaves turn their Fall colors, I'l say that for it. (October's just over three months away, so you'll probably want to get on this right now so you'll be prepared.)
So until next week, stay safe, and avoid communist sex magicians unless you're sure your insurance portfolio covers that stuff.
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MadhattanJack
Just to end the list
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What July 3rd, 2026 releases do YOU wish were real, and not just some fake thing I made up for cheap laughs because I'm hopelessly insecure and strongly suspect that nobody is reading this thread anymore?
If there was ever a week to take off and forget all about this stuff, this is it. We're looking at an almost-historic dearth (I always liked that word) of new releases this week, with just two new studio albums by acts most people have heard of — Madonna and Deep Purple. The sad thing is that there are people will see the new Madonna album and think, "wow, what a great week for new releases!" without actually checking how many there actually are.
Earlier I mentioned a new Robyn Hitchcock "live" album, Live at Acheron, which I would normally be pretty excited about. It's not really a live album though, it's a live in studio album, which is to say he walked into the Acheron Recording Studio in East Nashville with an acoustic guitar and just recorded a bunch of his 80s favorites — along with two covers, of Syd Barrett's "Gigolo Aunt" and the Beatles' "A Day in the Life" — with no audience, no overdubs and no backing musicians. All well and good, I suppose, but he'll have a new full-band studio album called The Confuser out at the end of the month, and I'm not going to pretend I'm as excited to hear this one as i am to hear that one.
I should also say that the new Deep Purple album (Splat!) isn't bad. It's true that the three members who are still around from the classic "Mark II" lineup are 80 years old now, but apparently they can still play, it has a pretty cool album cover, the keyboardist (Don Airey) uses organ synth patches to sound just like Jon Lord, and Ian Gillan still sounds like... Ian Gillan! His vocal cords have barely aged a day! (The guitarist, though, I'm not so sure about — he seems to prefer "textures" to outright riffage for some reason.) All in all, they really don't sound that different from the band that made Machine Head, though I wouldn't expect another "Smoke on the Water" or "Highway Star."
There's also a new record from Adam "Low Cut Connie" Weiner called Livin in the USA, which I'm going to say is the pick-of-the-week purely for political reasons. Musically it reminds me of straight-up 70s/80s AOR, like some of Billy Joel's or Huey Lewis's more upbeat singles, complete with saxophones and everything. Supposedly they put on a pretty good live show... Hopefully this one gets some media attention, if only for the lyrical content — otherwise, it's probably a little too old-school Dad-rockish for mainstream commercial success.
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
I'm tempted to not even mention the rest, but here they are anyway:
- Wax Minds, Funatic Asylum: In addition to having the most impressively hideous album cover I've seen this year, this "weird-punk" outfit from Bremen, Germany, is actually a lot of fun. I think the word "weird" is used here to try to prepare you for how the guitars sound, but it probably won't be enough.
- Smirk, Speculative Fiction: A more conventional all-guitars punk record, by a solo act from Connecticut, or maybe Brooklyn. There's some promise here, but I actually think a more bigger, more post-punk sound would benefit the material. (I'm just sayin'.)
- Hey Thanks., Avoidance: Here's an 80s-retro synthwave band with "New Romantic" (which is also retro) leanings, from New Orleans, Louisiana of all places. They write some good tunes, and this is their second album — I should note that on their first (2022's Start/Living), they called themselves "Hey Thanks!" with an exclamation mark. That could cause some confusion. My guess is that whoever owns the copyright on the exclamation mark must have complained.
- Miko, Petals and Marbles: Miko is the nom de plume of Rie Mitsutake, an avant-poptronica singer (at least that's what I call it) from Tokyo. (Not to be confused with Young Miko, who is actually from Puerto Rico.) For most Western ears this stuff is probably a little too repetitive and maybe a little too "bloopy" too, but if you like Japanese music in general, especially of the electronic variety, I'd say it actually has a pleasing hypnotic effect to it. (For me, it's a nice change from all that hyperpop stuff so many Japanese musicians have been producing lately.)
- Wash, Wash (released on June 30th): Wash were a group of 90s OG shoegazers from Perth, Australia, and if you've ever been to Perth it won't surprise you that they were the only shoegaze band there at the time. These recordings of them are mostly demo-quality and a little harsh-sounding, despite being cleaned up for this release... but I thought I'd mention them anyway because I'm kind of a "history buff."
Finally, there's the self-titled album from Ondanaconda. Most of you have heard the expression "it's turtles all the way down"; this band from Geneva, Switzerland is just like that, only it's jaw harps all the way down. Yup, a four-piece band, all four playing jaw harps. And it's not bad, either! I like it more than your typical Eurodisco/EDM record, at least.
Anyway... that's all I've got! "Five and eleven," as they say...
Next week looks a lot better — apparently the full 7-track LP version of the She's Green album is coming out, plus we've got the Rolling Stones, Jack White, Luke Haines, Xiu Xiu, Sad13, and Sundayclub, plus a compilation of live tracks from Rain Parade.
Until then! 😄
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albummaster
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Just to say always love your write-ups and enjoy this thread very much 😎
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