I was not expecting to see a Charli XCX album in the New Releases section for tomorrow. After Brat I am all in on checking out what she has to offer. _________________ My overall top 100 is far from fleshed out at this point, so here are some charts I am actually proud of:
Top 100 Albums of 2025
What July 24, 2026 releases are YOU... now, see that, I've already lost my train of thought.
Obviously whenever there's a new Robyn Hitchcock studio album released, especially an "electric" one, the easy thing for me would be to say "nothing else matters dammit, this is the album!" or something casually dismissive (of everything else) like that. But of course, I don't do the "easy thing," I do the thing that... well, now that I think of it, I guess I really just do the easy thing.
Robyn Hitchcock, The Confuser(all tracks already streaming now, so you have no excuse)
Robyn's last album, 2022's Shufflemania, sounded a bit "loose" because he brought in lots of different backing musicians for almost every track. This time he's got the same three guys on bass drums 'n' guitar for the whole thing (with only Kimberley Rew and Gillian Welch doing guest-shots), and the resulting LP is not only tighter, but more upbeat and energetic, helped along by a mostly cleaner, more stripped-down production sound. Depending on which Robyn you prefer, this could be the best thing he's done (aside from the Venus 3 and Soft Boys reunion albums) since 1999's Jewels for Sophia, maybe even earlier. I prefer "Rockin' Robyn," of course.
Meanwhile, there are albums out this week from The Strokes (Reality Awaits); the aforementioned Charli XCX (Music, Fashion, Film, not necessarily in that order); Cypress Hill (Dios Bendiga, their first all-Spanish-language LP); and "60 is the new 35" standard-bearer Shania Twain (Little Miss Twain, her 7th studio LP, not including the two or three albums' worth of demos and other material they released to exploit her huge 90s popularity). Unfortunately the Stefano Guzzetti covers album was moved to Aug. 21, because Stefano cannot be pinned down, and how dare you even try! Also, Australia's Ed Kuepper has a new live album to go along with his new 6-song EP with The Aints,Autocannibalism (that's a real thing by the way, but I wouldn't suggest trying it yourself unless you're one of those "MAGA" people). And while this thread isn't supposed to be for pricey reissues, I feel compelled to say there's a new box set of all the Mojave 3 albums, remastered on vinyl, because it's never too soon to pick out things to put on your Christmas list. (Oops, I just re-checked and it's sold out already. Never mind! 🙁 )
And that's not all! We also have...
Lockstep, I Know What I Saw
These guys are awesome. They're a doomgazer trio from Nashville, this is their debut album, and there's practically no trip-hop involved whatsoever. What a relief! They seem to be more on the "heavy slowcore" side of the genre, so they might even appeal to metal fans. (Not metalheads though, since those folks are on a whole different level.)
Ian Sweet, Shiverstruck
"Ian Sweet" is the nom de plume of Jillian Medford, a somewhat waifish-sounding indie-rock, almost-post-punk singer from Los Angeles. I'm not going to complain about the gender-incongruous name because I probably wouldn't have noticed her previous albums if she'd released them under the name "Jillian Medford" either, but c'mon, "Ian Sweet"? I can't help but think this name is holding her back, because someone who sounds this good and can write songs like these should be much better known than she is. She needs one of those non-gender-specific "transgressive" names, like "Eartheater" or "Destroyer." "Ian Sweet" sounds like a name for an octogenarian UK glam-rocker from the 1970s.
Spearmint, Chase Me
It used to pain me that we lived in a world where no one had heard of Spearmint, because I'd not only heard of them, I owned a copy of their first album, A Week Away, and I even liked it, but despite all that I somehow never managed to score a date with Zooey Deschanel.(I think I still have the album somewhere, though...) They've still got the same lineup they had back in 1985, and all their albums are good... just not quite "great." Historically speaking, there are too many 70s-retro touches, the vocals are "just okay" really, there aren't enough hooks and dynamics, and there are few (if any) short bursts of chaos or discordance to "liven things up." As for this album though, there's only one preview track (which is very good) and a single or two, and based on those I'd say they sound better on this album production-wise than they have in years. Maybe ever. We'll see!
Pete Yorn, All The Beauty
I've always sorta liked Pete, which I realize might be damning with faint praise, but while I haven't heard everything he's recorded, it's fair to say that he's released some good stuff and also some bad stuff. Word on the street is that this LP is likely to be counted amongst the good stuff, and if the two pre-release singles and the preview track ("1986") are accurate representations, I'd have to agree. He even sounds less bored than usual, but I think he'll remain recognizable to most of his fans. (I still really like his version of "Moon River," by the way. Almost as much as Audrey Hepburn's!)
Josaleigh Pollett, If I Let It Quiet
This is the fourth album from Pollett, a sort-of "leftfield" art-pop/dreampop (with occasional crunch) singer from Salt Lake City, Utah. This one sounds a lot like 2023's In The Garden, By The Weeds, which is a good thing. Actually, this one might be a little more polished-sounding, which is... also good? Definitely worth a listen if you're into this sort of stuff, which I guess I obviously am.
Blue States, Where the Fades Meet
The Bandcamp pages for Andrew "Blue States" Dragazis (originally from Greece, now based in London) still tag him as downtempo electronica, but I suspect that was from when he was first starting out in 1999 and they just haven't gotten around to updating them recently. (See this BEA chart by ButterThumbz for a handy intro to downtempo and related genres, by the way.) Since then, Dragazis has evolved into more of a mod-psychedelia guy, not quite 60s pastiche, but clearly influenced by that hip-cool Swingin' London sound. Probably won't appeal to everybody, but it kind of surprised me, at least.
I have a list of five or six others that I might post later, along with a two or three I missed from earlier, but posting everything all at once... that just seems completely excessive, if you ask me. It would be nice if they'd space these releases out a little better, but the music industry not only refuses to listen to my advice, I think it really does this just to spite me. It's a lot like the US Government in that respect. 🫠
Here's a few more from the "obscure stuff" pile, including a couple I missed from the previous week or three. None of these are actually bad, but after you get past the first four or five on this list, let's just say I wanted to hear them all the way through first.
Gloss (from July 17), Bitter and Insolent
This is an all-female nugaze/grungegaze quartet from Perth, Australia. They actually identify themselves as an "all-femme queer shoegaze and dreampop" act, but you know, tomato, tuh-mahto. This band is the best argument for moving to Perth that I've ever encountered, but admittedly that might not be saying much.
Portraits Of Tracy, Q: From Where Do Our Primal Instincts Originate? A: MTV!
You sort of have to hear this one to believe it, and it's not what you'd expect based on the album cover. Also, regardless of how much I like the album, I have to disagree about the source of our primal instincts.
Attic Salt, Stay in the Midwest
The third album from a power-pop-punk band from Springfield, Illinois with a female co-lead singer, and I'll just be brutally honest, their male co-lead-singer should probably just let her do all the lead vocals. Very fun album with no bummer/downer tracks, and no songs over 3 minutes, but it still avoids sounding dumb or silly. (The album cover is an homage to an old Beach Boys compilation album, namely Made in U.S.A., but I'm not sure if this is deserving of extra points. It might be.) It's too bad this album didn't come out a week earlier, since the title might have prevented me from moving to Perth.
Milkswarm, Boywalk
This is the second LP from a somewhat chaotic-sounding noisepopgaze quartet from Chicago, so that's two Illinois bands in a row. There's a small amount of sprechgesang involved, and so far they've yet to press up any physical releases, but no matter — they've got a fairly distinctive sound, and overall I like them. Terrible album title, though. (Their first LP was called "Sodakink" too, so this could be their Achilles' heel.)
Lisa Molinaro (from July 17), Blind Trust
Here's the debut LP from Portland, OR native Molinaro, whom you'll all remember as having played viola for Modest Mouse. (I don't think she's still doing that, but it isn't because of a restraining order or anything like that.) It's kind-of dreampoppy, kind-of chamber-poppy, and some very nice tunes. As you can see on the album cover, she has an awesome hairdo, and since that's what drew my attention to the LP on Bandcamp, I'd say this is yet another great example of why you should make your hair look as big as possible on album covers.
Suede Grooves (from July 21), Enough
This is the second 5-song EP from this Portland, OR shoegaze-lite duo. The singer on tracks 1 and 2 has a high tenor voice that's extremely reminiscent of Ian Masters from the Pale Saints, so much so that I had to check to make sure they weren't signed to 4AD Records. Unfortunately, the other singer takes over after that, and his voice is probably the reason 4AD didn't sign them.
Odor Eater, But For Who?
Another Portland, OR act (I swear I'm not doing this deliberately), this is a male-female duo that do mostly-danceable, occasionally catchy retro motorik-style synthpop. Their album covers are awful and their band name is worse, and don't even get me started on the "who vs. whom" rule, but musically they're great!
Mould, Hoping as a Coping Mechanism
Not Bob Mould, but that's okay... sort of... this Bristol, UK (finally!) group would be a post-punk band if their singer didn't sound so old-school punkish — I wouldn't call him a a "Johnny Rotten imitator," but he's in the same vein. Thankfully, we all like old-school punk too, right? Don't we? (Maybe don't answer that.)
The Bradipos Four, Reverb Gang
Here's a classic-retro, and yes, quite reverby surf-rock guitar-twanger band from Caserta, Italy. They've been together for about 30 years and this is their 7th album, so they know what they're doing surf-rock-wise, despite being from Italy. The town of Caserta is about 35km north of Mt. Vesuvius, and I don't think you can surf there, but there are Tyrrhenian Sea beaches about 40km to the west that might have waves on windy days if you get there early. Cowabunga!
Bliss Abyss (from April 17), Bliss Abyss
I'm only including this one to point out that people are still, to this very day, giving themselves shoegazey band names and tagging themselves as "shoegaze" on streaming sites despite not really being shoegaze at all. "Bliss Abyss" is really a power-pop band from Oakland, and they're not bad, they're actually quite good (at power-pop), but they're also not going to sell a lot of records/streams/downloads if they're misleading potential fans like this. Truth in packaging, folks — not something to blow off!
Sound Effects Of Death And Horror, A Martian Odyssey
This appears to be a solo act — a guy named "John" who lives in the UK and does 80s-style synthwave instrumentals that are somewhat lacking in low-end frequency response. So you just have to take his word for it that this is a "Martian" odyssey and not just incidental background music for a walking tour of Ipswich or something like that.
Also, a new Shannon Lay album, Past the Veil, is supposed to be coming out on Tuesday, and this coming Friday it's Ariana Grande, Trashcan Sinatras, the Durutti Column, and the return of the Darling Buds. After that, I think we might be entering a bit of a "lull period," but I've been wrong about that before, so... fingers crossed, I guess!
What July 31, 2026 releases would Ariana Grandesue you for using your l33t haxx0r skillz to not-so-legally obtain in advance? Why not all of them! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Ariana's new album, Petal, will probably hoover up most of the media attention this week, and word on the street is that it sounds just like an Ariana Grande album should sound. So we'll just pretend that doesn't exist and move on. Apparently there's also some sort of Green Day movie coming out called Nimrods, but the greatest-hits soundtrack album contains only one new track ("I'm Never Gonna R.I.P."), so I'll just treat that as a "single" for now. On top of that, there's a new Shearwater album, The New World — and it's a good one too, with plenty of their usual nature sounds in the background. It helps that by now I've learned not to get up in the middle of their albums thinking I left the windows open.
Unfortunately, there's no obvious pick-of-the-week here, so I felt like I should fall back on old fanboy loyalties and give the nod to the new comeback LP from 80s Welsh guitar-pop-rockers the Darling Buds, Same Sun | Same Sky.
You might remember their big late-80s hits like "Hit the Ground," "Crystal Clear," and my personal fave, "It Makes No Difference." Then again, you might not. They actually got back together about a decade ago, but only managed one 4-song EP (Evergreen) at the time. This new LP seems to be just about as good as anything they did back in the day, though there's no one track that's on the level of "It Makes No Difference." Also, there's some question as to whether that character in the title is supposed to be a vertical bar ("|"), or just a regular slash. But hey, it makes no difference to me! I feel nothing... at all! Ahhh-huh!
But there's more.
Trashcan Sinatras, Ever the Optimist
It's their seventh studio LP, and their first since 2016's crowdfunded Wild Pendulum. They don't seem to have lost their ability to write great pop songs, so that's good. Track 2, "Games For The ZX Spectrum," is the obvious single here (if singles still matter to anybody) and it may be the best song I've heard from them, including their big 1990 hit "Obscurity Knocks." I'm a bit concerned that the song title may confuse people (the Sinclair ZX Spectrum was one of the earliest 8-bit home computers), but for all I know it could be that one missing clever touch they've needed all along to finally put them over the top and make them The Biggest-Selling Band of All Time.
Mallory Hawk, Chinook
Stereogum chose this as their Album of the Week (subscribers only, sorry), and hey, why not? She's a very talented indie-folk/pop/rock singer from Philadelphia with a voice reminiscent of Juliana Hatfield's. She seems to be doing her level-best to avoid being easily categorized or pigeonholed into a particular genre, doing things like track-sequencing from introspective acoustic folk ("Four O' Clocks") directly into a near-punk rave-up ("Caretaker") without even asking for permission from the Style Police. (Thankfully, the Style Police are highly susceptible to bribery, so I'm sure she'll be fine.)
The Durutti Column, Renascent
It's Vini Reilly's first album back after a 15-year hiatus, and... well, I'm just going to come right out and say it, he wasn't that good a guitar-player to begin with, but over the last few years he's suffered a series of strokes that have unfortunately degraded his playing ability even more. (I know, I know, I'm a horrible person.) Nevertheless, it's a pretty good Durutti Column LP, and if you liked the older stuff, I don't think you'll be disappointed.
The Cleaners From Venus, Beryl & Ruff Go Shopping Martin Newell & Co. have been making more than an album per year for over a decade now (especially if you include the stuff he's released under his own name), most of it recorded on a Tascam 8-track Portastudio in his kitchen. As a general rule, I tend to like everything he puts out, but over the years the lo-fi production has become sort of distracting, not least because I know he could sound so much better if he just upgraded that kitchen.
Crush Fund, GO
I guess I can't be certain, but from what I gather Crush Fund is an all-transwomen punk band, from New York City, and this is their debut album, though it's digital-only for now (they apparently released a limited-edition CD combining their first two EPs in 2024, so maybe this is their second album if you count that). It's not all hardcore, but quite a lot of it is, and they do have a lot to be pissed off about. So yeah, four trans women doing hardcore punk, how can you not like that? I mean, sure, maybe if they sued you for illegally obtaining a copy of their album in advance, that I could see, but I suspect they'd be more than willing to settle out of court in exchange for an apology and a promise not to do it again.
Family Stereo, The Thread
Family Stereo is the nom de plume of Blake Watt, son of Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn, aka Everything But the Girl. He does lite-pop, folk-rock, almost-easy-listening type stuff, mostly. Like everyone else, I was hoping for Love Not Money Pt. II, but I'm guessing he doesn't want to be seen as a "nepo-baby."
April Spring (released July 26), Making Memories With Fireflies
Here's another one for the "bands with misleading names" list, since it's a blackmetalgaze act from Denver, where Spring doesn't really happen until mid-May at the earliest. (Maybe that's the whole point, though.) They're significantly less heavy than Deafheaven, but it's the same basic idea, though the vocals are more strangled-sounding than screamo. (Is there a "strangle-o" subgenre? There should be.)
Last but not least, there's...
Collective Soul, Touch and Go
This one was actually released back on Record Store Day (Apr. 18), but that was a limited vinyl-only pressing, and I totally ignored it at the time (along with lots of other people, apparently). If I even saw it at all, I must have thought it was some kind of reissue, but either way... no! It's new stuff! As it happens, Collective Soul never really stopped making records, they just never managed to outsell their earlier ones. This LP is supposed to be an homage of sorts to 80s new wave pop, especially The Cars. They don't actually sound much like The Cars, but I guess that's never stopped them before.
All in all, not too shabby, though I'm not seeing a lot of cool obscure and/or last-minute stuff in the hopper like I did last week. And next week looks to be slower, though there are new albums scheduled from Ceremony, The Anchoress, The Mountain Goats, Strawberry Alarm Clock (yes, they're still around), and Wedding Present guitarist Rachael Wood.😄
What August 7, 2026 releases are YOU going to regret mentioning a week later when you realizeyou were unwittingly participating in a media pile-onthat the celebrity being piled onhardly deserved?
No blockbusters this week — there's a new album from emo-rockers Citizen and another from folk-rock singer Margaret Glaspy, and on Wednesday of next week there's the comeback LP from Smash Mouth, but I doubt any blocks will be busted by any of those unless they're, like, small blocks made of cheese or something like that.
So, I guess my pick-of-the-week would have to be this album:
Man/Woman/Chainsaw, Cannonball
This is the debut LP by a not-at-all-punkish "art punk" indie-rock act from London, consisting of four women and two guitarist-guys named "Billy." One of the guys named Billy sings lead on a couple of tracks too, and he's... okay, but most of the singing is done by bass player Vera Leppänen, whose voice is great but could maybe stand to be a bit stronger and more aggressive for some of this material. That's a minor issue, though. They also have a violinist, who gives their tunes a "traditional" vibe that vaguely suggests blues, folk-rock, 70s pop, or even so-called Americana, without being too obtrusive, usually. (I assume this is all intentional, and I have to admit that it's not a bad formula, nor does it even sound all that formulaic.) I like their songs too, and there could even be some hit potential, but I've said that before and I've nearly always been wrong because I no longer have any idea as to what a "hit" is. With a name like "Man/Woman/Chainsaw" you'd expect more heavily-distorted guitar crunch, and you don't really get it, but frankly that's nit-picking. The only real downside of this one, for me, is that it brings back some very bad memories of when I got divorced and my ex-wife insisted on keeping our chainsaw for herself in the settlement. I loved that chainsaw, dammit.
Meanwhile, there's other stuff.
Rachael Wood, It's Not the End of the World
Rachael Wood is currently the guitarist for The Wedding Present, but she's only been in the band long enough to appear on one Weddoes record, 2025's Maxi EP. I really liked Maxi though, so hopefully she'll stick around longer than most of their previous guitarists. As for this record, it's sort of a surfgazey affair with LOUDquietLOUD and quietLOUDquiet bits. Her vocals (is she a contralto or a mezzo-soprano?) are subtle and mostly understated on the tracks I've heard, so maybe this record has that same "minor issue" as the Man/Woman/Chainsaw album... but all in all, it sounds pretty cool.
Strawberry Alarm Clock, Where's One?
Okay, there's a lot to unpack here, starting with who's still alive. Apparently these guys were quite young when they started back in 1967, so they're unusually intact for a 60s band. Lee Freeman and singer Jimmy Pitman have passed away, but they've still got singer/keyboardist Mark Weitz, George Bunnell on bass, Randy Seol on drums, plus Gene Gunnels on... whatever he's on, so that's a majority of the original group already, plus producer Steve Bartek is heavily involved. (You might remember him as a key member of Oingo Boingo; he apparently played the flute with SAC early on, and he even co-wrote four of the songs from their first album.) Guitarist Howie Anderson has been in the lineup since 1986, so let's be fair, that makes him a SAC veteran too. In fact, if he'd been in the US Air Force assigned to the Strategic Air Command, he'd be a SAC 'n' SAC veteran! Yeah, I've got a million of 'em... Anyway, this isn't their first reunion record, since they got together in 2012 to make Wake Up Where You Are, but that was mostly not-so-great re-recordings of their old material, and quite frankly not very compelling as an album. (It might be noted here that their big smash hit "Incense and Peppermints" was officially credited to songwriters John Carter and Tim Gilbert, and sung by Greg Munford, none of whom were actually in the band, so it wasn't included.) This album is all new stuff — ten originals plus two Beatles covers, "Day Tripper" and "Within You Without You," and some of it is really good, especially for a bunch of old guys. SAC were never super-inventive or "out-there" musically, and they're not trying to "reinvent" themselves as such here. This is basically just a very nice 60s-style psychedelic-lite pop album with a bit of stylistic diversity (which they sort-of always had) and recorded with modern studio gear. That just means the sound is more compressed, there are digital effects being used, and the drums sound a lot better. It's not a "perfect facsimile" of that original 60s sound and probably isn't intended to be, but while I don't want to overrate it (especially since the album cover is terrible), it's actually one of the best old-guy reunion albums I've heard in quite a while — especially if we're only counting guys who are older than I am.
The Anchoress, As We Once Were
One might describe Catherine Anne "The Anchoress" Davies musically as what it might sound like if the Simple Minds had hired Kate Bush to sing for them in the 2010s, but that's only because she sounds somewhat like Kate Bush (though without the spectacular 6-octave range) and she was, in fact, a member of the Simple Minds for about 4 years during the 2010s. Her solo work is still a little too slick and artsy-proggy for my tastes, but she's obviously very talented and the production work is top-notch. There's even a duet with Eaves Wilder (track 3, "Damsels"), though Eaves isn't really out-front on the track doing her super-waifish voice thing. (Which makes me wonder why Davies would bring her in at all, but I guess you can't just throw all the waifishness in there in one big lump or people will freak out, riot, smash shop windows, and so on. Nobody wants that! Except me.)
The Mountain Goats, Days
These guys have been making fine indie folk-rock records since 1991, and I think this is now their 24th studio album — that's a lot of albums! Their last one, Through This Fire Across from Peter Balkan, was supposed to be a kind of musical-theatre concept LP, but on this one they seem to be happy just making wry and semi-obscure pop-cultural references for humorous effect, at least with the song titles. The title of track 8, "Best Hard Rock Albums 2013," is especially on-the-nose for me, since my own 2013 BEA year chart is one of my most stupidly annotated ones that I spent lots of time on and still nobody has given it a single rating.
Megasound, Megasound
How is it we've gotten all the way to 2026 and nobody has called a rock band "Megasound" before? Or am I imagining this? Anyway, they're a power-pop/pop-punk trio (two girls and a guy) from Minneapolis, fronted by Kerry Alexander. She and one of the other members (the guy) used to be in the Bad Bad Hats, which is, or was, also a pretty good band name. (I'm guessing the Bad Bad Hats are now defunct, though.) Nothing groundbreaking about this album, but it's fun, nicely-recorded, and has some fairly catchy tunes. Great for parties!
Professor and the Madman, Dreamworld
PatM is a punkish psychedelic quartet consisting of two guys, Alfie Agnew and Sean Elliott, who were in D.I., an 80s-era punk band from Fullerton, California, plus two guys from The Damned, namely drummer (and O.G. London punk) Rat Scabies and bass player Paul Gray. Agnew is one of the three Agnew Brothers who collectively were in so many California punk bands they became the subject of their own documentary last year, Agnew: The Story of a California Family. (Admittedly, no one has actually seen this documentary.) This will be PatM's 5th studio LP, and the two pre-release singles suggest that it's more psychedelic than punk this time, which (if true) would be sort of the reverse of their previous album, 2020's Seance. And yes, they took their name from the Simon Winchester book, which — if I'm being totally honest here — might be a safer recommendation than this album. We'll see!
Slow Fiction, Dollhouse
This might be grossly unfair, but I would probably tag this NYC band as a "garagegaze" act — they're clearly trying to create a big wall of distorted guitar sound with lots of reverb, which is good, but singer Julia Vassallo has a vocal style that would probably be more appropriate for a more traditional/conventional hard-rock band. The same might be said about their songwriting too, though the songs themselves are perfectly fine. Maybe that doesn't make much sense, but those are really just "quibbles," and I like what I've heard from them so far.
Ceremony, Tell Me Your Dream
For those of you who follow this kind of stuff, this is the band commonly known as "Ceremony West Coast," who play semi-melodic hardcore punk, as opposed to "Ceremony East Coast," which is more of a shoegaze-with-occasional-dreampop band. The latter group is known here on BEA as "Ceremony (Skywave)" because their members used to be in another band called... wait for it... "Skywave"! So by putting the word "dream" in one of their album titles, it's possible that Ceremony West Coast is making a hostile move here to take over the "Ceremony" name nationwide and push Ceremony East Coast out of their pre-established territory. We all know what that means... BAND WAR! If they're successful, this could become known as the "Big Takeover," which coincidentally is the name of the magazine that I first heard about all of this from. That magazine was named after a song by DC punks the Bad Brains, who in turn were named after a song from the Ramones album Road to Ruin, which in turn describes what will happen to your brain if you try to follow this runaway train of logic like I just did.
Stumbleine, Head Over Heels
Stumbleine is the stage name of Peter Cooper, a chillwave/dubstep/vaporwave musician and producer from somewhere in the UK. Smashing Pumpkins fans will recognize the name "Stumbleine" as a track from Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, but this record sounds nothing like the Smashing Pumpkins, unless it's one of their more ambient-sounding albums. It's a good chillwave record, but it's ultimately background music, with voice samples used in lieu of people singing lyrics and what-not.
John Carpenter, Cathedral
It's not a movie soundtrack this time, it's music to accompany his new graphic novel of the same title. (Can graphic novels have soundtracks? I mean, why not? "Think outside the box" is what I always say, at least when I'm in a box filled with characters from John Carpenter movies.) Instrumentation-wise it's largely electronic (as you'd expect), but it's kinda heavy-metal too, and sorta proggish as well, and of course it isn't exactly intended to put you at ease. Not really my thing, but it's well put-together.
Next week, we've got new albums from Laura Veirs, Phoebe Bridgers, and Carly Simon, along with Heart's Ann Wilson (with her backup band Tripsitter, who are not the original Tripsitter who recorded California Son back in 2004... don't be fooled, folks). Also, legendary Dionne Warwick has a new record, which they're saying will be her last, as she's going to have a proper retirement now. Good for her! (She's also suing, but it's her evil old management she's going after, not the slightly-less-evil hackers.) 😄
(Supposedly some guys are releasing new albums next week too, but we'll just sort all that out later when things have settled down a bit.)
What August 14, 2026 releases will YOU etc., etc... I've basically run out of clever things to open with at this point.
Let me begin by saying I didn't mean to offend anyone's sensibilities last week by referring to Dionne Warwick as "legendary" while not using the same word to describe Carly Simon. Clearly, both qualify for the "legendary" tag, and indeed Simon should probably be considered more legendary because Warwick's hits were mostly written by Burt Bachrach and Hal David, whereas Simon wrote most of hers by herself, as I recall. However, none of her songs were ever covered by The Stranglers or Splitsville, so they don't score as highly in the MadhattanJack so-called "Rating System."
Anyways, in addition to Simon's new LP Comes in Waves (which is pretty nice, actually) and Warwick's DWuets, I mentioned that there's a new Ann Wilson & Tripsitter album, Consecrated Ground. Only one preview track has been available for that one, called "I Will Not Be Coming Back," but that makes no sense to me because isn't that exactly what she's doing?
The new Phoebe Bridgers album, Lost Weekend, sounds like it's another good one from her, and the new Laura Veirs album (Temple Songs) is another fine collection of nice, pretty folk tunes with occasional jazz bits to add to this week's list. I nearly included the new Marilyn Manson LP too (One Assassination Under God, Chapter 2), but then I remembered that Marilyn Manson is a dude. Oops! Oh well!
Today there was also a semi-surprise announcement about yet another new LP from King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, entitled Alien Metal. (I thought we had GWAR for that?) It's supposed to be a techno album with few (if any) guitars this time, in case you're still trying to keep track of their release schedule (which seems like it would be full-time job).
That doesn't leave much, unfortunately! So if my pick-of-the-week isn't Phoebe Bridgers (and maybe it should be), I guess it has to be Pallida Cavtat.
Pallida Cavtat, La distanza tra noi e la riva
Pallida Cavtat is a post-punk trio from Apulia (aka Puglia), Italy, and this is their debut album. They've got some very cool tunes here, but as for the band name, "pallida" is the Italian word for "pale," but "Cavtat" is a town in Croatia near Dubrovnik, straight across the Adriatic Sea from Apulia (the "boot-heel" region of Italy). So while the name probably means something, I don't know what that would be exactly. Regardless, if you don't mind lyrics in Italian and lots of eye makeup, this is actually a pretty good record.
Sweeping Promises, You Say I Romanticize
I never said anything of the sort, but this is the third album from this lo-fi/DIY male+female punk duo from Lawrence, Kansas, whose last LP, 2023's Good Living is Coming For You, got a pretty good response here on BEA. I'd have to say this one is an improvement over that one, especially in the songwriting — I'd like to hear them recorded in a proper studio, maybe with fuller (or at least less minimalist) instrumentation, because I really think their songs would benefit from it. But I'm basically an idiot and nobody listens to me, so they probably won't do that.
Hovvdy, Big World
This is the sixth album from this lite 'n' sunny-sounding indiepop duo from Austin, Texas, another in the always-growing list of bands who use two "v"s to replace what would normally be a "w" in their name in order to make it unique enough to grab the dot-com internet domain name before someone else thinks of it. Well, it worked because they got the domain name, but I'm still going to pronounce it "HOHHV-DEE" until someone other than Discogs tells me to stop.
Slow Joy, Esteban Flores
Slow Joy is the stage name of Esteban Flores, a guy from Dallas, Texas who is known in the music biz as "Slow Joy," and this is his new album, Esteban Flores, which is actually his real name, not "Slow Joy" which is really a stage name. This is his second LP and I guess you could call it "emogaze," except that I really hate that term.
Mason Ramsey, Outlaw in Love(Amazon link)
It's the second album from this 19-year-old country singer (aka "Walmart Yodeling Kid") from Golconda, Illinois, whom we all remember as a BIG favorite of BEA's own JOSweetHeart. I'd have to say it's not quite up to the standard set by his debut LP, 2024's I'll See You In My Dreams, but that's probably because big-name songwriters were brought in to co-write the songs, giving it less of a "traditional" (some would say "retro") vibe and more of a "manufactured" one — though he still sounds enough like Hank Williams that he probably won't alienate his existing fans.
Detects, The Future At First
Here's the fourth album from this electrodarkwave act from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, of all places. They seem to be about as obscure as you can get these days — looks like all their physical releases are on cassette, probably DIY, with practically zero information available about the band members since they would probably be killed in a town like Hattiesburg if they were ever to be identified as an electrodarkwave band (Hattiesburgers are "strictly thrash," as everyone knows). This album is more synth-oriented than their previous ones, but it's not bad, at least if you like murky-sounding goth stuff and all that sort of thing.
Strange Lot, ST
This band, which started out as a solo act but now consists of four guys from Austin, Texas (again!), is what I would call a "sinister psychgaze" outfit with a strong Roky Erickson influence — the songs tend to be edgy and ominous-sounding without sounding too gloomy, which is a neat trick, and there's lots of reverb and psychedelic flourishes fading in and out, etc., etc. The singer isn't bad, but let's just say he "lacks conviction" and sounds like he might want you to think he's on drugs for most of the album. Personally, I really like stuff like this, but your mileage may vary, assuming you can even afford to drive anymore.
Blinder, Low-Res (released August 11)
Blinder is a nu-metal/metalgaze band from Adelaide, Australia — which I must say seems to have a burgeoning rock scene these days since I keep finding good bands from there. This is Blinder's debut EP, with 5 tracks, but they're not on Discogs yet so it might be a little early to add them to BEA. They're high-powered, tight, and well-produced, though I suppose not overly original. The vocals are the big draw here — they have a male lead singer (Will Wright, I think) who sounds just like Bono (except that he can also do screamo, unlike Bono), and a female lead singer (Ella Phillips) who sounds a lot less like Bono, which is even better!
Kiwi Jr., Blowin' Up
This is the fourth album from these four guys from Toronto, who are a twee-ish melodic guitar-pop band (for the most part). I'm kind of on the fence about them — it's like they write catchy 'n' fun tunes, but don't really play them very well. Maybe they need a different producer? Could just be me, I guess.
Postures, Together, Slowly
The debut LP from a nice, somewhat sadcore-ish chamber-pop quartet from Melbourne, Australia. I can hear some Tame Impala influence here, along with maybe some High Llamas too, but I'm not quite ready to anoint them as the Next Big Pop Thing just yet. Definitely some potential, though! (They'll need better album cover art of course, in case you bothered to look.)
Finally, there's a new live album from Sparks called Live on the Moon, except that they never actually played on the Moon, they're just saying they did (specifically, they're saying the album was recorded in the Taruntius Crater, on the northwestern edge of Mare Fecunditatis), probably to avoid lunar licensing fees or something. Also, famous actress Cate Blanchett is on the album as the show's emcee, and we know she's never been on the Moon, though she probably could have gone there as the Goddess Hela via the Bifröst Bridge in Thor: Ragnarok if there had really been a Sparks gig going on up there. (I would've just gone to one of the London shows, personally.)
Next week looks to be maybe a bit better, with new stuff from Chelsea Wolfe, Weezer, Lambchop, Mystery Jets, and the Afghan Whigs. We'll also finally get that new covers LP from Stefano Guzzetti that was supposed to come out on July 24 but got delayed, probably because someone finally realized that nobody ever heard of him. 😄
Last edited by MadhattanJack on 08/16/2026 00:39; edited 1 time in total
Will be checking out Phoebe Bridgers, Kiwi Jr. & Sweeping Promises I think. I on the fence regarding Kiwi Jr too. Definitely stuff I've heard many, many times, BUT it's my favorite kind of stuff.
Will be checking out Phoebe Bridgers, Kiwi Jr. & Sweeping Promises I think. I on the fence regarding Kiwi Jr too. Definitely stuff I've heard many, many times, BUT it's my favorite kind of stuff.
How cool would it have been if Phoebe had made an out & out Black Metal album. And it was really good. THAT would deserve Best New Music for sure.
Anyways, listening now & it sounds like Phoebe. Sure it will be a grower and hoping its her best yet! 🤓
How cool would it have been if Phoebe had made an out & out Black Metal album. And it was really good. THAT would deserve Best New Music for sure.
Wouldn't she ruin her voice doing that? 🤔
Besides, we already have Emma Ruth Rundle, though I guess she saves the really heavy stuff for collaboration LPs (like the one she did with Thouback in 2020... that's doom metal of course, I think there's some screamo/croak-shrieking involved but I don't think she's the one doing it). Her new album is coming out on Sept. 18, by the way, probably no screamo on that one at all... Chelsea Wolfe used to do some scary-type stuff back in the day too, and as mentioned above her new LP comes out next week, but she doesn't do screamo either, AFAIK. (Not that I've heard her entire discography, of course!)
I mean, honestly, I just don't know how they do it. I can barely get past 15 seconds of a Linda-Blair-in-the-Exorcist impression before I have to go get a glass of water, but these people are doing this every night for well over an hour per set.
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MadhattanJack
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