In a day and age of information overload, what’s real and what’s not becomes seamless in a way we don’t want. How does one combat it? If you’re Genesis Owusu, you take the muddled mess and apply it to your music; REDSTAR WU & THE WORLDWIDE SCOURGE pulls from so many genres it’s hard to keep track. But the Ghanaian-Australian auteur always makes his intentions clear on this album, balancing a head-spinning amount of sounds into a record that never slows down. ... read more

Go ahead. Look For Your Mind! The Lemon Twigs beg you do do so on their latest album. The D’Addario brothers (Brian and Michael) have been looking to the past rather than looking within for years now, drawing from the popular music of the 1960s and 1970s to make some of the finest throwback tunes going in today’s world. But as they look within on Look For Your Mind!, they expand their presence; this is their first album where Brian isn’t playing all the instruments, instead ... read more

At this point, we know Stephen Bruner can craft a funkier bassline than just about anyone else. But thankfully, he knows that a funky bassline alone doesn’t fill an entire song. Distracted, his guest-heavy fifth studio album as Thundercat, stays fresh by putting those delicious basslines through the ringer of genres: I’m a big fan of the spacey alt rock with A$AP Rocky on “Funny Friends” or how the harmonies on “Pozole” emulate the best of The Beach Boys. ... read more

Relentlessly creative as the best young minds are, underscores’ debut record will undoubtedly go down as one of 2026’s most exciting releases. U never stops exploring its exciting electronic landscape, trying to find the chunkiest, catchiest beats possible and frequently succeeding. Bangers like “Do It” and “Music” will have you leaping out of your seat, while “Hollywood Forever” and “Innuendo (I Get U)” find excellent beat switches to ... read more

Nine Inch Nails and Boys Noize have been collaborating for some time now, and their first collaborative album finds the perfect middle point for Trent Reznor’s crushing industrial rock and Alex Ridha’s scintillating electronic sounds. These reworkings of Nine Inch Nails classics pulse with a completely different life than the originals while retaining the haunting, pained feeling that only Reznor’s voice can bring. The pop perfection of “Closer” is retooled into ... read more

After Geordie Greep wowed us with the explosive The New Sound back in 2024, another member of the band that was Black Midi has dropped a baroque rock album worth celebrating. My New Band Believe contains elements of Cameron Picton’s former group, with complex arrangements and a harrowing sense of dread through its sound, but his band’s self-titled debut trades erraticism for beauty more often than not. It’s lovingly crafted and at times lovingly written; “Love ... read more

“…without Taylor, we know that we're going to be a different band going forward.”

Those 2023 words came from Foo Fighters in the wake of the untimely passing of drummer Taylor Hawkins. It was the only appropriate response to such a shocking loss, and the ensuing record But Here We Are made good on that promise. Dealing with their grief through stadium-sized rock music, that record from Dave Grohl and friends made for a titanic comeback after a decade in the musical ... read more

Like the fanciest of balls or galas, every aspect of Superbloom is tailored for a specific reason. You don’t become one of disco pop’s foremost figures without throwing an immaculate party, something Jessie Ware has become accustomed to since What’s Your Pleasure? and perfected with That! Feels Good!. This punctuation-free follow up to my favorite album of 2023 invites you in for the victory formation, celebrating Ware’s crowning as dance mother emeritus. It’s a ... read more

How long does it take you to finalize your thoughts on an album? Do you know after your first listen? Does it take weeks, even months before you pin down your feelings? Singin’ to an Empty Chair has had me on the latter, so much so I accidentally let an unfinished post containing a phantom review of the album go live on my Substack (check it out at cfreemon.substack.com). Embarrassment aside, Ratboys’ latest album is a good one. It’s just that I didn’t know how good it ... read more

Is it really real? Is it really real that Robyn, after over seven years away from the public eye, still sounds this good? Yes, yes it is. Sexistential is Robyn at her best, still writing generationally good synthpop songs with producer Klas Åhlund still operating at electronic music’s most euphoric levels. The duo’s peak on 2010’s Body Talk is what much of Sexistential pulls from, and while it’s not the most forward-thinking album Robyn has ever made, it percolates ... read more

Everything you hear on Ö, the debut album from New York upstarts Fcukers, is exactly what it is. It can be extremely fun, racing through coolly-delivered club bops that refuse to let you take a moment off. It can also be one note, and across its 29-minute runtime, it sounds extremely cohesive to its detriment. But these rascals hit more than they miss, and the addicting flow of Ö makes it a party worth attending.

Fcukers run down the same irreverent lane that Confidence Man does, but ... read more

One of this decade’s best, most unexpected turns has been Avalon Emerson becoming the trailblazer of modern dream pop. It makes sense that she can slow down her usual dancefloor efforts, but never did we expect something as effortlessly easy as 2023’s & The Charm. That moniker has allowed her creative freedom out the wazoo, and her new album Written Into Changes sees things evolve in a natural sense. There’s more heft to the dream pop river here, which flows strongly with ... read more

What does every outcast want? To belong. Those self-described freaks need love like the rest of us. Haute & Freddy seem to understand this well, spending much of Big Disgrace encouraging those weirdos to let loose and have the party of a lifetime in their own special way. The duo’s ridiculously fun debut sounds like how an 80’s prom dress looks: loud, gaudy and full of bells and whistles to make it stand out above all the rest. The ball they wear it to treats us to a feast of ... read more

There was once a time where I would ridicule BLACKPINK for including “DDU-DU DDU-DU” on every release. Now I yearn for it to be included, because that’s one less chance the K-pop titans have to embarrass themselves. The global superstars have been slowly but surely killing any hope we had for a career resurrection, with one dreadfully generic release after another. The group waited nearly four years to come back with new music after poisining us with incurable “PINK ... read more

hemlocke springs could’ve been a doctor, but instead she chose to be a pop star. Her debut album the apple tree under the sea was one of my most highly anticipated albums of 2026, and for good reason if you heard her going…going…GONE! EP back in 2023. The unfortunate thing is, this album doesn’t have as much of the weirdo personality I’d hoped for that she showed on that EP. “head, shoulders, knees and ankles” is the only track where hemlocke truly ... read more

There are no shortage of functional dance tracks throughout Butterfly, but they come by sacrificing many memorable moments. Too many songs run into one another and fail to stand out, making for a very listenable experience, but one you’ll find hard to place after hearing it. The Caribou collaboration “Waiting So Long”, aka Dan Snaith collaborating with himself, is a major highlight though.

The second EP in Mr. Benét’s instrumental series (or is it an album?) focuses on the bass guitar, and boy do the funkiest moments on Il Basso get deliciously funky. Tracks can definitely get a little too indulgent, but for the most part, this project will make you jam out. It does suffer from a lack of vocals, but as a side project to Benét’s usual throwback pop, it’s a fine distraction.

The overlap between celebrities and damn good runners is a strange one. After all, Mark Zuckerberg has run a sub-20 minute 5K, and Benson Boone isn’t far behind. Harry (not Harold) Styles slides into that category as well, having run both the Tokyo Marathon and the Berlin Marathon. He finished the latter in 2:59:13, an impressive time that I’d have trouble filling a playlist up with full of good running music. So how kind of Harry to step in and help; the majority of Kiss All The ... read more

A Gorillaz project is generally going to be a big thing. Going back to the digital band’s debut in 2000, their albums have been filled to the brim with guests and sounds that have made stadiums erupt while reaching chart peaks along the way. So what’s scaling a mountain to Damon Albarn? The Mountain is a fittingly huge title for one of the project’s biggest albums to date, one with a staggering list of guests both new, old, and no longer with us. But where certain Gorillaz ... read more

I’ve always found Bruno Mars to be a man of extremes. When he’s at his best, he’s irresistible; see most of his work with Anderson .Paak in Silk Sonic, or his ROSÉ collab. At his worst, Mars’ vast talents sound worlds away when he’s floundering on flaccid duets or unsexy romps. So how does the man of extremes find a way to be so middling on his first solo album in nearly a decade? The Romantic is funk that isn’t funky, it’s soft pop that ... read more