Amoeba Music

The new album from Denzel Curry is an instant classic. King Of The Mischievous South Vol. 2 nods to '90s-era Southern hip-hop while adding a fresh take from Denzel Curry and his galaxy of star contributors. These tracks let the good times roll; the beats are minimalist and hard, the rhymes skilled and smart. These feel like the type of underground tracks that, before long, will work their way into the playlists of everyone you know — that's how irresistible this record is. More

Prepare to swoon for the debut album from Chicago's Brigitte Calls Me Baby, The Future Is Our Way Out . Singer Wes Leavins' velvety voice calls to mind crooners from Morrissey to Roy Orbison. The melodies are elegant, emotional, and bigger than life — essentially this is a dream album for fans of smart, sophisticated post-punk meets mid-century pop. The band wears their influences on their well-tailored sleeves, to be sure, yet The Future Is Our Way Out feels fresh, surprising, and absolutely gorgeous. More

After a lengthy wait between albums, it's great to have Blind Pilot back and sounding so fantastic. There's an underlying melancholy to many of the songs, even when the band is crafting catchy, sweet-as-sugar indie pop choruses, that gives these easy-to-love tracks an added layer of power. Elements of Fleetwood Mac's questing, grandiose guitarwork weave into the band's sound; dreamy, layered harmonies inject an aura of romance into both Blind Pilot's more downcast and more upbeat melodies. In the Shadow of the Holy Mountain is Blind Pilot at their most sweeping, epic, and enjoyable. More

DIIV's Frog In Boiling Water is sludgy, tense, and hypnotic. The band is marinating in shoegaze here, with downbeat, hushed vocals and insistent guitars. It's one of their best, most intriguing releases to date, a listening experience that's vaguely disquieting, darkly beautiful, and emotionally gripping. A moody, melancholic new direction for the band that gets more intriguing with each spin. More

The Dwarves return with another good-spirited, goofy, and in-your-face record of high-octane punk. With seven originals, two remixes, and one track from the band's 2023 Concept Album release, Keep it Reel speeds by as the band delves into surf rock, scuzz punk, classic horror, and loopiness of every order. The melodies channel classic '70s punk while the thematic elments, you guessed it, get weirder and wilder. Keep It Reel is everything you love about The Dwarves, from tightly-constructed raucous rockers to ridiculous and imaginative lyrics. More

Triple Seven , the debut full-length from much buzzed about Indianapolis alt-rockers Wishy, is a standout. These varied, vivid tracks easily move from genre to genre, with the band pulling in elements of shoegaze, dreampop, grunge, powerpop, and even emo. Triple Seven basically sounds like a long-lost left-of-center indie darling from the '90s. This heady, hook-laden album is a nostalgia injection that's destined to delight. More

The maternal experience is the key thematic element to The Wandering Hearts' stunning new album, titled, (yes) Mother . The folk-meets-Americana melodies perfectly convey the earth-shaking change and confusion of life as a new mother. Growth isn't always easy but it is rewarding, opening up life and one's conception of self into multifaceted new directions: Mother does a wonderful job of capturing these complex moments, with all their challenges and luminosity. With their latest, the UK trio has crafted an album that's poignant, joyful, and deeply moving. There's much to connect with here, whether motherhood is an experience you relate to or not. More

Ten years on and no one's making contemporary sophistipop like TOPS. In celebration of the 10th anniversary of Picture You Staring , Arbutus Records is releasing a deluxe anniversary LP with a photo zine and party poster, on dreamy sky blue color vinyl. The melodies are swooning and deeply romantic, creating an immersive mood you'll want to get lost in. Singer Jane Penny's voice is delicate and dextrous, the perfect complement for these pastel-hued washes of sound. Picture You Staring is a special record — don't sleep on this one. More

Miracle Focus is an appropriate title for the latest from Strand of Oaks. Written with the goal of simply making people feel good, these layered, gorgeous songs do just that. The miracles in these songs are not biblical in scale or in meaning: they're the simple miracles of everyday life. An album to make you sit up and notice all the good things around you, Miracle Focus is some of Strand of Oaks' finest work and it's sorely needed in our world today. More

Stung! is one of those albums that'll remind you of the mood-altering magic of music. Pond throws all the rules out of the window, creating eclectic, dazzling tracks that hop from genre-to-genre, pulling off each with aplomb. "So Lo" channels Prince with an ultra cool funk meets rock groove. The title track hurts so good, with a danceable psychedelia-meets-'60s rock take on romantic rejection. "Neon River" is trippy and ecstatic with spacey guitars and retro electronic flourishes. Stung! is a pure delight. More

Kali Malone's All Life Long is moving and majestic, a testament to the enduring, sacred power of music. The American-born, Stockholm-based composer and organist wrote these songs for pipe organ, choir, and brass quintet over the course of three years. They're imbued with a sense of mystery and awe, melancholy and transcendence. The voices belong to the Macadam Ensemble, with conducting by Etienne Ferschaud at Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-L'Immaculée-Conception in Nantes, France. Anima Brass handles, yes, the brass. And Kali Malone and Stephen O'Malley of Sunn O))) play the historic pipe organs of Église Saint-François in Lausanne, France, Orgelpark in The Netherlands, and Malmö Konstmuseum in Sweden. All Life Long is a masterpiece. More

David Kushner announces himself as a major artistic presence with The Dichotomy . Kushner's deep, forceful voice has the atmospheric, on-edge quality of a Nick Cave or Leonard Cohen. His compositions draw on elements of gospel, gothic, folk, and alt-rock to create crooning, larger-than-life epics. Thematically, that makes sense, as Kushner's trafficking in some big, sometimes heavy stuff, including society and its lack of humanity, religious hypocrisy, and the struggle between darkness and light. The Dichotomy is the type of record that'll stick with you for long after the last notes fade out. More

Every so often, a record comes along and makes you stop in your tracks. That's the case for the wondrous, imaginative new Yannis & The Yaw album, Lagos Paris London . Vibrant, upbeat, and with a bit of an edge, this five-track EP is the result of an all-too-short yet seemingly fated collaboration between Foals singer Yannis Philippakis and the late, great Afrobeat legend Tony Allen. The pair play off each other magnificently, creating a fusion of sounds so dynamic and fresh it just feels like the sound of NOW — and that's despite the many setbacks in the creation of this collection, from scheduling issues to Covid restrictions, that started all the way back in 2016. Lagos Paris London is phenomenal. More

Hiatus Kaiyote's Love Heart Cheat Code is exuberant, inviting, and exciting. The Australian band combines neo-soul, math rock, and experimental to create songs that seem to live and breathe on their own, so imbued are they with power and a kind of dynamic, frenetic energy. The album is a soundtrack for and a tribute to deep, platonic love, the types of friendships that make life worth living yet seem so undervalued in the romance and drama-addicted storytelling of our culture. Filled with joyful anthems and unexpected sonic twists and turns, Love Heart Cheat Code will take you on an emotional journey. More

Punk legends Bad Religion take on the Trump administration with no holds barred on their newest release, Age of Unreason . Greg Gaffin's reassuringly smart and biting lyrics address immigration, fascism, paranoia and history in these hard, fast and catchy songs that stick to the band's classic sound. “Chaos From Within” highlights the band's characteristic harmonies and “My Sanity” may be sweetly melodic, but everything is sped along by the madcap drums. “Big Black Dog” stands out for its slower, more classic rock guitar and “Candidate” for its punk-ballad sound and satisfying guitar solos. More

Jazzy, a bit funky, and immediately recognizable, Vince Guaraldi's Charlie Brown releases have delighted fans for decades. In the case of It Was a Short Summer Charlie Brown , the story of the summer adventures of Charlie Brown, Peppermint Patty, Lucy, Snoopy, and the crew, it has been fifty-five years. In honor of the anniversary, Vince Guaraldi's gently swingin' soundtrack has been restored and remastered from recently rediscovered tapes. This release features twenty-six original tracks plus six previously unreleased and unheard tracks. Nostalgic, joyful, and pretty darn cool. More

Yes, you heard right. There's a new album from beloved indie pop minimalists The Softies. The Bed I Made is lilting and tender, a softly beautiful and introspective exploration of grief and rebirth. The songs are quietly powerful, a testament to love, hope, and growth through challenges. The Bed I Made is an album to treasure, one you'll want to listen to closely, again and again. This album will remind you that nobody does it quite like The Softies. More

Knowing that the title of Sofi Tukker's new album BREAD is an acronym for Be Really Energetic And Dance explains so much about this joyful, slightly off-kilter collection. The album, like its title, is a little goofy, a lot of relentlessly good times. The songs are hands-in-the-air bangers with glimpses of the group's sense of humor and joie de vivre — basically it's pretty much what the best night of your life sounds like, if the best night of your life happened in Ibiza. Turn this one up loud, get weird, and live it up. More

You'll Have to Lose Something is the experimental, exquisite new album from Spirit of the Beehive. Over the course of its runtime, the album twists and turns, morphing and reshaping itself in surprising ways. There are moments of heartbreaking beauty, moments of unsettling weirdness. This is indie rock through the looking glass, the soundtrack to a dream in the instant where it shifts from the expected into the deeply strange. Voyage with Spirit of the Beehive through this wild, wonderful territory and you'll be richly rewarded. More

Long Way Home is the cinematic new album from Ray Lamontagne. Whether he's singing languorous, lush folk numbers like the title track or tapping into '60s style soul on "Step Into Your Power," these are the type of songs that'll instantly set a mood. Long Way Home is pure listening pleasure, an eclectic and sublime collection of tracks about the road from youth to maturity and all the trials and rewards along the way. The album features The Secret Sisters on backing vocals along with the multi-talented Carl Broemel of My Morning Jacket. More