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Alabama Shakes
— I Must Be Dreaming

album

LP · 28 Aug 2026 · Island

A decade after Sound & Color, Brittany Howard's band returns with throat-shredding psychedelic soul. More grit than polish. "I Feel Hope Coming" gives you chills.

Ten years is a long time. Sound & Color came out in 2015, won Grammys, changed the band's scale — and then Brittany Howard went off to make solo records and the rest of the world was left waiting. I Must Be Dreaming, on Island, is the return: psychedelic soul recorded with little polish and plenty of grease, organ humming underneath, guitars drifting out of tune when they feel like it. Howard's voice is still an instrument off the scale — it goes from whisper to scream within the same bar and never sounds like a trick. "I Feel Hope Coming" is the emotional peak, five minutes that build without hurry; "Another Life" and "Waist Deep" show the band in groove mode, looser than ever. It's a record that only becomes whole live — which is why it matters to anyone who lives for gigs.

critics 81 · users 76

Erykah Badu & The Alchemist
— Before the World Blows

album

LP · 28 Aug 2026 · Control Freaq / Young

The collaboration people spent years asking for. Her voice over his dusty loops. Guests: Steve Lacy, Westside Gunn, DRAM. "To The Moon (Plan C)" is gold.

Expectations had been building around this meeting and, for the first time in a long while, the expectations spoiled nothing. The Alchemist does what he has always done — dirty loops, ragged samples, off-kilter drums — and Erykah Badu settles in on top like someone sitting down in a chair that was already hers. Before the World Blows is out on Control Freaq and Young and has the patience that almost everything released today lacks: the songs take their time, the choruses don't arrive when you expect them, and there are seven minutes of opening on "Echos" just preparing the ground. The guest list is discreet but spot-on — Westside Gunn and Joi on "I Just Play A Part", DRAM on "Valentine", and Steve Lacy on "To The Moon (Plan C)", the most beautiful moment on the record. Neo-soul and jazz rap in no hurry to get anywhere.

users 76

Dinosaur Jr.
— There Near

album

LP · 28 Aug 2026 · Jagjaguwar

J Mascis keeps doing exactly the same thing, and thank goodness. Endless solos, distortion bursting at the seams, melodies hidden in the noise. Original line-up intact for almost 40 years.

There are no surprises on a Dinosaur Jr. record, and that is precisely the point. J Mascis, Lou Barlow and Murph are still together — the original line-up, almost forty years on — and There Near, on Jagjaguwar, is another chapter in a discography that never needed to reinvent itself to keep making sense. Eleven songs, none over five minutes, all built the same way: a sweet melody buried under layers of distortion, Mascis's drawling voice, and the guitar solo that always arrives a little later and a little louder than would be reasonable. "Several Got Away" opens with an urgency the band hadn't shown for a few records; "Everything At Once" and "Put It Down" are among the best things they've put their name to this decade. An indie rock history lesson that isn't over yet.

critics 75 · users 77

Russian Circles
— Nine

album

LP · 28 Aug 2026 · Sargent House

Ninth record, honest title. Chicago instrumentalists on Sargent House, building post-metal cathedrals without a single sung word. "Eluvial" is eight minutes of weight and beauty.

For two decades Russian Circles have made music without lyrics and without explanations, and for two decades that has been enough. Nine is, as the name says, the Chicago trio's ninth album, once again on Sargent House, and it keeps the formula that made them one of the most respected bands in post-metal: layered guitars, bass acting as a second melody, drums commanding the whole architecture. Seven tracks, just over half an hour, and a sense of dynamics that most heavy bands never learn — here silence counts as much as volume. "Eluvial" is the centrepiece, eight minutes that rise and fall three times before deciding where to go; "Empath" and "Seventh Seal" are more direct and just as crushing. Territory for anyone who listens to Mono, Deafheaven or Godspeed — and who knows these bands are best heard in a small, dark room.

users 81

DJ Dahi
— Black Boy (Alternative)

album

LP · 28 Aug 2026 · ALTER

The producer behind half of Kendrick's discography steps out under his own name. Guests: Kendrick, Childish Gambino, Moses Sumney, Vince Staples. "How To Pray" justifies the whole record.

DJ Dahi spent a decade building other people's records — Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Vince Staples, the list is long — and Black Boy (Alternative), on ALTER, is the moment he steps out under his own name. As almost always happens when a producer makes his own record, the result is more cohesive than the guest list would suggest: alternative R&B crossed with jazz rap and psychedelic soul, more interested in texture than in choruses. And what guests — Kendrick Lamar and Amber Mark on "How To Pray", Childish Gambino on "Running", Moses Sumney on "Find Me", Vince Staples and Channel Tres opening the record, Ravyn Lenae and Elmiene closing it. "How To Pray" is the peak and is worth the listen on its own. A record that proves, once again, that producers tend to make the best auteur records.

users 74

Jim James
— Wowed Out

album

LP · 28 Aug 2026 · ATO

The My Morning Jacket frontman goes solo, on ATO. Art pop and neo-psychedelia, falsetto floating over everything. "Home (Green)" is almost eight minutes of drift. A late-afternoon record.

Jim James is best known as the voice and guitar of My Morning Jacket, but the records he makes on his own are something else — less band, more studio, more room to get lost. Wowed Out is out on ATO and lives somewhere between art pop and neo-psychedelia: warm synths, guitars processed until they've almost stopped being guitars, and that falsetto he uses as if it were an instrument in its own right. There are ten songs and most stay under four minutes, which gives the record a strangely light pace for something so dreamy. The exception is "Home (Green)", almost eight minutes of drift that act as the centre of gravity for everything else. "Baby Dear" opens with a disarming sweetness and "Rewind It" is the poppiest moment. A late-afternoon record, in the best possible sense.

critics 76

Mike D
— Thank You

album

LP · 28 Aug 2026 · Fontana / Capitol

The Beastie Boy makes a record on his own: experimental hip-hop crossed with neo-psychedelia, produced by Carter Lang. Thirteen short tracks, humour intact, nothing to prove.

Thirty-odd years after Check Your Head, Mike D does something he had never done: a whole record under his own name. Thank You, on Fontana/Capitol, doesn't try to rebuild the Beastie Boys or pretend time hasn't passed — it's experimental hip-hop shot through with neo-psychedelia, produced by Carter Lang (the name behind much of SZA's sound) and with a lightness that only someone who no longer needs to impress anyone can have. Thirteen short tracks, almost all under three and a half minutes, with the humour and the sense of collage that were always the house trademark. "Switch Up" opens in direct mode, "Here We Are" and "True Colors" show the more melancholy side, and "Secrets" splits into two parts that work as an interlude. Critics liked it more than the public did — usually the sign of a record of details, one to hear more than once.

critics 72 · users 64

The Linda Lindas
— GOTTA GET OUT

album

LP · 28 Aug 2026 · Reprise · prod. Carlos de la Garza

Los Angeles punk, now on Reprise with Carlos de la Garza producing. Hayley Williams joins on "Closer". Short riffs, shouted choruses, zero fat.

The Linda Lindas started as a viral video in a Los Angeles library and turned, record by record, into one of the sharpest punk bands of their generation. GOTTA GET OUT is their first album on Reprise, produced by Carlos de la Garza (Paramore, Bad Religion), and it is also their most ambitious: twelve songs that are still short and direct but now know when to slow down. There's riot grrrl, there's pop punk, there's Spanish mixed with English on "Helado de Limón" — a detail that says a lot about who they are. "Closer" has Hayley Williams as a guest and is the most immediate moment on the record; "Everybody Told Me" closes with almost five minutes, the closest they've ever come to a ballad. Shouted choruses, zero fat, and an energy you feel as soon as you picture them on stage.

users 72