If you’re only just now joining us: this is part two of my list of my favorite forty albums/EPs of 2026 thus far, presented in alphabetical order by artist name. Thanks for reading!
View part one of the list here.
Here are links to stream a playlist of these selections via Spotify and Tidal (Bandcamp links are provided below for all records).
Loto – _____
Release date: April 17th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Art rock, soft rock, chamber pop, indie pop
Formats: Digital
On the latest album from their project Loto, Montreal musician Lautaro Akira Martinez-Satoh and a rotating cast of musical guests throw themselves headfirst into art pop, chamber pop, and soft rock, bravely looking beyond “Bandcamp experimentalism” to “60s/70s studio-pop wizardry” for inspiration. The six-song album labeled “_____” (officially speaking, it’s untitled) only has two more songs than Loto’s 2024 A Year in Review EP, but the sprawling thirty-six minute record is a much grander-feeling affair. (Read more)
Miserable chillers – Innocent Victims
Release date: April 3rd
Record label: Baby Blue
Genre: Soft rock, indie pop, art pop, sophisti-pop, singer-songwriter
Formats: CD, digital
On the first proper song-based Miserable chillers album since 2020, Miguel Gallego continues to mine soft rock, art pop, and 60s/70s studio-auteur-type music for inspiration, and his referencing of Paul Simon, Judee Sill, and Burt Bacharach checks out (it goes well with the album that happened to land just above it on this list!). Innocent Victims is a more muted, pensive version of it than previous Miserable chillers records, though, a feeling inseparable from the tragedy and personal loss behind its creation. Innocent Victims took shape slowly over the next five years, finally presented to us here as a forty-five-minute, thirteen-track package that gives an ironic twinge to the term “easy listening”. (Read more)
Missed Dunks at Summer League – Fared Well
Release date: March 13th
Record label: Machine Duplication
Genre: 90s indie rock, lo-fi indie rock, fuzz rock
Formats: Cassette, digital
Jordan Petersen-Kamp began Missed Dunks at Summer League not long after landing in Memphis from Grand Rapids, Michigan, and his debut album under the name, Fared Well, is largely a solo effort. Compared to the garage punk bands around them in their adopted hometown, Missed Dunks at Summer League’s influences are a bit more…esoteric? The dominant sound of Fared Well is greyscale, chilly, introverted 90s indie rock–their label, Machine Duplication, mentions Built to Spill and the Mountain Goats as ingredients, though they don’t particularly sound like either one of those acts. (Read more)
Morningstar – Juvenalia
Release date: February 23rd
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Alt-country, 90s indie rock, Crazy Horse stuff, folk rock, garage rock
Formats: Digital
Morningstar are a Maine-based group whose debut album was recorded last February at Prism Analog by Joni Elfers, who compared Juvenalia’s sound to Neil Young and post-punk. I don’t take any issue with that, although it doesn’t quite do justice to this massive eight-song, fifty-four minute rock journey. Morningstar have absolutely inherited a disregard for punctuality from Crazy Horse, both in terms of song length and in tempo. There are a few indie rock bands Juvenalia reminds me of from time to time–Silkworm, Lungfish, and, of course Magnolia Electric Co.–although Morningstar’s sprawling, messy, occasionally rootsy electric sound isn’t overly indebted to anyone in particular. (Read more)
The Most Distant Object – Volition
Release date: May 4th
Record label: Landland Colportage
Genre: Indie pop, art rock, post-punk, synthpop, post-rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital
The Most Distant Object are a Chicago trio founded by a couple of Windy City indie rock veterans in C-Clamp’s Tom Fitzgerald and Dianogah’s Jason Harvey during the pandemic, and joined by C-Clamp drummer Frantz Etienne sometime after their 2022 debut album. Volition, the band’s second LP, is a sublime and intriguing collection of electronic-tinged rock music (“Post-punk atmosphere and melodic precision. Synthesizers and bass and the space between notes,” writes Landland Colportage, their current label). There’s “Chicago post-rock” in Volition’s DNA, but most of Volition is pop music at its core.
Peaer – Doppelgänger
Release date: January 16th
Record label: Danger Collective
Genre: Math rock, indie pop, 90s indie rock, slowcore
Formats: Digital
The SUNY Purchase-originating trio Peaer were one of the great indie rock bands to emerge from the American Northeast in the mid-2010s (fitting right in with the “Exploding in Sound math rock sound” heyday), and though they spent the first half of this decade in relative silence, they continued work on a third proper Peaer album, finally arriving at the beginning of 2026 as Doppelgänger. For a band who hadn’t been afraid to get pretty noisy in the past, Doppelgänger represents a clear shift into more “refined”, “restrained”, “reserved” and other such “re”-word-territory. (Read more)
PONY – Clearly Cursed
Release date: February 13th
Record label: Take This to Heart
Genre: Indie pop, power pop, pop punk, grunge-pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital
It’s been a little under two years since Toronto group PONY released Velveteen, which I called a “monster of a pop album” with the hooks to back up its 90s-alt-pop-rock worship. On Clearly Cursed, the band’s founding duo of vocalist Sam Bielanski and guitarist Matty Morand (aka Pretty Matty) are joined by bassist Christian Beale and drummer Joey Ginaldi, though the alternatively dreamy and grungy power pop that’s resulted is in lockstep with PONY’s previous output. Perhaps the extra help is what pushed Clearly Cursed into some of PONY’s best territory, maybe it’s something Bielanski and Morand have been working towards for some time, but it’s a strong whirlwind nonetheless.
The Pretty Flowers – Never Felt Bitter
Release date: March 27th
Record label: Forge Again
Genre: Power pop, college rock, heartland rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital
Never Felt Bitter, The Pretty Flowers’ third full-length and first for Forge Again Records, finds the southern California power pop group back in their Paul Westerberg- and Lemonheads-influenced element. Bandleader Noah Green writes that he was inspired by moving out of Los Angeles to the more spacious and quiet town of Sierra Madre, but Never Felt Bitter doesn’t abandon what The Pretty Flowers started in the city–it’s just more. The sprawling, fifty-minute Never Felt Bitter is “larger” for The Pretty Flowers in a strictly literal sense, but the songs really do feel like they are able to take up more space and stretch out more than the band had done so previously. (Read more)
Prism Shores – Softest Attack
Release date: April 10th
Record label: Meritorio/Having Fun
Genre: Power pop, jangle pop, fuzz pop, college rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital
With last year’s Out from Underneath, Prism Shores revealed themselves as strong practitioners of fuzz-drenched indie pop and college rock, claiming a spot for themselves at a Montreal guitar pop table that’s been impressively crowded as of late. Their latest album, Softest Attack, is a classic leveling-up moment, taking the spirited energy of their last LP and marrying it with larger, more confident hooks and a studio polish designed to accentuate them. Softest Attack is once again stuffed with C86 and Flying Nun-influenced power pop and “fuzz pop” and contains no shortage of top-notch examples of the form. (Read more)
Remember Sports – The Refrigerator
Release date: February 13th
Record label: Get Better
Genre: Pop punk, power pop, alt-alt-country
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital
Remember Sports have been in Philadelphia for nearly a decade now, and their members are solidly enmeshed in the city’s indie rock scene. The Refrigerator is the album where the quartet confirm that the power pop and alt-country regularly being exported from Philly (and which has always been in Remember Sports’ sound to some degree) really is intertwined in their own music, too. Remember Sports’ approachability, for lack of a better word, sets them apart from other long-running indie rock bands: they’re just four people who happen to make perfect albums. Sometimes sounding just like their last LP, Like a Stone, sometimes getting noticeably “weird”, The Refrigerator is what you want a great band to make in their second decade as a unit. (Read more)
Sacred Heart Academy – Oh Good! Sacred Heart Academy Made an EP
Release date: March 17th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Power pop, indie pop, bedroom pop, folk rock, lo-fi pop
Formats: CD, digital
Eilee and Evren Centeno are a sibling duo from North Carolina who’ve appeared on the blog before thanks to the record label they co-run, Trash Tape Records. Lately, both of them have moved from Chapel Hill to Chicago and started making music together as Sacred Heart Academy. Oh Good! Sacred Heart Academy Made an EP is an instantly likeable six-song introduction to their new project, establishing the Centenos as compelling bandleaders: Evren is the “slacker”-adjacent alt-country/folk rocker, and they’re countered nicely by a more openly expressive/heart-on-sleeve performance from Eilee. (Read more)
Micah Schnabel and Vanessa Jean Speckman – The Great Degradation
Release date: March 11th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Country punk, cowpunk, alt-country, singer-songwriter, Americana
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Two Cow Garage co-leader and central Ohio cowpunk poet laureate Micah Schnabel is about two years removed from The Clown Watches the Clock, a smart, catchy, and funny opus of Midwestern desperation, poverty, and general ambience that stands as one of the long-running musician’s best works. The cult alt-country lifer is back with a record called The Great Degradation, made with his partner, poet and musician Vanessa Jean Speckman, and partially spurred on by the two of them getting priced out of their Columbus apartment. They assembled a group who bashed out The Great Degradation over “2.5 days in two separate basements in Columbus”, and the result is an ornery, more laser-focused sequel to Schnabel’s last LP. (Read more)
The Sleeves – The Sleeves
Release date: May 8th
Record label: 12XU
Genre: Post-rock, slowcore, folk
Formats: Vinyl, digital
London musician Jack Cooper has spent the better part of the last decade leading Modern Nature, a group who’ve explored post-rock, psychedelic folk, and chamber music over the course of several LPs. On their most recent album, last year’s The Heat Warps, Modern Nature became a quartet with new member Tara Cunningham joining Cooper on guitar, and now the two of them are The Sleeves. The Sleeves’ self-titled debut album is, loosely speaking, a song-based folk album; Cunningham and Cooper both sing and play guitar, and these songs thrive in a glacial, stark, wide-open emptiness. (Read more)
Sluice – Companion
Release date: March 27th
Record label: Mtn Laurel Recording Co.
Genre: Alt-country, folk rock, singer-songwriter
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
It’s hard for me not to compare North Carolina’s Sluice to the Asheville alt-country group Fust, as there’s nearly complete overlap in the two group’s members. Fust seized the little “moment” that their scene is having last year with a polished, vibrant, immediately-grabbing country rock album called Big Ugly–Sluice’s Companion is, conversely, a different beast. It’s a more challenging, wide-ranging “folk rock” album, with plenty of accessible moments and just as many I would hardly describe as such. Nonetheless, I’ve sat with Companion long enough to view it as a moment-seizing record in its own right, too. (Read more)
Star Moles – Highway to Hell
Release date: February 26th
Record label: Historic New Jersey
Genre: Singer-songwriter, folk rock, piano pop
Formats: Digital
Star Moles is Emily Moales, a prolific Philadelphia-based singer-songwriter who’s been putting out music under the name since 2017 and as of late has been averaging at least one record per year. Moales has described Star Moles’ music as “medieval-via-1960s folk-troubadour” before, and that’s not far off from the offbeat, transcendent, marching-to-the-beat-of-her-own-drum singer-songwriter I hear on Highway to Hell. It’s a well-executed and disciplined album, but the vision that Moales and producer Kevin Basko have in mind with these songs is something beautiful in a more challenging way than most “indie folk”. (Read more)
Status/Non Status – Big Changes
Release date: March 6th
Record label: You’ve Changed
Genre: Fuzz rock, shoegaze, 90s indie rock, art rock, psychedelia, folk rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Anishinaabe indie rocker Adam Sturgeon exploded onto the scene in 2021 with an EP called 1, 2, 3, 4, 500 Years that introduced his Status/Non Status project. Over the next three years, another Status/Non Status EP, an LP, and two albums from OMBIIGIZI (Sturgeon’s duo with Zoon’s Daniel Monkman) followed, and the chaotic, all-over-the-place energy of 1, 2, 3, 4, 500 Years began to congeal into a recognizable sound combining 90s indie and alt-rock, psychedelia, and folk. Big Changes is nonetheless the first Status/Non Status album since 2022, and Sturgeon takes the opportunity to make an overwhelming, emotional Canadian rock album. (Read more)
Timeout Room – Celebration Station
Release date: February 20th
Record label: Tough Gum
Genre: Garage rock, lo-fi pop, pop punk, power pop
Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital
Pull Track: Night Eye
Timeout Room LP2, Celebration Station, is a fantastically frayed collection of jangle pop, power pop, and garage punk that meets the high bar set by the Baton Rouge, Louisiana project’s 2023 debut album, Tight-Ass Goku Pictures. S.T. McCrary gets some more help this time around and some of the more overtly silly aspects of their debut are absent, leading to a tighter, more rocking collection of tracks that is nonetheless still very fun. After the excitement of Tight-Ass Goku Pictures, Celebration Station feels like Timeout Room settling down just a little bit and confirming that they’ve got more up their sleeves yet. (Read more)
Touch Girl Apple Blossom – Graceful
Release date: May 15th
Record label: K/Perennial
Genre: Jangle pop, indie pop, twee
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
A couple of years ago, an indie pop quartet from Austin called Touch Girl Apple Blossom started gaining some buzz on the strength of their debut record; perhaps it was due to that EP or perhaps due to Beat Happening reference in their name, but K Records (alongside their sibling label Perennial) then signed the band to put out their debut LP, Graceful. I’ve long since given up on trying to guess whether or not any given act will “get big”, but those who do check Touch Girl Apple Blossom out will find a confident, infectious, and more-than-ready-for-primetime collection of indie pop songs. (Read more)
True Green – Hail Disaster
Release date: March 24th
Record label: Spacecase
Genre: Lo-fi pop, singer-songwriter, lo-fi indie rock, folk rock, dream pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital
One of my favorite albums of 2024 was My Lost Decade, the debut LP from Minneapolis musician and novelist Dan Hornsby’s project True Green. My Lost Decade was an inspired combination of Hornsby’s sharp storytelling with Beatles-esque kitchen-sink lo-fi pop cooked up by Hornsby and multi-instrumentalist Tailer Ransom. The quieter, more pensive side of True Green displayed in last year’s singles “Consider the Priesthood” and “Falconry” turned out to be an apt preview of the band’s second album; not everything on Hail Disaster is such a clear turn into sparse, spacey folk-rock, but there’s a subdued, adrift nature throughout the entire album spurred by both Hornsby’s delivery and True Green’s musical choices. (Read more)
Vesuvian – Vesuvian
Release date: May 29th
Record label: Worry Bead
Genre: Punk rock, noise rock, garage rock, post-hardcore, 90s indie rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital
I first heard the Philadelphia group Vesuvian thanks to a song on a Gaza benefit compilation, which led me to their 2023 debut album, More Treble. At the time, they were more or less a Joey DeGrado solo project, and the name of their game was fuzzy, lo-fi alt-country. Now a solid quartet, Vesuvian appear to have completely reinvented themselves on their self-titled sophomore album: there’s still a slight twang, but Vesuvian is a mesmerizing mixture of riff-forward classic rock as filtered through abrasive underground indie/noise rock and lyrics preoccupied with mythology, history, and other esoteric subjects that sound particularly gripping coming from DeGrado’s deadpan, almost Albini-esque mouth. Vesuvian’s hard-left turn makes it less likely that this band will become the toast of Philadelphia anytime soon, but it’s resulted in their best work yet.
Rosy Overdrive 