Welcome inside The Wax Museum. My frequently updated Album of the Year Leaderboard just passed 100 entries, which feels like a good excuse to take stock and pull a few favorites from the growing pile.
Album of the Year Leaderboard
Stream: Spotify | Apple Music
From those 100-plus records, I want to highlight 11 newer arrivals that have their hooks in me and stayed in heavy rotation. A little dreamy, a little gnarly, a little left-field, and more than a few that I expect to still be thinking about at year’s end.
And if that isn’t enough, there are more record-mendations coming tomorrow. Paid subscribers get a new edition of The Weekender every Friday, my grab bag of albums, movies, shows, books, and longreads worth carrying into the weekend.
Basically, I spend all week digging around for good shit so you don’t have to.
Alabama Shakes - I Must Be Dreaming
Stream: Spotify | Apple Music
Get Vinyl: Sky Blue (Signed) | Daydream Yellow
Genre: Psychedelic Soul
I think people forgot just how good Alabama Shakes are, and Brittany Howard and crew are back to remind us. Their first album in 11 years is a sprawling, groovy protest record that sounds like a band with plenty left to say. Instant classic to these ears.
The penultimate track, “American Dream,” which appears in my latest PATIO GROOVES mix, is about as close to a modern-day “What’s Going On?” as it gets.
Peep their release-day set from Surly Brewing Co. below, then grab the record while you can. Signed covers are somehow still in stock.
Nu Genea - People of the Moon
Stream: Bandcamp
Get Vinyl: Black
Genre: Nu-Disco
I recently did a deep dive on this duo’s discography (say that five times fast), and it turned into one of the best listening days I’ve had in a while. Nu Genea make breezy dance music that pulls from Mediterranean pop, Afro-Cuban grooves, disco, and funk, and People of the Moon might be their most immediately lovable record yet. Tom Misch, Fabiana Martone, Celinatique, and a small army of guests drift through songs built for open windows, cold drinks, and moving around a little. Instant mood enhancer.
Georgia Gets By - Heavy Meadow
Stream: Spotify | Apple Music
Get Vinyl: Black
Genre: Chamber Folk
Georgia Gets By is the solo project of New Zealand songwriter Georgia Nott, best known as one half of BROODS. Where that band leans toward sleek dance-pop, Heavy Meadow heads in the opposite direction: warm, stripped-back ’70s folk that brings Linda Perhacs to mind.
Nott recorded the album live in just three days, mostly stripping things down to guitar, voice, and a few carefully placed arrangements. This is beautiful stuff; the middle of the order of “Faded Rose” → “Won’t Stop Loving You” → “Dream For You” is one of the best stretches of music I’ve heard all year.
Angela Autumn - Believer
Stream: Bandcamp
Get Vinyl: Eco-Blue (SIGNED) | Violet
Genre: Acid Folk
Angela Autumn takes old Appalachian bones and runs them through a psychedelic haze on sophomore record Believer, pairing clawhammer banjo and mountain-folk melodies with reverb, distorted guitars, and plenty of odd little grooves. Her voice will remind you of Adrianne Lenker, but the music has a little more sway to it, sultrier and more rhythmic than you’d expect from something rooted in Appalachian folk. Good luck getting “Mountain Stream” out of your head once that melody settles in.
Maxime Denuc - Club Imperiale
Stream: Bandcamp
Get Vinyl: Black
Genre: Experimental Electronic
Here’s what happens when you smash one of music’s oldest technologies into one of its newer forms: an automated church pipe organ playing techno and trance.
French composer Maxime Denuc built Club Imperiale using a MIDI-controlled pipe organ inside Düsseldorf’s St. Antonius Church, programming dense, rapid-fire patterns as he imagines an alternate timeline where the Catholic church and ‘90s dancefloors found common ground. The result sounds like a rave got booked inside a cathedral: huge, physical, hypnotic, and a fascinating piece of art.
Bondo - Bondo
Stream: Bandcamp
Get Vinyl: Black
Genre: Slowcore
Paid subscribers were hip to this one first, but it’s too good to keep behind the velvet rope. L.A. quartet Bondo sits somewhere between slowcore, post-rock, and stoner rock, with knotty guitars, heavy low-end, and songs that can move from hushed and skeletal to blown-out and noisy.
The band describes its process as egoless, with songs built collectively and shaped by whatever feels right in the room, and that looseness comes through all over the record. Throw on “Zuma” and wait for that beautiful wall of sound to hit. Oh baby, that’s the good stuff.
Chanel Beads - Your Day Will Come
Stream: Bandcamp
Get Vinyl: Pink
Genre: Hypnagogic Pop
Yes, Chanel Beads gave their second album the exact same title as their first. Your Day Will Come 2: Full Throttle: Charlie’s Angels 2.
The name stayed put, but everything else is bigger and stranger. Shane Lavers stretches the project’s woozy hypnagogic pop across 14 songs, piling looping melodies, strings, blown-out guitars, and ghostly vocals into music that constantly knocks you off balance. Think The Cure and Alex G beamed through some busted late-night transmission. It’s both ethereal and unsettling, forward-thinking without losing that trance-like pull.
Bonus Jonas Record-Mendation: Chanel Beads co-vocalist Maya McGrory released her own debut under the name Colle in 2024. Montalvo is a dreamy, druggy little trip-hop-meets-shoegaze joint that pairs nicely with this one.
Trooper Salute - 友達がいました [Tomodachi ga imashita]
Stream: Spotify | Apple Music
Get Vinyl: Black
Genre: Japanese Indie Pop
In a year full of great debuts, this one is near the top. Tomodachi ga imashita, which translates to I Had a Friend, is my introduction to Nagoya’s Trooper Salute, a five-piece blending symphonic rock, indie pop, and math-rock intricacy into something genuinely beautiful. I especially love the contrast between Hayato Komiya and Musashi’s vocals. Watch the live performance of “Zetsusen” and “Rachi” below and you’ll get it. Absolutely gorgeous stuff, and Trooper Salute just landed firmly on my bands-I-need-to-see list.
Lily Seabird - Lightspheres on Their Way
Stream: Bandcamp
Get Vinyl: Crimson Moon | Gold
Genre: Folk Rock
Vermont songwriter Lily Seabird’s third album lands somewhere between the ragged emotional blowouts of Wednesday and the steadier demeanor of Ratboys, with plenty of quieter folk moments in between. “Election Day” is one of my favorite rock songs of the year, with its grungy guitars and cracked-open vocals, while the closing title track takes the opposite route, simmering patiently before erupting into a thunderous final stretch.
Lightspheres on Their Way is easily one of my favorites of 2026. It won’t hit streaming for another few weeks, but the vinyl is already shipping if you needed an excuse to yoink this one.
Station Model Violence - Station Model Violence
Stream: Bandcamp
Get Vinyl: Black
Genre: Australian Post-Punk
Station Model Violence’s self-titled debut pulls from the more adventurous end of ’80s post-punk, where New Wave, Krautrock, psychedelia, and art-punk all started bleeding into each other. There are chiming guitars, motorik rhythms, synths, saxophone, and plenty of dark atmosphere, but this thing moves. “Heat” is the centerpiece, an eight-minute epic built on a hypnotic groove that keeps tightening its grip the longer it runs. Think Psychedelic Furs with Joy Division basslines and a Neu! pulse underneath. In the band’s own words, this is “a dense beast,” but a ridiculously propulsive one.
Idle Country - Long Gone Saviors
Stream: Bandcamp
Get Vinyl: N/A
Genre: Alt-Country
North Carolina stays winning in this newsletter.
Idle Country is a new Asheville outfit featuring members of i26connector and Tombstone Poetry, and Long Gone Saviors sounds like it could have been pulled straight from the original alt-country boom in the ‘90s. Of all the bands coming out of North Carolina’s current scene, these guys wear the Drive-By Truckers influence most proudly. The record has that sweaty, live-room energy that makes you want to hear the songs played in a bar at midnight.
The opener, “Wilson Watts Dr.,” kicks the door in nicely, but they save the best for last. The title track starts as an end-of-the-night singalong, wanders toward post-rock, then comes roaring back for one last round. It also closes out the latest PATIO GROOVES mix on a high note too.
Need this one on vinyl STAT.
That’s 11 more for the pile, and somehow the Album of the Year Leaderboard is already north of 100 records. Plenty of year left too.
As always, tell me what I’m missing. Drop your favorite recent discovery in the comments so I can make this problem even worse.
And I’ll be back tomorrow with The Weekender for paid subscribers, including my favorite release of the week and everything else I’ve been enjoying.
See you tomorrow,
Jared
Mildred & Thomas Dollbaum are neck and neck for my AOTY so far
Love Nu Genea so much!! They’re fun live, too. Had a huge band with them! Have you checked out the Napoli Segreta compilations from their label? So incredible.