There is something deeply stupid about buying a record months before you can hear the whole thing, especially when the album will be streaming at midnight the day it comes out. And yet, every few months, I look at my preorder receipts and realize, oops, I did it again.
Some are easy calls from artists I trust. Others are based on one killer single, a promising left turn, or the FOMO belief that I’ll regret not grabbing the good pressing while I had the chance.
So here we go again: 13 records coming this fall that I’ve already committed to owning, based on varying amounts of evidence and common sense.
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August 21
Wild Pink - Still Coming Down
Get Vinyl: Morning Haze (Signed)
Every Friday in The Weekender, I reserve the first spot for my favorite new release of the day, and this week’s will almost certainly belong to Wild Pink’s sixth album, Still Coming Down. Nearly half the record is already out, and the singles are bangers, people, especially “Round of Applause At The End of the World,” with its wonderfully paranoid and weirdly yearning lyrics.
John Ross remains one of the best lyricists in indie music, and after Dulling the Horns pushed Wild Pink to another level, he’s surrounded himself with greatness here: basically the entire MJ Lenderman/Wednesday cinematic universe, with Xandy Chelmis on pedal steel, Landon George on fiddle, and Lenderman on guitar, plus Meg Duffy of Hand Habits. They recorded it all at Asheville’s Drop of Sun Studios with Wax Museum Hall of Famer Alex Farrar.
August 28
Interpol – This Mirror Weighs a Ton
Get Vinyl: Red | White | Spanish
I may have been too quick to put Interpol in the same basket as Bloc Party, two bands that came out swinging and then spent a long time making subpar records. Bloc Party’s singles from their upcoming Anatomy of a Brief Romance are so bad I’m starting to wonder if they should just cancel the album. Interpol, meanwhile, have gone the opposite direction: every single from This Mirror Weighs a Ton kills so hard that I bought the record blind. Here’s hoping they have another great one in them.
Velocity Girl – 1989–1992
Get Vinyl: Creamsicle
I’m a sucker for a good “before they were officially them” compilation, and 1989–1992 collects Velocity Girl’s pre-Sub Pop years, when they were figuring out their huge pop hooks, fuzzy guitars, and lovelorn melancholy. You get early singles, unreleased songs, covers, and forgotten favorite “Forgotten Favorite,” all newly remastered.
September 11
This Is Lorelei – The Singer in My Band
Get Vinyl: Dinked | Sky Marble | Bone White | Lime Green
Nate Amos has been on an absurd run lately, between This Is Lorelei, Water From Your Eyes, and having everyone from Hayley Williams to Jeff Tweedy covering his songs. The Singer in My Band is his Matador debut, and he made almost the entire thing himself, with a few family cameos, including his dad ripping a banjo solo on the title track. Very excited to hear this for the first time when the needle drops.
September 18
Perennial – Modernism
Get Vinyl: Pink
You pretty much know what you’re getting with Connecticut trio Perennial. All their songs kind of sound alike. This is a compliment, because their brand of garage rock, dance punk, organ stabs, feedback, and 90-second adrenaline rushes absolutely kicks ass. Modernism gives you 10 more of them in about 20 minutes. Love this band.
September 25
Wishy – Nature’s Pill
Get Vinyl: Painter’s Palette | Black Ice with White Cornetto | Devils Blush Pink
Indianapolis rockers Wishy arrived on the scene fully formed with their 2024 debut Triple Seven. Kevin Krauter and Nina Pitchkites trade vocals and songwriting over shimmery, ’90s-inspired guitars, making catchy power pop without sanding off the edges. Nature’s Pill feels like the inevitable breakout record, and I think a lot more people are about to find out how good this band is.
October 9
Cameron Winter - Live at Carnegie Hall
Get Vinyl: Red | Black
Hot off the presses, announced yesterday: Geese frontman Cameron Winter’s December 2025 Carnegie Hall show is officially coming to vinyl, complete with an instantly iconic gatefold of Winter smooching with Andrew Carnegie.
At just 23, Winter became one of the youngest artists to ever headline the 135-year-old venue, playing alone at a piano with his back to the audience, performing cuts from his solo debut Heavy Metal, as well as debuting three unreleased songs.
Paul Thomas Anderson and Benny Safdie were there filming the whole thing, and we still have no idea if that footage will ever see daylight. Until then, I will happily settle for the record.
October 16
The Avalanches – No Bad Memories
Get Vinyl: RGB (Signed Print) | Yellow
First things first, the album art is bad. I know you shouldn’t judge by covers, but this gave me pause. But The Avalanches are a perfect three-for-three on albums, spanning three decades, so I can’t doubt them now. There are supposedly 31 tracks on this beast, and we can expect plenty of special guests: so far Jamie xx, Karen O, and Jessy Lanza. Stoked!
Fontaines D.C. - Dopamine Chamber
Get Vinyl: Pink | Blue | 45 RPM 2 LP | Black | Alt Cover
Speaking of bad album art, Fontaines D.C. continue their streak of awful covers, but it’s what’s inside that counts, and Romance was one of the best albums of the decade. The bio for Dopamine Chamber promises their “most radical shift yet,” moving away from the guitar language of their previous records, which sounds like we may be getting a synth-pop Fontaines album. Risky move, but first single “Marianne” rips, so why not?
The Mars Volta – Lucro Sucio; Unfinished Business
Get Vinyl: Red
I’ve been adamant here that the critics got Lucro Sucio wrong, and I’ve likened it to the album I wanted Tame Impala’s Deadbeat to sound like. So I love that The Mars Volta are going back to it, critics be damned.
Unfinished Business reworks the album through much heavier, more expansive live versions, with fans voting on everything from which performances made the cut to the cover art. These songs are built for louder, longer, and weirder in a live setting.
October 23
The Olivia Tremor Control – The Same Place
Get Vinyl: Ocean Blue
Last month marked the 30th anniversary of Dusk at Cubist Castle (Aquarium Drunkard published a great oral history for the occasion), which makes it even stranger that we’re just months away from a brand new Olivia Tremor Control album. The Same Place is their third and final double album, 27 tracks assembled from recordings made before the deaths of Bill Doss and W. Cullen Hart, and reportedly nearly 20 years in the making. After this long, there was never going to be much deliberation here. Instant buy.
Water Damage - Repair
Get Vinyl: Black
The tough-to-Google Water Damage remain one of the bands I most need to see live. Repair is four songs, each around 20 minutes and taking up an entire side of vinyl, built around the band’s “Maximal Repetition Minimal Deviation” approach. They also insist on at least two drummers and two bassists, with each song limited to a single reel of tape, which is why the tracks here are simply named “Reel 38,” “Reel 41,” “Reel 43,” and “Reel 45.” Only one is streaming ahead of the October 23 release, but buying the album unlocks the whole thing digitally right now. I will be ignoring that convenience and stubbornly waiting for the wax.
October 30
Nouvelle Vague - A Date with Depeche Mode
Get Vinyl: Black
Nouvelle Vague have spent more than 20 years turning post-punk and new wave classics into breezy bossa nova, and they now have Depeche Mode in their sights. A Date with Depeche Mode takes on 13 songs with a rotating cast of mostly female vocalists. Give “Enjoy the Silence” a listen. The song has been covered damn near 300 times, but Nouvelle Vague’s smoky lounge treatment still manages to make it feel like their own.
That’s my fall damage so far. If I missed something that belongs on the blind-buy list (right now I’m debating the upcoming M83), drop it in the comments. Otherwise, I’ll be back tomorrow with a new edition of The Weekender for paid subscribers.
See you tomorrow,
Jared
Right there with you on Wishy! Love Sick is a monster! Wilt is on that list too (see "Dent"), along with Sour Widows ("Blood in the Grass" portends a major step up for them), ditto Fenne Lily with "Uh Huh", plus The Buoys, Death Valley Girls, and The Buttons. Also, god bless the geezers in Sugar, Teenage Fanclub, and Dinosaur Jr (all in their 60s!) whose advance singles have their upcoming albums on my automatic buy list.
Can't wait for that Velocity Girl record to drop!
Also: More people need to know about Water Damage.