New Releases & Staff Picks - 8/21/26

STAFF PICKS  
DARIO - Julia Holter 
ASH - Nas reissue
JAKE -  Yhwh Nailgun
KIMBER - Yhwh Nailgun
MARY - Swami John Reis and Jimmy Smith reissue
ZACH - Elanor Moss and Heathen Axe  
DREW - Heathen Axe and Swell Maps 
PAT- DJ Plead and Swell Maps 

WEEZER - Weezer “The Gold Album”  CD/LP/Cass (Reprise)  
The new Weezer album - Weezer - is hands down the band's most collaborative. They all took turns contributing songs; they all took turns writing ON songs together. Produced by Kenneth Blume and Klas Ahlund, Weezer is already shaping up to be another standout in the band's incredible, timeless catalog. 

BLACK MARBLE - Life In Small Spaces CD/LP (Sacred Bones)  
Black Marble hummed to life in the fall of 2012, switched on by the early aughts New York City synthwave revival. Today, fourteen years on and seven releases later, Chris Stewart continues to make records hunched over machines that warm to the touch when turned on and need to be coaxed to stay in tune. His albums, written, recorded, and delivered solely by Stewart, remain singular visions, with songs that seek to convey a diffuse pastiche, now shaped by a desire to wrap the whole thing in a message that speaks to where he's been and where he wants to go. His latest vision, Life in Small Spaces, sees Stewart comment on the music industry and his role within it, reflecting on how underground music has changed over time, and how a blueprint for keeping things simple and being true to oneself is the only ideal for living in this complicated landscape.

WILD PINK - Still Coming Down CD/LP (Fire Talk Records)  
Still Coming Down is Wild Pink's sixth studio album, and their most refined offering to-date. Continuing along the shredded and steely path forged by 2024's Dulling The Horns - named one of the year's best albums by Vogue, Consequence, Paste and more - Still Coming Down doubles down on Wild Pink's proper Rock (Stereogum, Best Albums of 2024) and sticks every landing. Dulling The Horns saw Wild Pink reach new levels of critical acclaim and live success, performing alongside the likes of indie torchbearers Dr. Dog, Crumb, and MJ Lenderman (who lends his guitar skills on Still Coming Down). Still Coming Down finishes out the ride of those highs, settling into a life on the road and reflecting these experiences across a warped and encyclopedic vision of America. Led by John Ross, one of the best lyricists in indie music (The Guardian), Wild Pink hunkered down in Asheville's storied Drop of Sun Studios to record Still Coming Down with virtuosic producer Alex Farrar (Bnny, Wednesday, Samia).

YHWH NAILGUN - Magazine CD/LP (4AD)  
Yhwh Nailgun's Magazine is an eleven-minute blast of raw, unrelenting intensity. Ten songs capture what the band describes as quick bursts of brilliance pulled from improvisation and instinct. Stripping back the abstraction of their acclaimed debut 45 Pounds, the New York four-piece sharpen their sound into something skeletal, visceral, and eerily direct, balancing chaos with instinctive precision. Magazine captures the band at their most immediate, fleeting bursts of noise, tension, and dark spiritual imagery that hit like a transmission from another realm. This is a band so instinctive and expressive that it's greatness lies not just in what's happening on the record, but in what could possibly happen next. - Pitchfork

BRANDON FLOWERS - Thrasher CD/LP (Island)  
Brandon Flowers will release Thrasher, his first solo album in over a decade, August 21, 2026 via Island Records. Recorded in Nashville at Historic RCA Studio A with longtime producers Shawn Everett and Jonathan Rado, Thrasher features many of Music City's most renowned players, including longtime Gillian Welch collaborator David Rawlings on guitar, prolific and influential pedal steel player Bruce Bouton, and Charlie McCoy, the legendary harmonica player whose signature playing graces all four of Bob Dylan's iconic Nashville records. Rooted in his formative childhood years in the small town of Nephi, Utah, the timeless sonic approach proves to be the ideal home for Flowers' most personal and vulnerable songwriting yet.

AFGHAN WHIGS - Soft Control CD/LP (BMG)  
Brand-new studio album from iconic Ohio rock band The Afghan Whigs. The album contains 10 new songs that feature the band's soulful gritty rock, with frontman Greg Dulli's vocals sounding as emotive and unique as ever. Soft Control features singles House Of I and Duvateen, and comes as the band celebrate their 40th year.

CRAMPS - Gravest Gravy LP [Reissue/1978] (Vengeance)  
In October 1977, the Cramps ventured into Ardent Studios in Memphis, Tennessee with producer and Cramps translator extraordinaire, Alex Chilton. The band had planned on recording their song 'TV Set,' as an A side, along with another track or tracks. Mr. Chilton told them the way he liked to work was to have a band record a lot of songs and from that they would pick the best of the bunch. Luckily for Cramps fans everywhere, the band did just that. The first evidence of these sessions was unleashed upon an unsuspecting human world in April 1978 on the band's own Vengeance Records label. It was a two song 7-inch with a version of the Trashmen's 1963 classic 'Surfin' Bird,' pushed well beyond it's breaking point, forcing it to mutate into a much higher form of lowdown, and Jack Scott's 1959 cool burning 'The Way I Walk,' dragged back into the Stone Age... After one listen, it was clear the Cramps had absolutely tapped into Rock 'n' Roll's mainline. In November of the same year, and again from the October 1977 sessions came another two song lesson in how it's done, or undone, with easily one of the greatest A sides of all time: 'Human Fly.' The B side was held hostage by Domino, originally sung by Roy Orbison. The Cramps' version swaggers with infinite confidence and is an absolute thrill to listen to. In the summer of 1979, young degenerates in England were treated to a 12-inch by the Cramps called Gravest Hits, which featured not only the aforementioned four tracks, but also a fifth, again from the October 1977 sessions... What happened to the rest of the tracks from those auspicious days in October 1977? In 2026, Larry Hardy, owner and operator of In The Red Records, repelled down, deep into the vast, sunless vault of the Cramps tape collection, and resurfaced hours later, disoriented and out of breath, but overjoyed with what he'd returned to topside with: six 1⁄4 reels of tracks, mixed by Lux [Interior] and [Poison] Ivy... Gravest Gravy is one of the purest collections of unrestrained, wild music you'll ever hear-like Jerry Lee Lewis unchained, like Elvis meets Tarzan-like it should be. The Cramps were one of the greatest bands in the history of recorded music, and anyone who heard or saw them, knows and abides by this groovin' truth. From their inception to this day, the band has fans whose enthusiasm for their life-changing music never wavers. The Cramps made this music for the love of Rock 'n' Roll. Lux and Ivy made this record for you. - Henry Rollins

JULIA HOLTER - Materia CD/LP (Domino)  
Julia Holter always knew that there were many forms her song ‘Materia’ could take. The tune's dynamic Hildegard von Bingen-inspired melody and dense modal chords stood on their own without a complex arrangement on her wondrous 2024 album Something in the Room She Moves, but she felt a lingering desire to expand the texture and stretch out the harmony. But on the new Materia, a kind of companion LP to Something, Holter has realized not one but two distinct versions of the song. ‘Materia 2’ is a hallucinatory dream of drum machines, fretless bass, and clarinet, Holter's voice spiraling through ether alongside that of Jessika Kenney. And on Materia 3, intended as a hidden bonus track in an homage to the CD era of her youth, Holter literally slows down the take from Something.

FINN WOLFHARD - Fire From The Hip CD/LP (Night Shift Productions)  
Following last year's critically acclaimed debut solo album from Finn Wolfhard, Happy Birthday, the historic global finale of Stranger Things, and Finn's widely shared and lauded Saturday Night Live Hosting appearance in January. This record represents a definitive hi-fi evolution for Finn, moving from the raw, 16mm-aesthetic of his Happy Birthday, to a broader, 35mm-fidelity sound. Inspired by pivotal rock albums like Exile on Main Street and Beggars Banquet, Finn is leaning into a more expansive, collaborative sound on this record. The music is upbeat, guitar-driven, and captures the lightning-in-a-bottle energy of his live band, positioning Finn not just as a familiar face in the zeitgeist, but as a definitive and respected leader in the modern alternative music space.

DJ PLEAD - Please LP (Smalltown Supersound)  DJ Plead drops a dead strong, fully romantic second album with Please for Oslo's Smalltown Supersound, pursuing his 2020 debut Relentless Trills with a properly sticky balance of dancehall swivel and spatio-textural tactility - a perfect high-summer breeze tipped FFO DJ Python, Lenky, Taymour, Muslimgauze, Art of Noise... For over a decade, Jarred Beeler aka DJ Plead has drawn on his Lebanese heritage in a unique catalogue of productions splicing microtonal flutes and keys with dancehall and techno rhythms for the likes of Livity Sound, AD 93, and Air Max 97's Decisions.

LAMBCHOP - Punching The Clown CD/LP (Merge Records) 
To hear Kurt Wagner tell it, Punching the Clown - the seventeenth album by beloved shapeshifting Nashville institution Lambchop, out August 21, 2026 on Merge Records and City Slang - began as a ghost hunt. After hearing a song on the radio while driving one night - a minimal single chord strummed banjo and a small group of voices - he went looking for it and failed. In his pursuit, he discovered lined-out singing,  a form of acapella call-and-response gospel singing that began in Scotland in the 1800s and became a root of American gospel and country music when Scottish immigrants settled in Appalachia.

ELANOR MOSS - Knife The Needle CD/LP (Merge Records)  
“Oh and the way that it feels, To know you, Oh and the way it reveals, I don’t know you” So begins ‘The Way That It Feels,’  the concluding track of Elanor Moss' debut full-length album The Knife, The Needle, out August 21, 2026 on Merge Records. In two couplets, sung over birdsong and Moss' classical guitar, she manages to capture an entire universe created in the bond between two people. The couplets mirror each other and hang, like a veil, over the rest of the song. Regardless of time, intimacy, love, tenderness, and the way those things can change a person and a relationship, there is, she asserts, an immutable fact to these things: that whatever she learns from them, there will always be something unknowable just beyond.

SWAMI JOHN REIS - Navajo White LP (Swami Records)  
Navajo White is a color. It's the color of an off white, interior, house paint. Throughout his teens into adulthood, John Reis was as a house painter by trade. The soiled walls of evacuated apartments was his canvas. Here he would cover up the residue of life's stains with a fresh coat of the beige, human white-out that is Navajo White. Amongst the vacated, drywall chambers littered with the scant detritus of a fleeing existence is where this record began. It started as road noise, a repetitious hum of a fictional dialogue. A languageless, argument of noise that took shape as a disconnect between two people. They are both barricaded by an impenetrable surface tension that harbors the distortion of their prolonged isolation from the world beyond their self imposed exile. For all that can't be solved or thrown away here's a thick coat of Navajo White to cover our tracks as if to say we were never here and this never happened.

NAS - It Was Written LP [Reissue/1996] (Sony Legacy)  
It Was Written is the second studio album by American rapper Nas. After his debut album Illmatic (1994), Nas aimed for a more mainstream sound for It Was Written. Over three million copies were sold worldwide and it remained at number one in the US album charts for four weeks.

VARIOUS  - Empire Records O.S.T. LP (A&M)  
Never before released on standard black vinyl, the Empire Records (1995) soundtrack captures the film's indie spirit with a curated mix of '90s alternative rock and pop. Featuring tracks from Gin Blossoms, The Cranberries, and Toad the Wet Sprocket, this cult-favorite compilation delivers a nostalgic snapshot of the era's defining sound.

GRACE POTTER - Trespasser CD/LP (Mother Road Records)  
With her new album Trespasser, Grace Potter introduces a beautifully unruly cast of characters who step into forbidden spaces with absolute abandon. As the spiritual sequel to 2023's Mother Road, the four-time Grammy nominee's seventh studio LP continues the kaleidoscopic storyline shaped by her many road trips from her Topanga Canyon home to her part-time residence in her native Vermont (a journey she's made eight times in the last five years, usually on her own). But while Mother Road was born from a desperate need for solace in the midst of emotional freefall, Trespasser reveals an artist firmly anchored in her singular vision. Produced by her husband and frequent collaborator Eric Valentine (Queens of the Stone Age, Weezer, Slash) and recorded in a cross-country journey beginning at her home in Topanga with Benmont Tench, continuing in Nashville with Mother Road session players (members of Cage the Elephant, Kings of Leon, and Train), and completed in Vermont with members of her longtime live band, the album echoes it's origins with a wayward sound that spans from stripped-bare soul to cosmic country to hellraising rock & roll-all while orbiting Potter's force-of-nature voice and lavishly imagined storytelling.

HEATHEN AXE - Heathen Axe LP (Deathgod)  
“I wanted to make a totally fried recording, quick and dirty. Sort of a cathartic expulsion. Clean the cobwebs. I recently bought a Vestax MR44 (the best sounding 4-track ever IMHO)—the same 4-track I recorded some Coachwhips, early OCS etc. on. Now we had the tools we needed so I spent a week writing riffs and brought them to Tom Dolas and John Hodge. We ran them one time and then recorded them on the second go. Loosely improvised and unhinged. Everything turned all the way up. Hope you dig—play loud.” —John Dwyer"

GRANT GREEN - Street Of Dreams LP [Reissue/1967] (Blue Note Records)  
The trio of guitarist Grant Green, organist Larry Young, and drummer Elvin Jones had a special alchemy from the first time they got together on 1964's Talkin' About. Two months later, they returned to the studio with the addition of Bobby Hutcherson on vibraphone for the sublime outing Street of Dreams, a 4-song set imbued with atmospheric elegance. This Blue Note Classic Vinyl Edition is stereo, all-analog, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes, and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal.

ROBYN HITCHCOCK - Confuser CD/LP (Glowing Green Frog)  
In his sixth decade as a singer, songwriter, and musician, Robyn Hitchcock manages to still illuminate and mystify, bemuse and philosophize, unlike any other before or since. Hitchcock's 25th solo studio album and first collection of all-new original songs in close to four years, The Confuser sees the legendary British art rocker operating at the peak of his substantial powers on a dazzlingly dynamic collection of typically perceptive new songs that traverse familiar signposts near and dear to his creative heart - the significance of love, the mysteries of the cosmos, and all the abstract accidents that happen between the luck of birth and the bitter end.

BILL ORCUTT - Four Louies Live LP (Fake Estates)  
Recorded live in concert March 21 2026 at Roulette Intermedium, Brooklyn NY. Performed by Eli Knowles Organ/Musical Director William Winant Maracas Wendy Eisenberg Organ Mari Maurice Organ Cyrus Pireh Organ Alan Licht Organ David Golightly Organ Chris Corsano Drums Eli Streich Drums Jas Stade Guitar Emmalee Johnson-Kao Bass Bryan Day Noise Table Bill Orcutt Guitar/Composer. Audio courtesy of Roulette. Engineers: Ian Douglas-Moore & Andrea Schiavelli. Big thanks to the ensemble, our audience and everyone at Roulette for their work.

GUIDING LIGHT - Fear On My Own Time LP (Post Present Medium)  
The instrumental branch of Guiding Light had already prepared their first batch of songs when they approached Elise Cook to sing, who, miraculously, had lyrics ready to go. That moment of kismet led to their first EP, a frenzied eleven minutes and fifty seconds that defined their post-punk sound for the culturally curious. Now Cook's melodies are born in the same room as the precise jangle of John Morales' guitar, the sharp-toothed bass of Rachel Kirk, and the pounding intensity of Charles Powell on the drums. The result is Fear On My Own Time, a new album by a band who knows what they're good at and keep getting better. It's hard to tell that recording was split into two sessions, six months apart, because you can sense urgency in the work. As anger propels action, energy becomes the reaction. The narrative of Fear On My Own Time expands in scope as reflections on a breakup lead to revelations on human connection. Criticism of the self draws from ego, confusion, and unabashed honesty, but a much larger issue is the root of these problems. The final pair of songs culminate into a rallying cry against Facism and how after being beaten down, our inability to be vulnerable drives us apart. You don't need to speak in Guiding Light's customary German tongue to understand this, in fact, the record includes their first English-translated lyrics: In the cage - only together we find the key. If we all danced to Guiding Light, the world would be a better place. By Sydney Salk

JIMMY REED - Jimmy Reed At Carnegie Hall LP [Reissue/1961] (Craft Recordings)   Studio recreation of an electrifying 1961 setlist from Carnegie Hall. This album includes the enduring classic, Bright Lights, Big City, which was included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. Released in partnership with Acoustic Sounds, the album has been (AAA) remastered from the original tapes by Matthew Lutthans at The Mastering Lab and pressed on 180-gram vinyl. A replica tip-on jacket completes the package.

JIMMY SMITH - Softly As A Summer Breeze LP [Reissue/1965] (Blue Note Records)   Recorded the same week as House Party and The Sermon in February 1958, Jimmy Smith's Softly As A Summer Breeze featured the incredible Hammond B3 organist in two different trios with Kenny Burrell/Philly Joe Jones and Eddie McFadden/Donald Bailey for a swinging set covering Thelonious Monk tunes, standards, and originals. This Blue Note Classic Vinyl Edition is stereo, all-analog, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes, and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal.

LITTLE MILTON - We're Gonna Make It LP [Reissue/1965] (Chess)  
Little Milton brought the emotional depth of the blues and modern sound of soul together with remarkable power on his 1965 album, We're Gonna Make It. After joining Chess Records through it's Checker imprint in the early '60s, the Mississippi-born guitarist and singer-songwriter revitalized the label with a new sound. The title track, an anthem for the growing civil rights movement, topped the R&B chart for 3 weeks straight. The album showcases Milton's vocal control and expert phrasing which defined his crossover success. Highlights include, ‘Who's Cheating Who?’ 'Blind Man,’ and ‘Stand By Me.’ Bring home the sound of America's greatest blues label in high fidelity with the Chess Records Acoustic Sounds Series. These audiophile reissues of classic albums and compilations from the Chess discography are remastered from the original analog tapes and pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Quality Record Pressings (QRP). Each disc is packaged in tip-on gatefold sleeves printed on high-grade board.

MUDDY WATERS - Muddy Waters At Newport 1960 LP [Reissue/1960] (Chess)   Recorded live at the Newport Jazz Festival on July 3, 1960, At Newport 1960 captures Muddy Waters in electrifying form. Backed by Otis Spann (piano), Pat Hare (guitar), Andrew Stevens (bass), Francis Clay (drums), and James Cotton (harmonica), Waters performs music both rooted in tradition and the modern. It's a landmark recording that helped bring the blues to a wider audience, cementing Waters' reputation as a father of the electric blues. Highlights include ‘I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man,’  ‘Baby, Please Don't Go,’  ‘Got My Mojo Working,’  and Langston Hughes' own ‘Goodbye Newport Blues.’ Bring home the sound of America's greatest blues label in high fidelity with the Chess Records Acoustic Sounds Series. These audiophile reissues of classic albums and compilations from the Chess discography are remastered from the original analog tapes and pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Quality Record Pressings (QRP). Each disc is packaged in tip-on gatefold sleeves printed on high-grade board.

TOBACCO - High On Life 2 O.S.T. LP (Rad Cult)  
4 LP colored vinyl slipcase set. LPs 1 and 2 are on clear vinyl with red and yellow swirl, LPs 3 and 4 are transparent blue with purple swirl. Tobacco's official 66-track soundtrack to the 2026 video game High on Life 2. Written by the Tobacco brothers (also stylized as TOBAXXO) in the early 1960s for Her Majesty's Pleasure, and finally seeing a proper release in 2026 for the computer television game 'High on Life 2.'

SWELL MAPS - John Peel Sessions LP (Mute U.S.)  
The John Peel Sessions is a vital document of Swell Maps at their most unfiltered-three sessions of unpredictable, exhilarating noise. Formed in the early '70s and fully realized by 1976, Swell Maps embodied the DIY ethos, launching their own label and self-releasing the jagged, frenetic debut single 'Read About Seymour', recorded and produced by themselves late 1977. Peel was an early supporter, playing their record as soon as it landed on his desk-a moment the band described as one of disbelief and elation. His regular airplay of their music helped solidify their cult status, and these sessions capture the raw energy, off-kilter melodies, and boundary-pushing creativity that defined them.

LUDWIG GORANSSON - The Odysssey Ost LP (Mutant)  
Mutant, in proud partnership with Universal Pictures, and Back Lot Music, are proud to present the premiere physical media release of 3x Academy Award-Winning composer Ludwig Göransson's original soundtrack to Christopher Nolan's motion picture The Odyssey.

SKIP JAMES - Devil Got My WomanLP [Reissue/1968] (Craft Recordings)  
With his eerie, keening vocals and minor-tuned guitar, no other bluesman sounds quite like Skip James. This is perfectly encapsulated on his 1968 Vanguard Records solo release, Devil Got My Woman. The Blues Foundation hails the title track as the quintessential Skip James song. Released in partnership with Acoustic Sounds, the album has been (AAA) remastered from the original tapes by Matthew Lutthans at The Mastering Lab and pressed on 180-gram vinyl. A tip-on jacket completes the package.

SONDRE LERCHE - Acrobats LP (Sondre Lerche)  
Indie-pop auteur Sondre Lerche returns with his boldest and most timely work to date. Acrobats explores the theme of finding love in dystopian times of global unrest and despair. This sprawling, colorful and limitless body of work examines living in a world where sincerity and tenderness feel like acts of defiance. On 140g transparent red vinyl with double-side print top-load sleeve. Transparent Red Vinyl with Double-Side Print Top-Load Sleeve.

EVERYTHING BUT THE GIRL  - Walking Wounded (2026 Deluxe Edition) CD [Reissue/1996] (Chrysalis)  
First released in 1996, Walking Wounded is the acclaimed million-selling album from Everything But the Girl - the best-selling UK duo formed in 1982 by singer-writer-musicians Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt - and arrives in a new 29-track deluxe CD reissue edition featuring additional remixes and extra tracks.

EVERYTHING BUT THE GIRL  - Temperamental (2026 Deluxe Edition) CD [Reissue/1999] (Chrysalis)  
First released in 1999, Temperamental is the ninth studio album from Everything But the Girl - the best-selling UK duo formed in 1982 by singer-writer-musicians Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt - and arrives in a new 23-track deluxe CD reissue edition featuring additional remixes and extra tracks.

COMING NEXT WEEK
TY SEGALL - Chrome CD/LP
INTERPOL - This Mirror Ways A Ton CD/LP
BILLY STRINGS - So Much For Goodbyes CD/LP
DINOSAUR JR - There Near CD/LP
PULP - Live! CD/LP
ALABAMA SHAKES - I Must Be Dreaming CD/LP
LINDA LINDAS - Gotta Get Out CD/LP
MASTODON - Marrow Deep LP
MIKE D - Thank You CD/LP
OK GO - Oh No LP Reissue 
JAYHAWKS - Sanctuary Park CD/LP
PESO PLUMA - Dinastia LP
JIM JAMES - Wowed Out CD/LP
ALLAH-LAHS - Sirenas CD/LP
LA PRIEST - Into The Sky LP
RUSSIAN CIRCLES - Nine CD/LP
CZARFACE - Meets Frankie Pulitzer LP
HTRK - Work (Work, Work) LP Reissue