The Fat Angel Sings

Hop Along’s Frances Quinlan and frequent collaborator Kyle Pulley team up for a new project fuelled by multi-layered art pop. It’s been way too long since we’ve heard from Hop Along, and even pretty long since we’ve heard much from bandleader Frances Quinlan in general.

The launch of Frances’ solo career was cut short with their debut solo album “Likewise” coming out right before COVID, and they haven’t done much since, outside of contributing a song to the “I Saw the TV Glow” soundtrack, but now Frances is back with the debut EP by a new project, “Parts Work”.

It’s a collaboration with Kyle Pulley, who worked on most Hop Along albums and played in the band Thin Lips, and it features contributions from other familiar faces like Thin Lips singer Chrissy Tashjian (who’s done backup vocals on every Hop Along album) and former Hop Along member Dominic Angelella.

It’s just four songs but the music is so fleshed-out and multi-layered that it feels like a substantial return for Frances. It’s more heavily electronic than Hop Along and more chaotic and maximal than “Likewise”, resulting in a batch of lively art pop arrangements that stand out from everything you’ve heard from Frances before. So it’s fresh but also instantly familiar, thanks to the larger-than-life voice and distinct songwriting style that couldn’t have come from any other person in the world. And damn it feels great to hear that voice again.

Angst again meets danceable riffs on this Bay Area band’s second album that features a duet with Sharon Van Etten, In these dark times and they are bordering on pitch black remembering to have a little fun is important, even as the world crumbles around us. Spiritual Cramp are here to help. After a decade on the scene, the Bay Area band — made up of vets from the hardcore world finally delivered their 2023 debut album, which took inspiration from the party-hardy ‘00s indie scene that gave us The Hives, The Strokes, and The White Stripes and many The O.C. soundtracks. Their second album, produced by John Congleton, expands their range while still delivering danceable, electro-fuelled rock earworms.

“Rude” isn’t all sunshine and rainbows; lyrically, most of the songs have a dark sense of humour that some might just see as dark. But they all deliver fist-pumping riffs and instantly memorable choruses, from the slashing “At My Funeral” (“nobody came”) to the Bloc Party-esque “Automatic,” the ripper “I Hate the Way That I Look,” and “True (Love is Hard to Find),” which finds frontman Mike Bingham questioning his recent move to L.A.

Congleton gives the whole thing what they used to call a radio-friendly sheen, expertly layering synths in with all the guitars. That takes them further into Killers territory on “Crazy” and “Young Offenders,” lets them explore their love of 2-Tone ska and reggae on “Violence in the Supermarket,” and paints a big canvas for “You’ve Got My Number,” an anthemic duet with Sharon Van Etten that has an irresistible “bah-dah-bah-dah” chorus. In another era, that one — and half this record — would’ve been hits.

released October 24th, 2025

Produced and Engineered by John Congleton

Tortoise have announced “Touch“, their first album in nine years, which will be out October 24th on physical formats and streaming on November 11th via International Anthem / Nonesuch. Dan Bitney, John Herndon, Douglas McCombs, John McEntire, and Jeff Parker made the album across three cities where members now call home (Los Angeles, Portland, Chicago) and features contributions from Marta Sofia Honer, Skip VonKuske, and Tucker Martine.

The album includes single “Oganesson” from this past spring and the new single from the album is “Layered Presence” which is a tight blast of jazzy, percussive, krautrock with some very interesting sound design elements in there. Watch the video, directed by Mikel Patrick Avery, 

Tortoise – “Layered Presence” taken from the album “Touch” (International Anthem / Nonesuch Records, 2025)

On “We Were Just Here”, Dundalk’s Just Mustard surge out of the shadows from the submerged world of Heart Under with a sound that leans toward light and euphoria. Their signature elements remain intact – warped guitars, cavernous low ends, twisted sound design – but this time the noise is channelled into something warmer and more melodic. Inspired by club spaces and physical joy, the songs strive for immediacy and feeling. Katie Ball’s vocals rise higher in the mix, capturing a conflicted pursuit of happiness that she describes as “trying to feel euphoric, but at a cost.”

Produced by the band and mixed by David Wrench (FKA Twigs, Frank Ocean, Caribou) the album expands their emotional palette while keeping things strange, textured, and uniquely their own. “We Were Just Here” explodes into technicolour, creating a world that feels immediate, haunted and ecstatic.

On “We Were Just Here”, Just Mustard surge out of the shadows from the submerged world of Heart Under with a sound that leans toward light and euphoria. Their signature elements remain intact – warped guitars, cavernous low ends, twisted sound design – but this time the noise is channelled into something warmer and more melodic. Inspired by club spaces and physical joy, the songs strive for immediacy and feeling.

London psychedelic art-rock band Ulrika Spacek have announced their fourth album, “EXPO”, which will be released on February 2026 via Full Time Hobby. The band produced it themselves, recording in London and Stockholm, and they say “in an age of hyperindividualism we are proud to say it is our most collective effort yet.”

“Our music has always been a collage – a bit patchwork, sonically – but what makes this album a landmark for us is that we went one step further and made our own sound bank and essentially sampled ourselves,” they say in a shared statement.

The first single from the record is “Build a Box Then Break It,” and the title also sounds a bit like the album’s mission statement. Washes of synth sweep across the stereo field as crashing, jazzy drums recall Portishead and everything glitches pleasingly. It’s also got a big, cinematic chorus in usual Ulrika Spacek style. 

Rhys Edwards – Vocals, Guitar, Piano, Keyboards, Sampler, Electronics
Joseph Stone – Keyboards, Piano, Guitar, Sampler, Saxophone, Electronics
Callum Brown – Drums, Percussion, Electronics
Syd Kemp – Bass, Electronics
Rhys Jenkins – Guitar

releases February 6th, 2026

UK trio The Orielles have announced their fourth album, “Only You Left”, which will be out March 13th via Heavenly Records. It was made in Hamburg and the Greek island of Hydra with producer and longtime collaborator Joel Anthony Patchett.

After the experimental/improvisational 2022 album “Tableau”, Esmé Dee Hand-Halford, Sidonie Dee Hand-Halford and Henry Carlyle Wade have transformed themselves again. “You’ve got to die and be reborn between albums,” says Henry. “It comes naturally,” adds Esmé, “it’s not something we consciously do.”

“As soon as we booked the studios, certain songs just took these paths,” explains Henry. “We were picturing recording it in this cold, clinical space in Hamburg or this laid back, bohemian, church-esque space in Greece. And then that just completely influenced how we played and how they were written.”

The first single from “Only You Left” is its opening song, “Three Halves,” which sets an ethereal melody and vocal to some grungy instrumentation. The band say: “Citing ideas that we took interest in during the early stages of writing the new record, ‘Three Halves’ flips between its absurd contrasts as the name suggests. Built upon a soundscape of droning organs, guitar, and cello it floats between noise and emptiness, precision, and catharsis, welcoming each half leads into the next.”

Henry Carlyle Wade – Guitar, Synth, Organ Esmé Dee Hand-Halford– Bass, Vocals Sidonie B Hand-Halford – Drums, Percussion Lili Holland-Fricke – Cello Taken from their 4th record, ‘Only You Left’ out 13th March 2026 via Heavenly Recordings

The two songs were originally recorded during the sessions for Tamara Lindeman’s seventh The Weather Station album, “Humanhood”. “There were so many strong songs I left off “Humanhood” because the album had such a narrative arc to adhere to, “Lindeman says. “‘Airport’ was one of them that I’m glad to release now. I’ve always hated airports; I find them so dehumanizing. This song tells a story of a person trying to mirror what is around them; that sort of shutting down, not caring, acting like you don’t care even when you really do. At the heart of it though is, of course, an intense longing, and a hope for something alive that feels like it can’t be.” 

Lindeman describes “Only The Truth” as “one of my favourite songs from “Humanhood” and just didn’t make the final track-list at the very last moment, but it feels so relevant and connected with the record. It intersects with ‘Neon Signs,’ it expands on the same idea; that the truth is this sort of lumpen, complicated, organic thing. Falsehoods and lies glimmer, reach towards you, need you; but the truth ‘doesn’t care if you care / all it ever is is there.’”

Meanwhile, the Weather Station’s European and UK tour begins on November 1st. It includes multiple festival appearances, a co-headline date with Destroyer, and a London Jazz Festival performance in which the band will be accompanied by a string quartet.

The two songs were originally recorded during the sessions for the Humanhood album

Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield & sister Allison have a new band, and their surprise debut album finds them backed by MJ Lenderman and Brad Cook. Earlier this month, Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield and her twin sister/frequent collaborator Allison teased something that also included MJ Lenderman (who played guitar and sang all over Waxahatchee’s 2024 album “Tigers Blood“) and Brad Cook (who produced the last two Waxahatchee albums), we learn that what they were teasing was a new band from Katie and Allison called Snocaps. And to make matters even more exciting, they just surprise-released their self-titled debut album.

It’s Katie and Allison’s first band together in about 15 years (they previously played together in P.S. Eliot, Bad Banana, and The Ackleys), but Allison has also been on Waxahatchee albums and she’s toured as a member of the band.

It’s also Allison’s first album since the 2018 “Swearin’ comeback album “Fall into the Sun”. and all four of them play multiple instruments on the album. It has a little more of a pared-back indie rock vibe compared to the two Brad Cook-produced Waxahatchee albums, but still with that Americana twist that Katie’s been embracing lately (with no lack of twangy MJ Lenderman guitar), and the Crutchfields’ complementary songwriting styles are in excellent form.

Gumm’s 2023 debut LP “Slogan Machine” was a mix of bands like Drug Church, Touché Amoré, and Revolution Summer, and the Chattanooga, TN band’s sophomore album “Beneath The Wheel” finds them blending those and other influences into something that feels even more original. Like the recent album by Gumm’s Convulse labelmates Destiny Bond, “Beneath The Wheel” makes the case that hardcore punk is alive and well.

This isn’t metalcore, this isn’t alt-rock; it’s the kind of punk rock that’s so gritty that people had to put a new adjective in front of it, and it’s a treat to hear a band carrying the torch for this kind of thing as well as Gumm are right now. On “Beneath the Wheel“, they’re taking familiar ingredients and making them sound very fresh.

released October 31st, 2025

Phillip Amos – bass & backing vocals
Harrison Battles – drums
Dylan Mikres – guitar & aux percussion
Trevor Lynch – guitar
Drew Waldon – vocals

Lucinda Williams has today announced that her new album, “World’s Gone Wrong“, will be released by Highway 20 Records on January 23rd. Described as “a raw and fearless commentary on modern America”, the album was co-produced by Tom Overby and long time collaborator Ray Kennedy, who recorded and mixed the album at his Room & Board Studio in Nashville. Guest stars include Norah Jones, Mavis Staples and Brittney Spencer.

Performance video for “We’ve Come Too Far To Turn Around (feat. Norah Jones),” from the new Lucinda Williams album ‘World’s Gone Wrong,’ out January 23rd, 2026.

Lucinda Williams tours the UK and Ireland early next year. Thu 29th January Birmingham, Birmingham Town Hall