Seattle indie-folk icons The Head and the Heart commemorate the 15th anniversary of their landmark debut album with the release of a 2011 live show at their beloved hometown venue Neumos. This double-album captures a vibrant live set right at the moment the band was breaking out. “Live at Neumos” (2011) features all the songs from The Head and the Heart’s platinum-selling self-titled album, plus two previously unreleased songs: the original “Long Time Away,” and a cover of Jimmie Rodgers’ “T is for Texas (Blue Yodel #1).”
Interpol are releasing a new album, “This Mirror Weighs a Ton“, on August 28th via Partisan. Now they have shared its third single, “Iron City.”
Previously Interpol shared the album’s first two tracks, title track “This Mirror Weighs a Ton” and “See Out Loud.” “This Mirror Weighs a Ton” is Interpol’s first for Partisan after previously being on Matador Records for much of their career.
Interpol’s core members are Daniel Kessler, Paul Banks, and Sam Fogarino. “This Mirror Weighs a Ton” is the band’s eighth album, and the follow up to 2022’s “The Other Side of Make-Believe“, 2019’s “A Fine Mess” EP, and 2018’s “Marauder” full-length.
Andrew Wyatt (ROSALÍA, Charli xcx) produced the album, recording it in his studio in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. David Fridmann (Sleater-Kinney, MGMT) mixed the album. The album cover features an artwork by Addie Wagenknecht, which is currently held in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s permanent collection. “This Mirror Weighs a Ton” is the first Interpol song since “PDA,” from their 2002 debut album “Turn On the Bright Lights”, to feature vocals from Kessler.
Of working with Interpol, Wyatt says in a press release: “I wondered what it would be like to keep the parts perfectly legible, because everyone in that band writes such great parts. And to add some different spatial dimensions to it.” Wyatt says. “It was something almost a little bit more like chamber music—the musical ideas bear scrutiny without needing the sonic treatment of it to carry all the weight. It was also nice to add a trick or two I picked up over a couple decades of making pop records.”
‘This Mirror Weighs a Ton’ finds the band turning inward while continuing to move forward. Across the record, reflection, distortion and perception become a lens through which familiar shapes are refracted into something slightly alien, as if seen through a different kind of light. Synthesizers, strings, acoustic guitars and percussion are integrated into the fabric of the songs, expanding the palette while revealing colors already latent within it. Nothing feels imposed. Instead, the additions deepen the band’s language of restraint, atmosphere and tension. The result is an album that feels expansive, uncanny and alive with forward motion, not a reinvention but an evolution that allows Interpol to continue transforming without losing their identity.
released August 28th, 2026
In 2020 Interpol frontman Paul Banks released an album with Muzz, a band that also featured Matt Barrick of The Walkmen and Josh Kaufman of Bonny Light Horseman. Their self-titled debut album came out in 2020 via Matador.
“The World’s Best American Band”. The bold statement from Louisville’s White Reaper is not only the title of their album, but also the band’s credo.
“Because we are the best,” says guitarist/vocalist Tony Esposito. “Just like Muhammad Ali was the greatest, you gotta say it out loud for people to believe it.”
And with that mentality the band hit the studio with close friend and producer Kevin Ratterman (My Morning Jacket, Young Widows) and made a good ol’ fashioned in-your-face rock ’n’ roll record.
“We didn’t make this record or start this band because we wanted to come across in a single, certain way,” says Esposito. “We just make records that we’d want to hear. We started doing this because it’s fun as hell, just as much now as it was when we were 14.”
Boasting textured melodies, layered guitars and more seasoned lyrics, “The World’s Best American Band” finds the quartet busting out of the basement sound established on their previous full length (2015’s “White Reaper Does It Again“) and setting their sights on the arena.
Garnished with glimpses of the golden age of rock and roll, TWBAB is loaded with guitars that scream and gigantic drums in lockstep rhythm, each song packing its own massive, but none the less unique, punch. Lead single “Judy French” struts like a runway model raised on Heavy Metal Parking Lot, while midway point “The Stack” pairs a classic rock shimmy with a flair for glam.
The Kentucky boys eagerly await hitting the road in 2017. Armed with a record that celebrates rock in all of its glory, they are poised to satisfy crowds whether they are packed shoulder-to-shoulder in the “standing room only” pit or kicking back in the cheap seats.
“Come to the show, have a drink, have fun,” laughs Esposito. “But be nice to everybody, cause you’re gonna get real close.”
Recently announced the August 28th release of “1989-1992“, a long-requested compilation of Velocity Girl‘s early years, including their first two singles, various compilation and split single tracks, a pair of unreleased recordings and some other rare bits and pieces. Add in extensive liner notes and sharp new art and we think you’ll be as excited as we are about this one.
Getting their start as the 1980s bled into the 90s, Velocity Girl arose from a new pop underground that had been percolating in Washington, DC and its suburbs, a group of bands clustered around our then-nascent Slumberland Records who broadened DC’s punk paradigm with an ear for pop songs and feedback-driven racket. Velocity Girl, blessed with multiple gifted songwriters, particularly knew how to merge euphoric pop hooks with waves of noisy bliss and lovelorn melancholy.
This new compilation “1989-1992” covers the band’s pre-Sub Pop years and shows that their skill with a tune was there from the beginning, across several line-up changes and numerous early releases.
The all-time classic “Forgotten Favorite” is included, as is their debut single “I Don’t Care If You Go,” featuring original vocalist Bridget Cross (later of Unrest). There are also crucial split single and compilation contributions, a few choice covers (Beat Happening, The Jam) and even a pair of unreleased tunes.
Newly remastered and featuring extensive liner notes by DC scene scholar John R. Davis and gorgeous art by Galine Tumaysan, “1989-1992” is the comprehensive view of their early years that Velocity Girl has long deserved and their fans have long wanted.
The big news this time around is the forthcoming release of the first proper album from UK indiepop supergroup Railcard, who feature members with experience in Heavenly, Dolly Mixture, Talulah Gosh, Trash Can Sinatras, Would-Be-Goods, Swansea Sound and more. Their new album “Two Steps At A Time” is a gorgeous pop statement and we can’t wait for you to hear it!
Railcard bring together Rachel Love (Dolly Mixture), Ian Button, Peter Momtchiloff (Heavenly) and Allison Thomson (Trash Can Sinatras, The Love Band) for a debut that feels instantly familiar. Formed in 2025, the band quickly followed three acclaimed EPs with “Two Steps At A Time”, a collection of warm, melodic indie-pop full of jangly guitars, inventive arrangements and shared vocals. Highlights include ‘Flannelette’, ‘Sunday Sun’, ‘I’m A Disaster’ and the title track, alongside two standout songs from Momtchiloff. Mixed by Allan Crockford, it’s a confident debut that wears its classic pop influences lightly.
Also reissues of Rachel Love‘s two recent (and very hard to find!) albums “Picture In Mind” and “Lyra” on vinyl and CD are have been out for a minute and they’re rather amazing! They’re both packed with lush, dreamy pop that sits comfortably between 60s sunshine pop and the mod-ish sounds of groups like Saint Etienne and Broadcast. 100% essential and very nice companions to her records with Railcard!
From the Railcard album ‘Two Steps At A Time’, on Skep Wax Records and Slumberland Records. (Release date 18th September 2026.)
Together with co-producer Jon Titterington, Troper has marshaled his many muses as seamlessly as ever, and TIPMGAS is both his most varied and most cohesive record to date. Fans of the jangly guitar pop Troper is perhaps best known for will find plenty to chew on in songs like “Best Seat In The House,” “Rotten,” and “In The Band.” Broader palettes will delight in “Let’s Get Back To Music,” which recalls something like yacht rock if the vessel in question was an embittered blues cruise chartered towards Shutter Island. Contemplative closer “Moscow To The Ground” wouldn’t be out of place in the Elliott Smith songbook, the kind of deceptively simple (and deceptively peaceful) coda that belies an interior life that’s anything but.
This is far from some macabre, labyrinthine odyssey through a tortured mind, though. Rubberneckers will find this particular crash site frustratingly put-together. Not to say these are the songs of a man at peace: rather, it’s hard to shake the sense that only someone who’s been on the same mental roller coaster as Troper could render emotional whiplash so compellingly and even charmingly that it makes the sentiment “if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry” feel as obvious as “if you don’t eat, you’ll starve.”
Margaret Glaspy is releasing a new album, I Am Both, on August 7th via ATO. Now she has shared her second single, “That Rose,” as well as a live performance video for the song.
Glaspy had this to say about the song in a press release: “Songwriting feels like running down a mountain for me. There are lots of snap decisions to be made so that you don’t break your legs. This song felt like that to make. Once I started it just kept picking up pace and I had to bob and weave so as not to fuck it up. It had a life and a mind of its own.”
Previously Glaspy had shared “I Am Both’s” first single, “Michigan,” as well as a live performance video for the song. “I Am Both” follows Glaspy’s 2023 album, “Echo the Diamond” as well as her 2024 EP, “The Sun Doesn’t Think“, and her 2025 EP, “The Golden Heart Protector“.
Joe Henry (Aimee Mann, Joan Baez) produced “I Am Both”. Glaspy wrote the album longhand and on a typewriter.
“I wrote the title track a while ago; the story is based on a female character that I look up to deeply—a woman who contains multitudes while seeing reality very clearly,” says Glaspy. “It can feel safer to try to fit myself into a category, but I find that embracing my own complexity is much healthier for me.”
She adds: “When I started writing for this record I had a goal of getting my practice back – to walk the walk in terms of how I envision myself as a songwriter. At first it was really hard to break that addiction to social media, but after a while something shifted. It felt like I’d gotten back to original thought instead of being under the influence of so many outside opinions. It was life-changing.”
In Ensenada, Mexico, where the Pacific horizon cuts a clean, unwavering line, Holy Wave recorded their latest full-length, “i’m DADA“, a record that feels both expansive and newly concentrated for the subterranean pop four-piece. Stepping outside the United States was less a retreat than a shift in perspective, creating distance to recognize a new sound that had been slowly taking shape among them. “i’m DADA” quickly revealed its character: more propulsive, more candid, and their most structurally deliberate work to date.
Working alongside experimental duo Lorelle Meets the Obsolete at their studio El Derrumbe the sessions folded community into the album, though its emotional core had already formed over months of pre-production. Half of Holy Wave is Mexican, with roots in the El Paso border region, so recording in Ensenada felt intuitive and relaxed. Joo Ashworth, mixing engineer and longtime friend, provided a pivotal presence helping crystallize the album’s rhythmic language and subtly expanding the band’s sound. The songs began reflecting conversations about fatherhood and partnership, breakups and estrangement, the queasy acceleration of AI, and what it means to remain present and principled while the world lurches unpredictably forward.
This tension is not announced but absorbed into the music. Holy Wave stretches their familiar sense of woozy atmosphere into something leaner and more direct. There are more loops and samples woven throughout than before, grooves that feel constructed, cyclical, hypnotic. Some tracks drift toward dub’s elastic spaciousness; others pulse with cinematic downtempo gravity. There is a fresh sense of momentum throughout the record, rhythms that pull forward, dream-saturated textures, sheets of fuzz, and softly suspended vocals.
“dewey’s dirge” unfolds patiently: hazy guitars bloom, a softened motorik pulse moving steadily beneath. The vocals remain submerged, widening rather than exploding. It feels expansive and reflective, a comedown hymn that trades drama for immersion. “i’m DADA,” by contrast, locks into a lean, circular groove. A tight drum figure, rubbery bassline, and clipped guitar phrase repeat until they begin to feel animate. Lyrically, the song circles the complicated devotion of fatherhood, written in a brief pocket of rare solitude for a parent: Always loving (Try to do what’s right) / Always learning (There’s never enough time). “s33.u.in/HAL” plays like a transmission caught midair, faintly mechanical, immersive without ever fully resolving, capturing the album’s central sensation: the act of trying to communicate clearly through static.
If earlier Holy Wave records often felt defined by their sense of drift, i’m DADA feels newly grounded. The album doesn’t abandon immersion; it disciplines it. Grooves settle, repetitions accrue weight, and the music is composed and unshaken amongst its heavier themes. What emerges is not reinvention but a sharpening, with Holy Wave sounding less like a band drifting through atmosphere and more like one deliberately shaping it amongst the chaos.
the Austin psych-rockers’ latest album of the same name, out this Friday via Suicide Squeeze.
Gilla Band are happy to share their first new music in nearly four years, the new single “Giraffe” is released by Rough Trade Records. The hugely original and influential Dublin four piece will also be touring the UK / Europe at the start of 2027.
After dropping their first new song in three years in May, Gilla Band have confirmed there’s more where that came from. “Giraffe” is the first new music from Gilla Band in nearly 4 years and to mark this the band are releasing a very limited 7” picture disc.
For over ten years now, the Dublin quartet — vocalist Dara Kiely, guitarist Alan Duggan Borges, bassist Daniel Fox, and drummer Adam Faulkner — have been redefining what you could loosely call “rock music” in the 21st century, influencing a wide swath of similarly forward-thinking guitar acts along the way.
The band perfected a vision that wasn’t quite post-punk, wasn’t quite noise-rock, wasn’t quite anything besides an idiosyncratic, ground-breaking hybrid that could only come from the four of them – “Giraffe” is their bold new offering.
They also shared a new track, “Placeholder,” alongside a dreamlike, colour-saturated music video directed by Cuan Roche.
“Pugnello” is entirely produced by the quartet, and mixed by Fox. In a press statement, Kiely noted that “Placeholder” is a reflection on his childhood creature comforts, from Big Brother to the Power Rangers. (“I remember I was at some sort of Christian summer camp when I was about six and was asked what I want to be when I grow up. I said ‘a Power Ranger,’” Kiely says. “I was laughed at and was told the shocking truth that they didn’t exist and it is not a profession worth pursuing. I’ve never forgiven them for that.”)
Gilla Band released their last album, “Most Normal”, in 2022. They’ve stayed relatively under the radar since then, save for the 2023 loosie “Sports Day.” The group will support “Pugnello” starting this fall and all the way through 2027 on a North American and European tour.
Alabama Shakes have announced details of their first album in more than a decade – “I Must Be Dreaming“, which is released on August 28th via Island Records.
“I Must Be Dreaming” was written by Brittany Howard, Heath Fogg, and Zac Cockrell after the band reunited in late 2024 and recorded in Nashville at Sound Emporium Studios and Blackbird Studio.
Speaking about the album title, Howard says, “There’s a double meaning to it. It could be saying, ‘I must be dreaming, because the world is so fucking crazy right now.’ But it could also mean, ‘I must be dreaming, because the world is so incredibly beautiful.’ Both those things can be true at once.”
The album announcement arrives alongside the announcement of the new single “I Feel Hope Coming”, which is released on Friday, July 10th. The track follows the acclaimed singles “Another Life” and “American Dream“. Recorded in Nashville at Sound Emporium Studios and Blackbird Studios, “I Must Be Dreaming” was produced by Alabama Shakes alongside Shawn Everett. The six-time Grammy winner engineered and mixed “Sound & Color”. Sonicly and thematically, the Brittany Howard-fronted group are said in press materials to “lean into a richly textured, psychedelic soul sound while exploring love, mortality, human connection, and the increasingly surreal contradictions of modern life.”
Howard and bandmates bassist Zac Cockrell and guitarist Heath Fogg reunited in December 2024 after a six-year hiatus. Alabama Shakes toured in 2025 and released the single “Another Life,” their first new original music in 10 years. .
Alabama Shakes detailed “I Must Be Dreaming”, their third studio album and first in over a decade. The long-awaited follow-up to 2015’s “Sound & Color” is due out on August 28
The Fat Angel Sings 