Notable Releases of the Week (2/27)

This was a very eventful week for music. The 2026 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominees were announced, so many music festival lineups came out; Circa Survive announced a reunion; we got long-awaited album announcements/singles from Social Distortion, American Football, and WU LYF; and Dave and I talked about all of that and more on today’s episode of BV Weekly.

As for this week’s new albums, we’ve got seven highlighted below, and Bill talks about more in Indie Basement, including Bill Callahan, Gorillaz, Heavenly, Bibi Club, TVAM, and EXEK. On top of all those, this week’s honorable mentions include Iron & Wine, Rob Zombie, Maria BC, The Wave Pictures, Bill Frisell, Sideshow, Cootie Catcher, A Wilhelm Scream, Necrofier, Final Gasp, Our Wits, Kwes, Hey Colossus, Asher Gamedze, Tōth, Landowner, Noémi Büchi, Rosie Carney, Unverkalt, Varials, Bruno Mars, Carpenter Brut, the Blackpink EP, the Anna Prior EP, the deluxe edition of Julianna Riolino’s Echo in the Dust, the expanded edition of Perfume Genius’ Glory, Geese’s Live at Third Man Records, and Ceremony’s Live At The Hollywood Palladium.

Read on for my picks, and listen to the new episode of BV Weekly for more of this week’s new music and music news. What’s your favorite release of the week?

Mitski – Nothing’s About to Happen to Me (Dead Oceans)
On this surreal concept album, Mitski sings from the perspective of her reclusive protagonist over a backdrop of fuzzed-out indie rock, horn-fueled baroque pop, and a little country.

Mitski’s latest album is a concept album about “a reclusive woman in an unkempt house–outside of her home, she is a deviant; inside of her home, she is free.” Throughout the album, our narrator agonizes over losing her phone, contemplates death, rails against living in a small town, and muses over cats–the two that live with her and the one that comes into her yard. (Possibly the album’s best lyric: “It’s supposed to be my house but I guess, according to cats, now it’s his house.”) This all happens as Mitski makes her way through fuzzed-out indie rock, horn-fueled baroque pop, a little country, and a little circusy chaos. It blurs the lines between whimsical, satirical, and sincere; between realism and surrealism; between the mundane and the profound. There are traits that Nothing’s About to Happen to Me shares with 2023’s excellent The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We, but as a whole, this album exists in a world of its own.

Nothing’s About to Happen to Me by Mitski

Buck Meek – The Mirror (4AD)
The Big Thief member’s new solo album feels like an extension of Big Thief’s last record, and it’s some of his strongest solo material yet.

I love the new Buck Meek album. “Gasoline” is one of my top 5 favorite songs of the year, and the album often feels like an extension of last year’s great Big Thief album–Buck’s Big Thief bandmates Adrianne Lenker and James Krivchenia both contributed to it. And for a much deeper dive into this album, I highly recommend listening to Bill’s podcast interview with Buck and reading Bill’s review in Indie Basement.

The Mirror by Buck Meek

Nothing – A Short History of Decay (Run For Cover)
The shoegaze veterans’ fifth album strikes a balance between the familiar and the new.

It’s interesting that the first single from Nothing’s new album (“Cannibal World”) is some of the most overt MBV worship that this band has ever released, because A Short History of Decay is actually one of Nothing’s least shoegaze albums. It has a few other Kevin Shieldsian moments outside of “Cannibal World,” but it spends even more time stripping back the layers of noise and leaning into somber, often-acoustic balladry that sounds like a cross between Codeine and The Bends-era Radiohead. When they do get loud, new drummer Zachary Jones (MSC, Manslaughter 777) comes off as their new secret weapon, fueling the wall-of-sound guitars with Madchester-worthy breakbeats. And when they’re quiet, bandleader Domenic Palermo finds an even greater sense of emotionally bare clarity than he had on past Nothing ballads.

a short history of decay by Nothing

Deathcrash – Somersaults (untitled [recs])
The UK slowcore torch-carriers’ third album is their most emotionally resonant yet.

After releasing their first two albums in a 14-month span, UK band deathcrash took another three years to write, record, and release their third album, Somersaults, and the end result directly reflects the way the band took the time to grow and reflect. As bassist Patrick Fitzgerald puts it, “This record comes from a place of growing up, and giving up on adolescent dreams.” Like their first two albums, Somersaults is rooted in ’90s slowcore, but this album is more about great songwriting than genre exercises. It’s as sonically hypnotic as it is emotionally deep, with dense substance to fuel the band’s vibey style.

Somersaults by deathcrash

GENA – The Pleasure Is Yours (Lex Records)
Rising neo-soul torch-carrier Liv.e and veteran drummer/producer Karriem Riggins team up as the cross-generational duo GENA.

Liv.e is a rising singer who’s been championed as a torch-carrier for neo-soul for a few years now, and Karriem Riggins is a veteran drummer/producer who’s been in and around the neo-soul/alternative hip hop world for decades, having worked with Erykah Badu, J Dilla, Common, The Roots, Madlib, and several others. And now they’ve come together under the name GENA (which stands for “God Energy, Naturally Amazing” and was “loosely inspired” by Gina from Martin Lawrence’s ’90s sitcom Martin) to release an album that could easily bring both of their generations together. The music is an evocative fusion of warm jazz, glitchy live-band hip hop, and classic soul, and Liv.e tops it all off with a soaring delivery that rivals the veteran powerhouses who paved the way for her.

The Pleasure is Yours by GENA

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Voxtrot – Dreamers in Exile (Cult Hero Records)
The Austin indie trio’s first album since their 2007 debut finds them picking back up right where they left off

Austin indie vets Voxtrot, who have been covered on BrooklynVegan pretty much since the start of the website, reformed in 2022 but they’ve been cautious about jumping back into new music. Wild statistic: Dreamers in Exile is their first album since their 2007 debut but it doesn’t sound like any time has passed listening to these 11 songs. Ramesh Srivastava’s way with an anthemic chorus, and melodies that mix classic jangly indiepop with dark undercurrents is still going strong. “There’s so much optimism on this record. We approached it by bringing the energy we wanted into the room. When you lead with enthusiasm, it’s magnetic, because it’s absolutely real.” Welcome back. [Bill Pearis]

Dreamers in Exile by Voxtrot

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Crooked Fingers – Swet Deth (Merge Records)
Archers of Loaf’s Eric Bachmann gets help from Matt Berninger, Sharon Van Etten and Mac McCaughan for his first Crooked Fingers album in 15 years

Eric Bachmann has spent the last decade or so swept up in the Archers of Loaf reunion, which gave us 2022’s Reason in Decline, but he’s now turned his focus back to his folkier ’00s-era solo project, Crooked Fingers. Swet Deth is the first Crooked Fingers album in 15 years and might be the loudest, most rocking record made under this name. It features contributions from The National‘s Matt Berninger, Sharon Van Etten, and Superchunk frontman and Merge label boss Mac McCaughan, along with regular collaborators Jeremy Wheatley and Jon Rauhouse. The most special guest is Bachmann’s young son who came up with the album title and drew the cover art. [Bill Pearis]

Swet Deth by Crooked Fingers

Lala Lala – Heaven 2 (Sub Pop)
Lillie West embraces multi-layered, atmospheric, synthy indie pop on her latest LP as Lala Lala.

“Get me out of America, something in the water makes me sink,” Lillie West sings amidst the rat-a-tat of sharp synths that lead off her new album as Lala Lala, Heaven 2. There’s resonance with those lyrics and our current political moment, but also with West’s personal journey of the last few years, which has taken her from her longtime home of Chicago to New Mexico, Iceland, and London. She made her 2024 instrumental album under her own name, if i were a real man i would be able to break the neck of a suffering bird, while in Iceland, and it and 2021’s I Want the Door to Open both contain the seeds for Heaven 2, one of her strongest and most cohesive statements yet. The garagey guitar of her first two albums, Sleepyhead and The Lamb, really takes a back seat here in favor of layers of synths, electronic touches, and some saxophone from Sen Morimoto. West co-produced the album with Melina Duterte (Jay Som), and like Jay Som’s 2025 album Belong, there’s a real catchiness and immediacy to these songs. West’s work has been classified as bedroom pop, but a single room isn’t enough to contain the breadth of her sound here. [Amanda Hatfield]

Heaven 2 by Lala Lala

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Read Indie Basement for more new album reviews, including Bill Callahan, Gorillaz, Heavenly, Bibi Club, TVAM, EXEK, and a longer Buck Meek review.

Looking for more recent releases? Browse the Notable Releases and Indie Basement archives.

Looking for a podcast to listen to? Check out the latest episodes of our weekly music news podcast BV Weekly and the BV interviews podcast.

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