The best albums of 2026 so far

Published 9 June 2026 · india

Angine de Poitrine – Vol II View image in fullscreen Photograph: Samuel Snow You ever meet up with friends and realise you all dreamed about

Angine de Poitrine – Vol II View image in fullscreen Photograph: Samuel Snow You ever meet up with friends and realise you all dreamed about each other last night? Angine de Poitrine feel like the sort of band that were catalysed into being from the simultaneous reveries of a prog fan craving complex showboating, of the kind of person who went to All Tomorrow’s Parties festival too many times and believed that the hypnotic weirdos playing at 3pm really could be pop stars if the public just gave them a chance, and of a little kid who just discovered the concept of riffs and now needs to gorge on them like Haribo. That collective hunger was met in two Quebecer dudes, dressed up like Mr Blobby via Hugo Ball, whose interlocking, ecstatic drums and dual-necked guitar/bass drilled them into the hearts of a disparate but dedicated fanbase. The vault in ambition from 2024’s more straightforward Vol I to this year’s addictively wayward Vol II really was the stuff that dreams are made of. Read our interview. LS Otto Benson – Peanut With what is a pretty rudimentary bedroom-indie setup – acoustic and electric guitars, bass, drum machine, synth, vocals – US singer-songwriter Otto Benson builds a warm twilit world, evoking a den made out of blankets, pillows and electric candles. His voice, and the country-tinged songs as a whole, have the soft weight of drooping eyelids – and yet the superb melody writing staves off actual slumber. BBT Chalk – Crystalpunk View image in fullscreen Photograph: Tatiana Katkova The breakbeat hacker-tech aesthetic of the Prodigy, Propellerheads and the kind of thing heard on the Matrix soundtrack was hauled into the 21st century with great passion by this Belfast duo, topped with Dave Gahan-grade goth-pop vocals by Ross Cullen. Highlights in this instant industrial-pop classic include the Underworld-esque Béal Feirste, a techno-tempo paean to their home city, and Can’t Feel It, which will rip off roofs this festival season. Read our interview. BBT Olof Dreijer – Loud Bloom View image in fullscreen Photograph: Bo Bannink Close followers of the former Knife member’s output will already be familiar with quite a bit of Loud Bloom, released in various EPs over the past few years. You might resent Dreijer for reconstituting them into his debut solo album if the combined results weren’t so giddy and life-affirming. On one hand, I could tell you about how this zippy, Technicolor record draws from global club rhythms such as kuduro and cumbia and features vocalists from Sudan to South Africa. On the other, it might be just as accurate to say that Dreijer’s trademark synth scrunches sound like a party in a coral reef: hard, bright, wiggly and irrepressibly alluring. Read the full review. LS Dry Cleaning – Secret Love View image in fullscreen Photograph: Max Miechowski Dry Cleaning’s third album is populated by awful designers mouthing meaningless platitudes about their work, edgelords whose cynicism curdles into gory violence, influencers spouting harmful wellness advice and a succession of apparently mundane characters whose lives are on the verge of spiralling out of control. All this is related via lyrics filled with weird lines and non-sequiturs and delivered in Florence Shaw’s characteristically deadpan voice, while Dry Cleaning’s sound – delivered in impressively concise bursts – expands out from the vinegary post-punk guitars of their past work into ominous electronics, hints of folk and funk. Inventive, unique and more emotionally engaging than their reputation as sprechgesang indie’s oddballs-in-chief might suggest. Read the full review. AP Wendy Eisenberg – Wendy Eisenberg View image in fullscreen Photograph: Eleanor Petry For most indie-leaning artists, releasing a beautiful Americana record filled with love songs would hardly be worth remarking on. But for Wendy Eisenberg, a prodigious and complex guitarist known for their knotty, digressive songcraft – alone, with their bands Editrix and Birthing Hips, and as part of Bill Orcutt’s quartet; delving into rock, jazz and more – the genre fealty, clarity and brimming heart of this self-titled release hit like a shock of cold water. Having found a fully realised love with fellow musician More Eaze, Eisenberg said: “My ultimate goal is for these songs to sound beautiful because of their complexity.” The album is a finely tuned and unpredictable dance of walking bass lines, soulful pedal steel and chiming guitar, full of tension and strange time signatures – but it’s also full of songs that sound like timeless classics, radiant with melodic and spiritual resolution. “Every day, angels sing songs to me, tell me it’s finally here,” Eisenberg sings on It’s Here. “It’s here, little Wendy.” Read our interview. LS Avalon Emerson – Written Into Changes American musician Emerson was first the toast of underground clubland thanks to psychedelic techno odysseys such as The Frontier and One More Fluorescent Rush, then added a parallel career in new-wave vocal pop. Her latest album in the latter style is subtly but deeply ground in the former, with songs pressing relentlessly forward even at slower tempos, full of lyrics that contemplate friendship, romance and the measure of perspective you accumulate as your 30s spill away. BBT Carla dal Forno – Confession View image in fullscreen Photograph: Sanjay Fernandes Inspired by a romantic fixation, the Australian coldwave singer-songwriter performs a series of vignettes that chart this intense connection from prickling excitement to listlessness and doubt.