Notable Releases of the Week (1/30)

Joyce Manor by Dan Monick

The first month of 2026 is just about over, and we’ve got a big night for the music world coming up this weekend, the Grammys. We did a little Grammy previewing on this week’s episode of BV Weekly, and we also talked about our favorite albums of January, Geese’s SNL performance, and more on that episode. Some of my favorite albums of January are also among the five that I highlight below.

For even more new albums, Bill talks about Lande Hekt, Whitelands, Sébastien Tellier, Cast, GUV (mem Fucked Up), and Plantoid in Indie Basement; and this week’s honorable mentions include The Alchemist & Budgie, Buzzcocks, Geologist, Xaviersobased, Fakemink, Don Toliver, Blackwater Holylight, The Soft Pink Truth, LAPêCHE, MØL, Hällas, Terrace Martin, Tashi Dorji, Scott McCloud (Girls Against Boys, Soulside), Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon, Annabelle Chairlegs, Joseph, Yumi Zouma, The Molotovs, Kula Shaker, Leisure Hour, Labrinth, Marta Del Grandi, Francis Rossi (of Status Quo), James Walsh (of Starsailor), Indira Paganotto, Infected Mushroom, Barry Walker Jr., Dani Larkin, Softcult, Cordovas, Toni Geitani, James Adrian Brown, Ye Vagabonds, Concrete Husband, Demob Happy, ER Jurken, Steve Poltz (The Rugburns), Shields, Tom Woodward, Sam Quealy, Jordan Ward, Tyler Ballgame, Only The Poets, the acoustic Growing Stone EP, the Anal Trump EP, the HANNABIE. EP, the Nightmarer EP, the Hank Bee EP, the Smug LLC EP (Drew Thomson), the Triples EP, the Trembler EP, Ty Segall & The Muggers’ “Live” “At” “The” “BBC”, and A.G. Cook’s score for Charli XCX’s The Moment.

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

Joyce Manor – I Used To Go To This Bar (Epitaph)
Even while making forays into alt-country, funk-punk, and Shrek soundtrack-friendly Cali rock, Joyce Manor sound like no other band in the world.

At this point, Joyce Manor are basically a California punk institution. 16+ years and seven albums into their career, they’ve transcended the scene and era that they came from and they’ve become one of the most distinct and reliable punk bands currently going. It’s a trajectory that’s easy to compare to Bad Religion, so it’s fitting that their latest album I Used To Go To This Bar is their first to be entirely produced by Bad Religion guitarist (and Epitaph Records founder) Brett Gurewitz, who’s been a sounding board for Joyce Manor ever since he signed them over a decade ago. Brett knows how to get the best out of a band without messing with their formula, and I Used To Go To This Bar is Joyce Manor at their best. It has a few moments where Joyce Manor spread their wings, like with the alt-country/cowpunk of “All My Friends Are So Depressed,” the Shrek soundtrack-friendly Cali alt-rock of “Well, Whatever It Was,” and the funk-punk of “After All You Put Me Through,” but most of this LP is trademark Joyce Manor and even the “different” songs sound like no other band in the world. In classic Joyce Manor fashion, it’s got no fat, with just nine songs that hover around two minutes each, and this time they even end the LP with an abrupt stop that provides the exact opposite of a grand finale. I Used To Go To This Bar is a great reminder that, with Joyce Manor, less has always been more.

By Storm – My Ghosts Go Ghost (deadAir)
Injury Reserve’s surviving two members get more experimental than ever on the first album by their new project By Storm.

After the 2020 death of Injury Reserve member Stepa J. Groggs, surviving members RiTchie and Parker Corey kept the group going to release 2021’s By the Time I Get to Phoenix, which was largely completed before Groggs’ death, but in 2023 the duo revealed plans to retire the name Injury Reserve and continue to release new music under the name By Storm. RiTchie released a solo album the following year, and now By Storm release their debut album, My Ghosts Go Ghost. Going further down the experimental, post-genre rabbithole of By the Time I Get to Phoenix, By Storm have made a record that’s nearly impossible to categorize. Throughout its 9 songs, you get a mix of outsider hip hop, art pop, and electronic music (and a billy woods guest verse) that sounds like it’s coming from an entirely different universe. It’s a far cry from the brash, industrial-tinged rap music that Injury Reserve made their name with, and it’s always nice to hear already-beloved artists do something this unpredictable.

Red Sun – At Their Very Best (Wax Bodega)
After making noise with a charmingly raw EP, the rising Midwest emo band clean up real good on their first full-length.

OKC emo band Red Sun made a big impression in 2024 with their Best Buds EP and split with SUNFO, and they finally released their anticipated debut album At Their Very Best last week (which I admittedly missed at first, which is why I’m reviewing it this week). Best Buds showed that Red Sun are capable of pulling off so many emo thrills, and At Their Very Best finds them twisting those thrills into something they can call their own. They’ve got noodly Midwest emo parts, punchy pop punk, soft melancholy, and explosive climaxes, and Red Sun combine it all in a way that feels familiar but never derivative. The LP also sounds a lot sharper than their earlier recordings, with production from Billy Mannino (Oso Oso, Prince Daddy, Ben Quad, Saturdays At Your Place, etc) and Red Sun’s own Trace Brown that proves Red Sun can clean up real good. As much as I like the raw charm of Best Buds, it’s nice to hear them really soaring like they do here.

Stabbing – Eon of Obscenity (Century Media)
The rising Austin brutal death metal band sharpen their blade on their second album and first for Century Media.

After Austin, TX brutal death metal band Stabbing stirred up buzz with their 2021 EP Ravenous Psychotic Onslaught and 2022 debut LP Extirpated Mortal Process, they got an even bigger break when they opened the 2023 Suffocation/Incantation tour, on which Stabbing vocalist Bridget Lynch actually ended up filling in for Suffocation vocalist Ricky Myers after Ricky had to miss a few dates due to illness. That tour helped them ink a deal with Century Media, who’s now issuing their sophomore LP Eon of Obscenity, and Ricky Myers returned the favor by guesting on the song “Nauseating Composition.” Picking up where Extirpated Mortal Process left off, Eon of Obscenity doesn’t really mess with the tried-and-true brutal death metal formula, but as a woman vocalist in a very male-dominated subgenre, Bridget’s lyrics do mess with that formula.

“I won’t really entertain the misogyny of brutal death metal in what we do, for obvious reasons. I try to turn it around,” she says in the band’s new bio. “One of our older songs is about the first female serial killer I ever read about, Aileen Wournos. If you look at other female-led death metal bands like Castrator or Emasculator, they also try to turn the tables and present things from a different perspective.” She also cites Cerebral Bore as the female-fronted BDM band that inspired her to front a BDM band, and adds, “My hope is that when people, particularly younger girls hear Stabbing for the first time, we have that same effect on them.”

Joel Ross – Gospel Music (Blue Note)
True to its title, the jazz vibraphonist channels gospel music and biblical texts on his new meditative double album.

As both a prolific bandleader and a longtime member of Makaya McCraven’s band, vibraphonist Joel Ross is a staple of jazz’s latest generation, an expert at updating the sounds of ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s jazz for an audience who very likely got introduced to much of that music through hip hop samples. He’s also long talked about growing up in the church and taking influence from gospel music, and as the title Gospel Music suggests, that’s the theme of his new double album. He made it with an expanded sextet version of his Good Vibes band–with Josh Johnson on alto saxophone, Maria Grand on tenor saxophone, Jeremy Corren on piano, Kanoa Mendenhall on bass, and Jeremy Dutton on drums–and the album is said to “follow the arc of the grand biblical story.” 15 of its 17 songs were written by Joel, and the others are the gospel acclamation “Praise To You, Lord Jesus Christ” and the traditional spiritual “Calvary” (sung by Ekep Nkwelle). A nice treat comes at the end, when Alice Coltrane devotee Brandee Younger contributes atmospheric harp to album closer “Now & Forevermore.” The album has it’s busier moments but even those moments tend to feel meditative–the glistening sound of Joel’s vibes just has that effect.

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Read Indie Basement for more new album reviews, including Lande Hekt, Whitelands, Sébastien Tellier, Cast, GUV, and Plantoid.

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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