The 25 best albums of 2026 (so far)

Music writers live for an excuse to make a list, and I'm no exception to that stereotype. The year is halfway over, so I rounded up my 25 favorite albums of 2026 thus far – including EPs and mixtapes, because I don't see a point in distinguishing between those formats in the streaming age. The first 15 albums in this list are arranged alphabetically, but my top 10 are ranked numerically from 10 to 1. That portion of the list is for paid subscribers only. You can flick through your favorite Instagram blog to get music recommendations void of context and criticism, but if you actually want to learn anything about the music you're listening to, then you have to travel to sites like Chasing Sundays. And my site requires money to operate, so please support me if you can. Happy listing.

b7lanket, Luko M - Home Team

b7lanket writes computerized pop songs about frogs and Luko M is best known for remixing a Jonah Paz side-project. Together, these laptop-twee troubadours made Home Team, a joyously miniature slate of warm, glitchy, gratuitously idyllic pop songs that make you want to sift through old birthday cards and maybe dig out your childhood Wii games. Nina Protocol might be dead, but the hook of "Asleep awake" will live forever.

bleac - roller coaster pass out comp vol 1

Most of the time I can identify exactly why I think a piece of music is compelling and explain its positive qualities with an abundance of written words. But occasionally I hear something that makes me resort to the commonfolk expression of: "this is good." This bleac EP that I've been returning to since February is good. The songs are good. They make me happy to hear. The sounds are nice. Synths go bleep. Drums go boom. Voice goes [indistinct murmuring] Good stuff.

Clothesline From Hell - SLATHER ON THE HONEY

I previously compared Clothesline From Hell to Elliott Smith and This Is Lorelei, which are apt references that still don't come anywhere near to describing what SLATHER ON THE HONEY is actually like. So now I'm going to pull a comparison out of left field: Faith No More. The Canadian singer-producer's songs don't sound like Faith No More (though a couple of them almost kind of do...) but Clothesline From Hell pulls off a similar musical trickshot of madcap genre blending, surprisingly heavy riffs, and world-class melodies. Faith, restored.

concealer. - This Room Could Be Heaven.

I don't think the metalcore revival is over, but in the first half of 2026 it certainly turned an irreversible corner for reasons that I don't care to wade into in a three-sentence list blurb. Suffice to say, Florida's concealer. are still making aughts-era metalcore sound fresh and dangerous, and on their staggering debut This Room Could Be Heaven., they're doing so better than any other active band. These are the types of – not just breakdowns, not just hooks, but ideas – that major-label bidding wars are fought over. Enjoy 'em while we got 'em, because who knows where they'll go from here.

Feeble Little Horse - bitknot

bitknot is exactly what I want from a band's third album: a record that simultaneously refines, expands, and preserves Feeble Little Horse's frisky noise-pop sound. The frills and thrills are subtler than they were on Girl With Fish, but all of their members' strengths – Sebastian Kinsler's playful production, Lydia Slocum's droll vocals, Jake Kelley's focused drumming – have audibly improved, and the group's chemistry is more cohesive than it's ever been. So much of Feeble's appeal early on was their slapdash talent, but with bitknot, they found a way to professionalize their approach without losing their mischievous magic.

The Femcels - I Have to Get Hotter

I don't know if there's anything more that I can say about this record that I didn't already, other than underscore its durability. After my first week listening to I Have to Get Hotter, I questioned whether The Femcels' riotously cheeky debut would solidify into more than a passing curio or quietly disintegrate by the time summer rolled around. Summer's here, and I Have to Get Hotter still stands as the year's most giddily provocative prank on pop. I can't think of another album where I simultaneously want to skip and savor each song, and that tension is exactly what makes The Femcels such a crucial band in the age of passive spectacle.

Greg Mendez - Beauty Land

It's pretty amazing what Greg Mendez can do with just his guitar and voice. Maybe a drum beat here or a jingly keyboard harmony there, but Beauty Land is mostly the Philadelphia songwriter warbling his woes with a Beatlesque tendency to make every line whistle-worthy. Especially the hook in "Gentle Love" where Mendez actually whistles, but also the tormented shuffle of "No Evil" – his most full-bodied song yet. And don't forget "Looking Out Your Window," the best song Alex Chilton never wrote – among other rote ways of describing an indescribably perfect world-weary pop tune. Because that's the type of song Mendez writes again and again.

ideasforconversations - No Bad Words

There's a part in a recent John's Music Blog interview with 300SkullsAndCounting where the London screamo wacko unpacks his philosophical mission to "bring back awesome." He was specifically talking about smacking the London Windmill scene out of its collegiate stupor, but I think 300SkullsAndCounting was awakening a cross-continental appetite for awesomeness. ideasforconversations are NYC's preeminent stewards of that vibe shift, and their new EP, No Bad Words, is positively dripping with awesome sauce. XD's all around.

James Massiah - Contact High

I was only vaguely aware of Dean Blunt associate James Massiah until a member of RIP Magic turned me onto this EP in a recent Chasing Sundays interview (subscribe for weekly riches of this quality). That was a few weeks ago, and these four songs – especially the sensually prowling "Visa" – haven't left my speakers ever since. The U.K. rap renaissance is tacitly framed as a young person's game, but Massiah, cooling in his mid-30s, emanates a suave sophistication that scoundrels like fakemink and EsDeeKid will never acquire. Classy, innit.

No Truth - Beyond the Confines of Morality

There's still an unwieldy glut of amazing hardcore entering the world each month, including a lot of "old-school" hardcore (I.E. democore) that's continuing to have more presence in the zeitgeist than that style has in nearly two decades. I like a lot of that stuff, but in 2026, I've accepted that the hardcore I like best is the pulverizing shit. The metallized hardcore that's designed for cracking skulls and blackening skies. Beyond the Confines of Morality is that type of hardcore. Start with the song "Carving" and see if you can make it the rest of the EP without a hazardous testosterone spike.

Pain Clinic - Love Hurts

Speaking of bone-breaking hardcore, Pittsburgh's Pain Clinic will likely put you in one if you're not careful. I'd been waiting four years for the follow-up to their crude yet promising 2022 demo, and this nine-song platter of anthemic mosh fodder was well worth the wait. Pittsburgh is known for a very specific style of beatdown that's both theatrically over the top and also deadly serious, and there isn't a single active band (RIP Enemy Mind) who embody that regional flair better than Pain Clinic.

Roc Marciano - 656

I'm partial to rappers who play the villain in their music: Pusha-T, Future, every Playboi Carti affiliate, and of course Roc Marciano. The New York MC raps every line with the devious bluster of a bad guy scheming in his lair, except in Roc Marciano's world, there's no superhero who arrives to save the day. On 656, his best project in several years, Marciano basks in the spoils of his own success, with certifications of realness being the currency that he stacks up to the ceiling like Scrooge McDuck. No one else can make drumless, creaky old soul flips sound this cutting.

Seefeel - Sol.Hz

I was kind of shocked at how much I loved this new Seefeel LP. I enjoyed the band's pair of mini-albums from a couple years back well enough, but Sol.Hz is the ambient-gaze pioneers' most substantive project since 2011. The abstracted shoegaze vortexes of their early years are still drained from their sound, and what remains are ripples of dark, dubby downtempo that are sometimes minimal to the point of inaudibility, and sometimes so glaringly present that the frigid undulations send shivers down my spine.

World I Hate - Total Nuclear Annihilation

There are hardcore albums from 2026 that are heavier, moshier, and more memorable on a song-by-song basis than Total Nuclear Annihilation. But there isn't an album from this year that's more mouth-foamingly angry than World I Hate's apoplectic sophomore LP. This absolute maelstrom of ruling class antipathy manages to subvert every stale trope in the genre (particularly World I Hate's commendably stubborn refusal to dole out mosh parts like candy) while also sounding extremely contemporary. Just listen to that song "Incentivized" – "You make your money if I fucking die/It's me against you, I'm Incentivized" – and try not to clench your fist. You can't.

xaviersobased - Xavier

Xavier is the record that made me fully come around to xaviersobased, a prolific young rapper who's spearheading an increasingly popular movement of woozy, blurry internet rap with serious IRL appeal. When I reviewed this album earlier this year, I wrote about how agile xav is at massaging off-beat flows and hazy-headed beats into accessible pop-rap songs. However, the more I listen to this record, the more normal it sounds to me. Not normal in a derivative or boring way, but in a logical, relatable, and quenching – as in this is what I need to hear to keep me grounded – type of way.