New Releases Summary · 2026

September

89 albums reviewed this month, grouped by style.

Progressive Rock

Lonely Robot – An EndingJohn Mitchell closes out, with «An Ending» (11 September, White Knight Records), the cycle Lonely Robot opened in 2015 with «Please Come Home»: the project’s sixth album and, in his own words, the one meant to «close the circle…8.2/10 · Full review →Green Carnation – A Dark Poem, Part III: The Messiah Complex«Unconditional Artificial Chemistry» kicks off with a mid-tempo groove where Stein Roger Sordal’s bass steps to the front and the guitar riff never lets up throughout the track.…8/10 · Full review →Pattern-Seeking Animals – Grimalkin«Maybe All a Dream» takes a film-score-style intro before anyone comes in, and it’s still got a good eight minutes of ground to cover after that.…7.5/10 · Full review →Amour – The Space Before the T of TimeThe title track runs fifteen minutes and eighteen seconds and takes up two thirds of the record.…7/10 · Full review →ESP Project – Extra Sensory PerceptionSeven songs, fifty-one minutes and forty-five seconds, and a formula that doesn’t budge.…6/10 · Full review →Celeste – Prince Of One Day“Prince of One Day” opens the record at six minutes and nine seconds, and anyone who knows the Italian catalogue of the seventies will place it before the first line is sung: it’s “Principe di un Giorno”, the piece that opened…7/10 · Full review →Juzz – Juzz II“Nostalxia adolescente” runs ten minutes and forty-four seconds, takes up nearly a third of the album and is where everything happens: a Virxilio da Silva guitar solo in the middle section that goes looking for Pat Metheny’s…7/10 · Full review →Mantra Machine – Echoes Forest“Ombius” runs seven minutes and thirty and is where the Dutch trio show everything they have: a thick fuzz guitar with the tone Stefan Koglek settled on in Colour Haze, a science-fiction synth melody over the top and a rhythm…7/10 · Full review →Stefano Panunzi – CaravaggioThe title track, which opens disc one, begins with David Torn alone on acoustic guitar and Panunzi’s keyboards a long way behind him.…7.5/10 · Full review →Pure Reason Revolution – Terrifying AngelsTwo pieces carry Terrifying Angels: the title track (12:26) and “Hold Your Wrath” (14:45), which together account for 27:11 of the album’s 50:01.…7.6/10 · Full review →Peter Hammill – Tears In Time“For A Rainy Day” (6:18) opens on solo grand piano with the voice coming in over the top before the strings arrive, and it’s the longest of the eleven: nothing else here gets past 5:32.…7.9/10 · Full review →Steve Hackett & Steve Rothery – The Roaring Waves“K-129” (7:52) is the longest of the seven and the one that gets most out of the maritime concept: it takes its name from the Soviet submarine lost in the Pacific in 1968, the electric guitar imitates submerged machinery and…7.2/10 · Full review →Mr.Bison – The Garden of Forgotten Dreams“Bright Shadow” (7:13) is the third track and the longest here, and the only moment where the Tuscan quartet gives itself room to breathe.…7.6/10 · Full review →Trion – Terra TiempoThe band’s name is “trio” plus “Mellotron”, and track five is called “Melloreed” (3:45), so there isn’t much doubt about where the centre of this record is.…7.1/10 · Full review →Frédéric L’Epée – Contre CourantFifteen pieces for solo electric guitar, with no drums, no keyboards and no voice.…7.5/10 · Full review →Tom Rice – Laws & TrianglesTwenty-three minutes, four tracks and no voice.…6.5/10 · Full review →Compassionizer – The Faithful of the LandThe record opens with “Blessed Is He That Considereth the Poor” (10:07) and closes with its title track (11:21): twenty-one and a half of its fifty-two minutes concentrated in the first piece and the last.…7.2/10 · Full review →Downes Braide Association – Trauma“Hello, Hello” (4:57) comes in on a stadium chorus with no keyboard preamble at all, which is not how a Geoff Downes record usually starts.…7.6/10 · Full review →Also Eden – Holy Books & Credit Cards 1: Promises“Promises” opens the EP at nine minutes and three seconds and closes it again at six thirty-seven, stripped back to an acoustic: two of the four tracks on Holy Books & Credit Cards 1: Promises are the same song.…7.2/10 · Full review →Markus Reuter & Stefano Castagna – Sky On The Ground“Heartless Heart” (5:05) opens on a steady pulse and a treated voice that never quite becomes a voice, and that already tells you how Sky On The Ground was made: the raw material is improvisations Markus Reuter had been recording…7/10 · Full review →Slug Comparison – Cold In Cold OutCold In Cold Out opens on a declared homage. “Tongue of the Hollow” began as a drop-D tuning with the open strings held as a drone, and when Doug Harrison played it back he heard Nirvana’s “Something in the Way” in it.…7/10 · Full review →

Metal

Ølyp – I(m)MORTALØlyp are a French duo made up of Thibaud Lépicier (guitar, bass and part of the production) and David Annenkoff (drums), and «I(m)MORTAL» is their debut full-length, out on 25 September via Klonosphere/Season of Mist.…7.5/10 · Full review →SUBMASQ – Spirit AnimalSUBMASQ — the Israeli collective known until recently as Subterranean Masquerade — release «Spirit Animal» on 9 September via American label Willowtip Records: their seventh full-length and the first under the new name.…7.6/10 · Full review →Krallice – Scour Order«Agonal Shining» runs eight minutes and spends every one of them.…8.4/10 · Full review →Remote Viewing – STATE VIOLENCEAfter «#makemoneymakelovemakemoney», which serves as a nearly six-minute doorway in, «Retrain as a Swan» arrives and shows what the record is about: a saturated guitar riff, Ed Dudley’s screams four bars later, no recognisable…7.8/10 · Full review →Godflesh – Decay“Consume Me” runs 11:38 and takes up more than a quarter of Decay.…7.8/10 · Full review →Deathchant – KOVA“Ruin” runs 6:56 and it’s where KOVA finally lets go. Deathchant strip distortion out instead of piling it on, the groove picks up, Thomas J.…7.9/10 · Full review →Burner – No One Is Coming To Save UsThe album opens at 7:45 (“The Third Revelation”) and closes at 7:39 (“Agni Kai”), and somewhere in between there’s a track that lasts 1:52.…7.6/10 · Full review →God Mother – KöttvärldTwenty-five minutes and twelve tracks, ten of which don’t reach two and a half minutes.…7.9/10 · Full review →Kai Hansen – Born With a HammerEight minutes and four seconds, at track five. “Born with a Hammer” is the longest thing Kai Hansen has put his name to alone, and earMUSIC presents it as the heart of the record and compares it to “Bohemian Rhapsody”.…7.2/10 · Full review →Altarage – Cogwheel“Peso Muerto” (9:31) has no intro.…8.0/10 · Full review →Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats – Shapes of Midnight“House by the Grave” opens with six and three-quarter minutes of dragging riff and Kevin Starrs’ vocal doubled and soaked in reverb, and that register runs the whole eight tracks.…8/10 · Full review →Kongh – Dissolved in Time“Staining the Ether” runs eighteen minutes and fifty-one seconds and spends its opening stretch without drums: clean guitars, no resolution, and a tension left to build until it gets uncomfortable.…8/10 · Full review →

Jazz

Josh Berman Trio – Everybody Else’s Life, TooThe album was recorded live at Chicago’s Constellation in 2025, and it’s three people: Josh Berman on cornet, Jason Roebke on double bass and Chris Corsano on drums.…7.5/10 · Full review →Pete Roth Trio – Group Chat«Full Circle» opens at a fast tempo with a drum pattern straight out of Bill Bruford’s own eighties band, and what follows confirms this is a live recording: entrances that search for each other, air between the players,…7.2/10 · Full review →Todd DelGiudice – Mas AltoThe record opens with «Ablution», a Lennie Tristano tune, and with the formula already stated: sax, double bass and drums, no harmonic instrument to say where the chords sit.…6.9/10 · Full review →Las Instancias – Las Instancias“Pegao” starts with Fermín Suárez alone, bowing the double bass, and by the time Shantala Ferreyra’s clarinet and Gonzalo Goicoechea’s drums come in, the theme is already planted.…7.5/10 · Full review →Paul Yonemura – First Flight HomeDrummer Paul Yonemura recorded four of his own compositions on a demo tape in 1984 and meant to leave it there.…7/10 · Full review →Mike Catalano – A Trio Affair“Night Side Up” opens with Steve Gadd on brushes and Mike Catalano’s piano settled into five minutes of straight-ahead jazz with no intention of surprising anyone.…7/10 · Full review →Alessandro Florio – Controra Avenue“Reginella” opens the album: a textbook Neapolitan song, here in five minutes and eight seconds of organ trio, with Kyle Koehler’s Hammond B3 carrying the theme and Carmen Intorre Jr. on drums.…6.5/10 · Full review →Henry Threadgill – Cut You Where You Was“Red Admiral Red Moon Rising” runs twelve minutes and twenty-one seconds and takes up more than a third of the record’s thirty-six minutes on its own.…8/10 · Full review →Stephanie Borgani – Mímica: Música para Quatro Instrumentos“Quieto, Por Favor”, the closing track, starts with Borgani singing a running eighth-note theme in unison with Lucas Sales’s alto sax.…7/10 · Full review →Frank London – Touzle Your Kurchy“Loisaida Quickstep” opens the record with Brian Chase’s snare and Kenny Wollesen’s bass drum marking the military step, and the horns breaking formation at the first opportunity.…7.5/10 · Full review →Mark Guiliana – BEAT MUSIC 2.0“P.LAY” runs 5:31 and it’s the track where BEAT MUSIC 2.0 really holds.…7.0/10 · Full review →Jon Lloyd Quartet – Anima“Winter Light” closes Anima at 10:54, nearly three minutes longer than anything else on the record.…7.7/10 · Full review →Wadada Leo Smith – Constellations And Hemispheres“Dark Matter, Particles of Light, Mirror of the Unseen” takes up 22:06 of the record’s fifty-nine minutes and is its declared centre.…8.0/10 · Full review →Matt Wilson’s Good Trouble – Love Is The Whole Thing, We Are Only PiecesThe record opens with “Wind Spirit” (4:29), where Dawn Clement sings John 3:8 about the wind blowing where it pleases while Matt Wilson brushes the cymbals so quietly you almost feel them rather than hear them; the rest of the…7.5/10 · Full review →Amalie Dahl’s Dafnie – Live at Kafé HærverkForty-two minutes across four tracks, recorded at Kafé Hærverk in Oslo, and the longest is “Eco-Echoes” (13:59): it begins with an unaccompanied bass solo from Nicolas Leirtrø that lays out the breathing of the theme before…7.7/10 · Full review →Ulysses Owens Jr. and Generation Y – Kind of GrungeTwelve grunge songs run through the hard bop mould, and the last one isn’t grunge at all: “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” (7:35) is a traditional tune Lead Belly recorded and Nirvana retrieved for their Unplugged set.…7.2/10 · Full review →Jason Kruk – Beyond the VeilTwelve tracks and not one of them under four and a half minutes: Jason Kruk’s second album has the ambition of a suite, and the running order confirms it.…6.8/10 · Full review →Alberto N. A. Turra – The TAAN Trio walks the Major Arcana walkTwenty-two tracks, which is exactly the number of Major Arcana in the tarot, and in the same order: “Il Folle” opens as the Fool and “Il Mondo” closes as the World.6.6/10 · Full review →Kevin Sun – Kevin Sun, IThe first track, “Go In” (4:13), starts out from John Coltrane’s “Countdown” and arrives with the sounds doubled and inverted in post-production.…8.0/10 · Full review →Espen Eriksen Trio – Almost ThereEight pieces and thirty-five and a half minutes. The longest, “Winter Is Coming”, runs 5:03 and starts with the double bass alone before the piano comes in to bloom near the end; the shortest, “Another Day”, runs 3:31.…7.4/10 · Full review →Hilary Geddes – Redleaf“Riff” (8:07) opens the album and is the long piece.…7.3/10 · Full review →Martín Iaies – People, Places“Graz” (7:41) opens the album and carries the name of the Austrian city where Martín Iaies has settled; “Delfina’s Way” (7:05) is for a younger sister and “El Donny” (6:14) was written when he learned he was going to be a father.…7.0/10 · Full review →Sarah D’Angelo – You Are There“Overjoyed” (6:14) opens the album and is the longest thing on it: the song Stevie Wonder released on In Square Circle (1985), taken here at a far slower tempo, with Rick Roe’s piano placing short voicings under the voice and…6.8/10 · Full review →The Solomon Gundy Band – Hancestry“Hancestry (for Zora Neale Hurston)” (5:38) opens the album with layers of percussion stacking up before any theme arrives, and it tells you straight away what kind of record this is: Sean Corby’s trumpet lives inside the rhythm…7.4/10 · Full review →James Gordon Williams – Falling to Rise Again“Yemoja (Water Spirit Meditation)” (5:01) opens the album with the name of the Yoruba water orisha and with the Rhodes out in front of the acoustic piano, and that choice sets up everything after it: Falling to Rise Again is…7.2/10 · Full review →Ekep Nkwelle – Caged Bird“His Eye Is on the Sparrow” (3:20) is a traditional gospel hymn, and it is the first thing you hear on Caged Bird.…7.0/10 · Full review →Jazz Out of Norway – 12th Set 2026Thirty-six tracks, close to three hours and a seventy-nine-page booklet: 12th Set 2026 is the twelfth instalment of Jazz Out of Norway, the compilation with which Norwegian jazz introduces itself abroad and which has been working…7.5/10 · Full review →Ayumi Tanaka, Thomas Morgan, Thomas Strønen – WindflowerOf the nine tracks on Windflower, eight were improvised in the room.…7.5/10 · Full review →Trevor Watts / Barry Guy / Ramón López – The First Touch“Lublin” runs twenty-one and a half minutes and “Emerging” eighteen: between them they take up more than half of the seventy-six minutes of The First Touch.…8/10 · Full review →Chad Fowler / Eri Yamamoto – Polkadots & Moonbeams“Ash” opens the record with an alto lament answered by a piano figure that carries itself like a hymn. Chad Fowler wrote it in the days after his father died, and it is one of only two composed pieces among the eight.7.5/10 · Full review →Weave4 – La Gomma Di DanteThe title track is Benoît Delbecq’s, built out of stuttered fragments and beats that sound machined, with guitar and clarinet jabs landing off the beat and the odd piano phrase passing through.…7.5/10 · Full review →Daniel Carter / Sabir Mateen / William Parker / Lou Grassi – Keeping It In Context“The Surface Of No Strain” opens low and consonant, both tenors still idle, and spends thirty-five minutes swelling and deflating without losing the thread.…7.8/10 · Full review →

Post-rock

Russian Circles – NineRussian Circles have been doing the same job, instrumental and unhurried, out of Chicago since 2004: Mike Sullivan on guitar, Brian Cook on bass and keys, Dave Turncrantz on drums.…7.8/10 · Full review →Raphael Weinroth-Browne – EmpyreanEverything that sounds on «Empyrean» comes from an acoustic cello.…7.5/10 · Full review →Blueneck – Moonlighting«Mouth Of The Snake» opens with a dry electronic beat, and Duncan Attwood’s voice comes straight in over it, with none of the long build-ups post-rock usually uses to warm up.…8/10 · Full review →Peninsula – Revelation SpaceAll three tracks carry the exact time of their improvisation in the title: “Phase 1: Induction” is dated 17 December 2024, 17:57; “Phase 2: Stabilisation”, 16 December, 16:25; and “Phase 3: Exploration”, 16 December, 15:37.…7.5/10 · Full review →Gaspar Claus – CELLSThe rule of CELLS fits in a line: everything on the record comes out of Gaspar Claus’s cello, with two exceptions.…7.7/10 · Full review →Dead Sea Apes – Psychic Tension“Damn Your Eyes” opens on a bassline that doesn’t budge for seven and a half minutes, and that decision governs everything after it.…7/10 · Full review →

Alternative

This Is Lorelei – The Singer in My BandNate Amos — also of Water From Your Eyes — releases his second album under the name This Is Lorelei, «The Singer in My Band», on 11 September via Matador: eleven songs written on tour in a van, with no access to instruments,…7.4/10 · Full review →Boy Harsher – Get Mean«Get Mean» is Boy Harsher’s first album for a major label, Atlantic Records, and their first full-length since «The Runner» (2022).…7.5/10 · Full review →Beck – Ride LonesomeThe title track «Ride Lonesome» opens the record with four and a half minutes of acoustic guitar and little else, setting the tone for the twelve tracks that follow: forty-seven minutes recorded in Studio B at United Studios in…8/10 · Full review →Blood Red Shoes – Stay Lonely«Start to End» opens Blood Red Shoes’ seventh record with the same line-up as always: Laura-Mary Carter on guitar and vocals, Steven Ansell on drums and also singing, and nothing else. What’s changed is behind the scenes.…7/10 · Full review →Hibushibire – Phantom Fuzzy ExoticaThe riskiest thing on the record is also the last, and it runs thirteen minutes and ten seconds: “Ai Vist Lo Lop”, a medieval Occitan traditional song that Hibushibire begin by honouring its pastoral shape, with an almost bare…7.5/10 · Full review →Reigns – The AntigeistThe title comes from the second track.…7.4/10 · Full review →Protomartyr – Hotel UsonaThe first thing you notice about Hotel Usona is the horns.…8.0/10 · Full review →Son Volt – Sound Signal Serenades“Kaleidosphere (Devil His Due)” (3:09) runs three minutes flat with no bridge and no solo: it is exactly the song Jay Farrar has been writing for thirty years, and as an opener it does the job.…7.2/10 · Full review →Various Artists – We Are The Beautiful: Two Decades Of Shoegaze 1991-2011Four discs, sixty-seven tracks and a little over five hours to account for twenty years of one way of playing the guitar.…7/10 · Full review →Chelsea Wolfe – The DarkThe most telling fact about The Dark is how long the songs are. All ten fit between the 3:17 of “Seethe” and the 4:31 of “Cold”, and the album runs forty and a half minutes.…6/10 · Full review →

Blues

Warren Haynes – Dreams & Songs: A Symphonic JourneyThe record opens and closes with the two halves of «Dreams and Songs», and in between sit fourteen songs spread across Warren Haynes’ four musical lives: the Allman Brothers, Gov’t Mule, his own solo career, and the songs he…7.5/10 · Full review →Danielle Nicole – FirefliesEleven songs and forty-eight minutes, which for a blues record today counts as craftsman’s measure.…7.3/10 · Full review →

Classic Rock

Arthur Brown – NatureThe title track opens the record and takes four minutes to plant the character: Brown recites, proclaims and sings in turns, and the band stops and starts as if the number were happening on a stage.…7.4/10 · Full review →Square Wild – Otherling“Shadow Puppets” opens with Lucy Shevchuk playing piano through a Leslie speaker, and its six minutes and eleven seconds already flag what’s coming: a track that starts out in cabaret colours and ends somewhere much darker and…7.5/10 · Full review →Wesley Stace – One Last Heist“One Last Heist” runs 3:38 and sounds like the theme to a seventies cop show.…7.5/10 · Full review →Europe – Come This Madness“One on One” (3:41) starts with John Levén’s bass out in the open, and it is the first thing you hear on Come This Madness: a record that opens through the rhythm section rather than the keyboard, which was Europe’s calling card…7.5/10 · Full review →

Folk & World

L’eveil – Wars of Abstraction«Ascending» opens with fast fingerpicking and a run of harmonics, and for forty-one minutes there’s nothing else but an acoustic guitar. No layers, no effects, no second track.…7/10 · Full review →Sheila Chandra – EchoSixteen live and session takes, all recorded in one pass: Echo is the collection Sheila Chandra has assembled from a search through everything that was ever captured of her concerts and her radio and television sessions.…7.4/10 · Full review →