In this segment, we round up the best albums released each month. From Ratboys to Mitski, here are, in alphabetical order, the best albums of February 2026.
Buck Meek, The Mirror
On the cover of his new album The Mirror, Buck Meek is glancing back as if meeting his reflection in the lens, his shoulder obscuring his expression just enough: it’s not clear whether he’s startled, running away from something, or trying to break on through. Perhaps he’s heading to the “the tunnel underneath the road” that he finds on ‘Demon’, “a place I go to sing with echo, echo, echo” – a natural magic further filtered by the voices that tune into it throughout the record, a choir that includes Adrianne Lenker, Germaine Dunes, Staci Foster, and Jolie Holland, and bordering the electronic world fashioned by his Big Thief bandmate and producer James Krivchenia. But just like he sings of trying to write a song that is not for others on ‘Heart in the Mirror’, he’s aware of the dark side of his soul being exposed while learning to foster something good and even divine out of it rather than projecting it outward. Read our inspirations interview with Buck Meek.
hemlocke springs, the apple tree under the sea
hemlocke springs’ going…going…GONE! EP, not only showcased her knack for larger-than-life, 80s-inspired, maddeningly catchy art-pop, but also led to her opening for the likes of Conan Gray, Ashnikko, and Chappell Roan, the latter of whom interviewed her “favorite artist” in light of the artist’s debut album, the apple tree under the sea. A pop debut more conceptual but just as zany, melodramatic, and adventurous as Roan’s own, the album traces back hemlocke springs’ origin story while interrogating the narratives that have been projected upon her – not just lyrically but musically, through eclectic, triumphant production crafted alongside BURNS. It’s escapist pop you wouldn’t mind becoming more and more inescapable. Read our Artist Spotlight interview with hemlocke springs.
Joshua Chuquimia Crampton, Anata
On a purely textural level, it’s easy to dismiss Joshua Chuquimia Crampton‘s music as harsh to the point of being overstimulating. But it doesn’t take more than a little context and emotional attunement for its spiritual, medicinal, and strikingly deconstructive properties to take hold. Inspired by the ceremonies of the Great Pakajaqi Nation of Aymara people and more specifically the idea of “activated ceremonial music,” the Los Thuthanaka guitarist’s fantastic new album, Anata, riffs on and blows apart its influences not as a means of distancing but approximating their ecstatic essence, the way a low-quality audiovisual can elicit a more visceral response than the best technology. Crampton possesses a mysterious ability to let his refractive, impossibly layered guitar playing soar up into the galaxy while ensuring it all slips away in a flash. It just makes you want to hit play again.
Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon, As of Now
Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon paces himself all the way through As of Now, his 17-track debut LP for Lex Records. That doesn’t always mean taking things slow: there’s definitely an unsteadiness to the album’s flow, punctuated with the nerve to splice together beats seemingly destined for separate tracks, over which the Charlotte rapper has no trouble triangulating his humour, swagger, and pure skill. You could even argue the beat-switching reflects some of the emotional shiftiness he admits to on the record, one where the skits and adlibs are as vital to the storytelling as his truth-spilling, heartbreaking soliloquies. But Jah-Monte never trips over the music as its layers and characters pile up; he keeps steering the wheel, anchoring it in the present as the only place he can assess both his past and future.
Mandy, Indiana, URGH
For Mandy, Indiana, inspiration could come from anywhere, and their ears are as attuned to the sounds in their environment – whether close to (or in the literal walls of their) home or entirely foreign – as the ways they can be imagined into their piercing, uncanny body of work. And the body is precisely the animating force on URGH, their first album for Sacred Bones, which partly took shape during “an intense residency at an eerie studio house” near Leeds, but mostly, and painstakingly, over long distances. Buzzing, thrashing, and sloshing through unpindownable spaces that can only be defined by the coordinates of their own band name, the album similarly inspires countless reactions but can only really be captured by its own title. Read our inspirations interview with Mandy, Indiana.
Maria BC, Marathon
Following 2022’s Hyaline and 2023’s Spike Field, Maria BC‘s new album places an emphasis on songwriting over the gauzy, fragmented production that marked their earlier work. Hazy synths, twitching rhythms, and a blur of overlapping instrumentation still add nuance and density to the songs, but you can imagine them stripped of their textural brilliance, still hauntingly resonant. “The interesting thing about being vaguely ambient musicians for both of us is that without the verb, and without the dream zone additions,” Marissa Nadler said in a conversation with the Oakland-based artist, “I think that your music still stands up very strongly, even if you were to play unplugged on the street. That’s, to me, the mark of a great songwriter.”
Mitski, Nothing’s About to Happen to Me
As beautifully pastoral as 2023’s The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, with live instrumentation by the band that accompanied her on The Land tour, Mitski’s startling eighth album gestures at a cohesive narrative rather than breathing life into a series of interconnected vignettes. Still, there’s more than one way to connect the dots: from one song to the next, from new to old, nothing to everything. Just listen, though, and you might find her longest album (at 35 minutes) to also be her boldest statement to date. Read the full review.
Nothing, a short history of decay
Nothing have been on a two-year album cycle since 2014’s Guilty of Everything, and though they remained busy between 2020’s The Great Dismal and their fifth album and Run for Cover debut, a short history of decay, the break allowed Domenic “Nicky” Palermo the stillness to properly reflect on his pre-Nothing days – growing up with an abusive father, spending two years in prison – and the toll of keeping the band going, both on his body and his relationships from home. Named after a book by Romanian philosopher Emil Cioran, a short history of decay takes a step back to mirror the raw humanity that’s been responsible for the band’s survival, articulating, gently yet vigorously, traumas better shrouded on previous records. “When I was old/ Ain’t life terrible/ With beautiful things getting between,” Palermo sings on the opener. This may be Nothing’s final chapter, but they still traffic in that in-between. Read our inspirations interview with Nothing.
Ratboys, Singin’ to an Empty Chair
Listening to the follow-up to 2023’s The Window on repeat, an empty chair was always in my periphery, and I would sometimes find myself staring at it while letting the songs do the talking: projecting, sure, but mostly getting lost in their sprawling journey, closing my eyes to appreciate their textures – homed in with producer Chris Walla – and spinning my head in pure joy. I was grateful for their lonely revelations but eager to put it on in the car, on a long drive surrounded by loved ones. If you have listened to a Ratboys record before, you already know the new one is as tremendously open-hearted and emotionally piercing as it is ultra-catchy. The subject matter may seem heavier this time, but it feels less like pulling a blanket over the unvarnished truth than warming the room that could make it unravel, keeping the door open for anyone who’d like to enter. Read our inspirations interview with Ratboys.
Remember Sports, The Refrigerator
Recorded at Chicago’s Electrical Audio, Remember Sports‘ new album, their first for Get Better Records, refashions the surreal collision of past and present selves – inspired by Perry’s job teaching at an elementary school through COVID – as a head-spinning emotional ride, from the guttural rawness of ‘Across the Line’ to the hypnotic recollections of the bagpipe-led ‘Ghost’. “The kitchen table split in two and I thought of you,” Perry sings on the latter, the whole band ensuring that train of thought – bending time and reason as it does – is a thrill to follow. Read our Artist Spotlight interview with Remember Sports.
