In this segment, we showcase the most notable albums out each week. Here are the albums out on April 24, 2026:
Foo Fighters, Your Favorite Toy
Foo Fighters’ 12th album, Your Favorite Toy, is billed as a “return to form.” Clocking in at just over 36 minutes, the follow-up to 2023’s But Here We Are is tight, nervy, and raucous, featuring the previously released singles ‘Caught in the Echo’, the title track, and ‘Of All People’. “For the last year and a half I was spending a lot of time in my studio just writing and experimenting and demoing things and I’d come up with maybe like 30 or 40 different idea,” Dave Grohl said in an interview with Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe. “One night I was listening to all of these ideas and just randomly there were these 10 songs in a row in my playlist that were all just like noisy, loud bangers. Uptempo, like back to the old days. I was like, wait a minute, maybe this is the record. There was other stuff that sounded like Led Zeppelin’s Presence and then there was stuff that sounded kind of mellow acoustic, but I was listening to this playlist and these 10 [songs] in a row and I’m like, this is the record right here.”
Friko, Something Worth Waiting For
Something Worth Waiting For, the sophomore album by Chicago band Friko, obviously, instantly lives up to its title; the ironic part of it is that we didn’t have to wait that long. You could call them kids when they burst onto the scene with Where we’ve been, Where we go from here, and its follow-up sounds like the sort of epically anthemic record an indie rock buzzband might deliver over a decade after their debut. Just two years later, Friko return with an expanded lineup, with vocalist/guitarist Niko Kapetan and drummer Bailey Minzenberger – who formed the band right out of high school – being joined by bassist David Fuller and guitarist Korgan Robb. While building on the raw, explosive dynamics, anthemic choruses, and infernal yearning of their first record, Something Worth Waiting For feels anything but rushed, just riding the wave of relentless touring instead of letting it subside. Read the full review.
Angelo De Augustine, Angel in Plainclothes
In years since 2023’s Toil and Trouble, Angelo De Augustine went through a healing journey that involved relearning to walk, talk, hear, play, and sing. “When I made Toil and Trouble I was in a really bad state, having just been released from the hospital and only about halfway through the recording of the album,” the singer-songwriter explained. “I had accepted that I was going to die and that I should do all I could to finish the record. I didn’t believe that I was going to survive the illness, let alone ever make music again. The experience unfortunately broke me and everything that I thought that I knew or could count on.” Angel in Plainclothes, his latest record for Sufjan Stevens’ label, Asthmatic Kitty Records, is beautifully ghostly and delicate. With this new record, I’m trying to pick up the pieces of who I was and figure out who I am now. I am on a journey where I feel like I may have been given a second chance at life, and I’d like to live it.”
Gia Margaret, Singing
Following a series of splendid singles, including ‘Everyone Around Me Dancing’, ‘Good Friend’, and ‘Alive Inside’, Gia Margaret has unveiled her new album, Singing. Lit by exquisite textures and Margaret’s tender vocals, it follows 2023’s Romantic Piano, the second instrumental effort Margaret made after a vocal injury that kept her from singing for years. “There was a time when I really didn’t know if I would sing again,” Margaret explained. “So once I healed, there was a lot of internal pressure to come back strong. I didn’t know who I was anymore. So it felt like beginning again, and reconnecting with these very old, old parts of myself.” Frou Frou’s Guy Sigsworth, David Bazan, Amy Millan, Deb Talan, Kurt Vile, and Sean Carey contributed to the record, which was co-produced by longtime collaborator Doug Saltzman.
Carla dal Forno, Confession
Carla dal Forno’s new album, Confession, traces various phases of obsession in what she describes as “a friendship that became emotionally charged in an unexpected way.” It feels as infatuated as it is insular, evoking her emotional fluctuations via sleek, languorous dream pop. “That shift brought daydreaming, jealousy, tenderness, confusion, self-awareness — and eventually acceptance,” she added, noting that there’s a playfulness to the record that mirrors “the sensation of tension lifting once you finally admit something to yourself.” It includes the previously unveiled tracks ‘Going Out’ and ‘Under the Covers’.
Miss Grit, Under My Umbrella
Miss Grit, the project of Korean-American composer and producer Margaret Sohn, has a new album out called Under My Umbrella. The follow-up to 2023’s Follow the Cyborg finds them foregoing the robotic archetype for a rawer, but no less bleary or dense, expression of selfhood. Even as she burrows further inward, she expands her collaborative circle, inviting contributions from Sae Heum Han (mmph), bassist Margaux Bouchegnies (Margaux), singer Eva Liu (Mui Zyu), producer Luciano Rossi (Mui Zyu), drummer Preston Fulks (Momma), and violinist Zachary Mezzo (Catcher). “Before, I was really timid about what I said and didn’t say, and that all ended up being molded into something that didn’t feel as relatable to me as it once did,” Sohn shared. “Part of it is due to honoring my feelings and trying to be more honest in my writing. I feel a deep connection to this record that I haven’t felt about my music until now.”
Quiet Light, Blue Angel Sparkling Silver 2
Quiet Light, aka Texas singer/producer/multi-instrumentalist Riya Mahesh, has released an enchanting new mixtape, Blue Angel Sparkling Silver 2, via True Panther, home to the likes of oklou and Frost Children. Genre-blurring and intensely liminal in spirit, the artist’s self-produced label debut is comprised of songs that recall “dream sequences,” in Mahesh’s words, echoing twilight hours in the Texas summer heat. “This record is for people who dream about what their life could be like,” she said in press materials.
Hrishikesh Hirway, In the Last Hour of Light
Hrishikesh Hirway has released his first full-length release under his own name after more than a decade focusing on his podcast Song Exploder. Though a deeply personal mediation on loss and longing, In the Last Hour of Light is also a largely collaborative effort, with Hirway turning producer Phil Weinrobe to track the album live at his Brooklyn studio, Sugar Mountain. It finds him co-writing with Iron & Win’s Seam Beam, Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenne Lily, Ken Pomeroy, and Uwade, who are also featured guest vocalists on the album. Additional contributors include Jenny Owen Youngs, TOMI, John Mark Nelson, and more.
Other albums out today:
Kehlani, Kehlani; April + VISTA, Traditional Noise; Ringo Starr, Long Long Road; Noah Kahan, The Great Divide; The Reds, Pinks & Purples, Acknowledge Kindness; Julia Cumming, Julia; Metric, Romanticize the Dive; The Saddest Landscape, Alone With Heaven; Loukeman, Sd-3; CAVS, Sojourn; Celer, Poulaine; Jason Aldean, Songs About Us; Failure, Location Lost; Portrayal Of Guilt, …Beginning of the End; Tempers, Delusion; BELA, Korean Love Sonnets; Fiona Brice, Think Loops.
