In this segment, we showcase the most notable albums out each week. Here are the albums out on May 1, 2026:
American Football, LP4
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n the decade-plus since American Football’s reunion, Mike Kinsella has reserved some harrowing lyrical specificity for his other project Owen, aware that it’s much less subject to scrutiny. Reeling from a divorce he’s already addressed on the last couple of Owen records, however, he leans into the vulnerability on the band’s first album in seven years, pointing fingers while claiming responsibility for the mess he’s created. “I can’t bathe in your malaise anymore/ I’d rather be profane than chaste and bored,” he sings deep into the storm of the record, which is dramatic and ambitious, yes, but will probably prove less divisive than some of us early listeners assumed. It’s exploratory, unmoored, and self-aware, though never to the point of rupturing the mythos of American Football. Read the full review.
Kacey Musgraves, Middle of Nowhere
Kacey Musgraves is going back to her roots on Middle of Nowhere, the follow-up to 2024’s Deeper Well. It arrives via the revived Lost Highway Records, where she originally signed in 2011, and was produced by longtime collaborators Daniel Tashian and Ian Fitchuk. Taking its name from a sign located outside her hometown of Golden, Texas, the record features guest appearances from Willie Nelson, Miranda Lambert, Billy Strings, and Gregory Alan Isakov. “The bulk of this record was made during the longest single period of my life,” Musgraves explained. “I found that for the first time, it actually felt incredible being alone and existing in a space not defined by anyone else. I became fascinated with the concept of liminal space, both geographical and emotional. We don’t linger in these transitional, empty spaces long enough and rush to define where or whatever is next. I became so at ease with being in the ‘middle of nowhere’ in many senses and sitting in the un-comfort of the undefined.”
Lip Critic, Theft World
Lip Critic have followed up their 2024 debut Hex Dealer with a new album, Theft World. “The whole record is about this idea of the yin-yang of stealing, the concept of theft, how it’s very pervasive in the world,” Bret Kaser explained in our interview. “It comes down to small things, like your attention span, housing prices, inflation, all these things are becoming more expensive. Things being taken from you without you having any say in it.” He cited the Internet Archive, music piracy, and passwords as some of the inspirations behind the record, along with films including Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker and the Banksy documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop.
Tori Amos, In Times of Dragons
Tori Amos is back with her 18th album and first since 2021’s Ocean to Ocean. An allegorical epic replete with dragons, tyrants, and witches, In Times of Dragons is framed as a response to the erosion of democratic structures in the United States, continuing her tradition of blending the personal and political through elaborate song cycles. On social media, Amos pitched the story’s premise as such: “As I’m fleeing from the character that is my sadistic billionaire Lizard Demon husband, I came across people I had not been allowed to see in years, and they had not wanted to see me because of the relationship I found myself in. To avoid being captured and dragged back to the Lizard Demon’s penthouse, I run to the deep south of the US to throw him and his henchman off my trail.”
Maya Hawke, Maitreya Corso
Like her last album, Chaos Angel, Maya Hawke’s latest deploys a self-mythologizing persona, and it’s a full-length collaboration with her now-husband, Christian Lee Hutson. But Maitreya Corso is more ambitious and mature in its fantastical worldbuilding, taking more than a few musical risks that complicate its amiable folk-pop. “This album generally is about learning to protect the precious from the poisonous,” Hawke shared in press materials. “Protect creation from pride. Protect love from control. Protect collaboration from jealousy.”
youbet, youbet
youbet, which has expanded from the solo project of Nick Llobet into a duo with fellow music educator Micah Prussack, have released their self-titled album. The nervy yet meticulously arranged record was recorded over 10 days last year at Katie Von Schleicher’s parents’ house in Maryland, with Julian Fader also co-producing. “Micah has brought a lot of order to my chaotic neurodivergence,” Llobet said in press materials. “I consider her my musical confidant. She can be cleverly critical and extremely encouraging. She’s probably the most opinionated person I know. Together we build this musical balance.”
Ana Roxanne, poem 1
Ana Roxanne has released her first solo album in over five years. poem 1, which is populated by sparsely decorated piano songs, may sound plaintive, but it reflects a newfound confidence in the experimental artist’s approach. “I can’t believe the time has finally come to share this with you, after years of working, ruminating and somehow pushing through to the end,” Roxanne wrote on social media. She previewed the LP with the tracks ‘Keepsake’ and ‘Untitled II’.
Weird Nightmare, Hoopla
Alex Edkins, formerly the frontman of METZ, has come through with another radiant, supremely catchy power-pop collection under the moniker Weird Nightmare. Following the project’s 2022 self-titled debut, Hoopla was co-produced by Edkins and Spoon’s Jim Eno at Seth Manchester’s Machines With Magnets in Providence, RI. Drummer Loel Campbell and bassist Roddy Kuester make up the record’s rhythm section.
Other albums out today:
Kneecap, Fenian; Isaiah Rashad, It’s Been Awful; Thurston Moore & Bonner Kramer, They Came Like Swallows: Seven Requiems for the Children of Gaza; duendita, existential thottie; Jesca Hoop, Long Wave Home; Hiss Golden Messenger, I’m People; The Black Keys, Peaches!; Octo Octa, Sigils for Survival; Toadies, The Charmer; Modern Woman Johnny, Dreamworld; Seefeel, Sol.Hz; The Boo Radleys, In Spite of Everything; Eli Moore, The Power Line; Devin Sarno, Flowers on the Ocean; Cindy, Another Country; Super Furry Animals, Precreation Percolation; Corrado Maria De Santis, Thresholds of Light.
