In this segment, we round up the best albums released each month. From Wendy Eisenberg to Friko, here are, in alphabetical order, the best albums of April 2026.
Angelo De Augustine, Angel in Plainclothes
The backstory looming over Angel in Plainclothes is that, after being hospitalized with an undiagnosed illness in early 2022, Angelo De Augustine had to relearn how to walk, talk, see, hear, play music, and sing again. But though at times emotionally devastating, the singer-songwriter’s latest album is no document of suffering; it’s unguarded and mystical in its intimacy, shimmering with the kindness of those who have helped him survive. “Sometimes life is too much, you know,” De Augustine told me in 2023. Angel in Plainclothes captures an artist determined to live it. Read our inspirations interview with Angelo De Augustine.
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.
Jessie Ware, Superbloom
Jessie Ware achieved disco nirvana with 2020’s What’s Your Pleasure? and 2023’s That! Feels Good!, and she isn’t abandoning it just yet. The singer’s new album, Superbloom, affirms her confidence has only been blossoming thanks to her adoring fanbase, but also feels torn between lifting her dance music up to the heavens and grounding it in domestic life, assuming the role of a goddess and staying clear of cosplay. Springtime, after all, is as joyful a season as it is transitional, and Superbloom closes a chapter as much as it opens up new lanes. Read the full review.
Lucy Liyou, MR COBRA
Lucy Liyou’s revelatory new album, MR COBRA, is adapted from her semi-autobiographical theatrical work Mister Cobra, weaving together free jazz, Korean folk opera, musique concrète, 2000s-era pop, drag-inspired performance, and more. Skirting the line between shame and desire, the artist’s discordant sound poetry is juxtaposed with her reverence for pop, from ambiently interpolating Taylor Swift to going full-on nu disco. “Sometimes trying to adhere to the ‘facts’ of my experiences made other emotional truths feel distorted,” Liyou has explained. Stripped of the context of Liyou’s multimedia performance, the illusory nature of MR COBRA is all the more replete with meaning.
My New Band Believe, My New Band Believe
The original idea for My New Band Believe was to make a collaborative album with the avant-folk octet caroline, but the project of ex-black midi member Cameron Picton ended up being a more open-ended studio endeavour that included most of that group, as well as members of Black Country, New Road, shame, and more. Just as he handled most of the writing by himself, Picton then helmed the editing process, creating a magnificent illusion of natural coherence – the way dream logic convinces you this scene makes sense after that one, before the waking mind offers ambivalent interpretations. Fluidly arranged and no less tender than it is delirious, My New Band Believe makes the frantic possibilities of a single night, record, and group structure feel infinitely, intimately mutable. Read our Artist Spotlight interview with My New Band Believe.
Robber Robber, Two Wheels Move the Soul
Two Wheels Move the Soul was recorded in the wake of an apartment fire that left Nina Cates and Zack James displaced. Relying on the generosity of the Vermont music community, they couch surfed for months, and while that infrastructure may have now seemed like a distant dream, music remained their only constant – “a new familiar place,” to quote ‘Backup Plan’ from their first LP, Wild Guess. Once again, the pair, along with guitarist Will Krulak and bassist Carney Hemler, returned to Little Jamaica Studios to lay down their new album for Fire Talk, Two Wheels Move the Soul, with engineer Benny Yurco. At once groovier and grimier than their debut, it hammers down on the same themes of shaky communication and perpetual unrest as if almost no time has passed between records. Yet through the rubble, they find new ways to navigate their shared space. Read the full review.
Wendy Eisenberg, Wendy Eisenberg
If Wendy Eisenberg’s 2024 LP Viewfinder sought to loosen the parameters of the conventional song form, their self-titled album leans into the timelessness – or, more precisely, the eternal weirdness – of classic songwriting, in part as a call back to the inner child that began to show curiosity around it. As playful and genuine as it is beguiling, Wendy Eisenberg is shaped by its contributors – bassist Trevor Dunn, drummer Ryan Sawyer, and co-producer Mari Rubio (aka more eaze) – in different ways than its predecessor, warmed by their camaraderie while mourning past lonelinesses. “Looks like luck’s inherent humour pushed you past your sense of loss,” they sing on the opener. So when Eisenberg describes self-titling as a “locus point for jokes” that “offsets its vanity by making you laugh,” it’s not a bad way of looking at what makes life itself transcendable.
