In this segment, we showcase the most notable albums out each week. Here are the albums out on May 15, 2026:
Drake, Iceman
Yes, there are three Drake albums out today. No, I’m not putting all of them on this list. I’m still on my first listen of Iceman, which drags on for over an hour – Habibti and Maid of Honour, thank God, have shorter runtimes (and divergent styles). I’m still trying to wrap my head around the event record, but it keeps frustrating me at every turn, as if stifling every good idea it churns out. Future, 21 Savage, and Molly Santana (“not Hannah Montana”) guest on this one, and ‘Plot Twist’ is the album’s first single to get a music video.
Kevin Morby, Little Wide Open
On Little Wide Open, Kevin Morby’s songwriting manages to sound both epically expansive while exuding a very simple warmth. It’s one of Morby’s gifts, and the new album might be his most consistent demonstration of it. It was produced by Aaron Dessner, with contributions from Justin Vernon, Katie Gavin, Lucinda Williams, Mat Davidson, Meg Duffy, and more. “Little Wide Open is set to a backdrop of tangled highways, towns with populations less than 100,000, roadside crosses, a rock and roll romance, coupling butterflies, being an American entertainer, Econoline vans, and more,” Morby explained. “This is, without a doubt, the most personal and vulnerable album I’ve ever made. Aaron did a heroic job of holding me back from throwing too many tricks at the songs and letting my stories stand a bit naked. Despite its title this album is in fact, very wide open.”
Rostam, American Stories
Rostam’s American Stories is a record of gorgeous ambition. To my ears, it’s the ex-Vampire Weekender’s best solo album to date, more direct and coherent than Half-Light and Changephobia, both impressive records in their own right. Clairo is featured on the early single and highlight ‘Hardy’, while Tobias Jesso Jr. co-wrote a couple of tracks. “At some point in making this record I realized the album I wanted to make was one that reflected my identity as both Iranian and American,” Rostam explained. “Pushing the most Iranian elements right up against the most American ones brought me a certain kind of joy. The first time I put microtonal saz melodies over Western guitar chords, I was thrown off by the way the two rubbed together. But the more I listened the more I became drawn to that rub. I became addicted to it.”
Ivy Knight, Iron Mountain
Iron Mountain is the debut album by Oakland-raised, Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter Ivy Knight. Made in collaboration with Deer park, the record homes in on subtly accented folk-rock after a couple of blearier, stripped-back EPs. “Whenever I’m with him, I can usually tap into stuff that I don’t think I can tap into when I’m alone,” Knight said in our Artist Spotlight interview. But when I’m developing a song, if I’m stuck or something, I think of this grid of space that has objects from the themes that I’m interested in, and I’m like, ‘Let’s traverse this. We can walk through and see this theme, and then what about this object or this item?’ Placing them in space physically, and then it gives me some structure to get to each thing.”
Nara’s Room, Tearless, thoughtless
Nara’s Room – the Brooklyn-based quartet led by Nara Avakian – have released a new album, Tearless, thoughtless. Following their 2024 debut Glassy star, the record was previewed by the singles ‘Tucson’, ‘Lizzie McGuire’, ‘Reseda’, which offer a taste of its expansive range. Much of the record reflects back on Avakian’s youth, with them commenting on ‘Reseda’: “I think when I experience change and loss, I tend to recede toward familiar places and things that no longer exist anymore. Reseda Blvd is a long and winding road in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, where I grew up. It intersects with Sesnon Blvd. These roads intersect at almost the exact point of my childhood home, now gone, and yet I still recede. The loss of this relationship led me to recede to the idealized past of Reseda Blvd.”
Mad Honey, Bridge Over Cumberland
Oklahoma City band Mad Honey level up on their sophomore album, Bridge Over Cumberland. The follow-up to 2023’s Satellite Aphrodite was preceded by the singles ‘Moshfeghian’, ‘Reaching’, and ‘Marie’s Song’. Co-produced by the band’s Tuff Sutcliffe and Lennon Bramlett, it finds the group laying orchestral instrumentation – bowed strings, piano, glockenspiel, woodwinds, and synths – over their bleak, vaporous wall of sound. It might be the best shoegaze record you’ll hear this month.
Other albums out today:
Touch Girl Apple Blossom, Graceful; Jeff Parker ETA IVtet, Happy Today; Spencer Krug, Same Fangs; SUSS, Counting Sunsets; Telehealth, Green World Image; Rhododendron, Ascent Effort; Dua Saleh, Of Earth & Wires; Peter Frampton, Carry the Light; The All-American Rejects, Sandbox; David Bird, Hinterlands; Held., Grey; Death Kneel, Remembering Well; New Constellations, It Comes in Waves; culfre, Other People’s Pictures; Lawrence Kim, The Hours & The Times; Christian Dillingham, As It Relates to Now.
