2026: Half-Term Report
As there always is, there’s a crop of less obvious record labels out there run in a modern way by passionate people attuned to the behaviours and wants of their audiences. And some of them have really making waves these past few years with hit after hit. These things come in cycles. Finding a groove is tough enough and maintaining one is even tougher. That’s why no one remains at the top for ever. Sacred Bones, for example, was irreproachable for many years as was Captured Tracks, both – a few outliers excused (see Mandy, Indiana below) – now arguably taking their turn away from the harshest glare of the limelight, yet no doubt plotting another killer run as we speak. Three labels right at the races right now though are undoubtedly The Flenser, Fuzz Club, and Julia’s War.
San Francisco’s The Flenser have curated an impressive roster of dark acts over the years (Have A Nice Life, Planning For Burial, Sprain) and now they’re paying real and sustained dividends, and with Chat Pile’s new slab of hardcore sludge to come later this year the hot streak looks a dead cert to continue. London’s psychedelic Fuzz Club have an illustrious history too (Dead Skeletons, Black Doldrums, The Underground Youth), but their current brand of industrial kosmische (Maquina, Splitterzelle) is just next level and, as the new Mirror Revelations record is simply sensational and Travo’s latest threatens to be another smasher when it arrives, theirs is another good run that looks like it has legs in it yet. Over in Philadelphia, Julia’s War are a relative new comer only getting going in 2021, but what an impact since then (Glixen, Total Wife, TAGABOW). Operating in an alt/shoegaze space beamed in from some corner of the hybrid multiverse they seem unable to put a foot wrong at the moment as MX Lonely’s debut this year is beyond great, and no doubt the label will have something up their wizard’s sleeve in the second half of the year too, so who’d bet against their purple patch just keeping on going as well?!
Less reliably now come our 2026 recommendations. The records we’ve most liked from the last six months and which are already jostling for position in our AOTY list come December. Like us, you’ll undoubtedly have had your favourites this year. Here are mine.
You can have the look; you can have the hype, yet if you don’t have the songs you’re done for. Happily, scrappy London indie band Ain’t have nothing but, and we’ve been keeping close tabs on them since we featured their debut single on our tracks-of-2024 year-end list. Now the debut EP’s here and, simply, it’s rare such humble slacking is sculpted into such wonder so lap it up quick while it’s still so special. Especially after our endorsement above, in turn, Golden Hours aren’t your usual Fuzz Club fayre except, of course, when it comes to quality. The international supergroup (of sorts) are now on their sophomore outing of fuzzy, indie-led post-punk (think Interpol) and its guitar hooks are downright glorious.
More straightforwardly post-punk, yet somewhat anarchic (because Berlin) and gothic in delivery, Industry’s self-titled second is an incendiary guide to the early 80s that parks its tour-bus outside the home of Killing Joke and then rips out the engine. Consequently, it’s an absolute riot. And so is MX Lonely’s excellent debut (courtesy of Julia’s War, see above), but for different reasons, the Brooklyn band blending alt-rock, shoegaze and shouty punk into a nostalgic mixtape that conjures sepia-celluloid capture of late-night MTV adventures and undoubtedly would play best via VHS rip. Still got your SCART lead?
Another band with just an EP on this list, thistle hail from rock hotspot Northampton and their succinct second 12” of noisy post-hardcore is a total smash. Make no mistake by virtue of their provinciality, this is a proper band threatening to become a truly great one. Lip Critic’s latest full-length is another frenetic racket too, the Brooklyn noise-punk-cum-breakbeat specialists in full-on fireworks mode and the result, obviously, is explosive.
Equally impressive in an electro-industrial vein, quite how Anglo-French (and Berlin based, hence their Teutonic tech-noise direction) outfit Mandy, Indiana have wrestled their muscular, flailing sophomore onto wax is anyone’s guess, but we should thank the presumably bruised audio engineer profusely! Altogether more rhythmic but no less pulsating, the tremendous new Mirror Revelations album dives headlong into exactly the type of hedonistic, throbbing fuzz we eulogised Fuzz Club for above and the mighty Mexicans couldn’t be any more at home.
The soothing tonic to so much abrasion, Cancer House’s ambient post-rock is both dark and beautiful. Sure, it might all have come out of nowhere, but – trust us – there’s nowhere we’d rather be. And there’s still room here for something entirely different too, the rootsy simplicity of Zoh Amba’s Appalachian-folk derived latest (a real pivot from her history of free-sax jazz); the authenticity, passion and outright magnetism in her cracked vocal is really quite something to behold.
List in full (no particular order):
Golden Hours – Beyond Wires (Indie/Post-Punk) [Fuzz Club]
Mandy, Indiana – URGH (Electronica/Industrial) [Sacred Bones]
MX Lonely – All Monsters (Alt-Rock/Shoegaze) [Julia’s War]
Industry – Industry (Punk/Post-Punk) [La Vida Es Un Mus]
Lip Critic – Theft World (Noise-Punk/Breakbeat) [Partisan]
Cancer House – The Moth (Post-Rock/Ambient) [Motion Ward]
Mirror Revelations – Ígnea (Industrial/Kosmische) [Fuzz Club]
thistle. – backflip EP (Post-Hardcore/Noise-Rock) [Rex Recs]
Ain’t – How They Faked The Moon Landing EP (Indie/Slacker-Rock) [Fear Of Missing Out]
Zoh Amba – Eyes Full (Singer-Songwriter/Alt-Folk) [Matador]
Not a fan of the album format? Hear some of our tracks of the year so far too: