The best albums of 2026 (so far)

Summary

NPR Music: The Best Albums of 2026 (So Far)

Podcast: NPR Music – New Music Friday
Date: July 3, 2026
Host: Stephen Thompson
Panelists: Anne Powers, Lars Gottrich, Sheldon Pierce, Tom Huizenga, Hazel Sills

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Episode Overview

On this special mid-year episode of New Music Friday, the NPR Music team gathers to discuss and celebrate their favorite albums released so far in 2026. Each panelist brings a personal pick, creating a rich and diverse lineup of music spanning pop, jazz, metal, hyperpop, and contemporary classical. Throughout the lively discussion, the team offers deep dives into the albums’ sounds, stories, and emotional resonance, delivering candid and insightful commentary intended to help listeners discover new music to love.

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1. Noah Kahan – The Great Divide

Presented by: Stephen Thompson
Timestamps: 01:10–07:26

Key Discussion Points

• Stephen’s Pick: Stephen leads with Noah Kahan’s The Great Divide, highlighting its emotional intelligence, introspective songwriting, and mature perspective on friendship, family, and personal growth.
• Lyrical Resonance: Tom Huizenga discusses how the lyrics of the opening track "End of August" moved him to tears, overpowering in their honest vulnerability.
• Musical Evolution: Anne Powers observes Kahan’s leap in both production (with Gabe Simon and Aaron Dessner) and vocal soulfulness, noting a return to deeper, pre-fame artistry:

  “He’s going back to a soulfulness he had before he became Mr. Stomp Clap.” (04:41)

• Breaking Stomp Clap Stereotypes: Lars Gottrich confesses his surprise at enjoying the album, praising the mature songwriting and melodic sophistication beyond its pop surface.
• Authenticity and Growth: Hazel Sills appreciates the nuanced storytelling around hometown relationships and the costs of fame.

Notable Quotes

• Tom Huizenga (03:19):

  “Clear-eyed, open-heartedly honest in a way, cinematic… The line that goes, ‘the minute that September hits, I’m going off my medicine… the feeling of being alive for the first time in a long time’ just hit hard.”

• Anne Powers (04:41):

  "He is using his voice in really beautiful ways... he’s going back to a soulfulness that he had before he became Mr. Stomp Clap.”

• Lars Gottrich (05:37):

  “The songwriting is extremely mature... there's a bit more of a collective spirit to it.”

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2. Underscores – you’d

Presented by: Hazel Sills
Timestamps: 07:34–13:57

Key Discussion Points

• Hazel’s Pick: Hazel champions April Harper Gray aka Underscores, focusing on her ascent as a dynamic, self-produced artist blending hyperpop, dubstep, and pop songwriting.
• Movement and Growth: Much of the album was created in transit, incorporating both literal movement and metaphorical personal/professional growth.
• Comparison to Olivia Rodrigo: Anne Powers draws parallels in storytelling arcs about desire and complex relationships, noting the heightened narrative craft of Gray’s writing.
• Creative Focus in Hyperpop: Sheldon Pierce highlights the album's focused creativity—a rare feat in a maximalist genre synonymous with digital overload.
• Pleasant Surprises: Even hyperpop skeptics Tom and Lars admit to being drawn in by the album’s unpredictability and emotional vulnerability.

Notable Quotes

• Anne Powers (10:19):

  “I really love the way these songs hold together to tell the story of an unresolved, conflicted relationship. And I think that Underscores writes beautifully about desire and how messed up desire can be.”

• Sheldon Pierce (11:12):

  “This record to me is so focused in its aims, not just creatively, but in terms of the story it’s telling. It does really feel like an artist coming into her own.”

• Tom Huizenga (12:53):

  “It is exhilarating, but it’s also exhausting—a truly breathless record... every moment is highly polished and highly thought out.”

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3. Cécile McLorin Salvant – With Every Breath I Take

Presented by: Anne Powers
Timestamps: 15:58–21:35

Key Discussion Points

• Anne’s Pick: Anne dubs Salvant “the GOAT in jazz,” celebrating her first fully orchestrated album with the Dutch Metropole Orkest and arranger Darcy James Argue.
• Olympic-Level Performance: The panel praises Salvant’s technique and creative sensibility in her interpretations of standards and show tunes, highlighting tracks like “Send in the Clowns.”
• Bold Arrangements: Lars and Anne discuss the adventurous deconstructions and unconventional phrasing, which challenge both listener and tradition.
• Foreground Artistry: Tom questions whether some renditions are “too fresh,” but Anne asserts the album demands active, foreground listening.

Notable Quotes

• Anne Powers (17:13):

  “Cécile has finally made a fully orchestrated album... working at an Olympic level. The technique alone is outstanding, but she brings her super creative ears and sensibility.”

• Lars Gottrich (19:03):

  “There are some points where I was like, ‘Well, that was a choice for sure’... She really pushes it in a way that makes me question both what she’s doing, but also how I am receiving that choice.”

• Anne Powers (21:10):

  “It’s not a record for the background. It’s a record for the foreground.”

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4. Neurosis – An Undying Love for a Burning World

Presented by: Lars Gottrich
Timestamps: 22:00–28:24

Key Discussion Points

• Lars’s Pick: Neurosis’s first album in ten years, post-major lineup change, channels a mix of punishing heaviness and aching beauty.
• Backstory: Detailed context on a founding member’s dismissal after revelations of abuse, and how the band’s sound and theme are transformed by both trauma and new addition Aaron Turner.
• Musical Range: Spacious ambient interludes imbue the album with room to process the world’s devastation and the resilience required to live in it.
• Lyrical Power: Hazel highlights the cathartic, emotionally raw writing—a rarity in metal. Sheldon and Anne also praise the combination with Turner’s vocals and visceral poetic imagery.

Notable Quotes

• Lars Gottrich (23:43):

  “They dropped an entire album without that member... made a record that’s very much about the reconciliation of a world that feels like it’s constantly on fire and why it is worth fighting for.”

• Hazel Sills (26:19):

  “You really need to lean into that free, wild expression of grief and confusion—and we have to do that as humans sometimes.”

• Sheldon Pierce (27:13):

  “There’s a lot of visceral imagery like ‘bodies weary and bruised, knotted in darkness like corpses in the snow’... hauntingly beautiful.”

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5. Tiffany Day – Halo

Presented by: Sheldon Pierce
Timestamps: 29:38–35:39

Key Discussion Points

• Sheldon’s Pick: Pierce selects Halo by Tiffany Day, a maximalist expression of hyperpop with influences from dubstep to Warped Tour punk, traversing both dance floor and existential musings.
• Meta-Narrative: Day’s songwriting explores identity, labor, and the pressure of digital self-performance, moving from YouTube stardom to genre-defying artistry.
• Writing and Depth: Anne commends Sheldon’s own review, crediting it with revealing layers not apparent on superficial listening; Hazel connects with the introspective track "Copycat" as a statement of artistic self-realization.
• Catchy Yet Complex: Lars and Tom identify standout tracks that blend catchy hooks with electronic bravado, maintaining pop accessibility amid sonic complexity.

Notable Quotes

• Sheldon Pierce (30:45):

  “It is not going to be for everyone. But for me, it is one of the most interesting records released this year... all wrapped up in the music of Halo.”

• Anne Powers (32:19):

  “You got to take some time... maybe not get to the depth and complexity that’s there, but you got to take some time.”

• Lars Gottrich (34:07):

  “The way she writes her melodies... it’s like The Postal Service meets early 2000s pop punk. So it’s just super catchy.”

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6. Simeon Ten Holt – Canto Ostinato (performed by Sandbox Percussion, Metropolis Ensemble & Eric Hall)

Presented by: Tom Huizenga
Timestamps: 35:51–40:59

Key Discussion Points

• Tom’s Pick: A 50-year-old Dutch minimalist classic, “Canto Ostinato,” newly recorded in an arrangement for percussion, piano, and ensemble.
• Universal Appeal: Tom asserts that humans are wired for the cyclical, hypnotic qualities of minimalism; the piece’s slow transformations create an absorbing, meditative experience.
• Interpretative Flexibility: Anne notes the adaptive instrumentation, while Tom revels in the composer’s intent for performer flexibility, resulting in an album that both grounds and awakens.
• Physical Experience: Multiple panelists describe listening while walking; Tom and Sheldon describe the piece’s utility in clearing the mind and “scrubbing the mental slate.”

Notable Quotes

• Tom Huizenga (39:00):

  “The composer Simeon Ten Holt really imagined various groups of instruments could play it—large or small. This new arrangement... gives the music heft when it needs it, and yet pares down to intricate points of view. It’s music you can get lost in.”

• Sheldon Pierce (40:18):

  “You sort of find yourself getting pulled into the rhythm of it... a really, really sort of twinklingly beautiful piece of music.”

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Noteworthy Panel Banter & Memorable Moments

• Lars on Noah Kahan’s Stomp-Clap Era (05:20): “Which is a period of time in music that is unfortunately seared into memory.”
• Host Humor: Multiple jibes about personal exercise habits (40:02), NPR office life, and playful self-deprecation throughout.
• Meta Commentary: Panelists reference each other’s writing and picks, creating a meta-discussion about music criticism itself (32:05).

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Quick Reference: Panelist Picks

| Panelist | Album & Artist | Genre/Style | |-------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------|------------------------------| | Stephen Thompson | The Great Divide – Noah Kahan | Folk-Pop/Singer-Songwriter | | Hazel Sills | you’d – Underscores | Hyperpop / Electronic Pop | | Anne Powers | With Every Breath I Take – Cecile McLorin Salvant | Jazz / Vocal Standards | | Lars Gottrich | An Undying Love for a Burning World – Neurosis | Metal / Post-metal | | Sheldon Pierce | Halo – Tiffany Day | Hyperpop / Pop-Punk | | Tom Huizenga | Canto Ostinato (Ten Holt, Sandbox Percussion et al.) | Minimalism / Classical |

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Ending Thought by Stephen Thompson (41:13):

“It is just delightful to listen to people talk about their favorite music. It’s just one of my favorite things, which is good that I have this job.”

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For further album recommendations and future discussions, stay tuned to NPR Music’s upcoming episodes.

Transcript

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[Stephen Thompson]

Happy Friday, everyone from NPR Music. It's a special edition of New MUSIC Friday where we gather members of the NPR Music team to talk about our favorite albums of the year. So far. We have assembled a monster panel of heavy hitting intellectual music lovers, starting with the man across from me in the studio, Mr. Lars Gottrich.

[Lars Gottrich]

Hi. Hey. Stephen Thompson.

[Stephen Thompson]

Lars is here. Ann Powers. Hi, Anne.

[Anne Powers]

I'm just feeling all the brain energy

[Stephen Thompson]

in the room, almost too much assembled intelligence. Speaking of which, Sheldon Pierce, welcome back to the show, buddy.

[Sheldon Pierce]

Hey, Stephen. Great to be here.

[Stephen Thompson]

Great to have you. I see Tom Huizenga. Hi, Tom.

[Tom Huizenga]

Totally tickled to be here.

[Stephen Thompson]

Steven, it is a delight as always. And Hazel Sills, can't say I'm tickled

[Hazel Sills]

to be here, but I'm excited.

[Stephen Thompson]

Well, it is a pleasure to have everyone here. Each one of us has brought one album that we want to talk about that has really delighted us over the course of the first half of this year. We have a broad cross section of music and I hope that everyone listening finds something that, that they love. I guess I get to invoke host privileges, I guess, and kick us off with my favorite album of the year. So far, though, there was a lot of competition. I'm going just like straight ahead. Look, lots of people love this record. I love this record. It's by Noah Kahn. It is called the Great Divide.

[Noah Kahn (performing artist segments)]

And I can't stand the night and I did a time silence, I got the tension midnight and I pray. Yeah, you started driving headlight your plates for CP3A. Didn't know you drove American cars. Ray Bans in your face. You've been driving all day but you're home and I'm so grateful you are. You're going to fix it. You're going to imagine a honeywood fragile. You've always been so know that I. Never.

[Stephen Thompson]

So Noah Khan, you know, certainly having a huge year. This album is a very, very big hit. He just brings to this record, I think, such a wealth of emotional intelligence. These are songs based on reflection, based on experience, based on, you know, really looking inward and picking apart decisions that he's made in his life. And I love the I love this record's approach to friendship and family and his role in how things have gone in his life.

[Tom Huizenga]

Well, you know, Stephen, in true Noah Kahn Style I'm gonna get personal. You know, when I first started listening to the album, I started at the beginning with the opening, the end of August. And I admit I got a little weepy. I mean, just so in awe of how the song worked on me. Clear eyed, open heartedly, honest in a way, cinematic, how the music quietly unfolds, you know, helping to put the focus on these really amazing lyrics. There's so many good lines in that song. And when I got to the line that goes, the minute that September hits, I'm going off my medicine. Late August angst and a pointless night and the feeling of being alive for the first time in a long time. It just hit hard.

[Noah Kahn (performing artist segments)]

Ending of August, the bugs are just starting to die. All the neighbors are voting for someone who wins every time. I thought getting older men know it's too late to try. I tried getting sober. I swear I did better this time.

[Anne Powers]

I think the real leap on this record, on the Great Divide leaping from his massive hit Stick season, is really the music, you know. Working not only with his usual producer Gabe Simon, but also with pop star whisperer Aaron Dessner Khan expanded his sound, but he also got back to a sound that he was excellent at before he became super famous. He is using his voice in really beautiful ways. He's going back to a soulfulness that he had before he became Mr. Stomp Clap, you know, and that's what I love. I love the soulfulness.

[Lars Gottrich]

I mean, I have to respond to the Stomp Clap because I think I avoided this record because of the associations with Stomp Clap. Hey. Which is a period of time in music that is unfortunately seared into memory. And I.

[Stephen Thompson]

You worked at NPR in the late aughts.

[Lars Gottrich]

Yes. But you know, I gave this record a shot in preparing for this show and you know, I gotta hand it to him, the songwriting is extremely mature. I like his use of melody. He's thinking about how a melodic line is going to flow and how it's going to work with harmonies rather than it just being all about him. There's a bit more. Even though the album is very much about him, there's a little bit more of like a collective spirit to it. And so I resonated with that. I don't know that I'll return to this record, but like for the kind of music he's making and the kind of people who receive it, I think this is, you know, this is probably one of the better records I've heard from this kind of pop music.

[Hazel Sills]

Yeah, I was just really struck by the stories on this album, you know, I don't always love it when artists kind of reflect on the relationship to success and fame, But I feel like Noah really pulls it off because it's coming from this place of, you know, growth and outpacing relationships in his relationship to his hometown. So I really, really enjoyed that aspect of it.

[Noah Kahn (performing artist segments)]

I hope you settle down. I hope you marry rich. I hope you're scared of all the ordinary sin like murderers and ghosts and cancer on your sk and not your soul and what am I doing?

[Stephen Thompson]

Well, I think we can all agree, especially from Sheldon's silence, that every single one of us love this record and think it's the best of the year so far.

[Noah Kahn (performing artist segments)]

You love this record, Stephen?

[Sheldon Pierce]

That's what I love about this record.

[Stephen Thompson]

All right, well, we're gonna move on. That is Noah Khan. His album is the great divide. Next up, Hazel Sills. Hazel Sills, give us your pick.

[Hazel Sills]

Well, it's definitely not stomp clap, that's for sure.

[Stephen Thompson]

No, it is not. It's awesome.

[Hazel Sills]

I want to talk about what is definitely my favorite album of the year so far. It's an album titled you'd by the artist Underscores.

[Noah Kahn (performing artist segments)]

Last night I dream about the perfect song I know, I know I'm too far gone. With you of freedom. When I'm with you it feels like. I'm hard to please But I feel harmony It's a miracle you're not New York have the licking spiritual I just can't stand what people talk that they're a therapist but you're something.

[Hazel Sills]

Underscores is the project of an artist named April Harper Gray. This is her third album, and I think it is just such a strong statement about who she is as an artist and a producer. Like so many artists that I love, Gray is kind of this, like, one woman studio. She, like, writes all her own music, produces it, records it. She grew up making music and posting it online as a tween. And I think this album is basically her attempt at making a proper pop album. She has this kind of hyper pop dubstep background, and I think she funnels all of that eccentricity into an album that is really leveling up her production and her songwriting. She also recorded a lot of this music in transit while on tour, in, like, hotel rooms and things like that. And the result is an album that I think is about constantly moving. Not just like, moving to the next place physically, but also her thinking about the next place in her career she wants to move to and leveling up her stardom. And yeah, I was just. I was really, really impressed with this album.

[Anne Powers]

I gotta ask you a question.

[Hazel Sills]

Yeah.

[Anne Powers]

Have you thought about this album in relationship to the Olivia Rodrigo album?

[Stephen Thompson]

Oh, interesting.

[Hazel Sills]

Not really because they both kind of

[Anne Powers]

have the same arc. They both are about the arc of a relationship. And I think Underscores, I mean, respect to Olivia. She's the queen, but at the moment, anyway.

[Stephen Thompson]

She's a queen.

[Anne Powers]

She's a queen. She's our current queen. But I really love the way these songs hold together to tell the story of an unresolved conflicted relationship. And I think that Underscores writes beautifully. I guess I'll call her Amy. I think Amy writes beautifully about desire and how messed up desire is, I should say, how messed up desire can be. Sometimes it can be beautiful and simple, but often it's messed up Desire rules.

[Stephen Thompson]

Sheldon, I'm curious for your thoughts on this because we'll get to your pick a little bit later in the show. But to me, Hazel's pick and your pick felt similar enough and kind of in conversation with each other enough to the point where when I was done listening to one, Spotify started playing the next without my having queued them up. So I'm curious what you thought of this record.

[Sheldon Pierce]

Yeah, I would say that if I hadn't chosen my record, I probably would have chosen Underscores you as my record for this. I do see similarities in them a lot. This record, I mean, for me, as a fan of like turn of the millennium rap like Timbaland and Neptunes, and as a fan of K pop, like, this record is mining those sounds to very forward thinking ends. It's so sonically rich, but it's also like very emotionally vulnerable. I think people often struggle to wrap their brains around hyper pop because it seems to be trying to download the entire Internet at once, but glitch out in its explosion of trying to sell you all those ideas at once. But this record to me is like so focused in its aims, not just creatively, but in terms of the story that it's telling. And it does really feel like an artist sort of coming into her own and trying to figure out what she wants to do with her music. And I. I think it's spelled by

[Noah Kahn (performing artist segments)]

know me and I don't know you.

[Tom Huizenga]

You know, I was so ready to not like this record, but then oops. And the reason I say that is because as many of you know, I'm not much of a fan of hyper pop, which I'm not saying this album is a hyper pop album, but it definitely leans in that direction. But whatever you want to call it, it was just working for me. But I would say in in micro doses, I mean, it it is exhilarating, but it's also exhausting. I mean, it's a truly breathless record. And also what I like about it is you never really know quite where she's taking a song. And I think I like that almost improvisatory feel. But you just know that, like every moment of every track is like highly polished and highly thought out. And in that it's awesome.

[Stephen Thompson]

That is Underscores, Underscore's new album is you Hazel Sills pick, and it sounds like Sheldon Pierce's runner up for best album of the year so far. We've got more picks coming up after the break.

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[Stephen Thompson]

From NPR Music, it's NEW MUSIC Friday, a special edition where members of the NPR Music staff are running down our favorite albums of 2026 so far. I am here with Tom Huizenga, Hazel Sills, Lars Gottrich, Anne Powers and Sheldon Pierce. And I am Steven Thompson. It is now Anne Powers. Turn Yay, Anne. Give us your pick. Best album of the year so far. We just talked about it on this show just last week.

[Anne Powers]

Well, I'm bringing in with every breath I take the new orchestral album from my favorite arty woman and jazz's great singer Cecile McLaurin Salvon there's not a

[Noah Kahn (performing artist segments)]

morning that I open up my eyes and find I didn't dream of you. Without a warning Though it's never a surprise soon as I awake Thoughts of you rise with every breath I take with every breath that I take and any time

[Anne Powers]

or place I'm a Cecile McLaurin savant. Super fan. I love every record she's ever done. I think she is a revolutionary force in jazz, and I knew this strings album was coming. Cecile has finally made a fully orchestrated album working with the Metropole Orchest, which is a Dutch orchestra, and with the arranger Darcy James Argue. This is a collection of standards, of show tunes. There's one original on it, but it's really Cecile, to my mind, the Goat in jazz and certainly in vocal jazz, working at an Olympic level. The technique alone on this record is outstanding, but she is bringing her super creative ears and sensibility to songs that we, well, at least those of us who love standards know so well, Whether it's Sophisticated lady or Lush Life or one of my favorites, Send in the Clowns.

[Lars Gottrich]

Ugh.

[Anne Powers]

I could talk for an hour just about her version of Send in the Clowns. It's so incredible working with Darcy Argue's arrangement, which sort of tilts everything and then her vocal tilts everything, absolutely capturing the beautiful imbalance that that song offers to us.

[Noah Kahn (performing artist segments)]

Isn't it rich? Are we a pair? Me here at last on the ground, you in midair.

[Lars Gottrich]

Some of the choices that both Cecile and Darcy make on this album are so interesting to me. When I first spent time with it, I immediately went back to Scott Walker's first solo albums and the way specifically when he would sing Jacques Brell and he would elongate certain phrases to put an emphasis on what he wanted you to pay attention to. And in kind, the arrangements would do the same. And there are some points in this album where I was like, well, that was a choice for sure.

[Anne Powers]

Yeah, she really pushes things.

[Lars Gottrich]

She really pushes it in a way that makes me question both what she's doing, but also how I am receiving that choice, which I love like that in an album experience. But she also does some fairly straightforward arrangements, like she does the love theme from Umbrellas of Cherbourg, which is one of my favorite songs, one of my favorite songs. And she keeps it pretty straight, but in a way that still does the tilt that you're talking.

[Tom Huizenga]

I go pretty hot and cold on this album, I have to admit. I think her voice has never Sounded better for sure. But I kept asking myself at times, you know, are some of these songs too deconstructed for their own good? I know her art well enough to know that she was not gonna take these standards straight and, you know, always something fresh. But for me, I just kept asking maybe a few too many times during the album, you know, is this a little too fresh?

[Anne Powers]

Well, Cecile likes nothing more than to go out on a limb. And so if it doesn't work for you or if you think she fell off, I can respect that. But anyway, I love it. It's not a record for the. For the background. It's a record for the foreground.

[Stephen Thompson]

All right, that is Cecile McLaurin Salvante. Her album is With Every Breath I Take, Anne Powers pick for the best album of 2026 so far. Seamless Transition. This is gonna be so smooth. You're gonna be like, wait, is this another Cecile McLaurin Salvador record?

[Lars Gottrich]

They're both sublime in their own ways.

[Stephen Thompson]

You know what? They both go out on Limbs. Lars Gottrich, give us your pick.

[Lars Gottrich]

My pick is An Undying Love for Our Burning World, the first album in ten years by the heavy metal juggernauts Neur.

[Noah Kahn (performing artist segments)]

Nothing. Feel like we are nothing. Just bo the moon from the ocean.

[Lars Gottrich]

Neurosis is a heavy metal band that's been around for over 40 years. At this point, this is a metal band in a constant state of evolution. They started out as a hardcore punk group, and then over time, they came to define what's known as post metal, which basically mixes all different kinds of extreme sounds to make something heavy, but not necessarily always loud. You're getting all the girth, you're getting everything in this Neurosis album is called An Undying Love for a Burning World. And it comes with so much story.

[Anne Powers]

That's what I have written in my notes. There's so much backstory here.

[Lars Gottrich]

There's so much story. And so I'll run through it very, very quickly, but suffice to say, a founding member of the band quietly was fired from the band in 2019. And then it came out in 2022 that he had psychologically and physically abused his family. And this was such a shock for the metal world. And so when on March 20, they pulled a straight up Beyonce, like, no album announcement, no singles, no teasers, no anything, they dropped an entire album without that member. And they introduced Aaron Turner, who has also made a serious case for post medal in his bands Isis and Sumac. And together they have made this Record that's very much about the reconciliation of a world that feels like it's constantly on fire and how to live in that world and why it is worth fighting for. Musically, it is very much up the neurosis alley, but there's more time to sit with those lyrical revelations. They spend a lot more time with ambient interludes to kind of let you sit with how devastating the world can be, but how much it's worth fighting before.

[Stephen Thompson]

I appreciate that you mentioned the kind of. Of the ambient interludes. I mean, I think one thing that really works for me about this record is how it can be punishing, it can be sprawling. The last couple songs on this record are like, 10, 17 minutes long. There's a sprawl to it, but at the same time, there are these moments of beauty. And so it can be very riffy and punishing and metal, but it also. There's space in it to breathe.

[Hazel Sills]

There's space to breathe. But I also, you know, I don't know if I'm necessarily. First of all, I'm not listening to that much metal, but when I am listening to metal, I feel like I'm not necessarily listening to it for the writing and the lyrics. But there were so many moments on this album that I was struck with, you know, these very beautiful kind of cathartic lyrics. Like, there's that line, you know, we have forgotten we are wild so we suffer on the song we are torn wide open.

[Stephen Thompson]

Lars hands are on his heart right now.

[Lars Gottrich]

Yeah, yeah, opening that. So that opening song. I was listening to the album this morning. I was walking to work. I literally cried.

[Hazel Sills]

It's so beautiful. And it just. It really kind of encapsulated the tone of the album for me. This, like, idea of, you know, you really need to kind of lean into that free, wild expression of grief and confusion, and we have to do that as humans sometimes.

[Noah Kahn (performing artist segments)]

And.

[Hazel Sills]

Yeah, so I thought that was gorgeous.

[Noah Kahn (performing artist segments)]

We've forgotten how to struggle so we suffer we forgot now to die so we suffer we forgot we are wild so we suffer we exist in isolation

[Anne Powers]

so we suffer I just want to shout out Aaron Turner, what a great combo. His vocals with this band, it's. It's really working.

[Sheldon Pierce]

Yeah. I was about to say when I saw that Aaron Turner had joined this band, to my ears, perked up. I mean, the. The Sumac record that was released with More Mother last year was one of my favorites. And so I was expecting this record to be everything that it was to Hazel's point. There's a lot of visceral imagery like bodies weary and bruised, knotted in darkness like corpses in the snow. It is like playing with a lot of sort of like scary stuff in a way that is sort of like hauntingly beautiful.

[Tom Huizenga]

I do have a question for you, Lars. I was thinking about metal vocals and it's a, it's a real legit style, this kind of octave below laryngitis gravelly vocal stuff. And you know, as the, as the opera guy at NPR Music, I was just wondering like, you know, I was wondering if like the great metal vocalists are visiting their ents as much as opera singers do.

[Lars Gottrich]

For sure. There is a story about a Andrew W.K. especially like at the height of his screamy power metal kind of years he had like a vocal trainer. So yeah, hopefully they're checking in with their instrument.

[Stephen Thompson]

Yeah, there are trainers who specialize in extending those guys careers. Yeah, for sure. All right, that is Neurosis. Neurosis's album, An Undying Love for a Burning World is Lars Gottrich's favorite album of 2026 so far. We've got two more records we're gonna get to first. We're gonna take one last quick break.

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[Stephen Thompson]

From NPR Music, It's New Music Friday. Running down our favorite albums of 2026 so far. We have assembled a dream team of NPR Music heavy hitters, Sheldon Pierce, Hazel Sills, Lars Gottrich, Tom Huizenga, Anne Powers and me, Stephen to Thompson. Sheldon Pierce, you are up next. Give us your pick.

[Sheldon Pierce]

Yeah, as you teased with the Underscores album, my album is in the same sort of hyper poppy space. It's from a 26 year old LA transplant named Tiffany Day. It's called Halo.

[Noah Kahn (performing artist segments)]

I'm just as pretty, just getting kind of old. I got to see myself every day. What do I got to do to show the world I know who I am, who I under microscope, I can't go anywhere.

[Sheldon Pierce]

Halo, I would say, is a bit more on the blown out maximalist side of hyper pop. The music mashes up up dubstep and late aughts, electro pop and future bass Warp Tour, punk and electro Clash. It is not going to be for everyone. I will lead with that caveat. But for me it is one of the most interesting records released this year. Tiffany Day was a sort of like viral sensation in her youth who built a a YouTube platform as a teenager and then was making like mood lit bedroom R B. It was working, but didn't really resonate in the ways in which the music she makes now, which is much bigger, much more massive, much more glitched out and much more meta in its considerations on like what it means to be a young woman artist who is constantly performing online and then also trying to reckon with with identity. For me, it is the meta nature of the music that makes it really interesting. She is thinking about the liminal spaces between work and labor and attention and engagement and inspiration and being an artist and being a fan and all of that is wrapped up in the music of Halo.

[Anne Powers]

I just gotta say this record is cool. But my vote for the best music writing of the year, Sheldon, is your piece on this record.

[Stephen Thompson]

Sheldon is a phenomenal writer if you're not reading him.

[Sheldon Pierce]

I'm humbled by the goat, truly.

[Anne Powers]

You wrote such a great piece about this and it really made me listen to this record with new ears because I think a superficial listen of this record, you're going to just hear kind of Tiffany's perky voice and the energetic quality of the music and maybe not get to the depth and complexity that's there. You got to take some time.

[Hazel Sills]

Yeah, there's real heart on this album and life in this album. Even if it like Anne, as you said, someone might listen to it and just hear that kind of hyper pop, artificial, glitchy sound. But yeah, so much of this album is about self realization and like, you know, she's trying something new in this music, but she's also working through in real time what it means to take creative risks as an artist and figure out who she is. I was really endeared to that song Copycat, which is basically a song about like wanting to be someone else. And yeah, I think like even including a song like that on your album is, is a statement. And yeah, hearing her work through these ideas in, in this music made it so much more interesting and complicated.

[Noah Kahn (performing artist segments)]

Want to jack your sty? Another version of somebody so cool. Okay, I know what to do. I just want to be your.

[Lars Gottrich]

Can I be the superficial person here?

[Stephen Thompson]

It's not only my role, but I'll allow it.

[Lars Gottrich]

Here's the thing that really struck me about this and the Underscores record is that I was trying to figure out why I was so attracted to these hyper pop albums and not other ones. Because I think I am also with Tom, like I don't get it, but I think the thing that really attracted me about is the way that she writes her melodies is just. It's like the Postal Service meets early 2000s Ball Punk. So it's just super catchy. You get these hints of yes, there's this deeper thing going on. But then I listen to a song like Same Outline, I'm like, yeah, that's a banger. That's a bigger.

[Tom Huizenga]

That's the standout song on that record for me. It's a pretty straightforward pop song, but I really like the fact that it's kind of electro pop. Meet beats the club dance floor at times too. So you can get up on your feet with this record,

[Noah Kahn (performing artist segments)]

Pick up the phone and call, you know, in my heart is being on my side.

[Stephen Thompson]

That is Tiffany Day. Her album Halo is Sheldon Pierce's favorite album of 2026 so far. We've got one more pick, Tom Huizenga. Buddy, what do you got for us?

[Tom Huizenga]

Well, I've got a 50 year old piece of Dutch minimalism that I mean, of.

[Stephen Thompson]

I was gonna bring the 50 year old piece of Dutch minimalism, but I was like, Tom will be here.

[Anne Powers]

Me too.

[Tom Huizenga]

I mean my theory actually is that we are all hardwired to be attracted to minimalist music. I mean our lives are made up of these clock like cycles, right? I mean, you know, the earth spins, the sun rises and sets, we recycle our daily routines. And this hour long piece, there are riffs of rhythm and melody that interlock and repeat and slowly transform. Let's listen to just a little bit of how it gets started. It's called Canto Ostinato and it's by the Dutch composer Simeon Ten Holt. And the performers here are sandbox percussion, Metropolis Ensemble and the pianist Eric Hall.

[Noah Kahn (performing artist segments)]

Sam.

[Tom Huizenga]

So you, you have these like little delicious delicate little ripples there, right? But then the piece kind of undulates in these waves and you have a lot much larger sounds that kind of just roll over you like about three quarters of the way through. And then there's like this separate melody.

[Lars Gottrich]

There is such a wondrous quality to this music. I feel like I'm jumping from one dream to another like every minute. It has a very dream logic style quality to it. It's very playful but unexpected. Everything is named in sections. So section 88 to 90. It reminded me of if There was a chamber group playing Bach in an MC Escher. Like kind of painting.

[Tom Huizenga]

Yeah, I like that. There's a lot of interlocking going on.

[Lars Gottrich]

Yeah. I really, really, really loved this album.

[Anne Powers]

Tom, I have a question for you about this piece. I was doing a little reading about it, and it seems like it was originally meant to be performed by four keyboard players. So this is kind of an expansion or a variation on the usual way it's performed.

[Tom Huizenga]

Right, Exactly. And that's why I also love the freedom that's actually baked into the music, because the composer Simeon Ten Holt, really imagined that, you know, various groups of instruments could play it, large or small. And this new arrangement, which is for mallet instruments, winds, strings and piano, I mean, to me, it just seems like it's the perfect size. It gives the music the heft when it needs it, and yet it can pare down to these smaller, more intricate points of view. And I love it because ultimately, it's music you can get lost in. But I found, too, that it performs this kind of utilitarian function in that it works like kind of this musical scrubber that can wipe clean the slate of your mind in order to create space for you to think.

[Anne Powers]

I love that. Actually, I took it on a walk, and it's actually great to exercise, too. This music, it's really.

[Sheldon Pierce]

I also walked listening to it.

[Lars Gottrich]

Yeah.

[Stephen Thompson]

If I ever try exercise, I will do the same thing.

[Hazel Sills]

Steven, you don't leave the studio.

[Noah Kahn (performing artist segments)]

Right.

[Hazel Sills]

You're actually here 24 7. Yeah, it's a bunker.

[Tom Huizenga]

Well, I have to say, if you ever get a chance to hear it live, go. I saw it here in D.C. a few months ago, and it was just an extraordinary intoxication.

[Sheldon Pierce]

That was my first thought. I was like, how would this play in concert? It's such a hypnotic piece of music, but it's also so dynamic. There are so many movements that swell, so many sections that get big and really detailed. It's. There are so many places to live in it. I mean, walking with it really is an experience because you sort of like. Like find yourself getting pulled into the rhythm of it. It's. It's just a really, really sort of twinklingly beautiful piece of music.

[Stephen Thompson]

That is. Canto Ostinato, performed by Sandbox Percussion, Metropolis Ensemble, and pianist Eric Hall, Tom Huizenga's pick for the best alpine of 2026 so far. This has been so fun, y'.

[Noah Kahn (performing artist segments)]

All.

[Tom Huizenga]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Stephen Thompson]

It is just delightful to listen to people talk about their favorite music. It's just one of my favorite things, which is good that I have this job.

[Anne Powers]

Let's have a whole other episode where we just talk about Wendy Eisenberg's self titled album, which is so good.

[Stephen Thompson]

Give me one more minute to list all my other favorite albums. All right, listeners, we want to know your favorite album of the year so far. Let us know in the Spotify or Apple Music. We also wouldn't say no if you were to leave us a dazzling review wherever you get your podcasts. Tom Huizenga, Ann Powers, Hazel Sills, Sheldon Pierce, Lars Gottrich, thanks to all of you for being here.

[Tom Huizenga]

Thank you Steven.

[Lars Gottrich]

Thank you.

[Sheldon Pierce]

Had a blast.

[Anne Powers]

Thank you Steven.

[Stephen Thompson]

This was so fun. This episode was produced by Noah Caldwell and Elle Mannion and edited by Otis Hart. Our production assistant is Dora Levitt. The executive producer of NPR Music is Soraya Mohammed. We'll be back next week to discuss more new music from Jack White, Baby Rose, Alison Russell and more with Maggie Brennan of WCBE in Ohio. Until then, take a moment to be well Celebrate your independence this weekend by unplugging from the Internet and getting outside. And treat yourself to lots of great.

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