Album Reviews: Jack White, The Rolling Stones, Madonna & more

Welcome back! Notable Releases took last week off due to the holiday and instead we posted our list of our 50 favorite albums of 2026 so far, many of which Dave and I also discussed on last week’s episode of BV Weekly. This week’s episode of BV Weekly is about our favorite artists of the decade so far, and meanwhile there are a lot of new albums that I review this week in Notable Releases.

Because I didn’t do any reviews last week, I review two of last week’s albums below along with 10 albums that came out this week. And, if you didn’t already, make sure you check out last week’s Indie Basement for reviews of Nirosta Steel, Mary in the Junkyard, and more. This week’s Indie Basement has reviews of the new Panda Bear & Sonic Boom (who Bill also interviewed for the BV Interviews podcast), Twisted Teens, Ebbb, Luke Haines, and Holy Wave.

As for this week’s honorable mentions, there are a bunch, including Future, Will Sheff (of Okkervil River), sad13’s mixtape of “1 minute long-ish songs”, Margo Price’s July 4 mixtape of protest songs, Kenny Beats’ jazz group Fathers, K Records vets Girl Trouble’s first album in 23 years, Eartheater, Smirk, Finn Wolfhard, Wailin Storms, Chuck Strangers, Radura, Daydream Plus (mem Tomb Mold), Allison Russell, Jack Grisham And The Life Undone (TSOL), Joe James, Coco Smith, Ultra Lights, hackedepicciotto, TENGGER, The Garden, Yelawolf, La Reezy, Sango, Prateek Kuhad, Michael Cloud Duguay, Jesus Is the Path to Heaven, Suki Waterhouse, Nick Kivlen (of Sunflower Bean), Mould, sundayclub, Baby Smith, Baby Jane, Magi Merlin, Gloorp, Luluc, Quiet Husband, Pain Gain, Park Hills Circle, 2K88 & Lauren Duffus & Rainy Miller & Bianca Scout, Bella Kay, Houndmouth, DevilDriver, The Temper Trap, Adam Lambert, the she’s green EP, the Frost Children EP, the Twin Bloom EP, the Mouth Ulcers EP, the Cutscene EP, the live-in-2011 Head And The Heart album, Xiu Xiu’s live Eraserhead-inspired album, the deluxe reissue of My Chemical Romance’s Danger Days, the deluxe edition of Wet Leg’s Moisturizer, and the expanded edition of Suede’s Antidepressants.

Read on for my picks, and stream the new episode of BV Weekly for more of this week’s new music and music news. What’s your favorite release of the week?

Jack White – Frozen Charlotte (Third Man)
The former White Stripes leader keeps things raw and dirty across 13 of the hardest, riffiest electric blues songs in his catalog.

Almost exactly two years to the day since Jack White got back to the basics with his White Stripes-iest album in years, No Name, he’s back and keeping things raw and dirty on Frozen Charlotte. Recorded with his live band–drummer Patrick Keeler, bassist Dominic Davis, and organist Bobby Emmett–it’s got almost no extra embellishments, and it finds Jack White reminding you that he’s a guitar god across 13 of the hardest, riffiest electric blues songs in his catalog. He gets a few of his anti-technology digs in (“Your telephone talk, then you scroll… watch me rock, then I roll baby”) and the whole album sounds like something that could’ve believably been recorded in 1969, and even Jack’s most vintage jams on this album play out like a classic muscle car that can still get from 0-60 in five seconds.

Madonna – Confessions II (Warner)
The pop pioneer returns to the dancefloor for an ecstatic sequel to her last universally-loved album.

When people talk about pop music in 2026, they are talking about a style of music that can be traced directly back to Madonna’s 1983 debut album. And in a style of music that constantly chases new trends and rarely awards longevity, Madonna has continued to shape pop music year after year–and decade after decade–in a way that just about none of her early peers have. That being said, popular opinion says that her last truly great album was 2005’s clubby, dancefloor-driven Confessions on a Dance Floor, and her new album Confessions II was created as a sequel to that album. She made it with her core Confessions I collaborator Stuart Price (along with Cirkut, Andrew Watt, Arca, Martin Garrix, and a few others), and it lives in the same environment as its predecessor, with an updated shine that sounds as modern in 2026 as Confessions I did in 2005. Even as a vocal-oriented pop album, it was clearly designed with the dancefloor in mind. Songs flow directly into the next as seamlessly as they would in a late-night DJ set and the beatwork is primarily derived from house music, both things that Price (aka Jacques Lu Cont aka a handful of other monikers) has been very familiar with since before the first time he made an album with Madonna. Those who romanticize Madonna’s come-up story in the downtown NYC scene will appreciate “Danceteria” and “L.E.S. Girl,” and those who are invested in the current pop landscape will appreciate hearing Madonna sing alongside today’s stars like reggaeton great Feid and Sabrina Carpenter. Maybe there was a little savviness involved with choosing those guest singers to help rope in younger generations, but Confessions II never once sounds like the work of a fading star fighting for relevance. She still knows how to drive the conversation herself, and she makes it look easy.

The Rolling Stones – Foreign Tongues (Polydor/Capitol)
Mick & Keef keep the good vibes and ’70s nostalgia coming on their second consecutive Andrew Watt-produced album.

The Rolling Stones won’t be around forever. They’re already down to just three classic members (with the songwriting partnership of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards still intact plus mid ’70s recruitee Ronnie Wood) and they’ve seen so many of their former peers hang it up or bite the dust. But right now, they’re here, they seem intent on still rockin’ like they did over 50 years ago, and this should not be taken for granted. In 2023, they teamed up with a producer who was born 26 years after “Time Is On My Side” came out (Andrew Watt) who’s developed a reputation for helping to revitalize classic rock bands, and they made the very good Hackney Diamonds, their first album of original music in 18 years. It sounded straight out of the ’70s, save for the shine of Watt’s modern production, and now less than three years later they keep it going with Foreign Tongues, an album that lives in the same sonic universe as its predecessor. Mick Jagger, who helped invent the idea of a rock frontman as we know it, still snarls like he did in his twenties and thirties. Keef still bangs out chord riffs that can fill stadiums. Paul McCartney and The Cure’s Robert Smith contribute bass and guitar, respectively, though their contributions come off more like fun facts in the liner notes than noticeable guest appearances. Most importantly of all, the Stones still sound like they’re having fun, and few things have been as consistently infectious for the past 64 years of rock music than the Stones having fun.

Tracey Nelson – Hercules (Perennial)
With backing from members of Wednesday and MJ Lenderman & The Wind, NYC singer/songwriter Austin Noll delivers a warm indie-country debut with his new project Tracey Nelson.

Even in a year in which neither of his bands have released new music, MJ Lenderman is everywhere. His voice, drumming, and guitar playing is all over the great Thomas Dollbaum album that came out in May, he and some of his bandmates play on the upcoming Wild Pink album that some very good singles are already out from, and he produced and plays on Hercules, the debut album from Tracey Nelson, which is the project of New York singer/songwriter Austin Noll, who sang in the now-defunct band My Sins and used to play guitar in Hotline TNT. (“Tracey Nelson” is Austin’s mother’s name.) And a number of Lenderman’s other bandmates contributed to this as well. His Wind bandmate Colin Miller co-produced, co-engineered, and played on it; and it features Wednesday/The Wind’s Ethan Baechtold and Xandy Chelmis; The Wind’s Landon George; and Wednesday leader Karly Hartzman; plus another former Hotline TNT guitarist, Jack Kraus. It arrives via K Records imprint Perennial, which is also home to recent albums by Sharp Pins, Dummy, and more

It’s a perfect fit for Austin to link up with the Wednesday/Wind crew, because the music he makes as Tracey Nelson is right in that same countrified indie rock sweet spot that they’re all known for, and the arrangements that they provide on these songs are as rich as you’d hope they’d be. But as easy as it is to focus on the all-star supporting cast, Hercules has been on repeat for me because Austin is a great songwriter with a knack for warm melodies, vivid lyricism, and earthy tones, like just about everyone we’ve heard the Wednesday/Wind crew play supporting cast to is. (They know how to pick ’em!) He’s really bringing something substantial to the indie-country table, an increasingly-crowded table where the more is truly the merrier if strong voices like this one keep emerging.

Snag – All The Cages Holding Us Will One Day Turn To Dust (Deathwish Inc)
The climate-conscious screamo band’s Deathwish debut is their most musically and lyrically expansive album yet.

Screamo is just better when all the musical desperation is about something that we should all actually feel desperate about, and in the case of Snag, that’s been the climate crisis right from the start of their now-decade-long career. Those themes still come through loudly and clearly on All The Cages Holding Us Will One Day Turn To Dust–their third album, first for Deathwish, and most musically expansive yet–as do some personal issues that the members of Snag have dealt with since their last LP. On this record, Snag deliver one powerful message after the next across 13 songs that range from harsh, chaotic, metallic screamo to one song with slide guitar, horns, and uplifting melodic group vocals (“Juneberry”), another that sounds like an eerie, warped, piano ballad (“Paris, WI”), and a few that seamlessly combine their heavier tendencies with their more melodic ones. The band’s new bio calls them “heavy emo” which suits this new album better than “screamo,” despite Snag being longtime devoted mainstays of the screamo community. Cages covers more ground than Snag ever have before; it’s not just their best yet, but one of the best albums of its kind to come out this year so far.

Kelela – New Avatar (Warp)
With one foot in shoegazy guitars and another in the futuristic, electronic R&B that she’s made her whole career, Kelela’s latest album is like nothing else in her catalog.

The headline for electronic R&B innovator Kelela’s new album is that it finds her embracing rock, shoegaze, and other forms of distorted guitar music, and that’s true, but it also kind of undersells what New Avatar has in store. It has as much of an emphasis on shoegazy indie as it does on the visionary R&B that Kelela has made her entire career (“R&B-gaze”?), and it weaves in and out of established music genres without seeming like it’s making a point to be genre-defying. It just sounds like the next logical progression of Kelela’s ever-interesting career. (Its three guests fit righ tin: PinkPantheress, A. K. Paul, and Fousheé.) Like on all of her albums, her voice is both powerful and ethereal and the production/instrumentation sounds like it came from the future. And, once again, she’s made an album like nothing else in her catalog.

Parts & Labor – Set Of All Sets (Ernest Jenning Record Co)
The Brooklyn noise pop veterans’ first album in 15 years is a 79-minute sensory overload.

A lot’s changed since Parts & Labor called it quits in 2012. They were part of a thriving DIY Brooklyn noise rock scene that doesn’t exist anymore, and even the members themselves went in opposing directions. Dan Friel went deeper into the underground with his solo records, while Joe Wong (who replaced Christopher Weingarten on drums in 2007) became an acclaimed TV & film composer for such shows as Russian Doll and Master of None. BJ Warshaw, meanwhile, has been running a multidisciplinary artist retreat called LEVEL in Chapel Hill, NC. Now they’re back with their first album in 15 years, they’ve got Weingarten and Wong giving them a double-drummer lineup, and it sounds to me like they’ve put every ounce of themselves into this comeback album. Set Of All Sets is a double album with a four-part song cycle worked in that takes up 20 of the album’s 79 minutes. The double-drummer lineup finds Parts & Labor’s rhythms at their craziest as they stay true to their undefinable style: a combination of noise, space, krautrock, avant-garde, sludge, punk, and more, all pushed towards a maximalist sensory overload with bright pop sensibilities. Whether you saw this band at a loft party back in the day or you’re just hearing of them now, this album will overwhelm you.

Hew – Your Version (Tiny Engines)
The core members of Houston emo band Football, etc take their glistening indie pop sensibilities to new heights on the debut album by their new band Hew.

Houston emo band Football, etc are still active, but they haven’t released a full-length album in nine years (2017’s Corner was their last) so it’s exciting that core members Lindsay Minton (guitar, vocals) and Mercy Harper (Bass VI) now have another band called Hew who just released their debut album, Your Version. For the uninitiated, Football, etc take a glistening, melodic approach to second wave-style emo that kinda sounds like a cross between Mineral and Rainer Maria, and Hew are right in that same orbit. But Your Version doesn’t sound like a nostalgia trip; it sounds like a step forward. Lindsay’s pop sensibilities just might be stronger than ever on this record, and I wouldn’t say Hew “revive second wave emo” so much as they nod at a few of its most enduring traits while crafting a forward-thinking indie pop record.

Hurry – Zoned Out (Lame-O Records)
The long-running, sunshiney power pop band’s seventh LP finds them at their most blissful, with an assist from Teenage Fanclub’s Gerard Love.

Hurry leader Matt Scottoline has spent the past 15 years exploring fuzzy ’90s indie rock, Beach Boys-y sunshine pop harmonies, Byrds-y jangle, and other things that fall under and around the power pop umbrella, and Zoned Out–his seventh album–comes after the one I’d call his best yet, 2023’s Don’t Look Back. That album was named after a Teenage Fanclub song, and this album features guest vocals on a song (“Moving After You”) by former, co-founding Teenage Fanclub member Gerard Love. It’s a well-deserved seal of approval for Hurry, who have become one of the most reliable purveyors of sunny power pop in the time since they formed, and Zoned Out is another blissful example of Hurry doing what they do best.

Show Me The Body – Alone Together (Loma Vista)
The latest from one of NYC’s most unique current bands is a collage of classic punk, classic hardcore, jazz, rap, and more.

There’s no other band in the world like Show Me The Body, and vocalist Julian Cashwan Pratt says that Klas Åhlund, who co-produced Alone Together along with Kenneth Blume, told the band that this album should focus on “those parts only your band could do” and “all the parts that sound like everybody else, you should just do less.” So maybe that’s part of why the only box that Alone Together fits neatly into is Show Me The Body’s own. It’s a collage of classic punk, classic hardcore, jazz (thanks in part to contributions from Standing on the Corner), rap, and unlikely usage of a banjo, and it all comes together as the kind of deeply weird racket that no other band could create.

No Cure – It Is Going To Get Dark (SharpTone)
The rising Birmingham, AL hardcore & death metal straight edge band’s first full-length features assists from members of The Acacia Strain, Bayway, Inclination, and Cell.

Over the past few years, Birmingham, Alabama’s No Cure have been steadily honing an extremely badass fusion of hardcore and death metal that stands out from what tends to get popularly categorized as “deathcore,” and they pack their songs with a straight edge ethos and socially conscious lyrics that are just as unflinching as their breakdowns. Though the band’s 2024’s release I Hope I Die Here was an eight-song, 19-minute concept EP that’s already more substantial than plenty of hardcore full-lengths, It Is Going To Get Dark is technically their first full-length and it’s a grand statement. It’s got some incredible guests–perhaps the most notable is Vincent Bennett of The Acacia Strain, whose own fusion of death metal and hardcore is a clear forebear to No Cure, plus Inclination’s Tyler Short, Cell’s Skyler Conder, and a rapped verse from Bayway’s Jayway–and it’s just a total onslaught of eerie atmosphere, hardcore energy, death metal riffs, and, true to the album’s title, all-around bludgeoning darkness.

The Ritornello Form – Majority Rule (self-released)
The “emo revival revival” continues with a debut LP that sounds like an explosive combination of things from 1999 to 2001.

Something’s going on with the “emo revival revival” scene over on the West Coast, and the latest and greatest debut album to come from that scene is Majority Rule by Las Vegas’ The Ritornello Form. Their vocalist Abby Walker also drums in Vegas screamo band Febuary and they’ve been sharing bills with bands like First Day Back and My Point of You, and The Ritornello Form share with those bands a knack for making decades-old types of emo sound new again. Specifically, Majority Rule sounds like a combination of things from between 1999 and 2001, with songs that sound like they’re teetering on the fence between the tail-end of second wave emo and the very beginning of emo’s third wave. Picture an album that spans, stylistically and chronologically, from Clarity to Designing a Nervous Breakdown to The Moon Is Down, delivered with as much explosive energy as possible, and that should give you a pretty good idea of what to expect from Majority Rule.

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Read Indie Basement for more new album reviews, including Panda Bear & Sonic Boom, Twisted Teens, Ebbb, Luke Haines, and Holy Wave.

Looking for more recent releases? Browse the Notable Releases and Indie Basement archives.

Looking for a podcast to listen to? Check out the latest episodes of BV Weekly and BV Interviews.

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