Album reviews (7/10): Panda Bear & Sonic Boom, Twisted Teens, more

This week I review five albums, including Panda Bear & Sonic Boom‘s great second collaboration, plus new ones from Twisted Teens, The Auteurs’ Luke Haines, Holy Wave, and London trio Ebbb.

For our Indie Basement Classic this week it’s the second album from a prime 4AD group who has been memory-holed just a bit.

Over in Notable Releases it’s a very busy week and Andrew gives his opinion on Madonna’s Confessions II, and new records from the Rolling Stones, Jack White and more.

Speaking of Panda Bear & Sonic Boom, I talked to them on this week’s episode of BV Interviews.

I also discussed my favorite album of 2026 so far on a bonus episode of BV Weekly.

Head below for this week’s reviews…

ALBUM OF THE WEEK: Panda Bear & Sonic Boom – A ? of When (Domino)
Noah Lennox and Peter Kember are back with a second album of glorious harmonies and psychedelic production that is not on streaming services

“I think it’s really important to try to stay positive and steer things in a good way rather than just sort of being despondent,” Noah Lennox, aka Panda Bear, told us about the title track of his second collaborative album with Sonic Boom (Pete Kember). “I get it, it’s real bad, but I think trying to focus on the things that are common is important. And the song certainly, I feel like, carries that spirit pretty heavily in a way that I like.”

It certainly does. Like most of the album, “A ? of When” puts the realities of the world in the spotlight — “It’s not a question of ‘if,’ it’s a question of when” — hoping to inspire action, even if things seem insurmountable. “Keep trying!” Noah sings in the refrain in a near-yodel that approaches Slim Whitman territory. It’s a joyous banger that really splits the difference between Panda Bear’s Brian Wilson-isms and Sonic Boom’s droning keyboards and psychedelic dub studio experimentation. One of the album’s quirkiest, most inspired touches is the police sirens that run through half the song, which may have you looking out the window or over your shoulder. They actually had to create a new mix for radio after KCRW listeners in LA complained.

The whole album shares that same spirit and is a welcome follow-up to 2022’s Reset. That album was built on obscure ’50s pop samples, but this time Sonic Boom created loops using “misfit instruments” like steel drum, harp (they recorded Mary Lattimore improvising during a soundcheck), and the aforementioned yodeling. They even use the same loop twice, first on “Pray to You” (steel drum and yodeling) and then, two songs later, on the Everly Brothers-esque “Like Moth to a Flame.” The arrangements are so different you might not even notice.

A ? of When‘s other big earworm is “Be the Bridge,” a swaying, lightly funky number — in a “Crimson and Clover” kind of way — that is a tour de force for Sonic Boom’s production skills. There’s steel drum and harp, layers of percussion incorporating well-placed “Heys,” “Woos,” “Ohs,” and other exclamations, plus some very trippy swirling effects. It’s another song that looks to inspire, to find a way across a wide chasm, and that way might be you.

There’s also “Lucky Charm,” which interpolates “We Three Kings” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” but is not a Christmas song; the bouncing “Revive Him,” which has Sonic Boom contributing doo-wop backing vocals; and the strutting closer “Graveyard,” which tips its hat to Joe Meek and brings back more police sirens.

A ? of When also hopes to inspire fans to head to their local record store, as they aren’t putting the album on streaming services. The album art, designed by Stereolab and Broadcast visual collaborator Julian House, is awesome (the vinyl sleeve is embossed) and deserves to be seen big and in your possession. (You can also buy it as a digital download.) It’s a brave experiment that I hope pays off, and to them I say: keep trying!

Pick up A ? of When in the BV Shop.

Since you can’t stream the album, how about listening to the episode of BV Interviews instead:

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Twisted Teens – Florida Water Blues (Going Underground)
This New Orleans duo keep up their hot streak, mixing garage rock, indie country, and folk-punk on their second album of 2026

New Orleans duo Twisted Teens feel like a lost artifact from the late-’00s garage rock revival, when DIY venues were packed to see the likes of Jay Reatard (RIP), Nobunny, JEFF the Brotherhood,  and other somewhat sleazy-looking groups who got by on sweat, swagger, and in-your-face electricity. And in some ways, they are. Caspian Honeywell was in SoCal folk-punk groups Blackbird Raum and Pale Robin. With pedal steel guitarist RJ Santos adding wild atmosphere to the sonics, Twisted Teens impressively kick up a lot of dirt. You can’t call what they do unique — they are very rooted in the blues — but Honeywell is a good songwriter who balances pain with dark humor, and an even more memorable performer with an impassioned delivery that is as weathered as it gets.

If Twisted Teens had been around back then, they would’ve risen to the top of the heap on Honeywell’s songs alone. He’s just got more to say — and more charisma — than your average garage rocker, and the performances shine through the rough-and-tumble, blown-out production, which includes some clever synth and drum machine touches. But to bring it into 2026, songs like “Hand Me a Cigarette,” “Javelina,” and the undeniable “Swamp” are closer to the current indie-country scene than anything released on Goner or In the Red (OK, maybe Country Teasers). It’s just gnarlier and grittier in that New Orleans way. There are also more overtly rock-oriented songs that recall the “Molly’s Chambers” era of Kings of Leon, a couple of ramshackle anti-folk jams, and talky songs in the orbit of Parquet Courts. But it’s Honeywell — his songs and that lived-in, ragged delivery — that make Twisted Teens and Florida Water Blues memorable.

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Luke Haines – Izzy Wizzy Let’s Get Busy (Cherry Red)
The former Auteurs frontman looks back at ’60s/’70s kids’ shows as only he could. Adults only!

“We’re going on a ghost hunt, and we’re taking out the bad luck / We’ve got two hot chicks and Momma Cass in a hippy Fuck Truck.” That’s how former Auteurs frontman Luke Haines describes an episode of Scooby-Doo on his latest nostalgia-obliterating album, Izzy Wizzy Let’s Get Busy. This time he’s created a phantasmagoric freak-folk concept album about ’60s and ’70s children’s television. Specifically, British kids’ TV, which was even weirder than what we got in America (and we had Lidsville and The Bugaloos). He also folds in The Omen and The Excorist (rhyming one of that movie’s most infamous lines), occult rock band Magick, The Wicker Man, fantasy series Children of the Stones, and T. Rex frontman Marc Bolan’s variety series. Izzy Wizzy is weird, darkly hilarious, and features plenty of catchy songs while going a long way toward explaining how Haines ended up the way he is. Thank you, messed-up ’70s children’s television!

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Holy Wave – i’m DADA (Suicide Squeeze)
Holy Wave embrace brighter colors and darker themes without losing their psychedelic edge

For their new album, Austin psych vets Holy Wave traveled to Ensenada, Mexico, to record at Lorelle Meets the Obsolete’s El Derrumbe studio. (Lorelle contributed to 2023’s Five of Cups.) A change of scenery, and perhaps proximity to some nice beaches, has done them some good: i’m DADA is one of their brightest-sounding creations to date. Mind you, it does so while also tackling some dark themes — “Happy Song” definitely is not happy — but the mix of acoustic guitars, loud and fuzzy electric guitars, vintage organs, crisp kosmische drumming, and dreamy vocals makes for an appealing juxtaposition. There are excursions into Stereolab/High Llamas territory (“first DAE”) and Cornelius-meets-Can-style repetition (the title track), and “too one” might be their prettiest song ever.

The album ends with “dewey’s dirge,” which starts off light and airy and finishes in a glorious haze of noise as they sing about ICE raids with the refrain, “So long farewell goodbye / to the world we knew it’s gone.” That world may indeed be gone, but isn’t it a pretty sunset?

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Ebbb – Shallow Hits (Ninja Tune)
London trio’s debut is a cool refreshing drink served best poolside with an umbrella

A couple years ago, when London trio Ebbb released their debut EP, they described their sound as “Brian Wilson meets Death Grips.” Maybe there is another Death Grips I don’t know about, because All At Once will never be confused for No Money Deep Web, or Pet Sounds for that matter. But what they do is pleasant enough — breezy, Balearic indie — that goes down smooth like a frozen drink with an umbrella in it that you sip poolside. I mean that in a good way. Songs like “Now You Know” and the drum-and-bass-powered “Side On” feature playful, layered production full of synthy steel drums, lots of percussion, and effervescent stacked harmonies. If you have fond memories of Foals’ Total Life Forever and would like to hear an updated version of that sound, Shallow Hits is worth a spin.

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Ultra Vivid Scene – Joy 1967-1990 (4AD/Columbia, 1990)
One of 4AD’s most underrated artists reached his peak, with a little help from Kim Deal, on his second album

A little forgotten in 4AD lore, and even more so in alt-rock history (a problem for a lot of groups who were popular in the years just before 1991: The Year Punk Broke), Ultra Vivid Scene was the pseudonym of NYC musician and producer Kurt Ralske, whose work managed to be both wildly psychedelic and hermetically sealed. The three UVS albums he made are all worth revisiting, but today we’re talking about his second album, which was also his first to get a proper North American release after signing with Columbia Records.

Whereas Ultra Vivid Scene’s self-titled debut was dark and druggy (and gave us the great tripped-out single “The Mercy Seat”), Joy 1967-1990 featured a whole bunch of great pop songs amid all the trippiness, including “Staring at the Sun,” “Beauty No. 2,” and “Special One,” which was a duet with Kim Deal (who seemed to be everywhere in 1990). The psych stuff is fantastic too, especially the dubby, blissed-out “Grey Turns White” and the slinky jam “Guilty Pleasure,” which sounds like it invented The Brian Jonestown Massacre. Ralske closed the door on UVS in 1993, not long after the release of his third album, Rev, but he continued to make music throughout the ’90s before turning his attention to the art world, where he has thrived. His albums for 4AD have held up remarkably well, especially Joy 1967-1990.

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