Notable Music Releases This Week: Hyd, Thomas Dollbaum, Lowertown, and More

It was another busy week in the music world and Dave and I recapped a lot of it on BV Weekly , including the NYC edition of shoegaze festival Slide Away, the three Drake albums, the seemingly controversial re-recorded Car Seat Headrest album, and more.

As for this week’s new albums, we highlight nine below, and Bill discusses three more in Indie Basement , including Ed O’Brien of Radiohead, Marbled Eye and Visible Cloaks. In addition to those, this week’s honorable mentions include Bleachers, Little Barrie, Criteria (ex-Cursive), Bill Orcutt & Mabe Fratti, Juju Rogers, Greg Surmacz, XCOMM , Douglas Diamond, Arc Iris, Maisie Peters, Bladee, fakemink, Balming Tiger, My Precious Bunny (Lily Wolter of Penelope Isles), Hammock, Magic Tuber Stringband, Marisa Anderson, Aho Ssan, The Deslondes, Duval Timothy & Carlos Niño, Skylar Grey, Ecca Vandal, Ali Sethi & Gregory Rogove, Joel Futterman & William Parker, 6LACK, If It Kills You, David Eugene Edwards (Wovenhand), the Clark EP, the Gently Tender EP, the Moses Sumney & Joseph Shirley soundtrack, the Future Islands b-sides collection, the reimagined Tommy Lee album, the live Varg album, the live Colonel Claypool’s Flying Frog Brigade album, the live Dua Lipa album, the live Ava Mendoza album, the live Cabaret Voltaire album, and the Ted Lucas box set.

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

Hyd – Hold Onto Me Infinity (Cascine) Sparkling art-pop haunted by the loss of SOPHIE

Hayden Dunham and SOPHIE were close collaborators and partners, and the presence of the iconic producer, who we lost in 2021, haunts Hold Onto Me Infinity , Dunham’s second album as Hyd. SOPHIE first premiered the audacious “Makeover” at a Washington DC set in 2016, and she’s also credited as a producer on the upbeat “Make Me Believe,” along with Hudson Mohawke, who worked on much of the album. Then there’s “Never Is Over,” with its lines, “I still see you laughing at the piano / Saying, ‘it’s okay to cry,'” which seem to directly reference SOPHIE’s 2017 single and Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides opening track. In addition to the loss of SOPHIE, Dunham’s brother was killed in a 2024 hit-and-run, and while these major losses leave traces all over Hold Onto Me Infinity , particularly in its lyrics, my main takeaway is how full of bangers it is. It starts with two of the most irresistible slices of art-pop I’ve heard all year and never lets up. “Angel” is all bright, ebullient synths and infectious melodies, while “Freak” revolves around its extremely quotable chorus, “that girl is a freak, yeah she’s just like me.” It’s my early choice for song of the summer; arriving on the eve of Memorial Day Weekend, this album is here just in time. [Amanda Hatfield]

Thomas Dollbaum – Birds of Paradise (Dear Life) The Florida-born artist’s sophomore album was made with MJ Lenderman and it sits nicely next to him and his many countrified indie rock peers.

If you’re as excited about the recent boom of countrified indie rock artists as I am, then you don’t wanna miss out on Thomas Dollbaum’s sophomore album Birds of Paradise . The Florida-born, New Orleans-based artist made it with scene-leader MJ Lenderman on drums and backing vocals, and it was actually recorded before Lenderman put out his breakthrough 2024 album Manning Fireworks . Issues with Thomas’ former label caused it to sit on the shelf until Dear Life Records (home of some of Lenderman’s earlier releases) got on board and decided to put it out. Now it’s here, and it does a fantastic job of scratching that lo-fi, DIY, country indie rock itch that Lenderman and his many peers have been responsible for scratching in recent years. Thomas has also been compared to Damien Jurado, who he considers a formative influence. Like a lot of the songwriters he gets compared to, his songs are deceptively unfussy and the scenes he sets are incredibly vivid.

Lowertown – Ugly Ducking Union (Summer Shade) The Georgia-bred folky indie rock duo return to their DIY roots on their second proper full-length.

Lowertown signed to the massive Dirty Hit label when the duo’s two members (Olivia Osby and Avsha Weinberg) were still teenagers, they moved from their Atlanta suburb of Sandy Springs to the big New York City, and they made their 2022 debut album I Love to Lie and other surrounding EPs with the same big name producer (Catherine Marks) known for recently working with boygenius, Wolf Alice, and Manchester Orchestra. But their folky indie rock was always a little out of step with the label best known for signing The 1975 and beabadoobee, the latter of whom they toured with the same year as I Love to Lie ‘s release, so it’s fitting that they’ve taken a more DIY approach for their new album Ugly Ducking Union . It follows two tours with Wednesday, who their music shares clear traits with; it was written back home in Avsha’s Sandy Springs basement, where the duo’s early music was written; it was fully self-produced; and it’s coming out on Run For Cover imprint Summer Shade. It’s also a concept album that follows a duckling who attempts to fight a “tyrannical media corporation,” and that duality of nature vs digital suits this music well. There’s a gentle earthiness to Ugly Ducking Union that feels defiant in the face of our too-online world.

Crash of Rhinos – Logbook (self-released) The UK emo revivalists sound as yearning and impactful as ever on their first album in 13 years.

Basement aren’t the only “revival”-era UK emo band making a long-awaited comeback this year. Crash of Rhinos are back with their first album in 13 years, Logbook , which follows their buzzed-about 2013 album Knots , a breakup, and the formation of the new band Holding Patterns with three of Crash of Rhinos’ members. While Basement were the UK counterparts to the Title Fight/Run For Cover scene, Crash of Rhinos were doing the kind of emo revival that was led by late 2000s/early 2010s reviving the sounds of ’90s Midwest emo (and their second album was released by Topshelf in the US). 4,000 miles and 15 years removed from Midwest emo’s origins, the Derby, UK band remarkably captured the spirit of that sound and era. And now, after booking some reunion shows led to the decision to make another record, they’ve done it again. Logbook sounds like a lost gem that could’ve come out on Polyvinyl in 1996 or Topshelf in 2011 and it hits very hard in 2026 too. It’s got crashing peaks, melancholic valleys, and that sense of yearning that all the best emo always has.

FILM – Permanence (Lauren Records) Members of The Starting Line and Algernon Cadwallader team up for the rawest, grittiest record that TSL’s Ken Vasoli has ever sung lead on.

From afar, The Starting Line and Algernon Cadwallader represent two totally different versions of emo. The Starting Line’s first album was part of the genre’s super polished early 2000s mainstream boom, while Algernon Cadwallader’s far scrappier approach epitomized emo’s fourth wave in the late 2000s and early 2010s, a wave that reacted against the previous generation’s slick production and threw things back to the way emo was in the mid ’90s. But Starting Line vocalist Ken Vasoli and Algernon guitarist Joe Reinhart have much more of a shared history than the general public might’ve guessed. Despite having bands that got popular during different eras, they’re roughly the same age; Joe’s pre-Algernon band Halfway to Holland came up in the Philly-area punk scene around the same time that The Starting Line were starting out in that same area. And even though Ken released a sugary Emo Nite classic as a teenager, he always loved the same raw, discordant ’90s emo and post-hardcore bands that Algernon and their “emo revival” peers were more overtly influenced by. It’s no surprise that The Starting Line got more experimental as they went on, or that Ken formed the heavier band Person L during their hiatus, or that Algernon actually opened some shows for both The Starting Line and Person L back in 2009. They stayed in touch over the years, and now, one year after both The Starting Line and Algernon Cadwallader released excellent comeback albums , they released an album that they made together.

FILM was formed during the pandemic days by Ken, Joe, and Halfway to Holland (and A Life Once Lost) drummer TJ DeBlois. Their approach was to lean into those rawer ’90s influences that all three of them grew up loving, and they ended up very quickly banging out a batch of songs and demoing them. They planned to more properly record a debut album, but after TJ unexpectedly passed away in 2023 at age 38, Ken and Joe decided to release the demos as is. The result is Permanence , the grittiest, most caustic record that Ken Vasoli has ever sung lead on. Joe’s guitar patterns and Ken’s instantly-recognizable vocals go perfectly together, and TJ’s spirit flows throughout this whole album, both with his own drumming and with some of the lyrics Ken wrote after and about his passing. It’s an album like nothing else in any of these members’ catalogs, and yet it feels so distinctly them . On moments like the TJ tribute “Rings True,” it’s some of the most powerful music that any of them have ever written.

Alela Diane – Who’s Keeping Time? (Fluff & Gravy) The spellbinding seventh album from folk singer Alela Diane.

The veteran folk singer Alela Diane’s last album Looking Glass was written around the time that Alela became a mother of two, and now four years later she releases her seventh album, Who’s Keeping Time? , an album impacted by a new stage of Alela’s motherhood–“My daughters had grown a bit,” she said. “I no longer had babies waking me in the middle of the night.” It was also impacted by death of legendary folk singer Michael Hurley, who Alela pays tribute to on “Spring Is A Fine Time To Die,” and like all of Alela Diane’s albums, Who’s Keeping Time? puts a spellbinding update on the era of folk rock that artists like Michael Hurley were originally part of.

JPEGMAFIA – Experimental Rap (Peggy/AWAL)

Experimental Rap might be a little on the nose as an album title but JPEGMAFIA lives up to it, with 25 songs in 52 minutes that are fueled by erratic electronics, guitar-fueled alt-rock, funk, industrial, and so much more, all topped off by the rapper’s alienlike delivery. It’s a sensory overload.

Tim Kasher’s home phone – Sponges of Experience (Born Losers) Twelve songs written in four days almost exactly a year ago from the prolific Cursive main man.

Whether it’s with Cursive, The Good Life, or his solo material, Tim Kasher always seems to be busy releasing or touring music. Unlike the aforementioned projects, his new album as Tim Kasher’s home phone (named after his Patreon group) is based around a specific writing exercise that he began almost exactly a year ago: he challenged himself to write a full album over Memorial Day weekend, after hearing Elvis Costello say that he could write an album in a weekend on a talk show once. Sponges of Experience includes all twelve songs he wrote over those four days (he added some arrangements after the fact) for what he calls “a complete artifact of the weekend.” “I can’t claim to love all these songs,” he says, “but I do love some of them, and certainly, all of them are endearing to me.” [BrooklynVegan Staff]

aja monet – the color of rain (drink sum wtr) A guest-filled collection of spoken word jazz from a self-proclaimed surrealist blues poet.

aja monet’s evocative description for herself is “surrealist blues poet,” and if that sounds appealing to you, you’ll probably like her new album, the color of rain . Over a rich, jazzy backdrop featuring contributions from Burniss Travis, Josh Johnson, Brandee Younger, Daniel Mintseris, Jermaine Paul, Ambrose Akinmusire and Nico Segal, her fluent lyricism glides and soars, further accented by features from Mick Jenkins, Vic Mensa, Meshell Ndegeocello,

_Originally reported by [Brooklyn Vegan](https://www.brooklynvegan.com/hyd-thomas-dollbaum-lowertown-reviews/)._