{"id":938870,"date":"2026-10-24T04:46:22","date_gmt":"2026-10-24T04:46:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/938870\/"},"modified":"2026-10-24T04:46:22","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T04:46:22","slug":"todays-release-highlights-10-23-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/938870\/","title":{"rendered":"Today’s Release Highlights (10\/23\/26)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to another installment of Today’s Release Highlights, where the TND writers room gathers up some brand new projects they want to draw your eyes and ears to.<\/p>\n

This week, we have 13 new releases we’d like to key you into as you head into the weekend. Check them all out below.<\/p>\n

Ba bam!<\/p>\n

A Country Western \u2013 Audition Tape [Crafted Sounds] \"\"<\/p>\n

Philadelphia’s indie scene continues to deliver some of the best rock on this side of the Mississippi. A Country Western’s fourth full-length \u2014 released on the all-hits no-filler indie label Crafted Sounds \u2014 continues that scene’s winning streak. The band recorded the album with Dan Angel, who also worked on TAGABOW’s 2025 record Lotto. And like TAGABOW, A Country Western delivers on down-the-line indie rock while dabbling in clubby, deconstructed remixes of their grungegaze (see the Solvent OS Remix of “Redemption Inner Circle” that concludes the album). \u2013 Andy Steiner <\/p>\n

Anderson .Paak and Cordae \u2013 Heavy Is The Crown [APESHIT \/ Mass Appeal \/ EMPIRE \/ Hi Level] \"\"<\/p>\n

Anderson .Paak and Cordae bring a wonderful buddy-cop energy to their new collaborative album, Heavy Is the Crown. Given the success the duo has found on singles like \u201cRNP,\u201d \u201cTwo Tens,\u201d and \u201cSummer Drop,\u201d over the years, it\u2019s no surprise that their full-length project is packed with vibrant instrumentals, goofy bars, and a sense of whimsy that\u2019s bound to put a smile on any listener\u2019s face. Over the years, .Paak has proven he has the musical chops to walk into any artist\u2019s world and elevate it. Whether he\u2019s teaming up with Knxwledge for NxWorries or Bruno Mars with Silk Sonic, he has a knack for finding ways to gel and break new ground with his collaborators. A stacked lineup of producers, including J. Cole, 9th Wonder, Conductor Williams, and Swizz Beatz, gives the pair a rich backdrop to play off of, with .Paak\u2019s soulful, elastic hooks and Cordae\u2019s sharp wordplay each getting plenty of room to shine. If this is what they can deliver on their first album together, it could be the start of something special as both artists head into the next chapter of their careers. \u2013 Isaiah Gessner<\/p>\n

Brakence- marroW [Columbia Records]\"\"<\/p>\n

Brackence can be best described as Midwest emo meets hyperpop. The glitchy guitar work with vocal crooning gives marroW a unique edge in a crowded alternative space. The album is massive; spanning 18 songs and lasting over an hour, this is Brackence\u2019s most ambitious project. \u201cdeath rolL\u201c captures the tone of the album, touching on how Brackence has been mostly quiet for four years and how he has finally returned. This is the first album since 2022\u2019s hypochondriac, and it\u2019s just plain nice to hear fresh, new material. If you want an album that sounds like a collab between Joji and 100 Gecs, marroW is the album for you. \u2013 Ian Ward<\/p>\n

Fenne Lily \u2013 Win Win [Nettwerk] \"\"<\/p>\n

Win Win is a breakup album that spends its time on the other side of the breakup. Fenne Lily wrote and recorded her fourth and latest album over 18 months after moving from England to New York, and she made it the old-fashioned way: with a band, largely live, and even partly to tape. It opens with \u201cUh Huh,\u201d a song structured as a conversation with a loved one after a relationship comes apart, and from there the record keeps moving.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Travel runs through the whole thing too, with long drives, bridges, and pit stops, and songs are comfortable lingering in the inbetween instead of rushing to a clear-cut resolution, from the pedal steel on \u201cWaterslide\u201d to the slow build of the closer, \u201cIn Life and on Planes.\u201d Lily\u2019s goal for this record was simple: \u201cI wanted to make music that sounded like the sun was out.\u201d Win Win is out today via Nettwerk, her first release for the label and the follow-up to 2023\u2019s Big Picture. If you\u2019re coming off a rough year, this is one record you won\u2019t want to miss. \u2013 Matt Keenan<\/p>\n

Fine \u2014 Jazz Dreams [Escho] \"\"<\/p>\n

Jazz like Queen\u2019s Jazz, maybe. But where Queen stuffed every last opening on the mixing console with the baroque \u2014 multitracked harmonies, say \u2014 Fine Glinvdad Jensen proffers minimal, photonegative bedroom pop \u00e0 la her schoolmates ML Buch, Smerz, and Erika de Casier, the latter of whom shared writer credits with Jensen on the most undeniable K-Pop record of the 2020s, NewJeans\u2019 Get Up. This has more Lee Hazlewood in it, though, with a torch song like \u201cAny Minute\u201d letting all the sunlight in while \u201cI Could\u201d is dubby nightfall trip-hop starring the bassline. Indeed, \u201cGoodbye Brain\u201d and \u201cSometimes I Rush\u201d are catchy nuggets (not always a given with Rhythmic Music Conservatory alumni), but the main thing is that maybe your girlfriend too will ask if you scored a leak of new Lana Del Rey. \u2014 Daniel Aaron<\/p>\n

Frontierer \u2013 Ultraviolet Parasite [Independent]\"\"<\/p>\n

Some bands don’t need a record label, and transatlantic mathcore outfit Frontierer continues to operate independently with the release of its fourth studio album, Ultraviolet Parasite, out today. Written, produced, recorded and mixed by the band’s guitarist Pedram Valiani, the album’s 14 frenzied tracks were mastered by the ever-prolific Brad Boatright. Our very own Melon has already weighed in on the record, calling Ultraviolet Parasite a “barn burner.” The song “Ions & Oxygen Rockets” features an appearance by The Armed frontman Tony Wolski. A 46-minute exercise in controlled chaos, the new album follows 2021’s Oxidized and 2024’s The Skull Burned Wearing Hell Like a Life Vest. Time to get dizzyingly abrasive. \u2014 Nic Huber<\/p>\n

HMLTD \u2013 FANGS [Lucky Number]\"\"<\/p>\n

FANGS, the third studio album by London collective HMLTD,\u00a0imagines a world already dead. Haunted by ancient vampires hellbent on relieving their boredom at hedonistic raves, it rages with a violent fire, giving into envy, greed, lust, and apathetic wrath. Unsurprisingly, the art punk musicians commit fully to these personae. Blending their signature New Romantic pop hooks (“Shudder”) with choppy bloghouse (“Umami”) and either breakcore (“Blitzkrieg”) or dark wave beats (“Dancing On Your Grave”), they break into a mad sprint of buzzes and snaps, pattering with nonsensical babblings and bold statements. “A Thousand White Horses” is a dreamy, capital R Romantic song of sacrifice and devotion, yet it shuffles to an idiosyncratic, fresh beat somewhere in between Arthur Russell and Yung Lean. Songs like “Close To You” hold bands like Crystal Castles close to the heart, setting aside its tainted name to siphon its unique, dark magic. Behind lyricist and front man Henry Spychalski’s\u00a0creative occult theatrics (“Ch\u00e2teau Vamp Freestyle”), is his uncompromising desire to embrace outsider art and the transgressions in pop history. The future is goth! \u2013 Victoria Borlando<\/p>\n

John Legend \u2013 Muse [Republic] \"\"<\/p>\n

Pharrell Williams takes production fully into his own hands on John Legend\u2019s new album, Muse. Given their more than two decades of friendship and plenty of overlapping collaborators, it\u2019s a bit of a surprise that these two titans of the industry have never made a full project together until now. According to Legend, the timing simply never lined up: \u201cEarly in my career, I was signed to GOOD Music. Kanye [West] was very involved in executive producing all my albums, and so it wouldn\u2019t have made sense for me to do a whole album with a whole other producer at the time. I\u2019m more of a free agent now and able to just do whatever I want musically.\u201d <\/p>\n

Now that he\u2019s free to do just that, Legend hands the production keys to Pharrell, who brings a completely new vibe to his music. Pharrell\u2019s fingerprints go beyond the beats, too, as he co-wrote the album and features on six of its 16 tracks. His bouncy instrumentals pair beautifully with Legend\u2019s gospel-tinged vocals, and the EGOT winner clearly saw Muse as a chance to take a creative risk and prove he can still find new sounds more than 20 years into his career. \u2013 Isaiah Gessner<\/p>\n

Motion City Soundtrack \u2013 The Same Old Wasted Wonderful World (Deluxe) [Epitaph]\"\"<\/p>\n

Minneapolis pop-punkers Motion City Soundtrack have been crafting heartfelt earworms since 1997 \u2013 the 1900s! Those with fully formed frontal lobes recall hearing “The Future Freaks Me Out” for the first time, believing Y2K was our biggest concern. Now, The Same Old Wasted Wonderful World harkens back to those anxieties on a larger scale, and its deluxe edition dropped today. The album’s update includes acoustic versions of three tracks: “Your Days Are Numbered – from the Music Box Denoument Id\u00e9e Fixe Variations,” “Melancholia,” and “Mi Coraz\u00f3n.” They also released a music video for “Your Days Are Numbered” yesterday. Initially released in September 2025, The Same Old Wasted Wonderful World included notable collaborations with Patrick Stump from Fall Out Boy (“Particle Physics”) and Matt Kerekes from Citizen (“Your Days Are Numbered”). Its deluxe version emphasizes the emotional nuance found not only throughout the record, but also throughout the band’s discography. \u2014 Kayla Moreno<\/p>\n

My Chemical Romance \u2013 The Black Parade (20th Anniversary Reissue) [Warner]\"\"<\/p>\n

My Chemical Romance\u2019s breakthrough record, The Black Parade, turns 20 in 2026 \u2014 and the band is celebrating in style. The upcoming expanded reissue dives deep into the vast MCR vault, pairing the remastered original album with fan-favorite B-sides like “Heaven Help Us” and “My Way Home Is Through You.” Most notably, it features the first official release of the fan-favorite live track \u201cSomeone Out There Loves You.” Original album artist James Jean also returned to create three new pieces of art that expand on the album’s visual storyline. Fans have watched as the group expands that lore on the road, where equal portions of gore and camp take center stage to flesh out the rock opera. As they conclude a major tour playing The Black Parade in full, the New Jersey band proves, two decades later, that they intend to keep “carrying on.” \u2013 Kayla Moreno<\/p>\n

Nicole Saboun\u00e9 \u2013 ANA (\u0623\u0646\u0627) [RMV Music] \"\"<\/p>\n

Swedish artist Nicole Saboun\u00e9\u2019s fifth album ANA (\u0623\u0646\u0627) is first and foremost a love letter to her ancestral homeland of Lebanon, as told through the sights, sounds, and heightened emotions of her first visit to the country three summers past. It\u2019s also a deeply felt negotiation with her relationship to her father, whose memories of his young years in Beirut had long felt shut away and resistant to her questions. As Saboun\u00e9 told me in a recent interview, she didn\u2019t even know that she was part Lebanese until her twenties. <\/p>\n

ANA (\u0623\u0646\u0627), named after the Arabic word for \u201cme\u201d or \u201cI,\u201d is full of elation, some trepidation, atmospheric touches of oud, and voice notes from her family in Beirut. There\u2019s anger, too, for a land that\u2019s faced so much threat and corruption, both from inside and outside of the country. Saboun\u00e9\u2019s powerhouse vocals sound more alive than ever, whether charging through the jubilant lead single \u201cSo Far Out\u201d or rallying the people on the anthemic “Light For Us,”\u00a0while the softer moments like “Healing You” feel warm and consoling. Closing track “I Don’t Mind” brings things more or less full circle, back to her dad. \u2013 Alan Pedder<\/p>\n

The Dallas Cowboys \u2013 Touching is Punk [Bar None Records]\"\"<\/p>\n

Inspired by the liminal, freaky corners of early aughts media after dark, The Dallas Cowboys concoct goofy, erratic synth punk that subtly nods to a simpler era of the internet without overreliance. Their EP, Touching is Punk, has been in the works for quite some time, but is now seeing the light of day. Chiptune, karaoke-core, electroclash \u2013 whatever you want to call it \u2013 pays homage to Web 1.0 but marches towards the neon-tinted future. \u2013 Giliann Karon<\/p>\n

Tr\u00edada \u2013 Exuvia [Verve]\"\"<\/p>\n

For a while, Tr\u00edada were the trio who could take a song from anywhere and make it sound Argentine. Exuvia is where they stop borrowing, and come into their own. Their first album built around original material follows the 2025 covers EP De Versiones y Alma and the title is a statement of intent: an exuvia is the skin an animal sheds when it molts, and the band says the name stands for leaving one stage behind to start another.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Producer Didi Gutman, whose credits include Brazilian Girls and Nathy Peluso, helped them stretch across bossa nova, candombe, tango, and chacarera, with acoustic singer-songwriter and indie leanings in the mix. The percussion-led \u201cClara\u201d and their version of C. Tangana\u2019s \u201cUn Veneno\u201d tie back to where they came from, while \u201cVoy A Dejar de Venir\u201d is one of the sadder songs on the record, with a minimal arrangement that matches its farewell. Exuvia is out today via Verve Records\/Mercury Records, and it plays like a band deciding who they are, and we are watching an artist grow right before our ears. \u00a0\u2013 Matt Keenan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome to another installment of Today’s Release Highlights, where the TND writers room gathers up some brand new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":938871,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,134,136],"class_list":["post-938870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=938870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/938871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=938870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=938870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=938870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}