By: Josh Kitchen / March 13, 2026 L-R: Cathal McKenna, Daniel "Lango" Lang, Gary "Snakeskin" Regan, Conor "Dock" Dockery Photo Credit: Evan Doherty “So rise up I say but ye can’t! You're as flat as a snake’s bollocks!” It’s the kind of line that perfectly captures The Scratch — cheeky, proudly Irish, and delivered with the kind of self-assurance that only comes from a band fully comfortable in its own skin. The Dublin group sing it on their new

By: Josh Kitchen / March 11, 2026 Photo Credit: Dean Chalkley “Trixies was our gold bar that we found in a rubbish tip,” Squeeze founding member Glenn Tilbrook told me, rediscovering his and fellow Squeeze founding member Chris Difford’s first songwriting venture together — the rock opera Trixies . In it, each song tells a different story set in a fictional, but not too distantly recognizable nightclub — one that could exist in any big city, with rainy puddles reflecting neon

By: Josh Kitchen / March 5, 2026 Photo Credit: Raz Azraai // @dancefloormurder On their new album, Reality Star — their best one yet — Surfbort want you to have a good time. They also want you to throw fists and middle fingers up to the government. They want you to eat a hot dog. They want you to dance, make out with someone, touch some grass, or even bake a pie. What all these things have in common is the revolutionary ideas behind them. In our current barrage of fascist Tru

By: Josh Kitchen / February 26, 2026 Photo Credit: Sam Angeletti Jack Rutter, aka Ritt Momney, hasn’t released new music since 2021’s excellent Sunny Boy — that is, until he surprise-dropped the chill and vibey, “GUNNA” at the end of January this year. The five-year gap isn’t due to not wanting to create, however. Disillusioned by the capitalistic and oppressive demands of the modern record industry, Momney fell out of love with making music. It started to feel more like a j

By: Josh Kitchen / February 24, 2026 Photo Credit: Logan White “ I’m drastic / I’m magic / You know this / You see it / I move you ,” Bella Litsa sings on “My Blue Eyes,” a centerpiece off her aptly titled debut album Drasticism . The track builds slowly, Litsa pondering the mysteries of love, her voice rich and cloaked in a masterful Auto-Tune glow reminiscent of Caroline Polachek. At the midpoint, the song transforms into something else entirely, abruptly erupting into a f

By: Josh Kitchen / February 19, 2026 Photo Credit: El Hardwick “I love you, I love you, I’ve known you forever / Your fire was and always will be / I learned your name but missed its meaning / When I didn’t know how to feel / Can’t wait to meet you for the first time again,” Rhode Island–born singer-songwriter Tyler Ballgame croons on the title track that opens his debut album of the same name, For the First Time, Again. It’s a tender ballad that gives the listener the first

By: Josh Kitchen with camera assistance from: Giselle Libby / February 10, 2025 I’m sitting across from absurdist singer-songwriter Dev Lemons in one of the newest smash burger restaurants in Los Angeles — the futuristic, alien UFO–styled Burger 3000. Lemons is wearing a meat suit and meat beret — literally a full-body costume resembling a human muscular system, her eyes and mouth only visible through cut holes in the face. Sitting next to her is Abby Kenna, a fellow singer-

By: Josh Kitchen / February 3, 2026 Photo courtesy of Shintaro Sakamoto Anyone who has followed Shintaro Sakamoto’s career over the years knows that when he releases new music, they’re in for a truly inventive and exploratory sonic listening experience. From his early days in the highly influential psych-rock band Yura Yura Teikoku, to his solo work, which began in 2011, Sakamoto’s whimsical style and philosophical curiosities make his music all the more rich and infectious.

By: Josh Kitchen / February 2, 2026 Photo Credit: Marlowe Ostara On Death in the Business of Whaling , the sophomore album from Searows ’ Alec Duckart, the insular, muted bedroom-pop intimacy that defined his excellent debut Guard Dog is cast far deeper—dragged into the darkest depths of the sea and sealed away in Davy Jones’ locker. In those reaches, Duckart has created a record that feels simultaneously grand and intimate, epic and poetic, drenched in gothic nautical image

By: Josh Kitchen / January 29, 2025 “Songs don’t come that often,” Bruce Springsteen said in 2024, talking about the last time he’d written new material. “I’ve gone two years without writing anything.” This was during promo for his latest documentary, Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band , a film about the band’s first outing together in seven years—their longest break since Springsteen disbanded them in 1988. Springsteen’s last album with the E Street Band, 2020

All Write-Ups by Josh Kitchen, except where noted By: Melina Aguilar, Danielle McDuffie, Deepa Mahadevan, Stephen Irvine, and Ricardo Avendaño Vera Ken Pomeroy - Cruel Joke Ken Pomeroy - Cruel Joke It’s all in the storytelling. Ken Pomeroy comes from a long line of storytellers—her great-grandmother (her Mamaw) imbuing in her the traditions of her Cherokee lineage and giving her the name “Little Wolf with Yellow Hair (ᎤᏍᏗ ᏀᏯ ᏓᎶᏂᎨ ᎤᏍᏗᎦ).” That foundation helped shape Pomeroy’s

By: Josh Kitchen / December 28, 2025 Photo Credit: Ashley Osborn Weyes Blood's 2022’s And In the Darkness, Hearts Aglow is a truly immense record—a multi-storied world that provides endless of solitude, respite, wonder, and that titular fiery, burning glow. It’s a deeply satisfying set of songs, offering a kind of refuge you can return to again and again. Like 2019’s Titanic Rising , Hearts Aglow is a record where Weyes Blood , aka Natalie Mering , spends every track fle

By: Josh Kitchen / December 22, 2025 Face-melting solos, bone-breaking riffs, perfectly timed and meticulously planned chords and fret decisions. (Or at least they’d have you believe they were.) One of the year’s best movies features a real-life blues legend guitar hero. There was a lot of insanely good guitar playing in 2025. Here are some of the best, with insights straight from the players’ mouths. Goodbye - Tchotchke (Emily Tooraen) Photo by: Kelsey Hart My favorite solo

By: Josh Kitchen / December 22, 2025 Photo Credit: Bob Sweeney SNACKTIME are a pride of Philadelphia. Formed in 2020, the funk and soul collective began playing free outdoor shows during COVID, coming together to fuse eclectic musical tastes, vibrant personalities, and Philly’s spirit of brotherly love — showing up for their community when people needed connection most. That ethos defines SNACKTIME : a band that truly has something for everybody, without sacrificing serious

By: Josh Kitchen / December 18, 2025 Hannah Cohen is sitting in her Catskills mountain cabin, furnished with rustic stonework and warm wood ceilings. She’s in a cozy knit sweater, her pup Jan—short for Janis Joplin—snoozing just off to her left. Outside, the property is covered in a blanket of snow, pine and hemlock poking through a wintry dreamscape. The air is crisp and pure. This is the world where Cohen wrote and recorded her first album in over five years, Earthstar Moun

By: Josh Kitchen / December 17, 2025 The Lemon Twigs and Tchotchke have joined forces in their first ever joint single, “Tchotchkes,” a delightful holiday romp that would feel right at home on The Beach Boys Christmas Album —or at least if Brian and the boys put out a post- Pet Sounds follow-up with all the SMiLE trimmings. They even make a nod to The Beach Boys’ seminal electronic pseudo Brian Wilson solo album, Love You , by referencing the completely silly “Ding Dang” w

By: Josh Kitchen / December 16, 2025 Photo Credit: Kali Spitzer Listening to Ken Pomeroy talk about her own work, you’re struck by her humility. She’s 23, but her music has already appeared on two major television shows — including one she also acts in alongside Ethan Hawke — she’s performed with legends like Wanda Jackson, John Craigie, and Iron & Wine, and she even sang and appeared in one of the biggest films of 2024, Twisters . Her sophomore album, Cruel Joke , released i

By: Josh Kitchen / December 12, 2025 Photo Credit: Justin Labadie On Weakened Friends’ first album in four years, collaboration is key. After two records of lead vocals and most of the songwriting handled by Sonia Sturino, on Feels Like Hell , bandmate and wife Annie Hoffman steps fully into the songwriting fold. And like any good marriage, communication and compromise make all the difference. Feels Like Hell is a record that Sonia says is “unequivocally the best thing this

By: Josh Kitchen / December 9, 2025 Quiet rage, a thirst for art in a time of great political strife and unrest, finding love, community, and life through body, motion, and dance and in resistance. It's in these themes and ideas that the music of 2025 has come to solidify. From ROSALIA's aching yearning for beauty and love through pain by way of Vivaldian opera-pop, to Geese's alt-rock sins of their fathers bursting through in absolution and rage, to Japanese Breakfast's come

By: Josh Kitchen / December 1, 2025 Photo Credit: Kane Ocean "Sip my spit, drink my blood/Suck me dry, call me a cunt/I'll break your heart, that's what you want/I'll ruin us before we start." Jazzelle, aka uglyworldwide , spits these lines over a pulsing club beat. One half of the chameleonic art-pop duo skuzland, along with partner-in-crime Robot Moonjuice , she delivers them in their killer summer track “POOR CHOICES.” In the music video, Jazzelle unleashes these lyrics li