Swapmeet’s Debut Album Mount Zero Impeccably Toes the Line Between Soft and Punchy Indie Rock

It was surreal to see hey, nothing play such an intimate show, considering how far they've come in their career.

Aldous Harding’s music has never been crystal clear. She’s known to weave songs full of strange images and nonsensical lyrics, pulling you in and out of different realities and characters using her distinctive armory of voices. But something about her newest record, Train on the Island, feels like she’s letting the listener in a little closer than usual.

On bitknot, feeble little horse converts what’s been, historically, a kind of hardened laptop twee into something new, confident, and legitimately different. This album sees them shape torqued walls of emotion and sound into a driving, dynamic kind of self-presence operating in a field of illusions.

Any night at Variety Playhouse is going to be a 50/50 chance that they’ll have a photo pit. Unfortunately for me and the other seven photographers covering American Football’s fourth self-titled LP show, there was no pit in sight. It was clear from the moment I got there, there was no way I would be getting to the front. Or so I thought. As soon as the band trickled onto stage, warming the crowd up with “Man Overboard,” the entire crowd was entranced. As I tried to make my wa

Only a couple seasons into 2026, the artists we love have put their whole heart into each and every one of their songs, and it has shown. Here are our top 20 songs of 2026, so far, in no particular order. My New Band Believe "Love Story" "Love Story" could very well be the most beautiful song Cameron Picton has ever written, the way the track slowly builds and falls like the ups and downs of a love story. Olivia Rodrigo "The Cure" As so many have stated already, "The Cure"

So far, 2026 has been filled with brilliant debut releases from shining, new acts as well as fresh records from some longtime favorite artists. There is a palpable power and message to the indie, alternative, and pop albums put out this year, and below are our favorites, in no particular order besides release date.

This year marked Idobi’s third Summer School whose lineup featured: Honey Revenge, Games We Play, Winona Fighter, South Arcade and Chase Petra.

Ensconced and sculpted by their standard downtempo beats and murky synths, the narrative core of this sprawling project is fairly straightforwardly a meditation on the strangeness of religion, but also, in particular the strangeness of the mismatch between our technical abilities as a species and our capacity to think through their implications.

Our gallery from Them in Uniform's debut album release show at Terminal West on June 26th, 2026.

Our gallery from Lip Critic's night in Atlanta on June 20th, 2026. (Photos: Sam Kapoor)

The slices of life crafted by musician and visual artist John Andrews and his bandmates, collectively known as The Yawns, always have a coziness to them. Though the subjects of his newest record, STREETSWEETER, are quaint characters and experiences from his Brooklyn neighborhood–snowy sidewalks, the first couple times meeting a new friend–the world they exist in feels tangible, capturing a tenderness not often portrayed as the city’s main facade.

Nancy Gutierrez sat down with Lowertown after their set in Atlanta during the band's most grand tour yet to dig up a little bit of insight on the Atlanta raised duo's new album Ugly Duckling Union.

Dog Days Festival made its annual return to Savannah, GA on June 5th and 6th this year, creating a space for music, community and political frustration to coexist.

hallpass kicked off this year’s summer break celebrating the release of their new album at Aisle 5 for all of their hometown fans, bringing Athens to Atlanta.

Our gallery of images from Grace Ive's night in Atlanta on May 16, 2026. (Photos: Rayna Sklar)

Friko’s sophomore album, Something Worth Waiting For, sees the newly expanded quartet fill into bigger, older, and wiser shoes. It is a passionate collection of tracks steeped in restless optimism and a lucidity to the sadness of life, coupled with sweeping arrangements and their signature expressive vocals.

On Something We All Got, cootie catcher channel a primitive and direct (and weirdly wholesome) in between plundered textures and pitch-twisted, weaving melodies.

(Photos: Hannah Claire Smith) There was no mistaking who the wraparound lines up and down Coca Cola Roxy’s sidewalks were there to see on April 30th. PinkPantheress’s fans were giddy with anticipation, dressed in their best Y2K and singing her most viral hooks as they entered her sold out performance. And perform she did—she and her dancers put on a dazzling performance with a screen as their backdrop, transporting them from an airplane to a house to a club all in the span of

The sensorial world here is disorienting, spiraling, cyclical. Drums clash in time with a riffing guitar, striking like the second hand of a clock. It breaks down and rebuilds itself repeatedly, balancing chaos and calm on a knife’s edge.