2026: THE FIRST QUARTER - ALBUMS
May 2026
Marking key at bottom
Blue “Reflections” 4
Their big comeback over 20 years since their last album. We didn’t need this. Just play us the classics. 4
Robbie Williams “Britpop” (#1) 5
Despite my overall mark - if we take ‘melody’ in isolation, this is better than many modern artists’ work. 5
Victoryland “My Heart Is A Room With No Cameras In It” 6
An alternative listen. 6
Madison Beer “locket” 6
I’d say nearly a 7. But not quite. 6
Louis Tomlinson “How Did I Get Here?” (#1) 4
Callum Beattie “INDI” 5
A slightly more exciting version of Sam Fender. 5
Mika “Hyperlove” 7
I was interested to listen to this because I was a fan of Mika’s debut “Life In Cartoon Motion” in 2007 (almost 20 years ago). I gave it a 7 and believed I could hear some potential for development and creativity. However, the follow-up “The Boy Who Knew Too Much” (2009) was a massive disappointment. Its probably a bit much to say ‘this is the album I’ve been waiting on for nearly 20 years’......... but something along those lines. 7
The Molotovs “Wasted On Youth” 6
Don Toliver “OCTANE” 6
Cast “Yeah Yeah Yeah” 6
Only The Poets “And I’d Do It Again” 6 (.......... just)
Kulashaker “Wormslayer” 5
Joji “Piss In The Wind” 7
Melissa Aldana “Filin” 6
Nice chill jazz album. 6
Charlie XCX “Wuthering Heights” (#1) 8
I absolutely love this – so I am consequently quite disappointed that Ms XCX almost immediately partially disowned it; saying she hoped it would be viewed as a side-project rather than a bona fide part of her music catalogue. She was asked by film-maker Emerald Fennell to write a song for her film “Wuthering Heights”, a reinterpretation of Brontë’s classic novel. She ended up making a soundtrack.
I commented when writing comments on her massive album “Brat” (2024) that I detected depth to Charlie XCX beneath the dance/pop surface. Subsequently, I noticed that many music journalists had picked this up too. XCX herself (when winning her Songwriter of the Year award at the 2025 Brit Awards) expressed she was happy to have successfully proven dance music can be artistic. Well, I’d say it all spills out here – although it is still, strangely, remarkably identifiable as Charlie XCX. Monotonic (or near monotonic) contrasts with more melodic passages, dance beats, robotic auto-tune and other traits are all here. However, we drop the dance ensemble in favour of strings, industrial sounds, and a ‘gothic’ atmosphere.
It opens with slow pulsating strings and spoken dialogue from John Cale in "House" – before harsher strings enter in a drone-like fashion (later accompanied by a thudding beat) as Charlie XCX enters with ‘I think I’m gonna die in this – house’. The whole performance develops into a screaming classical/industrial/techno mash up. Its a superb opening. The following track “Wall Of Sound” continues with the intriguing/disturbing use of strings as they slide up and down, and repeatedly build to climbing crescendos reminiscent of the orchestra in The Beatles’ “A Day In The Life”. The album’s theme of obsession, unhealthy co-dependence, anxiety, depression and self harm are probably best outlined in “Dying For You” which, on the surface, is quite up-beat and recalls XCX’s dance music..... if it were performed by a string quartet. There's a thudding bass beat and near-monotonic melodies. But there’s a darker undertone with weird sounds taking over in instrumental passages and the chorus line ‘all the pain and torture that I went through all makes sense to me now – I was dying for you’.
“Always Everywhere” is probably the simplest of the tracks with its common I-V-vi-IV chord progression........ but my favourite track aside from the opener. I love the melodic technique employed in the chorus. The chromatic tension of the leading-note (VII) and tonic (I) at the top of the scale followed by a fall to the mediant (III) which has the effect of a release or sigh after the tension. There’s a great contrast of tension explored as these notes are heard over different chords. The first statement of the leading-note and tonic is over the dominant chord (V) so the leading-note belongs to that chords note and it is the move up to the tonic that creates the tension (it is alien to the chord). The second time it is over the sub-dominant chord (IV). So the leading-note is the alien note and the move up to the tonic fits the chord. More interestingly, and arguably cleverly, although the alien note switches and the chords are different – the relationship between each alien-note and chord combination remains constant. In both cases, the alien-note is the note that sits between the 3rd and 5th of the triad.
“Chains Of Love” has an 80’s power-pop-ballad vibe to it. “Out Of Myself” takes us a little upbeat again. I’ve commented in previous reviews over the last few years that I’m a fan of instrumental interludes. “Open Up”, although not instrumental, offers us this. It is a short (90 second) haunting passage that’s only lyric is ‘open up’. “Seeing Things” is reminiscent of “Dying For You” with its upbeat-feel juxtaposed with a darker lyric, and pulsating strings. I like the 1.5 phrase structure of the chorus with its full phrase ‘I think I’m seeing things that are not there’ followed by its half phrase ‘I think I’m seeing things’ - before repeating. The bridge passages are also interesting with somewhat jerky melody and staccato vocals (‘and I stopped and tapped your arm and waved to say ‘hello’, but it was just a stranger’).
“Alter” has an interesting lyric that I can relate to as it explores the concepts of ‘being alone’ vs. ‘loneliness’........ and both of those vs toxic relationships. ‘One is not the loneliness number.’ ‘You’re gonna end up killing me’. “The Eyes Of The World” feels like a particularly deep track with a lyric we could write an essay on. Essentially it examines love and relationships in a world where we are under constant surveillance through society and social media, pressuring us to behave portray ourselves in certain ways not just as individuals but in our interactions and relationships too. The string and industrial atmosphere is familiar by this point of the album but it feels particularly prevalent on this track with its heavy use of dissonance.
The penultimate tracks feels like the most ‘pleasant’ of the line-up. Given the context of the album, it feels like the line ‘you’re always my reminder of where I started from’ sounds simultaneously positive and negative. Finally, with its tense string-work..... what sounds like gunshot from a computer game and its contrast between loud texturally thick and dissonant sections vs quite textually sparse and haunting sections, “Funny Mouth” gives us a disturbing non-conclusive conclusion. The final cyclic lyric ‘everyone sleeps..... everyone wakes up......’ reminds us of the apparent futility of life at times and leaves us wondering at what point in that aimless cycle it actually ends.
This album seems to somehow brilliantly embrace every Charlie XCX trait you can think of while concurrently rejecting them. Its hard to imagine the average fan of Charlie XCX giving this one much time. For me, its the best album of the year so far and I believe it will be a hard one to beat. 8
Mumford & Sons “Prizefighter” (#1) 6
They’ve collaborated with some fairly big current names for this one. Gracie Abrams, Gigi Perez, Hozier., etc. Shrewd move. 6
Leigh-Anne “My Ego Told Me To” 6
Interesting to note that the 3 remaining members of Little Mix (a group currently on hiatus) have all released solo albums within the last 6 months........ and all entered the chart (and peaked) at #3. Spooky stuff. 6
Mitski “Nothing’s About To Happen To Me” 7
Bruno Mars “The Romantic” 6
I didnt realise that, despite his continued presence down the years, this is actually his 1st album in 10 years. So, its a big deal. And, its good enough. 6
Joost “Kleinkunst” 7
An ‘alternative” listen. And what a listen. Great fun but stylish euro-pop. You know the kind of mad stuff you get in euro-vision sometimes? Where at first you think ‘gosh this is dreadful' but end up secretly enjoying it? I bloody loved it. 7
Gorillaz “The Mountain” 7
Blackpink “Deadline” (EP) 6
Harry Styles “Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally” 7 (#1)
........ its turning out I’m quite the fan. Who’d have thought? 7
Artio “Soul Rot” 7
An alternative listen. A metal vibe with a sprinkling of creativity 7
Illenuim “Odyssey” 6
Another alternative. Albums by producers always make for interesting listening due to each track often being a collaboration with another artist. Interesting...... but not necessarily brilliant. 6
Squeeze “Trixies” 6
Lyrically as good as ever. Musically? - it feels like they are a little bit lost. 6
Katherine Priddy. 6
Nice bit of folk. 6
James Blake “Trying Times” 8
Excellent. I think its my 2nd favourite album of 2026 so far. A great blend of diverse genres held together by a dense texture of live instruments (piano, guitar etc) with a choral and string (perhaps synth) backdrop. The samples, and other production techniques are innovative and expertly woven into the mix. 8
BTS “Arirang” 7
Great stuff. Much more like ACTUAL K-Pop rather than the flimsy stuff found in last year’s “K-Pop Demon Hunters” (as good as some of it was). 7
Raye “This Music May Contain Hope.” 8 (#1)
So, I like Raye. I really like her style – the genres she draws on, her vocal performance, and that ‘rapid-fire’ half-sung-half-rapped technique she does so seemingly effortlessly. Her debut album was good. I could hear, bubbling below the surface, and artist of high calibre...... but in the early stages of a journey. I concluded that I could hear a superb album bursting to get out........ but that one wasn’t it. So lets see.........
Yes! Here we are. I was not wrong.... and here it is! It is sort of genre-bending but not in the way Little Sims or others are. The tracks often chop and change, but fit what is being lyrically portrayed. It is essentially like a musical. A very good musical. I think there’s only about 4 tracks you would describe as following an entirely conventional structure. There’s a sort of ‘beautiful chaos’ to it but it is seamlessly held together by Raye’s characteristics (see above), and even a few musical themes such as descending chromaticism. I’m suspicious of albums that are very long. This one clocks in at 75 minutes. Very rarely – it is justified. I think this is one of those occasions. A few artists recently, including Raye, have experimented with spoken dialogue..... sometimes talking to the audience at the end of an album. I’ve not been sure what to make of it. It breaks the escapism (funnily enough, the name of a Raye track) somewhat. Is it PART of the album or a ‘tag on’ – a ‘bonus’ ‘footnote’ etc.? Here, Raye embeds it into the album more clearly, she introduces the album, narrates it, and thanks us for listening. With that cleared up, I can accept it...... and quite like it. There’s also an appearance from Al Green to boot.
She obviously was not aware of my criticisms of her debut...... but its like she was....... and answered them all consummately. 8
Melanie Martinez “Hades” 7
Brilliant stuff, wonderfully versatile and creative with some hard-hitting social commentary, much of which I agree with. The music often makes excellent use of word-painting (where the music specifically portrays what is happening lyrically) the best example being the creepy-sounding “Is This A Cult?”. It would potentially be worth a mark higher if it were edited into a more concise album. 7
Tom Misch “Full Circle” 6
So, the 1st quarter of 2026? Well......... three 8s already!!
Marking key (in a nutshell)
10 – Perfect (only 3 albums in history)
9 – Basically 10/10 (I just don’t quite view them in the same way as the 3 albums)
8 – Outstanding (possible nit-picking criticisms)
7 – Brilliant
6 – Good
5 – Average
4 – Has potential but below average
3 – Some good points but not very good overall
2 – Poor (possibly a few good points)
1 – Abysmal
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