Algiers
There Is No Year
The Atlanta quartet refine their lyric approach while expanding their musical and textural palettes on their third album.
Angel Olsen
Whole New Mess
A recontextualized solo version of 2019's All Mirrors (recorded prior to it) that stands emphatically on its own.
BC Camplight
Shortly After Takeoff
The American expat completes his excellent Manchester Trilogy with pop savvy, enigmatic arrangements, and plenty of gallows humor.
Bill Callahan
Gold Record
The singer/songwriter imbues these character sketches with the deeply personal warmth of his previous album, Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest.
Blossoms
Foolish Loving Spaces
Brimming with affection, the U.K. group celebrates love on their bright, mature third set.
Bright Eyes
Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was
The first new material in nine years from this sad-hearted indie folk band breaks new ground while it recalls earlier greatness.
Built to Spill
Plays the Songs of Daniel Johnston
Recorded mostly during rehearsals for dates backing the legendary singer, the album is a laid-back and lovely tribute to his music.
Car Seat Headrest
Making a Door Less Open
Will Toledo's first set of fresh songs since his band's breakthrough is a document of self-doubt brought on by success.
Caribou
Suddenly
The seventh studio album from this esteemed producer pushes the clubby energy and reflection of recent albums into warm, playful places.
Cornershop
England Is a Garden
Never more focused or fun, hooky, or political, the long-running band have crafted their masterpiece after nearly 30 years of making music together.
Dan Deacon
Mystic Familiar
Deacon returns to making majestically arranged, unceasingly optimistic synth pop on his first studio album in five years.
Deerhoof
Future Teenage Cave Artists
Ambitious, chaotic, and moving, the band's exploration of the messes left for future generations to clean up finds them at their experimental finest.
Dehd
Flower of Devotion
With sharper production and an overall push for more electric performances, the Chicago indie trio's third album finds them growing deeper into their melancholic, twilight-toned sound.
En Attendant Ana
Juillet
The Parisian band's sophomore set is a thrilling mix of tightly focused post-punk and indie pop played with both sophistication and abandon.
Fleet Foxes
Shore
The folk-rock band's fourth album is a compassionate and rewarding work of Indian summer liminality.
Frances Quinlan
Likewise
The Hop Along leader's disarmingly tender solo debut opts for keyboard-centric arrangements featuring harp by Mary Lattimore.
Hen Ogledd
Free Humans
This dense double album from the U.K. group finds them further refining their bizarre, maximal approach to pop sounds.
Holy Wave
Interloper
The reliably psychedelic Texas combo add more synths to the mix on their nuanced and atmospheric fifth album.
Horse Lords
The Common Task
Revolution-minded fourth studio album from Baltimore-based experimental rock quartet Horse Lords.
I Break Horses
Warnings
A shimmeringly bleak, heartbreakingly sad, and musically thrilling album made of sweeping synths, aching vocals, and slow, dreamlike arrangements.
I Dont Know How but They Found Me
Razzmatazz
Masterful debut from the alternative rock duo that fuses angular grooves with glam flair.
Isobel Campbell
There Is No Other...
The first new solo album in 14 years from one of indie's beloved singers is a stunning collection of delicate California pop.
Jean Dawson
Pixel Bath
The debut full-length from this genre-fluid polymath effectively marries nostalgic 2000s indie rock melodies with modernized rap production.
Julianna Barwick
Healing Is a Miracle
On her first album after several life changes, the vocalist/producer explores creativity's therapeutic qualities with transcendent beauty.
Khruangbin
Mordechai
On their third album, the Texan trio place more emphasis on their vocals, resulting in their strongest, most affecting material yet.
Kidbug
Kidbug
Members of Eerie Wanda and Dumb Numbers team up on a love letter to the alt-rock sounds of the early '90s, especially grunge.
Loma
Don't Shy Away
The sophomore full-length effort from the American indie rock trio effectively combines elemental dream pop and dark folktronica.
Loving
If I Am Only My Thoughts
The calm and precise debut album from the Canadian trio is a warm blanket of melancholy played and sung with melodic spareness and restrained emotion.
Magik Markers
2020
The trio's first album in nearly a decade captures the fragmented feel of its namesake year with delicate folk-pop, clattering rock, and open emotion.
Mike Polizze
Long Lost Solace Find
The solo debut from the leader of the abrasive Purling Hiss is a stunning turn towards gentle acoustic beauty and understated arrangements.
Miserable Chillers
Audience of Summer
Debut album from this Brooklyn-based songwriter weaves playful experimentation into songs built from bittersweet memories and impressionistic observations.
Molchat Doma
Monument
The third album from the Belarusian cold wave trio, containing their most danceable and hook-filled material to date.
Naeem
Startisha
The debut album from the artist formerly known as Spank Rock is an adventurous shift, exploring subtle songwriting and vulnerable emotions.
No Joy
Motherhood
Once strictly a doomy shoegaze band, this Montreal group uses their new album to explore everything from trip-hop to metalcore.
Once & Future Band
Deleted Scenes
The psych/prog trio's second album offers consistently engaging material to back up their technical skills.
Perfume Genius
Set My Heart on Fire Immediately
Mike Hadreas' fifth album explores the body's power and tenderness with songs that are equally rugged and delicate.
Peter Oren
The Greener Pasture
A self-described "dystopian farm/phone-themed album" made up of smart, wide-ranging indie folk.
Phoebe Bridgers
Punisher
Subtle shifts in production and songwriting take the second album from this indie songwriter in new, ominous directions.
RVG
Feral
An urgent and appealing bouquet of post-punk, new wave, and jangling guitar pop from eclectic Melbourne band.
Soccer Mommy
color theory
The lyrically heavy follow-up to Sophie Allison's breakthrough debut has production inspired by the idea of coming across an old cassette tape.
Sondre Lerche
Patience
The long-running singer/songwriter adds bold arrangements, string sections, and lots of surprises to his sound, adding another quality release to his CV.
Spinning Coin
Hyacinth
The band's second album is a wild, woolly, and weird trip that pushes them past the restrained melancholy of their fine debut towards something magical.
Sufjan Stevens
The Ascension
A portrait of a crisis of faith that holds a mirror to a nation seemingly on the verge of collapse.
Supercrush
SODO Pop
Brilliant re-creation of the moment in the early '90s when grunge and power pop collided.
Tame Impala
The Slow Rush
The band's fourth album delves smoothly into elegant disco, echoing chillwave, and Madchester beats while also dealing with serious lyrical concerns and big emotions.
The Microphones
Microphones in 2020
Phil Elverum revisits his beloved indie pop project with an ambitious yet humble musical memoir that honors his past and present selves.
The Mountain Goats
Getting Into Knives
Working without a thematic concept, John Darnielle has penned a great set of character studies played with heart, soul, and skill.
The Orielles
Disco Volador
The band's second album is another thrilling, breathtaking blend of '90s indie, disco funk, and youthful exuberance.
Thurston Moore
By the Fire
On his seventh solo album, the art rock icon explores elongated approaches to his already sprawling mystical guitar noise.
Trees Speak
Ohms
Sophomore album from this experimental collective explores various styles while creating a consistent air of disquiet.
U.S. Girls
Heavy Light
Seventh album is another stylistically shifting collection of heady pop featuring an extended crew of backing vocalists and themes of hindsight and nostalgia.
Westerman
Your Hero Is Not Dead
A sonically luxurious debut of thoughtful songwriting that recalls both '70s U.K. folk and the progressive synth-pop of Talk Talk and the Blue Nile.
White Poppy
Paradise Gardens
Crystal Dorval addresses personal troubles on her most lyrically direct album as White Poppy to date.
Windy & Carl
Allegiance and Conviction
One of Michigan's beloved space rock duo's most concise albums, and perhaps their rawest since the early days.
Winter
Endless Space (Between You & I)
Peacefully dreamlike and melancholy album that skillfully blends the softness of dream pop with the sonic overload of shoegaze.
Wire
Mind Hive
On their compact yet complex 17th album, the legendary post-punkers reinvent their enduring strengths as they lament humanity's vicious, and violent, circles.
Woods
Strange to Explain
Fifteen years into a tirelessly curious evolution, this psychedelic indie folk band sounds more inspired and driven than ever.
Yves Jarvis
Sundry Rock Song Stock
The third album from this Montreal artist continues his knack for arranging pleasantly confusing sounds into sustained, coherent moods.
Yves Tumor
Heaven to a Tortured Mind
The genre-defying artist unites their music into funky, iridescent R&B pop with fascinating, seductive results.
