I’m grooving to the Dream Syndicate’s 2022 album, Ultraviolet Battle Hymns and True Confessions, at the moment. It’s a tremendous set that, for good and bad, is forever linked in my mind to my mother’s passing—I leaned on it following her funeral that late spring, finding both peace and insights from the liquid guitar solos and knowing lyrics. “I hate words that ring hollow/And shift in shape and sound,” Steve Wynn sings in the opening track, “Where I’ll Stand.” As with the group’s larger body of work, the album’s songs serve as aural mirrors that reflect many listeners, me included. They simultaneously take me back and push me forward, while also reminding me to embrace the now.
Whether mindful, transcendent or meditations mined from the daily grind, music is more—much more—than a collection of notes, chords and words, of sentiments and stories. It’s the connective tissue of emotion, an expression not just of the singer and/or songwriter but of the listener, too. We turn to music in good times, bad times, and all the in-betweens, forging bonds with what we hear. It speaks to and for us, pumps us up and calms us, puts us in the mood, and floods the brain with dopamine. Whether songs tap into the shared consciousness or collective unconscious (or neither) is up for debate, I suppose, but either/or over time the writer’s intent becomes secondary to the listener’s need. Some may scoff at that last assertion, I’m sure, arguing songs are essentially historical artifacts kept under glass in a museum; they are what they are, no more, no less. But I doubt Wynn imagined Ultraviolet comforting a grieving son—yet it did and still does. Songs shift shape, mutate, take on new meanings. They just do.
Most albums don’t land during emotional upheavals, of course, yet they still color our day-to-day. When everything works as it should, the music seeps from the speakers or headphones and joins with the soul. As a result, one thing I always try—and, admittedly, often fail—to achieve with my reviews is to move beyond rote recitations of impetus and raisons d’être and explain why the music resonates with me. There are objective criteria at play with every composition, of course, but the way we embrace or reject specific sounds is ultimately subjective. How else to explain the success and failure of [fill in the blank] and [fill in the blank]? Plenty of highly praised songs and albums sell squat, after all, while as many one-star affairs top the charts. Crowdsourcing means little in relation to quality.
That’s a lengthy windup to what is a list of my 10 favorite albums for the first half of 2026. (Yes, yes, we have a few weeks to go before the calendar flips to July, but I’ve accounted for that.) Since January 1, I’ve spotlighted 45 albums and EPs—all releases that I genuinely like and love—and have listened to, at least in part, more than three times that number. Some come my way via publicists, enabling me to spend weeks with the releases before I put my thoughts to print, others I stumble upon on my own—or, as often, am a fan in good standing. The genres range from Americana to country to pop to jazzy R&B to rock, with some eccentric elocutions mixed in, too.
For the purposes of this piece, I’ve excluded EPs—doesn’t seem fair to compare a three- or four song set with a 12-track outing. I’ve also arranged everything in alphabetical order by first name because, well, placing them in order of “best to worst” would hurt both my head and heart. (It also pained me to just pick 10. Truth be told, every album I spotlight is worth many plays.) Clicking on the title leads to the review in full.
- Bella White – A Sign in the Weather. “White’s timeless voice floats to the fore, her quavery delivery transforming from a wispy cirrus cloud to the cottony cumulus kind to, at times, the dark shelf variety that threaten heavy rain—and then back again. One listens as she sings, breathes, and somehow synchronizes with her heart. It’s a remarkable outing, A Sign of the Weather, an impressionistic meditation on heartbreak, heartache, and recovery, and one of the year’s best albums.”
- Brit Taylor – Land of the Forgotten. “Who hasn’t struggled with bills? Dealt with disappointment? Lost or almost lost someone to addiction? Brit Taylor’s latest long player, Land of the Forgotten, steps into the shoes of the downtrodden—though ‘downtrodden’ is the wrong word. ‘Resilient’ is a better fit. She and Adam Chaffins, her husband, cowriter (along with Adam Wright) and producer, have shaped songs that reflect the realities faced by most. She captures and conveys the concerns, complaints and crises that keep folks up at night, in other words, and provides catharsis along the way.”
- The Long Ryders – High Noon Hymns. “I glance over my shoulder when backing up. It’s long-ingrained second nature. I flashback to the days that used to be via SiriusXM while driving down the familiar-yet-unfamiliar roads of the place I now call home. These last few weeks, however, I’ve flipped from the radio to High Noon Hymns. In some respects, the album’s akin to catching up with an old friend. Such reunions inevitably revisit the past, of course, but at their best they also feature talk of today and tomorrow, of our joys and sorrows. Such is the case here.”
- lucky break – made it! “Her vocals roll from the speakers as if low-hanging clouds through a cityscape at night, harbingers of severe weather that never arrives. The mist transforms to gentle rain to a downpour before, as all storms must, clearing out, with the moon’s reflections on the wet streets noir-like and, too, trance-inducing. In short, Emma Gerson—aka ‘lucky break’—possesses the most hypnotic of instruments: a voice that’s expansive and omnipresent. When combined with the ever-churning textures of the songs themselves, the result is mesmerizing: Listening to made it!, especially via headphones, is akin to floating through spacetime.”
- Mikaela Davis – Graceland Way. “Davis’ infectious sound flows from the speakers, the songs’ meanings and melodies swirling with echoes of yesterday, today and even tomorrow. The lyrical reflections glint off a polished ‘80s sheen mixed with a ‘70s sensitivity, conjuring Tom Petty, Fleetwood Mac, T.Rex, and even, in one spot, the Beatles. It’s quite cool.”
- Natalie Duncan – Black Moon. “I’ve said it before, though not necessarily with these specific words: Sometimes you don’t know what you need until a slinky melody springs from the speakers. Such has been the case this week with British soulstress Natalie Duncan’s latest long player, Black Moon. The jazz-imbued groove of ‘5th Dimension,’ the lead-off track, is buttery smooth yet thankfully sans the saturated fats that negatively impact the heart; the same holds true for the songs that follow. Electronica flourishes, hip-hop elements, and the gentle whoosh of keyboards flow from start to end, with the result somehow reminiscent of the soul music of the mid- and late 1970s. About the only thing missing is a duet with Donny Hathaway.”
- Nicole McCabe – Color Theory. “McCabe’s Color Theory is an example of jazz’s continued vibrancy, reminiscent of both the legendary jams of yore and the improvised delights of last year. It’s an 11-track celebration of syncopated riffs and spirited melodies, the kind of record that demands repeated plays. I’ve never been able to listen to it just once, at least. Whether you’re a newcomer to jazz or a longtime fan, I highly recommend it.”
- Pomelo – Loreless. Out June 26th, this intoxicating set from the Amsterdam-based duo explores what the press release calls “the tangible magic of the mundane.” It’s an eccentric elocution, to be sure, with the ambient textures reminiscent of a Luana Asiata painting.
- Sharada Shashidhar – A Foot on the Ground. “Floating in a sky of billowy clouds one moment, soaking in a vat of warm vibes the next—that sums up Sharada Shashidhar’s A Foot on the Ground. To switch metaphors for a moment, it’s an enchanted stream of oft-wordless vocals that flows into a rhapsodic river of experimental jazz, alternative R&B, and Indian classical music, with the waters rising and falling, rising and falling, while it feeds into an ocean of bliss.”
- Tessa Rose Jackson – The Lighthouse. “The Lighthouse is a sumptuous outing that delves into the philosophical underpinnings of this thing we call life. I’ve played it a lot over the past month-plus and have never not heard something new—and, at the same time, old—in its grooves. To borrow the closing lines from the poet Denise Levertov’s ‘To R.D., March 4th 1988,’ ‘We heard strong harmonies rise and begin to fill/the arching stone,/sounds that had risen here through centuries.’”
The Old Grey Cat 