Just like 2025 and 2024 before it, we are eschewing a "classic", big ol' list of albums we liked from 2026 so far. Lists are fun, but they make no sense ("this album is number 12 and this album is number 9" are words uttered by the insane). Instead, we will be using the next few weeks to highlight our favorite trends, releases, shows, cover art, experiences, and more from the first half of this (musically) excellent year.
In part due to the surprising and skyrocketing popularity of Oklahoma City’s Chat Pile, noise rock seems to be having a moment. I suppose part of it could be my fishbowl perspective since I live near Kansas City, where numerous noteworthy noise rock bands, such as Nerver, have sprouted up over the last few years. Scene veterans Season to Risk have also gained wider recognition. What’s more, this time last year I wrote about Kansas City’s The Ghost is Clear Records and how they have been quietly releasing some of the most consistently high-quality releases not only in noise rock and related genres but in heavy music in general.
Despite the current glut of young noise rock revival artists, not all of it is created equal: many younger bands of the style have not necessarily added significant innovation to the 40-something-year-old genre. Yet, numerous bands have released forward-thinking noise rock and noise rock-adjacent releases this year that have not received the recognition they deserve, so I want to take this opportunity to highlight some of those below as examples of bands pushing the genre in interesting directions. It’s releases like these that will help the genre to keep moving forward.
Doppler – Pourquoi ce disque ? (noise rock/post-punk)
Pourquoi ce disque ? is not only my favorite noise rock album of the year so far but it’s also one of my favorite albums of the year in general. The songwriting transcends the generally simple song structures of most noise rock, as Doppler navigates a labyrinth of structural and stylistic twists and turns throughout the album’s running time. The midsection of “Incipit Excipit” abruptly swerves into dub territory as what sounds like a sample of Morse code transmission plays over the band’s groove. “Piano Cassé” and “No One Available” are back-to-back instrumentals that brilliantly and effortlessly ebb and flow with their dynamics and are just as engaging as the other tracks on the album. It’s difficult to overstate how captivating the songwriting is on Pourquoi ce disque ?, but rarely does my enjoyment of music as a fan turn to envy as a songwriter. Pourquoi ce disque ? is one of the exceptions.
Hammok – When Does This Place Become Our Scene? (noise rock/post-hardcore)
After being impressed by the singles from When Does This Place Become Our Scene?, I taste-tested the band’s previous release, how long lasting everything is moving forward for once (2024). I don’t know what happened in between these two albums, but the band’s newest is a monumental level-up for this Norwegian post-hardcore/noise rock band. On When Does This Place Become Our Scene?, the trio conjures The Armed’s sonics through maximalist mania and major melodies while also evoking the stomping industrial noise rock of bands like Model/Actriz and The Gilla Band, among others. The songs shift stylistically from one track to the next, but none sound as if the band is overextending themselves stylistically. As a result, When Does This Place Become Our Scene? is nothing short of a creative watershed moment for this young band.
Zu – Ferrum Sidereum (hard prog/noise rock)
I extolled the high-caliber musicianship and the ominous, apocalyptic mood of Ferrum Sidereum in my review of the album earlier this year. While arguably more entrenched in the hard prog of bands such as Ni and PoiL rather than what is more traditionally thought of as noise rock, the Italian trio of Zu is certainly not averse to the confrontational cacophony of the latter. But the band’s unique instrumentation of bass, drums, and saxophone, as well as its strong rhythmic and compositional influences (namely, Meshuggah and Tool), make Ferrum Sidereum a unique, forward-thinking listen. And one that is sure to appeal to many noise rock fans.
Mandy, Indiana – URGH (industrial/noise rock)
This one isn’t quite as underappreciated as the others on this list, but it is undoubtedly a forward-thinking noise rock album. Building upon the amalgamation of noise rock and industrial, most recently (re-)popularized by Model/Actriz, the newest album from the French-English group Mandy, Indiana, seems like a rejection of the wider recognition they received for their full-length debut, I’ve Seen a Way (2023). What I’ve Seen a Way lacks in melody, it makes up for in dance-inspiring rhythms that recall EBM (Electronic Body Music) bands of yore and calmer, more approachable songs like “The Driving Rain (18)”. After that album’s relative success, you might expect the band to soften their edges and lean into the more accessible sounds they dipped their toes into on their debut to appeal to a wider audience. But the band went the opposite direction with URGH, a darker, denser, and altogether more unforgiving affair than I’ve Seen a Way.