#robber robber

Robber Robber

Music Recommendations: April 2026

April is totally wild for me and almost entirely artists I'd never heard before. My favorite kind of month!

Robber Robber, "Talkback," Two Wheels Move the Soul. New to me and pretty cool, the band's skittery, hard-to-define electronic/rock music is a hot start to the list.

Love Rarely, "Will," Pain Travels. Also new to me, Love Rarely is basically what would've happened if Paramore was made up of more talented musicians. Sorry, Paramore. But, like, it sounds a lot like Paramore, but with mathy riffs, surprising twists, and a steadily increasing intensity as the album progresses.

Lime Garden, "Downtown Lover," Maybe Not Tonight. Still new to me, Lime Garden deal in a sort of winkingly sarcastic indie rock that I have always liked.

Mei Semones, "Koneko," Kurage. You guessed it, new to me, Mei Semones' delicate jazz guitar and airy voice really hit the spot on this 3-song EP.

Momo Boyd & Infinity Song, "Oops," Miss Michigan. Fresh off a notable turn on the song from Baby Keem's Ca$ino that featured Kendrick Lamar and therefore got in front of a lot of people, Momo Boyd brings a new level of attention to her band Infinity Song, which is all siblings, even. Together, they wind their way through a variety of sounds well beyond standard R&B fare, and it's really cool.

My New Band Believe, "Love Story," My New Band Believe. This one had to be new because it's a new project. It's weird, lush, intricate, and it took me a while to decide whether I actually even liked it. But I have decided I do.

Sugar Horse, "Fire Graphics," Not a Sound in Heaven. Still another act with which I was not familiar, Sugar Horse describe their intentions for this album, combining elements of post-rock and sludge metal and released on the incredibly named Fat Dracula Records, as wanting to "capture the machinations of the geo-political industrial war machine and all the horrors that go with it, without sounding trite or crass." And so they have, with songs that kind of sneak up on you, seething with rage at the world we find ourselves stuck with. Pretty intense.

Bodysnatcher, "Violent Obsession," Hell Is Here, Hell Is Home. I know you won't believe it, but new to me this month, Bodysnatcher's straight up, no frills beatdown hardcore made me want to jump up and start breaking all my furniture, and that makes this record a hit.

Kehlani, "Back and Forth featuring Missy Elliot", Kehlani. Kehlani's self-titled latest is an audibly 90s-inspired serving of R&B with a guest list to match, featuring contributions from Lil Wayne, Brandy, Usher, T-Pain, Lil Jon, and most importantly, the ever-elusive Missy Elliot, who still sounds in top form, with hints of classic Timbaland production in the mix, no less.

At the Gates, The Ghost of a Future Dead. This is a hard one. At the Gates is a crucial metal band, one of the founders of the so-called Gothenburg Melodic Death Metal sub-sub-sub-genre, and certainly, through their 1995 breakout album Slaughter of the Soul, a band that inspired whole generations of other bands in the space. And then they broke up right after it was released. Like a lot of influential bands that broke up, their legend grew in their absence, as the kind of music they helped pioneer found a wider and wider audience without them. Unlike a lot of influential bands that broke up, they remained friends, eventually got back together, and in the 2010s, not only made more music, but made stuff that didn't tarnish their legacy at all. They didn't just take a victory lap, they released vital and exciting music in the lane they helped create. But those days are over now, as singer Tomas Lindberg succumbed to a rare and tenacious form of cancer in September of last year. And now, the band's final offering, finished largely while Lindberg was in the hospital, is out. Lindberg went into the studio the day before a major surgery that would limit his ability to even speak in 2024 and recorded the entire album's vocals in one marathon session, without even the finished music to listen to. A truly heroic final effort. melodic death metal is probably my all-time favorite flavor of the vast metal genre, so it's a strange feeling to both get an fiery new At the Gates album, and also know there really won't ever be another one this time.

But that's not all! April simply had more noteworthy releases than a tumblr video post will allow, so I also bring you:

Elizabeth & The Catapult, "Responsible Friend," Responsible Friend. This one is kind of a struggle for me. It's not a bad record. But her previous album, 2021's sincerely, e, is genuinely one of my favorite albums of all time, and not many artists are gonna pull off 2 of those in a row. But it's not a bad record.

Hannah Lew, "Another Twilight," Hannah Lew. Yet another new-to-me artist, and also a 2nd 3-song EP for the month, Hannah Lew's sort of electropop oddities made for a fun, if short, listen.

Sparkler, "Postal," Glidewinder. New to me and straight up classic era shoegaze. This band could have been touring with My Bloody Valentine in 1991. Maybe a little too reverent for old times, but... pretty good!

Frog, "Bad Time To Fall In Love Again," Frog For Sale. Are the crazy bastards actually going to do it? Frog's 3rd album in 14 months continues their "1000 Variations on the Same Song" project, which I assumed was an exaggeration at first, but... They just keep releasing more songs, so who knows? This one is markedly better than the last one, to be honest.