Crucial Releases: Sept 26 + Oct 3
New albums from Geese, SPRINTS, Thrice, Idlewild, Prewn and many more.
Crucial Releases
Learn more about the new albums you SHOULD be paying attention to each week. Find your next Crucial Track.
Crucial Releases: September 12
New albums from Die Spitz, King Princess, Spite House, Liquid Mike, and more.
Crucial Releases: August 29 + September 5
Crucial Releases for Aug 29 and Sept 5, including Big Thief, shame, Hayley Williams, The Beths, Blood Orange, and more.
Crucial Releases: August 22
New albums from Deftones, Hand Habits, Wolf Alice, Hot Mulligan, Earl Sweatshirt, TOPS, Water From Your Eyes, and Dean Johnson.
Crucial Releases: August 15
New albums from Racing Mount Pleasant, Dijon, Kerosene Heights, Pile, Georgia Harmer, and Pool Kids.
Crucial Releases: July 25 & early August
Jam packed. 20 highlighted releases, including new by Indigo De Souza, Emily Hines, and JID.
Crucial Releases: First Half of July
New records from Clipse, Open Mike Eagle, Wet Leg, Forth Wanderers, Alex G, Madeline Kenney, Billie Marten and more!
Crucial Releases: middle of June edition
New releases from S.G. Goodman, Hotline TNT, HAIM, and Yaya Bey highlight this issue.
Crucial Releases: May 2
New music by Men I Trust, Carriers, Mei Semones, PUP, Club Night, and Samantha Crain.
Crucial Releases: April 25
New music from Viagra Boys, Emma-Jean Thackray, Beach Bunny, Samia, and... Wu-Tang!
Crucial Releases: most of April edition
Geez, April is almost over isn't it? Lots of good music this month -- Bon Iver, Momma, Speedway, Casper Skulls, Blu, quickly quickly, Ribbon Skirt, Black Country New Road, Florist, Scowl, Bedridden, Julien Baker & TORRES, Superheaven, The Convenience, and Valerie June.
Crucial Releases for March 28
New music from Perfume Genius, Great Grandpa, Bria Salmena, Free Range, Lucy Dacus, and Sam Akpro.
Crucial Releases: March 14/21 super post
New albums from Japanese Breakfast, Men I Trust, Courting, terraplana, Saba, Weatherday, Goya Gumbani, Dutch Interior, Greentea Peng, and My Morning Jacket. A big one!
Crucial Releases for March 7
The latest new albums from Divorce, Bob Mould, Downward, Hamilton Leithauser, Jason Isbell, SASAMI, and HotWax.
Crucial Releases for February 28
Another week of new releases! This time from Deep Sea Diver, Doves, Panda Bear, Cloakroom, Runaway Brother and many more...
Crucial Releases for February 21
Brand new albums from Anxious, The Murder Capital, Saya Gray, Youth Lagoon and more!
Crucial Releases for February 14
New releases for the week ending February 14th, including Bartees Strange, venturing, Horsegirl, Kestrels, and Frog.
Crucial Releases for February 7
New releases from Squid, Sleeper's Bell, Sharon Van Etten, Heartworms, Inhaler, Michigander, and Larry June/2 Chainz/The Alchemist.
Crucial Releases for January 31
No featured release this week, but solid records from The Weeknd, Charlie Houston, MIKE, and Bonnie "Prince" Billy.
Crucial Releases for January 24
New music from Ditz, Ghais Guevara, Mogwai, FKA twigs, and Boldy James this week.
Crucial Releases for January 17
A handful of really good releases this week, featuring lots of hands, Ex-Void, Flora Hibberd, Delivery, Kele, Mac Miller, and jasmine.4.t
Featured Crucial Releases for January 10
Welcome to 2025! Featuring new releases from Ethel Cain, Lambrini Girls, and zzzahara.
My Favorite Albums from 2024
Jason runs down his favorite 20 albums from 2024. LOTS of great music this past year.
Featured Crucial Releases for October 18
Lots of new releases sparked my interest, but the new High Vis album made the week.
Featured Crucial Releases for October 4 + 11
Featured crucial releases from the first two weeks of October, highlighted by Wild Pink and Hemlock.
Featured Crucial Releases for September 27
Big news! A new home for Crucial Tracks on Ghost and a great new album by Merce Lemon.
Featured Crucial Releases (Aug 30 thru Sep 20)
Another bulk load of good albums for you to check out. Almost a whole month’s worth, actually. I now realize the reason why I get off track – when there’s a week I don’t hear anything I love, I immediately get off routine of writing these posts. Not
Featured Crucial Releases (Aug 23)
What a super week for new music. Two top tier options in my mind (currently in my top 10 for the year), with four honorable mentions and probably a couple more that could have made it with some more focused listening time. YOU’LL HAVE TO LOSE SOMETHING by Spirit
Featured Crucial Releases from Aug 16
Look at me! Working on a post ON release day and not two weeks later. 😄 A bunch of very good releases this week, so let’s’ dig in to the stuff we care about! Triple Seven by Wishy (Listen) Wishy is a shoegaze-adjacent band and this is their debut full
Featured Crucial Releases (Aug 2 + Aug 9)
Two weeks, two different themes! The first new music Friday of August saw an R&B/hip hop focus, while the second Friday was all about indie rock. I liked two releases from each week and each release offers something different for listeners. Let’s dig into each set
Featured Crucial Releases (Jun28 - Jul26)
The last few new weeks have been a blur. On the music front, it started out with a couple slow weeks and not much caught my ear… then the next two weeks were really solid. Then another dud to end the month. So let me dig in to each week
Featured Crucial Releases (June 21 edition)
There weren’t too many releases that caught my ear this week, but one in particular is a top 10 contender (as of now) and that one is Scream from New York, NY by Been Stellar (Listen). Been Stellar combines the sounds of early Radiohead, Catherine Wheel, Ride, Swervedriver, Iceage,
Featured Crucial Releases (June 14 edition)
Last week had a handful of releases I enjoyed. At first listen I didn’t think any one of them would qualify for a featured release, but I gave two a second listen and I’m glad I did. These two records are well worth your listening investment, not to
Featured Crucial Releases (June 7 edition)
Back at it with our first release Friday of June and I’m going to push to get posts out every week (maybe every other week), as doing a full month look back is a pain – so much music comes out it’s hard to pare it down to a
Featured Crucial Releases (May edition)
May flew by in a blink of an eye. On the music front, there wasn’t much that really stood out to me, though there are a handful of new releases that had some really solid moments. So with that said, I will give a brief blurb about each… May
Featured Crucial Releases (Apr 26 edition)
A pretty darn good week of music, considering the only record that was a must listen to start was St. Vincent’s All Born Screaming. I am glad I investigated other new releases, as I added two of them to my end of year consideration list, as well as two
Featured Crucial Releases (Apr 19 edition)
A certain massive pop star released a double album (quick listen: meh) this week, so I’d guess most mainstream artists avoided this week if they were able. The exception turned out to be Pearl Jam (quick listen: a pretty decent record!), though they too have a pretty avid fan
Featured Crucial Releases (Apr 5 + Apr 12 edition)
Another two week edition for you. The kids were off for spring break last week, then it was eclipse day and travel hockey tryouts this week, so there was not enough time to finish this post before the next release day rolled around…however, I was able to listen to
Featured Crucial Releases (Mar 29 edition)
Everyone is talking about it, so you can probably guess my choice for this week… Cowboy Carter by Beyonce (Listen). I’m not going to spend much time writing commentary, because it’s not necessarily my place nor expertise, but I will let the music speak for itself. And before
Featured Crucial Releases (March 8 + March 15 + March 22 edition)
So. Where did all the time go? March has flown by and each week’s post only made it as far as draft status, so I am combining all three weeks into a March super post. Here we go… From March 15th: Deep Sage by Gouge Away (Listen) One of
Featured Crucial Releases (Feb 23 and Mar 1 edition)
My favorite release from the past two weeks is by far I Got Heaven by Mannequin Pussy (Listen), which was released this past Friday. It is probably my favorite record released this year so far, it’s that good. The record oscillates between the sweet sonic melodies of 90s alternative
Featured Crucial Releases (Feb 9 + 16 edition)
Busy, busy! I did not expect February to go like it has (so far), as all of my free time has been taken up with the travel hockey season winding down and my daughter’s high school hockey team going all the way to the state championship finals! Then Chris
Featured Crucial Release (Feb 2 edition)
This week was a little light in terms of albums that immediately caught my attention, but Liquid Mike’s Paul Bunyan’s Slingshot (Listen) definitely won me over as the favorite. The album hits you hard with power pop earworms – 13 of them in just 26 minutes. It’s fast,
Featured Release (Jan 26 edition)
Now we are talking! I added thirteen albums to my library to check out on this release day. I’m mostly through them all and while there wasn’t one release that absolutely blew me away, there were a lot of good releases this week. Let’s dig in! My
Featured Release (Jan 19 edition)
New releases are starting to ramp up as we move away from the holiday season. This week had notably more new releases than last week and I see a lot of good artists on the horizon for the coming weeks. Looking at this week, though, I do have one standout
Featured Release (Jan 12 edition)
Another typical January release day, however things are picking up a little bit as there were more new albums this week than last. There were two albums I enjoyed this week, one being Big Sigh by Marika Hackman (Listen) and the other being Penalty of Leadership by Boldy James &
Featured New Release (Jan 5 edition)
There weren’t many new releases this week, but one album still stood out as interesting and I have a feeling it will last the year on my “Best Of” list. That would be SPRINTS new album Letter to Self. (Listen) From the band: Inspired by Savages, their sound matured
