5 BEST ALBUMS – JUNE 2026
30 June 2026
Band: BUTTHOLE SURFERS
Who: San Antonio‘s heavyweight rockers who made a lot of riff racket between
1981 and 2017 with 8 LPs. Then they had a break and returned last year with
some live shows.
Album: AFTER THE ASTRONAUT
Now referred to as the 1998 lost album. After recordings were finished, their
then their label Capitol Records refused to release it. Too far-out to sell in big
numbers, they said.
The band changed labels and fabricated another LP, named Weird Revolution
with songs from the dumped After The Astronaut, but the critics sabered it.
Now, after all these years, the Surfers got back to work
to rejuvenate the original recordings the way they want.
Blabbermouth.Net says: “The entirety of the release is steeped in a forward-thinking kind of psychedelia that doesn’t sound dated even now decades later. Subdued beats and electronic grooves slither their way through your earholes with no intention of leaving.
Their playful and creative use of electronic, pulsing sounds and stuttered beats would make most trip-hop bands cross their arms with envy. The musically maniacal Texans strike creative gold with “After the Astronaut”. The rest of us can finally properly appreciate it now.”
TUTV: I’m suspicious when I hear the term lost album. In many cases, it means that a label wants to make money off something that went wrong the first time, to cash in years later, on the back of an artist/band that became famous over the years.
But this is a jawdropping exception. The album feels like the Surfers put all their past frustrations into it, leading to a momentous rock work. It’s a gloriously loud and clear triumph from start to finish. These veteran motherrockers still matter, big time.
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Instagram – Short Bio – All Albums
Album artwork
Band: OSEES
Who: The mean Californian riff machine
led by barnstormer in shorts John Dwyer.
Album: OFF COURSE
A record that landed without foreplay
or warning. 5 tracks, 32 minutes.
Is it an album, is it an EP?
According to the common understanding, an EP contains more tracks than
a single but fewer than an album (8-10). Contemporary EPs usually contain
up to eight tracks and have a playing time of 15 to 30 minutes.
Osees‘ general calls it an album.
He’s the boss. So an album it is.
Credit Osees
Dwyer: “We went back to an older method of writing for this one. We jammed
and jammed and jammed. I took the tapes home and ironed out some mutant
tunes. We went back into the studio and burned them to tape live and then I
took it home and did the vocals. Spice is always nice.
Mixed it all up in the cauldron and thus we have a strange brew indeed Floating in
the smoke we have: A couple long jams, a couple short jams and a finale that’ll dump
a bucket of ear worms on you (reminiscent of “the axis”?) Dip your toe in organ rock
and roll.”
TUTV: EP or LP? Whatever, to my ears it’s one of the best things Osees did
in recent years. No riff mania, but 60/70’s psych prog rock-inspired work-outs,
a bit of Deep Purple in their symphonic phase.
Mind-bending and trance-inducing, coming close to the extravagant trips
of that other ultra-productive team King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard.
The Trick is my fav track. An instrumental, Krautrock-like, motorik piece
that thrives on organ and hyperkinetic drumming. Flabbergasting. Mind
you, all 32 minutes have a dumbfounding effect.
What a surprisingly surprising surprise.
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Instagram – Album On Spotify
Album artwork
Band: THE CHRONICLES OF MANIMAL AND SAMARA
Who: London-based DIY duo – Daphne Ang (Singapore) and Andrea Papi (Italy)
that fills a gap in music by bringing literature, art, and history together into a
space where rock and metal meet electronica.
New album: MISANTROPI
Their 4th.
Press info: “‘Misantropi‘ presents a raw, unfiltered manifesto for those who despise humanity. According to the duo, this album is: rue to their roots, the album melds spoken poetry and spoken word over heavy metal riffs, but with a new emphasis on going back to the classic set up of drums, bass, and guitars. There is more singing and melodic vocals, adding a visceral human element to their already intense sound.”
TCOMAS: “The album is human made. It’s played with real instruments, with hands,
feet, vocal cords, and human body parts. It’s raw and unfiltered. It is for those who see
through the facade and aren’t afraid to admit that they hate what we have become.”
TUTV: More direct, yet constructed brick by brick. More melodic, yet fiercely aggressive. More singing/howling/growling than spoken word this time. Rage pushes this new TCOMAS opus sonically and lyrically throughout. Rage is the common thread that obviously stoked up Samara and Manimal to produce arguably their most unambiguous and alarming opus. Rage has been the world’s most dominant topic in the past few years.
The duo’s vehement and sharp-mouthed vocal (inter)actions are an important key in translating their infuriating frustrations. Fucks, spits, and sneers fly around and infuse Misantropi with an imminent volcanic threat. The production is flawless, the execution is overpowering, the visuals (artwork/video’s) are masterful (again), the album is TCOMAS’s masterpiece (thus far). Hands down.
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Instagram – Facebook – Website
Artist: WHERE WE SLEEP
Who: The musical project of British songstress Beth Rettig started to realise her musical vision, and to experiment and express a deeply personal and poetic vision, following her previous collaboration in Blindness, signed to AC30 Records, and performing with the likes of Lene Lovitch, and Viv Albertine.
Album: THE ARSONIST
Rettig: “The Arsonist is about change, starting again where necessary, identifying things that aren’t working for us and things that aren’t necessary to us. Things that are weighing us down, be it systemic, societal or personal. A lot of people fear and fight change but if things aren’t working as they are, sometimes you have to take the risk. And then comes the liberation, in
the power of walking away.”
TUTV: Song by song, Beth Rethig draws you in her disturbed state of mind and her
sonic translation of her heart-and-soul-related meditations. After slow-burning torch opener Under A Big Sky, electro-guitar-punk banger Headlong changes the sonic timbre drastically.
Rethig applies this musical mood swing process from there on, to a puzzling,
chilling and blood-tingling effect, bringing a different dynamic from her debut
album.
Her mesmerising voice is an instrumental determinant throughout, carrying and accentuating both the doubting and hopeful tone of The Arsonist, while the imposing darkwave-goth-industrial reverberations- jolting mixes of menacing bass play, scorching guitars, and gloomy synth waves – sculpt an astonishingly fitting soundtrack. Bang-on.
An impressive accomplishment on all levels.
KEY SINGLE
Band: PUSSY RIOT
Who: The notorious Russian punk feminists and political activists, led by mastermind and driving force since day one Nadya Tolonkonnik who spent two years, along with 2 fellow pussy riotiours, in a Russian jail for hooliganism motivated by religious hatred after her protest performance in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour church in 2012.
Album: CYKA (Russian for bitch)
Following several mixtapes, a series of barbed-wire singles, and countless
live protests in their home country, Ukraine, and the Western world PR finally
comes up with their first LP.
Tolokonnikova about the LP’s reactionary motivation, the ongoing war with Ukraine:
“Me and my countrymen could have prevented it, we just had to fight harder for our dream
of a peaceful democratic Russia. I live in exile, like a rat. Everything I loved was taken from me; my entire country was stolen. My mother died of cancer in Moscow, and I couldn’t be there to say goodbye.
The father of my daughter nearly died after being poisoned with a nerve agent by the FSB. My friend Alexey Navalny was murdered in jail. And I no longer know whether I’ll ever be able to let people get close to me again – being torn away from everyone I loved cost too much. Vengeance is what forces my eyes open in the morning, and what keeps me going. “OUTRO” is dedicated to my mother and my love to her.‘
TUTV: Musically, only on smoking punk grenades Faceless Pigs, Disobey, Candy Dopamine and Blizzard, PR lash out with rage, the Bikini Kill way. Sonically, CYKA is for the greater
part a trip-hop, EBM-orientated record spiked with both reflective and spiralling synth-orchestrated flare-ups.
Vocally, Tolokonnikovashe alternates bouncy, whispering rap rants with poppy,
near-helium-like echoes. We have a unique party album here. One to dance to
when Putin is going down.
Lyrically Pussy Nadya unravels all her outrage and is in constant attack mode.
She will never quit attacking the Russian dictator (who appears on the title track).
She will never stop exposing his crimes. She’ll never back down. She’s a fearless
warrior. She’s a tenacious bitch.
KEY SINGLE
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