New Album Release Round-Up: April 2026

Every month brings more new music than anyone can reasonably keep up with—even the No Ripcord team.

Our Album Release Round-Up collects the records we didn’t cover in full but still consider worth your time. Think of it as a spiritual successor to our original Quick Takes feature. No hype, no snark, just honest reviews.

Mythical Motors
Tremolo On The Punchline 
(Subjangle)

Mythical Motors is a power pop project from Chattanooga, Tennessee, helmed by a relentlessly prolific songwriter called Matt Addison. Addison’s output—and knack for a hook—is positively Pollardian, and Tremolo On The Punchline wastes little time fleshing out its ideas, preferring instead to surge forward to the next. Of its seventeen songs, the longest is 3:41 finale “Replacement City”—the average length is around two minutes. Tremolo is short, sharp, and brimming with creativity. There are strong echoes of Guided By Voices (“Mass Attraction”) and 80s power pop legends Game Theory (“Solid Wall Of Light”), but I’m also reminded of newer artists like Philly’s 2nd Grade and Kai Slater’s Sharp Pins project (“When We Leave The Planet”). Fans of these artists will find a lot to enjoy here. (DC)

Metric
Romanticize the Dive
(Metric Music/Thirty Tigers)

Reckoning with the weight of memory, Metric thought long and hard about where they stand as as they reach 25 years as a unit. Rather than being bogged down by their past, the Toronto synth-pop veterans feel strengthened by their experience and not defined by it. But after all this time, one thing is clear: Emily Haines and her bandmates can still write a stellar tune, such as “Victim of Luck,” which is poised to become a setlist favourite alongside tracks like “Gimme Sympathy” and “Help I’m Alive.” They keep the momentum going on “Wild Rut,” which, for their older subset of fans, recalls their terrific debut LP, Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? The Taylor Swift-recalling vocals on “Tremolo” might raise an eyebrow or two, but overall, the bulk of Romanticize the Dive consists of propulsive melodies that reinforce what they’ve already proven. There’s nothing too revealing here, but the familiar, comforting touch they always offer is more than welcome. (JR)

Deary
Birding
(Bella Union)

Sonically, London dream pop trio deary (the lowercase styling is theirs, not mine) are such a perfect fit for Simon Raymonde’s Bella Union label that I’m unsure whether it’s a blessing or a curse. For the most part, Birding follows the Cocteau Twins template to a tee, seemingly daring listeners and critics alike to find a better descriptor than the all-too-obvious ‘ethereal’. But deary are smart enough to inject some variety, which they achieve by incorporating heavier, almost explosive passages. When they dip their feet into the murkier waters of shoegaze, the results evoke vaunted genre heavyweights, such as Slowdive and Lush. Ultimately, like so much new music in the dream pop/shoegaze sphere, the core problem with Birding is its inherent lack of originality. But when the songwriting and performances are this strong, I’m prepared to give them a pass this time. (DC)

Yaya Bey
Fidelity
(Drink Sum Wtr)

While intended as a companion to 2025’s do it afraid, Fidelity showcases Yaya Bey at her most airy and free-flowing. Attempting to change the tone of her recent releases, which revolved around the grief of losing her father, the Queens-born artist serves a glowing counterpoint to the weightier themes that remain present. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the prickly, jazz-flecked “The Great Migration,” in which she hopes to lift the spirits with joyful praise. Whereas on “Forty Days” and “Higher,” she draws on a fusion of neo-soul, finding comfort in life’s impermanence. Naturally, some of the themes found in do it afraid do carry over, providing either reworked versions (“Dream Girl”) or continuations (“The Town”) with slight, yet clever twists. The eclectic range Bey displays in Fidelity occasionally runs into filler, but it also drops clues into what her next big statement might entail. (JR)

Failure
Location Lost
(Failure/Arduous)

LA’s Failure are one of a handful of ’90s bands who quietly did their thing, disbanded to little fanfare, and subsequently influenced a whole host of bands, causing their stature to grow to a level far beyond anything they could have imagined. Think Duster, but a space rock version. Failure super-fan Hayley Williams has played a key part in their unexpected rise, and it’s fitting that the Paramore singer features on one of Location Lost’s best tracks, “The Rising Skyline.” The rest of the record is a considered affair, brilliantly performed but rarely thrilling, with highlights coming in the form of hypnotic slow burners like “The Air’s On Fire” and the soaring finale “Moonlight Understands.” (DC)

Good Kid
Can We Hang Out Sometime?
(Good People Record Co.)

Can We Hang Out Sometime?, the peppy debut LP by Ontario, Toronto indie rockers Good Kid, sits at a pleasing midpoint that both benefitted and, in some ways, killed the 2000s post-punk revival. While satisfying in a purely impulsive way, it lacks the passionate urgency of the time beyond the pastiche of its members, who previously studied computer science. Tracks like “Cicada” and “Tornado” are at least decent, drawing influence from the sleek, propulsive guitar styles of bands like Two Door Cinema Club and Bloc Party, respectively. Behind the music exists Nomu Kid, the band’s digital mascot, a charmless caricature that serves as a key character of many of their promotional materials—including the Tokyo Police Club-lite “Eastside.” Good influence, if you ask me. But outside of the genuine thought they’ve given to their project from a visual standpoint, Good Kid risks falling into a fleeting novelty if they don’t develop a more distinct musical identity. (JR)

* An earlier version of this review stated that Nomu Kid was an AI-creation; this was incorrect. The character was created by Good Kid’s animation collaborator Gabriel Altrows. Good Kid never use AI in any of their content. We would like to apologise to Good Kid for the error.

The Reds, Pinks and Purples
Acknowledge Kindness
(Fire)

Glenn Donaldson’s Reds, Pinks and Purples project feels like one that should be tailor-made for me. The fertile Bay Area indie-pop scene rarely misses the mark, and Donaldson’s obvious influences—The Go-Betweens, The Cure, Sarah Records—are exactly the kind of touchstones that usually fill me with anticipation. Yet every time I approach a Reds, Pinks and Purples album thinking “this could be the one,” I leave with a faint sense of disappointment. Taken individually, Donaldson’s thoughtful compositions are always immaculately rendered, but over the course of an album, they often blur into one. Frustratingly, his reluctance to experiment with tempo seems to expose the limitations of his Robert Smith-influenced vocal. Accordingly, I find myself enjoying Acknowledge Kindness’ instrumental title track more than anything else here. Ultimately, this is an inferior record to last year’s The Past Is a Garden I Never Fed, which itself was an archetypal 7/10 affair. (DC)

Lime Garden
Maybe Not Tonight
(So Young Records)

On one of the best singles off their debut LP, “Pop Star,” Lime Garden frontperson Chloe Howard recognised that life is fleeting. Living by that mantra, Howard and her young bandmates take it a step further on Maybe Not Tonight. Told through a night out, the Brighton-based four-piece embrace their individuality and leave no apologies over a zippy 30 minutes that leave you wanting more. On the gritty title track, the band taps into 2000s electro-house with pure abandon, achieving a bold hybrid of Digitalism and Death From Above 1979. Rarely does the album let up, melding the Libertines-like swagger (“Downtown Lover”), dance-punk (“Body”), and wiry, bass-driven post-punk (“Lifestyle”). Lime Garden isn’t shy about their influences, sure, but what many of those artists lacked at the time, soaring choruses that linger for days, they deliver in spades. (JR)