New Album Release Round-Up: October 2026

October’s monthly round-up features quick takes on eight records we didn’t get around to covering in full, including a contender for best debut album of the year.

Sennen
New Quiet
(Sonic Cathedral)

Any questions about the origin of Sennen’s name—the Ride song or the Cornish village?—quickly dissipate during the opening strains of the dreamy “Dig.” They’re not a full-on shoegaze band by any stretch, but there’s a strong enough influence to confirm the link. After a prolific early run, which yielded five albums between 2005 and 2016, Sennen disappeared for a decade as other priorities took centre stage. I think most of us can relate to that. But after ten years, they’re back—and New Quiet might be their most compelling release yet. The band’s driving, melodic fusion of shoegaze, dream pop and jangle pop is more about songs than texture, which I approve of. Rather than the obvious shoegaze touchstones, I can hear flashes of artists as diverse as Teenage Fanclub (“Birds”), The Sea and Cake (“Dig”), and Chime School (“Here It Comes”) here. It’s a lovely record. (DC)

World News
In Purgatory
(Pie & Mash)

Flying criminally under the radar, London quartet World News make their ambitions clear on debut album In Purgatory: soar like there’s no tomorrow. The band deals in big melodies and even bigger choruses, but for all their might, there’s a welcome thoughtfulness to the textural guitar work on “Everything Is Coming Up Roses” and “Sidestep.” For a point of comparison, their atmospheric choruses owe more to Urban Hymns than The Joshua Tree. Yet the band’s true potential emerges on sumptuous tracks like the prog-lite “Classical Music,” whose fingerpicked boogie carries the torch for Mark Knopfler. And then there’s the addictively jangly groove of “Purgatory,” which pulls off the tricky feat of giving AOR’s unfashionable stylings a much-needed shot of class. World News takes plenty of gutsy swings with their nonlinear arrangements, and yet it all hangs together swimmingly, making their next move all the more exciting. (JR)

Eels
Cookie Happened
(E Works/PIAS)

In 2022, the last time I covered Mark Everett’s Eels project, I dubbed his Extreme Witchcraft album “a frustratingly stodgy affair.” I also argued that “Everett’s talent has always been most evident in his more melodic, reflective offerings.” Mercifully, Cookie Happened is one of those Eels records, and it’s surely one of Everett’s best records in some time—probably since 2005’s Blinking Lights and Other Revelations. “Cap In Hand” is classic Eels, its melancholy sentiment (“And so I’m coming to you cap in hand/Before you I stand, a broken man who’s picking up the pieces”) amplified by swooning strings. Other highlights include “I’m On Standby” and the stunning “All Forgotten,” which surprisingly evokes early 2000s Flaming Lips. Cookie Happened is a welcome return to form. (DC)

Clinic
Wild in the Streets
(Domino)

There’s something both inscrutable and immediate about the way a band like Clinic goes about its business. The Liverpool duo, comprising founding members Ade Blackburn and multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Hartley, continues to deliver succinct, yet “strange as it ever was” releases. Ten albums in, Wild in the Streets, their first in five years, could be described, in the simplest terms, as exotica-laden psych. What defies easy categorisation, however, are the songs themselves, which pack a toybox’s worth of sonic accoutrements into their arrangements. The drum machines take charge of the rhythm, whose unhurried, metronomic pulse absorbs elements of dub (“You & I”) and warped psychobilly (“The Time Has Come”). Their references are always discernible but never overly apparent, and, in typical Clinic fashion, it comes and goes promptly. Streets doesn’t even touch the 30-minute mark. Which is all part of their peculiar alchemy, really: creating experiences that, though familiar, are enduringly fascinating. (JR)

Imperial Teen
All Over You
(Merge)

Thirty years into their career, San Francisco’s Imperial Teen continue to stretch the definition of ‘supergroup.’ Their unremarkable indie pop rarely thrills, preferring instead to chug along doing pleasantly predictable things. Labelmates The New Pornographers are an obvious comparison (see “On the Island”), but to their credit, Imperial Teen do mix it up, flirting with dancier beats on “A Single Chair” and sanitised indie sleaze on “Overdrive.” There is nothing inherently wrong with All Over You, but for all their competence, it lacks the personality to stand out in a crowded field. (DC)

Stephen Steinbrink
In a Split Mirror
(Sedimentary Archive)

It’s not enough to say that, regarding Stephen Steinbrink’s work, consistency is its own reward. The creative process itself is not only a real struggle, but one that can increase one’s self-awareness, something the Oakland-based singer-songwriter reckons with on his sixth LP. Whether he contemplates his inner dualities (“Magic Mirror”) or confronts his past (“Driving Around in Arizona”), Steinbrink allows memory, with all its truths and distortions, to shape his natural prose. On the lucid, acoustic-led “Black Waterfall,” he remains hesitant: “Now I'm looking for and want to find/Something I can leave behind.” Throughout this heavy exploration, there’s Steinbrink’s pleasant songwriting, nestled within the ’70s-tinged soft rock he writes so well. (JR)

Ex:Re
Save As
(4AD)

Save As is the second studio album from Daughter singer/guitarist Elena Tonra’s solo project, Ex:Re. Ethereal and arty, with shades of PJ Harvey and early Sharon van Etten, it feels perfectly at home on a label like 4AD. Opener “Radio Station” is the clear standout, with its late-night energy and nonchalant rhythm easily eclipsing sparser compositions like “Language of Love” and “Sleep.” Elsewhere, “Am I Even Real?” and “Wasp” are a little low-key, but charming nonetheless. Save As may be a record of subtle pleasures, but it’s certainly one worth investigating. (DC)

Fine
Jazz Dreams
(Escho)

Despite its alluring title, Jazz Dreams resembles the genre only in its smooth improvisation. Closer to the alt-country movement of the college rock era, Fine, the nom de plume of Fine Glindvad Jensen, has made herself a staple of Copenhagen’s music scene. It’s been a slow build-up to Jensen’s sophomore LP, with early singles like “I Could” and “Portal” revealing different shades of her mesmeric, slow-burning energy. Beneath the album’s stripped-back arrangements lies Jensen’s torchy vocal style, which invites comparisons to Lana Del Rey but falls short, hampered by its homespun production. That’s not to say the album fails to conjure a lovely atmosphere: the R&B-tinged, piano-led “Everything in the Shade” is a particular highlight. But Jazz Dreams ultimately feels slight, its spaciousness more often exposing its limitations than deepening its appeal. (JR)