The best albums of 2026 so far

From Thundercat’s all-star funk to Kacey Musgraves’ hymns to solitude, we look at some of our favourite music of the last six months from across the pop spectrum Listen to a Spotify playlist of every album here You ever meet up with friends and realise you all dreamed about each other last night? Angine de Poitrine feel like the sort of band that were catalysed into being from the simultaneous reveries of a prog fan craving complex showboating, of the kind of person who went to All Tomorrow’s Parties festival too many times and believed that the hypnotic weirdos playing at 3pm really could be pop stars if the public just gave them a chance, and of a little kid who just discovered the concept of riffs and now needs to gorge on them like Haribo. That collective hunger was met in two Quebecer dudes, dressed up like Mr Blobby via Hugo Ball, whose interlocking, ecstatic drums and dual-necked guitar/bass drilled them into the hearts of a disparate but dedicated fanbase. The vault in ambition from 2024’s more straightforward Vol I to this year’s addictively wayward Vol II really was the stuff that dreams are made of. Read our interview. LS With what is a pretty rudimentary bedroom-indie s