I listen to a lot of music. No, really. If I’m not catching up on what my fellow writers are putting down or doing homework for the Crushed Monocle Podcast (remember that?) I’ve always got my ear to the ground. There’s so much music out there that it’s hard to keep a cohesive list. While the podcast is a great way to discuss a few records each month, I feel I’m undercutting some of the other records that got repeated spins. What’s the remedy? This column! This is The Showcase July 2026.
Ultra Lights – Pleasure’s All Yours
Remember when rock n’ roll was about skinny white boys in leather jackets and croaking into the mic about beers and girls from New Jersey? Okay, that’s The Strokes. But even setting aside their fuzzy guitars and lo-fi aesthetic, Ultra Lights get compared to the The bands due to their knack for nostalgia. You already know I hate nostalgia, but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a good indie rock record that isn’t afraid to be a good indie rock record! Whatever you compare them to, I’ve missed this sound, and I’m glad these blokes remind me why.
Constrain – 1999
Coming in at barely 9 minutes, this 1999 EP is a masterclass in punishing hardcore. Be it the throat-shredding vocals, breakdowns, and time signatures that are pure chaos, Constrain delivers relentless energy and delivery.
Truck Violence – The Weathervane Is My Body
Just when you think you’ve had enough emotional violence in your life, Truck Violence return with their sophomore record. While chaotic noise of Chat Pile-esque proportions makes up most of the album, I gravitate more to the folk aspects creeping under the surface. Normally, when you hear folk, you’re probably thinking of earthy acoustic guitars and soft-lighting story time. But this is Truck Violence, so their take on the genre is closer to body horror flirting with political injustice. Even when it’s a difficult listen, Weathervane is never boring.
RDLN – No Relief
This is a weird one. Mainly because it’s…weird. But beyond its avant-garde stylings, No Relief has a healthy number of hooks and a pop sensibility. There’s no timeline in the multiverse where a project like RDLN would ever represent the populous, but that’s okay! That’s what makes it cool. The entire album is ugly, noisy, and sounds like it was recorded in a bedroom – just not in the ‘bedroom pop’ genre kind of way. Instead, it sounds like a project no studio could contain. I love it.
Jaxx Michelle – Beneath The Veil
“Vice and Virtue” and its B-side “Hooked by the Heart” feel effortlessly current in ways many modern R&B records aren’t. The production is glossy and sharp, with just a hint of that late-90s R&B DNA running through the grooves. But instead of sounding like a throwback, it uses that sounds as a foundation. The music is confident, sexy, and unmistakably authentic, pulling you onto the dance floor instead of just performing for one.
Smirk – Speculative Fiction
What do you do when you leave the trenches of LA’s sleazy punk scene for the white picket fences of suburbia? In Nick Vicario’s case, you slow things down a little and make a dark power-pop record about nihilism and the seedy underbelly of white American consumerism. Despite being more hook-driven with a stronger sense of melody than the band’s earlier albums, Speculative Fiction still manages to be a bleak affair. Think Lou Reed sitting in with T.S.O.L.
Sean P Magee – The Mourning Of Humanity
I fully admit that ’80s-flavored heavy metal always feels burdened by tropes. It’s required to have corny self-awareness, crispy production, and shrieking vocals. Thus, the lack of these tropes is what makes The Mourning Of Humanity such a compelling album. It has the big riffs and scooped mids that metal heads love, but the gritty production and emphasis on the dead places it head(stones) above other hair metal throwbacks. That’s not spandex; that’s coffin lace!
HEAVYHERO – Not For A Second
Continuing with the column’s unofficial theme of goth and avant-garde, why not combine the two? HEAVYHERO is a bizarre art project from Chicago, and you know The Showcase wouldn’t be complete without at least one local act. Not For A Second sounds exactly like how you would imagine an ‘art project’ sounding. Made up almost entirely of lo-fi instrumentation, the album isn’t all static and nightmares. I hear a strange layer of trip-hop beneath the noise that reminds me of God Lives Underwater meets Tame Impala. The entire record makes me feel somewhat nostalgic but for someone else’s memories. Yeah, HEAVYHERO is basically the shoegaze equivalent of The Backrooms.
Golek – Let The Sun In
More lo-fi audio texture, Golek isn’t trying to creep you out. Instead, the band delivers experimental elements of bossa nova and ’70s fusion that turn both genres on their heads. Let The Sun In takes you to a place where you can mourn your losses while still feeling the summer warmth on your face.
Connor Jay Liess – “I’ll Write A Letter”/”She Belongs To Me”
Building upon his reputation as both a producer and soul preservationist, Connor Jay Liess releases the kind of music that would’ve topped the charts in 1966. “I’ll Write A Letter” is a Chess/Motown throwback about a simpler time when dudes could articulate their feelings about a trifling woman in a simple letter they may or may not send. Thick Don Dunn-esque bass lines, smoky vocals, and all the charisma a band could stand, all rolled into one. The B-side is a Magic Sam cover/re-imagining that makes me want to thumb through every old soul record in Questlove’s collection.
Boundaries – Yearning: The Unbeautiful After
I’ve always been indifferent to music “scenes,” especially when it comes to the heavy variety. Needless to say, I’ve always been turned off by the term “metalcore.” What does that even mean anyway? Hardcore AND metal? Okay? Thus, I’ve never cared about debating what genres bands like Boundaries fall into and out of. Mainly because I’ve never cared for what I’ve heard from them. Until this record, that is. Somewhere between Knocked Loose and The Black Dahlia Murder, Yearning is a brutal display of aggression, torment, and annihilation. This particular record feels extremely cathartic. I suppose there are worse ways to express frustration with the world!
American Goon – “Leavin’ Here”
Let’s talk about the oldest, laziest trope in music (in America, period, if we’re being honest): women exist to be looked at, not listened to. Rock n’ roll wears this rot proudly with misogyny baked in as deep as the distortion. But on “Leavin’ Here,” American Goon triumphantly returns with this Motorhead cover to put the trope in a headlock. The riffs are gnarly, the vocals surly, and underneath all that noise is a band that’s flat-out exhausted watching dudes get away with whatever they want, however they want, to whoever they want. If the world won’t listen when women say it, then it’s time for the men in the room to start saying it, too.
Further Listening
da.daer – Waltz Into The Water [full review here]
Madonna – Confessions II
Yard Act – You’re Gonna Need A Little Music
Jehovah On Death – Lágrimas de Oro
VERDUN –Abyssal Womb
Thanks for checking out The Showcase for July 2026! Check out previous installments of The Showcase here!