Music of the Month: The Best Albums and Tracks of March 2026

Housed in a sleeve depicting an oil rig that is tempest-tossed by exactly the sort of superstorm that fossil-fuel driven climate change is exacerbating, it’s difficult not to read this record, abstract and impenetrable as its wattle and daub wahwah workouts often are, as a despairing howl of defeated anger at the state of the planet. The pastiched biker-acid argot of old Heads album covers and song titles – headbanded hippie babes luxuriating in front of track listings with titles like Motorjam, Demon Spasm, etc. – are no longer appropriate to the job in hand. And if you needed any more proof of the artists’ intentions, The Heads’ head honcho Simon Price has pointed out that the album is released on the day of the vernal equinox.

Although part of a broader wave of innovative, sex-positive, and intense female and queer artists, Cobrah’s debut album creates a slightly softer universe of empowering electronic beats and escapist release for those who dare to join her. In an erotic, BDSM, underground sphere, she draws you in, claiming ownership of her desires and emotions alike. And this time, in a more stripped-back version than before. The album’s complexity between catwalk, hard ballroom-inflected beats and emotional tenderness makes it a work of art – one that will resonate just as powerfully in an underground club, the solitude of heartbreaks or cycling through the city feeling utterly uplifted.

The received wisdom on Hey Colossus tends to fall into three camps – those who prefer their early, punkier material, those who prefer their later output, and those who like both. For me personally, it’s from 2015’s Radio Static High onwards that they really caught my attention, and 2019’s Four Bibles that really cemented my love of the band. The three albums that followed each made some slight adjustments to the blend of post punk, Joy Division-style doominess, propulsive krautrock drums and old-school heaviness that made Four Bibles so successful. Heaven Was Wild, their most successful release yet which apparently entered the album download charts at number 10, doesn’t diverge from that formula too much, but crucially also shows why this is a good thing. ‘Clock’, with added vocals from Claire Adams, is an anthemic rush of adrenaline describing the conflict between working for a living and living for life itself. ‘Death And Deliverance’ accelerates still further, propelled by thunderous riffing and some great controlled feedback. ‘People You Long To Forget’ slows the pace with an eerie earworm-worthy melody that itself is difficult to forget, once it’s got its hooks in you. ‘You’ll Rot’ is another highlight, closer this time to the Hey Colossus of The Guillotine. Perhaps Hey Colossus don’t have the insouciant guile to pull off the ‘always the same, always different’ modus operandi of The Fall or Pere Ubu, but they nevertheless remain one of the UK’s great rock bands. 

It’s hard to not feel a certain whimsy when listening to Underscores’ (real name April Harper Grey) third album, U. It’s a confident evolution from her 2020 EP Character Development!, with Grey producing an utterly refined sound that encapsulates the highs of the 2010 pop, bro-step and bubblegum bass eras. Perhaps if Charli XCX’s 2024 Brat began to zhuzh up the plains of pop music, U suggests Grey may be the architect to fully transform the tundras into the futuristic metropolis needed in pop music right now.

‘TGD’ instantly captivates, frankly, because it reminds of Liv.e’s solo work: breaking up the clattering drums and slapped bass with a clean, throbbing synth, cut through with a ticking clock drum-track. ‘This Is So Crazy’ is defined (aptly) by aching, New Generation coos which evoke the Purple One so masterfully that it easily avoids pastiche, while ‘Lead It Up’ disrupts the calm in its final moments with a vocoder cranked to maximum, distorting the melody so much that the channels begin to clip.

Across two set-length tracks, recorded live in art galleries situated in Pasadena and Chinatown, Los Angeles, two composers and sound artists scrabble around in a whole heap of stuff, producing sounds almost more felt than heard. The liner notes list instruments including pebbles, metal bells, rubbed stones, boiling water, bits of flowerpot, bowed metal, viola, harmonium, metal containers, ball bearings, wine glasses, eucalyptus bark, dried leaves, gravel, wind, air traffic, ravens, and fireworks. It makes for a scratchy, crumbly, clattery listen resembling at times the complex aleatoric movements of brownian motion or a hundred YouTube ASMR videos all playing at once.

Restless, nervy electronica from Portugal’s Bruno Silva (aka Ondness). Tones rattle and bruise, rhythms lurch and sway. Nothing ever settles or resolves. Over the past eight years, Silva’s Serpente project has only grown more propulsive while also getting weirder and wilder, leaning into both the clattery, polyrhythmic sound of Lisbon’s batida scene and the fragmentary minimalist-maximalist post-house of Mark Fell. Visita do Fogo sounds like a journey into inner space. The view through the window may be terrifying, the mode of transport may be janky and slightly ramshackle – the wheels are coming off, the exhaust pipe is pouring out something noxious – but the destination is heady and highly intoxicating.

Sparkling with elements of jazz, experimental, electronic, progressive rock and dub, the record is elevated further by the unmistakable vocals and lyricism of H.R. (Human Rights), frontman of the legendary band Bad Brains. Angels Against Angels uproots disparate sonic textures and intricately fuses them with both playfulness and precision. By challenging conventional notions of what “spiritual music” should sound like, New Age Doom, alongside H.R., blend metal, hardcore, punk and reggae into a cohesive unit.

Newly a duo following the departure of bassist Marcelo dos Santos, Brazil’s Deafkids have taken this as an opportunity to concentrate, rather than slim down their sound. New single ‘Cicatrizes’ is an absolute rager, dense and darkly magnificent as a neutron star.

Beyond the legitimate endurance of the psychedelic, progressive, fusion, rock in opposition voyage of Gong onwards towards their 60th anniversary next year, new frontman Kavus Torabi reassures fellow cosmic travellers that no course correction will be necessary while they are releasing tracks that slay this hard. Monumental North African-inspired acid rock riffage which, clocking in at 10 minutes, could have gone on for three times as long as far as I’m concerned. 

Cameron Picton’s post-Black Midi project My New Band Believe is a mercurial thing, as ever-shifting in its cast of musicians as it in sound. Nestled in the centre of the project’s forthcoming self-titled debut, ‘Love Story’, is an oasis of domestic tenderness at its heart.

Bill Orcutt is among the finest guitarists of his generation. Though 30 years his junior, Mabe Fratti has already marked herself as a cellist with the ability to match him. Two totally absorbing first cuts from their new collaboration (initiated, incidentally, by Fratti’s picking Orcutt in her tQ Baker’s Dozen), are as good as anything in their joint catalogue.