Spectrum Culture

• All Them Witches: House of Mirrors | Spectrum Culture | June 16, 2026, 5:02 a.m.
Despite a couple of missteps, All Them Witches’ House of Mirrors features the band flexing their strengths and waxing nostalgic in a way that feels satisfying, rather than trite.

• Violet Grohl: Be Sweet to Me | Spectrum Culture | June 9, 2026, 5:03 a.m.
If Violet Grohl can solidify a band and push herself a little, she should become an exciting artist to watch.

• Niall Horan: Dinner Party | Spectrum Culture | June 22, 2026, 5:03 a.m.
Some of the bad language smacks of the performative, but mostly the Niall Horan has proven to be an impressive artist outside of One Direction.

• Boards of Canada: Inferno | Spectrum Culture | June 5, 2026, 5:06 a.m.
Here in Inferno, all phantoms are welcome — and if their existences can be elevated with a haunting beat, all the better.

• feeble little horse: bitknot | Spectrum Culture | June 17, 2026, 5:03 a.m.
Despite feeble little horse's best efforts to the contrary, bitknot feels like a way both to escape and to grapple with the world around us, one 25-minute burst at a time.

• Death Cab for Cutie: I Built You a Tower | Spectrum Culture | June 1, 2026, 5:05 a.m.
I Built You a Tower is one of the most personally exposed records Death Cab have made, but its impact will depend on the listener’s patience for sadness that no longer feels young.

• Modest Mouse: An Eraser and a Maze | Spectrum Culture | June 12, 2026, 5:05 a.m.
An Eraser and a Maze is a sign that the worst is truly behind them. It takes the bright, psychedelic colors that characterized The Golden Casket and brings them more in line with what made the band truly great 30 years ago.

• Vince Staples: Cry Baby | Spectrum Culture | June 11, 2026, 5:05 a.m.
After a run of similar-sounding introspective records molded primarily by Def Jam’s concerns about keeping him hip hop, Cry Baby marks a breakaway from the norm for Vince Staples. It may not be punk, precisely, but it certainly rhymes.

• Paul McCartney: The Boys of Dungeon Lane | Spectrum Culture | May 29, 2026, 5:06 a.m.
With a mixture of humor and poignancy, The Boys of Dungeon Lane works as a series of sketches, of half-remembered incidents elaborated on with the help of either unlocked memories or imagination, whichever works better in the moment.

• The Weeknd: Hurry Up Tomorrow | Spectrum Culture | Feb. 10, 2025, 6:06 a.m.
Hurry Up Tomorrow feels like Tesfaye’s attempt at summing up everything that was great about the Weeknd as a project, but unfortunately, it’s clear that no one ever brought a knife to the recording sessions.

• FKA twigs: Eusexua | Spectrum Culture | Jan. 29, 2025, 6:04 a.m.
Using classic dancefloor sounds, FKA twigs captures the volatile energy of a night at the club.

• Ethel Cain: Perverts | Spectrum Culture | Jan. 10, 2025, 6:06 a.m.
If Preacher’s Daughter was the sound of someone barely holding things together, then Perverts is the sound of that same person letting things fall apart completely.

• Michael Kiwanuka: Small Changes | Spectrum Culture | Nov. 15, 2024, 6:04 a.m.
Michael Kiwanuka has always been most comfortable in the reflective quiet that sits beneath even his rowdiest cuts. Small Changes finally sees him lead with it.