Photo of Ratboys by Miles Kalchik
First Thought Fridays is a (mostly) weekly column offering quick-hit takes on some of the albums released this week, serving up first impressions, favorite or least favorite songs, and whether or not they’re worth a second listen. Check back for more each Friday night or Saturday morning.
I swear someday I’m going to be at my desk for most of a Friday and can actually get this column back on its intended schedule. Until then, though, here we are with another fashionably late column, one mostly packed with new music I really loved. Here’s what I checked out this week, in the order in which I listened to ‘em:
Lucy Dreams, VVVVV (self-released): As you can probably guess from the pun, Lucy Dreams is a band, not a person, but in a different way than most “name that sounds like a person but is really a band” bands: they’re an Austrian duo (who go by the names Zero and One) and Lucy, an “artificial band member” that they collaborate with. Is it an AI? Maybe kinda? I’ll be the first to say I generally loathe the idea of AI-generated music with every fiber of my being, but I will admit I’m intrigued by the idea of AI as a springboard for humans to do the creativity that only humans can do. Since the band’s musical bio describes Lucy as a “machine developed by Zero and One” that is “more than just a technical gimmick,” I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. At the very least, it does seem like there’s a lot more human creativity involved in the making of VVVVV than just pressing the “make me a song” button.
The results are sonically complex and pretty interesting if you’re a fan of the icier end of ‘80s electronic dance music: pulsating beats and fluttering electronics akin to New Order and Pet Shop Boys mixed with more modern downtempo electronica like M83 and Tame Impala. The whispered vocals may be a bit of an acquired taste (they wore on me a bit by the end of the album) and some of the slower songs are just okay, but the drill-in-your-head hooks of “Code to My Mind” and “Tempo” are hard to deny. Will I Listen Again?: Maybe
Sydney Ross Mitchell, Cynthia (Disruptor Records): Sydney Ross Mitchell’s new EP is, in a word, “tender”: its gentle instrumentation covers the bruises hiding in Mitchell’s hushed vocals. Take the opening title track, where a conversation with a stripper convinces Mitchell to leave behind her Lubbock, Texas hometown even while atmospheric pedal steel and, in the last verse, her mother beckon her home. With three producers (Mason Stoops, Jonathan Wilson, and Sammy Witte) with both huge pop artists (Role Model, Noah Kahan, Harry Styles) and indie eccentrics (Angel Olsen, Father John Misty, Mk.gee) on their résumés, the instrumentation throughout is minimal but never sparse, with Clairo being a decent contemporary comparison. This is just Mitchell’s second major release (her first full-length dropped in 2024) and it’s an assured set of songs. Consider this a likely candidate for a spot on my year-end list of favorite EPs. Will I Listen Again?: Yes.
Ratboys, Singin’ to an Empty Chair (New West): The first great record of the year 2026. Ratboys are a quartet out of Chicago that had been chugging along in relative obscurity for almost a decade when indie rock superproducer (and former Death Cab for Cutie member) Chris Walla signed on to produce their fifth album, 2023’s The Window. The track “It’s Alive!” turned out to be a big single (with a ton of airplay on Sirius XMU) and a personal favorite of mine; I used it as the leadoff track on my mix of my favorite tracks of that year.
If there’s any justice, this even more assured follow-up LP will be the one to make the band indie rock mainstays. Teaming once again with Walla, the band recorded in a high-ceilinged Wisconsin, resulting in a loose, natural-sounding album. The band’s sound is a mélange of ‘90s alternative guitar rock and alt-country led by Julia Steiner’s warm, warbly, off-the-cuff vocals. In that way Ratboys remind me a lot of Wednesday with that band’s sometimes abrasive tendencies stripped away: on the rock side, Wednesday is Sonic Youth while Ratboys are Juliana Hatfield and the Breeders; on the alt-country side, Wednesday is the sonic experimentation of Wilco while Ratboys are the more trad approach of Son Volt, with Steiner’s voice sounding like a cross between the two Crutchfield sisters.
Simply put, I love this record. My favorite track is basically whichever one I’m listening to at the time, but favorites include the swirling single “Light Night Mountains All That,” the giddy pop of “Anywhere,” the slow and sweeping duo of “The World, So Madly” and “Just Want You to Know the Truth,” and the peaceful easy feelings of “At Peace in the Hundred Acre Wood.” Will I Listen Again?: Yes. And again and again and again.
KMFDM, Enemy (Metropolis Records): KMFDM, doin’ it again! Twenty-three albums into his career, German industrial juggernaut Sascha Konietzko offers up yet another treat for the freaks by following the patented KMFDM formula: pummeling industrial beats; heavy, clipped, down-tuned guitars; vocals that veer back and forth between Konietzko’s vicious bark and Lucia Cifarelli’s soaring, witchy style; and more catchy sloganeering than a Tyler Durden monologue.
The first five tracks fit the KMFDM formula to a T—not in a tired, repetitive way, but rather to prove once again that when it comes to their standard milieu, KMFDM is better than the best. But the back half of the album is where things get interesting: “A OKAY” finds Cifarelli in singsong-y schoolyard mode with a melody that would fit an ‘80s Madonna song (side note: remember when people thought KMFDM stood for “Keep Madonna From Doing Music”?), “Stray Bullet 2.0” offers a reggae (!) take on a track that dates back to 1997’s untitled “symbols” record, “Gun Quarter Sue” is an instrumental that leaps from trance to thrash metal to weedly guitar solos to 10,000 BPM industrial blitzkriegs to various combinations of all of the above, and “The Second Coming” wraps it up with ominous synth blasts and an even more ominous spoken performance from Konietzko—a slower tune, but the scariest one here. It’s awesome to see a band this far into their career both still nailing what makes them great—and the opening salvo of “Enemy” and “Oubliette” is legit great—and finding new sonic territory to explore. Will I Listen Again?: As their 2017 album put it, Hell Yeah. | Jason Green
