The 12 new guitar albums you should all be excited for in 2026
It wasn’t too long ago that guitar music was considered passé by the mainstream – a fact that’s frankly mind-boggling to reflect upon now. In 2026, indie and post-punk are two of the hottest genres in the Western world, and heavy metal is the biggest it’s been since the halcyon days of the early 2000s. This year seems set to thrust all those styles and more to new heights, with some of the biggest guitar heavyweights of all time preparing to release new music. From veterans like Bruce Springsteen to a slew of promising up-and-comers, these are the guitar albums everybody should keep an eye out for over the next 12 months.
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Bruce Springsteen
Is there any septuagenarian busier than Bruce Springsteen? Still regularly touring five decades into his career, he was recently the subject of a blockbuster biopic and has a ton of music lined up for 2026, chiefly his next solo album. The Boss has been cagey regarding what it’s going to sound like, but he told Rolling Stone in June that he’s also got a box set of unreleased material, Tracks III, on standby. “This is all music from different points in my work life that I’ve made, some with the band, without the band, some that go way back,” he said. A new covers album, the follow-up to 2022’s Only the Strong Survive, has been recorded as well. The man just will not stop.
Phoebe Bridgers
The queen of indie folk melancholy, Phoebe Bridgers hasn’t released a new album since 2020’s Punisher, having taken a detour for her collaborative project Boygenius. That dry spell may come to an end in 2026, however, as multiple sources hint that solo LP number three will come out soon. Among those fuelling the speculation is Phoebe’s own mum, who took to Instagram in January to give her “bold” prediction for the year ahead: “Phoebe Bridgers drops an album.” In addition, former Ticketmaster CEO Nathan Hubbard said on a podcast last year that both Phoebe and Harry Styles will mount comebacks in 2026, and the Harry prediction has already come true…
The Cure
It’s hard to trust Robert Smith with timeframes nowadays, given he initially wanted to release The Cure’s comeback album Songs of a Lost World for the band’s 40th anniversary then missed that deadline by five years. But, when the record was finally unveiled in 2024, he announced that it would be part of a trilogy, with a follow-up already in the can. Surely, if it’s all been recorded, there can’t be another decade-plus wait like there was for Songs…? The stars align even more clearly when you consider all the live dates the goth rock kings have planned for the summer. Fingers crossed that some new tracks come out before The Cure take the stage again.
Gojira
It’s been nearly five years since France’s enviro-metal behemoths put out their last album, but you can’t blame them. After the Fortitude tour lifted Gojira to arena-level, they spent the next few years consolidating their position, playing incessantly in both Europe and America. Then, in 2024, a performance during the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games catapulted them even further. Progress on new material has been slow but steady, with drummer Mario Duplantier saying in 2023 that their upcoming release will be “heavier” than Fortitude. He doubled down last year, telling people to expect a “more modern but more metal sound” and revealing that work is “almost finished”.
Alabama Shakes
In 2018, at the height of their Grammy-gobbling career, roots rock revivalists Alabama Shakes went on a surprise hiatus. The downtime let frontwoman Brittany Howard dedicate herself to her blossoming solo career, then got complicated and presumably extended by drummer Steve Johnson’s series of legal problems. The band regrouped without Johnson in 2024, before signing with major label Island and releasing the exuberant single Another Life last August. The developments have led many to speculate that a long-awaited third album is on the horizon, especially as more and more tour dates for the spring and summer get announced. The expectation’s pretty huge, but if anyone can deliver quality regardless, this lot can.
Mastodon
Mastodon’s 2021 album Hushed and Grim was a monument to late longtime manager Nick John, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2018. Unfortunately, times haven’t got any easier for the sludge metal four-piece. They parted ways with founding guitarist Brent Hinds last spring, marking their first lineup change in a quarter-century, and Hinds was in a fatal motorcycle crash in Atlanta just a few months later. Despite all the turmoil, the band are carrying on with album number nine and involving new guitarist Nick Johnson in the writing process. “[The songs are] all over the place,” drummer/singer Brann Dailor told Metal Hammer last year. “I hear some punk rock in there, but then I hear some insane prog and I hear the heaviest version of ourselves poking its head out again.”
Yard Act
“We’re making the greatest third album any band has ever recorded,” post-punk’s socially conscious cheeky chappies quipped in September. Already beloved for their breakthrough debut The Overload and dance-flecked follow-up Where’s My Utopia?, Yard Act are out to cement their reputation as the next big thing, having recorded with former Nine Inch Nails and Beck bassist Justin Meldal-Johnsen. The Yorkshiremen describe their next release as “the sweet spot” between grindcore agitators Napalm Death and prog rock icon Bill Nelson, promising new textures in a sound that’s already touched upon funk, disco and Pulp-ish Britpop. The band have never been boring, but this could well be their most interesting offering yet.
Man/Woman/Chainsaw
One of the most exciting new bands of the last couple years, Man/Woman/Chainsaw make rock without limits. The six-piece have two guitarists, a violinist and a keyboard player in their ranks, with many members also serving as co-vocalists. On songs like Only Girl, they make irreverent statements that unite indie, baroque pop and heavy riffage under the banner of big, catchy singalongs. 2024 EP Eazy Peezy brought plenty of people onto the hype train, and the next stop will be at their debut album, which they hope to put out this year. “We’re working on a load of new material which will help lift the mind and cleanse the soul,” keyboardist Emmie-Mae Avery told Dork in January.
Slift
Slift write psych-rock epics with prog, jazz and metal bits – not exactly a mainstream approach to music. But, during the pandemic, the Frenchmen defied all logic, hosting a live session that reached more than a million YouTube users. 2024’s Ilion made their songs even more widescreen, and the trio have since secured a reputation as a top-notch live act, playing very loudly in front of kaleidoscopic videos. They ended their last album cycle in the summer and want to put out some more immediate material suited for the stage. “We’ve got the big concept and most of the songs,” singer/guitarist Jean Fossat told this writer in 2024. “It’s just demos, but we can’t wait to start playing these songs.”
Lowen
Lowen are based in London but draw influence from frontwoman Nina Saeidi’s ancestral homeland of Iran. Their music mixes modern heavy metal, inspired by Akercocke and System of a Down, with distinctly Persian melodies and vocals. Plus, the lyrics on their 2024 debut Do Not Go to War with the Demons of Mazandaran used Middle Eastern mythology to comment on Iran’s current, authoritarian regime, which prevents Saeidi from ever visiting the country. The singer recently told The Guardian that album two is in the works, and that one song will sample sounds from the Iran–Israel War in June. “I do not agree with anything that Israel has done,” she said. “It’s bad to bomb Iran. None of those governments are good – neither is ours.”
Courtney Barnett
A modern alt-music guitar hero, Courtney Barnett has dealt in acoustic ballads and fuzzy indie compositions alike. In October, she returned with the noisy Stay in Your Lane: her first new music since her soundtrack project End of the Day two years prior. A press release from the Grammy-winning Aussie called the song the first entry in Courtney’s “next musical chapter”, setting a distorted rock’n’roll precedent for album number five. Stay in Your Lane was recorded in L.A. with producer John Congleton (St Vincent, Big Thief), and Courtney’s recent setlists show other new songs in her repertoire, entitled Sugar Plum and Mantis. Safe to say, more is coming soon.
Elín Hall
Since she released her last album Heyrist í mér? (Can You Hear Me?) in 2023, Icelandic singer/songwriter/actress Elín Hall has played Yungblud’s festival Bludfest, won a few film awards and released a string of singles. Basically, she’s been inescapable, and she’ll continue to be so for the foreseeable future as well, with her fourth record set to come out this year. On her website, the musician says that her next release will be her first English-language effort. She also spills that it was produced and partially co-written by Grammy winner Martin Terefe, who’s collaborated with the likes of Adele and Elín’s old chum, Yungblud. Expect ambience, darkness and the plucking of a good few acoustic guitar strings.
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