What We’re Listening To This Week: April 17, 2026
Story by:
Chris Guest
Each week, the Live Music Blog team takes stock of what’s been populating their playlists and getting endlessly stuck in their heads from the week that was. These can be new releases, obscure tracks in niche genres, or classic albums dusted off due to nostalgia (or because they’re simply awesome). Enjoy what we’re listening to this week… and listen along with us if you so choose!
In Our Heads – Hot Chip (2012)
The group’s magnum opus, In Our Heads represented London-based electro-pop outfit Hot Chip hitting their stride, as this album more or less serves as a greatest hits collection, seeing as there is absolutely no filler present across this album’s 11 tracks.
Hot Chip pretty much have a 100% hit rate when it comes to opening tracks on albums, and their 2012 release is no exception, as “Motion Sickness” is the best song from the album and serves as an introduction to the entire thesis of In Our Heads, which is simultaneously both introspective and exploratory in a way that only Hot Chip can pull off.
Other highlights include myriad priceless love songs (a specialty of the band), such as “Look At Where We Are,” “These Chains,” and album closer “Always Been Your Love,” which sets the table for repeated listens, as it’s impossible to not want the album to flip back over to “Motion Sickness” and start the entire listening experience again. Terrific stuff from an underrated group.
Top Tracks: “Motion Sickness,” “Flutes,” “These Chains,” “Don’t Deny Your Heart,” “Always Been Your Love”
Listen Next: One Life Stand by Hot Chip, La Roux by La Roux, Apocalypso by The Presets, In Ghost Colours by Cut Copy
Want to read more about Hot Chip?
Check out our ranking of the best songs from every Hot Chip album.
Journal for Plague Lovers – Manic Street Preachers (2009)
A towering achievement for a band with myriad career high points, Journal for Plague Lovers features the last remaining songs in the group’s catalog that contain lyrics and lyrical fragments written by their late guitarist and lyricist Richey Edwards. Edwards’ body has never been found, though he was declared legally dead in 2008.
As such, the lyrics from tracks like “William’s Last Words” truly sound like a suicide note in context, lending the album an inevitably emotional heft that would simply not be present were the album’s backstory not so foregrounded.
Beyond that tragic history, the album features perhaps the best late-career music from all three members: guitarist, music writer, and lead singer James Dean Bradfield, bassist and sometimes vocalist Nicky Wire, and drummer and trumpeter Sean Moore. In particular, “Peeled Apples” represents one of the group’s heaviest numbers ever alongside some stunning imagery: “riderless horses on Chomsky’s Camelot,” “a series of images against you and me.”
An amazing album and one that continues to get better with age.
Top Tracks: “Peeled Apples,” “Jackie Collins Existential Question Time,” “All Is Vanity,” “This Joke Sport Severed,” “William’s Last Words”
Listen Next: The Holy Bible by Manic Street Preachers, New Wave by The Auteurs, A Storm in Heaven by The Verve, The Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails
Explore the Manics
Check out our 30th anniversary retrospective of the Manic Street Preachers’ 1996 album, Everything Must Go, as well as a ranking of all the songs from the group’s 1998 release, This is My Truth Tell Me Yours.
Refried Ectoplasm (Switched On Volume 2) – Stereolab (1995)
Due to the group’s long-running Switched On series, Stereolab fans have never been left wanting for B-sides and rarities like some group’s fans often are. In this week’s case, I couldn’t stop listening to the British-French electro-pop outfit’s (fronted by Tim Gane and Lætitia Sadier) 1995 deep cut compilation Refried Ectoplasm (Switched On Volume 2).
Featuring some of the group’s most experimental and most accessible music simultaneously, this album shows that the group is always searching, always seeking, and always experimenting – butting up against the limits of what electronic music can do.
Boasting notable Stereolab classics like “Lo Boob Oscillator,” “Harmonium,” and the ebullient “French Disko” alongside more experimental fare like “Tone Burst (Country)” and “Animal or Vegetable (A Wonderful Wooden Reason ……)” this compilation showcases the breadth of quality material that Stereolab were working with during the mid-1990s.
Top Tracks: “Harmonium,” “Lo Boob Oscillator,” “French Disko,” “John Cage Bubblegum”
Listen Next: Mars Audiac Quintet by Stereolab, Lazer Guided Melodies by Spiritualized, [Untitled] by Sigur Rós, Work and Non Work by Broadcast
Ashes Against the Grain – Agalloch (2006)
At times bludgeoning, at others delicate, and at others trance-like and hypnotic, Agalloch’s 2006 album Ashes Against the Grain sees the Portland, Oregon-based metal group hitting their stride as a unit and bridging the gap between a plethora of distinct metal subgenres, including: post-metal, folk metal, black metal, and doom metal.
With pummeling riffs giving way to crystalline lead lines and hooks alongside soft acoustic instrumentation, along with vocals ranging from guttural growls to smooth baritone melodies, Ashes is a truly eclectic metal release, and one that continues to surprise and enthrall 20 years after its release. Worth a listen for exploratory music fans out there.
Top Tracks: “Falling Snow,” “Not Unlike the Waves,” “Our Fortress Is Burning… II – Bloodbirds”
Listen Next: Marrow of the Spirit by Agalloch, The Gathering Wilderness by Primordial, Destroy Erase Improve by Meshuggah, Rain Upon the Impure by The Ruins of Beverast
Another Week Full of Great Music
What did you listen to this week? It’s never a bad time to revisit some of your favorite songs and albums, or branch out into something you thought you’d never listen to. If you’re in need of inspiration, explore our “What We’re Listening To” archives:
Header Photo Courtesy Greg Neate/Wikimedia Commons
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