Turn It Up - 7/22/2026

Devon Gilfillian – “IRL” (from Time Will Tell, 2026)

Nashville singer-songwriter Devon Gilfillian’s new album Time Will Tell sure is sounding like one of the very best of the year, a rich and soulful collection that dips into enough genres to make you remember that such distinctions are all phony in the first place. On the funky “IRL,” for example, he starts with a Bowie-recalling intro before settling into the deep, oozing funk of 1970s Isley Brothers and reaching into a chorus that would fit in next to the boom-bappiest of ‘90s R&B. But that’s only my clumsy attempt to capture the sonic synthesis he’s working at here, which dips and dives across this track and others with easy expertise. At the core of it all is Gilfillian’s voice, a slightly raspy tenor that bends through “IRL” with just the right mix of urgency and hesitancy. Time Will Tell is a rich showcase, an announcement of a major talent who’s been around for a minute but who just made his first masterpiece. – Charles Hughes

Allen Toussaint – “City of New Orleans” (from Songbook: Deluxe Edition, 2026)

It’s rather amazing that the New Orleans maestro never released during his lifetime a version of the Steve Goodman song that Arlo Guthrie made famous. (I had to verify this fact twice because it seemed so unlikely.) The subject of “City of New Orleans” is tailor-made for the great man, both because of the Crescent City reference and the travel narrative that links Toussaint’s interests in near-mythic appreciation of the southern landscape and a historically rooted understanding of the Black experiences at its center. But even more appropriate is the gentle swell of the melody and easy-rolling rhythm that became Toussaint trademarks both on his records and the many that he helped create for others. This live-in-the-studio version, released on the new expanded edition of the elegant 2010 collection Songbook, finds Toussaint alone at the piano, where he makes “City of New Orleans” feel both intimate and epic, a semi-secret bit of wisdom shared through anecdote. A work of art from one of our greatest artists. – CH

Cain Culto – “a plague, a pestilence” (from occulto 002, 2026)

Cain Culto released the song of the year in 2025, and “a plague, a pestilence” makes a run at a repeat of that title. Opening with an incantatory banjo, this stunning bit of apocalyptic gospel speeds up and begins spinning into itself with repeating fiddle, keyboards, and vocal loops, until Culto returns to the center of the flame with a fiddle solo that doesn’t so much send The Devil back to Hell as it charts a course for us all to escape the inferno. The track speeds up until the very end, when a pained cry and a return of that spellbinding banjo turn the page without revealing the end of the story. Evoking similar meditations from Lil Nas X and Jake Blount & Mali Obamsawin, “a plague, a pestilence” is baptized in fire and bonded to the spirits. – CH

Sophie Wellington – “Shacks and Chalets” (from Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still, 2026)

Sophie Wellington’s beautiful new album Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still contains a vibrant mix of showcases for their multi-instrumental talents (which include guitar, fiddle, and percussive dancing) and beautifully sung versions of folk standards both old and new. “Shacks and Chalets” falls into the latter category: Written by Vermont luminary Pete Sutherland, this mournful appraisal of capitalism’s costs gets a stirring performance from Wellington, who accompanies themselves on graceful acoustic guitar. (The whole album sounds perfect too, thanks to co-production from Wellington and esteemed folk elder Cathy Fink.) The beauty of the melody and the tenderness of Wellington’s delivery can’t hide the anger just under the surface: When Wellington sings “If the folks down there accept things, I guess that I should too,” you know that it’s the last thing they intend to do. And neither should we. – CH

L7 – “The Bomb” (from Hungry for Stink, 1994)

I’d heard of L7 when I read the “A+” review of their 1994 album Hungry for Stink in Entertainment Weekly, but it was that rave from Greg Sandow that convinced me to listen to the third album from the influential Los Angeles band. I bought the record, cranked it up, and kept on cranking it up for much of that year. I’m by no means the first one to say that L7 is one of the key bands of the 1990s, and I doubt I’ll be the last. Their powerhouse blending of the edgy revolutions of feminist punk with the solid song-craft of rock radio and the sweet sludge of metal or early alternative rock just keeps sounding better and more relevant. In short, L7 fuckin’ rules. At the center of their world-filling, world-building sound are the titanic bass lines from Jennifer Finch, who also contributed lead vocals and wrote a few songs on each of the group’s monumental early albums. “The Bomb,” co-written with main frontwoman Donita Sparks, is a roaring rebuke of fakeness, a common theme in the era that Finch and company distinguish here through sheer propulsive power and Finch’s revolution-rock declaration that “She’s the bomb!” that will explode the conventions. Finch died a few days ago after a brief (or at least briefly public) battle with an aggressive form of brain cancer, not long before she had been scheduled to begin a reunion tour with the rest of the band’s original lineup. It’s a very sad loss that should send all of us to those earthshaking, speaker-rattling ‘90s records. It’s done that for me, and I’m remembering once again how much Hungry for Stink in particular shifted my sense of what was possible from a rock ‘n’ roll band. Rock on, Jennifer Finch. We’ll miss you. – CH

The $100 Quartet – “Givin’ the Devil a Try” b/w “Don’t Make Me Go Down There” (single, 2026)

You could guess that the members of The $100 Quartet would be rock ‘n’ roll lifers from their band name alone—the way it pays respect to its ancestors via self-deprecation. Turns out, this foursome is something of a roots rock super group itself. The $100 Quartet is half former members of BR5-49, lead guitarist Chuck Mead and bassist Smilin’ Jay McDowell, and half members of Austin’s Bellfuries, rhythm guitarist Joey Simeone and drummer Chris Sensat. The songs and sound of their debut 45 rpm pay respect too. Mead fronts the group for B-side “Don’t Make Me Go Down There,” a song he co-wrote with longtime collaborator Allan “Ricky Dean Sinatra” Murphy: It uses a 50s-evoking melody and beat, and an especially raw-sounding Mead guitar solo, for a wild tale that reminded me of “Gimme Three Steps,” except without the head start and the happy ending. Simone writes and sings for the A-side, “Givin’ the Devil a Try,” delightfully blaspheming bop about saying to hell with the Lord and switching teams—in the bridge, Simeone and Mead harmonize a description of the Louvin Brothers’ Satan Is Real cover shot the way some Jesus-types quote scripture. Let’s all pray a $100 Quartet album is on the way. – David Cantwell

Stik Figa & Heather Grey – “New Years Conflict Resolution” (Cold Comfort, 2026)

Stik Figa is a rapper who grew up in Topeka, KS, then emerged from the regional underground scenes in nearby college town Lawrence and in Kansas City, MO. A dozen or so albums and EPs later, he’s now based in Fort Worth but still makes a point to represent his old Midwestern stomping grounds: To support his new Cold Comfort, a collaboration with producer Heather Grey, he shot the video for “Red40” in downtown KC and sports a Royals cap in the clip for “No Secret.” My favorite of these new cuts so far is “New Year’s Conflict Resolution.” With its video cut in Topeka, it’s a deep, soul-with-strings rumination upon how, when it’s hard out there, it’s bound to go hard inside your head and heart too. Specifically, he means the struggle to stay true to yourself in a world full of cutthroat rap-biz competition and other folks’ expectations. He wonders, “Without some regret does it count as success?” – DC

AJ Lee & Blue Summit – “Fishin’ in the Dark” (single, 2026)

Give or take Molly Tuttle, AJ Lee & Blue Summit has been my favorite bluegrass act this decade. Lee’s spry mandolin and delicate, but still powerful, vocals—she occasionally has me imagining Alison Kraus borrowed Rhonda Vincent’s pipes—headlines a band that has had its share of swell originals but lately has proven itself master interpreters of non-bluegrass material, ahead of their upcoming album Cover to Cover. Their version of “Fishin’ in the Dark,” the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s 1987 chart topper, is another winner—breezy and borderline bawdy, an innocent group singalong about being alone and getting busy. – DC

Bloc Party – “Love Bombs” (single, 2026)

I always enjoy listening to Bloc Party frontman Kele Okereke. He has one of those unabashedly Brit voices, especially when yelping up in his register and absent any punkish snarls or sneers, that’s become a beau ideal for me of an English synth pop vocalist. I like Okereke and Bloc Party best of all when they’re also funny, and “Love Bombs,” a single out ahead of their next album Anatomy of a Brief Romance, made me laugh a few times. The song’s sense of humor, in fact, is almost like a Flight of the Conchords number. “I wanna cool you down, I wanna rough you up, I wanna crawl all over you,” Okereke tells his latest crush. Then he pauses before dryly adding, “Most of the time.” Those first explosions of love can have you doing and saying silly things that will not age well (“I’m thinking about framing the napkin you bled on, I’m mounting it on my wall,” for example), but when paired with an earworm of a hook like this one, they always sing great. –DC

The Deslondes – “Where I’m From” (from Don’t Let It Die: Vol. 1, 2026)

This five-piece New Orleans outfit is an “all-genre singer-songwriter band where we all take turns and have four-part harmonies,” as Deslonde Riley Downing once told Natalie Weiner for Don’t Rock the Inbox. She’s been pushing folks to check them out for years (Her “Meet the Best Country Band You’re Not Listening To” is the piece to read.) Maybe like me, this gentle, humid cover of a Shelby Lynne song will be the key that finally sends you down the Deslondes rabbit hole. “Heaven knows this ain’t no Margaret Mitchell…” – DC

Recommended reading:

-Ann Powers on Gracie Abrams and how much we should care about a pop star’s baggage, for NPR.com

-Ann Powers reviews the Rolling Stones’ Foreign Tongues, for NPR.com

-Eric Wenninger on Billy Bragg & Wilco at the 2026 Solid Sound Festival, for his An Uncommon Commute

-Barry Mazor reviews the new Ma Rainey box set, for Wall Street Journal

-Stephen Thomas Erlewine reviews the Rolling Stones’ Foreign Tongues, for his And So It Goes

-Tim Dillinger on transformative Contemporary Christian Music executive and producer Lynn Nichols, for God’s Music Is My Life

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