The Best of October '26

Oct 31

It’s Halloween, and the music world certainly added costume-ready moments to 2026’s cultural zeitgeist. I’ll be remised if I don’t see any Zara Larssons with flower-adorned hair and neon spray-painted shirts or mini Slayyyters in denim short shorts donning some sort of red dollar sign paraphernalia. The holiday provides the perfect excuse to pay homage your favorite artist in the spotlight, but the other 30 days of October delivered stellar indie, alternative, and rock releases deserving just as much love and attention. As we bid spooky season adieu, here are OTR’s highlights from this past month in music.

RAPID REVIEWS

Wishy Boldly Embrace Love and Absurdity in Ecstatic Shoegaze of Nature’s Pill - Jane Flautt

“Nature’s Pill is a 12-track feast for the ears — a haze of bubbly rock infused with the perfect hint of nostalgia. It’s a project full of feeling, yet it never lets its subject matter be flattened into the morose or saccharine. This record is replete with juxtapositions — humor and apathy, nostalgia and existential dread, vanity and love — but it doesn’t offer a message so overwrought as ‘find joy in the chaos.’ Instead, Nature’s Pill is a kind of scrapbook of the world’s incoherence, and Wishy, rather than trying to glean some tired cliché from the mire, sits right there in the mud and turns their gaze to the sun, ‘’cause tomorrow could be gray skies.’’’

For Fans Of: '90s dream pop, distinctly 2026 sarcasm, layering stickers aimlessly on your laptop

Sophia Stel Has Released the Greatest Album of All Time - Mitchell Stewart

“The album is full of punchy yet subdued tracks; Stel isn’t afraid of getting blood on her hands, but also is maybe pulling her punches a bit. The production of the tracks emits some sort of power that Stel holds, yet the lyrics, upon closer inspection, hold a more desperate longing for someone else. Maybe, in the end, the blood is her own.”

For Fans Of: how i’m feeling now by Charli xcx, Jade from “Victorious,” autotune

Fontaines D.C.’s Dopamine Chamber is a Final Warning - Tabita Bernardus

“A sadistic invitation to stand face-to-face with the product of instant dopamine stretches across 11 bone-chilling tracks, none offering warm consolation for the reflection that stares back. Guitars are traded for beautifying synthesisers, impending doom is masked with seductive, temporary fixes, and Chatten’s vocals settle into a deeply rich register that tints the record in dark hues. What ends up poking through is the group’s uneasy realization of a decaying world detaching from humanity. Rather than putting words in your mouth, a beckoning chamber is built for you to arrive at those answers on your own.”

For Fans Of: vast sonic expanses, uncanny valley themes, A24 films

Jordan Joy’s Poetic Debut EP LED Moon - Eva Elisa Wells

“Nostalgia is both a girl’s best friend and her worst enemy, and Irish-born singer-songwriter Jordan Joy knows this all too well … With young life in New York as the project’s cultural and emotional landscape, the five tracks come together to create a dreamy narrative exploring themes of love, change, and finding your place.”

For Fans Of: dream pop, NYC at night Pinterest boards, Rachel Chinouriri

Remi Wolf Finds Clarity in the Grime in Third Studio Album - Brooke Shapiro

“‘WE’RE ALL COVERED IN MUD!!!!!!!!!’ From album art, to track names, and music video imagery, it doesn’t take grasping at straws to uncover meaning in Remi Wolf’s third studio album. On Mud, the unapologetically bold indie pop star embraces life’s grime before washing it away, finding her inner twang and unleashing her full vocal capabilities in the process … Wolf is exploring a more thematically heavy foundation without losing the eccentricity that fans have come to expect from the freshly 30-year-old artist.”

For Fans Of: vocal powerhouses, queer line dancing, tongue-in-cheek lyrics

Mila Bea, your favorite songwriter’s favorite songwriter - Reegan-Tate Johnson

There’s a particular kind of intimacy in Mila Bea’s songwriting, the kind that makes even the most complicated feelings feel a little easier to hold. On her latest single, “What we want and need from love,” she sits with the spirals of loving and being loved, wrapping heavy truths in a sound that’s tender around the edges but cuts a little deeper the longer you sit with it. At its core, the track is about the realities that tag along in every relationship and the desire to be understood within the confines of it. Her first release in over a year, the single marks a return to music that feels deliberate, offering a closer look at an artist whose creative world extends beyond songwriting and into visual art.

BROOKE’S BONUS

World News’ Debut Album In Purgatory is Eargasmic Bliss

“The lyrics don’t possess too much of a story, but are more phrases, thoughts and collections of words of how I was feeling at the time,” is what World News’ vocalist Alex Evans has to say about his band’s debut album. In an age where popular songs’ lyrics are dissected to the syllable, Evans’ sentiment may seem counterintuitive in the grand scheme of success. But one listen to the London-based quartet’s new record is all it takes to understand World News’ appeal. In Purgatory is a delightful void of shoegaze, jangle rock, and '80s post-punk soundscapes that is both grandiose and understated. From seven-minute expanses of gorgeous sonic haze like “Classical Music” and “Look Inside My Head” to jammable singles like “Everything is Coming Up Roses” and “Vinegar Swimming Pool,” In Purgatory is a solidly innovative rock album that is worth the 51 minutes of listening it requires.

For Fans Of: The Smiths, gorpcore, jangly guitars

EXTRAS

October Staff Picks: