KRUI Staff Picks: Best Releases of April 2026

Following a harrowing finals week, KRUI pulls through the other side to bring you our April picks, from rappers out of 14-year sentences, to indie legend Doug Gillard, to lots of “woooaaaaahhhhs,” our KRUI Staff recommends some of our favorite releases from April, 2026!

Palette Knife – Keyframe

GUITAR MAGIC! Bands on Take This To Heart Records never seem to disappoint with their guitar-ery. Palette Knife’s 2026 “Keyframe” is a sonic successor to their 2021 album “Ponderosa Snakehouse & The Chamber of Bullsh**,” another mathy masterpiece of emo grooviness. This album falls very very much in line with the sound of bands like Origami Angel, Macseal, saturdays at your place, Riley!, and other 5th-wave math-rock-emo-pop-post-something-or-other. This is a good thing. The songs vacillate between clean, bright riffs with little to no accompaniment, to overwhelming fuzzy waves of sonic goodness. I say sonic in this review so much because this really does bring to mind Sonic Adventure 2. Standouts include Sleep Paralysis, which has such a poppy catch to it that I struggle not to nod my head and twiddle my fingers with the riffing breakdowns, Mimic, which seems as if it was designed in a lab to get people pushing at shows, and Leviathan, maybe the darkest-feeling song on the album despite remaining bright and riffy compared to many emo and math projects. I especially like the vocal backings on Leviathan, with the choral “woooaaaaahhhhs” and the other guy scream-singing something that I can’t quite decipher.

LIYL: Sonic Adventure 2 (the videogame), Origami Angel, Riley!, Macseal, saturdays at your place.

–Daniel Lawless

Rosco P Coldchain & Nicholas Craven – Play With Something Safe

After a 14-year jail sentence, Philadelphia rapper and frequent Clipse collaborator, Rosco P Coldchain, returns to the rap scene with his debut album, partnering with acclaimed Montreal producer Nicholas Craven for a 10-track album which does not hold back. The album, recorded last year and teased heavily on Craven’s Instagram, had gained momentum for the leading singles Benz Sprinter and the title track, Play With Something Safe. Coldchain’s slick, offbeat style of rap pairs quite well with Craven’s soul heavy beats for a triumphant return to the game. Tracks such as Boogie Nights and Prayer Group touch on topics related to Coldchain’s sentence, whilst selections Frankenstein and Magnesium Chloride provide sinister beats which perfectly combine with Coldchain’s flow. Features from Bruiser Wolf, Ab Liva, Jimmie D, and Malcolm Kamal help to bolster the already strong record with ice-cold verses. Play With Something Safe stands as both one of the greatest rap albums of the year as well as a deeply personal and descriptive album of an artist whose comeback has been years in the making.

–Joseph Tadlock

Doug Gillard – Parallel Stride

Let us all now praise Doug Gillard. He is the Moleskin notebooks of indie rock guitar. A mainstay of Guided by Voices, he’s belonged off and on to Cobra Verde, Nada Surf, and the very niche, very apt heart-of-the-scruffy-Beatles band Bambi Kino. (They play and record in Hamburg, only doing the expat Liverpudlians’ 1960-1962 sets: the equivalent of a Baroque string quartet using period instruments.) Cicadas-ish, every two to eight years his noodling alone results in a solo album. The records have the cloistered feel of one person playing all the instruments, which I’m pretty sure is the case. But, as with all of the Doug Gillard solo records, as you might hunger for a fully fleshed-out trio with friction from the others, you submit to the craft and the smarts, the way the influences are there and not there, the unexpected turns of melody or structure. Take “Face of Smiles” from Parallel Stride. He’s got the balance of soft vocal and busy, splashing chords just right. And the touches endure. A Bobby Fuller intro and outro (you’ve been wanting it ever since and there it is, in the outro!). A chorale-plus-organ joint two-thirds of the way through, as we lift for ascension, that seems part Yo La Tengo, part Cars. The whole album is power pop for our downer world, may it bring you release!

–Matt Brown

Allie Sandt – Amandas Antiques

New York based musician Allie Sandt continues to impress me after releasing her newest single, Amanda Antiques. Released on April 17th, this is Sandt’s 6th single in her young career.

Like her other work, the song takes inspiration from artists like Simon and Garfunkel and Steely Dan. She blends rock, folk, blues, and jazz together alongside her instrumentalists who seem to always fit just right. Throughout her entire discography, the backing and rhythm are always unique and exploratory without being excessive. Amanda Antiques sounds so distinct in comparison to her other works due to the use of samba piano alongside light and plucky guitar and bass. Sandt’s lyrics are always clever and occasionally even humorous. She often makes comparisons and uses visual imagery, particularly in this single which she states was inspired by a “kind antique shop owner, who gave [her] some advice that came at the right time”.

Per her website, this single is just a taste of an upcoming project to be released this summer. I’m excited to see if the record echoes the influences heard on Amanda’s Antiques, or if she’ll continue to dip her toes into other areas of music for a wide variety of sounds. Either way, I’m eager to hear more of her work and know Sandt has a bright future ahead.

I discovered Allie on Tiktok last year and was gobsmacked to see just 22,000 monthly listeners. After playing her on repeat for that entire week, it became apparent that it’s only a matter of time before that number skyrockets. Legitimize your gatekeeping now and get on the Allie Sandt train before it leaves the station.

–Mason Neilson

MIKE, Earl Sweatshirt, and Surf Gang – Pompeii / Utility

To those who have had their ear anywhere relatively near the upper echelon of the hip hop underground, none of these names will be new. However, the sonic direction presented here, as well as the three of these artists demonstrating such a level of cohesion in taking such a creative step, very much is. Each artist hailing from relatively diverse lanes within the genre–Earl, navigating a well-established abstract hip-hop solo career after the dissolution of Odd Future on the West coast, MIKE, coming up amidst a wave of cohorts within the drumless scene in New York, and Surf Gang transitioning itself from a lightning-in-a-bottle rap collective into a powerhouse of production (and a label to boot, backing taste-making artists across the underground!) So, once again, while MIKE and Earl had collaborated in a more abstract and woozy capacity prior, very much suiting their respective waves, anyone who saw the kind of easy chemistry over such uncharacteristically icy and computerized production should pat themselves on the back as a stylistic prophet of sorts.

Moreover, for a tracklist clocking over 33 tracks, this project is remarkable for its quality. Not every track is a stunner, but there are frequent combination punches as one head-nodder stacks onto another, and all of a sudden, you find yourself running it back just to catch those hazy flows a second time, dissipating like smoke. While no fan may have seen this project coming, POMPEII / UTILITY marks a masterstroke in each artist’s respective catalogue, asserting their respective places at the table of modern hip-hop.