Margo Price has never treated country music as neutral ground, and Days Of Unrest removes any remaining doubt. Released as a July 4 weekend protest mixtape, it puts her in conversation with the folk-protest tradition while keeping one boot in country music. The “Then” album is Loretta Lynn’s Van Lear Rose, a 2004 record that made plainspoken country songwriting feel newly urgent.
Readers’ Pick: Margo Price – Days Of Unrest
You picked Margo Price – Days Of Unrest as your favorite new release for the week of July 3, 2026.
Now & Then: American Aquarium’s New Ways to Lose and the reach of Tennessee
American Aquarium’s New Ways to Lose puts BJ Barham back in familiar territory, but with a wider lens. The songs still come from bars, back roads, family memory, and bad decisions, yet the focus has shifted from private wreckage to the social pressures around it. For a useful older reference point, Lucero’s Tennessee makes sense. Released in 2002, it helped define a Southern alt-country lane where punk urgency, country phrasing, and bar-band durability could sit in the same set without apology.
Readers’ Pick: American Aquarium – New Ways to Lose
You picked American Aquarium – New Ways to Lose as your favorite new release for the week of June 26, 2026.
Now & Then: Swamp Dogg’s Swamp Dogg Contemplates The Afterlife and the reach of Solomon Burke’s Don’t Give Up on Me
Swamp Dogg’s Swamp Dogg Contemplates The Afterlife belongs in the long line of soul records where age sharpens the writing instead of softening it. The album looks at mortality, memory, belief, and unfinished business with the plain speech that has always made Swamp Dogg hard to categorize. A useful earlier reference is Solomon Burke’s 2002 album Don’t Give Up on Me, a late-career soul record that gave an older singer room to use experience as the central instrument.
Readers’ Pick: Swamp Dogg – Swamp Dogg Contemplates The Afterlife
You picked Swamp Dogg – Swamp Dogg Contemplates The Afterlife as your favorite new release for the week of June 19, 2026.
Readers’ Pick: Fruit Bats – The Landfill
You picked Fruit Bats – The Landfill as your favorite new release for the week of June 5, 2026.
Now & Then: The Red Clay Strays’ Grateful and the reach of The Del Fuegos’ Boston, Mass.
The Red Clay Strays’ Grateful and The Del Fuegos’ Boston, Mass. are both band records in the practical sense. The appeal starts with a singer, but it depends on the group around him: guitars that answer instead of crowd, rhythm sections that keep the songs moving, and arrangements that sound built from stage time. Grateful was released in 2026 and produced by Dave Cobb, while Boston, Mass. was The Del Fuegos’ second album, released in 1985 on Slash Records.
Readers’ Pick: The Red Clay Strays – Grateful
You picked The Red Clay Strays – Grateful as your favorite new release for the week of June 5, 2026.
Now & Then: Joshua Ray Walker’s Ain’t Dead Yet and the reach of Guitar Town
Joshua Ray Walker’s Ain’t Dead Yet and Steve Earle’s Guitar Town are separated by four decades, but they share a clear country music lineage. Both albums come from writers who use traditional country materials without treating them as fixed rules. Earle’s 1986 debut helped open space for country records with tougher guitars, direct storytelling, and singer-songwriter focus. Walker’s new album works in that same lane, with a more personal and present-tense sense of survival.