The second and final half of the 30 best albums from September. Expect sweeping symphonic metal, heady progressive rock, indie pop and folk pop in all their dazzling disguises, a dash of vintage rock, some almost-as-vintage emo/punk, and even a one-off dive into experimental rock. It’s a personal map of discoveries - some by accident, some long-awaited, and some found by following a hunch, a guest credit, or a half-remembered name.
Spotify Playlist
Emoji showcases popularity, from total unknowns to superstars: [🌌🌑🌙☄️✨🌟]
15. Dear Robin - Timebound
🇩🇪 Germany / August 30 / 0,843 / 🌌
Spotify / Apple Music / Yandex Music
blues rock / classic rock
Dear Robin is a young and still obscure band hailing from the quiet German city of Rostock, Pomerania. They’re treading a path once taken by Blues Pills a decade ago - a reverent recreation of the late '60s to early '70s sound, full of Woodstock-era vibes and an evident affection for Fleetwood Mac and Deep Purple. The result? A lush, classic backdrop of blues-rock guitar, swirling Hammond organ, and vocals that sparkle with sun-drenched optimism. Not long ago, I caught myself wondering: why hasn’t humanity let go of the Beatles era - or the Woodstock era that followed? Maybe it’s because those were the last truly hopeful eras in popular music. Back then, major keys still dominated the airwaves. After 1973, the charts saw a surge of Aeolian-mode compositions, quickly overtaking the major key. These days, only 15-25% of hits are in major, with rare excursions into even more elusive modes like Dorian (“Wicked Game” by Chris Isaak), Mixolydian (“Royals” by Lorde), or Phrygian (“Get Ur Freak On” by Missy Elliott). So what are all these new Woodstock-inspired bands if not a wistful yearning for a utopian expression of joy and belief in humanity - a direct counterpoint to the more melancholic, introspective, and sorrow-tinged music that dominates today?
14. The Funeral Portrait - Greetings From Suffocate City
🇺🇸 US, Georgia / September 13 / 0,844 / ✨
Spotify / Apple Music / Yandex Music
alternative rock / post-hardcore / punk / emo
A painfully cringeworthy band - and yet, somehow, they’ve released a surprisingly solid, even occasionally groovy album. But is it really a band? One album per decade hardly qualifies as a coherent and committed group. The lyrical themes are straight out of teenage angst, pointing directly to the emo-rock scene of the 2000s. In this light, the guest features are downright adorable - They’re so desperate to be noticed that the song titles list not only the guest’s name but also the band they were in - like adding a LinkedIn resume to your tracklist. Honestly, it’s just one step away from: “You’re So Ugly When You Cry (feat. Bert of The Used of that high school shit you were into)”. But hey, if you’re itching for that melodramatic nostalgia trip and miss the days of My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, or A Day to Remember, this album from The Funeral Portrait might hit the spot.
13. Jessie Murph - That Ain't No Man That's The Devil
🇺🇸 US, Alabama/Tennessee / September 6 / 0,847 / 🌟
Spotify / Apple Music
pop / soul / country
Sometimes, when compiling a list, I discover - only after finalizing it - that one of the albums included has an unusually low rating on aggregator sites. That’s exactly what happened with Jessie Murph’s debut. The main reason for the criticism is her vocal timbre, which many listeners compare to Tones and I - that nasally, babyish tone that tends to divide audiences. There’s some truth to that, but Murph’s palette is much broader. Her emotional delivery draws on Demi Lovato and Amy Winehouse - though they managed to sound far more emotionally stable than Jessie does in “I Hope it Hurts”. The musical aesthetic seems indebted to Bishop Briggs and Rag’n’Bone Man, with faint echoes of Ella Eyre - who, by the way, still hasn't released that long-promised second album. What’s also fascinating about Murph’s debut is how it reflects the changing norms of music production. Things that once counted as sloppy or outright mistakes are now industry-standard. On “It Ain’t Right”, the kick drum aggressively sidechains the release of a sub-bass synth - to the point that the volume gap takes nearly a second to fill. Is it even worth trying to uphold production “rules” when a little time is all it takes for something dirty to become fashionable?
12. Kalandra - A Frame Of Mind
🇳🇴 Norway / September 13 / 0,847 / ☄️
Spotify / Apple Music / Yandex Music
alternative pop / folk rock / progressive rock
The best bands can’t be boxed in. They rise above labels rather than conform to them. Kalandra is one of them. At a glance, you’ll get all the wrong signals: the album art screams black metal, the band looks like they just stepped off the set of a Wardruna video. But hit play on A Frame of Mind and that whole aesthetic collapses. Instead of Viking gloom or frosty folk, you’re greeted with an angular guitar motif straight out of the Porcupine Tree/Tool playbook - a restless, irregular riff that seems to stumble through the 3/4 meter on purpose. And then there’s Katrine Stenbekk, whose voice floats somewhere between Aurora’s wild-eyed mysticism and Agnes Obel’s fragile minimalism. It’s a fascinating balance - somewhere between firelit mysticism and glacial precision.
11. Gladiolus - Inertia
🇦🇺 Australia / September 27 / 0,851 / 🌌
Spotify / Apple Music
progressive metal / progressive rock
Perhaps the strangest album in this entire top-30 comes from a Brisbane-based quartet with the adorably awkward name Gladiolus. This is a lo-fi record in every sense: amateur, unpolished, unmastered. Not because the band is chasing a “raw” aesthetic or rejecting studio slickness - it’s more that they genuinely don’t seem to know how to do it any other way. They’re driven by a passion for composition rather than production finesse. And if you can get past the fact that it sounds like something from 2005, you’ll be rewarded with a surprisingly eventful and engaging listen. The songs twist and stretch in unexpected ways, the energy never lets up, and somehow it lasts a full 73 minutes without a single dip in momentum. Think Porcupine Tree meets Karnivool meets early Opeth meets Periphery meets BTBAM - all crammed into one glorious, scrappy package. Hardly anyone’s heard this album. That's wild.
10. Nina Nesbitt - Mountain Music
🇬🇧 UK, Scotland / September 27 / 0,853 / ✨
Spotify / Apple Music
folk pop
If celebrities were fermions, then the caustic albums they trade back and forth would be bosons - packets of provocation flying between them. In this space, borrowed from rap culture, it’s not just about writing sharp diss tracks, but also about knowing how to absorb a blow with grace - to take the hit and stay standing. Nina Nesbitt began her career by dating Ed Sheeran, and followed it up with Peroxide, an album-length diss aimed squarely at him. But it turned out the backlash - hate, criticism, even diss tracks in return (it took Sheeran only three months to write, produce, and release his counterpunch) - cut deeper than she expected. The fragile artist gave tearful interviews, spoke out about stalking, and quietly stepped away from music for a few years. When she returned in 2019, it was with a new image: no longer piggybacking off someone else’s fame, but searching for her own voice. By the time she released Mountain Music, she’d drifted into indie territory - a space less commercial, perhaps, but more intimate, more emotionally grounded, and far more her own.
09. Lady Blackbird - Slang Spirituals
🇬🇧 UK, England / 🇺🇸 US, California/New Mexico / September 13 / 0,858 / ☄️
Spotify / Apple Music
acid jazz / nu-jazz / soul
There’s something ironic in Lady Blackbird’s journey. She could’ve had her big break in 2013, but didn’t. Back then, Epic Records wanted her to do slick R&B - it didn’t fit, and nothing came of it. Fast-forward to 2021: she moves to the UK, signs with Germany’s BMG, and finally steps into the spotlight with a gorgeously smoky jazz album - all vintage brass, wandering upright bass, and grown-woman confidence. Three years later, here comes Slang Spirituals, a pivot into retro soul and R&B that sounds like it fell straight out of a 1982 Grace Jones fever dream. Ten years, two continents, and one whole reinvention later, she’s exactly where her old label wanted her a decade ago... just this time, it’s completely on her terms.
08. Nightwish - Yesterwynde
🇫🇮 Finland / September 20 / 0,862 / 🌟
Spotify / Apple Music / Yandex Music
symphonic metal / gothic metal
Nightwish have wrapped up a grand trilogy - three albums with Floor Jansen, three chapters of naturalist philosophy set to orchestral metal. The themes? Evolution, nature, and now, with Yesterwynde, time: time as memory, time as fossil, time as myth. Each record in the trilogy had its focus. Endless Forms Most Beautiful drew from evolutionary biologist Sean B. Carroll’s book, and its closing 24-minute track, The Greatest Show on Earth, pointed toward Richard Dawkins’s book of the same name (you’ve seen the live cameo, right?). Human II Nature delved into naturalism, and now Yesterwynde turns to time - both fossilized and storied. They’ve caught flak lately for softening their sound - especially on the pop-rock side of the record, like The Day Of... or Lanternlight, which ditch guitars and drums altogether in favor of something closer to Madonna’s Ray of Light. Still, some tracks surprise with bold dynamism and sudden turns, showing that Nightwish, even now, can still shake the earth a little.
07. Charlotte Wessels - The Obsession
🇳🇱 Netherlands / September 20 / 0,869 / 🌙
Spotify / Apple Music
symphonic rock / progressive metal / alternative rock / art rock / gothic rock
The symphonic metal albums really lined up this time - even released on the same day. And while most of the spotlight landed on the legendary Nightwish, Charlotte Wessels’s third solo album quietly outshines them across the board: it’s brighter, more cohesive, more gripping. The Obsession is sharper, tighter, more vivid. It doesn’t just hold together - it glows. And those two guest features? Not just box-ticking cameos. Simone Simons and Alissa White-Gluz show up and deliver, slotting perfectly into Charlotte’s dark, intricate world. Looking back, leaving Delain might have been the smartest move of her career. First, she gave us the sprawling, genre-bending Tales from Six Feet Under, and now continues her solo path with the stunning The Obsession. Charlotte’s solo era feels like creative freedom in motion - bold, multi-genre, and gloriously unbothered by metal orthodoxy. Whatever she does next, she’s playing by her own rules.
06. The The - Ensoulment
🇬🇧 UK, England / September 6 / 0,871 / ✨
Spotify / Apple Music / Yandex Music
alternative rock / new wave / post-punk / art rock
A very old band (or rather, Matt Johnson’s solo project), active for 45 years - though 20 of those were spent on hiatus, from 2000 until recently. Their return wasn’t exactly unexpected, given the concert activity in recent years, but still - it’s always heartening when veteran acts come back with strong material. The mood is stylish, with a touch of noir. Nearly every song follows the same recipe: Matt half-whispers, half-narrates his disillusionment with everything from landscapes to nostalgia, London, British political culture, and even takes a swipe at POTUS - not the current one, but the previous. Then, by the chorus, he flexes his voice and lets something powerful loose. About London, Johnson sings quite directly in “Some Days I Drink My Coffee By The Grave Of William Blake”: The London I knew is gone / Perfidious Albion must fall. Yes, he actually said “perfidious”! That’s how deep the bitterness runs - straight into the thesaurus of an angry British intellectual.
05. Xiu Xiu - 13" Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips
🇺🇸 US, California / September 27 / 0,887 / 🌙
Spotify / Apple Music
experimental rock / noise pop / neo-psychedelia
The 17th album (counting unusual releases like their Twin Peaks tribute) from the legendary Xiu Xiu is a rare moment to jump into the fandom - if you dare. Xiu Xiu’s natural habitat is a dense and overwhelming wall of experimentalism, eclecticism, and sonic shock. If you’re not a fan of noise or avant-garde music, their albums are hard work. Their early work was more welcoming, but they’ve only grown more challenging over time. A randomly chosen album will likely stun a casual listener (myself included). That said, over their last five records, the band has wavered between accessibility and pure chaos: the more digestible Forget was followed by Girl with Basket of Fruit, a favorite of hardcore fans despite (or because of) its extreme sound. Then Oh No opened its doors to guests, only for the grueling Good Grief to shut them hard again, that album I personally found almost unlistenable (with Pahrump as the lone standout). Their new album 13" is easily one of their most accessible to date - though regular fans can judge whether that came at the cost of their edge. What’s especially striking this time is the lyrical scope: an eschatological meditation steeped in a kind of religious syncretism that blends agnosticism, nihilism, and - most of all - existentialism. Nearly every song pulses with meaninglessness, void, and aimlessness.
04. Sammy Rae & The Friends - Something for Everybody
🇺🇸 US, Connecticut / September 20 / 0,892 / ✨
Spotify / Apple Music
alternative rock / blues rock / indie rock
The music world is full of sayings like: “no one starts out great”, “every composer has albums they’re embarrassed by”, or even “the first four albums are just demos”. So if someone says that up-and-coming artist Sammy Rae has released a talented debut album - nearly everything about that statement is false. More than 15 years of self-development, absorbing the styles of Queen, Aretha Franklin, and Ella Fitzgerald, and several past albums that were once released but have since been retracted and erased from everywhere - that’s the path that led to the release of such a high-quality ‘debut’ like Something for Everybody. She’s also built a powerhouse of a band, big and bold, capable of shifting styles mid-song and lighting up a stage like it’s second nature. That combination is what gives this new album its richness and near-iconic polish.
03. Ashe - Willson
🇺🇸 US, California / September 6 / 0,900 / 🌟
Spotify / Apple Music
indie pop
This is Ash’s third album - which, following her established tradition, she named after the third word in her full name: Ashlyn Rae Willson. One can’t help but wonder: will Ash keep revealing pieces of her American ID with each new album? Jokes aside, her sound represents the gold standard of what modern pop should be - a blend of meaningful harmonic movement and broad emotional accessibility. Equally fascinating is the contrast between the album’s overall family-friendly tone and the rather heavy subject matter in the lyrics: the phantom jealousy of "Cherry Trees", emotional deadlock in "I Wanna Love You (But I Don’t)", existential self-interrogation in the closing track "Ash", and in "I hope you die first", the deeply dark love-through-loss narrative that wouldn’t be out of place in a metalcore song. What makes Ash special is her ability to take all that angst, all that weight - and turn it into something soft, palatable, devastating in its subtlety. This is emotional honesty in pop clothing. And it cuts deeper than it lets on.
02. Susan O'Neill - Now in a Minute
🇮🇪 Ireland / September 20 / 0,905 / 🌑
Spotify / Apple Music / Yandex Music
indie folk / dark pop / art rock
Sometimes duet albums work like optical illusions: your eyes follow the famous name, and you miss the quiet brilliance right beside it. In 2021, Irish singer-songwriter Mick Flannery released a rather good album, "In the Game", recorded together with Susan O’Neill - someone I hadn’t known before. Because of the availability heuristic and anchoring bias, I automatically assumed that the quality of the album was due more to the familiar Mick Flannery than to the unknown half of the equation. And yet, it didn’t take long for me to realize how close I had been to discovering an artist both intelligent and aesthetically whole. Back then, Susan had only released the moderately interesting Found Myself Lost (since removed from the internet, though not without a trace - omg, once you notice someone, you start seeing them everywhere). But her most powerful work was yet to come: the 2022 EP "Now You See It", and especially with 2024’s full-length "Now in a Minute", O’Neill emerges as a master of small-scale drama: twelve songs that open like quiet short stories, each one winding its way to an unexpected place.
01. Gia Ford - Transparent Things
🇬🇧 UK, England / September 13 / 0,948 / 🌑
Spotify / Apple Music
indie pop / folk / art rock
First impressions can be deceiving, as though the album isn't quite strong enough to deserve its high praise. I kept circling back, trying to find a reason to knock it down a few notches - but with each play, Gia Ford’s music proved its quality. Some records just take their time to let you in. Molly McCormick, who now goes by the stage name Gia Ford, had a tough road: gigging in dive bars around Sheffield, sneaking into Brighton open mics, chasing every chance she could get in London - until someone at the newly reborn Chrysalis Records took notice. Once a juggernaut in the ’70s and ’80s, now a haven for the smart indie crowd (Laura Marling, Marika Hackman), Chrysalis gave her the platform - and, more crucially, the team. Producer Tony Berg (Phoebe Bridgers, boygenius) helped shape the sound, pulling in a full squad of collaborators to get it just right. So no, this album doesn’t disprove the theory that no one debuts at greatness. It just reminds us what’s really behind those flawless first impressions: there’s a team of seasoned collaborators behind it - who’ve already taken their lumps.
