6 New Rock Releases About Returning: To Your Roots, to the Stage, to the Songs You Left Behind
Flea, Lou Gramm, The Academy Is..., Black Label Society, Ladytron, and The New Pornographers all dropped something this week. Plus: the 2006 albums roundtable, Skyhooks, and what's in the Hopper.
This Week on Dig Me Out
L7 Had Everything Except Luck
J Dziak · March 27, 2026
L7 were as loud, as sharp, and as relevant as any band that made it out of the early-’90s alternative explosion. They just didn’t. This piece digs into why a band that belonged on every “essential grunge” list somehow got left off most of them, and what that says about who gets remembered and who gets erased.
Josh Ritter’s The Animal Years Turns 20: The Folk Masterpiece That Never Got Its Moment
J Dziak and Tim Minneci · March 24, 2026
Twenty years ago, Josh Ritter released what should have been a landmark record. The Animal Years had everything: sweeping arrangements, lyrics that hit like short stories, and a vocalist at the absolute peak of his powers. Jay and Tim make the case for why it still matters, and why its commercial invisibility at the time is one of the great missed moments in folk-rock history.
Heard something this week that belongs in the Dig Me Out catalog? Suggest it for a future episode.
Coming Up Next
Albums of 2006: Roundtable (March 31)
Tuesday’s episode is a roundtable, and the question on the table is simple: what were the best albums of 2006?
This one was patron-driven. Our Board of Directors helped shape the episode, and the conversation goes deep into a year that held a lot more than most people remember. Two decades of hindsight will do that. Think about your own picks before you listen. What 2006 album deserves more credit than it gets?
Board of Directors members drive episodes like this one. If you want to hand-pick an album and join us on the podcast to discuss it, join at dmounion.com.
Skyhooks – Living in the 70’s (April 7)
The community voted, and April 7 brings the podcast’s Poll Album Review for Living in the 70’s, the 1974 debut from Australian rock band Skyhooks. This is exactly the kind of deep cut the podcast was built for: a band that was enormous in Australia, nearly invisible everywhere else, wearing glam makeup and writing songs that got banned on commercial radio. If you haven’t heard it, give it a spin before the episode drops and come ready with your take.
New Releases
Flea – Honora
You know Flea. He’s the guy with the bass who looks like he’s having the time of his life while the rest of the band keeps up. But Honora, his debut solo full-length on Nonesuch Records, is not a Red Hot Chili Peppers side trip. It’s a jazz record, and a serious one.
Named after his great-great-grandmother, Honora leans into trumpet, bass, and voice across a set of six originals and four covers. The covers alone tell you everything about his ambitions: Funkadelic’s “Maggot Brain,” Frank Ocean’s “Thinkin Bout You,” a standard in “Willow Weep for Me,” and Glen Campbell’s “Wichita Lineman” with Nick Cave on vocals. Thom Yorke sings on “Traffic Lights.” Produced by Josh Johnson, this is Flea reconnecting with the music he loved before he was famous.
What works: Clash Magazine gave it 8/10, calling it “a captivating moment from a musician reconnecting with the very essence of why he started in the first place, and an artist still chasing new meanings in his rich age.” The Guardian nailed the tone: “Honora is never dilettantish, though: it’s sincere, exploratory and soulful.” The Line of Best Fit called it “compelling proof of musically open-eared adventurism” and “an atmospheric gem.” Metacritic sits at 74.
What doesn’t: This is mood music with genuine jazz sensibility, not a rock crossover. If you came hoping for funk-bass fireworks or anything adjacent to RHCP’s catalog, you will be lost. The album rewards patience and a taste for atmosphere over momentum. It is not background music, but it’s also not quite a front-and-center listen for someone unfamiliar with the jazz tradition Flea is drawing from.
The New Pornographers – The Former Site Of
The New Pornographers have spent 25 years being the band that indie-pop fans point to when they want to argue that melodic maximalism is an art form. The Former Site Of is their tenth studio album, arriving three years after Continue as a Guest (2023).
The recording circumstances cast a shadow over everything here. Drummer Joe Seiders was fired in 2025 following a child pornography arrest; his drum parts were re-recorded by Charley Drayton. That’s not context you can set aside, and the album’s themes of loss, displacement, and searching for beauty in darkness feel newly weighted knowing it. Core members A.C. Newman, Neko Case, John Collins, Kathryn Calder, and Todd Fancey are all present. Singles “Votive,” “Pure Sticker Shock,” “Spooky Action,” and “Ballad of the Last Payphone” have been circulating for months.
What works: BrooklynVegan landed the definitive quote: “Newman has his mojo back, and The Former Site Of is the best New Pornographers album in a decade.” Paste Magazine called it a record that “attempts to find the beauty in the darkness, the solace in the sadness, and the reasons for hope amid the evidence for despair.” Uncutscored it 8/10, with Bud Scoppa noting that the record’s background “inevitably brings an additional layer of darkness to allusively eloquent, quietly agitated songs such as ‘Pure Sticker Shock’ and ‘Votive.’” Metacritic: 79.
What doesn’t: The circumstances around the album are real and don’t disappear. Some listeners will find it difficult to separate the music from the story. And for fans hoping the band had swung back toward the pure pop sugar rush of Mass Romantic or Electric Version, this is a more restrained, inward-looking record. It rewards attention in a way that isn’t always comfortable.
Black Label Society – Engines of Demolition
Zakk Wylde has been playing guitar longer than some of his fans have been alive, and Engines of Demolition is the twelfth Black Label Society album. More significantly, it’s the first in nearly five years: the longest gap in the band’s history. Wylde spent much of that stretch on the road as part of the Pantera Celebration tour, and the album was written across 2022-2025 in whatever margins he could find.
This one carries some weight beyond the riffs. “Ozzy’s Song” is an explicit tribute to Ozzy Osbourne, the man Wylde served as guitarist for during some of rock’s most memorable decades. It’s the kind of gesture that only means something when the person writing it lived it. The current lineup is Wylde on vocals and guitar, Dario Lorina on guitar, John DeServio on bass, and Jeff Fabb on drums.
What works: Blabbermouth gave it a strong notice from Dom Lawson: “the 12th BLACK LABEL SOCIETY album is the best record to bear that name for at least a decade. Confident, cohesive and bereft of the clunky filler.” Kerrang! scored it 3/5 but praised the opener directly: “’Name In Blood’ is as complete a song as this line-up has ever produced. It’s all shaggy riffs, a commendable amount of emotion and a languorous, singable hook.” Metal Planet Music went further: “a towering achievement from a band who refuse to fade.”
What doesn’t: If you’ve never connected with the BLS formula, this is not a reinvention. It is heavy rock delivered with conviction and craft, but the template hasn’t shifted. Kerrang! lands at 3/5, which about captures the ceiling for non-fans: you’ll hear what everyone else is hearing, but you may not feel it the same way.
Want to hand-pick an album and join us on the podcast to discuss it? Join the Board of Directors at dmounion.com.
The Academy Is... – Almost There.
Remember The Academy Is...? Those Chicago pop-punk kids who showed up in 2005 on Almost Here and immediately sounded like they belonged on every emo playlist alongside Fall Out Boy and Panic! At the Disco? They’ve been gone for 18 years, which in pop-punk years is roughly an ice age.
Almost There. is their first album since Fast Times at Barrington High (2008), produced by Snow Ellet. The title is a deliberate nod to the debut, and the current lineup is the original core: William Beckett on vocals, Mike Carden on guitar, Adam Siska on bass, and Andy Mrotek on drums. The band debuted new material on their 20th anniversary tour before announcing the album in January 2026. Lead single “2005” is about exactly what you think it’s about.
What works: New Noise Magazine called it “the best-case scenario for a reunited band. It acknowledges their past without repeating it, alluding to a much brighter future.” The Indy Review called it “an exceptional record and highly recommended on so many levels.” Silent Radio described it as “like happiness in a bottle.”
What doesn’t: If you weren’t already in the club in 2005, this is probably not your entry point. The album’s emotional power is largely tied to that specific nostalgia. Heard cold, without the context of what it meant the first time around, it’s a well-made pop-punk record. With that context, it’s something more.
Lou Gramm – Released
You know Lou Gramm from Foreigner. “I Want to Know What Love Is,” “Cold as Ice,” “Waiting for a Girl Like You.” The voice that made those songs work the way they did, that’s him. Gramm was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Foreigner in 2024, which made the timing of Released feel like a proper final word from one of classic rock’s most underappreciated frontmen.
The backstory here is remarkable. Released is his third solo album and first since 1989’s Long Hard Look: a gap of 37 years. But these aren’t new songs written in 2025. They were originally recorded in the 1980s, co-written with Bruce Turgon, left unfinished, and finally completed now. Guests include Vivian Campbell (guitar on “Young Love”) and Tony Franklin (bass on “Long Gone”).
What works: Get Ready to ROCK! scored it 4.5/5, with Brian McGowan writing: “Gramm’s vocals remain the high watermark that many rock vocalists aspire to, but very few reach.” MelodicRock.com called it “basically an essential release for any Lou Gramm fan. A perfect bookend for his career outside of Foreigner.”
What doesn’t: This is squarely in the ‘80s melodic rock tradition, finished and polished in that era’s production sensibility. If you need modern sonic density or anything that doesn’t sound like it was written during the Agent Provocateur sessions, you’ll clock the vintage quickly. That’s a feature for fans, not a bug. For everyone else, it may feel like a time capsule more than a statement.
Ladytron – Paradises
Ladytron have been doing their particular thing since 2000: electronic pop with cold edges and warm centers, somewhere between Kraftwerk and shoegaze and the kind of late-night dance floor where nobody is performing joy, they’re just inside it. Paradises is their eighth album and their first as a trio, after Reuben Wu’s departure in 2023 following Time’s Arrow.
Produced by Daniel Hunt and mixed by Jim Abbiss, the record leans into house and disco influences in a way that recalls the shape of Light & Magic (2002). At 16 tracks and close to 72 minutes, it’s a full commitment. Singles “I Believe in You,” “Kingdom Undersea,” “A Death in London,” and “Evergreen” have given a clear preview of the direction.
What works: Under the Radar Magazine scored it 8/10 and made a sweeping claim: “Ladytron have secured their iconic status once again, ensuring they become a cult band for an entirely new generation, or maybe more.” The 13th Floor went straight to the point: “Truly, Ladytron have produced, created an album full of dancefloor bangers.”
What doesn’t: AllMusic puts the ceiling on it well: “More diluted than truly disappointing, Paradises boasts enough standout tracks to please fans, but with more shaping and a sharper mix, it could’ve been one of Ladytron’s great albums.” At 16 tracks, not everything earns its place, and fans of the band’s leaner, icier earlier work may find the dance-floor warmth less satisfying.
Also out this week:
The Casualties – Detonate: New York street punk veterans return with their first album in eight years, and as Punktastic put it, “it goes off.”
The Dandy Warhols – Pin Ups: A 17-track covers record nodding to Bowie’s 1973 album of the same name, filtering Gang of Four, The Cure, Violent Femmes, The Clash, and a dozen others through decades of Dandy Warhols DNA. Better than it needs to be.
David Gray – Nightjar: Nineteen unreleased songs from the Life In Slow Motion sessions (2003-2005), out of the vault and onto streaming. Hot Press scored it 8/10: “fascinating and often very lovely.” If you loved that era of Gray’s catalog, this is a gift.
Fresh in the Hopper
These are recent listener suggestions sitting in the queue, waiting for their moment. A few caught my attention this week.
Proudentall, What’s Happening Here (2000), submitted by Matthew Dunehoo, who has a personal stake in this one: it’s his own band. A Kansas City emo/post-rock group from 1995, influenced by Sunny Day Real Estate, Fugazi, and Jawbox, they shared a split 7” with The Anniversary and were re-released on Caulfield Records (the same label that had Christie Front Drive and Boys Life). One member went on to The Appleseed Cast. Matthew is a first-time submitter, and the story behind this one is exactly the kind of thing DMO was built for.
More, Warhead (1981), submitted by Chip. The singer, Paul Mario Day, was an early Iron Maiden vocalist (1975-76) before the band found Bruce Dickinson, and later joined Sweet. More opened for Maiden on the Killers tour and played Monsters of Rock 1981. Then they disappeared. Totally forgotten. Chip’s doing the Lord’s work with this one.
Bear Vs. Shark, Terrorhawk (2005), submitted by Willie Dillon. Post-hardcore that keeps getting recommended into the Hopper. Willie suggests the remastered compilation version. If you know it, you know. If you don’t, it’s worth finding out why people keep pushing it.
Foghat, Girls to Cheat & Boys to Bounce (1981), also from Chip. Beyond “Slow Ride” and “Fool for the City,” Foghat made 17 albums. Chip owned this one first, picked it up for a dollar, and is finding out what the rest of the catalog holds. That’s the spirit.
Got a lost or forgotten album that deserves the spotlight? Drop it in the Hopper.
That’s the week. What did I miss? What are you spinning this weekend? Reply and let me know.