‘Dandelion’ by Ella Langley
★★★
“Ella Langley wants to write timeless songs, ones that’ll be passed down and rediscovered in 75 years,” said Ethan Beck in Paste. The 26-year-old Alabama native may have done that with “Choosin’ Texas,” a tune that’s featured on her new album and has now been atop Billboard’s pop chart longer than any other single by a female country artist. The song warns that “cowboys always find a way to leave,” and the rest of Dandelion also finds Langley putting the Americana of her 2025 debut behind her and focusing on “slick, ethereal pop country” powered by “unquestionable hooks.” Not that Langley simply tries to replicate “Choosin’ Texas,” said Will Hermes in Rolling Stone. “Instead, she leans into a fresh color wheel of vintage influences,” delivering a “wholly laudable” cover of a 1952 Kitty Wells hit and signaling her allegiances in originals like “We Know Us,” which “begins like a Patsy Cline fever dream.” The record includes generic corn too, which even Langley’s plaintive voice can’t save. Still, it’s “a coherent, fully realized album,” one that puts her in the select company of artists bringing “smart, woman-centered songwriting” into country’s mainstream
‘My New Band Believe’ by My New Band Believe
★★★
“Cameron Picton has a way of making violence sound a little romantic and intimacy sound alienating,” said Sam Sodomsky in Pitchfork. On his first solo album as My New Band Believe, the former bassist in the now-defunct British group Black Midi embraces such contradictions and proves himself, at 26, to be “one of the most crucial voices in indie rock today.” Picton has brought the “twitching” rhythms and “controlled chaos” of post-punk into “musical settings that suggest formal attire,” flush with strings and horns and flamenco-style guitar. At times, his debut “sounds like either the most tenderhearted prog album you’ve ever heard or the most cold-blooded mutation of folk music.” Other times, “it’s just plain stunning.” The record is “teeming with musical ideas from out of nowhere,” aid Alexis Petridis in The Guardian. But My New Band Believe shows a greater concern for melody than Black Midi ever did, and it’s telling that Picton initially hoped Brian Wilson collaborator Van Dyke Parks might orchestrate the record. He’s also wearing his intelligence a little more lightly than he once did, “which might be the smartest move of all.”
‘Dandelion’ and ‘My New Band Believe’
