Recorded in five days at Dave Cobb's Savannah studio, Isle of Hope is informed by the 2024 death of Duane's father, Allman Brothers guitarist Dickey Betts. Centerpiece 'Heartache' is an extraordinary piece of grief rendered as slide-guitar Southern rock. With Cobb's production and Betts' extraordinary playing, Isle of Hope earns its Sun Records home.

One of 2026's most creatively singular albums. Co-produced with Jack Antonoff and Yves Rothman, So Help Me God blends electronics, cello, distorted guitars, and choral elements into something that resists genre labeling. Lead single 'Running to Pain' is a striking entry point. This music asks to be taken seriously on its own terms, and fully earns it.

Rodrigo's third album continues her evolution beyond the heartbreak-pop of Sour and teenage angst of Guts. The title signals new emotional complexity - more nuanced, more ambivalent. Produced again with Dan Nigro, the record maintains her gift for earworm melodicism while pushing into more sophisticated territory. She remains one of her generation's most natural pop songwriters.

Eric D. Johnson's twelfth Fruit Bats album - his most live-sounding in years - was tracked quickly with his full touring band following solo sessions that sparked a new direction. Psychedelic, technicolor, bursting with momentum. Johnson calls it 'the most live a Fruit Bats record has been since The Ruminant Band.' One of Merge's most consistently satisfying acts, fully in bloom.