My Favorite New Albums of the Week: April 17, 2026
The last few weeks have had so much good new music released! For those who don’t know, Fridays are the typical album release day for the music industry, although not universally. I will try to do new album reviews on Saturdays when I have time to do so. I was spoiled for choice today, and I’m actually glad I was stuck in so much traffic, so that I had more time to listen to more new albums. I got four whole albums in today!
I’m going to write about my favorite three of those four. And I haven’t even listened to the new Jessie Ware album yet! Each excels in their own field, for very different reasons. Because I’m covering three albums, I’m not going to cover them track-by-track; just some highlights.
Honey Dijon - The Nightlife
From a glance at the album cover alone, you know you’re in for a ride on this one. Honey Dijon, you look sickening. Flawless. This is just a pure house album. It’s slick, every track works on any dance floor, the singers on every track are incredible, and just really high-level. Honey lives in NYC and Berlin, and it’s easy to see the influences of both cities, two of the best in the world, on this album. It has the glamour of New York and the gritty art of Berlin. New York’s sophistication and Berlin’s get-down attitude.
I literally wrote about another song earlier this week that repeats the word “work.” Well, here, have another. “Slight Werk” is a vision. It literally embodies the word “fierce.” I’m making all sorts of faces listening to this song. And there’s a club mix as the last track of the album, too, and it adds to the dance factor. Bree Runway’s voice is the epitome of class. This song is immediately going on my playlist.
“Rush Me” is another great song. “Don’t rush me, take your time, we’re not in love” is such a great chorus. The glitchy music Honey adds behind the chorus later in the song is chef’s kiss. I want to go find a club where I can dance to this.
“Welcome to the Moon” is the most Berlin song on this album, as well as the longest. And those are both very good things. If I ever DJ at Berghain, I promise to play this song. I’d even settle for Panorama Bar. I never will; I’m not enough of a musical purist. But damn is it fun to dance in. At the 3:05 mark, Honey adds these filthy bounce sounds into what is already an exploratory and explosive song. Maybe I’ll get to DJ on the moon instead; it’s about as likely as Berghain.
Tokischa - AMOR & DROGA
I’ve been watching Tokischa closely for a few years now. I firmly believe that her popularity is set to explode at some point. She’s a Latin Trap singer and rapper from La Republica Dominicana, and Latin Trap is where the industry is moving toward. She is a highly skilled rapper and has an interesting life story. She really seems to not give much of a fuck about the industry, to the point where she’ll probably end up ruling it.
This album, although it certainly falls into Latin Trap, takes its influences from a wide variety of source materials. It resulted in a complex, layered, never-boring album. And at 17 tracks and 53 minutes, for a debut album, this is extremely ambitious and impressive. The album, which translates to “Love and Drugs,” is explicitly about both of those topics, often in great detail, and both together and separate. It ties the entire album together, comprised of songs that sound pretty radically different musically.
The album starts with a bang, with tracks produced by Diplo and Skrillex. The Skrillex track—“SURFBOARD”—is amazing. I never cared for dubstep, but in his post-dubstep career, Skrillex has really blossomed into one of the cleverest, most interesting electronic music producers. This song is certainly no exception. “SURFBOARD” has naturally beachy vibes, and is pretty sexy in its own right. It would be at home in a hip beach bar in Rio de Janeiro, a hopping Mexico City nightclub, and general pop radio.
“DROGA DE DISEÑADOR” fits in just as well on Honey Dijon’s house album as on Tokischa’s. You could literally slip it into the middle of Honey’s album and no one would notice. Fashion, glamour, and designer drugs.
“MIAMI” showcases Tokischa’s rap flow the best on this album. I wish there was more of this type of flow on this album, because it’s clearly where Tokischa is most at home. This song is giving Nicki’s verse in “Monster.” I haven’t had this much fun since Rosalía’s “Despechá”!
The album is a bit uneven. But I just see that as room for growth. If you like Latin Trap at all, this album is definitely worth a listen.
Nine Inch Nails & Boys Noize - Nine Inch Noize
I had the great privilege of getting to watch Nine Inch Nails and Boys Noize perform last summer. I’d been wanting to see NIN for many years and finally got the opportunity, and Boys Noize seemed like a super natural fit. I’ve been listening to him since his first single came out.
I was a little disappointed when I realized that the much-hyped Nine Inch Noize, which was the talk of Coachella last weekend, was not a studio album of new music. Essentially, this is a very slick mashup/remix album. But as a very long-time fan of both mashups and remixes, this is undoubtedly one of the best of both of those genres. A variety of Nine Inch Nails songs from across their remarkable career, as well as a cover of Soft Cell’s “Memorabilia,” are expertly remixed and mashup up by Boys Noize. It isn’t strictly a mashup album, as there is a lot of new musical material, and they definitely did re-record both the NIN and Boys Noize portions of this album. The only off-putting part, in my opinion, is the artificial-sounding audience sounds in the background. This album previewed live at Coachella last weekend, but this album was clearly recorded in a studio and not live.
“She’s Gone Away” is one of my favorite NIN songs from recent years. It was made specifically for Twin Peaks: The Return, which is my favorite season of television of all time. For this album, they did a nearly-straight mashup with Boys Noize’s song “Girl Crush,” which is one of my favorite recent Boys Noize songs. It’s just smooth all the way through, and turns one of NIN’s slowest and most foreboding songs into a bona fide banger.
I really like the version of “Parasite” on this album. This song is from Trent Reznor’s side project “How to Destroy Angels,” done with his now-wife Mariqueen Maandig, the former singer of acclaimed indie rock band West Indian Girl. I love her voice, although I secretly hate her because she stole my husband, Trent, away from me. Boys Noize, meanwhile, does his best approximation of Sasha and just shreds the synth the entire song. It makes for a truly epic musical journey over four-and-a-half minutes.
The cover of Soft Cell’s “Memorabilia,” from a B-side of one of the songs from their brilliant album Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret from 1981, is one of the most interesting songs on this album. “Memorabilia” is a song transformed. Nine Inch Nails covered it in 1994 as the B-side to their single for “Closer,” their best-known song. But the Nine Inch Noize version is so much better! It is full of static and haunting. It is less “obsessive lover” and more “serial killer taking a trophy.” And despite that, it would still fill any dance floor!
Really, the whole album is so great, as a unit and each individual songs. It’s going to take several more listens for me to fully appreciate it, I think.