Every month, we’ll be telling you lucky bastards about the best music we’ve been listening to. It might be old, it might be new, it might be somewhere in the middle – but it will definitely be brilliant. Well, unless it’s chosen by one of those team members with terrible taste. We’ll leave it at that. Here’s the best of March 2026:
Tom Burrows
Little in the way of new albums from me once again this month. Maybe I’ve given up? I heard a nice song from Shabaka (’Step Lightly’). I listened to some of the War Child album, and my favourite track was an instrumental by King Krule called ‘The 343 Loop’. When he taps into that jazzy instrumental mood it really hits the sweet spot for me. After going to see – and very much enjoying – the Gorillaz show, I went back through some of their discography. ‘Tomorrow Comes Today’ remains a banger. And finally, on a lengthy drive I went back through The Smile’s albums. Don’t know what prompted it, but I feel I’m enjoying them more with a bit of distance.
Rick Larson
New Orleans has as rich a musical heritage as any city, but has not made any real dent at all in the punk rock world. Twisted Teens may change that with their new album Blame the Clown. This music strikes such a deep chord. It’s entirely immediate and 200 years old. A steel guitar snakes in, out and over fuzzed out guitars, loosely tuned drums and the gloriously named Caspian Hollywell’s raspy, fully felt vocals. This is the Americana of eating chili out of can while crouched next to a railroad track. An entirely unexpected and wonderful album.
All the cool kids are listening to Mandy, Indiana and I aspire to be cool so I am, too. It’s fun, but a purely observational exercise. I like watching egg whites whip in an electric mixer, but I don’t stick my finger in there. I find electronic/industrial music usually to be emotionally distant. When such music is entirely effective for me, I meet it in a dissociative state on its own plane, outside of myself, which is thrilling in its own way. I’m not supposed to be here, but I am and I’m connected to something, a tethered space walk. Jockstrap does this for me. Mandy, Indiana does not, the difference between seeing an animal in the wild, where the pulse quickens, or in a zoo. What am I trying to say? That you should listen to bassvictim’s new album “?.” The album has a handmade feel and Polish-English vocalist Maria Manow a fractured and unpredictable delivery over a jumble of sounds. Sometimes you feel like you’re eavesdropping, but discovered and welcomed in. It’s a strange, brief album and quite pleasant and comfortable in its strangeness.
Fliss Clarke
This month my sister went to see Chess the Musical on Broadway. I was vicariously giddy due to a historical family familiarity with the show and embarked on a somewhat manic consumption of the Broadway production’s YouTube content and the original 1984 concept album recording featuring Elaine Paige and Murray Head.
Chess is such a bizarre musical. The Cold War love square plot around a board game is bonkers. But the songs are incredible! With music by Abba’s Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus and lyrics by Tim Rice, it is a wild ride of hits, ballads, drama and camp: the big duet “I Know Him So Well”; hilarious odd-rap-pop bop “One Night in Bangkok”; the surreal medley of rock, Soviet chant and American marching band of “Opening Ceremony”, and so on.
Glee alumni star of the new Broadway production Lea Michele has released “Nobody’s Side” as a single, which is audacious as the original Elaine Paige version is definitive and unbeatable. It’s a powerhouse belter song with such precious lyrical gems as “Everybody’s playing the game / but nobody’s rules are the same” and “Never stay too long in your bed / never lose your heart, use your head”. The incredibly 80s video of Paige’s formidable performance and gravity-defying hair is a masterpiece.
James Spearing
March was the first time I’d ever listened to Rival Consoles and now I’m annoyed. I’m annoyed that I never heard them before and that nobody ever mentioned them. They’ve been around for ages and make similar sounds to many other acts I already love; Four Tet, Bicep, Simian Mobile Disco to name just a few. I’m still exploring their back catalogue but 2015’s Odyssey / Sonne and Landscape from Memory from last year are already stand out. If you’re a fan of the gentler end of electronica too and have not heard them then take this as a strong recommend from me so you don’t miss out too.
Fran Slater
If you’ve listened to Episode 77 of the Picky Bastards Podcast, or just me talking at all in the last ten years, it’ll be obvious that in any time there is a new The Twilight Sad album, there is gonna be little competition for my favourite music of that month.
It only came out on Friday, so I am still getting to know it – and I absolutely certain that there are a myriad of layers that I am yet to discover. But on early impressions, I feel like it takes the aggressive, 80s-inspired art rock sound of the last album to a new level, with layers of emotion that we’ve come to expect from James Graham and co.
Dead Flowers in the standout track to me at this moment, but I am sure they will all have their time in the coming months. Do yourself a favour, and get some Twilight Sad in your lives.
Picky Bastards 