Aug 2026 // The Haze
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Jump to the playlist on Apple Music here!
August saw the return of lots of long daily drives in smoky weather, leading to lots of hours of music listening. Here are a handful of the songs that really pulled my focus this month!
// FULL PLAYLIST
01: Two Steps From Hell - “Miracles”
02: Phoebe Bridgers - “I Can’t Wait”
03: Linkin Park - “My<Dsmbr”
04: After - “Where we are now”
05: Chromatics - “Cherry”
06: The Black Queen - “Ice to Never”
07: Anysia Kym & Tony Seltzer - “Long4”
08: underscores - “The Peace”
09: Rebecca Black - “Tears In My Pocket”
10: NOVELISTS - “In Heaven”
11: Bilmuri - “SHYT FYST”
12: Dead Letter Circus - “Lodestar”
13: Volumes - “California”
14: Karmanjakah - “Thousand Horns”
15: Northlane - “CUT_it”
16: PEUR - “Death of the Wolf”
// SPOTLIGHTS
Phoebe Bridgers - “I Can’t Wait”
I know Beefy Fridgers is great, but I’ve never really connected with her full albums. Stranger in the Alps has fantastic songs, but it doesn’t fully gel for me. Same with Punisher—”Chinese Satellite” is a banger and a half, but a lot of it just blends together. This is absolutely not the case with her newest album Lost Weekend and especially the track I’ve pulled out here, “I Can’t Wait.” Not only is the music video such a fantastic idea (I’d love to be a tiny bug in Phoebe’s guitar) but the blend of synthesizers and acoustic elements makes a palette on this track that feels much more than the sum of its parts. It reminds me in a lot of ways of Elohim’s first EP; adding synthetics to organic sounds makes a composition that feels hyperreal, like it’s more organic than possible. Incredible songwriting, incredible lyrics, and a cathartic end to a fantastic album. Phoebe is going places beyond where she already is, and that alone is shockingly cool for a pop indie darling of her caliber. Incredible work.
underscores - “The Peace”
Nostalgic lyrics, forward-thinking drumless production, lots of little moments that feel inspiring and special.
Northlane - “CUT_it”
Feels like they realized what made “Carbonized” cool and removed all the stuff that made it… not. I think that Northlane has been a little all over the place since Alien, and while I’m not exactly expecting this next album to be as well put together as it or Node, it’s already shaping up to be more meaningfully constructed than Obsidian. Love the guitar tones, love the progression, love the delayed hits. A lot of the vocal effects in the shouts, particularly at the end, feel like a fully realized version of what I See Stars tried on THE WHEEL. Where they came up short, Northlane manages to stick the landing.
