Blogcritics The critical lens on today's culture & entertainment
A Green New Day
It’s a coming-of-age story, but will it be a hero’s journey? You’ll have to see Nimrods to find out. Opening in theaters on August 14, 2026, the movie follows three friends who wrongly believe their band has a New Year’s Eve gig opening for Green Day. Today, July 31, 2026, Green Day releases the 30-track soundtrack on CD, cassette (what is up with all these cassette releases?), digital, and vinyl.
More than two-thirds of the tracks are Green Day classics. There’s also their new song “I’m Never Gonna R.I.P.” and songs by The Paradox, Mckenna Grace, Ultra Q, and the movie’s fictional band Analog Dogs.
Burned Out
The final album from Ministry crash-lands Oct. 30, 2026 on Cleopatra Records. Hate To Go (Take Out or Delivery) is available for pre-order, and, while this may be their last album, the industrial metal giants are on tour this year and next. The animated video for the title track (props to director Joshua Bradford!) documents an “avalanche of madness” and it’s pretty much an avalanche of madness itself:
“Final album?” you ask. So, hear it straight from Ministry’s Al Jourgensen: “I’m f*ing done. I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished. I’m amazed at the path that it’s taken…It’s been quite a ride, but I’m completely at peace with the fact that it’s done. It’s time to herd goats.”
You herd it here, goats – folks.
Chandler Travis
Cape Cod institution Chandler Travis (of Travis & Shook) has a new album out this month on Biddy Records. Branches Out has roots in an un-produced musical with themes of aging and dementia that Travis wrote with lyricist David Greenberger (the subject of new documentary, Beyond the Duplex Planet) and playwright Gip Hoppe. The album features Travis’s quartet Three-O along with what he calls his Philharmonic, plus guests Zoe Lewis, Kami Lyle, Jennifer Kimball, and one of my faves, Patty Larkin.
Branches Out is out now. Tickets for his New England summer tour are available too.
Reich’s Riches
Steve Reich turns 90 this year, and ECM is marking the occasion with a 3-LP box set containing Reich’s ECM albums that came out from 1978 to 1982. The set includes Music for 18 Musicians, Octet / Music for a Large Ensemble / Violin Phase, and Tehillim.
They’re facsimile editions, with a booklet full of archive photos, pages from Reich’s manuscripts, and liner notes by Paul Griffiths. Def a collector’s item. The box drops Oct. 2, 2026. Pre-order at the ECM website.
Nothin’ But a Found Dog
Yup, I’m a John Prine fan, and the stream of tributes and new releases since his death from COVID continues. On October 9, 2026, the day before what would have been his 80th birthday, his label Oh Boy Records cranks out Found Dogs, an archival release marking the 30th anniversary of the classic album Lost Dogs & Mixed Blessings. The new set includes five previously unheard Prine originals. Pre-save here.
Tony Turns 100
Back in March, John Pizzarelli paid tribute to Tony Bennett with the album Dear Mr. Bennett. DownBeat called it “nostalgia at its freshest.” Bennett, who died in 2023, would have had his 100th birthday this August 3, so to mark the occasion Pizzarelli is releasing a follow-up five-song EP, P.S. Mr. Bennett, via Green Hill Music, while hitting New York’s Birdland Jazz for a five-night run August 4 to 8. The gigs and the recording both feature Pizzarelli on guitar on vocals, Isaiah J. Thompson on piano, and Mike Karn on bass.
Pizzarelli’s father Bucky Pizzarelli had been a Bennett collaborator, so Bennett and John Pizzarelli knew each other for a long time. Tony Bennett is also known for his drawings of fellow musicians, and one of his sketches of John Pizzarelli is on the cover of the new EP.
