The Best Rock Albums of 2026 So Far — Becky Franzel Returns | The Sonic Road Podcast Ep. 32

Returning guest and Milwaukee author Becky Franzel joins host Beau for a wide-ranging conversation about the rock, metal, and alternative releases that have defined 2026 so far — plus what's still coming, summer tour season, the state of vinyl, and the ongoing debate around Record Store Day, Bandcamp, and Spotify. Albums and artists covered in this episode: — The Black Crowes: A Pound of Feathers (March 2026, Silver Arrow) — Corrosion of Conformity: Good God / Baad Man (April 2026, Nuclear Blast) — Elder: Through Zero (May 2026, Blues Funeral Recordings) — All Them Witches: House of Mirrors (May 2026, BMG) — Weedpecker: Fifth album — Kat Clyde: Mud and Bone — Handsome Jack: Barn Burners — Fortune Child: Trio EP — The Black Keys: Peaches (upcoming) — ABRAMS: Loon (Blues Funeral Recordings) — Plus: Clutch, Bethlehem Shalom, Ian Vera, and more Beyond the music, Beau and Becky dig into the economics of vinyl buying in 2026 — the rising cost of Record Store Day releases, how smaller retailers get squeezed out, and why buying direct from artists and through Bandcamp remains the most effective way to support independent music. They also get into the singles culture debate, summer festival and touring hopes, the Ticketmaster monopoly problem, fair splits at indie venues, and the state of the music industry in general. Becky also shares updates on her current writing projects, including her fourth book Death's Subcontractor Derrick, and where to find her work. Beau announces plans for a free Sonic Road newsletter. Becky Franzel is a Milwaukee-based independent author and copywriter. Her books include This Road Must Go Somewhere (2018), Moving Forward (2019), and Death's Intern Derrick (2023). 📚 FIND BECKY FRANZEL: Website: beckyfranzel.com Publishing: awshuckspub.com 🔔 SUBSCRIBE to The Sonic Road Podcast: https://linktr.ee/thesonicroad 📲 FOLLOW THE SONIC ROAD PODCAST: @thesonicroad Instagram | TikTok | Facebook | X ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 00:00 Episode Intro & Guest Welcome 00:46 Subscribe & Free Newsletter Announcement 01:35 Record Store Day — Costs, Pricing & Smaller Retailers 04:22 Bandcamp vs. Spotify — Where Your Money Actually Goes 05:03 Host Writing New Music 06:26 2026 Albums — Kicking Off the List 07:04 The Black Crowes — A Pound of Feathers 09:33 Kat Clyde — Mud and Bone 11:21 Folk Music & Cool-Down Stories 13:56 Weedpecker — Psych Rock Deep Dive 15:59 Bethlehem Shalom — A Live Discovery 18:34 Corrosion of Conformity — Good God / Baad Man 20:08 Singles Culture & the Patience to Wait for Albums 21:52 Ian Vera Single & the Pop Debate 24:21 Clutch Memories & Reissue Talk 29:03 Major Label Failures 29:30 All Them Witches — House of Mirrors Hype 30:46 Intense Fanbase Stories 32:22 Tour Hopes & Upcoming Guests 33:35 Gear Talk — Recording Setup 34:15 Handsome Jack — Barn Burners Spotlight 35:27 Elder — Through Zero Preview 37:25 Fortune Child — Trio EP 38:50 The Black Keys — Back to Blues with Peaches 42:15 ABRAMS, Loon & DesertFest 43:47 European Festivals & Nostalgia 47:39 The Ticketmaster Monopoly Problem 49:57 Indie Venue Fair Splits 52:00 Writing Projects & Yoko 55:05 Becky's Books & Sign Off ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ #RockMusic2026 #BestAlbums2026 #TheBlackCrowes #CorrosionOfConformity #Elder #AllThemWitches #Weedpecker #HandsomeJack #ABRAMS #KatClyde #TheBlackKeys #TheSonicRoadPodcast #RockPodcast #MusicPodcast #RecordStoreDay #Bandcamp #Vinyl #HeavyRock #BeckyFranzel #NewMusic2026 #Ticketmaster #LiveNation #TheBestAlbums2026 Follow The Sonic Road Podcast on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook & X: @thesonicroad Subscribe on Youtube, Spotify & Apple Podcasts: https://linktr.ee/thesonicroad