URGH

One of the most wonderfully insane albums we'll likely see in 2026.

With URGH, Mandy, Indiana have crafted the first great album of 2026, one that rewards with each exhausting listen. In a time of crisis and uncertainty, URGH is not merely cathartic: it's exorcistic.

From the opener to the closing track, a listener beholds an oftentimes savage and rivetingly textured spectacle.

URGH is both headier and more visceral than anything Mandy, Indiana have made before. This isn’t body music or brain music; it’s spine music, homed in on the bony junction where mind meets matter.

URGH is seldom an easy listen, but that’s the point. It’s designed to challenge you with its electric urgency, designed to make you feel. Such is the galvanizing world of Mandy, Indiana. It’s well worth a visit.

It’s an album that needs to be immersed in fully, and played loud, preferably on headphones to appreciate its many depths. Some may also find the relentless discordance a bit too intense to fully concentrate on. But for those unafraid to dive in, Mandy, Indiana’s second album is an exhilarating, almighty jab to the senses.

An intense, serious record. Call it what you want, but in the hands of Mandy, Indiana words like ‘genre’ and ‘style’ feel utterly redundant.

Yes, it’s also chaotic and messy, but also catchy. This is not an album, or band, to sleep on in 2026.

Developed over a rough couple of years for the band, with both singer Valentine Caulfield and drummer Alex Macdougall battling sickness and enduring multiple rounds of surgery, it nevertheless arrives sounding invigorated and defiant.

‘URGH’ sees Mandy, Indiana once again defy any pigeonholing, demonstrating an unabashed growth that still stays true to its insurgent roots.

Whether shouting over martial drums, whispering behind thick, smoky synths or rapping against a razorwire guitar, URGH is an exercise in harrowing noise; unapologetically visceral and all the better for it.

As closer I'll Ask Her lands a sharp-edged critique of closed-ranks machismo, URGH's urgency of purpose is the loudest takeaway here. [Feb 2026, p.101]

This is a record that has both groove and bite. [Feb 2026, p.37]

All the shifts lend the album an odd pop sensibility, the tracks flowing like a bizarre dance amongst the scraps of modernity. Despite these developments, singer Valentine Caufield remains as incensed, vicious, and powerful as ever.