- Welfare Sounds & Records
- 2026
Superheroes walk among us. There are people out there who can pull off incredible feats beyond any standard human capacity, who are using their abilities for the common good. They don’t often wear spandex uniforms and capes, but it’s not like they’re all going incognito either. Many of these gifted creatures flaunt their powers out in public, not making any effort to remain undercover.
So it goes every time Maja Milner steps to the mic. Makthaverskan’s singer wails with a force that feels supernatural. Listening to her sing is like being blasted with beauty and unbound fervor, like somebody invented a laser specifically designed to work like a sonic exclamation point. Her bandmates are all brilliant in their own capacities, contributing to propulsive sonic backdrops that brim with life. But Milner’s vocals push Makthaverskan over the top, into euphoria.
This week, we’re blessed to be bombarded once again. Glass And Bones, the Gothenburg quintet’s fifth album and first in five years, will impact this Friday. It finds them once again in top form, wielding their signature blend of hard-charging post-punk and pristine, jangly indie-pop as if it’s the most natural thing in the world to write, perform, and record songs this vibrant. They say creating this album was an incredibly fun experience that left them bonded ever more tightly, and you can hear it in the music.
There are artists whose strength is their versatility, but this band succeeds by pulling off a particular style exceptionally well. They spell it out clearly in promotional materials: “It feels like the aim with this album was to lean even further into who we are. A fully distilled version of the Makthaverskan sound.” Makthaverskan are experts at channeling passion into bright and agile outbursts, shaded around the edges with goth and shoegaze but never at the expense of lightning-struck accessibility. Imagine the Sundays jolted to life with the hair-raising intensity of Love Is All, or Alvvays haunted by the spirit of Siouxsie And The Banshees. It’s the sound of anger and anxiety transmuted into a joyous endorphin rush.
Glass And Bones does venture outside that formula occasionally. Despite Milner’s lyrics about not being able to breathe, “Louie” finds a festive space between the New Radicals’ “Get What You Give” and Madonna’s “Holiday,” casting Milner’s vocals against an unusually chilly backbeat. “Black Waters” and “Anytime” scale back Makthaverskan’s chiming churn to little more than a guitar and that peerless voice. Whereas she usually rides the currents kicked up by her bandmates, the ballads offer her a spotlight moment, a chance to slice through the silence. “Don’t let go tonight! Oh, don’t sell your soul!” she exclaims at the outset of “Black Waters.” As the song advances, she wanders into brooding corners but always eventually soars back to the electrifying sweet spot in her vocal range.
Milner isn’t the only one who gets to shine on this record. Drummer Andreas Palle Wettmark conjures breathless momentum on “Shatter” even before the barrage of guitar and bass begins, brings a militaristic edge to “Öken,” and supplies “Won’t Wait” with a hip-shaking rhythm worthy of a 1960s beach party without compromising the band’s distinctive imprint. Irma Krook’s bass is the band’s lifeblood, steadily surging beneath the tangle of six-string beauty. As for those guitars, Per Svensson and Hugo Randulv channel the best of 1980s Manchester, from Johnny Marr’s punchy little chord riffs to New Order’s overwhelming deluge of arpeggios. Like Milner’s vocals, their playing blurs the line between gorgeous and ferocious.
But as always, Milner steals the show. “Pity Party” kicks off the album with a bang, as effervescent a breakup song as you’ll find. “What happened to us, honey?” Milner tenderly emotes, before launching into the upper reaches of her range to declare “Now all the life and love turned into ashes/ Nothing really matters” with an intensity that suggests she still cares. It’s like a trip to the airshow from there, melodies shooting skyward and dive-bombing across the mix with a controlled fearlessness. By the time she’s lamenting “I loved you more than I have ever loved someone” amidst the closing track’s detonations, you may feel something has been exorcised in yourself even if catharsis for Milner herself feels just beyond reach. Such is the burden of the superhero.
Glass And Bones is out 4/3 via Welfare Sounds & Records.
Other albums of note out this week:
• Thundercat's Distracted
• SUNN O)))'s SUNN O)))
• Earl Sweatshirt, MIKE, & Surf Gang's POMPEII / UTILITY
• Bruce Hornsby's Indigo Park
• Robber Robber's Two Wheels Move The Soul
• Wendy Eisenberg's Wendy Eisenberg
• Poison Ruïn's Hymns From The Hills
• deary's Birding
• Division Of Mind's Exoterror
• Commitment's Fear Of
• Arlo Parks' Ambiguous Desire
• Lantlôs' Nowhere In Between Forever
• Kronos Quartet's Glorious Mahalia
• Katie Alice Greer's Perfect Woman Sound Machine, Vol. 1
• Spaceport's Cut The Lake
• Hiding Places' The Secret To Good Living
• Maria Taylor's Story’s End
• A Place To Bury Strangers' Rare And Deadly
• Charley Crockett’s Age Of The Ram
• Corrosion Of Conformity's Good God / Baad Man
• Joe Pernice's Sunny, I Was Wrong
• The Bevis Frond's Horrorful Heights
• Knumears' Directions
• John Andrews & The Yawns' Streetsweeper
• Philine Sonny's Virgin Lake
• Ber’s Good, Like It Should Be
• Charles Joseph Smith's Collected Works And War Of The Martian Ghosts
• How To See Know And Fall's ECOLOGIES
• L.Y.R.'s Dark Sky Reservation
• Jonny Fritz's Debbie Downers - WOODWINDS
• The Milk Carton Kids' Lost Cause Lover Fool
• Lipphead's The Long Way
• Sofía Rei's Antónima
• Nervosa's Slave Machine
• Lewis OfMan's 50KWTTS
• David Aaron Greenberg's Trap Poems
• Grade 2's Talk About It
• Beatrice Deer's Inuit Legend
• Kalyn Fay's ᎠᎾᏒᎤ
• Metropolis Ensemble, Erik Hall, & Sandbox Percussion's Canto Ostinato
• Elizabeth & The Catapult's Responsible Friend
• 33's Tripolar
• Radwan Ghazi Moumneh & Frédéric D. Oberland's Eternal Life No End ليلة ظلماء ملعونة، كحياة طالبيها
• Los Retros' Odisea
• Luke Grimes' Redbird
• Billy Fuller's Fragments
• PS Goner's there’s an atm inside
• Mark Svenvold And Ted Sabety's You, Me And The Algorithmic Sea
• Galvezton's Ocean Cabaret
• Omah Lay's Clarity Of Mind
• Kep1er's Crack Code
• Sam Barber's Broken View
• Sophia Yau-Weeks's Misty Mountain
• OrangeTone's Breachlight
• Angine de Poitrine's Vol II
• Various Artists' Just Cause Vol. 2
• Bon Iver's VOLUMES: ONE "SELECTIONS FROM MUSIC CONCERTS 2019-2023 BON IVER 6 PIECE BAND"
• TEED's Always With A Remix
• Los Thuthanaka's Waq'a EP
• Population II's Gimmicks EP
• Common People's Games EP
• Iris Copperman's Middle School Dropout EP
• Still Bones' Start/Stop EP
• Christina’s Trip, Mox, & Natasha Sandworms' Lucky Three Split EP
