As we near the halfway pole of the musical year, it’s time to reflect back on the best albums that have been released so far. The top ten albums listed below should be considered early Album of the Year contenders. If we’re being honest, 2026 feels like a slightly down year for top albums so far. But that doesn’t mean there’s still not some great stuff you don’t want to miss.
PLEASE NOTE: This only includes albums that have been reviewed by Saving Country Music so far. Just because an album is not included here doesn’t mean it’s not good, or won’t be reviewed in the future.
Recommendations and opinions on albums is encouraged, including leaving your own list of favorite albums in the comments section below. But nothing has been “forgotten,” and no list is illegitimate just because one particular album is left off, or a certain album is included. So be constructive with your comments.
Aside from the first ten albums being the top recommendations, the albums are presented in no particular order.
It’s hard to not slip into hyperbole when listening to Emily Scott Robinson. Her new album Appalachia doesn’t make it any easier on you. Despite previous Song of the Year accolades and Best Album contention, it’s this one that makes it difficult to impossible to resist believing in the awesome power of music, and of this particular artist. It’s a test of mettle and fortitude to not have to choke back tears, to not be transfixed and metamorphosized by the experience. Simply put, it’s difficult to impossible to argue life isn’t better on Earth due to this music.
Some albums we measure against their peers of a given year. For others, it’s necessary to venture to the catalogs of other years to find comparable works. Emily Scott Robinson’s Appalachia is one of those albums, with the only question left to resolve being what its impact might be. But for those who venture to listen, the impact will be alleviation, gratefulness, and a renewed fortitude to face life’s challenges and the fears we have of what’s happening in the world to the point of feeling nothing short of transformational.
Straddling the border between Kentucky and Ohio, youth and maturity, divinity and sin, sobriety and drunkenness, two brothers going by the names Gus and Phin deftly explore the duality of life and man in songs that carry wisdom well beyond their years, while not overlooking the importance of a song to entertain.
They’re called Low Gap, and even though a single of theirs might’ve slid onto your radar as far back as 2021, Geneva is their very intentional debut album. It’s also a doozy, and the kind of debut every band wants to forward, but only do when they’re patient, persistent, bring forth songs that are battle tested and road worn, and the players are inherently talented and true to themselves like the Johnson brothers.
Rachel Brooke already has a stacked catalog of badass country and Gothic roots albums that have made her outright revered by a fervent assembly of fans. But she has never been more country, her voice has never been showcased so exquisitely, her songwriting has never been so sharp and clever, and the music has never been so complimentary as it is on her new album This One’s For You. That’s not to sell any other title from her past short. That’s to compliment on how she career’d out on this one.
The genius of This One’s For You is how Rachel Brooke starts with a foundation very traditional country musical tones, and verses hewn from entertaining rural parlance, including delivered in talk singing just like the oldtimers. Then in certain songs, she throws down these exquisitely insightful and brutally true observations about the dystopian technological abyss we’re all staring into. On their face, these bouts of modern perspective are stridently anachronistic set against the classic country background. But this is what gives these moments a sharpness and power.