On their eponymous debut, the Dallas-based BAD STUFF (featuring members of the critically acclaimed True Widow) aims to deliver one of 2026’s most engrossing and cinematic slow-burning rock records.

The band’s alternative, almost Lynchian take on the genre is palpable from the onset of the album opener, “Sullen”: Nicole Estill’s bare kick-snare rhythm makes way to contemplative, laid-back guitar and bass twangs from DH Phillips and Laura Hartman, churning into an ebb and flow alongside moody keys and a cool, almost-funereal vocal delivery from Jackie Dunn Smith. What follows feels like a journey across fuzzed-out passages of surreal, dreamy introspection.

Elsewhere on the album, the glossiness of a song title like “Summer Girls” is offset by a creeping, repeating guitar and bass riff that builds and builds as the lyrics explore melancholy:

“Summer girls only cry in their dark rooms

Summer girl keep their faces dry