“It’s like a no-holds-barred riff throwdown between nu-metal and grunge. It. Does. Not. Let. Up.”: February 2026 Guitar World Editors’ Picks
Two generations of virtuosos – Steve Vai and Matteo Mancuso – join forces, Midwest Emo GOATs American Football return, Anna Calvi works wonders with her Telecaster, Mateus Asato gives us long-awaited instrumental bliss, and Angine de Poitrine deliver, uh, “Dada-Pythago-Cubist Mantra-rock” – all this and much, much more
Hello there, and welcome to Guitar World Editors’ Picks – our monthly guide to the guitar tracks that have captured the attentions of our editors over the past four weeks or so.
With the aid of our Spotify playlist below, we’ve rounded up all our favorite new releases from the month of February, and put them under the microscope to wax lyrical on the playing, tones, and songwriting that have set our six-string senses a-tingling.
The guitar greatness we've seen this month has buoyed the spirits of our team, who've all been experiencing dreary or nasty winters, and it's been all over the map.
Two hugely influential guitar heroes of different generations joined forces, Avengers-style, one of the instrument's most buzzed-about names finally released his solo debut, the kings of Midwest Emo guitar returned in fine form, and Angine de Poitrine... well, you're just gonna have to scroll down for that – has to be seen and heard to be believed.
All that and a lot more in our playlist below.
Michael Astley-Brown – Editor-in-Chief
Steve Vai once hailed Matteo Mancuso as “the evolution of guitar”, and now, perhaps inevitably, he’s found his way onto the Sicilian shredder’s new album. Solar Wind finds Mancuso pulling back on the fireworks and tapping into his Jeff Beck fandom with some aching whammy bends on his Yamaha Pacifica. It leaves Vai to pick up the shred with otherworldly harmonized leads that use the whammy bar in a far more bombastic way.
In the MAB household, any new release from influential – yet criminally undersung – ’90s alt-rock soundscapists Failure is cause for celebration, and The Air’s On Fire lives up to their usual lofty standards: uneasy chord progressions, gloriously modulated leads, and a production worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster.
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And on a very different alt-rock note, I’d like to give British ragers HAWXX a shoutout for Macho Bullshit, which, as you might expect, gets right to the point. It’s like a no-holds-barred riff throwdown between nu-metal and grunge. It. Does. Not. Let. Up.
Oh yeah, and no biggie: there’s a new Converge album, and a reminder that, yes, Kurt Ballou is responsible for the most unique guitar tones in heavy metal. At a hair over 30 minutes, Love Is Not Enough is one of the tightest records we’ve heard from the Massachusetts mathcore stalwarts. It’s wall-to-wall chug that’s a world away from amp modelers and plugins. It sounds less like amps being cranked and more like amps freaking exploding.
Matt Parker – Deputy Editor
Anna Calvi is one of those guitarists who appears to exist as an independent entity, free of a lot of the cultural baggage (the good and, er, not so good) that surround the six-string. When she wants to unleash it, she is an inspiring and dynamic lead player, but is more often found exploring the instrument’s textural possibilities.
We’ve had two tasters from new EP Is This All There Is? (due March 20) – with God’s Lonely Man featuring a great cameo from Iggy Pop that reminds me of his early solo era, while Calvi warps and bends her Tele in siren-like howls around his haggard baritone vocal. The contrast works brilliantly.
The prior single, I See A Darkness, has Calvi partnering with Perfume Genius for a sparse, soft-stepping, almost whispered, nighttime number that showcases some of the incredible tonal range she has at her fingertips.
Another Brit (full disclosure, I am one) I’m continually bowled over by is Debbie Gough, guitarist of metal band Heriot. They dropped Master Of Deceit this month, having closed out 2025 on tour in the US with Trivium and Jinjer. The closer of their album Devoured By The Mouth Of Hell devotes most of its last minute to Gough’s typically face-grabbing solo work.
I love the way she eschews dull shred and leans confidently into bends and whammy work with her leads – and never seems hurried with it, despite the often frantic backing. Here she takes her time, porting in a solo that oozes classic thrash, but at a sort of half-speed setting – and sounds way stronger for it.
The Black Keys are back (back again). But You Got To Lose hits me differently, with a more immediate, angular riffage that suggests a band that have long nailed the ‘how to sound good’ conundrum suddenly being snapped out of their dotage. It feels more vital than pretty much anything I’ve heard from them since Brothers.
Finally, happy release month to the excellent Ratboys – their latest, Penny In The Lake, is just a litany of indie guitar loveliness, all clang and chime, with a chunky knit of wrangly melodies that makes me want to don it like a sweater.
Jackson Maxwell – Operations Editor
As someone who's had nought but perfect mental health their entire life, of course I was excited to hear that American Football were back with their fourth album, and their first in seven years. First single Bad Moons shows the Midwest Emo GOATs taking no prisoners, with frontman/guitarist Mike Kinsella as ever cracking open the darkest pages of his diary for the world – “I've been so many boys in this trench coat/Ask my ex-wife/She met Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide” is particularly crazy work (complimentary, in the highest sense).
Musically, it's a dazzling eight minutes. For those unfamiliar with Kinsella and guitarist Steve Holmes' hypnotic six-string interplay, get lost in this. There are ethereal arpeggios, beautiful leads that play off walls of cinematic tremolo picking... there's so much more to these two than memed riffs.
It's been a brutal winter here in New York City, and a miserably gray one for my co-workers 'cross the Atlantic, and Tedeschi Trucks Band's new tune, Who Am I, has been my means of mentally escaping into a summer road trip fantasy when I look out at the mountains of snow outside my window.
What can you even say about Derek Trucks as a soloist at this point? Just every cliché, I guess. The solo that rounds out Who Am I checks all the boxes: Paints a detailed picture; is singable; transports you to another place; takes the song to another level. If that sounds like a dismissal, it's not – he just makes it sound so maddeningly easy.
On the more avant-garde side of things, I don't recall ever having blabbed on about Alan Sparhawk (formerly of Low) on this site before – there's a first time for everything! The man has simply brought sounds out of the guitar that I've never heard it make, and beyond that, he can traverse any stylistic grounds he wants.
One of his new tunes, JCMF, is a fire-breathing examination of faith driven by ragged, Neil Young-like riffing. It's the guitar as a weapon, the pointed end of a spear – mind-blowing stuff.
Matt Owen – News Editor
Here in the UK, it has rained virtually every single day of 2026 so far. Which means I’ve had little else to do except sit inside, listen to music, play guitar, and try my best to learn more Robben Ford licks – a mind-expanding task that I gave more attention to this month thanks to Perfect Illusion.
Perfect Illusion is, ahem, the perfect song to listen to if you’re looking to broaden your blues and jazz-y lead chops – like most Ford songs. It’s heavy on the piano to start with, and it’s got a nice ballad-y vibe to it, but there’s still room for plenty of Robben-isms in there. A neat demonstration on what it means to ‘serve the song’.
February 2026 will also go down in the guitar history books as the month Mateus Asato finally released his debut solo record. Fans have been asking for it for years, and after years of cementing his name as one of the most tasteful players of his generation, Asato has well and truly delivered the goods.
It continues to amaze me how Asato can keep his chops feeling and sounding so fresh. If I try and do my best Asato impression, I last about five minutes (if that) before I start retracing my steps. Each track here offers something different – take Kawaii, for instance. It’s got all the Asato-isms you know and love (double-stop slides, uber-dynamic swells, chromatic runs) but they never feel tired or overly familiar. The melody work here is top notch. A feat for a 15-track instrumental album.
Other highly anticipated releases this month include the new U2 EP, Days of Ash. Released ahead of a fully fledged album slated for later this year, it features perhaps the band’s most politically charged material to date.
For me, Song of the Future is the standout track. A tribute to Iranian teenager Sarina Esmailzadeh, who lost her life during the Woman, Life, Freedom protests in Iran in 2022, the track tells her story through a slinky solo, anthemic acoustics, and an irresistible, razor sharp riff.
Janelle Borg – Staff Writer
I have to admit, Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime performance got me spinning his latest record, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, on repeat. As highlighted by the larger-than-life show, the guitar-like cuatro – Puerto Rico's national instrument – features at several points throughout the album, and Bad Bunny's very own cuatrista, José Eduardo Santana, recently gave us more insight into the instrument that brought Puerto Rican folk music to one of the world's biggest stages…
And, speaking of memorable live performances, I’ve recently come across the live KEXP sessions of three acts that have particularly stood out: the London-based Hindustani psychedelic rock band Karma Sheen, who have recently made fans of Jimmy Page and Matt Bellamy, Italy’s La Niña, a singer-songwriter who is bringing traditional Neapolitan music to a new generation, and Montreal’s Angine de Poitrine, the Buckethead-like act that may or may not have popped up on your TikTok For You page after their KEXP session went viral.
The best way to describe Angine de Poitrine's latest single, Fabienk, is angular – fully brought to life during the KEXP session. The masked Khn de Poitrine (it's a pseudonym, of course) plays bass and guitar simultaneously, à la a Gibson EDS-1275, which makes for a very entertaining watch.
Fans on Reddit have also gone to great lengths to identify the cacophony of pedals on the guitarist/bassist's board, which lend themselves well to the microtonal quality of the sound, or what the band aptly describes as “Dada-Pythago-Cubist Mantra-rock.”
The ’board – allegedly – includes a Boss RC-500 Loop Station, an MXR M288 Bass Octave Deluxe, a Mad Professor Supreme Overdrive, a Boss DD-8 Digital Delay, and a Fender Engager Boost. I guess we have to ask them ourselves to find out!
Another exciting, fast-rising act is Mei Semones, and Koneko, a collaboration with Liana Flores, forms part of a collection of material written during her tour stops. As we've come to expect from Semones, it's jazz-inflected through and through, with dashes of bossa nova reflected in both the instrumentation – particularly her virtuosic guitar work – and Semones and Flores' playful vocals.
My final pick for this month is The Last Dinner Party's Let's Do It Again, part of the collaborative album HELP (2) in support of War Child's vital work.
It’s a track that will definitely go down well with fans of David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust era and Queen's repertoire – complete with a glam-rock-esque solo delivered by the excellent Emily Roberts that perfectly complements frontwoman Abigail Morris' theatrical vocals and the swirling instrumentation, which almost makes you feel like you're on a carousel. Listen to it, and you'll see what I mean.
Mike has been Editor-in-Chief of GuitarWorld.com since 2019, and an offset fiend and recovering pedal addict for far longer. He has been writing and editing for guitar publications including MusicRadar, Total Guitar and Guitarist for over 15 years, and recording and performing in original and function bands for two decades-plus. During his career, he has interviewed everyone from John Frusciante to Chris Cornell, Matt Bellamy and Billy Corgan. His writing also appears in The Cambridge Companion to the Electric Guitar. In his free time, you'll find him making progressive instrumental rock as Maebe.
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