Josh da Costa: New Wave Graveyard's titles carry the weight

Josh da Costa released New Wave Graveyard on July 24, 2026 via Stones Throw. It is an 11-track album with a title that announces a theme and a tracklist that follows it. The record runs from Skygirl to Proving Me Right, then through Cordelia, Shireen, Tissues, Hospital Clown, After Your Heart, Slip By, Sleepy Babe, 96 Year Old Girl, and Beach In The Rain. Those names are specific, strange, and mostly sad. The sequence is not random: the longest song, Proving Me Right at 5:05, sits at track two, and the closer is a 3:35 short cut about rain on a beach. That is a record with a shape.

The title is the thesis. New Wave Graveyard links the afterlife of a genre to an actual graveyard, and the song titles live inside that idea. Skygirl and Hospital Clown sound like characters. 96 Year Old Girl sounds like a folk song or a joke, maybe both. Beach In The Rain sounds like cleanup after the whole affair. The runtimes reinforce the discipline. Only one track passes five minutes, and most stay between three and four and a half. That suggests an editor was in the room, cutting the fat before the songs ever got mastered.

The problem is that a good tracklist is not proof of a good album. A set of evocative names and reasonable lengths does not make a hook, and the verifiable material does not tell us whether these songs execute. The title could be a sharp framework or a shield. The evidence favors the former: the range of titles is wide, the pacing is tight, and the closing image lands on paper. But structure is not sound, and a record with this much naming ambition needs melodies strong enough to carry the weight. We cannot hear them yet from the metadata.

Still, the record makes a strong case before a note plays. It is a compact album with a clear title, a coherent tracklist, and disciplined runtimes. New Wave Graveyard leaves a mark on the page. The question is whether it leaves one in the ear.

The tracklist

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