Photos: CRATE Signs to Good English Records, Announces Debut Album

New York's Crate has signed to NY/Nashville indie label Good English Records, the band announced. With the news, they are also announcing their long-awaited debut album, Crate, available everywhere November 13, 2026 digitally, on CDs and vinyl. The first preview of the diaristic, bittersweet rock record arrives with 'Not My Song (Mine to Keep),' a track that slides from anxious confession into aching regret before settling into something slower and softer than where it started. Physicals are available for preorder now at goodenglishrecords.bandcamp.com.

'This song sort of has two separate meanings. The chorus is about me dealing with getting anxiety everytime I smoke weed. I would smoke and then almost immediately long for the feeling I had 5 minutes before when I hadn't smoked. Kind of goes hand in hand telling myself I'll wake up early and then disappointing myself when I inevitably sleep in late,' songwriter Cody Hudgins explains. 'The lyrics in the chorus of this song are very literal. The verse, though, is about a relationship I had before moving to New York about 5 years ago and is more emotional for sure. There's some feelings of helplessness and loving someone so much but realizing that you may not be able to help them in their journey of finding themselves. These are all feelings and experiences that really helped me grow as a person and I have a lot of appreciation for that time in my life. Really proud of how this song shaped up. It used to be a lot heavier and louder but we decided one day to turn it around and make it a lot slower and softer which I love. It's probably my favorite song on the album.'

https://lnk.to/notmysong

Crate is eleven tracks built in pieces across Brooklyn apartments and practice spaces before coming together at Ethan Williams of Shower Curtain's studio in Queens. Produced and mixed by Cody alongside TJ Freda of Gift, the record leans into love and change, with Cody and Ezra trading off songwriting duties across a shared, diaristic lyrical world. Capturing relationships that end before they start, the cycles people can't break out of, and the disorientation of hearing yourself become someone new. Sonically, the band works in a hazy, unhurried strain of guitar rock indebted to the noisier corners of My Bloody Valentine and the quieter corners of American Analog Set, Acetone, and Duster, letting songs breathe rather than rushing to resolve. It's the culmination of three years and two prior singles, 'Julia' and 'Necklace,' the first of which Stereogum called 'the best shoegaze song of the year by a band with only one song.'

Entrenched in Brooklyn's DIY scene, Crate has played shows around town alongside Starcleaner Reunion, Shower Curtain, bloodsports and more. This spring, they were tapped by Nothing to play the Slide Away Festival in Chicago with Hum and Chapterhouse. More shows will be announced soon. For more information and updates on upcoming shows, follow Crate on Instagram at @crate.nyc.

About Crate

Crate is Cody Hudgins, Ezra Engler, Henry Smith, and Juan Angulo. Crate spent three years making a record before most people knew the band existed beyond a single song. That song was 'Julia,' a blissed-out guitar spiral the Brooklyn four-piece quietly self-released in February 2024. When 'Necklace' finally arrived a year later, it moved from acoustic lo-fi-pop hush into a distorted haze of fuzz. 'This one speaks a bit about being stuck in different loops in life and trying to break yourself away from it,' says Ezra, one of the band's principal songwriters, of the track. 'You envision your life out of the loop, you'll be way happier. You think about breaking the cycle until you realize it's just easier to fall back into the same loop. Over and over. Every fing time.'

That's the register the band's self-titled debut lives in; humorous and bruised in the same breath. 'Lyrically, the album as a whole is diaristic, a reflection of lived experiences between Cody and Ezra,' says guitarist Juan Angulo. 'Whether it's the melody, the transitions, or the arrangement, we channeled these feelings into each part of the songs. It's a time capsule of our last three years as a band, all wrapped up in a sonic bow.'

The record was built the way most of Crate's life has been, in pieces and on borrowed time. Guitar and vocal tracking happened in apartments and practice spaces around Brooklyn, with the bulk of the album coming together at Ethan Williams of Shower Curtain's studio in Queens. 'Julia' itself dates back further, a July 2023 session at Red Convertible Recordings in Williamsburg. Cody produced and mixed alongside TJ Freda of Gift, a partnership he credits directly. 'We have a really comfortable mixing relationship, which is really important when you're making decisions about how a song sounds,' Cody says of Freda.

Cody's songs tend to start from something small and literal before they widen out. 'Not My Song (Mine To Keep)' began as a song about the anxious comedown after smoking weed before the verses pulled in something heavier, a relationship from five years back that Cody couldn't fix no matter how much he loved the person in it. 'It used to be a lot heavier and louder, but we decided one day to turn it around and make it a lot slower and softer, which I love,' he says. 'It's probably my favorite song on the album.' Elsewhere, 'I Don't' catches him mid-change: 'The lyrics on this one I feel like are very real to me. I genuinely don't sing like I used to, and I know I sound like that band.'

Ezra's songs work more obliquely. 'Watch You Turn' is about the version of a person you invent in your head before you actually know them. 'I've always found it fascinating how your brain forms this ideal person when you're getting to know or about to meet someone,' he says. 'Then when you actually get to know each other, your perception of them slowly melts away and you learn who the true version of them is.' On 'crushed to nothing,' maybe the album's most direct song, he's blunter: 'The main sentiment is about caring deeply about someone who is in a bad position. You do whatever you can to help them out, but you realize at the end of the day the only person that can help them is themselves. I've been on both sides of this coin, the helper and the helpee.'

Tracklist

The Night Before

Over Before The Start

Necklace

Not My Song (Mine to Keep)

Not My Outro

I Don't

Julia

Watch You Turn

Double Stitch

Crate Theme

Crushed to Nothing

Photo Credit: Tate Shockley [Download Hi-Res Image]