The Best Song(s) of 2025

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I’m gonna be honest with you guys, I have no idea what I’m doing running this site. More often than not, it feels like I’m wingin’ it. All I know is geek out about music that I like and do whatever sounds fun. 

A bunch of this year’s best interviews, reviews, and retrospectives were things brought to me by our team of talented writers. It’s their interests that spark things, their obsessions they want to share, and their Special Interest Guys they want to talk about. Most of the time, I’m just a dude who says ‘yes,’ sends a few emails, and does some editing.

This back-and-forth is also how great ideas get cooked up. All it takes is one suggestion, and suddenly we’re off to the races, instituting something like Hater’s Delight, making a wacked-out Valentine’s Day mixtape, or celebrating a decade of this site in the most specific possible way. Last year, in addition to something expected like a roundup of our favorite albums of the year, we also hosted a wrestling-themed smackdown of our favorite songs and a nerdy-ass peek behind the curtains, both of which were formulated by good-old-fashioned bullshitting and committing to the bit. 

This year, when I asked the Swim Team if anyone wanted to write about their favorite songs of the year, the response was something along the lines of “don’t need to when ‘Elderberry Wine’ exists,” which received a slew of enthusiastic responses as we collectively turned over the idea of a roundup that’s just a bunch of people’s love for “Elderberry Wine.” Sure, there are other songs we liked this year, but in a way, something like this feels more applicable to 2025 than any countdown or assemblage of tracks ever could. Please pop your finest bottle of champagne, crank up “Elderberry Wine,” and enjoy these thoughts about, seemingly, our entire team’s favorite song of 2025. 

Taylor Grimes | Wednesday – “Elderberry Wine”

When I saw Wednesday on the Bleeds tour this November, lead single “Elderberry Wine” was buried so deep in the setlist that I had almost forgotten about it. I was so wrapped up in revelry watching one of my favorite rock bands burn through tracks off their first four albums that the absence of their latest record’s lead single didn’t even register until the band started playing those opening notes, and suddenly the entire sold-out venue was singing along. While I’ll always admire them for their balance of head-bobbing heaviness and North Carolina country, “Elderberry Wine” stands as Wednesday’s purest distillation of the latter – a sparkling thing of beauty that shimmers like water and sparkles like mesquite BBQ. We’re lucky to be on the same plane as Wednesday. 

  • My other favorite song of the year is “IDFC” by Spirit Desire.


Caro Alt | Wednesday – “Elderberry Wine”

Tested and approved activities for Elderberry Wining if you have never Elderberry Wined before: lazily tossing magnolia leaves into a campfire just to hear them crackle as the water in their veins evaporates while waiting for your friends to join you. Driving a U-Haul in the rain and arguing over the directions (you are absolutely going the wrong way) before accidentally stumbling upon the World’s Biggest Ball of Yarn on the side of the highway and forgetting why you were so mad. Ordering your third favorite beer at that one dive because they don’t have your favorite beer or your second favorite beer and realizing you’re kinda starting to like this beer the most.

  • My other favorite song of the year is “Sue me” by Audrey Hobert. 

By @countrygazed on IG

Grace Robins-Somerville | Wednesday – “Elderberry Wine”

From the creekside vineyards of North Carolina comes this bittersweet, full-bodied red with top notes of elderberry. Pop open a bottle at your next date night or game night (just don’t flip the board), and I guarantee everyone will get along just fine! Pairs well with pickled eggs, mostly-CBD joints, pedal steel, and premature nostalgia for the present. Do not consume elderberry wine if you are pregnant or operating a motor vehicle (electric or otherwise). A taste of the Carolinas in every sip! 

  • My other favorite song of the year is “I’m Your Man” by My Wonderful Boyfriend.


Cassidy Sollazzo | Wednesday – “Elderberry Wine”

I was a Wednesday skeptic once. And yes, it did fill me with shame. Then I went crazy off the “Elderberry Wine.” Then I read Karly Hartzman’s Vulture essay. Then I re-listened to the entire Wednesday discography 10 times over. Tears, contemplation, a skipped heartbeat here and there. Then, an awakening. Badda bing badda boom, skeptic more. Now that’s some powerful stuff! 

By @countrygazed on IG

Lillian Weber | Wednesday – “Elderberry Wine”

I was awestruck when I first heard this song, realizing it was Wednesday’s masterpiece. When you first hear Karly Hartzman sing “a strong /  reputation for being someone always / someone always” before that single word “down” explodes in guitar fuzz euphoria, do you not feel ecstasy? What could be better… Wait. We’re not all talking about “Townies?” Oh, “Elderberry Wine!” Gotcha. What a song! (Is this whole pretense of thinking we’re talking about“Townies” because if I think too hard about Hartzman singing the lines about having your babies and tornado skies over those guitars that are simply romantic I will spiral at the idea of a love so true? Yes. Yes indeed.) What a chorus!

  • My other favorite song of the year is “make it last” by Total Wife.


Elias Amini | Wednesday – “Elderberry Wine”

There’s something about the toe-to-heel, side-to-side sway of “Elderberry Wine” that made it feel immediately nostalgic to me. Karly Hartzman finds herself amongst the likes of Hope Sandoval, Ben Gibbard, Mark Morrison, and Tracy Chapman (as well as many others) who’ve crafted a truly timeless single that can only age with splendor and grace. You may ask yourself, do we really need an entire article collectively stroking our shit to this song? To which I answer: quite frankly, yes. Yes, we do, that’s really how great this song is and how well it will stand the test of time (the rest of the album falls a bit short for me, but that's a different article). “Elderberry Wine” doesn’t simply deserve a crown for being the best song of the year; it deserves to be etched into music's grand and storied history.


Jason Sloan | Wednesday – “Elderberry Wine”

A little sweet for my taste, but at least it went down easy. Even got through two bottles. Wait… this was supposed to be a song review? Fuck. I’m so fucjing drunk,

By @countrygazed on IG

Braden Allmond | Wednesday – “Elderberry Wine”

The best wine is the one you enjoy the most, even if that’s a Miller High Life. Every time I hear “Elderberry Wine,” there’s a new flavor, an unplaceable pang, and a somehow ever-smoother finish. The song gives away its own secret in the first line: “Sweet song is a long con.” If you don’t think too hard about drinking, it just feels good, and you can overlook—or forget—the damage being done to your body. The song is cute, indie, romantic, and has a country gloss six coats deep. But every new line belies a little doubt: an impending car repair, stormy eyes, and a drink that doesn’t taste bad by a long shot, but it just doesn’t taste how it should. 


Logan Archer Mounts | Wednesday – “Elderberry Wine”

“Elderberry Wine” is a rare song that transforms your whole opinion about a band. I found Wednesday’s Rat Saw God to be one of the most overrated albums of 2023, and I couldn't understand at all what people were connecting to on it. Then, in the first swing of my Wednesday 180, MJ Lenderman’s Manning Fireworks landed in my number one (non-metal) album spot last year. That primed me to give the band another shot with their latest album, Bleeds, and I’m so glad that I did. I’ve revisited Rat Saw God in the months since Bleeds has been out, and I’ve certainly warmed to it more, but I truly believe “Elderberry Wine” is Karly Hartzman’s finest songwriting moment of her career, a miracle lap alt-country classic that’s the centerpiece of the excellent Bleeds album.

  • My other favorite song of the year is “Porcelain” by Neil Cicierega.

By @countrygazed on IG

Katie Hayes | Wednesday – “Elderberry Wine”

It took me until this year to drink the Wednesday wine, and it started with this song. Warm guitar chords and wistful lyrics open the song, and I can feel my blood pressure mellow out. But it’s not necessarily easy listening. Tart with sorrow, a little woozy with loss, there’s a stunning depth to “Elderberry Wine” I didn’t hear anywhere else this year. I’ll toast to that.

  • My other favorite song of the year is “North Poles” by Samia.


Caleb Doyle | Wednesday – “Elderberry Wine”

The brilliance of Wednesday and Karly Hartzman is this: in a catalog full of fuzzed-out, heavy, twangy alt-Country, they still effortlessly lay down a highly effective pure Country Western track. The chorus of “Elderberry Wine” is one of the most profound earworms I’ve ever dealt with. I wake up thinking about how everybody gets along just fine. The lyrics are prime Hartzman yearn–up there with Dolly Parton’s “The Seeker,” and Hank Williams’ “So Lonesome I Could Cry.” It’s a perfect song, even if it was just the chorus and Xandy Chelmis’ pedal steel.

  • My other favorite song of the year is “SPIDERS” by Lola Young

Swim Into The Sound's Staff Favorites of 2025

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It’s hard for me to talk about The Swim Team and not sound like a proud dad, but it’s true! I’m immensely proud of our writers because they’re the ones who make this site what it is. Sure, I’m the bozo editing stuff and hitting “post,” but they’re the ones doing the hard work pouring their hearts out onto the page. They’re the ones steering this site’s taste and dictating the culture of Swim Into The Sound. 

Through this multitude of perspectives, we’ve assembled what I believe to be the coolest and most talented bunch of music nerds this side of the internet. The wild part is this isn’t just a relationship cultivated through Google Docs, DMs, emails, and Discord. Throughout the year, I’ve had the distinct pleasure of meeting many of these people in real life, grabbing a beer or catching a show with them, and talking endlessly about the music that moves us. Surprising no one, they’re just as cool in real life as they are on the page. 

It’s a joy to know these folks, and I consider myself lucky as hell to have them as part of my life and part of this website. Their words, verve, and taste have helped me sharpen my own versions of those things. If that’s too lofty, the recommendations I’ve received from them have been enough to fill my playlists and music queue all year, and that alone is a gift. Today, I share that same gift with you in the form of our team’s favorite albums of the year. What follows are 20 recommendations from 20 different writers, all going to bat for their favorite record of 2025—a diverse spread of music straight from the heart, not the algorithm. As usual, I hope you discover something new and exciting to love; I know I definitely have.

– Taylor

David Williams | Hotline TNT – Raspberry Moon

Third Man Records

A couple of metrics for how I choose my record for the year: What’s the first album that pops to my mind when I recommend music? What album can I spin that instantly gives me that ever-elusive nostalgia fix? What can I listen to constantly without ever growing weary? Raspberry Moon by Hotline TNT checks all these boxes for me this year. Will Anderson has transformed his one-man show into a well-oiled, merciless rock machine by integrating a full band during the writing and recording process for the first time in the band’s history. Everything is grander in scale, from the anthem-level hooks in “Julia’s War” to the blown-out guitar riffs on “Where U Been?” I’ve seen Hotline TNT perform the album live on multiple occasions, and the collective unit plays the songs so muscularly that even Arnold Schwarzenegger would blush.

Raspberry Moon is a gigantic step taken with full force that feels like a band discovering their newfound powers. “The Scene” is a Scud missile of a jam that would fit in on the soundtrack to any Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater game. “Candle” is a power-pop flame hit that will never extinguish. Every song on Raspberry Moon deserves to be played at the highest decibel possible, and when the cops start thunderously banging on your door, they’ll understand why once they hear what’s coming through your speakers.

David’s Other 2025 Favorites:

  • Clipse - Let God Sort Em Out

  • Wednesday - Bleeds

  • The Tubs - Cotton Crown

  • Water From Your Eyes - It’s A Beautiful Place

  • Total Wife - come back down


Caro Alt | Colin Miller – Losin’

Mtn Laurel Recording Co.

After years and years of homesickness, I finally moved back to the South over the summer. I made jokes about how I couldn’t take another winter in a place where it snowed, but I really just missed it here. I made my decision to finally return while walking around Georgia in the aftermath of the winter and listening to Losin’ by Colin Miller for the first time. (I also reviewed it here.) Since that day, I’ve spent the entire year listening to that soft, barely-there delivery of Miller’s, replaying his warped guitars, and feeling the phantom misery he writes about while in the driver’s seat of his car. Spinning his wheels, getting upset in a drive-thru, racing on the highway, picking you up from jail. Sputtering engines, rusting hoods, and watching for headlights. I love this album because it is full of songs about cars that are not actually about cars and songs not about cars that are actually about cars. If you give it a spin, do it while going home, I know I did.

Other Albums I Loved:


Ben Parker | Arm’s Length – There’s A Whole World Out There

Pure Noise Records

This has been a year of change for me. I have gotten back into shape, I traveled across the country, and I saw Arm’s Length three different times. Now, the biggest change awaits as I sit here, staring down a potential job change that will see me move out of Indiana for the first time to a city I have only been to once. In all of this, I find myself connecting to one line in “The Wound” by Arm’s Length where singer Allen Steinberg leads into the hook yelling out, “I’ve spent a lifetime longing to leave, how the fuck could I stay?”

Every single track on There’s A Whole World Out There features some lyric that translates to an actual thought, experience, or feeling that I have had. It makes me feel profoundly human, as I have spent my whole life giving myself to everyone and hardly ever asking for anything in return, beyond the slightest sliver of kindness. I hear the line “When you’re constantly talking sweet / I don’t trust the words / but I don’t really care cause none of them hurt,” and I can’t help but think of the moments I have shared with friends and lovers long past the lifespan of the relationship, when we just said things out of habit. 

Despite the strong, sad themes throughout Arm’s Length’s sophomore album, there is still something inherently hopeful about it. Their debut, 2022’s Never Before Seen, Never Again Found, showcased the ways that childhood trauma can affect someone for their entire life and create a cycle of violence. In contrast, There’s A Whole World Out There has the same sadness and pain woven into its DNA, but shows that, despite it all, you move forward. 

Every person on this planet will live a life, and in that time, we will experience the full breadth of human emotion, and at the end of it all, we will die the same. To some people, this creates a sense of hopelessness, knowing there is nothing you can do to change your fate, and maybe that’s true, but change comes, and it’s worth experiencing. With this album, I have looked my mortality in the eyes and shook its hand, knowing that, just as the final line of the album says, “On any day I may pass, in any way I am killed.”

Other Favorites of 2025:

  1. Infinity Guise - Summerbruise

  2. Reasons I Won’t Change - Tiny Voices

  3. I Don’t Want To See You In Heaven - The Callous Daoboys

  4. Pleaser - Pretty Bitter

  5. Blame It On the Weather - Kerosene Heights


Cassidy Sollazzo | Folk Bitch Trio – Now Would Be A Good Time

Jagjaguwar

“Am I lucky, or am I just sane?” Heide Peverelle asks on the opening track of Folk Bitch Trio’s debut album. I’ve been keyed into the Melbourne three-piece for a few years, surviving only off a few singles (“Analogue” is forever an all-timer) and the hope that an LP was in the works. In 2025, I got my wish. Now Would Be A Good Time is an evocative, stirring collection of songs written over the formative late-teens-to-early-20s years, yet delivered with a confidence and cohesion beyond their years. Peverelle, Jeanie Pilkington, and Gracie Sinclair are more locked-in than ever, each with their definitive voices, roles, and songwriting qualities. The album’s blunt and crass in some moments (“Had a filthy dream to the noise of the hotel TV” or the cutting “Say you wanna get sober, I say I’d like to see you try”), tear-jerking in others (“Moth Song” wrecks me, personally), always delivered with a Mitchellian chord progression and a knowing wink. I’ve seen the group twice since the album dropped in July, once during release week at Nightclub 101, then a few months later at Baby’s All Right on their North American tour (it should be a testament to my love for them that I set foot in Baby’s, my least favorite venue in all of Brooklyn). There is a literal magic that moves through the room during their sets, each of them captivating in their own way. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: not since Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young have we seen harmonies this crisp! Gives me chills!

I wrote more about the Trio and their album for Paste over the summer, if you are so inclined to go deeper on this group. We talked about their recording and songwriting processes, how their friendships play into their group dynamics, and how they’ve been taking to their newfound exposure. 2026 is looking big for them: Kilby Block Party, arena openings for Mumford & Sons, and King Gizzard’s Field of Vision II. Hopefully, you can say you heard it here first! 

Some more favs:

  1. The Rubber Teeth Talk - Daisy the Great

  2. Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory - Sharon Van Etten

  3. In Space - Edith Frost

  4. Cuntry - Cleo Reed

  5. Melt - Not For Radio


Britta Joseph | Pile – Sunshine and Balance Beams

Sooper Records

During one of the many conversations about music I had with my friends this year, the question “Where are all the riffs?” was posed. My immediate answer was, “They’re all on the Pile album.” I stand firmly by my assertion, because Sunshine and Balance Beams is a rager of a release. It’s made for screaming along to: each track a torrent of righteous anger and ethereal beauty, every cutting lyric and brittle snare hit landing exactly where they’re intended to.

The band dissects the cult dynamics of hypercapitalism as though they’re performing vivisection, laying bare the sinister implications of the reality we inhabit. As someone who’s survived severe childhood trauma and spent several years in a religious cult, I cherish Pile’s bold confrontation and thunderous rage against evil in modern society. (If you want to read more about how this album ties into my childhood experiences, I reviewed it in full here.)

Not only is the album’s message necessary and impactful, but the sheer magnitude of the intensely beautiful arrangements, scintillating production, and dense instrumentation has to be experienced to be believed. Frontman Rick Maguire is at his very best, screaming one moment and crooning the next: every song feels like he’s singing it specifically to you. And you know what? Maybe he is.

Five selections from my list of favorites this year:

  • The Spiritual Sound - Agriculture

  • thank god for you - Melancholy Club

  • Don’t Trust Mirrors - Kelly Moran

  • this is my outside voice - satsuma 

  • Catcher - siichaq


Ben Sooy | Flock of Dimes – The Life You Save

Sub Pop

Jenn Wasner has lived large in my musical life for years. I have an instinctual longing to listen to her band Wye Oak (especially their third album, Civilian) every autumn when the air gets frosty and my body pushes me outside to walk, smoke cigarettes, and stare off into the distance. Look at that bird, the leaves are changing, isn’t life just one cycle of life and death dancing all with each other all the time?

Jenn Wasner’s solo project, Flock of Dimes, is having a big year. She had a vocal feature with Dijon on Bon Iver’s SABLE,fABLE (she’s buddies with Justin Vernon, who, a couple of years ago, invited her to be a member of the Bon Iver touring band). The Bon Iver song is great, but her 2025 solo record, The Life You Save, is better. 

Wasner wrote an album about trying to love people who struggle deeply with real shit: addiction, codependency, poverty, etc. Through the arc of the record, you see Wasner struggle to try and save others, but she realizes she’s incapable of even saving herself. There are depths there underneath some very catchy tunes, inspired production, and beautiful vocal performances!

Honorable Mentions:


Lillian Weber | Total Wife – come back down

Julia’s War Recordings

I am permanently in my head about everything. About what other people are thinking, about what I’ve done, about what comes next. My thoughts are a perpetual whirlpool that has no bottom, just a constant downward spiral. But come back down by Total Wife has been an anchor. When I have the record blaring in my headphones, I sink to the bottom of the ocean of my thoughts. I drift down through chopped beats, smeared guitars, and cooed laments to hopes and dreams unfulfilled. From the moment I hear the first notes of “in my head,” I am relieved. Every second after is a warm embrace of understanding. But relief isn’t the only thing this record makes me feel, because this record has “make it last,” and that song doesn’t make me feel relieved – it makes me ecstatic. “make it last” is the air in my lungs and leaves me washed up on a beach gasping for breath. Listening to “make it last,” the euphoric rush of that feedback-drenched chorus hitting my eardrums at full volume, is the best feeling in the world.

Honorable mentions:

  • Lotto by They Are Gutting A Body of Water 

  • Gaman by Star 99

  • Times Up by Bootcamp

  • The Spiritual Sound by Agriculture


David Gay | Sharon Van Etten – Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory 

Jagjaguwar

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of jam bands, from Phish (the best band) to others like Eggy, Goose, and Taper’s Choice. There’s something magical that happens when a group of people let the music take them to an unexpected place, somewhere they may not have gone to in an orchestrated piece. 

In mid-September, Sharon Van Etten and her band, the Attachment Theory, performed at the Hi-Fi Annex in Indianapolis. At one point between songs, she said, “I’m in my 40s, and I finally learned how to jam,” and I realized that I was seeing her grow musically with the help of others, a band. 

After first hearing the rolling bass lines that calls back to 80s bands like New Order on “Idiot Box” to the full-band groove that permeates “Afterlife” and “Somethin’ Ain’t Right,” I immediately knew that Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory was going to be one of my favorite albums of 2025 and that I was going to see Sharon Van Etten in a new way from now on. This is something that was affirmed during her live show, while I was in the midst of a full-blown outdoor dance party, including folks of all ages. 

While the Attachment Theory isn’t a jam band in the traditional sense, it embraces what is so great about that kind of music – the importance of going with the flow and being willing to collaborate with other talented musicians to find a new kind of sound, arriving at something that hasn’t been explored before. This is why it’s one of my favorite albums of the year. 

Other favorite things from 2025: 


Elias Amini | Marasme – Fel

Discos Macarras

There’s been some discussion within the Swim Team about the difference between a “Best of” list and a “Favorites” list. Try as we might, the objective and subjective can blur all too easily. One of my favorite albums of the year, however, sits quite comfortably in that blur. Marasme’s aural black metal groovefest Fel is the band’s latest work, the fourth album to be released in their almost 20-year existence as a group, and the experience shows. Six pummeling, winding, groovy, and at times avant-garde tracks all build and flow into a relentlessly excellent listening experience. I couldn’t tell you that this was my favorite project I’d heard all year. But I can tell you that I loved listening to it when I was between other albums. I imagine some time in the future I may smack my forehead and realize that this was in fact my favorite album of 2025. For now though, I don’t feel the need to lay some exalted crown on this album, only to tell you that it’s a great, enjoyable record and heavy music fans will definitely find themselves coming back to it for more.

Some other records I loved:

  • Massa Nera - The Emptiness of All Things

  • Ninajirachi - I Love My Computer

  • Chevalier - Un dolore a cui non so dare nome

  • Shlohmo - Repulsor

  • Blue Earth Sound - Cicero Nights


Kirby Kluth | Fust – Big Ugly

Dear Life Records

Fust’s Big Ugly feels like an inside joke or a perfect memory from childhood, the kind where you still feel the warm wind blowing against you while all of your favorite people are in sight right there before you. I wrote about Big Ugly in our Q1 roundup because it reminded me of all the ways you can find beauty in The South. A couple of weeks later, Fust played the best show I’ve ever been to at my local venue, the Pilot Light. That little one-two-punch solidified my allegiance, and I’ve been calling Fust “the best band in America” ever since. 

My daughter just turned one, and she has been mimicking my wife and I for some time now. I have gotten her to copy me whistling, and she pretty often catches the right spot to make a true tune. I've been whistling and humming “Sister,” “Bleached,” “What’s His Name,” and “Heart Song” around her for months now, and I hope that someday soon she’ll be whistling a Fust song right back to me. 

2025, according to Kirby:


Noëlle Midnight | Blackbraid – Blackbraid III

Self-released

It’s hard to write about a record when the main thing you want to say is that it’s got really good riffs, but that’s where I find myself with indigenous black metal band Blackbraid’s aptly titled third LP: Blackbraid III. Opening with the sounds of a fire in the woods, an acoustic guitar comes in, setting the scene as night falls, and you are transported into the image depicted on the album art. It’s soft and gentle. Safe.

And then the riffs come in. 

Massive blast beats paired with 16th note riffs immediately tell you what type of record you’re in for, as “Wardrums at Dawn on the Day of my Death” comes on and blasts your ass off. For the next 53 minutes, that’s what you’re in for: acoustic sweetness pulling you into the scene, alternating with black metal speed applied to thrash metal riffs, dragging you through lyrics that tell of a “warrior’s fate to ride the storm.” The album takes the established world and places characters in it, embedded in tales of war and honor, as they are “haunted by memories” in the light of the moon. The imagery is just badass. You feel like you’re watching an epic adventure film where anything could happen. Plus, the riffs are so sick.

Noëlle’s Other Favorites from 2025:

  • Lucy Dacus - Forever is a Feeling

  • Turnstile - NEVER ENOUGH

  • Silverstein - Antibloom

  • Petey USA - The Yips

  • Sierra Hull - A Tip Toe High Wire


Nick Webber | Adrianne Lenker – Live at Revolution Hall

4AD

I’ve never been big on live albums, so I was surprised to come to the realization that Live at Revolution Hall is not just my favorite record of the year, but probably my favorite project in the Adrianne Lenker/Big Thief canon. Recorded over three nights on reel-to-reel and cassette tape by longtime friend of Lenker’s (and one of my favorite working producers) Andrew Sarlo, the experience is far from your standard glorified soundboard rip and might best be described as a cinematic sonic documentary. Selected performances across Lenker’s oeuvre were stitched together in editing via snippets of backstage takes, soundchecks, and field recordings in a sort of mad-scientist fashion, an approach perfectly suited for the songwriter’s singular balance of timelessness and ingenuity. Fans leave messages for Adrianne on a tape recorder, poetry is recited in the parking lot, a guy who can’t stop sneezing is blessed mid-song, one reel of tape runs out and the fidelity changes dramatically right as the next verse hits. The result has the captivating effect of an augmented reality personal concert, a masterfully curated interflow of play and reverence that could only come from deep trust and understanding.

My wife and I caught Lenker on tour when she came through Denver, for a seated show, and the most spellbound, pin-drop-quiet crowd I’ve been part of since seeing Julien Baker in 2017. Lenker was firing on all cylinders, equal parts commanding and meek, her fingerstyle guitar prowess and emotional directness undeniable, somehow making a sold-out room of nearly 4,000 feel intimate. Captured from various perspectives in Live at Revolution Hall, the audience functioned like an instrument of its own, participating at appropriate moments in ways that were hearteningly human and bracingly normal (a 2025 live music miracle). I think this album is as close as anyone’s come to bottling that rare collective effervescence, the feeling of existing in time and space at a once-in-a-lifetime show and realizing that you’re a part of something special: a true feat, and one that might cement this album as the definitive portrait of a generational talent’s career just over a decade in.

Also loved:

  • Florist - Jellywish 

  • Great Grandpa - Patience Moonbeam

  • Seer Believer - Make a Wish

  • Kitchen - Blue heeler in ugly snowlight, grey on gray on grey on white.

  • Ólafur Arnalds and Talos - A Dawning


Caleb Doyle | Samia – Bloodless

Grand Jury Music

Samia Finnerty cannot make a bad song.

From moments of minimalism that grow into genuine sonic excess, to melodic and impressionistic lyrics, Bloodless is cohesive and surprising, and begs multiple immediate relistens.

The lead single “Bovine Excision” and the title of the album refer to a creepy, decades-old conspiracy theory about livestock being mysteriously drained of their blood and relieved of their organs. Here, Samia’s reference is in yearning—a wish to be weightless, bloodless, and unattainable. Unflappable and unshakeable, although maybe also lifeless. The kinds of lyrics that leave a pit in one’s stomach, and they’re just the tip of the iceberg on Bloodless. 

The entire album is an exercise in dynamics, and the music mirrors the themes with growing and shrinking, waxing and waning. A song about something as mundane as a pair of pants spins up into a profound introspective moment—laying bare womanhood and society’s expectations, carried by a repeated refrain, “Wanna see what’s under these Levi’s? I got nothin’ under these Levi’s.” Just like the lyrics, the music swells and dissipates, over and over, throughout the whole record. It’s like the whole thing is breathing, sometimes slowly and measured, other times laboring under duress.

With Jake Luppen of Hippo Campus at the helm on production, the sounds of this record are both tight and exploratory. From more traditional Saddest Factory-coded indie ballads like “Fair Game,” to the big distorted Snail Mail-esque guitars on “North Poles” and “Carousel,” Bloodless feels right at home with today’s indie pop landscape, but what sets it apart is Samia’s genius songwriting and her breathy soprano voice that is more powerful than expected.

The songs are just beautiful. The music is a tapestry, and Samia’s melodies feel completely timeless. There’s a certain eeriness that runs throughout the album—from the interstitial radio static to Samia’s sometimes-haunting voice, and that eeriness sets Bloodless apart from Samia’s peers. You might get away with playing this over the speakers of your bespoke dress shop, but someone is going to get caught staring out of a window for too long.

Bloodless solidifies Samia as an artist who can pull away from the pack and create an album that walks the tightrope of haunting and gorgeous, as unsettling as it is reassuring.

The rest of my Top 5:
2. Tobacco City - Horses
3. Racing Mount Pleasant - S/T
4. Hannah Cohen - Earthstar Mountain
5. Annie DiRusso - Super Pedestrian


Jason Sloan | Real Lies – We Will Annihilate Our Enemies

TONAL Recordings

Let’s set the scene. You’re six drinks deep at the club, hands in the air, lover by your side, drugs about to kick in, when suddenly your phone receives a push notification heralding the imminent end of the world. Do you fall into a deep despair, or do you simply have to laugh at the absurdity? Real Lies’ scintillating We Will Annihilate Our Enemies is the sound of the decision to leave it all on the dance floor while the world crumbles around you.

As our devices moderate increasing swaths of modern life, art must contend with the uncanny valley. How does one expound upon an existence ever more fenced in by the digital boxes in our pockets? Real Lies wring surprising pathos out of their Extremely Online tales of E-Girls and Twitter fascists, of billboard ads and Strava stats. The world would be less lonely if we could just agree to boogie through the horrors together. 

The other album I considered here: Elm - Elm EP


Logan Archer Mounts | The Mountain Goats – Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan

Cadmean Dawn

No surprises, no teases, no left-field underground international death metal, this is just me talking about my favorite band (other than KISS and a few others, depending on the day) who put out the best hour of music that 2025 had to offer. 

The Mountain Goats changed my life after I saw them for the first time in 2009, and ever since then, a new album of theirs usually finds itself in my top ten at the end of the year — but never number one, until now. With Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan, their first album on their own label and first since the departure of longtime bassist Peter Hughes, bandleader John Darnielle’s storytelling and composition reach a creative peak that echoes the Goats’ more grandiose albums like Goths or In League With Dragons, but delivered with even more advanced theatrics. That’s literal theatrics too, with vocal contributions from, no kidding, Lin-Manuel Miranda. It feels like the project Darnielle has been working towards his entire career, the closest to his fabled Riversend musical that has appeared in portions on previous albums. …Peter Balkan is a defining moment for The Mountain Goats, genuine and gorgeous, and a perfect start to the band’s next chapter.

Further recommended audio from God’s strongest survivors of the hellscape:
•Craig Finn, Always Been – my other favorite songwriter
•Guided By Voices, Thick Rich And Delicious – my other, other favorite songwriter
•Bodybox, 3 – my new favorite pro-meth slam metal band


Ciara Rhiannon | Jason Isbell – Foxes in the Snow

Southeastern Records

My album of the year might seem like a no-brainer to those who know how many of my favorite bands had stellar releases across 2025, yet one record managed to sneak past the front-runners and stick with me throughout the entire year. Jason Isbell’s Foxes in the Snow is a heartwrenching and intimate first-person account of his recent divorce, his journey of introspection, and, ultimately, of finding love again without even looking for it. 

Foxes in the Snow was recorded over five days at Electric Lady Studios in New York, just one man and an almost-century-old acoustic guitar. I suppose therein lies the magic that drew me to this album – there’s no hiding in any of it. The lyrical context of the record is so raw, so gutting, so honest, I can’t imagine any other way of delivering such an experience. When you listen to this record with headphones (which I highly recommend, especially on the first listen), you can even more intensely absorb Isbell’s guitar pick scraping along the strings of the old Martin guitar, every subtle movement, every little blemish of the recording process amplifying the cold, harsh nature of heartache and the unwritten forever mapped out track-by-track. 

Something I’ve touched on from time to time in my writing is my intimate familiarity with the demise of a long-term relationship I believed to last forever, as well as its resulting existential aftermath. Trying to wade through every difficult emotion while also attempting to salvage yourself and move on is no easy task. Structurally, Foxes in the Snow takes the listener through the events and effects of Isbell’s divorce in almost chronological order. Tracks like “Gravelweed” move through his reconciliation with himself, while the title track celebrates his current relationship. I feel intrinsically linked to this record, not only because of my own complicated emotions and experiences, but also through this intimate illusion of sitting in the room with Isbell as he performs it, with every pained, aching emotion he sends through the sound waves echoing my own. 

I can only hope that one day I will reach his level of self-understanding and feel the warmth of newfound love again, but in the meantime, I have this eloquently written, perfectly executed, and exquisitely paced 40-minute recording to come back to and cherish forever. 

And I’m sure time will change me some.

Honorable Mentions:

  • Coheed and Cambria - The Father of Make Believe 

  • Cheem - Power Move

  • Momma - Welcome to My Blue Sky

  • Motion City Soundtrack - The Same Old Wasted Wonderful World

  • This Is Lorelai - Box for Buddy, Box for Star (Deluxe)


Katie Hayes | Hayley Williams – Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party

Post Atlantic

You wake up from a dream. 

In this dream, you were fourteen, and you were in a band playing a birthday party with your best friends. Then your parents were standing over you in an Atlantic Records meeting room. Determined and frazzled, you were trying to explain to your parents and the men in suits that you’re in a band, that it shouldn’t just be your name on that line to sign. Then you were on a stage, a huge stage in New York City, then London, then Jakarta, then an exclusive cruise just for fans of your band. A million voices across the world and years, echoing yours. Then it was 2017 in the dream. Two of your friends are gone, one is back, and one has been there the whole time. That one always seems like he’s on the verge of telling you something whenever your old bald boyfriend leaves the room. Then you’re in that Nashville studio with your friend again, but this time he’s hugging your waist. Five years pass in the dream, and you’re standing next to him and your other friend, the one from the fourteen-year-old birthday party, except this time it’s not a birthday party, it’s Taylor Swift’s tour, the biggest stage on earth. Then the song is over. You hold hands with your band, and you take a bow.

And then you wake up from the dream. And you write an album about it.

Other 2025 Favorites:

  • Greg Freeman - Burnover

  • Jay Som - Belong

  • Jensen McRae - I Don’t Know How But They Found Me!

  • Samia - Bloodless

  • Wednesday - Bleeds


Josh Ejnes | Greg Freeman – Burnover

Transgressive Records

For me, 2025 has been a year filled with more old music than new, which is a roundabout way of saying that I spent an inadvisable amount of time listening to NRBQ and Faces. What makes both of these bands so compelling is the way that they pair expert songwriting with the feeling that the wheels are about to come off, something NRBQ executes by being coy and off-kilter, and Faces execute by being drunk. The end result of this is studio recordings that feel live and live recordings that feel insane. Greg Freeman's Burnover is cut from this same cloth, pairing expert songcraft with a band going into hyperdrive and coming out as my album of the year with a bullet. The second the harmonica hit on “Point and Shoot,” I knew that this was the record for me. I'd been jumping from new release to new release, finding things I liked but didn't love, unable to put my finger on what exactly I was looking for, then I put on Burnover and bam, total bliss. The whole thing just rocks, from the masterclass in escalation “Gulch” to the tender and contemplative “Sawmill,” it’s hit after hit after hit. If you haven't heard this, you need to listen to it. If you have listened to it, listen to it again. It gets better every time. 

Other 2025 Favorites:

  • Saba and No I.D. - From the Private Collection of Saba and No I.D.

  • Marble Teeth - there was a huge crowd of people gathered in the streets

  • Jay Som - Belong

  • lots of hands - into a pretty room

  • MyVeronica/Friend’s House - Farewell Skylines


Parker White | Water From Your Eyes – It’s a Beautiful Place

Matador Records

Since black midi’s disbandment last year, I’ve been chasing the dragon. I never knew what exactly to expect when I hit play on a new black midi track, but I knew I’d hear something brilliant, daring, and spine-tingling. After It’s a Beautiful Place, Water From Your Eyes might have taken the experimental indie rock mantle. From the moment I heard lead single “Life Signs,” WFYE’s new album immediately topped my most anticipated albums of the year, and it did not disappoint. In what has become typical fashion, this record never stays in the same place for more than a few measures. Song-to-song, verse-to-verse, things are constantly shifting while remaining miraculously consistent. You’ll hear a lot of things that sound like songs you’ve heard before until those familiar ideas are sliced in half with buzzsaw guitar or drowned out by a breakbeat. No one is quite as willing to color outside the lines as Water From Your Eyes, and I’m waiting with bated breath to see what they do next.

Other 2025 Favorites:

  • Ribbon Skirt - Bite Down

  • Greg Freeman - Burnover

  • Mac Demarco - Guitar

  • Black Country, New Road - Forever, Howlong

  • Ryan Davis and the Roadhouse Band - New Threats From The Soul



Connor Fitzpatrick | Cory Hanson – I Love People

Drag City Inc.

Dear reader, 

I’ve been listening to Cory Hanson’s I Love People fairly religiously since it came out this summer. Sadly, I tend to treat a lot of albums like single-use plastics, checking them out to see what’s up, then tossing them aside without the fair chance of a second or third listen. This is a me problem, and maybe I’ll make it a resolution to focus on the reuse element of the three main tenets of recycling next year. So why do I keep returning to I Love People with such regularity? Well, because it has the songs, man. The album is a shining collection of eleven nuggets each with their own unique embellishments. Opener “Bird On a Swing” is a breathtaking country-rock ode to the highs and lows of personal freedom. One of the things I really love about this album is how Hanson leans into his sardonic side. “Joker” and the title track “I Love People” are both swaggering horn-laden jams that create a sense of intrigue where you can’t tell if Hanson is being sincere or if he’s fucking with you. The saccharine Christmas carol “Santa Claus Is Coming Back to Town” reads like a lost Denis Johnson short story that details the lonely existence of an Afghanistan war veteran. In the past, I’ve loved Hanson’s work, both solo and with his band Wand, for his approach to psychedelic, guitar-driven rock, but I Love People is a stark departure as he flaunts his skills as a concise singer-songwriter. I hope you give this album a listen.

Much love,
Connor

P.S. Here are a few other albums I loved this year.

  • Brian Dunne, Clams Casino

  • Greet Death, Die In Love

  • Maria Somerville, Luster

  • Die Spitz, Something to Consume

  • Addison Rae, Addison

Hater’s Delight – 2025 Edition

/

It’s hard to look around lately and think ‘You know what the world could use more of? hate.’ Of course there’s an abundance of hatred, animosity, division, and destruction right now. I’d argue it’s our number one export. 

Every morning I wake up with a pit in my stomach, scrambling for meaning and stability as I take in a torrent of crushing news alerts, outright rejections, and full-scale desperation. It all feels uniquely bad, and the idea of adding more negativity on top of that doesn’t feel like a way out. 

What does feel like a way out is leaning on each other. Finding strength in those around us who feel the same way and raising our voices together in displeasure. As much as I am a lover and an enjoyer and an optimist, it’s hard to deny the deep-down primal satisfaction of being in the presence of people who feel the same way about the same things and venting together. It’s not a solution to every problem, but damn it feels good to let it out. 

We’re going to zoom into the same corner of the world that we always operate in, which is to say we’re going to take a break from recommending music we like and think you should listen to in order to focus our attention on parts of this ecosystem that have rotted beyond repair. Just as Mood Machine exposed the evils of Spotify (now fully out in the open), this all feels symptomatic of larger issues. We may only be talking about one thing that might seem insignificant on the surface, but dig deep enough and you’ll find it’s tied to something deeper. Join us as we uproot the evil together and voice our unhappiness with The Current Arrangement. Hopefully whatever’s on the other side looks better than this.

The Genericization of Metalcore or: When Genre Labels Break Down 

I hate genres. I hate the way that, as culture shifts and evolves, genres fail to recognize change until it's too late. I hate the endless gatekeeping that comes with a genre reaching new audiences and thus redefining itself. So, I plead: just be normal.

Metalcore, originating as a style that blends extreme metal and hardcore punk, has evolved from being a niche genre to a commercial behemoth that’s reached the general public, netting radio hits, Grammys, and sold-out arenas. For a brief crash course, I recommend listening to Converge’s “Effigy,” a grindy, guitar-forward track full of distorted screaming and flying instrumental parts. It’s heavy on the hardcore drumming and metal riffs, blending the two effortlessly for a perfect example of “classic metalcore.”

For something completely different, queue up Sleep Token’s “Caramel,” a song that many would class as “post-metalcore” or “Octanecore.” If you're listening to this one and thinking, ‘this doesn't sound like the other example at all,’ you’d be right. This is the shape much of metalcore has taken in the 2020s – trading riffs and brutality for commercially viable melodies, synth beds, and pop song structures with the occasional breakdown thrown in to remind audiences that they still want the metalcore label.

These songs clearly don't belong in the same genre, musically or culturally. This leads to old-school metalcore fans feeling upset that their spaces are being invaded by bands that don't resemble the genre they love, while new fans are upset because they aren’t being allowed inside the tent.

The gatekeeping is what really grates on me. Open up and allow new things inside. Perhaps you'll appreciate having variety, new friends, and a greater community that can raise all ships. We simply want to share in the fun while being introduced to music that expands our palates. Instead of closing the gate behind you, show someone new Better Lovers and invite them in. That’s what I'm going to do.

– Noëlle Midnight


Stop teasing me like I’m a child

I can not tell you how excited I was when Gouge Away returned in May 2023 with “Idealized,” five years after their last album, Burnt Sugar. I can not tell you how annoying it was to wait until JANUARY 2024 for their third record, Deep Sage, to be announced and see “Idealized” on the tracklist. So many bands are utilizing a strategy like this: dropping one single and pretending it is a loosie, then a month or two later announcing their next record, including said prior single. Jeff Rosenstock did it with “Liked U Better” and Hellmode, Mannequin Pussy did it with the title track of I Got Heaven, and I’m sure Courtney Barnett is doing it now with whatever album “Stay In Your Lane” will be on. It’s like we’re pretending Santa exists: ‘Oh we got a single, I wonder what this is related to, teehee. 

All of this does immediately go away once the album is out. No one but nerds like me will remember when a random single dropped; the context of the album will outweigh this complaint in the FOREVER after release… But why do we have to wait that long for the context? 

Be a grown-up. Announce your fucking album. Or give me a B-side as a little treat.

– Lillian Weber


Not Everyone Needs A Country Album 

The resounding opinion of your favorite local bar band goes something like this: “I love country music, but only the real stuff. Waylon, Willie, and Johnny. Not any of that bro country or stadium country.” Okay, I understand the sentiment that Ticketmaster country or coworker country doesn’t feel as genuine as the genre’s flagship men and women of the ‘60s and ‘70s, but I have no reason to deny myself a few actually great songs by Brad Paisley or Blake Shelton, Kelsea Ballerini, or Maren Morris. What I do feel isn’t genuine is every mega pop star getting their piece of the country radio pie. Beyoncé, Post Malone, Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter, reportedly Lana Del Rey, and a slew of other already-hitmakers have been crossing over to cowboy hat territory since the once-primarily Middle American sound started bleeding out of every grocery store speaker across the nation. I actually commend Taylor Swift for staying in a traditional pop lane in her stratospheric rise, as opposed to reverting back to her original style, although it’s possible that streak may end soon.

Five years ago, Halsey scored one of her biggest career hits with “You Should Be Sad,” an indirectly country-influenced emo-pop track that had a heavy western saloon theme in its music video and Saturday Night Live performance, both of which may be in the top five all-time clips of a singer looking head-spinningly stunning on camera. I think, secretly, this was the genesis of the POP pop country boom of the 2020s, just like Lana Del Rey’s “Video Games” music video and infamous SNL clip was the secret genesis of the moody, sad girl pop star streak of Billie Eilish, Clairo, and, well, Halsey. I love country music in most of its forms, but there’s definitely enough of it out there, and I have no use for a saturated sound from new millionaire adopters.

– Logan Archer Mounts


Take a Breath

This is going to sound fucking insane to say as a guy who runs a music blog where we often post reviews on the day of an album’s release, but I think people need to chill out on the sweeping declarations. This applies to everything from the hyperbolic Geese claims to the outright dismissal of anything that doesn’t immediately “hit” or cement itself as part of the zeitgeist. 

Some of my favorite albums this year have been comforting and slow-simmering records that have grown on me gradually over time and with repeated listens. On first brush, these albums can appear reserved or down-the-middle, but that kind of dismissal is not one of a music fan, merely someone trying to have a take for attention, engagement, and affirmation. 

By rushing to these types of claims, you’re closing any sort of ongoing relationship with the art. One of my favorite things about music (and one of its most mystical aspects) is the imperceptible way a band, album, or song can infiltrate your existence and morph over time, growing in importance or association as it reflects off different things in your life. Having a knee-jerk reaction to the popular thing forces you into this game of extremes, potentially shutting yourself off from a more rich and complex experience. I suppose I’m telling this to myself, too. 

Part of me understands in a world that’s ever-accelerating, where tens of thousands of artists (both real and fake) upload songs every day. The desire to overreact is appealing, to break through if nothing else. Even when this very site publishes a review of an album on the day that it releases, there’s an implicit understanding that the writer has spent time with this record digesting the music, is recommending it for some reason or another, but is ultimately presenting it as an option for you to take off into your own life so you can formulate your own unique connection to it. To me, that makes way more sense as a way to approach art, not immediately exalting something as the best thing ever or brushing a release off as mid after a cursory listen. Give yourself time. Go back and revisit an album you forgot about. Spend time with a record and develop an understanding of it through an ongoing relationship between yourself and the music. I promise it’s much more rewarding than rushing to be the first one to make a bold claim. 

– Taylor Grimes


Don’t Even Think About Changing That Album Cover

Back in my day, you only got one album cover, and that was it. It was unthinkable to even suggest a different one, maybe with the exception of a cool deluxe version for the superfans. But something bad shifted this year.

I have identified three categories of album cover changes: the Overly Online, the Re-Do, and the Variants. The Overly Online album cover change is mostly an Internet phenomenon, a product of a music culture dominated by streaming; a prime example is Charli xcx BRAT-ifying her other albums for like a year. The Re-Do is when an artist totally changes their cover. This is pretty rare, but Lucy Dacus did it earlier this year for Forever is a Feeling. I agree with her that the new one looks better than the original, but no takesies backsies. “because… I want to and I can!” has to be the dorkiest thing any artist has posted all year, and I am a Lucy fan! The Variants is obviously whatever Taylor Swift is doing — multiple official covers for one album. She’s been doing this for a while, but her latest album cycle was the most overwhelming. Sabrina Carpenter also opted for Variants while courting controversy over the original Man’s Best Friend cover. If you’re going to be controversial, at least stick with it. Don’t release like three other regular versions, I thought this meant something to you. 

I just think it's such a pathetic thing to do. Switching a cover makes me think that you’re not confident in your album at a minimum or insecure about your art at a maximum. We are trapped in a world that demands content, but you do not have to cave to the mob with more covers! We are stuck with streaming for the foreseeable future, but you don’t have to change a cover just because the website has a setting that lets you! Everything is fleeting, stand by that damn cover and for the love of God, do not edit your songs!!!!!!

– Caro Alt


The Dichotomy is Crazy

Every time I visit my corner of the internet sphere, I experience the fleeting hope that I won’t come across another mediocre Punk-Goes-Pop-style cover on my Explore or fyp page. And without exception, that hope is immediately crushed as a video of yet another alternative man in Carhartts and a condom beanie asks the camera, “What if [insert any pop song here] was pop-punk?” I groan and throw my phone across the room as I’m blinded by rage. These all sound the same. Can’t any of you people come up with an original idea that isn’t ‘Pop Song Becomes Pop-Punk Song’? The obvious perpetrators of this trend need to get back in the studio and write their own music. I am begging them to look inward and come up with a chord progression of their own. Girls aren’t going to think you’re complex because you listen to Sabrina Carpenter. “Manchild” was never intended to be pop-punk. Stop trying to make fetch happen. It’s not going to happen.

– Britta Joseph


Colored Contacts 

I haven’t seen the Bruce Springsteen movie, and I won’t, because Bruce Springsteen has brown eyes, and they couldn’t trouble themselves to cast someone with brown eyes. I refuse to engage with colored contacts on any level.

To anyone involved in the choosing of colored contacts in any capacity, ever: You think we can’t tell they’re contacts? We’re not stupid!!!!!!!  

– Katie Hayes


Blowing up and acting like you don’t know your old albums 

I was very excited to see that one of the best bands in Minnesota was finally gearing up to release a second record. Gully Boys, the Twin Cities quartet-via-trio, has held a steady and special place in the heart of the local scene since they proudly declared their existence with 2018’s LP, Not So Brave. Singles, tours, and two stellar EPs came and went, until the early 2025 announcement of Gully Boys, the group’s… debut??

At some point, every digital version of Not So Brave was affixed with a new, undermining addendum: (Demos). This isn't the first example of a band seemingly trying to hide their early music by abandoning it to a fate of digital flotsamhood. To name a couple more examples, both 2025 Indie Rock Discourse Champs™ Geese and Wednesday have disowned their debuts. Rechristening one’s first major release, recorded at arguably MN’s most famous studio, as just a bunch of demos is an interesting attempt to have your cake and juggle it too—maximizing the promotional synergy of a faux-first LP without completely deleting the past.

I would chalk most of it up to the need for narrative. It’s not the Boys’ fault that parasocial attachment and relentless engagement are the only non-freak-accident ways to grasp at success. The new album, technically GB’s second self-titled release, is excellent. The quartet finally feels like a quartet. Every hook gleams with grungy radiance. Despite or maybe because of it, Gully Boys doesn’t sound like a debut. The years of work—getting in the van, community organizing at home, writing and recording — are blisteringly apparent. Especially after covering the band for years, the most satisfying aspect of Gully Boys is the improvement, the sharpening, the palpable joy of ever-deepening collaboration. Rewriting your discographical history via misdirection only masks how hard you worked to get here.

– aly eleanor


Streaming’s Steroid Era 

Welp, it appears we’ve officially entered the “steroid era” of album sales. In Young Thug’s leaked jailhouse tapes, the Atlanta rapper embraced the role of neighborhood gossip, spilling piping hot tea on everyone from Outkast to Drake and even Kendrick Lamar. Between the prison chatter, something stood out to me like a sore thumb on a hand model. Young Thug admitted to spending $50K on fake streams for Gunna, an artist on his label at the time, to debut at #1 over The Weeknd’s Dawn FM. What happened to the game I love? Next to Adam Silver’s insistent greed that is ruining basketball, this is the next biggest scandal in my world.

If an artist like Young Thug can brazenly go about botting streams for one of his artists, what’s stopping literally any other record label, especially the large ones, from doing that very same thing? I don’t know what or who to believe anymore when news comes across my desk about an artist selling an extraordinary number of records. At least during the “steroid era” in baseball, we got to see dingers being pimped out over 500-plus feet. This “steroid era” is just fake numbers going up higher than other fake numbers, and that feels cheap, slimy, and uncompelling to say the least.

– David Williams


Production Should Suck More

More music needs to have shittier production. Crisp, pristine production used to make sense for radio-oriented music: artists wanted their work to be as clear and perfect-sounding as possible in order to appeal to as many listeners as possible. In the clutches of the streaming era, there needs to be more interesting choices than making everything sound like a polished plastic water cup at Denny’s. Even music in the DIY space has taken on a timbre that sounds too nice for a freak like me—someone who wants to listen to music with some heckin’ character. Steve Albini was onto something in his attempts to capture sounds exactly how they are instead of just trying to polish an artifact. The former is a photograph, while the latter sits unappreciated on a shelf. If a production too polished flies too close to a generic sun, it burns up in its atmosphere. I would rather freeze in the dark shadow of an imperfect moon.  

– Joe Wasserman


Down with the Bits

I’m so tired of the gimmicks and the skits. The Sallys, the Junos, the Apple Girls, the Johannas, and whatever improv from hell Sombr is doing making teenage girls call their fellow teenage exes mid-concert in what logically can only be an effort to eat up time. Addison Rae pulls audience members onstage to scream with her during the “Von dutch” remix. PinkPantheress plucks a boy from the crowd each night to be her “Romeo.” They’re fan service at best and Hail Marys to appease the algorithm at worst, all born out of the hope that one more viral Pop Crave clip will keep the tour relevant.

It’s different from Justin Bieber’s fanfic-worthy “One Less Lonely Girl” schtick, or Janet Jackson “making miscellaneous uncs shoot poison on stage” in the early aughts. It’s also different from Lady Gaga getting the kid in the orange shirt on stage for the “Schieße” dance break at the Born This Way Ball. The former two, Jackson especially, were way before clips on Twitter had an actual impact on public discourse, let alone ticket sales. Bieber was leaning into his teen heartthrob, while Gaga’s was a serendipitous moment of recognition for one special longtime Little Monster, a shooting star in the greater Monster canon. 

All I ask is that everyone start to exercise a little more restraint. Lean into the element of surprise, uncertainty, and possibility. How many mid-40s actresses need to pretend they know the words to that Role Model song before we can all admit we’ve never heard it before? Wasn’t it painful enough when it was The Dare??? How many more sex positions are we going to make Sabrina Carpenter think of???? I’m tired.

– Cassidy Sollazzo


Notes App =/= Promotion

Apparently Instagram has started pushing anything Notes app-related higher in the algorithm, which has cascaded into artists, bands, celebrities, and anyone with something to say (or, more than likely, a lack thereof) utilizing the app to try to get in front of people. Your notes app is for your grocery lists, not for your apologies, announcements, or aggrandizements. Unless you’ve actually got something to say, you don’t have to push that stupid Calibri-whatever font onto your followers. It feels almost like a form of mockery. It’s a strange and truly terminally online type of thing to feel any sort of way about. We know you didn’t rob the Louvre, you don’t have to post about your whereabouts through that stupid app to get your dopamine fix. Go type in a Word document!

– Samuel Leon


Geese are Making Me Feel Old 

It’s not about Geese, it’s about me. I really enjoy the new Geese album, Getting Killed. It's so good! We all know this, but throughout the hyped rollout and far-flung claims upon the album’s release, I felt myself feeling weird about it. I couldn’t figure out why, and that really bothered me. Then, I saw footage from their free show in Brooklyn, and it all became clear. It wasn’t that I couldn’t be there in Brooklyn for the show; it was because seeing all of those kids together celebrating what seems to be “the band” of their generation helped me to understand that I’ve aged. I’m not ancient, I’m in my early thirties, but this is the first time I’ve had to grapple with the fact that I’m no longer a part of “the youth,” and that makes me feel weird and uncertain. I feel like I’ve transitioned from being an active participant to more of a witness. I can go to a Geese show, but it would be in poor taste for me to weasel my way into a space up front because that’s for the kids. This is their moment.

– Connor Fitzpatrick


ISO: Better Band Names, Better Bands 

Every day I get emails (I could just end the entry there tbh) about bands with the most uninspired, nothingburger-no-cheese names ever. All love to Shower Curtain and Computer and Guitar, but your names do not live up to the music they’re representing. All love to Wednesday, whose frontwoman Karly Hartzman has publicly rejoiced the ungoogleability of her band’s name, especially after the success of Netflix’s Addams Family spinoff of the same name, and one throwaway bit in another Netflix show in which Wednesday was literally the name of a band that doesn’t exist. 

The rule of thumb is that if your band is good enough and/or the bit is funny enough, you can have a generic-ass SEO-unfriendly name (the search results for “Geese Getting Killed” used to be much more violent, even though now what comes up is sometimes related to having a bomb in your car). But as for the rest of you, don’t come into MY humble inbox telling me I just HAVE to listen to the sprawling and ethereal new shoegaze record from a Philly band called “Couch.” Yes. I just made that shit up because it’s easy to come up with a bullshit one-word band name when you spend exactly two seconds thinking of a band name. Couch, the band does not exist, or maybe they do, either way, I have no fucking way of knowing because googling “Couch band” is probably not gonna yield any worthwhile results. Besides, how sprawling and ethereal can a band called Couch even be? 

My other gripe is that no one knows how to do an album rollout anymore. If you release eight singles ahead of an eleven-song album, I hope your next tour is an endless hurricane of tomatoes. 

– Grace Robins-Somerville

Swimming Abroad: International Music Roundup

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To quote Frank Reynolds, “you have to be a real low-life piece of shit to get involved in politics.” I think the same thing applies to being overly patriotic, especially now, as the United States Government proudly rolls out our very own concentration camp and revokes healthcare for millions upon millions of its own citizens. Shit’s fucked in every direction, so Independence Day doesn’t feel like a whole lot to celebrate. 

To me, the Fourth of July begins and ends with barbequing hot dogs, drinking some beers, and jumping in the pool, and guess what? I did all that shit yesterday. While last year we had a fun BBQ music roundup on the Fourth, this year we thought the holiday might be a fun excuse to highlight some of our favorite music projects from other countries. 

Please enjoy the music, please celebrate responsibly, and please consider the role we all play in this. 

baan – neumann

Self-released

The universality of music is one of the most beautiful things about humanity. A sound can be shaped in Philadelphia, and years later, a band from Namibia has made it their entire style. When it comes to heavy music, some of the most incredible records made often lie outside of American audiences’ line of sight; however, within the internet era, we are seeing a globalization of art that rocks at unprecedented levels in human history. Enter baan from Busan, South Korea—a band as heavy and thunderous as they are deft and talented. neumann is a journey–nine tracks with entire realms existing within them. In an era where playlists and short-form songs are championed across the music industry, an album that offers depth AND patience can feel very rare, especially when it can actually alter your perception of time. There were more than a few times where a song on neumann felt like a meditative 15 minutes when it really was less than that, or conversely, felt over in moments for tracks that ran over six minutes. An album that, whether it likes it or not, is as thoroughly about the act of listening as it is about the haunting abstraction of being alive in modern times, baan’s first release is dense, heady, and a prime example of how musicians outside of the states are just as worthy of our curiosity and attention as any here at home.
– Elias Amini


Sport – In Waves 

La Tête d’Ampoule

The “Midwest” part of “Midwest Emo Revival” really has nothing to do with geography. It’s a holdover from the second wave of emo, known simply as “Midwest Emo,” which happened mostly in the 90s. Back then, a lot of popular acts really were from the heartland (also a lot weren’t, but hey, the name stuck). In the late 2000s and throughout the 2010s, that sound was revived by bands from all over, including those outside the US. Between 2011 and 2016, Sport cooked up three emo albums from Lyon, France. Even an ocean away, they brought every bit the same energy, talent, and quintessential sound as bands like Algernon Cadwallader and Glocca Morra—and after nine years, they’re back with another. 

In Waves is aptly named. Each song swells, crests, crashes, and regathers itself in troughs of lingering reminiscence. Their sound is full-bodied, with gang vocals punching through walls of angular riffs, twinkling arpeggiations, and dynamic percussion. Though they skew towards math rock, Sport is unmistakably emo. Between the poetic verses and impressive wordplay, you can hear the mourning of days gone by and anxiety for the future. At the same time, you hear catharsis, conviction, and a passion for life. 

Sport’s 4th album is for every emo enjoyer; it expands on themes from previous albums and breathes new life into their discography. In a recent interview, Sport says they picked their name because it’s the same in most languages. This global mindset has paid off, rekindling the flame of Midwest Emo abroad and exemplifying the benefits of seeking inspiration beyond your own borders.
– Braden Allmond


Whispers – Yom-Ma-Lok

Flatspot Records

I personally and bravely believe that the best way to experience hardcore punk music is to see it live. I don’t think anyone has discoursed about this yet, but I’ll give it time. My point is that while I had heard about the release of Yom-Ma-Lok at the buzzer of 2024 (and read a Stereogum comment summarizing it as a “yuletide ass kicking”) nothing could have prepared me for the swaggering way Whispers took the stage at Black Cat a couple months ago. At the first cymbal crash, the whole room was suddenly engulfed in the sound, drenched in their self-described “Bangkok Evilcore,” like when the air gets sucked out right before there’s an explosion. Every molecule of oxygen in the room was reverberating with their metallic sprawl and pounding with crushing blast beats. 

Whispers, a very kickass crew from Thailand, released their latest EP, Yom-Ma-Lok, in December, a relatively long project with features from members of Kickback, Demonstration of Power, and hardcore’s it boys, Speed. There’s a certain magnitude to it, an ascension, as the band oscillates between brawling beatdowns and sweaty anthems. The EP relentlessly pummels the listener, but when I saw it live, the listeners pummeled each other back.

I would also be remiss not to mention that, as of today, my favorite Mancunian lads are back. That’s right, unless the Gallaghers have called it quits between the editing and publishing of this piece, Oasis should be taking the stage in a couple of hours. I’m feelin’ Supersonic mates.
– Caro Alt


racecarbed – bozo

AboutTime Records

In an effort to continually prove myself to be the most esoteric woman at any gathering, I will spend untold time going on musical deep dives online. Call it pretentious, but that’s showbiz, baby! That’s music journalism! That’s my RIGHT! Thus, in the spirit of my deep love for underground music, I would like to bring bozo by racecarbed to everyone’s immediate attention. I may be pretentious, but I’m not a gatekeeper. racecarbed is an artist and producer based in Ireland, creating incredibly delightful music across the pond that has made its way to my ears. If you enjoy hyperpop, noise, emo, digicore, and random sampling, boy, are you in for a treat. If you don’t enjoy any of those things, why are you here? Why are you reading this? Why are you looking at me like that? Go listen to racecarbed anyway! One of my favorite tracks from bozo, “Family Guy Funny Moments” is a painfully honest song, uncomfortably juxtaposed against - you guessed it - a sample of Family Guy. A beautiful and rather heart-wrenching synth melody immediately follows, causing emotional whiplash that is jarring in all the right ways. The shift from Peter Griffin to an evocative riff is, as it turns out, a bit of a shock. While the hyperpop genre often runs the risk of becoming overwhelming and too noisy, racecarbed exercises just enough restraint in his writing to create skillfully balanced digital masterpieces. Anyways, it’s time for you to leave me alone - I’m at the function reading Infinite Jest.
– Britta Joseph


Subsonic Eye – Singapore Dreaming

Topshelf Records

The title for Subsonic Eye’s fifth album, Singapore Dreaming, telegraphs pretty clearly exactly what you’re going to get. Press play on the opening track “Aku Cemas,” and you’re in for 30 minutes of dreamy, overly-saturated rock music straight from Singapore. It’s a consistently pretty album; colorful and well-constructed is the default baseline, even when the band is singing in Malay. By the time the band launches into the riff one track later on “Why Am I Here,” you’re already firmly situated in indie rock heaven. As the purple, yellow, and red from the cover bleed together, everything shifts into focus, then back out. Listening to an album like this feels like eating a good hearty meal; you walk away with every need met.
– Taylor Grimes


Crayon Cats – Songs About You! #2 

Self-released

There is nothing I love more in the world than an earnestly cute jangly pop-punk band, and no one is doing it better than Crayon Cats on Songs About You! #2. The band, who hail from Jakarta, Indonesia, nailed this sound on the first entry of this EP series back in September 2024, but on #2, Crayon Cats have even sharper songs and starker dynamics. The ramshackle pop-punk laments of “October Girlfriend” are juxtaposed with the hazier, dreamier side of indie pop on “Hospital Hopper.” The latter track is competing with “Not The Best Day” from their EP for the title of my favorite Crayon Cats song, in large part because of how brilliantly the band lets the song comedown. After two minutes of exemplifying the fear that builds while accompanying a loved one to the hospital in an emergency, the guitars crack into a vacuum cleaner whir until it all crashes down and ebbs out. In that comedown of fading distortion and reverb, the band captures what it’s like to sit in the hallway waiting for the results. After two sets of Songs About You!, I will continue to listen to any other songs Crayon Cats have to about you.
– Lillian Weber


Mantar – Post Apocalyptic Depression

Metal Blade

When I discovered German metal duo Mantar this year, there were two things I found completely unfathomable: first, that they weren’t an obscure ‘70s occult rock group based on their simple yet fantastic logo, and second, that I hadn’t discovered them until this year. The band feels like they were concocted in a lab just for me, scratching my deep itches of other two-piece sludge metal bands like Big Business or Eagle Twin, albeit with a more direct psychedelic lean. Post Apocalyptic Depression could be the best album title of 2025, if it didn’t feel like our collective depression was more mid-apocalyptic, but it’s at least refreshing that the songs therein are nothing short of badass stoner punk’n’roll, well-suited for fans of other underground European metal acts like Kvelertak or Barren Womb. Lead single and album closer “Cosmic Abortion” (again, these guys really know how to make a great title), its lo-fi, space-trip music video, and chorus lyrics, “KILL, DESTROY, FUCK SHIT UP” made Mantar an instant sell for me, with Post Apocalyptic Depression becoming one of my earliest favorite albums of 2025.
– Logan Archer Mounts


Spirit Desire – Pets

Maraming Records

With a decade of indie emo tunes under their belt, Spirit Desire have little to prove to anyone anymore. Pets is the band’s first release in a few years, a ten-minute offering comprised of three absolutely knockout songs and one instrumental interlude. While the opener, “Dead Pets,” is a great introduction that dives directly into the title at hand, it’s the propulsive “IDFC” that reveals itself as the true standout. The Toronto group offers a complimentary and affirmative palate cleanser with “It Is What It Is,” sending listeners off with some well-wishes until our paths converge again. The whole release is tender, open-hearted, catchy, energetic, and earnest; pound-for-pound, one of the best things I’ve heard all year, with not a second wasted. For as many ideas and riffs and harmonies as Spirit Desire have been able to pack in these ten minutes, I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a better EP in the rock music sphere.
– Taylor Grimes


The Tubs – Cotton Crown 

Trouble In Mind Records

I am once again asking for your listening support of UK’s jangle pop quartet all-stars, The Tubs. I recently saw their show live and in color in Chicago, which has further solidified my aspirations to be treasurer of their soon-to-be-created fan club. Cotton Crown is packed to the brim with energetic, uptempo guitar strokes to circumvent the melancholy, glum lyrics of vocalist Owen Williams. Throughout The Tubs’ sophomore album, Williams’ deep, love-scorned voice is a soothing siren that comforts you while he spills his guts out about lost relationships and the tragic, untimely death of his mother. Each song is a fascinating case study in successfully masking the deeply personal lyrics of Williams, which often venture into darkness with a bright, sunny disposition of music. “Chain Reaction” and “Illusion” surf on nonstop tidal waves of jangle pop guitar strings. Cotton Crown doesn’t have a dull moment in its brief twenty-nine-minute runtime. The Tubs have the energy of an early 2000s Four Loko with the passion of a grief-stricken poet, making this an instant favorite of mine. 
– David Williams

The Best of Q2 2025

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We’re halfway through 2025, and it feels like my brain is contorting into shapes it was never meant to hold. Unlike my intro for our favorites of Q1, I’m going to try my best not to go on a screed, but it’s hard not to treat these roundups as little check-ins. It’s also hard not to be upset at the countless acts of violence, injustice, and just plain stupidity being carried out in our name and on our dollar. It’s hard to conceive of because sometimes our day-to-day feels so completely unchanged or mind-numbingly banal. Hell, some days are even great. Then that feels weird because you’re allowing yourself one ounce of joy in the company of friends and loved ones, and suddenly you snap back to the reality of the world we’re living in. You remember the machine you’re a part of, and you try your best to operate outside of it, but sometimes that machine feels absolute and inescapable. 

I think what I’m trying to say is that this is a uniquely treacherous time to be alive, but there’s still beauty to be had. There’s salvation to be found in community, and there is support to be lent to those who need it. There’s art to share with each other, and that’s why we’re here. 

This past month, a couple of our friends had a beautiful, healthy baby. Another couple got a brand new puppy who’s barely big enough to make it up a single stair. I went to a baseball game primarily to down a beer, a hot dog, and fistfuls of popcorn. I had my 32nd birthday and was surrounded by all my beloved friends as we shot each other with squirt guns and shook our booties to Rihanna. I went to a music festival and hugged someone I loved. I took pictures outside of a tobacco shop in Ohio called “Butt Hut.” I shared some delicious meals with my beautiful girlfriend and watched Shakespeare in the park with friends. These are all varying levels of significance, and some of them might seem more frivolous or trivial than others, but they’re all part of the same thing. Finding the time to experience joy and wonder and happiness, acknowledging those feelings, and sharing them with as many people as possible is what it’s all about. 

With that in mind, please enjoy The Swim Team’s favorite albums from the last three months. Fifteen releases from fifteen artists, championed by fifteen different people. I hope you find something here to love.

First Day Back – Forward

Self-released

I’ve been an active participant in the emo scene for well over half my life at this point. I have seen its ebbs and flows, I’ve survived its famine years, and been relishing our current era of bounty. When one spends a long enough time being fully engrossed in the tides of genre, you begin to build a sense of which way the wind may start to blow. When I first heard The Arrival Note’s Vol. 2, I felt the tingle of an air pressure change, a movement in the sky that I surmised to be a harkening back to 90s emo that would find its way into our now burgeoning scene. Well, here we are, the first big gust to usher us towards our next few years of emo revival goodness. Actually, ‘revival’ doesn’t feel quite right. First Day Back’s debut effort is not them attempting to breathe life back into anything; it's all living, breathing experience, days and months and years and scattershot measurements of time clasped between moving string sections, moments pinched between their fret strings, memories weighing heavy on serenades and shouts.

Forward’s modus operandi, it seems, is to just be honest. Honest in feeling, honest in thought, honest in execution, and when all of that honesty starts condensing and collecting across the breadth of the album's thirty-four-minute runtime, the rain cloud accumulating over your spirit gets a spring-kissed summer shower. This album feels like a natural phenomenon in that way, and I think that with time and its tides, some kids in twenty years will point at this band and, through wide-eyed listening sessions of this album, want to find their own way through that same honesty. I'll be happy to press play on that one, too.
– Elias Amini


Turnstile – NEVER ENOUGH

Roadrunner Records

Turnstile’s summer blockbuster record, NEVER ENOUGH, has replenished for me the gigantic stadium rock feel from a band in their prime that I haven’t felt since the mid-2000s. It’s 45 minutes of crowd-pleasing summer rock action that scratches the itch of prime Red Hot Chili Peppers and Foo Fighters. NEVER ENOUGH is fully loaded with explosive melodic riffs and an ample number of sonic twists and turns.

“BIRDS” is an adrenaline-pumping jam if I ever heard one. The song moves faster than a muscle car driven by Dom Toretto; it’s Turnstile at their mosh-pitting best. I just want to break something or at least knock over a traffic cone at full force whenever this song comes on. The transitions are as smooth and seamless – being able to move from chunky guitar riffs to break beats at the drop of a hat makes for a thrilling listening experience. The best example I can give is “LOOK OUT FOR ME,” which flies by at 100 mph with Q101 rock radio riffs, then morphs into a minimalist synth club hit that is full-on transcendent.

This record can be listened to nonstop on runs through the park, while manning the grill, or even while meditating by the pool. NEVER ENOUGH’s sonic versatility is the Swiss-Army knife for rock music.
– David Williams


Careful Gaze – one day this will let you go

Self-released

Minneapolis rockers Careful Gaze have always been a little messy to categorize as far as genre is concerned. Generally, it’s fair to call them a mix of post-hardcore, metalcore, and heavy indie music. one day this will let you go feels special, shedding all of those labels to do something completely unique within their catalog. What we get is an ambient EP full of sound design, synths, and subdued vocals.

The first track, “you are the strongest that I know,” has a two-minute sound bath before vocalist Gabe Reasoner comes in to silently declare, “You should stay away from me.” They repeat the phrase until you realize that this is a break-up record borne out of the challenge of letting go of people you loved, or perhaps, still love. On the second track, Careful Gaze trades in the subdued energy of track one for trap hi-hats, a handclap snare, and swelling synths, creating a build that demands release in the form of the next song. 

It’s on the closing title track where the emotional design of the record really shines. It challenges the listener to break composure while Gabe’s vocal delivery screams out, raising in intensity until the last line, dropping back down to close the record by saying “it’s fucked no matter what,” an acknowledgement that sometimes brokenness is just brokenness. There isn’t much hope here. This is simply the work of a broken person writing about brokenness.

This EP begs a few questions about Careful Gaze’s next full-length record. Will we see more of this lush sound design that’s being spotlighted on this EP? Will we get a resolution for the heartbreak we see here? It’s impossible to know what’s next, but I’m waiting with bated breath to see where this band will be landing when they hit the ground again.
– Noëlle Midnight


Panel – A Great Time to Be an Empath

Don’t Sing 

With each spin of Panel’s debut album, A Great Time to Be an Empath, the more I feel the need to grab someone, shake them, and scream at them about the things Annie Sparrows’ songwriting makes me feel. Throughout this record, Sparrows aches for some sort of relief from the horrors of trying to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality. The moment that hits the hardest for me is after the second verse of “Victoria” when she gently croons that titular name, and her voice is so full of desperate hope that someday she’ll be able to sit comfortably in her skin. “Victoria” does what I want every new song I hear to do, to leave me breathless and lost for words to describe what just happened and how the hell I could feel all of that in under two minutes. And it is not the only song on the record that makes me feel that way. It can’t be when the record opens the line “Everybody knows that the place to start / is before the end, before the part / where you began to go but you didn’t even know / it was the start of the lights out slip” spoken over a motorik rhythm that perfectly evokes the dissociative numbness that comes with living just to make it through the day and has a piano ballad as its centerpiece about a pets love performed like a lounge act. It’s a great time to listen to A Great Time to Be an Empath.
– Lillian Weber


Forest Spirit, Sun on Your Back – winnowing

Self-released

One way I try to remember each month is with a playlist of new-to-me music. In May, I heard “Out of Season” by Forest Spirit, Sun on Your Back. It’s from their 2023 debut album, and liberally abuses the stereo audio format to split each guitar beat, giving the song an interesting and intentionally disjointed character. This, among other bit-crushing, oversaturating, and noisy tricks, was intriguing enough for a whole album play. Luckily for me, that same month they released their sophomore LP, winnowing. This second effort explores the softer side of low-fidelity recording. There are still plenty of crunchy crescendos and haphazard buzzings throughout, but each song feels more considered. They back off the chaos of their first album to introduce a meticulous melange, which is acoustic-forward and ever so slightly polished. If you’re a fan of Wednesday, glass beach, or Hey, ILY, you’ll find something to love about Forest Spirit, Sun on Your Back.
– Braden Allmond


The Callous Daoboys – I Don’t Want To See You In Heaven

MNRK Records

I’ve had the pleasure of working at a lovely, albeit somewhat niche, museum since October, and I still find new little nooks, crannies, and didactics throughout the exhibits to keep me invested. Being a museum employee also grants complimentary access to other museums, such as The Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and the Seattle Art Museum, to name a few. However, one doesn’t need reciprocity to enter the Museum of Failure, an interactive auditory museum curated by the six-piece post-hardcore band The Callous Daoboys. 

This museum is sprawling with different exhibits, ranging from the downright ridiculously heavy (“Tears on Lambo Leather,” “Full Moon Guidance,” “The Demon Of Unreality Limping Like A Dog”) to catchy (“Two-Headed Trout,” “Lemon,” “Distracted By The Mona Lisa”) to spacy (“Body Horror For Birds”). Some artifacts scare viewers while others will bring them to tears of laughter like the downright ridiculous A GAGA BOO AAGAA BOO BOO AAGAA in “Idiot Temptation Force.”

The crown jewel of this museum belongs to “III. Country Song In Reverse,” an almost twelve-minute colossus of sounds ranging from a two-minute ambient southern soundscape to thunderous breakdowns to an auto tuned repetition of “I Love You” culminating in frontman Carson Pace screaming, “I am worthy of the ark and I hope to god you can’t swim.” 

There’s a lot of laughter, a lot of tears, and a lot of heavy shit in between. Is that not what life is? Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but what I marvel at in the Museum of Failure is a group of artists who play to all of their strengths without sacrificing their uniqueness. God bless The Callous Daoboys.
– Samuel Leon


MSPAINT – No Separation

Convulse Records

I used to work at a free museum that had a wax-coated sculpture in its sculpture garden. At 2 PM on the dot, every day, a mirrored skyscraper in a different neighborhood would aim a direct beam of light and heat onto this sculpture, melting it. But every day, the museum’s restoration team would fix it—kind of a standing battle with art and capital.

This is the stubborn determination that No Separation from Hattiesburg’s MSPAINT reminds me of. In their last release, 2023’s Post-American, MSPAINT dealt in potential energy, constantly building up momentum and threatening release. In No Separation, they release it, almost leering as they proclaim a positive future amongst the wasteland.

These past couple of months have been inundated with people talking about the boundaries of hardcore, and while all that’s been going on, MSPAINT has been digging under the genre and unearthing the unruly heartbeat that drives the sound. The result? No Separation. So what if it all melts? We’ll rebuild.
– Caro Alt


Pelican – Flickering Resonance

Run For Cover

If there’s one theme that echoes throughout Flickering Resonance, Pelican’s first new record in six years, it’s the beginning of a new era for the Chicago metal quartet. Many great artists work in trilogies, such as David Bowie’s series from Berlin in the 1970s, or U2’s collaborations with Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois in the 1980s. Flickering Resonance marks the seventh full-length album from Pelican, and the start of what could be a third album trilogy nearly twenty-five years into their career.

Their dynamic sound, established since 2003’s Australasia and perfected on 2009’s What We All Come To Need, continues through new catalog classics like “Gulch” and “Wandering Mind.” The explosive and theatrical passages on “Cascading Crescent” and “Pining For Ever” fill the room with whatever speakers they’re blasting on, helping paint a soaring, loud rock landscape with the rest of the LP. Pelican has been one of my home city’s most important bands to me, and their staying power has only strengthened with the release of Flickering Resonance, unleashed to a dark world now made much brighter.
– Logan Archer Mounts


Arm’s Length – There's A Whole World Out There

Pure Noise Records

At this point, there are few members left in the emo cognoscenti to sway regarding Arm’s Length’s mastery of the craft. Signing to genre-behemoth Pure Noise Records was merely a stepping stone before unleashing their sophomore LP, There’s A Whole World Out There, a record that features the group proving they’re anything but a one-album wonder. Admittedly, I was optimistically wary at first listen, because how does a group one-up a generational debut like Never Before Seen, Never Again Found? Thankfully, I was completely enamored by the rebuttal album on release day. What makes the Canada-based unit special is their knack for crafting something comprehensive and cohesive.

As is common in the emo genre, the band's initial full-length, NBSNAF, was lyrically condemned by its nostalgia-drunk tilt. The feeling is a drug – hard to quit and easy to get lost in. However, Arm’s Length find their way out on their newest LP, rooting themselves firmly in the present. Vocalist Allen Steinberg writes from hindsight's perspective this time around, and while this album is still very much sad, it takes a different outlook on it. Such is evident on heavy-hitting cuts like “The Wound,” where Steinberg pleads, “Time will heal me, will I stick around to see it?” 

If I had to whittle down this album to 300 words or less (which is what I’m attempting), I’d say it’s largely about being overtly self-aware and viewing past mistakes through a magnifying lens. Being aware enough to recognize and admit that, yeah, there is a whole world out there waiting for me, but right now, it appears too large for me to conquer. So, this album begs the question: if there is a whole world out there, where do we go from here?
– Brandon Cortez


honeybee – midtown girl

Good Luck

A dynamic, warm indie rock record that feels like locking eyes with a beloved friend across a crowded party, right when they walk in the door. Chock full of 90s influences, beautifully produced, and adorned with some of the most confusingly tight harmonies of the year, midtown girl is the sound of a band loosening up—and shifting into a new gear as a result. It’s fun, it’s efficient, it’s a lovely companion to 2024’s Saturn Return, and it sounds perfect in whichever Midtown you’re closest to.

Regarding the 90’s influences, honeybee lead singer/songwriter Makayla Scott said, “There are just these things that are ingrained in a lot of us because that's what we grew up on...it is an amalgamation of everything that I've ever known and loved, which is 90’s Country and also a lot of Y2K Pop music. Avril, Ashlee Simpson, and then some Alanis Morissette, some Liz Phair. I'm not making direct references, but the references are just there because that's what I grew up loving and learning from.”

honeybee aimed for authenticity with midtown girl. The heart and the feeling both come through, not only lyrically but with the passion and intentionality of the vocals and instrumentals. “With midtown girl, Ian Dobyns, who is the co-producer, engineer, mixer…was really coaching me this time to deliver feeling, and to not worry about precision. So now, when I listen back on these vocal takes, there are things that I would consider not technically perfect, but the whole vibe of the song and the record feel perfect.”
– Caleb Doyle


Hayden Pedigo – I’ll Be Waving As You Drive Away

Mexican Summer

In the Sacramento Valley, heat waves slither atop the molten asphalt, and mirages shimmer among the brittle grasses. The violently warm air chaps my lungs from the inside, but at least it’s a dry heat. (That’s what they say, anyway.) To cope with the arid western summer, I have found myself spinning the perfect album for such weather: I’ll Be Waving As You Drive Away by Hayden Pedigo. This instrumental folk record is a yellow-gold masterpiece, with guitar melodies that wrap you in a woolen embrace and bring grassy mirages to life. From nostalgic pieces like “Houndstooth” to the atmospheric title track, Hayden’s skillful playing will pull at your heart and tighten your chest. You’re not even sure what you’re sad about, but you feel a great and cosmic grief weighing on your shoulders. His writing is dotted with delicate phrasing and sparingly placed harmonics that feel just right, demonstrating masterful restraint. “Smoked” is the stand-out track: melancholy wanderings and improvisation, divided by pauses that feel like a sigh, prove Hayden’s exemplary storytelling. I take a deep breath. My lungs hurt, and it smells like scorched dust. But at least it’s a dry heat.
– Britta Joseph


Ribbon Skirt – Bite Down

Mint Records

The first time I heard Bite Down, I found myself helplessly mesmerized. I had few things to compare it to, but midway through “Dead Horse,” I realized the closest reference point I could pull was Japanese Breakfast’s “Diving Woman.” Both songs serve similar purposes as their respective albums’ transportive opening tracks, slowly unfurling and welcoming the listener into the world that the band inhabits. The thing with Bite Down is that feeling didn’t let up. As the Anishinaabe group phases from the spooky hyperventilated breathing of “Cellophane” to the groovy wink of “Off Rez,” I remained spellbound. There’s the piercing scream near the end of “Wrong Planet,” the carefree post-punk bop of “Look What You Did,” and then the apocalyptic world-ending reset of “Earth Eater.” Throughout it all, the band captures a unique sense of displacement, betrayal, and perseverance that feels authentic to who this group of musicians are culturally and creatively. A rock record unlike any others this year or ever before.
– Taylor Grimes


Hemmingway Lane – “Shattered Glass”

Klepto Phase

I am from just south of Michigan, about 15 minutes from the border, and something about the state always seemed magical to me. It was this place just out of reach and out of time, and I have been chasing that nostalgic high ever since. I was able to find it again last year when Hemmingway Lane reached out to me and asked me to cover their EP Let The Flowers Die. They liked the review so much that I was able to hear “Shattered Glass” as an unmixed phone demo many months ago, and I have been eagerly awaiting its release ever since. I am pleased to report that the full song exceeds expectations in every way. In the past, Hemmingway Lane has focused on a slower indie rock sound that is reminiscent of The Backseat Lovers; however, on this track, they unlock something new in their sound. 

“Shattered Glass” is a song about the time someone threw a rock through lead singer Elijah Flood’s back windshield. However, like all art, it takes on a deeper meaning, one of truly accepting the place you are in life. It is the kind of concept that really sticks with me as I enter the period of my life where I am realizing that I am no longer who I once was, and I never will be again. It will just take some time, but eventually I'll take the shards of my splintered existence and put them into something new and beautiful.
– Ben Parker


Momma – Welcome to My Blue Sky

Polyvinyl Record Co.

The fourth studio album by Los Angeles-based Indie rock band Momma is one of those records that hit me pretty casually upon first listen, but am now regularly throwing on at work when I gain control of the aux both as a small comfort to myself and also like I’m teaching the patrons of the bustling cafe what Indie rock music is truly capable of being. Moody lyrics about love and longing delicately accompany some of the surprisingly punchiest riffs I’ve heard in a while. Heavy hitters like “Rodeo” steadily planted themselves in my brain until I realized this is one of the best albums I’ve heard all year in some unexpected, beautiful Stockholm syndrome effect. So much of this album’s power lies in the atmosphere created by tracks like “Stay All Summer,” which constantly oscillates between subtle strums and shrieking guitar tones, along with the eerie electronic effects of sleepy comforts like “New Friend.” One of the singles from the album, “Bottle Blonde,” specifically commands the utmost attention and places Welcome to My Blue Sky in the upper echelon of 2025’s offerings. The nostalgic melodies, instrumentation, and composition of this powerhouse remind me of my favorite “girl rock” bands of the late 90s and early 00s and could not be more at home in a well-patronized coffee shop or blaring from your bedroom speakers while you paint your nails and try to expunge your ex from your thoughts. As we launch headlong into the summer, there is no better time to spin this emotive collection of fair-weather hits.
– Ciara Rhiannon


PinkPantheress – Fancy That

Warner Records

Resident pop Swimmer reporting for duty. I was less than impressed with PinkPantheress’s sophomore LP, 2023’s heaven knows. Too minimal for my liking; I needed an oversaturation of elements to have even the slightest chance of stopping The Thoughts. “Tonight,” Pink’s first single of the year, was everything I thought heaven knows wasn’t—thumping, bubbly, clubby, relentless, addictive. The kind of song you hear playing in your head as you stick your head out the window of the Uber home. The rest of Fancy That matches that energy, stacking sample upon sample as Pink skates across house-adjacent trip-pop backbeats with her signature veil of indifference. “Illegal” is already going down as my song of the year—I’m convinced the opening synths could bring me back from the dead. I love this mixtape so much that I waited 35 minutes in a queue to secure tickets for her tour. She’s just doing it for me right now. See you in October, queen!
– Cassidy Sollazzo