December 22, 2025

Swim Into The Sound’s 13 Favorite Albums of 2025

December 22, 2025/ Taylor Grimes

What can I say about 2025 that hasn’t already been said across numerous publications, think pieces, and vent sessions? I guess I’ll start (selfishly) with my own experience as 2025 was a year of displacement, awkward liminal holding patterns, and stringing things together. About halfway through the year, I moved from North Carolina, leaving behind a place that felt “my speed” and was home to one of the most welcoming creative communities I’ve ever been part of. I also spent months looking for a job, facing down rejection after rejection, which is a uniquely demoralizing and confidence-destroying way to spend a year. Way I figure, all you can do in a situation like that is try to keep things light and moving forward.

The upside was that this lack of vocation meant lots of freedom and experimentation. At the beginning of the year, I instituted my own weekly column and monthly roundup just to keep myself writing regularly. I rekindled my love of photography and launched a new wing of this site dedicated to concert photos. I made a fresh batch of Swim Into The Sound merch (shirts, totes, lighters, stickers!) and tabled our first-ever event at a festival that has been nothing short of formative to my musical identity. We also made our first zine, hit 500 articles, and turned ten years old! It was a banner year in Swim Land that also happened to be our most-trafficked ever, all with fewer posts than last year, so I’ll chalk that up to quality over quantity. I couldn’t have done any of this without the beautiful Swim Team, and if you wanna know what music they liked this year (besides “Elderberry Wine”), you should click here. I hope this continues to be a place where cool people can share cool music they love.

In the end, I did find a job, and it's one that I am immensely excited to start in the new year. It’ll be a new chapter of my life and, presumably, this site as I find equilibrium in an entirely new environment. Now that I’m looking back, 2025 felt like a really weird self-contained bottle episode of sorts. Apologies in advance if things feel slow or disjointed in the new year. I think there’s still lots of “figuring stuff out” ahead of me, but at least now I feel some direction, which is a blessing after 12 months of floating around and trying my best.

Okay, but who the hell am I?

I am a dork-ass nerd who listens to way too much music. My choice for album of the year matters just as much as yours. You can read that statement as positively or negatively as you like, but I see it as freeing. We all have different answers to the AOTY question, from the lowly Taylor Swift devotee to the buzzy Bandcamp-only group that Pitchfork has exalted this year. To some end, those answers themselves are meaningless; what actually matters is why.

This year, I sat looking at some of my favorite albums of 2025 and questioned if it was all too expected. It’s not quite this, but many of these bands feel like related artists who tour together, play on each other’s songs, and could easily be played in sequence at a cafe that has let the algorithmic radio play out too long. Does it feel redundant? Am I offering enough trenchant insight to warrant this? Where do I get off?

If all the first-person language so far wasn’t a tip-off, “Swim Into The Sound’s Favorite Albums of 2025” is really just “Taylor’s Favorite Albums of 2025” dressed up to resemble the type of year-end list you’d find at a more buttoned-up publication. This is a tradition I’ve kept up for ten years, so there’s no stopping it now.

Ultimately, the goal for this type of article is to be as representative of my year as possible. Sure, it’s ranked, so I guess there’s some value judgment here, but make no mistake: this is a love fest. These are all records that I listened to endlessly and found comfort or catharsis in throughout the year. The goal is for me to look back and say ‘oh yeah, that’s what 2025 sounded like…’ I think a certain type of person might still find something new here, but at the very least, I hope you find a new way to look at an album you’ve already heard.

This year, we’re going with a baker’s dozen. Sure, it’s ranked, but the difference between, say, #8 and #9 on a list like this is about as nebulous as it gets. I can assure you I’ve got an even bigger list about a hundred albums long, and while it can feel funny to affix a number like “66” to a record, to me this is a celebration, not competition.

In so many ways, this was a terrible year of backsliding, regression, malicious intent, and horrible cruelty. I think it’s right to button things up with some positives before sending 2025 off to the annals of time—so long and good riddance. Here’s hoping we take the next step forward together, taking on whatever comes at us with renewed energy, vigor, and intent.

Look out for each other and love each other, it’s kinda all we have. In the meantime, here are 13 albums that helped keep me sane and understood in a year of free-floating dread and looming anxiety. Hallelujah, holy shit.

13 | First Day Back – Forward

For every “real emo” copypasta, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. For the ongoing Mom Jeans-ification of Midwest Emo, I like to imagine there’s a group like First Day Back upholding a more rigorous and truthful version of the genre, rooted in something more profound. Forward sounds like a forgotten classic, lost behind the shelves of a Pacific Northwest record store between Sunny Day Real Estate and Sharks Keep Moving. Throughout their debut, the Santa Cruz band tap into a second-wave style of emo that does my soul good to hear in the modern era. There’s no shortage of forlorn vocals or wandering instrumentals that offer plenty of space to contort in contemplation and writhe in regret. A true-blue emo release that should appease the oldheads and help the kids wrap their minds around a different way to approach these feelings. It’s overwrought because it has to be. After all, that’s the only way you feel anything at this age. And that is real emo.

12 | Ribbon Skirt – Bite Down

Early on in 2025, I was listening to an advance of Bite Down and was struck with the realization that it was one of my favorite records of the year thus far. In a world where the bands you know and recognize offer the false comfort of familiarity, here was a record I wandered into with zero knowledge or preconceived notions, and I found myself utterly floored by. While it’s technically the Montreal band’s debut, Ribbon Skirt was formed from the ashes of Love Language, so this new name and project feel like a fresh start that allows them to be even more intentional and fully realized. This is a band that knew what kind of music they wanted to make and achieved their vision with stunning clarity throughout these nine tracks. Bite Down is packed with dark, enchanting grooves that are even more mystifying to witness live. Lead singer Tashiina Buswa pens lyrics that can be cutting, angry, and funny all at once – a combination of emotions that feel like an appropriate way to face down the absurdity of life in the modern age. There’s betrayal, confusion, displacement, and, at the end of it all, the band summons a pit to swallow everything up and return the world we know into the gaping maw of the universe, washing it all away in the blink of an eye.

Read our full review of Bite Down here.

11 | Michael Cera Palin – We Could Be Brave

There’s a joke I like to say, and I can’t remember if I picked it up from somewhere or arrived at it organically, but it’s a bit of a sweeping statement: every band name is bad except for Mannequin Pussy. That’s true to the nth degree for Michael Cera Palin, a band whose name sounds like an emo group from a decade ago because they are. The crazy thing is, the music is so fucking good that it redeems the corny name to the point where I don’t even think about it until I’m saying it out loud.

To give a brief history of the Atlanta indie-punk group: they released two EPs at the waning crest of fourth-wave that I genuinely believe to be without flaw. Between COVID, lineup changes, and just about every obstacle you could imagine, We Could Be Brave is the group’s first official LP, and it’s everything I could have hoped for. The thing kicks off like a powderkeg with immaculate guitar tone and hard-driving bass, peaking in an ultra-compelling cry of “FUCK A LANDLORD, YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHERE I LIVE!” There’s an incredible spoken word passage, powerful singalong singles, a re-recording for the realheads, and a 12-minute closing title track to really send ya off with a kick in the pants. Throughout it all, the band is utterly restless and proficient, a perfect conduit for the transfer of energy that this type of music aims to achieve. The rare great emo album, the rare seven-year wait that was worth it, the rare god-awful band name that doesn’t give me a second of pause.

Read our full review of We Could Be Brave here.

10 | Greg Freeman – Burnover

I love the first Greg Freeman album. There was a whole summer where I kept I Looked Out on maddening repeat, wrapped up in its alien twang and distortion. It’s the exact kind of sound that’s in vogue right now, so it only makes sense that Greg Freeman is already onto the next thing. Greg’s second album, Burnover, is a dirty, dust-covered, shit kicker of an album, packed with lounge singer swagger, funny-ass phrases, and open-road braggadocio. Opening track “Point and Shoot” is something of a test to see how well the listener can handle Freeman’s off-kilter voice as he paints backdrops of blood-soaked canyons, senseless tragedy, and a wild west with the power to make you recoil. Beyond that, the horns of “Salesman” and the honky tonk piano of “Curtain” offer riches beyond this world. Mid-album cut “Gulch” revs to life with the heartland verve of a Tom Petty classic, encouraging you to hop in your car and hit 80 on the closest straightaway you can find. If the album’s charms work the way they’re intended, by the time he’s singing “Why is heartache outside, doing pushups in the street?” the question should not only make sense, but the answer should hit you like a punch in the gut.

Read our full review of Burnover here.

9 | Florry – Sounds Like…

Sometimes, one sentence is all it takes to sell you on a record. In the case of Sounds Like…, there was a standalone quote on the Bandcamp page, rendered in hot-pink type, that reads, “The Jackass theme song was actually a really big influence on the new album.” Hell yeah, brother. Between the time it took me to read that and watch the homespun handycam music video for lead single “Hey Baby,” I knew I was in for a good time. Sounds Like… is an album that sweats, shouts, yelps, and stomps its way into your heart through nothing but the glorious power of rock and roll. Opening track “First it was a movie, then it was a book” is a joyous seven-minute excursion, complete with glorious guitar harmonies and countless solos – a perfect showcase for lead singer Francie Medosch’s scratchy, charismatic voice. Throughout the rest of the album, you’ll hear sweltering harmonica, walloping wah-wah, beautiful acoustic balladry, smoky, head-bobbing riffage, and sincere love songs. Sometimes ya just gotta sit back, let the guitars rock, and enjoy watching the frontperson be a wonky type of guy you’ve never seen before. While their sound is obviously very steeped in the tradition of “classic” rock, on this album, Florry sounds like nothing but themselves.

8 | Colin Miller – Losin’

Colin Miller might be the Fifth Beatle of the “Creek Rock” scene. He’s the Nigel Godrich to Wednesday’s Radiohead; the rhythmic center keeping time in MJ Lenderman’s band; the invisible fingerprint on a whole host of this year’s best indie rock records. On his second solo album, Miller proves that he’s also a knockout musician in his own right. While I enjoyed the singles, to me, the only thing you need to understand Losin’ is to start it from the top and take in that sick-ass guitar bend on “Birdhouse.” If that hits you, then you’re in for a treat.

Essentially an album-length eulogy, Losin’ is a record about Gary King, the beloved owner of the Haw Creek property, which served as artistic home for the aforementioned Wednesday, MJ Lenderman, and many more from the now-dispersed Asheville music scene. This is an album that wrestles, fights, makes up with, and finds painful coexistence alongside loss. It’s not just the loss of a father figure and a home, but a time, place, and person that you’ll never be again. It’s about how things will always feel different, and might feel bad, but will unfold all the same. The tasty licks help things go down easier, but this is a heartrending record made for moping and wallowing in the name of moving on. After all, it’s what those lost loved ones would have wanted.

Read our full review of Losin’ here.

7 | Geese – Getting Killed

Whenever life has felt hard this year, I can’t help but feel guilty knowing that I don’t have things that bad. All things considered, my struggles feel frivolous compared to what some have to deal with on a daily basis, and that worries me for the future. Put another way, I’m getting killed by a pretty good life.

It seems impossible to write about Geese without being a little annoying, but maybe that’s just because I know a lot of music writers and have read a lot of hyperbolic Geese writing this year. They’re the band saving rock. They’re the band holding up New York as an artistic center of the universe. They’re the ones topping lists and starting trends and getting people to wash their hair differently. Ultimately, I’m just glad that kids have a proper band to look up to who will lead them to Exile and Fun House and to start their own stupid, shitty rock bands that don’t go anywhere. We need more of those.

If anything, I am a Geese skeptic. If anything, I prefer the dick-swingin' classic rock riffage that was more abundant on 3D Country. If anything, I think this band’s most interesting work is still in front of them. Even still, it’s hard to deny the beauty of a song like “Au Pays du Cocaine,” the snappy drumming of “Bow Down,” the rapturous ascension of “Taxes,” or the pure, wacked-out fun of shouting “THERE’S A BOMB IN MY CAR!” Overall, Getting Killed may take a slightly slower pace than I would have wanted, but it’s nice to have a cool, weird rock band making cool, weird rock music that people seem to be excited about.

6 | Alex G – Headlights

Headlights is an album that feels like it was meant to exist as a CD in the console of your family car. It’s a shame this wasn't released between the years of 1991 and 1998. This is an album that has grown on me immensely over time, and much of that enjoyment comes from throwing it on and letting it play from the top. Headlights has a rough, road-ready quality that puts it in the league of albums like Out of Time or Being There – records meant to be thrown on repeat endlessly and live between the seats of a beat-up Dodge or the family van. Maybe listened in five to 15-minute chunks while running errands across town, maybe on a road trip blasting through the middle of the country. In any case, the tenth album from Alex G doesn’t necessarily stun or wow on the outset; instead, its power comes from these repeated visits, slowly growing, morphing, and solidifying over time into a singular thing. Definitely a grower, not a shower, but hey, who among us? After directing scores for two of the most interesting indie films of the past decade, Alex G seems to have picked up a couple of interesting lessons about restraint and leaving some sense of mystery. Headlights is a record that rewards patience with beauty, unlocking compartments and passageways for those willing to explore. In time, I think this record will work its way up my ranking towards the upper-crust of Alex G records, but maybe I’m just unavoidably 32, and this is the type of music I’m drawn to. Time will tell.

5 | Spirit Desire – Pets

In the weeks after Pets released, I distinctly remember asking myself the question, ‘Can a four-song EP be in the top ten on my album of the year list?’ Technically, Pets is really only three songs and one 90-second instrumental interlude, but I suppose that lightweight feeling is part of the appeal; less songs means less space for error, and when four out of four songs hit, you start to think of this as a 100% hit ratio. While the first song delves into the title at hand, reckoning with dead pets over shimmering keys and a nasally Canadian-emo accent, “Shelly’s Song” offers an immediate portal that cleanses the palate for what’s next. What’s next is “IDFC,” one of my favorite songs of the year and a track that connects to me with the same lightning rod intensity of something like “Assisted Harikari,” an absolute jolt to the system and the type of song that reminds me why I like music so much in the first place. Admittedly my buoy for this entire release, “IDFC” begs you to jump into the pit and scream your heart out, while “It Is What It Is” swoops in to mop up the sweat and spilled beer. I know Pets isn’t an album, but the enjoyment I’ve gotten out of these ten minutes outweighs entire LPs, adventures, and days of my life—a perfect excursion.

4 | Algernon Cadwallader – Trying Not to Have a Thought

It sounds a little hyperbolic, but when Algernon Cadwallader released Some Kind of Cadwallader in 2008, it more or less birthed the modern emo scene. There are still bands today that cite Algernon as an inextricable influence. Sure, emo music still has deeper ties to American Football and Rites of Spring, but Algernon was the Revival. In fact, they were so good, they couldn’t even top themselves. The group released Parrot Flies in 2011, then decided to take a hiatus in 2012. A couple of years ago, they did the Anniversary Thing and toured with the original lineup, which felt so good that they signed to Saddle Creek for Trying Not to Have a Thought. Never mind the Emo Qualifier; this record is the absolute best-case scenario for a band reuniting and recording a record, up there with Slowdive and Hum.

Perhaps one of the strongest things working in its favor is that this is decidedly not the band just trying to sound as close as possible to their fan-favorite album; instead, they’re taking those techniques and approaches and updating them to where they find themselves in life now, which is to say, grappling with an entirely different set of problems. While the early music was earnest and obscure, Trying is earnest and pointed. There’s no longer time to beat around the bush because there are real stakes. This record touches on everything: death, technology, work-life balance, and the 1982 non-narrative documentary Koyaanisqatsi. When those concepts seem too big, the band zooms in on hyper-specific examples, detailing them with colorful brush strokes that are impossible to rip away from.

On one song, vocalist Peter Helmis shines a light on millions of dollars of rocks that the city of Portland, Oregon, had installed to keep homeless people from sleeping under an overpass. One song later, the band recounts Operation MOVE, in which our own government dropped two bombs on a Philly neighborhood that housed the black liberation organization MOVE, killing six adults, five children, and leaving hundreds homeless. It’s pretty stunning to hear a band age this gracefully and create a work that feels like it stands alone. The decades separating the band’s first album from their most recent show that the members are all more mature, proficient, and outspoken. In the end, the band themselves sum everything up smack dab in the middle of the record, where they sing, “You’re ready all too ready ready to accept that this is the way it’s always been and so it must not be broke.” We are radiators hissing in unison.

Read our write-up of Trying Not To Have a Thought here.

3 | Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band – New Threats from the Soul

Ryan Davis is a verbose motherfucker. The average track length on his project’s sophomore album is eight minutes. Recommending that to a casual music fan makes me feel like those people who talk about decades-running anime series and say things like “it really picks up like 300 episodes in,” but I swear that, in this case, patience pays off. In fact, I don’t think you even have to be that patient: go listen to the opening song, title track, and lead single “New Threats from the Soul,” and you’ll pretty immediately understand what this album is “doing,” which is to say loungy, multi-layered sonic expeditions into the heart of the increasingly fragile American psyche. There’s synth, snaps, flutes, and claps. There are shaky statements of love, glimpses into a kingdom far, far away, and an unshakable disconnect between the life expected and the one being lived. At the center of it all, we find Ryan Davis attempting to piece a life together with bubblegum and driftwood, flailing as the band flings back into the groove.

This sort of energy is scattered all across New Threats from the Soul, each song offering a vast soundscape, hundreds of words, and enough of a runway to really feel like you’re along for the ride. Each track pulls you along, adding some lightness and brevity exactly where it’s needed as you are comforted, consoled, and compelled by the pen of Mr. Davis. There are just as many ravishing turns of phrase as there are striking instrumental moments, like the country-fried breakbeat on “Monte Carlo / No Limits” or the winding outro of “Mutilation Falls.” It all adds up to an album that you’ll keep turning over, parsing different layers of a dense text and coming up with something new each time.

2 | Wednesday – Bleeds

The new album from Wednesday is perfect. It’s also expected. Expected in that those who have been following the group for years pretty much knew what to expect from the band’s tightrope walk of country, shoegaze, and cool-ass southern indie. Expected that the band has refined this formula to the point of perfection. Expected that it earned them lots of media coverage, interviews, and sold-out shows after the album before this did the same. The only reason I’d still give an edge to an album like Twin Plagues is that everything felt that much more surprising and novel when it was my first time experiencing it. Even still, it’s a delight taking in the world through the eyes of bandleader Karly Hartzman, who writes, pound-for-pound, some of the most charming, personable, and compassionate lyrics of any modern artist. Her words hone in on small details that others might pass over, wielding them into pointed one-liners, surprising pop culture references, or brand-new idioms that just make inherent sense.

Bleeds still has plenty of surprises: an Owen Ashworth-assisted romp through a double-header of Human Centipede and a jam band set, a rough-and-ready crowd-churning rager, a Pepsi punchline to wrap the whole thing up. This is the most Wednesday album to date: a sort of album-length self-actualization brought about by five of the most talented musicians our United States has to offer. Each time I venture into the record, it is utterly transportive. As “Reality TV Argument Bleeds” mounts to a piercing scream followed by a blown-out shoegaze riff, it’s impossible to want to be anywhere else. This is Wednesday to a tee. The band has condensed their sound to the point of maximum impact, and while I look forward to many more live shows jumping around to “Townies” and singing along to “Elderberry Wine,” the mind reels wondering where they all could take this next, because the answer truly feels like it could be anywhere.

Read our full review of Bleeds here.

1 | Caroline Rose – year of the slug

Dear reader, let me ask you a question… Do you like the way things are right now? Are you happy with The Arrangement? Content to sit back, uphold the norm, and wait for things to get better? Odds are, your answer is something along the lines of ‘fuck no,’ and that’s why you’re here reading this. I’m speaking broadly, but only because this dissatisfaction is omnidirectional and widely applicable. We’re not solving any of the world’s systemic issues in the opening paragraph of a DIY publication’s album of the year roundup, but maybe we can break things down and make it feel more digestible.

This summer, news broke that Spotify CEO Daniel EK was investing 700 Million Euros into Helsing, an AI defense company that primarily makes drones and surveillance systems. As a response, hundreds of artists pulled their music off Spotify and users quit the platform in droves out of protest. The same thing happened a couple of months later when Spotify started running ICE recruitment ads while members of the organization were actively terrorizing citizens in Portland and Chicago.

It feels especially prescient then that when Caroline Rose announced year of the slug back in January, she specifically went out of her way to outline that the album would not be on Spotify or any other streaming platform besides Bandcamp. Similarly, when Rose took the album on the road, they only toured independent venues; the kinds of places that are simultaneously an endangered species and the backbone of the music industry. Between all of this –the AI music, the Live Nation monopoly, the merch cuts, the shrinking margins, and the execs who can only think in terms of statistics and streaming numbers– Rose carved out space to release a collection of songs entirely on their own terms.

year of the slug is a masterful, enchanting, intentioned, personable, honest, and singular collection of songs that function in the exact way an album should. Even just by breaking out of the Spotify Cycle of constantly-flowing new releases that treats music less like art and more like “content,” Rose made a record that you have to go out of your way to intentionally experience and listen to. This alone forces you to engage with the music on a more thoughtful level, experiencing the record on its own terms, not as part of a queue.

In that same album announcement, Rose explained the sort of philosophy behind the record, contrasting that, “in lieu of A.l. perfection, slug contains the sounds of my life–cupboards slamming, birds chirping, the garbage trucks that plague me every Thursday.” The result is a pared-down batch of songs that sound beautifully flawed and human.

The album was tracked on GarageBand through Rose’s phone, so things typically revolve around the most basic of musical ingredients: vocals and an acoustic guitar. While on one hand you could hear that and think “this sounds like unfinished demos,” it could just as equally evoke the stark, barebones imperfection of an album like Nebraska. I personally tend toward the latter, with the minimal arrangements only serving to highlight the elements that do come through. There’s no room for anything to get muddled or washed out. To borrow a phrase from the opening track, everything in its right place, especially the fuck-ups.

The songs themselves are brilliant, with Rose’s ear for melody and knack for sticky phrasing shining on nearly every track. Whether it’s the piercing hurt of “to be lonely” or the spaghetti western stomp of “goddamn train,” year of the slug is an album that delights in the simple pleasure of a sip of Mexican beer and the raw humanity of a Taco Bell order. What’s more, this is an album where I can glance at the tracklist, read a song title, and immediately call to mind what it sounds like. Can’t say the same thing for most records I listened to this year.

To close, I’d like to ask the same question I did at the beginning of this entry: Do you like the way things are right now? If the answer is no, I think it’s time to make a change. It doesn’t have to be all at once; it doesn’t even have to be multiple things. You don’t have to quit everything, leave society, and lead a hermetic life. Maybe it’s just as simple as taking the $10 you give to a company each month and directing it to an artist on Bandcamp to experience their album. I think that’s more rewarding than clicking on a stream, chasing “scalability,” following virality for the next big thing. This could be your next obsession, and that’s the only one that matters.

March 31, 2025

The Best of Q1 2025

March 31, 2025/ The Swim Team

In 2025, I think it’s become clear to pretty much everyone how nefarious the tech industry is. All the major social media platforms are owned by oligarchs, actively pushing narratives that benefit them, silencing dissent, and forcing users into isolated echo chambers of a uniquely hellish making. AI-generated slop has proliferated every corner of the internet, from braindead comment-generating bots and nonsensical recipe introductions to a snowballing quantity of deadening content designed to keep you scrolling forever and ever. Every move is being tracked, reported on, and sent back to some advertiser who’s going to try to squeeze another couple of pennies out of you for a new-and-improved dish soap tailored specifically to you and your ideals.

In a way, it’s a hell of our own hyper-customized making, but also one we’re utterly helpless to as the current of technology transfers power further and further up. It’s fascinating and frustrating to have watched the internet evolve from this place of wonder and near-limitless potential to an ad-sponsored wasteland where only the rich and the stupid survive.

To that end, I’ve never found it more important to log off and experience the real world. To touch grass and stare at water, to keep my nose in a book and my head on the positives. When I am logged on, I try my best to seek out things made by real people. I’ve found great comfort and camaraderie in newsletters, music, and the carefully considered creations of friends. It’s never been more important to be intentional about the things you interact with. To question the recommendations of the algorithm and ask, ‘Who is this benefiting?’ because, more often than not, you’ll find that it’s something terrible if you follow that chain for long enough.

Jesus, I didn’t mean for this to be such a bummer. This is all a long and slightly dour way for me to say that I see a great deal of worth in genuine recommendations from real people, and that’s exactly what this round-up offers. Part of me dislikes that I instituted a quarterly cadence for recapping our favorite new releases because it makes me sound like a dumb business bro. Stocks were down in Q1. Feeling bullish on alt-country. Sell all your ownership in shoegaze. That’s just not how music works. The title of this article might seem silly, but honestly, it’s just a way for us to make a case for our favorite releases of the year so far in hopes that you find something new to enjoy.

Sure, we’re only a few months into 2025, but the dedicated crew of music geeks that make up the Swim Team have found no shortage of records to love. It’s a fast-moving world, and we want to help you keep up by giving you something new and fresh to obsess over. Every Friday, I find about a dozen new records I want to listen to, and I almost never get to them all, but that ever-elusiveness is part of the game. You find a bunch; you love a few. What follows are 18 recommendations from 18 of our writers. That’s 18 records made by real people that are worth your time and effort and money and love.

Fuck your algorithm, trust your heart. Thanks for being here.

Anxious – Bambi

It feels like whenever I’m writing a Swim Into The Sound “Best Of” entry, it’s for some band on Run For Cover. I'm still not sure if Bambi is my favorite record of the year (the new Cloakroom, Spiritbox, and Art d’Ecco are fantastic), but it's certainly the one I've gone back to the most, thanks to its unique blend of indie-rock and emo inspirations. It's hilarious to listen to this mostly melodic record and think about how, just five years ago, I was watching Anxious open for Knuckle Puck and had to actively avoid stage divers and crowd killers. That's not to say you won't find those in 2025, but with songs like “Some Girls” and my personal favorite, “Jacy,” in a tracklist like this, nestled alongside “Head & Spine,” you get the best of all worlds. This is the sound of a band maturing, and not in a bad way.

– Samuel Leon

Caroline Rose – year of the slug

When I think of Caroline Rose, I picture the cover of LONER, which depicts a vacant-eyed Rose staring off into the middle distance with a mouth crammed full of cigarettes like that one file photo of Homer Simpson. That album was one of the best releases of 2018: a red-washed indie rock release packed with wildly inventive songs, fun music videos, and an excess of personality. I liked 2020’s Superstar a fair bit, but by the time The Art of Forgetting came out in 2023, it felt like something had been lost in the equation.

year of the slug scales things back in the most wondrous way, reminiscent of that free-ranging invention I first fell in love with back in 2018, even though it sounds much different. Self-recorded entirely through Garageband on their phone, most of these songs are sparse and simple, featuring only guitar, vocals, and Rose’s uncanny knack for uncovering a melody. There’s some ornamentation: the occasional multi-tracked vocal, drum loop, or piano dirge, but in comparison to Rose’s previous albums, everything is paired back in a way that’s striking and remarkably catchy.

When announcing the album, Caroline Rose posted something of a mission statement, outlining their desire to live life more slug-like. Through these constraints: self-recording, self-releasing, avoiding streaming services, exclusively touring independent venues, and pairing things back to the absolute bare minimum, Rose has created an immaculate and inspirational collection of songs that stand on their own as a testament to pure, artistic creativity. Thank you, Uncle Carol.

– Taylor Grimes

Cloakroom – Last Leg of the Human Table

When our editor put out the call for Swim’s Q1 roundup, I ran to claim Cloakroom’s Last Leg of the Human Table as fast as my fingers could type. This moving, variegated album has had me and my colleagues buzzing since its release – its vast emotional depth and intensely satisfying density have proven that Cloakroom just keeps getting better. The opening track, “The Pilot,” is a soaring and spacey anthem that I unabashedly claim as my favorite off of the album. Heavy without being overwhelming or cluttered, I’m calling it now as the song of the summer. Though Last Leg of the Human Table stays true to the band’s shoegaze-y, self-described “stoner emo” sound, the album also proves Cloakroom’s range with the thoughtfully strummed “Bad Larry” and the wistful interlude “On Joy and Undeserving.” When I need a hit of pure dopamine, I’ll be cranking Cloakroom at max volume with the windows down.

– Britta Joseph

Coheed and Cambria – The Father of Make Believe

When it’s a Coheed and Cambria release year, I tend to make the joke that no other album stands a chance. This is mostly because Coheed has been my favorite band for well over the last decade, and that’s just the expectation at this point, but there is always the fear in the back of my mind that this will be the album of theirs that doesn’t resonate for me. Fortunately, this is not the case with the band’s (somehow) eleventh studio album and the third act of the Vaxis saga, in which Coheed comes back stronger than ever, delivering possibly my favorite of the three. The hints were all there, but realizing this was secretly a third Afterman record not only satisfied the part of me that loves referential themes but produced some of my new favorite Coheed experiences like this album’s acoustic slow burn “Corner My Confidence.” The Father of Make Believe reminds me exactly what I adore about this band, specifically in bringing back their epic, album-ending suites, as well as continuing to lock in their tried and true formulas, arresting rhythm section, and grandiose, operatic sequencing. Despite alluding to the eventual ending of the band in their new pop ballad “Goodbye, Sunshine,” I truly hope Coheed continues to produce these kickass, sci-fi epics for as long as possible.

– Ciara Rhiannon

Denison Witmer – Anything At All

I really hope Denison Witmer finally gets his flowers. Witmer’s been making thoughtful and contemplative folk songs for almost 30 years, and I’ve been a fan for almost 20. I saw him play the student center at my Christian college in the year of our Lord 2005; he played simple solo folk songs about sleeping, dreaming, and longing, and I was never the same.

Anything At All was recorded and produced by Witmer’s longtime friend and collaborator, Sufjan Stevens. Sufjan is only credited as a featured artist on two of the ten songs, but his voice and musical fingerprints are everywhere. Witmer’s writing seems to focus mostly on the intersection of the mundane and the divine: trying to be a good dad and husband, working in the garden, planting trees, dealing with self-doubt, questioning what sort of life we’re living and what sort of legacy we’re leaving, reconciling the smallness and the existential largeness of middle-aged domestic life. Maybe it’s the fact that I turn 40 this year, but honestly, these are the sort of songs my soul longs for. It’s good shit! If you like Anything At All, check out 2020’s American Foursquare and 2005’s Are You A Dreamer?

– Ben Sooy

Fust – Big Ugly

In a world full of new artists that you NEED to know about, the simple solution to the glut is to look to North Carolinian photographer and musician Charlie Boss, who seems to be best friends with some of the most important musicians of our day. Charlie’s work introduced me to the Durham, NC band Fust, and for that, I am forever thankful.

I only moved to the South three years ago, but gah-lee, if Fust’s Big Ugly don't make me feel like I was born with a Mountain Dew in each hand. Aaron Dowdy’s writing about the South spoke to a newcomer like me in ways that caught me off guard. Big Ugly guides me down through kudzu-covered hollers and helps to remind me just how beautiful it is down here. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about “Spangled,” the lead single and lead track of the album, which takes you soaring down dotted highway lines and over dilapidated buildings, all while the structure of the song itself steadily turns into an Appalachian free association. Big Ugly goes on to oscillate between Springsteen-style power ballads and sharp songs of yearning. It is an album of beauty, humor, and truth-telling. If I could have any superpower, it might be to have whatever Fust band leader Aaron Dowdy has. It might just be better than flying.

– Kirby Kluth

Jaye Jayle – After Alter

Evan Patterson is already underway ruling my first quarter listens in 2025, most recently with Power Sucker, the new Young Widows album and the band’s first in eleven years. On top of that, there’s After Alter, the latest offering from his solo project Jaye Jayle, which kicked off the year with a thunderous punch back in January. It’s a heavy and dynamic release that continues Patterson’s tradition of recontextualizing sludge metal into the singer/songwriter realm, channeling the more intimate moments of artists like Nick Cave, Neurosis, and Swans. The rhythmic drones of tracks like “Father Fiction” and “Doctor Green” are emotional and entrancing, dark ballads for doomful druids. After Alter’s final moments are introduced with a seven-minute rendition of The Beatles’ “Help!” done in a way only Jaye Jayle can do and doesn’t sound out of place with the rest of the record at all. It’s one of Patterson’s finest works to date in an already prolific catalog worth celebrating.

– Logan Archer Mounts

Men I Trust – Equus Asinus

I think a lot about how Christopher Nolan had Clémence Poésy, who appears in one sequence of Tenet to “explain” the time-bending mechanisms of the sci-fi spy masterpiece, tell the Protagonist and audience: “Don’t try to understand it. Feel it.” Tenet is a vibes movie, one to ride with and luxuriate in, one to let the craft wash over you and feel it rip you away.

Men I Trust’s albums are vibes records. They lure you in with sultry, lounging grooves, but on Equus Asinus, the songs are full of aching. Aching to feel like you did before, aching to return. These aren’t the sweet dreams that earned dream-pop its genre tag; these are the dreams of Twin Peaks. So close to being reality, but with one glaring, off-kilter element that knocks you off balance. It’s in the warm creak of the piano on the closer, “What Matters Most.” In “All My Candles” questions of what our time even amounts to. In the mud, we come with and come from. In the melodramatic instrumental on “Paul’s Theme,” which would fit perfectly over Shinji psychically breaking in the back half of Neon Genesis Evangelion. One set of lyrics repeatedly asks in French: “Little man, what do you want?”

You feel it too, don’t you?

– Lillian Weber

Midcard – Sick

Growing up in a no-stoplight town in Montana, my world was saturated with the podunk culture of rural life in the American West, so I denounced country music on principle, opting for my version of things that felt rebellious (pop-punk, metalcore, screamo, etc.). It’s only been in the past several years that I’ve had a redemptive journey with twangy music by way of country-tinged emo rock, and Midcard from Austin, TX, is one of my favorite bands doing it. I’ve been a fan since “BMI” made me cry real tears in 2023, and this new EP is my favorite thing they’ve done. The southernness is apparent, but there’s not even a hint of affectation in these indie punk songs that land somewhere between the last couple Hotelier records, early Manchester Orchestra, and 90’s alt-rock in the vein of Everclear. What hits especially hard for me are the lyrics, tender and pissed off in equal measure, often flirting with cynicism, with plenty of wit and passion to cut the acid. There are gang vocals, tappy emo riffs, dudes yelling, “Woo!” before guitar solos, panic chords, an all-time great diss about “very publicly misunderstand[ing] The Catcher in the Rye,” and none of it feels anything less than earnest. Rock music.

– Nick Webber

Oldstar – Of the Highway

Back in February, Oldstar’s Zane McLaughlin posted on the band’s blog about recording Of the Highway and said, “Oldstar went Hi-Fi, is what the critics will say, all three of them.” Well, I’m a critic, and I am here to say they went Hi-Fi, and it’s fantastic.

Even with a full band, a new home in New York City, and a real-deal recording studio, the melancholia of Florida’s Oldstar still weaves through the album. The band deals in lyrical storytelling, with McLaughlin recalling conversations or tall tales, all over songs that lean into a country twang (“Wake Me”), alt-rock fuzz (“Nail”), or blend both seamlessly (“Alabama”). Oldstar is a band that I wanted to make a huge album, and I am so happy they did. It’s getting warm again, so go find a chair outside, crack a beer, watch the sunset, and listen to this.

– Caro Alt

Pink Must – Pink Must

Pink Must, the collaboration between Mario Rubio, aka more eaze, and Lynn Avery, two of the most delightfully eclectic musicians in American experimental music, is straightforward. Well, in a way. What started as a process of sending demos back and forth, trying to make a grunge album, eventually clicked into place once both relocated to New York City. Two specialists in pulled-and-stretched compositions united to craft an album of AutoTuned alt-rock songs. What sets Pink Must apart from potential pastiche is total commitment and earnestness. Exploratory tendencies aren’t sanded down; they are poured into the space permeating these songs, surrounding warbled poetry, guitar riffs, and mirage-like full band grooves (everything was recorded and performed by Rubio and Avery). Six-minute lead single “Himbo” unfolds into ambiance and guitar strums, only slightly hinting at its creators’ oeuvres. Pink Must is one of the year’s best rock albums, inverting tropes, sounds, and expectations and making something special, making something unique.

– Aly Eleanor

Pyre – This Is How We Lose Fullness

I, like many of us, have been waiting for the album of 2025 that feels like it will help me soundtrack all this absurdity. Cloakroom certainly has done a great job, but when I finished my first listen of This Is How We Lose Fullness, a very frantic energy that had been pinging around my bones and muscle finally seemed to have dissipated through and out of me like Hawking radiation, but for bad vibes. Pyre’s potent blend of screamo, hardcore, and emo mechanics create an invisible latticework of gyres and pulleys, riffs seizing guitars, vocals drawn to bass thrums, drums propelling gang vocals like a moonshot. Force as we know it and (barely) understand it exists in This Is How We Lose Fullness; its inexorable pull, push, and grasp all feel so physically present that you’d think the album was actually shaking you. From the vile clarion call of the album opener to its final quieting death rattle, Pyre have nailed the feeling of our current doomscrolling existence while you urgently battle your growing need to claw at your face from the madness of it all. But hey, you know what they say: A body for the pyre, pile it on and get on with it.

– Elias Amini

Rose Gray – Louder, Please

This one’s for all my fellow pop princesses out there. My brats, my partygirls, my club rats. Lovers of all things Charli XCX and Tove Lo.

Rose Gray’s Louder, Please honestly had me at the album cover – something about the harsh lighting, the face-melting scream on Gray’s face, the beach, the red hair. She charmed me even before the first song. I was then pleasantly surprised to see that the image on the cover completely matched the vibes of the music upon hearing the thumping club banger opener “Damn.” The East Londoner (and Harris Dickinson’s long-term girlfriend? Okay queen, go off) channeled her underground rave roots throughout her sophomore album, mixing EDM and dance-pop with anthemic hooks to create a record that feels like one big, whirlwind night out. B-side sleeper “Everything Changes (But I Won’t)” is already primed to be my top song of the year. Gray’s vocals are the perfect mix of detached and all-consuming, making her songs that much more enticing. And she was certainly citing her sources: songwriting credits include the guitarist for Cobra Starship, Ryland Blackinton, on “Angel of Satisfaction” and synth-pop “Pop the Glock” queen Uffie on “Just Two.” The season change makes this the perfect album to add to your hot summer rooftop pregame playlist.

– Cassidy Sollazzo

Saba and No I.D. – From the Private Collection of Saba and No I.D.

I’ve listened to many great albums this year, but none had me running it back over and over and over again like this one; I probably listened through the full thing about six times the day that it dropped. When people talk about No I.D. these days, a lot of focus is put on the way he’s mentored and influenced other artists, and though that is a huge part of his legacy, I feel like more needs to be said about the fact that he’s still one of the best producers in the game. The beats on this record wrap themselves around you; you can live in them, and they stand up alongside almost anything else in his impressive body of work. Pair that up with Saba, one of Chicago’s greatest storytellers, laying down some of his best verses since Care for Me, and the result is just a beautiful record. The features are all great too, particularly MFnMelo on “Westside Bound Pt. 4,” an absolute gem of a track. I know that I mostly write about emo music, and the people reading this are probably primarily emo listeners, but even if rap isn’t something you listen to regularly, I’d implore you to check this one out (that goes double if you’re from or live in Chicago). Anytime two titans like this link up, it’s a blessing, and though it’s still early, it’s tough for me to imagine anything else coming this year that can top this one. So happy that we have this.

– Josh Ejnes

Tobacco City – Horses

Chicago’s Tobacco City is alt-country in look alone, with mustaches, rattails, and arms full of tattoos, but when the music starts, they deliver pure Conway and Loretta. They are as swingin’-doors a saloon band as Merle Haggard’s Strangers. There’s nothing really “alt” about it; their country sound is authentic and captivating, and their melodies and instrumentation are as unique as they are antique. Horses, their second LP, is more distilled country than their first, and the band has built on that original sound. The songs are airtight, and the lyrics are true 21st-century Americana—strip malls, late-night diners, and struggle. The heroes of the album, without question, are the dual harmonies of bandleader Chris Coleslaw and Lexi Goddard, as well as the pedal steel stylings of Andy “Red” PK. Coleslaw has a classically deadpan-style country voice, like Waylon Jennings or Jay Farrar. Goddard’s heavenly voice laces and loops around like Emmylou Harris or Miranda Lambert. When their voices meet in harmony, they reach a truly ethereal plane. Red lays down pedal steel somewhere between Jerry Garcia on Workingman’s Dead and Lloyd Maines on Anodyne—and he joins Wednesday’s Xandy Chelmis as a titan of the Pedal Steel Moment.

– Caleb Doyle

The Tubs – Cotton Crown

The best export to come out of Wales since Gareth Bale, jangle pop quartet The Tubs have created an album that has already made a permanent home in my rotation for 2025 and further. The songs are packed to the brim with energetic, uptempo guitar strokes to circumvent the melancholy, glum lyrics of vocalist Owen Williams. 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. Cotton Crown is a fascinating case study in successfully masking the deeply personal lyrics of Williams that oftentimes venture into darkness with a bright, sunny disposition of music. “Narcissist” and “Strange” will have you feeling like Otto Rocket while surfing on nonstop waves of jangle pop guitar strings. Cotton Crown doesn’t possess a dull moment in its brief twenty-nine-minute runtime. The Tubs have the energy of a spiked Celsius drink with the passion of a grief-stricken poet, making this an instant favorite of mine.

– David Williams

wakelee – Doghouse

Brooklyn indie-emo trio wakelee appeared to me in a particularly ferocious doomscrolling session on TikTok. The band’s video snuck in a substantial three seconds of screentime before I swiped up to feed my ever-insatiable brain rot. However, in those three seconds, the unit introduced some of my favorite music of the year thus far. Doghouse, released on February 7th, is the band at their most confident and commanding.

Ironically, the song that piqued my interest during that fateful doomscrolling bout was track one, “mildlyinteresting.” Starting inquisitively with a hazy arpeggio, the jarring, fat guitar chords kick in before the captivating opening verse strikes. The track explicates vocalist/guitarist Alex Bulmer’s (and clearly my) noxious dependence on being online. The song will not only have you returning for an ungodly amount of repeat listens but also dwelling on all the times you shut the blinds and sought strangers’ advice on Quora.

Equally as catchy but largely less upbeat is the ensuing track, “Bangkok.” Following the same arpeggiated intro as the initial track, it’s here that wakelee takes a much more reclusive and introspective route. Driven by melancholic vocals and guitar melodies, the track paints pictures of leaving relationships with wounds. Hemorrhaging and haunting, Bulmer musters, “It’s not fair, I wish that you could be here.” The rest of the EP is just as fantastic – from more delicate, pensive tracks like “Doghouse” to the alt-rock-dunked anthem, “Gary’s Outcome.” Combining aspects of acts like Remo Drive, Pinegrove, and oso oso, wakelee’s Doghouse is required listening in 2025.

– Brandon Cortez

YHWH Nailgun – 45 Pounds

It’s rare to find a new release that genuinely opens your mind, expanding possibilities of what’s viable within a genre, but YHWH Nailgun do just that on 45 Pounds. Between Sam Pickard’s frantic drumming and Zach Borzone’s delivery that falls in a liminal space between whimpers, grunts, and screams, the rest of the band is left to inject whatever jagged pieces of melody they can. The result is 20 minutes of some of the strangest punk music I’ve heard in my life. Guitars and synthesized noise echo in response to each hollow drum fill, like sheet metal crumpling in response to the hits of a hammer. The individual components sound mechanical, but together, they twitch in ways that feel disturbingly lifelike. As Borzone sputters out seemingly every fear, delusion, or revelation that crosses his mind, a soul makes itself known. Is it pretty? Almost never. Do I dare look away? Not on your life.

– Wes Cochran

February 25, 2019

When Musicians Tweet

February 25, 2019/ Taylor Grimes

There’s an old adage that every musician wants to be a stand-up and every comic wants to be a rockstar. While this is probably a case of “the grass is always greener,” sometimes you’ll find someone who manages to excel in both categories.

Luckily platforms like Twitter have made it easier than ever for musicians to prove their comedic chops, even if it’s just within the space of a 280 character message nonchalantly fired off from the comfort of a rest stop toilet. Some bands may relegate their social media usage to promoting their newest album or upcoming concerts, but (unsurprisingly) some of the most fulfilling Twitter follows belong to bands who also to use the platform the same way that I do: shitposting.

As great as it is to know when new music is coming from a band you follow, it’s almost more rewarding to find out that an artist you love shares the same sense of humor as you. Social media has allowed us to peek inside each other’s heads, and sometimes what you’ll find is so unexpected that you can’t help but laugh. Whether it’s dumb puns, depressing realizations, or just funny observations spurred by the never-ending drawl of tour life, there is occasionally some gold to be found in between tour dates and album promo.

Without further ado, these are some of the funniest, most iconic, and just plain goofy tweets from musicians paired with their hyper-serious press photos. Because at the end of the day, bad jokes bind us all.

December 28, 2018

Swim Into The Sound’s 10 Favorite Albums of 2018

December 28, 2018/ Taylor Grimes

All Hail The Algorithm

If there was any sort of theme to 2018, it was Discovery. Discovery on a personal level, discovery on a professional level, and (most importantly) discovery on a musical level. This year I landed a new job, moved across the country, and started a new life three thousand miles away from everything I’ve ever known and loved. I met people I would never have crossed paths with otherwise and experienced things that only this opportunity could have afforded me.

On the blog front, I kept up to date by writing about new releases each month. I conducted my first interview, got paid actual money to write reviews, and hit dozens of other landmark firsts that made running this blog feel like a fresh, rewarding, and challenging endeavor all throughout the year.

As 2018 ticked on and my album of the year list began to take shape, an interesting trend emerged: most of my favorite albums of 2018 were from band’s I’d never listened to until this year.

Discoveries can be found in the most unexpected places, and sometimes coming into something entirely fresh leads to the most impactful results. Whether it’s discovering a band live in-concert, reading a compelling review, or hearing them pop up in a Spotify playlist, there’s something rewarding about that feeling of discovery.

These are the albums that helped me. The projects that brought me joy, sorrow, pain, and everything in between in a year when emotions ran high, and everything seemed bound for cosmic change. These albums are the soundtrack to the development of my life. A year in flux and a life in motion. These are my favorite albums of 2018.

10 | Advance Base - Animal Companionship

On some level, it’s easy to make songs that anyone can relate to. The biggest pop songs in the world are all about falling in love, or breaking up, or hanging out with your friends. Those are universal experiences. They’re songs written so broadly that’s you have to go out of your way to not connect with them. What’s more difficult than that is instilling that same feeling of connection through a life that the listener hasn’t experienced. To convey a sense of empathy through a portrayal so specific that, while not experienced first-hand, it loops back around to being relatable. That’s what Advance Base has done with Animal Companionship, and it’s a marvel.

A loose concept album centered around pets, Animal Companionship finds Owen Ashworth rumbling through a series of ten tales all depicting a handful of ordinary Midwesterners. While their stories would sound bland being told in any other way, the Chicago folk singer has a way of delivering them which such gravitas and specificity that they become extraordinary. His vocals never rise above a steady barrel-chested hum, but emotions run high throughout the record.

Often accompanied only by keys or a solitary drum machine, Ashworth’s voice (and words) are almost always front and center for the listener to ingest and ruminate upon at their own pace. The tales are crystalline, realized, and lived-in as if Ashworth himself has lived all of these disparate timelines and experiences of the album’s fictional characters. Whether it’s running into an ex’s dog tied up outside of a coffee shop, or a friend who still has an answering machine just so they can leave their pet voicemails, every word is measured and impactful. It’s a frigid-sounding record that, yes, is sad, but is also sprinkled with moments of hope and even joy. It’s a portrayal of humanity framed through the animals who, through their proximity to us and our lives, make us a little more human in the process.

9 | Hop Along - Bark Your Head Off, Dog

I’ve spent about three years trying to understand the appeal of Hop Along. Between the time they released 2015’s Painted Shut and this year I’ve listened to every one of their albums multiple times and even seen them live, but for some reason, the band never stuck. Right when I was about to write them off telling myself “you don’t have to like everything” the group released Bark Your Head Off, Dog and everything finally clicked into place.

While it took me a while to figure out, my biggest problem with Hop Along has always been that Frances Quinlan’s vocals are so good they overshadow everything else in most of their songs. There’s nothing wrong with the group’s instrumentals; I would just rather hear Quinlan sing over something that rivals her intensity.

I gave Bark Your Head Off a few cursory listens before the final stretch of three songs began to sink their teeth into me. They were biting, fast-paced, and had enough ornamental flourishes that they rewarded repeat listens. They felt emotional and heartfelt while still retaining the personable stories Quinlan is known for. In short, the final three songs on this record were everything I’d been waiting to hear from Hop Along for years.

Something about those three tracks must have opened my eyes because I eventually found myself listening to Bark Your Head Off, Dog front to back and being captivated by every track. I now realize the fault in my prior attempts was not the band, but me. I was looking for aggressive smoldering pop-punk songs, but in truth Hop Along is crafting loving (if not a little damaged) indie rock with a folk bent. It’s the musical equivalent of a glass of red wine, and either my taste was not refined enough to enjoy it before, or I came into their music thirsty for a cheap beer when I should have been savoring the complicated notes. Bark Your Head Off, Dog is a triumphant and passionate record that’s beautiful, rich, and worth savoring.

8 | Turnstile - Time & Space

Clocking in at a grand total of 25 minutes, the longest song on Turnstile’s Time & Space is three minutes and 15 seconds. With every other track hovering between 46 seconds and two minutes, the album ends up feeling like an exercise in violent minimalism.

Making a name for their photogenic live shows, engaging crowds, and hard-hitting songs, Time & Space vaulted Turnstile to the forefront of the underground rock scene. The record itself is picture-perfect hardcore and irrefutable proof that you don’t need anything more than a solid riff and a driving chorus to make great music.

Not only that, the band’s sophomore effort proved to be surprisingly-accessible, gaining them coverage, accolades, and glowing reviews from dozens of mainstream publications. Walking an intoxicating balance of punk and thrash, Time & Space is an outpouring of emotion. It’s barebones, straightforward, and efficient. It’s artistically-fulfilling, temperamentally-satiating, and even surprisingly catchy at times. It’s everything hardcore needs in 2018, and proof of what it can one day be.

7 | The Wonder Years - Sister Cities

When I saw the Wonder Years back in May, lead singer Dan Campbell took some time between songs to make sure everyone had heard their newest album. After the resounding swell of voices quieted, he went on to explain a bit about the concept behind Sister Cities, specifically how the opening track “Raining in Kyoto” embodies many of the LP’s recurring themes. “It’s a record about connectivity, commonality, and empathy” Campbell explained to the rapt Portland audience.

Sister Cities is a record about distance, but it's also a record about lack of distance. It's about the commonalities of man and the universal things that bind us as a race, about how little the physical space between people really matters when it comes down to it. Sister Cities is an album about human connection on a physical, emotional, and spiritual level.

While it's reinforced by music videos and lyrics throughout this album, this concept of connectivity is exemplified best by the record’s 6-minute closer “The Ocean Grew Hands to Hold Me.” In the song, Campbell uses the ocean as a stand-in for multiple important entities in his life. At first, the ocean is spoken of literally as a physical body of water that we're all attached to in some form or another. As the song plays out, the ocean becomes a metaphor for the brotherhood of humanity and the salvation we can find in our loved ones.

Thematically, “Ocean” ties back to the opening track by referencing the passing of Dan's grandfather, but even that specific event is just a larger allusion to life, death, regret, and other inescapable human feelings that bond us together. The final verse of the song discusses illness and religion (two recurring topics for the band) but quickly moves onto real people in Dan's life. He talks about finding support in others when he needs it and learning to embrace that. Before a grandiose swell of music carries the record to a close, the final message of the album is a vital one: humanity is everything. Campbell explains there’s no fault in feeling defeated or asking for help. In fact, learning to give in when things are out of your control and growing to rely on those around you is an important part of life because sometimes that’s all we have.

6 | Mom Jeans - Puppy Love

If you were to ask Eric Butler what type of music Mom Jeans makes, he would simply answer “pop.” Not emo, not indie, not pop-punk, but straight-up pop music. In truth, Mom Jeans is a little bit of all these things, but if you go into Puppy Love with an honest heart and an open mind, you’ll quickly understand exactly what he means.

The band’s sophomore album is a release that appears unassuming on first listen. You might hear it a few times and think nothing of it. Then you may find yourself humming a melody that subconsciously embedded itself somewhere in your brain. Then on a relisten, a chorus from a deeper cut will grab you, and you’ll find yourself queueing that song up too. Then you find yourself identifying with a lyric from the opening track about staying in, eating Cheetos, and drinking chocolate milk because that’s exactly what you were doing this weekend too.

Puppy Love is my most-listened-to album of 2018, and that’s because Mom Jeans truly are creating pop music. It’s pop-punk perfected. It’s catchy, melodic, relatable, and keeps you coming back for more. Whether it’s screaming about moving out of your parent's house, or getting confessional with your dog, Mom Jeans have found a way to get to the heart of it all.

5 | Lucy Dacus - Historian

Historian is the soundtrack to a life in decay. Opening track “Night Shift” starts calm and collected as a slow-moving folky jam extending a middle finger to evil exes. Gradually, the song builds without the listener realizing it, and suddenly Dacus is belting out the track’s namesake in a piercing Julien Baker-esque cry that pulls on your heart like an anchor. It’s a stunning moment that commands your attention and rips you into the reality of the song, if only for a moment.

This jaw-dropping performance is just one of many surprises packed on the follow-up to Dacus’ impressive debut No Burden. Topics range from relationships in collapse to the imperfect nature of the self. It’s as disquieting as it is engaging, every word hinged around expert instrumentation and melodies that alternate between lying bare and exploding to life.

“Pillar of Truth” is the record’s monumental penultimate track, an ode to Dacus’ dying grandmother who faced the unknown head-on with level-headed composure. The song peaks with a volcanic guitar solo that paves the way for the more pensive title track which acts as the record’s thesis statement and end credits. Historian is an album about failure. About collapse. About annihilation. More importantly, it’s about finding the power to recover from those feelings even when life leaves you feeling ragged and profoundly-alone… which is more of an inevitability than any of us would like to admit.

4 | Caroline Rose - Loner

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that rock music is supposed to be fun. And throughout all of 2018, I found no single album that embodied “FUN!” (caps, exclamation point and all) than Caroline Rose’s Loner.

Loner is an album about being your uncool self and learning to embrace it. About saying ‘fuck you’ to the people that tell you to smile when you don’t want to smile. About sexism, bad decisions, and menial jobs. About being the one person at the party without a cool haircut. It’s a blend of hyper-specific yet universal songwriting that hits home for me, all of which is packed in an easily digestible 30-minute record.

While the album itself is a wonderfully-varied and full-throttle romp, Caroline Rose’s live show adds a different level onto the proceedings entirely. From executing a flawless Macarena on-stage during an instrumental break to a rockin’ recorder solo, and even a loving cover of Britney Spears’ “Toxic,” I’ve never seen a band have this much fun on stage making music, and that’s something we could all use more of in 2018.

3 | Bambara - Shadow On Everything

You wake up. A light breeze has blown the covers off of your body. You reach out to grab your sheets and pull them back up, but as your eyes open you notice you’re no longer in your room. You sit up, look around and see the horizon in every direction. You’re in the middle of a desert. It’s 3 in the morning, and you don’t know how you got here. That’s what listening to Shadow On Everything is like.

Rumbling, snarling, and demonic, Shadow On Everything is a post-punk record with a southern twist. Described by the band as a “western gothic concept album,” it only takes one listen to see what that means. From front to back, Bambara’s sophomore effort is a morbid, disorienting, and dream-like exploration of humanity’s dark side.

Shadow on Everything sounds like an episode of True Detective come to life, complete with all the violent self-destruction, overwrought sentiments, and foreboding imagery. Each song serves as a disturbing vignette, bonded together only by the ever-present sense that something horrible is lurking in the shadows just out of sight. It’s terrifying, engaging, and striking in a way that grips your attention and punishes you for looking away. A character study of humanity’s dark side and we have no choice but to stare into the reflection. Unforgiving desolation and absolute obliteration of the soul.

2 | Haley Heynderickx - I Need To Start A Garden

We tend to measure our lives based on major events. When we tell ourselves our own story there are act breaks and demarcation points that signal a new phase of our ongoing story. While it feels like we’re perpetually in the most “important” period of our own existence, not everything is that life and death. Sometimes directionlessness and absence of action are just as harrowing as loss or heartbreak, and that sort of millennial malaise is the exact sentiment at the heart of I Need To Start a Garden.

The abundance of choice that comes with the first phase of adulthood is overwhelming. The sprawling omnidirectional decisions can feel endless, and sometimes failing to take that first step can lead to a cataclysmic avalanche of self-doubt and paralysis.

Garden is a folk album. It’s instrumentally-simple, lyrically straightforward, and emotionally-bare. Despite the simplicity of its base components, the end result feels like something much more complex and grand than the sum of its parts.

I first heard of Haley Heynderickx one week after her album was released, and even then I felt immediate guilt of not having listened to it even earlier. That’s how badly I needed this record in my life in 2018. I turned around a full review of the album within a month of its release, but Heynderickx’s messages of listless 20-something pain cut a path directly into my heart at a time when I was experiencing all of these exact feelings. To hear these struggles put to music was not only reassuring, it was spiritually-affirming.

I now realize the difference between childhood and adulthood isn’t a feeling of assurance or confidence in your actions because that fear of the unknown never truly goes away. I may have felt listless, disheartened, and directionless this spring, but now having moved across the country, starting a new job, and embarking on new artistic endeavors, I’m just as unsure of myself as ever before. Adulthood is not knowing what you’re doing with one-hundred percent certainty. Adulthood is knowing that feeling of uncertainty is always going to be there, acknowledging it, and being okay with it as much as you possibly can.

1 | Fiddlehead - Springtime and Blind

Sometimes music is the only thing that makes sense. Even when the world is changing, even when nothing works the way it’s supposed to, even when life throws everything it has at you, music is always there. Music has no judgments and no preconceived notions. It’s an objective outlet that exists to execute, quell, accentuate, or invert whatever mood you’re feeling at that time. There’s music for happiness, music for long drives, music for love, and sometimes there’s music for grief.

Some of the greatest records of all time deal with insurmountable pain. 40-minute voyages into an artist’s psyche in the wake of a great loss or seismic shift of their day-to-day existence. Alums like Carrie & Lowell, A Crow Looked At Me, and Skeleton Tree are not only albums about death, they also happen to be some of the best in their respective artist's discographies because they feel the most human. While Springtime and Blind might not initially sound as “sad” as any of those records listed above, it deals with the same topic from a unique perspective that ends up making its message all the more powerful.

Springtime and Blind begins with a slowly-mounting drumline that’s soon joined by a grief-ridden cry of “YOU LIE AWAKE / to pass the time / Lose all your love? / Want some of mine?” Allegedly improvised in the album’s recording session, this first message bears the brunt of the record’s emotion and ignites the path for the remaining twenty-some minutes.

They’re not the same genre, but if I were to compare this album to anything, I’d name Japanese Breakfast’s 2016 breakthrough Psychopomp. Both records are under 25 minutes, segmented by meditative instrumentals, and waste no time jumping straight into heart-wrenching lyrics. Just as Psychopomp is an album about a daughter losing her mother, Springtime is an album about a son losing his father. They’re inverted experiences, yet still one and the same; two alternating approaches to the same universal experience of grief and loss that we will all must go through at some point.

On some level, screamed frustration is a more accurate depiction of loss than sad, reserved folk music. Not to discount the inherent beauty of Carrie & Lowell, but everyone experiences loss differently, and Springtime and Blind offers a very authentic and genuine version of loss that I identify with.

Sometimes change is a choice, but more often than not life forces change upon you. You’re forced to adapt and overcome or risk collapsing in the process. Some things can’t be changed or reversed, and all that’s left is to pick up the pieces and cling tightly to what’s left. That’s what Springtime and Blind offers. A family recovering. An explosion of grief followed by the first step of many toward recovery. It’s the sound of everything happening at once. The sound of birth and death. Of love and life. Of spirit and demons. And then it ends.

December 08, 2018

The Second Annual Diamond Platters: Swim Into The Sound’s Ancillary End of the Year Awards

December 08, 2018/ Taylor Grimes

Most end of the year lists suck. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still in the process of putting together our own “best of” as you read this, but each December we see the exact same thing: dozens of publications all rushing to push out ten pages of clickbait listicles intentionally-ordered to cater debate (and clicks) while simultaneously falling in-line with the broadest most commonly-held opinion. There’s nothing technically wrong with “List Season,” but most of it just comes off as going through the motions, and I believe there’s a better way to reflect what happened over the previous year. That’s why I created The Diamond Platters.

As you can tell by their name, The Diamond Platters are the highest honor that can be bestowed upon an artist. They are an extravagant and one-of-a-kind accolade representative of artistic achievement and abject opulence… Just kidding, this isn’t anything that grandiose.

While the name is poking fun at the seriousness of List Season, The Diamond Platters do serve a purpose: they’re a way to circumvent publishing “just another” end of the year list. This is a look at the past 365 days in music through a unique (and sometimes hyper-specific) lens. These awards allow me to draw attention to releases that may not get discussed on a typical publication’s end of the year list. Most importantly, it’s a way to celebrate the year in music without pitting artists against each other. Unique categories for the unique music listener, because not everything fits into a list of 50.

Best Cover Song

Winner: The Regrettes - “Helpless”

2018 was a great year to be a fan of Hamilton. Not only did the show finally come to my city, but we also got a new one-off single, and to top it all off The Regrettes released their incredible cover of “Helpless.” Like a pop-punk counterpart to The Hamilton Mixtape, The Regrettes took an already goosebump-inducing song and transformed it into an empowering power-chord shred-fest that somehow works just as well as the original.

Runner-up: Phoebe Bridgers - “It’ll All Work Out”

Last year Tom Petty passed on October 2nd. Less than two weeks after his death I caught Phoebe Bridgers live and witnessed as she closed out her set with a heart-rending cover of “It’ll All Work Out.” It nearly broke me. One year later on October 2nd Bridgers re-opened that emotional wound when she released a deluxe edition of her debut album featuring a full-studio rendition of the same cover.

Remake/Rework of the Year

Winner: Car Seat Headrest - Twin Fantasy (Face to Face)

Remastering an album is one thing. Re-recording an album, amending it, and adding onto it is a different thing entirely. Indie darlings Car Seat Headrest did just that when they revisited their 2011 Bandcamp breakthrough earlier this year. Originally recorded entirely by Will Toledo in Garageband, the 2018 version of Twin Fantasy finds the songs backed by a full band, improved production, and an actual budget. The remake remains faithful its predecessor while simultaneously making just enough new additions to make it feel relevant and fresh, all while retaining the same core message that made the album resonate so deeply seven years ago.

Runner-up: TTNG - Animals Acoustic

Possibly one of the most seminal albums of the entire math rock genre, TTNG’s debut full-length has built quite a reputation for itself over the past ten years. When the band revisited their zoological release in a fully-realized acoustic style this fall, they did so in the most careful, reverent, and precious way possible.

Mini Wheats™Award For Hardest Shit I Experienced All Year

Winner: Denzel Curry - “Sumo”

Cursed with the mixed-blessing of a meme-adjacent hit, “Ultimate” became the standard Denzel Curry was held to for better or worse. While Imperial, 13, and TA13OO prove his artistic talent undeniably, “Sumo” is the sequel to “Ultimate” we’ve all been waiting for. Featuring yelled vocals, blown-out instrumentation, and hard-as-bricks lyrics, “Sumo” will be a staple of the gym playlist for many years to come.

Runner-up: Carnage x Lil Pump - “i Shyne”

Bolstered DJ Carnage’s destructive production, “i Shyne” finds Pump at his most ignorant, shouting boasts over an out-of-control hype-up beat for two and a half minutes.

Stone-Cold Chiller

Winner: Dylan Mattheisen of Tiny Moving Parts

Every once in a while you have someone that just makes your day on social media. Maybe it’s a friend, perhaps it’s a crush, but sometimes it’s a band. When he isn’t singing, shredding, or tapping on his guitar, the frontman of Tiny Moving Parts can be seen smiling across the world and enjoying life on social media. Aside from putting out a new record in 2018, this was also a year of personal progress for Dylan as he shared his weight loss journey with fans in between beaming selfies and adorable musings. Always happy to meet fans at the merch booth after shows, Dylan is a stand-up guy and the definition of a stone-cold chiller.

Runner-up: Caroline Rose of Caroline Rose

Caroline Rose is a special crystal angel full of rainbows and dreams. Whether she’s releasing one of the best sophomore records of 2018, charming viewers with her music videos, or uploading goofy goings-on in her downtime on tour, Caroline’s red-hued antics are a constant social media delight.

Holdin’ It Down: Award for Most-needed Genre Makeover

Winner: Bloodbather & Jesus Piece - Metalcore

While there were undoubtedly some early indicators like Knocked Loose, Code Orange, and END, the metalcore revival has never felt more real than it did in 2018. Between Jesus Piece’s Only Self and Bloodbather’s Pressure, it’s safe to say that the genre is back in safe hands and experiencing and refreshing second wind. May it never truly die.

Runner-up: Shame & Heavy Lungs - Post-punk

Forecasted by the arrival of IDLES’ Brutalism last year, genuine, angry, gray, UK-based Post-punk is back in full-force in 2018. Back in January, England-based Shame kicked off the year with a world-rocking debut album, and more recently the IDLES-adjacent Heavy Lungs released a banger of a single following an angry little EP of political tunes.

“Continental Breakfast” Award For Most Inoffensive Sunday Morning Easy Listen

Winner: Hovvdy - Cranberry

Named after 2017’s collaboration between Kurt Vile and Courtney Barnett, sometimes you just need slow-moving hangover music. While Cranberry is definitively much more than that, their music certainly is easy on the ears.

Runner-up: Yo La Tengo - There’s a Riot Going On

Yo La Tengo’s fifteenth album is a half-ambient relaxing descent into utter bliss. More like a float tank than a collection of songs, There’s a Riot Going On is a wonderful record to throw on in the early hours of a crisp Sunday morning as you contemplate whether or not you want to make eggs.

Most Important Song Of The Year

Winner: Stella Donnelly - “Boys Will Be Boys”

“Boys Will Be Boys” is a song about the aftermath of sexual abuse. Specifically, it finds Donnelly talking to one of her close friends who, after confessing what had happened to her, explains why she’s to blame for her own rape. It’s an exorcism of pain — a condemning piece of art that’s more powerful than anything I’ve taken in this year, music or otherwise.

Runner-up: Field Medic - “Let Freedom Ring 2”

If you were to ask Field Medic why he recorded a sequel to “Let Freedom Ring” he may tell you he had to. He may tell you it was an exercise. He may tell you it was a way to air his grievances and get his thoughts out into the world. Whatever the case, “Let Freedom Ring 2” is a raw, honest, and transparent assessment of where America is in 2018. It’s a middle-finger-adorned callout as much as it is a plea for sensibility… and we’re at the point where even that would go a long way.

Most Fabulous Christmas Bop

Winner: Sufjan Stevens - “Lonely Man of Winter”

Having launched, organized, and ran a Sufjan Christmas blog this December, the back half of my year has been absolutely dominated by Sufjan’s Christmas music. While I gave his 100 Christmas tracks dozens of spins as I usually do, this season felt extra special when fans received a long-obscured loosie from the days of Christmases past. Crisp, cold, and frigid, “Lonely Man of Winter” is a realist Christmas song about feeling a distinct lack of jolliness during a season where that seems to be a requirement.

Runner-up: August Burns Red - “It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year”

August Burns Red may have released a highly-influential metalcore album early in their career, but their vast body of Christmas work has always been a personal favorite of mine. Needless to say, when we got a six-song EP of holiday tunes earlier this season, it practically made my year. Hearing lead guitarist JB Brubaker shred out the melody to “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of The Year” was exactly what I needed to ignite my Christmas spirit.

Best Cover Art

Winner: SOPHIE - Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides

Shiny, soft, synthetic, glossy, reflective, and smooth are just a handful of the adjectives that come to mind when one finds themselves face to face with the cover to SOPHIE’s debut record. Turns out these words also accurately describe the futuristic dance music contained just behind this cover, all while taking the viewer by surprise and making them want to know more. In other words, it does everything an album cover is designed to do.

Runner-up: Nas - Nasir

An image of five black children lined up against a wall with their hands up in the air says more than I ever could, and almost says more than Nasir does in its 26-minute running time.

Best Gibberish

Winner: Kanye West - “Lift Yourself”

In the confusing lead-up to Kanye West’s eighth album, anything could have happened. While the aftermath left me and many other fans deeply-conflicted, pretty much every Kanye fan could agree on one thing: “Lift Yourself” was a masterstroke. Clocking in at two and a half minutes, the song was uploaded to Kanye’s site late on a late May evening. Like most fans, I clicked play, vibed out to the classic Kanye soul chop, and then proceeded to bust out laughing when he starts aggressively scatting. I can’t think of any other moment this year that evoked such a strong reaction from me, and for that, I must commend Mr. West.

Runner-up: Future - “King’s Dead”

Picture this: you’re listening to the newest Jay Rock song. It features Kendrick Lamar, Future, and James Blake. You’re taken aback by the song’s rapid-fire bars and powerful beat. Then halfway through, the instrumental pauses and Future busts out a raspy ode to Slick Rick and Juicy J’s with the line “La di da di da / slob on me knob.” You are shocked. You try to brush it off, but you keep coming back to it. What was once an off-putting and perplexing yelp soon becomes something so stupid it’s catchy. You can’t help but love it. That’s how I feel about “King’s Dead.”

Live Album of the Year

Winner: The National - Boxer Live in Brussels

Often cited as one of their best records, The National’s performance of their 2007 record is everything a live album should be. Bearing faithful renditions of their wine-drunk songs, the band also manages to inject some moments of surprise into this recording. Whether it’s a vibrant horn break on “Slow Show” or a series of distressed guitar solos leading up to a frantic yelp of a chorus on “Squalor Victoria,” the band was able to breathe new life into these classic indie songs. Plus, with engaging crowd responses throughout, and just the right amount of banter, Boxer Live in Brussels is proof that, much like a fine wine, The National are only getting better with age.

Runner-up: Mac Miller - Tiny Desk Concert

While it’s only three songs long, Mac Miller’s Tiny Desk Concert remains one of the most powerful performances I’ve seen all year. Released just one month before his passing, this video became one of Miller’s final moments in the public eye. Fortunately crystalized on film for the rest of time, the video is a 17-minute encapsulation of the type of soul, charm, and artistry he was possible of.

Porch Beer Album of the Year

Winner: Bonny Doon - Longwave

Sometimes you hear an album that jangles just in the right way. That kicks up just enough dust and casts just enough of an amber-coated summer breeze. A record where the drums are light, the vocals are relaxing, and the bass is played just in the pocket. The kind of music that you can close your eyes, sip your beer, nod along, and enjoy the absence of worry. That’s Longwave.

Runner-up: Nap Eyes - I’m Bad Now

Practically punk compared to Bonny Doon, Nap Eyes’ third record I’m Bad Now is a lovely and light-colored Lou Reed-esque jaunt that’s as pleasing and flavorful as it is relaxing.

One for the Streets

Winner: Young Dolph - Role Model

At the end of the day sometimes you just need to turn your brain off. There’s no need high-minded metaphors or far-reaching artistic goals, and luckily Young Dolph is striving for neither of those on Role Model. Featuring some of the most audacious, enigmatic, and hilarious bars I’ve heard all year, Dolph’s fifth studio album is 44-minutes of braggadocio, all delivered at a shockingly-consistent quality. Everything’s a banger, and we’re all better off for it.

Runner-up: Sheck Wes - MUDBOY

Outside of Playboi Carti, it’s hard to think of a single artist who pervaded the hyped-up online sphere more than Sheck Wes. While his popularity had been brewing up for some time now, a Travis Scott co-sign, Drake name-drop, and perfectly-timed album release all converged into the perfect storm of hype and success.

Best Album From Last Year That Took Until 2018 To Discover

Winner: Field Medic - Songs From the Sunroom

Earlier this year I discovered Field Medic through a stroke of Spotify luck and almost immediately turned around a short review gushing about his poetic folk music. The album has been a constant companion of mine throughout the year, and my discovery felt affirmed when I saved Field’s hat during a Remo Drive mosh pit over the summer. Clever, romantic, and emotionally-raw, Songs From The Sunroom is a lovely and personable release that’s as charming as it is inventive.

Round-up: Surf Curse - Nothing Yet

The modern surf rock scene walks an intoxicating mix of fast-paced aggression and laid-back good nature. While it may sound contradictory, this balancing act is a feat clearly mastered by Surf Curse on their sophomore album which also happened to be the soundtrack to my summer this year.

Best Music Video

Winner: Childish Gambino - “This Is America”

This is America, and it’s terrible. After producing a transformative funk album in 2016, Donald Glover returned to rap with one of this year’s most impactful singles. “This Is America” has a lot on its mind: gun violence, police abuse, and institutionalized racism are all tackled in the space of four minutes. Not only does Glover eloquently address all those topics, he also managed to deliver this message over a beat that bangs so hard the song’s both catchy and accessible. The music video itself is a striking, twisted, and hypnotic bit of long-shot cinematography that half a billion viewers found impossible to look away from… much like America.

Runner-up: Charli XCX - “1999”

We have to go back. Not to do anything different, but just to enjoy it all again. On this nostalgic bop, the underground pop queen teams up with Troye Sivan to recreate some of the 90’s most iconic moments. From Matrix dodges to Skechers advertisements, the mix of wistfulness, commitment, and innovation is simply too impressive to ignore.

“It Me” Award For Verbose And Awkward Lyrics That Most Closely Mirror My Internal Monologue

Winner: Retirement Party - Somewhat Literate

There’s something to be said for representation in music — representation not just in race, gender, religion, or culture, but in thought and personality. Even upon my first listen, I could tell that Somewhat Literate was the most I’d identified with a lyricist in some time. Opening and closing with the airing of her own hypochondriac-fuelled grievances, lead singer Avery Springer spends the rest of the record weaving nervous stream-of-conscious tales fraught with overthinking, awkwardness, and self-deprecation. In short, it feels like someone took my brain and transposed it onto jittery garage-filtered pop-punk.

Runner-up: Illuminati Hotties - Kiss Your Frenemies

Much like Retirement Party, Illuminati Hotties’ debut album represents a similar verbose and overwrought self-criticism. With songs about doughnut dates and searching for a fourth job to pay off her college debt, Sarah Tundzen was able to capture the average Millenial’s quarter-life-crisis with depressing accuracy.

Freestyle Maestro

Winner: Tyler, The Creator - Various Loosies

If nothing else, Tyler wins this one for the sheer amount of freestyles he gifted fans this year. Most of them under two minutes long, the ex-figurehead of Odd Future released somewhere in the neighborhood of a dozen freestyles this calendar year alone. While not all of them wound up on the major streaming sites, tracks like “Okra” and “435” alone should prove Tyler’s proficiency as a freestyle titan.

Runner-up: Saba - “Nice For What Freestyle”

While I found myself extremely disappointed with Drake’s Scorpion, I was glad that someone took the time to salvage the album’s best beat and transform it into something with a little more substance.

Biggest Glo-Up

Winner: Tay Keith

I’m not going to pretend I was up on Tay Keith before “Look Alive,” but unless you’re big into Southern hip-hop, it’s likely that 2018 was the first time you heard his iconic producer tag. While some deride Tay Keith for making the same type of beat over and over again, he’s seemingly produced hundreds of songs this year alone, and there’s something to be said for respecting the hustle.

Runner-up: Kacey Musgraves

Kacey Musgraves has been making country music for over a decade at the time of writing, so it’s hard to call her an undiscovered force in the country scene, but Golden Hour sparked conversations across the music sphere when it became a certified crossover success. Balancing at the perfect intersection of country, pop, and indie, Musgraves proved that you don’t have to relegate yourself to one lane.

Song of the Year

Winner: Saba - “PROM / KING”

“PROM / KING” is a seven-and-a-half-minute two-part hip-hop epic that packs as much personality, story-telling, and raw honesty as the entirety of Kendrick Lamar’s Good Kid, M.A.A.D City. The first half of the song finds a sixteen-year-old Saba reconnecting with his estranged cousin Walter back in high school. Saba recounts his traumatic prom night experience over a woozy Chicago jazz beat for three minutes until exactly halfway through the song when everything stops. There’s a brief moment of silence, and then the song explodes into a new pattern now propelled by a bombastic drum beat. From there, time flashes forward to 2017 as Saba paints a picture of his first successes as a musician and his growing bond with Walt. As the instrumental grows faster Saba’s flow increases and you get the feeling of an inescapable danger. Eventually the story unfolds, Walt is involved in a fatal stabbing, and Chicago claims another life. As the beat gets faster, so do Saba’s bars. He eventually raps until he’s out of breath, seemingly collapsing from exhaustion, but then making way for a posthumous outro sung by Walter himself. It’s harrowing, beautiful, and painful all at once. In a year where hip-hop was largely dominated by lyrics about money, women, and opulent flexes, it’s refreshing to hear a song with a message and a story. “PROM/KING” is an artistic achievement. A feat. A warning. A memorial.

Runner-up: Mac Miller - “2009”

For one month “2009” was a poignant reflection on nostalgia, addiction, and innocence lost. Then Mac Miller died, and all of those feelings became amplified ten-fold. With his passing, an already-great track became the penultimate swan song of an artist we lost just as he was reaching his prime. It makes you equal parts heartbroken and thankful to have shared the world with such an incredible artist.

Most Anticipated Project of 2019

Winner: Angel Olsen

Angel Olsen’s 2016 record My Woman opened up my world musically and philosophically. While last year’s b-sides collection temporarily satiated my hunger for more Olsen, I absolutely cannot wait to see what she’s been cooking up for us over the last two years.

Runner-up: PUP

The Dream Is Over was one of those rare records that was so good it crossed musical boundaries. From indieheads to emo boys to hardcore punks, there seemed to be nothing but praise for the Canadian group’s sophomore effort. With tracking finished back in May, we should be on the receiving end of some heart-rending thrashy punk rock any day now.

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