Swim Into The Sound's Staff Favorites of 2025

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

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

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

– Taylor

David Williams | Hotline TNT – Raspberry Moon

Third Man Records

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

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

David’s Other 2025 Favorites:

  • Clipse - Let God Sort Em Out

  • Wednesday - Bleeds

  • The Tubs - Cotton Crown

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

  • Total Wife - come back down


Caro Alt | Colin Miller – Losin’

Mtn Laurel Recording Co.

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

Other Albums I Loved:


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

Pure Noise Records

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

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

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

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

Other Favorites of 2025:

  1. Infinity Guise - Summerbruise

  2. Reasons I Won’t Change - Tiny Voices

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

  4. Pleaser - Pretty Bitter

  5. Blame It On the Weather - Kerosene Heights


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

Jagjaguwar

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

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

Some more favs:

  1. The Rubber Teeth Talk - Daisy the Great

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

  3. In Space - Edith Frost

  4. Cuntry - Cleo Reed

  5. Melt - Not For Radio


Britta Joseph | Pile – Sunshine and Balance Beams

Sooper Records

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

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

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

Five selections from my list of favorites this year:

  • The Spiritual Sound - Agriculture

  • thank god for you - Melancholy Club

  • Don’t Trust Mirrors - Kelly Moran

  • this is my outside voice - satsuma 

  • Catcher - siichaq


Ben Sooy | Flock of Dimes – The Life You Save

Sub Pop

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

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

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

Honorable Mentions:


Lillian Weber | Total Wife – come back down

Julia’s War Recordings

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

Honorable mentions:

  • Lotto by They Are Gutting A Body of Water 

  • Gaman by Star 99

  • Times Up by Bootcamp

  • The Spiritual Sound by Agriculture


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

Jagjaguwar

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

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

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

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

Other favorite things from 2025: 


Elias Amini | Marasme – Fel

Discos Macarras

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

Some other records I loved:

  • Massa Nera - The Emptiness of All Things

  • Ninajirachi - I Love My Computer

  • Chevalier - Un dolore a cui non so dare nome

  • Shlohmo - Repulsor

  • Blue Earth Sound - Cicero Nights


Kirby Kluth | Fust – Big Ugly

Dear Life Records

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

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

2025, according to Kirby:


Noëlle Midnight | Blackbraid – Blackbraid III

Self-released

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

And then the riffs come in. 

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

Noëlle’s Other Favorites from 2025:

  • Lucy Dacus - Forever is a Feeling

  • Turnstile - NEVER ENOUGH

  • Silverstein - Antibloom

  • Petey USA - The Yips

  • Sierra Hull - A Tip Toe High Wire


Nick Webber | Adrianne Lenker – Live at Revolution Hall

4AD

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

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

Also loved:

  • Florist - Jellywish 

  • Great Grandpa - Patience Moonbeam

  • Seer Believer - Make a Wish

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

  • Ólafur Arnalds and Talos - A Dawning


Caleb Doyle | Samia – Bloodless

Grand Jury Music

Samia Finnerty cannot make a bad song.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Jason Sloan | Real Lies – We Will Annihilate Our Enemies

TONAL Recordings

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

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

The other album I considered here: Elm - Elm EP


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

Cadmean Dawn

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

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

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


Ciara Rhiannon | Jason Isbell – Foxes in the Snow

Southeastern Records

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

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

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

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

And I’m sure time will change me some.

Honorable Mentions:

  • Coheed and Cambria - The Father of Make Believe 

  • Cheem - Power Move

  • Momma - Welcome to My Blue Sky

  • Motion City Soundtrack - The Same Old Wasted Wonderful World

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


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

Post Atlantic

You wake up from a dream. 

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

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

Other 2025 Favorites:

  • Greg Freeman - Burnover

  • Jay Som - Belong

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

  • Samia - Bloodless

  • Wednesday - Bleeds


Josh Ejnes | Greg Freeman – Burnover

Transgressive Records

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

Other 2025 Favorites:

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

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

  • Jay Som - Belong

  • lots of hands - into a pretty room

  • MyVeronica/Friend’s House - Farewell Skylines


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

Matador Records

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

Other 2025 Favorites:

  • Ribbon Skirt - Bite Down

  • Greg Freeman - Burnover

  • Mac Demarco - Guitar

  • Black Country, New Road - Forever, Howlong

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



Connor Fitzpatrick | Cory Hanson – I Love People

Drag City Inc.

Dear reader, 

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

Much love,
Connor

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

  • Brian Dunne, Clams Casino

  • Greet Death, Die In Love

  • Maria Somerville, Luster

  • Die Spitz, Something to Consume

  • Addison Rae, Addison

This Year Almost Killed Me: The Hold Steady & The Mountain Goats, Live In Chicago

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“It was song number three on John’s last CD:
‘I’m gonna make it through this year if it kills me.’
And it almost killed me.

And song number four on that first D4:
‘You want the scars, but you don’t want the war.’
Now that’s just hardcore.
These kids are clever to the core”

Craig Finn wrote those lyrics in Brooklyn in 2005, and used them as the bridge for a song called “Girls Like Status.” It ended up as only a b-side from the 2006 album Boys And Girls In America. It was also the very first song I heard by The Hold Steady.

The first stanza references the chorus of “This Year,” the 2005 folk-rock anthem by The Mountain Goats, interpolated with The Hold Steady’s 2004 debut album title Almost Killed Me. Now longtime residents of North Carolina, but previously from everywhere else in the country, The Mountain Goats are known for their verbose storytelling and emotional vocal deliveries from singer and songwriter John Darnielle. The same could also be said for The Hold Steady, whose albums often feature throughlines of recurring characters. It’s not a surprise at all that fans of one could be fans of the other and that the two men are fans of each other.

D4 is the abbreviation for Minneapolis punk rockers Dillinger Four, longtime friends and fans of The Hold Steady and vice versa. Craig Finn takes some liberties with the original lyrics from their song “Portrait Of The Artist As A Fucking Asshole.” The exact lines read, “Do you love telling your war stories while hiding your scars?” But it wouldn’t be a Hold Steady song without at least one turn of phrase. Finn never actually says “Girls like status” in the song, but rather “Guys go for looks, girls go for status.”

I first discovered The Hold Steady and The Mountain Goats in middle school, and they gradually earned their places in my top ten bands of all time. Two brilliant, unique groups led by charismatic frontmen who have carved out their own indie rock sound separate from any other artist. I consider albums like Boys In Girls In America or The Mountain Goats’ 2002 divorce rock opera Tallahassee among my most important and loved records. Naturally, when it was announced they would be playing a few shows together, I knew I had to be there. I’m extremely lucky that two of those shows just happened to be in Chicago, where I’ve lived in or around my entire life. If all of that wasn’t exciting enough, Dillinger Four was asked to be the opening act for both nights.

The shows took place at The Salt Shed, a brand new, $50 million venue in Chicago’s near north side. It is quite literally a fully converted and remodeled version of the historic Morton Salt Shed, whose operations shut down in 2015. They officially opened for business last summer, but only hosted shows on the outside grounds stage next to the building itself. They finished the interior for a February 2023 opening and have had quite the roster of shows since, including Bush, Iggy Pop, and The Roots. The concrete hall inside can hold 3,500 showgoers between the standing room floor and the seated balconies. Not only that, but the outside grounds have food vendors all night long, and the building itself has a consignment shop (Umbrella Vintage) and a guitar gear dealer (Fret 12) attached to it that are both open during performances. It was in this former mineral warehouse that all three bands’ dedicated fanbases gathered to celebrate the combined decades of highly-loved music.

Dillinger Four (Mounts)

“On that first night…”

Dillinger Four kicked off the weekend at 8 pm on Friday night; the quartet crammed into stage left away from the other bands’ setup to make the post-set changeover as speedy as possible. They made use of their time and space quite well, burning through about 12 songs in their half-hour slot. I’d seen them once before, and I’m certainly not an expert on the catalog, but they sounded excellent on each track, busting out fan favorites like “Maximum Piss & Vinegar” and “Mosh For Jesus.” It was a perfect set to have sworn in the festivities, providing the first burst of energy needed for the rest of the show. Even Craig Finn was visible from the VIP balcony singing along to most of the set, just like a young diehard fan would.

Around 9 pm entered The Mountain Goats, easing into their first performance with “Liza Forever Minnelli,” a song that John Darnielle has noted as one of his favorites to perform live. Seeing him utilize it as the first tone-setter was nice, but something seemed to be a bit off. Whether he was having trouble hearing the rest of the band or figuring out which key the song was in for his guitar parts, it wasn’t totally clear where the disconnect was. Not the end of the world for being the opening moments of the set if he just needed a few extra moments to settle into the groove.

The Mountain Goats (Mounts)

From there, we heard tracks like “Incandescent Ruins” and the seven-minute epic “Hostages,” both from last year’s excellent Bleed Out. One thing was becoming clear with each selection that passed; this was a very atypical Mountain Goats show. Darnielle led the band through mostly slower, methodical tracks the entire time, rarely raising his voice to heights that fans are used to on more energetic cuts. After the already lengthy “Hostages,” they threw in “An Antidote For Strychnine,” which regularly breaches six minutes in the live setting. Even the widely regarded “Dance Music,” which clocks in at just under two minutes on 2005’s The Sunset Tree, was rearranged to a swing number twice the length of the original.

There were still exciting moments where the band rocked through a few of my absolute favorites songs; the finale of 2017’s Goths album “Abandoned Flesh,” the Scarface-referencing “The Diaz Brothers,” and the espionage-western “Waylon Jennings Live!” Darnielle and the Goats began their typical jazzy live intro to their most notable cut, “No Children,” leading the Shed in the nihilistic chorus: “I hope you die, I hope we both die.” It appeared they would follow it with the equally iconic “This Year,” but they were harshly called off stage for going over their time limit after only playing for 55 minutes. An unfortunately abrupt ending to a Mountain Goats performance, already a bit weighed down by the less-than-thrilling setlist.

The Hold Steady (Mounts)

If there’s one band that can restore all energy and power to a room, it’s The Hold Steady. They kicked off their night one show with “Constructive Summer,” one of their most-finger-pointable anthems from 2008’s Stay Positive. Craig Finn is a master at writing lasting mantras in his songs, “Constructive Summer” containing a handful, like “We’re gonna build something this summer” and “Raise a glass to Saint Joe Strummer, I think he might have been our only decent teacher.” It’s also another one of Finn’s songs where he references Dillinger Four, and the crowd shouted the lyric with all their might. “Me and my friends are like ‘Doublewhiskeycokenoice,’” the name of D4’s number one composition and penultimate song choice of their set.

I had assumed these shows would be co-headliners, with The Mountain Goats and The Hold Steady each playing roughly the same set length. Instead, The Hold Steady doubled the Goats exactly in the form of 25 songs that could have very well been a greatest hits set. And I don’t say that as a dig, it was unbelievable how many of their best tracks they played in succession. “The Swish,” “Sequestered In Memphis,” and “Chips Ahoy!” all made an appearance, and that’s just to name a few. It was also exciting to hear songs from 2021’s Open Door Policy and their brand new album The Price Of Progress, since the band hadn’t played Chicago since 2019’s Thrashing Thru The Passion was released.

It was a nonstop rock block the entire set, particularly the jaw-dropping marathon run of “Your Little Hoodrat Friend,” “Massive Nights,” “How A Resurrection Really Feels,” the encore of “Hornets! Hornets!,” “Stay Positive,” “Chicago Seemed Tired Last Night,” and their constant finale of “Killer Parties.” Whatever may have been left desired from The Mountain Goats’ set was remedied multiple times over during The Hold Steady, but at the end of the night, I was just excited to do it all again the next day.

“Then there’s the other part…”

Saturday night began about the same as Friday, with Dillinger Four’s opening set covering most of the same territory as the first time around. Just as fun and energetic, but if they did switch up the set at all, I didn’t notice. But The Mountain Goats left nothing up to chance, rearranging their setup slightly from the night before with drummer Jon Wurster more in the forefront. Not just visually, but musically as well on this night, helping the band charge through a much more intense show. They picked back up where they left off, opening with “This Year” right out of the gate, and it made the room explode. I’d seen them open with “No Children” once as well, and it was so special hearing each at the very start as opposed to the end. With almost no break, they kicked into “See America Right,” the lo-fi blues rocker from Tallahassee and a song that always sounds huge live.

Craig Finn & John Darnielle (Mounts)

They reprised “Hostages” and “Cadaver Sniffing Dog” from the night before, but other than those and “No Children” later on, there were no repeats. It was a night and day tonal shift, this set filled with fist-pumping folk-punk-rockers like “Heretic Pride” and “Up The Wolves.” This set also marked the first collaborative performance of the weekend, with Craig Finn joining the Goats to sing “Palmcorder Yajna,” easily one of the bands’ best hits. Finn delivered his vocals with as much gusto as ever, a clear expert of the track. They closed on another Darnielle-professed favorite, “Spent Gladiator 2,” where he sang most of the track from the barricade pit directly to the crowd. I’m still not sure if the two vastly different performances were intentional or not. As a longtime devotee, and one who has now officially seen The Mountain Goats more than any other band (14 times, brother), it is cool that I got to see the contrast. Maybe it would have been better for casual or even new fans if they spliced each night between fast and loud and slow and quiet, but I’m certain John Darnielle always knows what he’s doing.

If “Constructive Summer” is the second-best Hold Steady set opener, I know the best is “Stuck Between Stations.” But I’m biased, as it opens Boys And Girls In America, my favorite Hold Steady album. Another solid first batch of songs from the Minneapolis-turned-Brooklyn boys, including “Barfruit Blues,” “You Can Make Him Like You,” and “Stevie Nix.” As I expected, they made a few swaps from the newer material on Friday, only repeating “Sideways Skull” from The Price Of Progress. A crop of deep tracks this time around, too, including Mountain Goats saxophonist Matt Douglas joining the stage for “Banging Camp” and “Hostile, Mass.” The one-two punch of “Southtown Girls” and “Slapped Actress” before the encore break was a really special moment as well.

The guys go for looks” (Mounts)

I had only one huge dream for this weekend, one that could have been too obvious and avoided, but it felt necessary. I had heard The Hold Steady perform “Girls Like Status” only once before, at the end of their full album anniversary performance of Boys And Girls In America in 2016. But here they are, once again playing the song in Chicago, and the stars of the bridge lyrics are in the building and on the bill. So Craig Finn delivered the goods, ramping up to the bridge in the middle of the song talking about the specialness of these shows and all of the bands’ music. And what better way to cap off the weekend than having John Darnielle and Dillinger Four vocalist/bassist Patrick Costello sing their lifted lyrics themselves? Darnielle took the mic first, making the very clever adjustment of singing “Song number three on The Sunset Tree.” Then Costello sang verbatim to Finn’s original paraphrase, although ironically, D4 didn’t play “Portrait Of An Artist” in either of their weekend sets. It was an absolutely momentous, once-in-a-lifetime collaboration that perfectly encapsulated the love Finn has for both bands and the love the fans have for the entire roster.

It still wouldn’t be a Hold Steady show without the “Killer Parties” finale, and whereas Friday night I left before most of the guitar feedback and drum fills, Saturday night I stayed until the amps were cut and the house lights went up. I needed to. This year almost killed me. I needed to feel every last second before it was all officially over before I went back home, and I woke up at 6 am again Monday morning, went back to the warehouse, and let the corporate week burn me down again. “Work at the mill until you die, work at the mill, and then you die,” Finn exclaims in “Constructive Summer.” The Hold Steady is secretly great, working-class bar band music behind the sharp storytelling.

It was a crucial experience for me to be at these shows with friends, family, and fans alike. There’s a reason they call The Hold Steady fanbase The Unified Scene. The Mountain Goats have The Pagan Crew, unified perhaps more by bleak upbringings than last calls at local watering holes. If the Dillinger Four fanbase has a name, Craig Finn must be the fan club president, and I’m in for life now. I won’t forget this weekend. “I’m pretty sure we partied.”

Logan Archer Mounts once almost got kicked out of Warped Tour for doing the Disturbed scream during a band’s acoustic set. He currently lives in Rolling Meadows, IL, but tells everyone he lives in Palatine.

I AM GOING TO TAKE THIS A LITTLE WHILE LONGER: 20 YEARS OF ALL HAIL WEST TEXAS

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It is beautiful, sure, but a lot of it is empty. Empty in a way that feels heavy, like the big cities in Texas are just fronts to hide that most of it’s an empty state, with a population trying to be as loud as possible so no one will notice that all of them live tucked away in the east. All Hail West Texas, right? I mean, most of this could be said about America as a whole, but I’m not in America right now– I’m in Texas.

(Keisha, narrator of Alice Isn’t Dead)

I have never been to West Texas, or to anywhere in the American Southwest for that matter, but I’ve often entertained fantasies of escaping to some quiet, near-empty place in the desert. Mitski songs aside, Texas is not a landlocked state. But the vast flatlands seem as infinite as the stars above them, making it easy for one to fall for such geographic optical illusions. These are, as Darnielle described on an episode of I Only Listen To The Mountain Goats, “places where you’re alone with yourself.” In my fictional West Texas, my closest neighbors would be miles away, but my home would be open to a revolving door crew of lonely drifters and passers-through, not unlike the ones in Color In Your Cheeks:

They came in by the dozens, walking or crawling
Some were bright-eyed, some were dead on their feet
But they came from Zimbabwe or from Soviet Georgia
East St. Louis, or from Paris, or they lived across the street
But they came, and when they finally made it here
It was the least that we could do to make our welcome clear

It’s a fantasy defined by solitude, but in such a way that somehow– much like The Mountain Goats’ music –makes me feel less alone. Part of my love for All Hail West Texas lies in this contradiction and keeps me coming back to a central question: How can an album that evokes such emptiness and isolation simultaneously be a deeply powerful celebration of community and human connection?

Like all of my most beloved Mountain Goats albums, All Hail West Texas feels like a collection of overlapping short stories. As its indicatively minimalist album cover promises, it is “fourteen songs about seven people, two houses, a motorcycle, and a locked treatment facility for adolescent boys.” You won’t hear Darnielle giving a breakdown of these seven characters in interviews or definitively saying which songs each one of them is featured in. Some are mentioned by name: Jeff and Cyrus, the two members of the titular Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton; William Stanaforth Donahue, a 17-year-old ex-running back who gets a federal prison sentence for selling acid after an injury ends his football career; Jenny, a recurring character in The Mountain Goats’ discography who’s seen tearing through the desert on a Kawasaki motorcycle. Other characters are left more ambiguous: somebody who drives two hours to Austin every week just to retrieve postcards from a former friend or lover; Jenny’s admirer whose infatuation prompts him to hop on the back of her motorcycle and ride off into the sunset; a hard-spending and even harder-drinking couple who refuse to part ways no matter how miserable they make each other (some have speculated that these two might be the Alpha Couple, the subjects of the following Mountain Goats album). Darnielle’s storytelling is non-linear, and the information he withholds is as crucial as what is revealed. Recognizable plot points are scattered across a sonic landscape that feels as wide and as empty as West Texas itself. 

As we celebrate its 20th anniversary, it feels necessary to highlight the timing of this album. It marks an important turning point in the band’s history as the last album of the fanbase-splitting “lo-fi era.” Production-wise, it was the swan song of Darnielle’s Panasonic RX-FT500 before the long-suffering machine broke down for good. Though most of my favorite Mountain Goats albums are from 2002 onward, my ears perked up upon hearing the return of that familiar tape hiss crackling through 2020’s Songs For Pierre Chuvin. 

It’s also worth noting that All Hail West Texas was the first Mountain Goats album released after 9/11. In some ways, it feels like an unintentional post-9/11 cousin to Lift To Experience’s 2001 cult classic The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads– a sprawling post-rock concept album about the second coming of Christ set in Bush-era Texas. Darnielle’s values– religious, political, philosophical –are made clear throughout his discography, despite his general aversion to stating them overtly. Even though it lacks direct references to specific political stances or issues, All Hail West Texas is arguably the most political Mountain Goats album. The closest thing to a protest song Darnielle has ever written, “Fall of the Star High School Running Back,” tells the tale of a teenage victim of mandatory minimum sentencing. The narrator of “Pink and Blue” lacks adequate resources to care for their new child who’s been abandoned by a birth parent with even less. In the wake of 9/11 and subsequent racist and xenophobic backlash, “Color In Your Cheeks” takes on an additional layer of political significance. It’s a song about the true meaning of “southern hospitality”-- about sanctuary, about community, about opening homes and hearts to those seeking refuge and telling them “you are welcome here.” During its episode of the aforementioned podcast, Darnielle emphasized the importance of the song’s first-person plural perspective: “There’s no ‘me and you;’ it’s ‘us and y’all.’”

Like much of The Mountain Goats’ catalog, the songs on All Hail West Texas recognize that ‘home’ is a multifaceted, often tenuous thing. Pockets of refuge almost always stand on a precarious foundation. The safe havens provided in “Color In Your Cheeks” and “Pink and Blue” are makeshift ones, implied to be temporary. Teenagers Jeff and Cyrus find a home in their shared passion for death metal– a passion also shared by Darnielle himself –but are separated from their music and from each other by disapproving adults. In “Jeff Davis County Blues,” a man who’s just spent three nights in jail “dream[s] about home” while driving, but it’s unclear whether he even has a home to return to. “Riches and Wonders'' chronicles the slow death of a dysfunctional relationship punctuated by sporadic moments of genuine affection, summed up by a simple yet crushing line: “I wanna go home, but I am home.” It’s a fan favorite Darniellism, one that reads like the devastating flip side of Talking Heads’ loving declaration: “home is where I want to be, but I guess I’m already there.” 

If you were to make a Venn diagram of fans of the Mountain Goats and people with a complicated relationship to the concept of home, you might as well draw a circle. Though all of us have unique personal connections to the band, one of the constants among Mountain Goats fans is that each one of us has, in some way, found a home in their music, however fleeting that may be. 

The first time I saw The Mountain Goats live was almost four years ago, during my sophomore year of college. It had been a tumultuous spring semester, to say the least. I’d gotten caught up in my friends’ infighting and said things I regretted in an attempt to protect the reputation of someone who didn’t deserve my loyalty. I felt as though all my peers had found some sense of academic and professional direction that I couldn’t seem to attain. My childhood cat had recently been put down while I was away at school and unable to properly say goodbye. I was just starting to process traumas that I’d spent months, even years repressing, believing that if I pretended hard enough that these things hadn’t happened, it would eventually become the truth. 

For a couple of hours, a venue located inconspicuously in an Upstate New York strip mall became a sanctuary. With the second encore came a moment I’ll never forget. During a slowed-down rendition of Transcendental Youth’s penultimate track, “Spent Gladiator 2,” I locked eyes with John Darnielle from the back of the darkened concert hall as he sang the words, “just stay alive/stay forever alive.” His words have stayed with me ever since, their meaning evolving alongside my own growth. Sometimes it’s a command, sometimes a mantra. Sometimes a plea, sometimes a prayer. Whatever shape it takes, it’s a promise I’ve made to John and to myself. 

At its core, All Hail West Texas– and The Mountain Goats’ music as a whole –is about staying alive. John Darnielle’s characters are flawed, but what makes him such a compelling storyteller is that he doesn’t judge them for trying to survive. These are songs about doing the best you can with what you have. Darnielle isn’t here to show us the way out of whatever darkness is plaguing us, but he can remind us that a way out exists. 

“Absolute Lithops Effect” ends the album on a quietly hopeful note. It’s in good company with some of my other favorite album closers in which “night comes to Texas” (including one from The Mountain Goats’ 1997 album Full Force Galesburg). When Darnielle sings, “I’m going to find the exit,” it isn’t boastful or even declarative, but it’s life-affirming in its simplicity. He might not be able to offer us a sure solution, but he gives us what he can: “a little bit of water, and a little bit of sunlight, and a little bit of tender mercy.” Our narrator– alive but still hurting –describes the “tiny steps forward” that he is taking: “I will bloom, here in my room.” Later in the song, we see him emerging from said room and telling us: “I will go to the house of a friend I know/and I will let myself forget.” It’s something of a cyclical album– starting with two friends being torn apart from one another and ending with two friends reconnecting. In both songs, statements of perseverance cut through the characters’ suffering:

When you punish a person for dreaming his dream
Don’t expect him to thank or forgive you
The best ever death metal band out of Denton
Will in time both outpace and outlive you
Hail Satan!

Darnielle has called this song a hymn, which, understandably may confuse some due to the “Hail Satan” of it all. But it is, by definition, a song of praise, of giving oneself over to a higher power– in this case, the almighty power of death metal, self-expression, and adolescent rebellion. Through adversity there is victory, even when victory just means living another day. “Hail Satan” is more than just a silly reference to the boys’ transgressive rockstar personas (complete with pentagrams and edgy, already-taken band names). “It’s a celebration of two people being true to themselves,” Darnielle has explained, “It’s a celebration of the later Satanic principle of self-knowledge, which isn’t really Satan at all– it’s actually godlike.” By saying “Hail Satan,” what Jeff and Cyrus are really saying is “Hail Us.”

Last fall, I went to my second Mountain Goats concert and was lucky enough to hear this song live. It was a solo show, just John and his guitar and a room full of people singing along, our “Hail Satan!”s echoing off the high ceilings. I thanked whatever God I may or may not believe in that I’d taken John’s advice and stayed forever alive. I was not what I used to be. All Hail Satan, All Hail West Texas, All Hail Us. 

STAY WHEREVER THE HELL YOU ARE. TAKE THE TRAIN DOWN HERE IF YOU GET A CHANCE. DRIVE OUT TO THE AIRPORT. YOU CAN’T MAKE ME LEAVE. I LOVED YOU. I LOVE YOU. THERE ARE NO WINDOWS OR DOORS AND THE WALLS ARE ON FIRE. YOU CAN GET OUT IF YOU’RE COMMITTED TO THE EFFORT. IT’S EASY TO GET OUT IF YOU BELIEVE IN YOURSELF. YOU HAVE REALLY LET YOURSELF GO. YOU ARE NOT WHAT YOU USED TO BE. YOU ARE LOVELY BEYOND COMPARE, BEYOND COMPARE, BEYOND COMPARE. WE HAVE NO HOUSE. OUR HOUSE WOULD BE A LOVELY SOUTHWESTERN RANCH HOUSE. OUR HOUSE WOULD BE A LOVELY SOUTHWESTERN RANCH IF IT HAD A ROOF. OUR HOUSE IS A LOVELY SOUTHWESTERN RANCH. I’LL TAKE AS MUCH OF THIS AS I CAN POSSIBLY BEAR. I AM GOING TO TAKE THIS A LITTLE WHILE LONGER. I AM NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE. 

(Excerpt from the liner notes of the 10th-anniversary reissue)

Grace Robins-Somerville is a writer from Brooklyn, New York. You can find her on Instagram and Twitter @grace_roso.