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

Swim Into The Sound's Staff Favorites of 2023

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I won’t beat around the bush too much, but before we get into our staff’s favorite records of 2023, I’d just like to take a moment to brag about them and what an awesome year we’ve had. 

Back in January, I put out a call for new writers and the response was greater than I ever could have hoped for. A couple dozen people reached out to me, and about half of them went on to become regular contributors over the course of 2023. Reviews, premieres, single write-ups, interviews and more all flowed from the minds of these incredible writers, all of whom are doing this purely for the love of the music. 

Aside from those more traditional bits of music writing, we also established a regular monthly column called Haters Delight, which took this blog in a more timely, goofy, and gripey (but still good-natured) direction that fell outside our usual perview. While I was a little nervous about wading into such negative waters at first, I soon discovered that pretty much everyone loves a communal bitch sesh.

These writers also helped widen the scope of this blog and the music we cover. Through expansive quarterly roundups (including the one you’re about to read), they honed raw passion into thoughtful write-ups, making the case for artists that I typically wouldn’t be able to speak eloquently on or even know to cover. Who would have guessed that bringing in a talented slew of people also meant a wealth of new passion and perspectives?

At the time of writing, we’ve published 69 articles this year (nice), amounting to a little over 100k words total. About half of those have been penned by our talented team of guest writers, and I think that goes to show just how much these people have helped make Swim Into The Sound feel like a real music blog, not just some dork typing about emo music into his Macbook. 

When we published our first-ever Staff Favorites roundup back in 2021, I talked about how lucky I felt to have this talented team of writers at my back, and now that feeling is amplified tenfold. I couldn’t be more proud of this team or their work; they make me want to be a better, more well-rounded music writer. Scroll down to read about their favorite albums of this year, then go follow them on social media, and support all of their projects. Each and every person in this article is talented beyond belief with taste to match, I have no doubt you’ll come away from this with a list of incredible new music to check out.

Without further adieu, here are Swim Into The Sound’s Staff Favorites of 2023. 

Nickolas Sackett | Greg Mendez – Greg Mendez 

Forged Artifacts / Devil Town Tapes 

When I was younger, my childhood home was often blanketed by the background hum of a random radio station or TV show. I didn't have a strong concept of actors or fiction yet, so there were times when I would fall into the conversations of Law & Order or Sex and the City and believe I was listening in on real people out there somewhere. The songs on Greg Mendez remind me of that (perceived) window I thought I was stealing looks through as a child– stolen glimpses into a world far away from my own, hushed confessions and painful stories told in a whisper from behind a lit cigarette in an alley. And yet, despite how bleak these stories can unravel, their mere existence reminds you that although all of this can be quite painful and terrible, there's still so much beauty to be found. 

Other Highlights:

  • Indigo de Souza - All of This Will End (review)

  • Field Medic - Lightisgonept2

  • André 3000 - New Blue Sun

  • Taylor Swift - 1989 (Taylor’s Version)

  • 100 Gecs - 10,000 Gecs

  • Olivia Rodrigo - Guts

  • billy woods & Kenny Segal - Maps

  • Chuquimamani-Condori - DJ E

  • Earl Sweatshirt & The Alchemist - VOIR DIRE

  • Jungle - Volcano

  • The Drums - Jonny

  • Hotline TNT - Cartwheel


Joe Wasserman | phoneswithchords, Ben Sooy – phoneswithBen

Start-Track

I’m not sure I believe in love at first sight. Frankly, I don’t give the notion much thought. I do, however, believe in AOTY at first listen. That moment for me this year was when I first heard “If Time,” the lead single off phoneswithBen, the collaborative album by phoneswithchords and Ben Sooy of Denver rock band A Place for Owls. There is not much more that I can say about this record than what I already have on my Substack. I’m in love with its sounds and melodies, the way it speaks to me about my anxieties and worries, and the way it makes me feel comforted and okay. Before listening to this album, I felt alone with age and time. When I listen to it, all I can think about is the warmth that surrounds me.

In alphabetical order, here are five more albums that spoke to me this year:


Nick Webber | Vagabonds – The Pasture & The Willow

Self-Released

I’m very bad at picking favorites, but The Pasture & The Willow is the album that has snuck up on me the most this year, and I love a grower. The record begins with “Sungazer,” a mantra: “It won’t happen like you think.” There’s something ominous and mystical in the atmosphere, like a prophecy. As foretold, the song blooms from hushed slowcore to shoegazey/yelly post-hardcore in barely 3 minutes, an anthem for grief prolonged and an apt prologue for the fevered, contemplative vision to follow.

The album’s title evokes something literary and bucolic, and the lyrics are often painting impressionistically: pastoral scenes, trees that weep, just noticing the beauty of simple things. Interspersed are these earnest, personal vignettes of everyday life; “The Checkout Line” describes a breakdown at work, where the backroom becomes a sanctuary for the grieving grocery clerk. The infinite crashes into the ordinary.

There’s also joy in the fullest, most mysterious sense: the peaceful reassurance of waking up next to someone you love, the hope for a future out from under the thumb of the forces that conspire against your flourishing, perseverance in the pain and uncertainty. It won’t be like this forever; visions of settling down somewhere quiet in the country, longing for rest. “The peace comes to visit / But never to stay.”

The Pasture & The Willow is gentle in its heaviness, wrapped in some of my favorite guitar work of the year. I found myself reaching for it when I felt weary, anxious, or reflective. It’s the one thing that felt good to listen to when I was driving to the hospital last week (everything is fine now). It’s equal parts calm and cathartic; I’m still caught off guard at how massive the arrangements get. And at the center of it all is this preoccupation with connection. Can we cut through the curtains that separate us from each other (and me from myself) and climb on through?


Elizabeth Handgun | Water From Your Eyes – Everyone’s Crushed

Matador Records

Goofy yet profound, experimental and artistic yet grounded, Water From Your Eyes delivered one of the greatest albums of 2023 and possibly all time. The musicianship! The humor! The daring to go where few musicians have ventured before! It’s all there on Everyone’s Crushed. From the flurried and chaotic lead single, “Barley,” through “14,” which is mellow and shot through with longing, to the thumpy, punky closer, “Buy My Product,” the album delivers a bewildering yet beautiful tour through the minds of Rachel Brown and Nate Amos. The album also gets more interesting with each consecutive listening, rewarding close attention and an open mind. The whole project is strange and remarkable but with a little current of tender jokiness running throughout. I’m crushed!


Logan Archer Mounts | Lydia Loveless – Nothing’s Gonna Stand In My Way Again

Bloodshot records

To be fair, I must admit this is my second favorite album of 2023. I am rolling out my entire list of 100 albums on my Instagram (@sleeps.with.angels, shameless plug), and I don’t want to show off my top pick just yet. But I have a trend that seems to ring true every year: my top spot is occupied by what I think is objectively the year’s greatest musical experience, and the runner-up album is usually what I listened to the most. My bootleg third-party app streaming stats for my Amazon Music account may say otherwise, but Lydia Loveless’ sixth studio album was a cornerstone soundtrack to my year. The only two times I’ve seen the Ohio-based, alt-country singer-songwriter were in 2023, and they were at the exact same venue just eight months apart. In March, she appeared for a pop-up acoustic set at the Empty Bottle in Chicago, coincidentally enough, my second favorite venue in the city. The show mainly contained new, never-before-played material from her upcoming album that had yet to be announce. I was thrilled to hear these tracks in such an intimate setting and couldn’t wait for the final product to be unveiled. 

Nothing’s Gonna Stand… arrived in September, with Lydia returning to her Chicago label Bloodshot in conjunction with her own imprint Honey, You’re Gonna Be Late. It’s a concise, ten-song collection that showcases what Loveless does best: twangy guitar rock with unforgettable hooks and melodies. Besides the excellent singles “Sex and Money” and “Toothache,” the entire record is full of no-holds-barred honest pop, like the self-effacing “Poor Boy” or the wall-crumbling breakup anthem “French Restaurant.” The track “Ghost” features the album’s title in its chorus: “Now that I’m dead, nothing’s gonna stand in my way again.” You can bet I listened to that song over and over again as I was preparing to, and successfully did, quit my job. The spring of anticipation and the late summer of constant rotation led into the fall of presentation: I soon found myself at Loveless’ tour opener back at the Empty Bottle on Black Friday, this time with her full band and a record out in the world. I stood right up against the stage again as they burned through most of the tracklisting of Nothing’s Gonna Stand…, as well as fan favorites like “Head” and the return of the oft-requested “Wine Lips.” I got her to sign my concert scrapbook, including the setlists I was able to grab from the stage at each show, and thanked her for the brilliant record. So even though it didn’t take the coveted number one spot, on a personal level, I could not have gotten through this year without it. And for the first time all year, I truly feel like nothing’s gonna stand in my way again, thanks to Lydia Loveless.

If that sounds good to you, you may enjoy some of my other favorites I’ve selected:

  • Sincere Engineer - Cheap Grills (Chicago folk-pop-punk international touring sensation returns with her best and catchiest release yet.)

  • The Mountain Goats - Jenny From Thebes (John Darnielle’s prolific catalog expands with this theatrical sequel to the 2002 classic All Hail West Texas. In some ways, it’s sort of the anti-album to its lo-fi companion, but I think that’s what makes it one of the band’s best among their last handful of titles.)

  • Dave Hause - Drive It Like It’s Stolen (The Loved Ones’ frontman burns through ten songs in 28 minutes, a more compact, but just as fulfilling, version of the heartland punk he’s perfected over the years.)


Ben Sooy | Gia Margaret – Romantic Piano

Jagjaguwar

Last night, I felt a panic attack approaching. Car trouble, money trouble, difficult day, underlying grief, and mental instability. I was trying to breathe deeply, get to sleep, and remember I’m okay. I’ve learned a few practices to help in a time like this. I can kneel down and put my face in the carpet, I can lay on my back and slow my breath, I can count all the things I’m grateful for, I can listen to music that helps center and calm me down. 

When asked about her very good (mostly instrumental) 2023 album Romantic Piano, Gia Margaret said, “I wanted to make music that was useful.” This is music that is of great use to me, personally. There are sounds from the natural world, piano songs filled with longing and peacefulness, touched by melancholy. The squeak of a piano bench, the sound of cicadas at night. It’s useful the same way walking outside and being surprised by a thunderstorm is useful; I forget about my troubles, wrapped up for a few moments in something bigger than myself. This album improves my quality of life and my mental and spiritual health in ways I can’t begin to articulate. I think it would be helpful to you too. 

Other 2023 favorites:

  • Nick Webber - All The Nothing I Know (A thoughtful and beautiful exploration of what it means to realize that you don't know anything about anything, but that's okay! Written and painstakingly self-recorded by universally beloved human Nick Webber.)

  • Josaleigh Pollett - In The Garden, By The Weeds (Josaleigh and her musical partner Jordan Watko created a masterpiece, one of my favorite records of the last ten years. Dark and lonely, hopeful, heartbreaking songs for when you feel insane and need a friend.)

  • Plain Speak - Calamity (Plain Speak writes and records the kind of songs I've always attempted to write and record. Earth-shatteringly good indie rock in the vein of your favorite Death Cab record.)

  • Broken Record - Nothing Moves Me (Denver emo band Broken Record was created in a lab to make the exact kind of music I like: emo made by people who obsessively listen to Jimmy Eat World, Sunny Day, and the Cure. I would die for Denver emo band Broken Record.)

  • Elliott Green - Everything I Lack (Crushingly good songs about addiction and heartbreak written by a very kind human being. If you like any of the boygenius crew, for the love of God, check out this record.)


Jason Sloan | Glia – Happens All the Time

Candlepin Records

Consider the wheel. Invented in Mesopotamia, or maybe Eastern Europe, or China, or perhaps in each location independently, the wheel was seismic upon impact, perfected almost as soon as it was conceived. Millennia of human ingenuity may have added component parts here or there, but the underlying technology has remained fundamentally unchanged. You’ve heard the one about wheels and reinvention. 

The beauty lies therein—a well-made wheel is still a hell of an instrument. And on Happens All the Time, Glia fashions one hell of a wheel. While they may not be inventing new textures out of whole cloth the way Kevin Shields did way back when, Glia polishes up the familiar into 41 minutes of blissful shoegaze; the shuffling drums and psychedelic guitar crunch of “Tumble” alone are worth the price of admission. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it; just make sure you make it really fucking good. 

An off-the-top list of old (new-to-me) songs that meant a lot this year:

  • Yard Act - “100% Endurance” (2021)

  • Silkworm - “Couldn’t You Wait” (1994)

  • Breakwater - “Five” (1995)

  • Hard Girls - “If They Never Find Out” (2012)

  • Gangsta Blac - “Down wit Clique” (1998)

  • Prefab Sprout - “Appetite” (1985)

  • Thurston Moore - “Benediction” (2011)

  • Red Red Meat - “Gauze” (1995)

  • Swervedriver - “Never Lose That Feeling/Never Learn” (1993)

  • Nicki Minaj x Cocteau Twins - “Heaven or Super Bass” (2021)


Connor Fitzpatrick | Lankum – False Lankum

Rough Trade Records

Irish music reigned supreme in 2023, well, for me at least, seeing great albums from John Francis Flynn’s contemporary twist on folk standards to Lisa O’Neill’s orchestral storytelling to Øxn’s experimental doom. But among all these towering achievements, one album stands out as a titanic classic. That album is Lankum’s False Lankum. 

The Dublin doom folk quartet’s fourth album feels like a masterpiece in the truest sense as it crystallizes the band's elements into a singular, haunting tome. Lankum infuses their Irish folk with drone music, creating an atmosphere that is as menacing as it is tranquil. The stories in these songs often feature characters who live hard and wretched lives, doomed for some sort of tragic death. “Go Dig My Grave” tells the tale of a woman who ends her own life after being spurned by the man she loves. Fun stuff, right? But it's the way the band brings these stories and characters to life that makes the album so enthralling. They're at their best when Radie Peat takes on the lead vocals backed by traditional instruments like uilleann pipes and bayans as she describes the lives of the meek who did not inherit the earth. False Lankum is a dense album that rewards those who return to it, and I intend on returning over and over so I can savor every minute of it.


Katie Wojciechowski | Bully – Lucky For You

Sub Pop Records

I am trying to wrangle this blurb into something that’s not jarringly tragic. And honestly, it might be a futile effort. After all, Lucky For You is about a dead dog, about breakups, about the end of the world as we know it. When you lose your dog, your marriage, or your career, there’s grief, of course, and also, there is rage. A sensation that resonates with hoarse yelps, the slamming of cymbals, chugging, distorted electric guitar chords. With Lucky For You, Alicia Bognanno of Bully has turned the shards of grief and anger into grunge-pop melodies that are as unflinching as their subject matter deserves: she lost her beloved dog Mezzi last year, after more than a decade together. These songs are the sound of her attempts to process life’s stock-in-trade heartbreaks—romantic wounds, crippling self-doubt, and the horrors of living in America—without her best friend by her side. 

There have been days this year when singing along to “Days Move Slow” in my car at the top of my lungs has felt like a conversation with a friend who understands: a friend who’s a step ahead of me, who’s cracked the code of alchemizing despair into melody. Even before I knew that “A Wonderful Life” was about a dead dog, I felt Bognanno’s warm, punchy words in my bones: “What a wonderful life / my heart’s breaking on the bathroom floor” quickly became the refrain, this last summer, for my own life falling apart in real-time. 

Bognanno’s vocals have a retro quality, evoking charismatic pop-rock voices from the early 2000s, like Michelle Branch or Sheryl Crow in her louder moments. But she’s not content to cash in on basic pop blueprints: like its 2020 predecessor SUGAREGG, Lucky For You leans into distortion, thick bass riffs, and, at times, full-on yelling, like in the Bikini Kill-esque final track “All This Noise.” The last two songs of the album zoom out on the sociopolitical factors that tally among Bognanno’s sorrows: the latter torching the American government in a blaze of rage, the former, “Ms. America,” a soft, piercing reflection on the improbability of the dream of motherhood in a rotten country like ours, where there’s endless funding for weapons manufacturing and none for healthcare or schools or even clean water. I listened, a hundred times over, when she sings, “All I wanted was a daughter / try my best to raise her right / but the whole world’s caught on fire / and I don’t wanna teach a kid to fight.” All that we’ve lost this year, so many of us. All that 2023 unceremoniously stomped against the curb. I’ve watched it all slip through my fingers, and I’ve carried my dog’s old collar in my backpack when I’ve bounced between temporary homes, and I’ve listened to Bully like a prayer, knowing that despite how it sometimes feels, I’m never really alone.

My other favorites:

  • Black Belt Eagle Scout - The Land, The Water, The Sky

  • Paramore - This Is Why

  • Kara Jackson - Why Does The Earth Give Us People To Love?

  • Hotline TNT - Cartwheel


Russ Finn | Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band – Dancing on the Edge

Sophomore Lounge

Leading his band State Champion, Ryan Davis crafted cinematic songs about bar bands and barflies, using impeccable vocabulary and wit like some sort of art-school-educated Hoosier John Prine. Since his last album with State Champion, 2018’s Send Flowers, Davis has spent a lot of time painting, drawing, and writing the seven songs found on my favorite album of 2023, Dancing on the Edge.

The atypical country-rock structures and long-winded rambling found on Dancing on the Edge feel like the natural continuation of State Champion, even if it’s rebranded as a solo album. Davis’ time spent making visual art perhaps informs the striking imagery and minute details within his songs. His ability to effortlessly put the listener in a “piss-stop town,” a “shipyard plumber’s band,” or a “junk drawer heart” is unmatched. Beautiful lines like “there’s a blackened space between the back of my head and the back of my face” are found so frequently on Dancing on the Edge, it would be impossible to summarize all of the best lyrical moments in a short blurb. Instead, I suggest you listen to the opus “Flashes of Orange” and give the lyrics serious attention. For the literary-minded singer/songwriter fans out there, Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band’s Dancing on the Edge is an essential album and one of the best of 2023.

For what it’s worth, my second favorite album of 2023 is My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross by ANOHNI and the Johnsons. Below are some releases from friends, acquaintances, and obscure corners of the internet I feel deserve more attention:

  • Spirit Furnace - Spirit Furnace EP

  • Heavy Quitters - Heavy Quitters

  • Riley Parker - Discover EP

  • Bailey Allen Baker - Grab a Bucket

  • Perfect Angel at Heaven - EP

  • Chief Broom - Hidden in Plain Sight

  • Taxiway - This is Permanent