2025 in music

→ January 10, 2026
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 1/10/26.

I had one story this week for subscribers to the Athletic, breaking down the Cubs’ trade for Edward Cabrera. I’m spending most of my time right now working on the annual prospect rankings, which are tentatively slated to run starting January 26^th with the top 100.

At AV Club, I reviewed the flip-and-write game Ra and Write, which borrows the theme from the auction game Ra but doesn’t have many similarities beyond that; and Propolis, a bee-themed engine-builder in a small box.

I’m trying to squeeze in another edition of my free email newsletter this weekend before the heavy phone work resumes on Monday. We’ll see how that works out for me.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: WIRED has the story of how a down-on-his-luck private detective named Brad Dennis helped find “Torswats,” a teenager who made well over 300 swatting calls to schools, universities, and other targets, when the FBI appeared not to take the case very seriously at all. The culprit, Alan Filion, is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to four charges, while it appears that the case has sent Dennis in the wrong direction. (Unrelated, but the swatter Dennis knew in the early 2000s who ended up targeting him eventually was charged and convicted, then died quite young in 2023.)

The New York Times investigates how a teenager died while working at the Nebraska pork production factory Pillen Family Farms, founded by now Gov. Jim Pillen (R), while two years have produced no charges or even explanations for the minor’s family. Maybe Morrissey was right: meat is murder.

In the National Catholic Reporter, John Grosso calls out JD Vance’s gross misuse of both his platform and his soi-disant Catholic faith to blame murder victim Renee Good for her own killing, referring to Vance’s actions as a “a moral stain on the collective witness of our Catholic faith.” I’m secular now, but grew up Catholic and certainly understand the tenets of that religion enough to say ‘hell yeah.’

Ben Lorber at Religion Dispatches points out that Elon Musk openly endorsed a white nationalist position and nobody has said a thing about it.

The notoriously left-wing Wall Street Journal reveals how lobbyists are charging $1 million to secure a pardon from President Trump.

WIRED explains what the “quantum apocalypse,” where existing cryptographic methods would become obsolete almost overnight, might mean for our society and the global economy.

The #3 official at the Interior Department didn’t disclose that her husband held a multi-million dollar water rights contract with a lithium mine that her department approved. That story ran a week ago, and there’s been absolutely nothing since then – I don’t see a single member of Congress so much as calling for an investigation.

An Ohio teenager died from the flu despite being otherwise healthy, because the flu can kill a healthy person. Get vaccinated.

An unvaccinated person with the measles visited the Ark Encounter fiction park in Kentucky, which, well, a person who doesn’t believe in science visited an entire theme park built around ignorance of science.

An NBC News investigation into 31 states that provide county-or other below state-level data found that 70% of jurisdictions have fallen below the herd immunity vaccination rate for pertussis, which is why whooping cough cases are now soaring in this stupid country.

Utah theocrats are pushing to end all gender-affirming care for minors despite a report from the state’s Health and Human Services Department finding positive outcomes from such treatment. Keep your nonsense religion out of my house, please.

Montana revoked the medical license of a quack doctor who diagnosed healthy patients with cancer and treated them with chemotherapy and opioids, killing at least one of them in the process. This came about due to investigative reports from ProPublica, which found that the state renewed Thomas Weiner’s medical license twice despite complaints about his conduct.

The Intercept calls on Democrats to fight back against the MAGA machine’s attempts to destroy trans people, which is straight out of the totalitarian playbook.

Kansas’ Governor Laura Kelly (D) has claimed the deal for a new NFL stadium that provides $4 billion in subsidies to the Chiefs will not cost anything in new taxes. Field of Schemes explains why that’s a lie.

The Guardian’s Andrew Lawrence wrote about how Sinners became the most culturally important film of 2025.

Here are 19 artists who pulled their music from Spotify in 2025.

The notoriously left-wing Financial Times walks us through the executives at “the deepfake porn site formerly known as Twitter.”

A former Times editor spoke about what she perceived as anti-trans bias coming from the top levels at the newspaper. The Times responded, although the paper’s response does not provide evidence to counter the former employee’s claims.

The city of Wilmington announced a plan to have a local nonprofit manage an encampment for homeless people within the city. Mayor John Carney, formerly the Governor of Delaware, had campaigned on making housing and combating homelessness a priority, but this is the first move forward on that front after his decision in October to ban other encampments and step up enforcement against people with nowhere else to go.

Denny Carter writes at his Bad Faith Times how popularism has failed miserably in the UK and Democrats need to give up that strategy entirely.

A new study found that playing tabletop and/or role-playing games provides social, educational, and therapeutic benefits, especially for neurodivergent players.

Rock Manor Games has a Kickstarter up for the latest expansion to the Set a Watch series.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2025 in music, anti-science, board game news, delaware, kansas, labor rights, links, longreads, religion, social media, stadium scams, stick to baseball, the swamp, trans rights, utah, vaccines

→ January 1, 2026
→ By keith

Top 100 songs of 2025.

This year’s top 100 took longer than usual to compile for the opposite reason from last year: it was hard for me to get 100 songs I thought worthy of inclusion. You can see my previous years’ song rankings here: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012. I posted my ranking of the top 25 albums of 2025 just before Christmas.

If you can’t see the widget below, you can access the playlist on Apple Music and Spotify.

A few late cuts from the list: SPRINTS – “Need,” Emma-Jean Thackray – “Weirdo,” Geese – “100 Horses,” The Horrors – “More than Life,” Andy Bell – “apple green ufo.”

100. Pynch – Post-Punk/New Wave. “It’s post-punk, it’s new wave, with a little bit of shoegaze.” How could I not like a song that starts with that line? Of course, this song is none of those things – it’s more lo-fi indie rock, and they do name-check that later in the song.

99. The Waterboys feat. Bruce Springsteen – Ten Years Gone. I think this is the Boss’s first appearance on any of my music playlists in any form. I might be ruining my reputation here. I do like the Waterboys, though; “The Whole of the Moon” is one of my all-time favorite songs, and Springsteen’s role is here is a spoken-word reflection at the track’s end.

98. Sharon Van Etten – I Can’t Imagine (Why You Feel This Way). Van Etten’s music has never spoken to me outside of her rare swerves into more uptempo rock and pop territory (“Mistakes” from her last album). Her latest album, Sharon Van Etten and the Attachment Theory, is my favorite from her yet, because the whole record is made out of that very thing, and her voice – which often sounded sleepy to me – translates beautifully to this style of music.

97. Hotwax – Strange to Be Here. I thought Hotwax was going to be one of the ‘it’ bands of the year after their debut album Hot Shock earned some glowing reviews, but I don’t think I heard anything about them after March. They’re reminiscent of Hole and Babes in Toyland, although I saw them mislabeled as grunge in many of those same reviews.

96. HUNTR/X – Golden. It’s a legimately good song. And the movie was great before it ran out of plot at the end.

95. Portugal. the Man – Denali. A crunchy, metallesque song from Shish, probably the hardest song P.tM has done at least since Evil Friends

94. Sudan Archives – My Type. I didn’t think of Brittney Parks as a rapper per se – she’s a singer and a violinist – but she drops some high-speed rhymes on this standout track from her latest album The BPM.

93. Sunflower Bean – Crashing Highs. A bonus track on the deluxe edition of Mortal Primetime, this was actually my second-favorite track from this Brooklyn trio this year, an effusive power-pop number that showcases Julia Cumming’s vocals.

92. Friendship – Free Association. Caveman Wakes Up is a bit of a dire affair, a record that is either about being depressed, or a record that is itself literally depressed, leavened just slightly by this song with a distinctive drum hook that stayed in my head for weeks.

91. Suede – Trance State. That hook that comes in at the ten-second mark … just inject it straight into my new wave-loving veins.

90. The Itch – Space in the Cab. If you like Australia’s snarky electro-pop act Confidence Man, you’ll love this track by this British duo, who were previously in a punk band called Regressive Left.

89. Obongjayar – Sweet Danger. Obongjayar blends Afrobeat with western pop sounds, sometimes striving a little beyond his musical reach, but when he concentrates on that specific fusion he churns out mesmerizing pop tracks like this one.

88. Doves – Cold Dreaming. I love the music, but I wish the lyrics were stronger. Doves’ latest album Constellations for the Lonely wasn’t up to their prior standard, unfortunately, with two excellent songs leading it off (this and “Renegade,” released in 2024) followed by a lot of filler before the closer “Lean into the Wind.” Their one-off single that came out later in the year, “Spirit of Your Friend,” would have been the third- or fourth-best song on the LP.

87. Snocaps – Heathcliff. Snocaps are Katie and Allison Crutchfield with MJ Lenderman and Brad Cook. The sisters’ vocals really power their eponymous album, which is filled with boppy Americana tracks, with this one single the best on the record.

86. Pete Doherty – Felt Better Alive. It’s not a Libertines song – this year could have used more of that – but Doherty’s fifth solo album, also called Felt Better Alive, was a pleasant surprise, and a modest hit as well, becoming his first album to reach the UK top ten. Of course, Pete couldn’t let it go without a shot at his bandmates, saying they were “stark-raving mad” to not want these songs.

85. Automatic – Mercury. The first few seconds had me scared that this was going to be a bad imitation of the early 1980s goth-rock/new wave material Automatic emulates, but the drums come in and save the day, turning it into something with more verve, almost danceable despite the synth line that sounds like it should be in a Dracula movie.

84. Rachel Inouriri – Can We Talk About Isaac? This lead track from the EP Little House shows Chinouriri in a more upbeat, almost bouncy indie-pop mode, a shift from the tone of the latter half of her debut album What a Devastating Turn of Events.

83. Deftones – milk of the madonna. I’ll never be entirely on Deftones’ wavelength, but I respect their musical evolution from “My Own Summer” to the more progressive alt-metal style of Private Music. The chorus here has a hell of a hook between the guitar line and the “I’m on fiiiiire” vocals.

82. Clipse – So Be It. Clipse’s Let God Sort Em Out was the duo’s first album in sixteen years, and the reviews seemed to split into two camps: those excited that the pair were back together, and those who viewed the album entirely on its own merits. The rhymes are strong, but the beats aren’t, and it holds the record back. This song has the best music behind Malice and Pusha T’s rapping, as well as a hilarious diss of Travis Scott.

81. Emma-Jean Thackray – Wanna Die. One of the best songs I’ve ever heard about grief and crushing depression, at least in terms of expressing how that feels in the moment. The video parodies the Jazz Club sketches from The Fast Show, if you’re into old sketch comedy.

80. Tunde Adembimpe – Drop. I was disappointed by Thee Black Boltz, Adebimpe’s first solo album, because he seemed so oddly restrained throughout the record, particularly in the music, which is often sparse (“Ate the Moon”) or sluggish (“God Knows”). The best track, “Magnetic,” came out in 2024 and was on my top 100 at #66. This was my second-favorite.

79. Prides – Dynamite. I think Prides might have set the record for the longest time between appearances on my year-end top 100s; “The Seeds You Sow” was #8 on my best of 2014 list, but they’d largely stopped recording on their own after 2018. Also, they might just be one guy now, rather than a trio. I love Stewart Brock’s voice, and they bear some resemblance to other Scottish indie bands beyond the accent.

78. SAULT – K.T.Y.W.S. So now we know Inflo is a fraud and a pharisee, making a whole album about his Christian faith while stealing from one of his close friends and collaborators, which made me consider dropping him entirely from this list … but I do still find his music compelling, even if he’s no longer close to the heights he reached with the project’s first four albums. The latest LP, 10, was a step up from Acts of Faith, but on par with the five albums he released in November of 2022.

77. Elbow – Sober. Yet another track left on the cutting-room floor during the Audio Vertigo sessions, “Sober” appeared on the deluxe version of that record along with “Adriana Again,” which I think is the best song from the entire package.

76. Nabeel – resala. Nabeel is an Iraqi-American band from Virginia, founded by Yasir Rasak, who moved to the U.S. as a baby and grew up on 1990s pop and alternative music. Nabeel’s music is straight shoegaze, with the lyrics sung in Arabic, and there’s a sense of longing and melancholy throughout their latest EP, ghayoom, highlighted by this mournful track.

75. The Tubs – Chain Reaction. The second-best song from Cotton Crown is another jangle-pop gem, not quite as catchy as “Freak Mode” but still an earworm thanks to Owen Williams’ distinctive singing and a frantic guitar riff.

74. De la Soul feat. Q-Tip & Yummy Bingham – Day in the Sun. De la Soul’s surprise album Cabin in the Sky, likely their last given the death of founding member Trugoy the Dove, had a slew of contributions from huge names from the golden age of hip-hop, including Nas, Slick Rick, Common, and fellow Native Tongues member Q-Tip on this particular trick.

73. Hotline TNT – Candle. Maybe the poppiest song on Raspberry Moon, “Candle” opens with a jangly guitar riff and stays upbeat even when the heavy distortion hits. Stereogum called it “fuzz-pop” and I think that’s more apposite a term than shoegaze. (Hotline TNT pulled all of their music from Spotify in protest against the CEO’s investment in a military AI firm, so their songs do not appear on the Spotify version of this playlist.)

72. Anxious – Counting Sheep. Anxious fly way too far under the radar given how catchy and clever their songs are – they’re constantly tagged as emo, when they get covered at all, but this isn’t landfill emo like Taking Back Sunday or Saves the Day; the music is more intricate and a lot less predictable. This was my top track from their second album, Bambi.

71. Little Simz – Thief. The most direct attack on Inflo on Simz’ latest album Lotus calls her former collaborator – who borrowed £1 million from her to put on a SAULT concert and then stiffed her – has her rapping furiously over a spy movie-esque backdrop.

70. clipping. – Dominator. The best track from clipping.’s second album Dead Channel Sky, “Run It”, came out in 2024, but this was a close second. The hip-hop trio is really a Daveed Diggs vehicle, here rapping over some early industrial-sounding beats.

69. Geese – Taxes. The penultimate track on Getting Killed sees Geese approaching a conventional song structure, with a steady build to a majestic finish beneath Cameron Winter’s warble-sung vocals.

68. The Budos Band – Overlander. I confessed to being unfamiliar with the Budos Band until this year, so I’m late to this particular party. It’s instrumental music with a heavy funk line, drawing influence from musical styles from around the world. They may be the only good thing that has ever come out of Staten Island. This was by far my favorite song on their latest album, VII.

67. Blankenberge – New Rules. Blankenberge started out in southern Siberia, close to the border with Kazakhstan, although they’re now based in St. Petersburg. They call themselves a shoegaze band, but their sound is broader than that, with dream-pop and even some traditional hard-rock elements as well. This is the best track off their latest album, Decisions, showcasing their entire sound in one brief song.

66. Castle Rat – Serpent. Castle Rat are utterly ridiculous, a cosplaying “fantasy metal band” from (checks notes) Brooklyn, not Bavaria or Middle Earth, but damn, the guitarwork here would do Tony Iommi proud.

65. The Horrors – Ariel. The Horrors’ latest album is a moody, funereal affair, best exemplified by this song, which starts out with ninety seconds of nothing but Farid Badwan’s vocals over a faint background of sound effects.

64. Thrice – Gnash. I think “Albatross” might be the consensus top track off Thrice’s latest album Horizons/West, but this thing just stomps all over the stage when it hits the chorus, and the intervening verses feel like someone is pushing up the voltage to the point of ignition.

63. Water from Your Eyes – Night in Armor. I’m obsessed with the guitar tone in the opening riff, which mostly continues beneath the talk-sung vocals and constantly threatens to overwhelm the latter. Water from Your Eyes is a duo that includes Nate Amos, who records as This is Lorelei, but his solo stuff does nothing for me.

62. The Hives – Enough is Enough. I’ve maintained for years that the Hives are always good for at least one absolute banger per album; they kept that going with this track off The Hives Forever Forever the Hives, which had a solid runner-up in the title track. I wouldn’t put “Enough is Enough” up there with their upper echelon, but it makes the greatest-hits playlist for me.

61. Sports Team – Bang Bang Bang. I loved Sports Team’s last album, Gulp!, but this year’s Boys These Days turned down the frenetic pace of its predecessor. This track was the most similar to their prior output, this time with a guitar line that rings like a parody of Gene Autry-style country music.

60. Black Honey – Soak. I’ve been a fan of this Brighton indie band for about a decade, but their sound has evolved to become darker and often slower than the early power-pop style they showed on songs like “Hello Today.” This is the title track from their latest album, and the closest they come to that earlier, more energetic vibe, although that darker element is still very present in the bass line.

59. Noname feat. Devin Morrison – Hundred Acres. The lead single from a promised third album from Noname, called Cartoon Radio, also marks her first new music since 2023’s Sundial. If this track is any indication, she’s still in top form.

58. Rocket – Wide Awake. R is for Rocket was one of my favorite albums of the year on the strengths of songs like this one that show their 1990s grunge and alternative-rock influences (notably the Smashing Pumpkins) but are novel rather than mere nostalgia plays, not that I’m above that sort of thing either.

57. Orchestra Gold – Baye Ass N’Diaye. This California-based group calls their music Afro-psych rock. This is accurate. Mariam Diakite’s vocals (sung in Bambara, one of the national languages of Mali) complement the crunchy, bluesy guitar riffs perfectly.

56. Coeur de Pirate – Cavale. Another title track, this one from Béatrice’s latest album, which sees her reaching back into 1970s baroque pop and disco, never more so than on this song.

55. Bleary Eyed – Easy. The title track from this Philly shoegaze band’s latest album – which I found on this list of the best albums of that genre this year – distills the best of their sound, a dreamy but appropriately blurry style that melds the two vocalists with guitars that sound like they’re partially obscured from view. That list wouldn’t match my own, but the top three records, by Total Wife, Bleary Eyed, and They Are Gutting a Body of Water, were all worthy selections.

54. Flight to London – No One’s Forgiven. This was a big year for bands just leaning all the way into early 1980s new wave sounds; Flight to London notes Tears For Fears, Phil Collins, and Depeche Mode as influences, but all I hear on this track from their debut album Instructions for Losing Control is the best parts of Heaven 17.

53. Bartees Strange – DCWDTTY. Strange put out a six-song EP, Shy Bairns Get Nowt, in October, but omitted this single he’d released a month earlier, a punk song that nods to Smart Went Crazy’s “DC Will Do That To You” but that is an original composition. Anyway, this is the best song he put out in 2025.

52. Momma – Cross Your Heart. I soured on Momma after multiple listens, because the album, Welcome to My Blue Sky, turned out to be utterly derivative of their 1990s influences – notably Veruca Salt, whom they nearly ripped off with “I Want You (Fever).” This was the best track that didn’t completely remind me of another song I liked better.

51. Greentea Peng – Nowhere Man. Peng’s latest album Tell Dem It’s Sunny was really uneven, not terribly shocking for an artist who crosses genres and musical borders so easily, highlighted at least by this track about not being of your current time and place, congruent with her career-long exploration of her own ethnic and cultural identity.

50. Bleak Squad – Strange Love. This Australian supergroup, which features Mick Harvey of The Birthday Party and The Bad Seeds fame, released its first album, Strange Love, in August, filled with dark, foreboding rock songs that work best when Adalita (Magic Dirt) handles the vocals.

49. The Twilight Sad – Waiting for the Phone Call. The first new song from this Scottish band in nearly seven years features Robert Smith on guitar, and mixes their usual style of post-punk with some traces of mid-1970s Pink Floyd.

48. Wisp – Serpentine. Wisp is Natalie Lu, a 21-year-old singer/guitarist from San Francisco who just dropped her debut album If Not Winter in August; her sound is very shoegaze with dream-pop vocals produced way out front of the walls of guitar.

47. The Beths – Metal. Straight Line was a Lie, the Beths’ follow-up to Expert in a Dying Field, my #1 album of 2022, was probably the biggest disappointment of the year to me; it lacked most of the urgency and energy of the last record, and even when they got the tempo right (“Take”, the title track) the songs lacked the huge melodies of their earlier work. This was my favorite song on the LP, and I wonder if I would have ranked it lower if it hadn’t been by a band I’d previously adored.

46. Yaya Bey – dream girl. Bey released her latest album, do it afraid, and Pitchfork gave it a 7.5, saying just one track was a misfire: this one. So of course I think it’s the best song she’s released so far.

45. Lake Ruth – An Offering. I wasn’t familiar with this trio until hearing this track, from their first album in seven years, Hawking Radiation. The title gives some sense of their sound; it’s space-jazz-rock with the kind of ethereal vocals you would expect from the Cocteau Twins or Lush (a frequent touchpoint for me).

44. Picture Parlour – 24 Hour Open. One of the best guitar riffs of the year, easily. I don’t love when singer Katherine Parlour works at the bottom end of her range – her voice loses a lot of its power, and it sounds more affected, at least compared to how it sounds when she lets it loose on the chorus. This English quintet released its first album, The Parlour, in November, with more tracks of heavily blues-influenced rock and the occasional indie/dream-pop number like “Talk About It.”

43. Danger Mouse & Black Thought feat. Rag’n’Bone Man – Up. The first single from Danger Mouse & Black Thought since their wonderful 2022 album Cheat Codes has the rapper in top form, sounding like he can barely get one line out for his eagerness to get to the next one, accentuated by a big chorus featuring the English retro-soul singer Rag’n’Bone Man.

42. Fontaines D.C. – It’s Amazing to Be Young. There’s a long history of artists writing songs about/for their newborns, including Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness’ “Cecilia and the Satellite” and Stone Temple Pilots’ “A Song for Sleeping,” but this one-off single from Fontaines D.C. isn’t really a departure from their current sound – if you liked 2024’s “Favourite,” which I certainly did, you’ll probably like this track as well.

41. Little Simz feat. Obongjayar & Moonchild Sanelly – Flood. The drums that open this track are so menacing, and then Simz’s rhymes come in, in a near-whisper, punctuated by Obongjayar’s chorus (“As I walk this wicked ground/Keep me away from the Devil’s palm”) and the Zulu-language lines with Sanelly that she delivers with a staccato beat that adds to the percussion.

40. SPRINTS – Descartes. The lead single and best track from SPRINTS’ second album All That Is Over is a hard-driving track that blends punk and metal behind Karla Chubb’s musings on the meaning of art.

39. Natalie Bergman – Gunslinger. Bergman’s second album My Home is Not in this World, produced by her brother Elliot (who is also her partner in the band Wild Belle), was paced by this sultry track that combines elements of country and classic soul.

38. Wolf Alice – Bloom Baby Bloom. The lead single from The Clearing and, as far as I can tell, the album’s biggest hit is a showcase for Ellie Rowsell’s vocals and just her sheer presence – the album is probably the most Ellie-centric of their entire catalog, and this song is one of their most intricate, although the infectious groove it lays down doesn’t carry through the rest of the downtempo record.

37. Skunk Anansie – An Artist is an Artist. Skunk Anansie’s The Painful Truth was the band’s first new album in nine years, and opens with this powerful statement on aging and art, especially for women. The album did well in Europe but the U.S. market never seemed to get what Skin & company were really doing, and that doesn’t seem to have changed.

36. Say Sue Me – In This Mess. I don’t think I’ve had many Korean artists on my playlists over the last fifteen years, as I’m not into K-Pop and bands in other genres don’t seem to cross over much, so Say Sue Me might be the first to make a year-end top 100. They’re a shoegazey band that also takes inspiration from some 1960s surf rock, evident here in the main guitar riff, although everything else here feels very much influenced by early Ride or Lush.

35. Courting – Namcy. The best song off Courting’s latest album was either this number or “Pause at You,” which came out at the tail end of 2024. Regardless, they’re one of my favorite indie-rock bands going after two very strong albums of jangly, off-kilter, utterly joyous songs.

34. keiyaA – I h8 u. It’s hard to pick a best track off Hooke’s Law, with its eclectic mix of genres and styles and even song lengths – the other candidate here, “k.i.s.s.” is just 1:20, so I settled on “I h8 u,” another song with a title that seems to be inspired by Prince and that pushes the envelope that separates catchy from annoying.

33. Sampa the Great feat. Mwanje – Can’t Hold Us. Zambian-born, Botswana-raised Sampa the Great says her next album introduces a new style of music she calls “Nu Zamrock,” which sounds a lot like old Zamrock with hip-hop elements added to it. This track features Mwanje, another Zambian-born singer who, like Sampa, now lives in Australia.

32. Sudan Archives – A Bug’s Life. The best track from my #2 album of the year showcases Brittney Parks’ musical versatility without eschewing melody or veering into self-parody (which she does on one track, “Ms. Pac-Man”), with Parks rap-singing over a Afrobeat-fusion rhythm.

31. World News – Don’t Want to Know. This British jangle-pop band has put out about a dozen songs over the last three years but hasn’t released an album or even an EP. There’s an atmospheric element here that elevates it beyond the original jangle-pop sound from the 1980s, bringing dreamy/shoegaze sounds to their work … man, I just wish they’d put something longer out.

30. Wet Leg – catch these fists. I’m on the outside looking in with Wet Leg, who earn all sorts of critical acclaim for some really strong post-punk melodies (yes) and cheeky lyrics (nah). This and “mangetout” were the two best songs on their sophomore LP, Moisturizer, which saw the duo become a five-piece band.

29. Die Spitz – Riding with My Girls. I need to get back to Something to Consume, the debut album from this Austin hard-rock quartet, who seem to draw from crossover thrash without being quite so heavy in the riffing; when I first put this song on a playlist, there was only a three-song EP, and I missed the full-length album entirely.

28. Sunflower Bean – Nothing Romantic. The best track off Mortal Primetime hits the sweet spot of this Brooklyn-based trio’s sense of melody and their ability to create lush, dark rock tracks with just a single guitar and bass.

27. World News – Everything is Coming Up Roses. They released two songs in 2025 and both were awesome; I ranked this one slightly above “Don’t Want to Know” because the chorus was stuck in my head for weeks, although I think the other track has the better guitar riff.

26. Jay Som feat. Jim Adkins – Float. By far the best song off Som’s latest album, Belong, her first since 2019, this duet with Adkins of Jimmy Eat World has some of the power-pop elements of that band and is far more rock-oriented than the rest of the LP.

25. Preoccupations – Focus. If you played me the first 15 seconds of this song and told me it was the latest track from The The, I’d absolutely believe you; only the vocals give it away. Also, The The don’t do anything this concise any more. Ill At Ease, the fifth album from this Canadian post-punk band featuring two members of the defunct band Women, is more of the same – perfectly solid, with a couple of highlights, well short of my top albums of the year.

24. Deep Sea Diver – Emergency. A pounding rocker off Billboard Heart, this Seattle band’s first album with Sub Pop, which showed some more grunge influence alongside their prior blend of dream-pop and punk elements.

23. Indigo de Souza – Heartthrob. De Souza went in a more indie-pop direction with her fourth album, Precipice, highlighted by this vulnerable track with vocals that remind me quite a bit of Sonia Sturino of Weakened Friends.

22. Waxahatchee – Mud. Two minutes of perfection from Katee Crutchfield, and her only solo output in 2025, although she did release a record with her sister and MJ Lenderman in Snocaps.

21. Jorja Smith – The Way I Love You. Smithwentback in time a bit with this bass-forward club track, still carried by her gorgeous vocals. I prefer the styles of her full albums, where she leans more towards neo-soul and mixes in some grime and trip-hop, but she is my “she could sing the phone book and I’d listen” singer right now.

20. Automatic – Is It Now? The title track from this LA trio’s latest album is a pulsating goth-rock banger that stepped through a wormhole from 1983 to today. I don’t mean to make too much of the drummer being the daughter of Bauhaus’ drummer, but the connection in the music is undeniable. Bela Lugosi lives.

19. Creeper – Headstones. I really dig Creeper, as they remind me so much of bands I loved when I was in high school, but I have a hard time calling them “metal,” at least today. In 1988 I would have sworn a blood oath that they were a metal band, and they also would have had hair teased halfway to God. Anyway, this song rocks, and I’m glad someone is making this kind of music cool again.

18. Sophia Stel – Everyone Falls Asleep in Their Own Time. Stel is a DIY artist from Vancouver who put out a full-length album in 2024 and then an EP How to Win at Solitaire this September, with this as the lead track. The music reminds me of Tasmin Archer’s hit “Sleeping Satellite” and Beth Orton’s “Stolen Car,” with vocals run through effects and more electronic elements.

17. Heartworms – Just to Ask a Dance. Jojo Orme’s debut album Glutton for Punishment is a goth-rock0-dance

16. Cerrone w/Christine & the Queens – Catching Feelings. I didn’t know of Cerrone, who is a 74-year-old French musician and producer (and who definitely looks like a Mike Myers character in this photo), but I’ve loved the work of Christine and the Queens for years, and this is the most ebullient song he’s done in years – certainly since before the Rahim Redcar period, maybe going all the way back to “Tilted.” It’s a modern disco track powered by his strong, high-energy vocals.

15. Geese – Cobra. The best song on Getting Killed is the one that I think has inspired all of the comparisons to Captain Beefheart and other 1970s avant-garde rockers, and it’s probably the best standalone track on the album (meaning you can listen to it in isolation without losing anything from the lack of context from other songs).

14. Portugal. the Man – Tanana. Shish was mostly a return to form for Portugal. the Man, at least in the sense of going back to their earlier, more psychedelic and atmospheric sound, with “Tanana” the best example of them recapturing what was so great about their album In the Mountain in the Cloud, although the lyrics are, in fact, about our disastrous political moment, not about the hard-throwing Angels pitcher from the 1970s.

13. Public Circuit – Samson. I’m slightly obsessed with this track, which could easily slot in between Ebn Ozn and The Blow Monkeys on a new wave compilation album. This NYC trio’s album Modern Church didn’t offer anything else this incredibly catchy, unfortunately.

12. Matt Berry – Why on Fire? I wasn’t familiar with Berry’s musical output until I caught this track, from his eleventh album, Heard Noises; nothing else on the LP comes close to this one’s immediacy or hook, as the rest of it is more ambient psychedelia without this song’s more popular song structure.

11. Suede – Disintegrate. Suede’s post-punk album Antidepressants was one of the year’s best surprises, as it perfectly evoked the feel of a specific moment in music and time, as post-punk morphed into new wave, almost like the soundtrack of Bauhaus breaking up. This was the best track on the record, and I think their best in more than a decade.

10. Emma-Jean Thackray – Save Me. Thackray’s album Weirdo, largely about her grief after the sudden death of her long-term partner, could have been an unlistenably morbid affair, but she offset her lyrics with powerful yet accessible jazz that shows you can develop hooks and melodies beyond the standard four chords. “Save Me” has the best music of any track on the record, although the lyrics aren’t quite as strong as those of the title track or “Wanna Die.”

9. The Horrors – The Silence that Remains. It’s a slow build, but worth waiting it out, as Faris Badwan builds out a funereal atmosphere with a bass-heavy intro that crescendos to a dark, thunderous climax.

8. Maruja – Saoirse. Pain to Power was one of the most interesting albums I heard in 2025, although I wasn’t ultimately sold on it coming together enough to put it on my top 25. This British experimental, cross-genre quartet brings in elements of jazz, art-rock, punk, post-hardcore, even classical, in tracks that range from three minutes to over ten. This was the best song on the record, which I would strongly recommend to anyone who’s into the band Geese.

7. Hotline TNT – Julia’s War. Raspberry Moon was Hotline TNT’s first album written and recorded as a full band, and it really showed in the strength and maturity of so many of the songs on the record; this track has a timelessness to its melody and the layering of the various instruments, rather than the pseudo-shoegaze of their last record (I’ve already ranted about that enough). This is the sound of a band coming into its own. (Hotline TNT pulled all of their music from Spotify in protest against the CEO’s investment in a military AI firm, so their songs do not appear on the Spotify version of this playlist.)

6. Tame Impala – Dracula. I really didn’t like Deadbeat, Kevin Parker’s latest album, which is mostly electronic and lacking any of the melodies or vaguely experimental nature of his previous work, making for a soporific album beyond this one track. “Dracula” isn’t his best song, but it’s his best pop song, and right now it’s the highest-charting of any of his singles on the Billboard Hot 100, reaching #30.

5. Little Simz feat. Michael Kiwanuka & Yussef Dayes. The six and a half-minute closer title track from Little Simz’s latest album has some of her best rhymes over a musical track that would have fit quite well on Kiwanuka’s Mercury Prize-winning album KIWANUKA, with a slower tempo and sparse arrangements – a repeatedly piano sample, a simple guitar line, some pronounced snare and high-hats. The album’s predominant theme is her friend Inflo’s betrayal, but this track broadens beyond that into themes of personal growth, using the common metaphor of the lotus as a symbol of divinity and transformation.

4. Blondshell – Two Times. Easily my favorite song by Blondshell, one where the guitar line and the lyrics are so beautiful that I can get past her warbly, often nasal delivery in the verses. The chorus is lovely as well, including the line “I’ll come back if you put me down two times,” which lends itself to so many interpretations in the context of the entire song.

3. Lord Huron – Bag of Bones. Probably my favorite Lord Huron song, edging out “Time to Run,” but regardless this is peak work, turning a very simple chord progression (like, I was disappointed at how easy it was to play) into a haunting, dirge-like song that, like almost all of Lord Huron tracks, is about someone looking back on the disaster they’ve made of their own life.

2. Wolf Alice – White Horses. Who would have thought that my favorite track off a Wolf Alice album would be sung by the drummer, Joel Amey? Ellie Rowsell does appear on the chorus, and The Clearing is still very much her album, but this song has the best hook on the LP and builds so beautifully that it should have closed the record rather than the letdown of “The Sofa.”

1. Obongjayar – Not in Surrender. How did this song – and its album Paradise Now – not not end up a global hit? I don’t think I heard anything all year that made me want to hit the gas pedal or just get up out of my seat more than this one, a high-energy Afrobeat track with some American R&B and a hint of rock guitar in the chorus, along with a rallying cry to start each verse: “I put my hands up/Not in surrender.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2025 in music, Music, rankings

→ December 24, 2025
→ By keith

Top 25 albums of 2025.

When I started doing best-of rankings at the end of 2013 for music, I had the not all that clever idea to do a number of albums equal to the last two digits of the year and keep that going until I reached 2025. I broke that a few times, going under twice and over once, but we are now in 2025 and I think I’ll stop expanding the list after this. Finding 26 or more albums in an era when the music industry deprecates the format – even if artists still value it – is just more work than I want to put into these rankings, which remain a labor of love. So here are my top 25 albums of 2025, with I assume an unsurprising record at the top spot but I hope a few records that are new even to regular readers.

Honorable mentions: The Hives – The Hives Forever Forever The Hives, Cœur de pirate – Cavale, Black Honey – Soak, Bleary Eyed – Easy, nabeel – ghayoom, Total Wife – come back down, Nathan Salsburg – Ipsa Corpora, SAULT – 10. And since someone will ask, I didn’t care for the Beths’ album.

You can see my previous year-end album rankings here: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, and my top albums of the 2010s. My top 100 songs of 2025 will go up some time in the next week.

Unranked. Nell Smith – Anxious. This is a hard one to rank for me, because it feels like a work in progress that will never be completed. Smith died in a car crash in September of 2024 at age 17, after recording this debut album of original material and an album of Nick Cave covers she did with The Flaming Lips. There’s so much promise on this album, and a few standouts among these sparse psychedelic-pop numbers, like “Split the Sky” and “Billions of People,” but it’s very much like a prospect’s rookie season where you see flashes of their ultimate potential but they haven’t put it all together yet. I’m putting it in the last spot on the list, ahead of some albums I would be much more likely to listen to again, so more people might see and listen to it.

25. Thrice – Horizons/West. The follow-up to 2021’s Horizons/East is the superior of the two records to me, and feels more deliberate in lyrics and music, perhaps because the previous one was recorded during/right after the pandemic. Full disclosure – drummer Riley Breckenridge is a friend and we’ve hung out a few times, but I wouldn’t put the record on here if I didn’t like it. These songs sounded incredible live, too. Standout tracks include “Albatross,” “Gnash,” and “Crooked Shadows.”

24. The Tubs – Cotton Crown. This Welsh band, formed by members of Joanna Gruesome, churns out catchy jangle-pop singles that end before they wear out their welcome, with the whole nine-song album coming in just five seconds short of a half an hour. Standout tracks include “Freak Mode,” “The Thing Is,” and “Chain Reaction.”

23. Wolf Alice – The Clearing. I really prefer Wolf Alice when they rock out, because they’re so damn good at it, and Ellie Rowsell’s voice soars over big, crunchy guitar riffs, but as on pretty much every album since their debut, they’ve chosen to mix it up, with ballads (“The Sofa,” the snoozy closer) and country-tinged songs (“Leaning Against the Wall”) amidst some real bangers. I admire the ambition, even if I always want them to pick up the pace. Standout tracks include “White Horses” (with verses sung by drummer Joel Amey), “Bloom Baby Bloom,” and the very 1970s “Bread Butter Tea Sugar.”

22. Rocket – R is for Rocket. I’ve seen Momma’s album on a number of year-end lists, but I found it disappointingly derivative, to the point that several songs sound like covers (notably “I Want You (Fever),” which is so much like a Veruca Salt song it’s embarrassing). So why does Rocket, who are heavily inspired by Smashing Pumpkins and even take their name from a Pumpkins song, get zero respect, when they’re at least bringing more original melodies to a familiar sound? Standout tracks include “Crazy,” “Wide Awake,” and “Another Second Chance.”

21. Creeper – Sanguivore II: Mistress of Death. I prefer their last album, Sanguivore, as this one is a little kitschier across the board, lyrically and musically, but I’m generally so in tune with their overall sound that I liked the album even with some of its excesses. It’s 1980s hard rock with an overly dramatic, Brett Anderson-like lead singer, and I can’t not enjoy it. Standout tracks include “Headstones,” “Prey for the Night,” and “Mistress of Death.”

20. Anxious – Bambi. I guess they’re emo, or screamo, although I just hear a punk-rock band here with some screamed vocals scattered over the course of the album, which is full of melodies – just as their debut album Little Green House was. I love that their profile picture on Spotify has one member wearing a T-shirt that reads “Turning Point,” referring not to the white nationalist movement but to the straight-edge band from the early 1990s. Standout tracks include “Counting Sheep,” “Head & Spine,” and “Audrey Go Again.”

19. Portugal. the Man – Shish. Portugal. the Man is now primarily a John Gourley solo project, and this album, the band’s tenth, is a whirlwind tribute to the vastness of Alaska, calling back to the band’s earlier experimental days (pre-Evil Friends, at least) and recalling the urgent despair of Foxing’s recent work. There’s no “Feel It Still” here, sorry. Standout tracks include “Denali,” “Tanana,” and “Angoon.”

18. Just Mustard – We Were Just Here. This is real shoegaze, maybe the most authentic shoegaze by any band that wasn’t part of the original wave in the early 1990s. If you liked early Lush, or like the sound of My Bloody Valentine with a female vocalist you can hear, you’ll probably like this Irish band, who lean into the genre’s more dissonant aspects in a way that the majority of shoegaze revival acts don’t. Standout tracks include “Endless Deathless,” “Pollyanna,” and the title track.

17. SPRINTS – All That Is Over. This Irish punk quartet released its first LP in January of 2024, then returned with their second this September, showing significant growth and expansion in their sound from their punk and garage roots. Standout tracks include “Descartes,” “Need,” and “Beg.”

16. Courting – Lust for Life, Or: ‘How to Thread the Needle and Come Out the Other Side to Tell the Story’. This Liverpudlian band had one of my favorite albums of 2024 in New Last Name, then returned fourteen months later with this mouthful of an album title. It clocks in at just 25:40, with only nine tracks, and it feels more EPish to me, but still has some infectious alt-rock tracks on it like “Pause At You” (which came out in 2024), “Namcy,” and “After You.”

15. Pelican – Flickering Resonance. I’m late to this party, but Pelican rocks. This is the seventh album from the Chicago instrumental metal band, which has some progressive and post-hardcore elements, and it’s the first to include founding guitarist Laurent Schroeder-Lebec in over a decade. Wikipedia calls them “post-metal” and I have to admit I don’t really know what that means and can’t think of how it applies. This is a metal band, and a good one. Standout tracks include “Cascading Crescent,” “Gulch,” and “Indelible.” If you like these guys, check out Town Portal, whose latest album Grindwork was the #2 album of the year for Thrice drummer Riley Breckenridge.

14. Hotline TNT – Raspberry Moon. This album is the third under the Hotline TNT name, but the first recorded by a full band, rather than as a Will Anderson solo project. The result is by far their best album to date, a far more cohesive and melodic work that doesn’t hide any of its limitations behind distortion. And no, this still isn’t shoegaze, by any definition. Standout tracks include “Julia’s War,” “The Scene,” and the jangle-pop “Candle.”

13. Sunflower Bean – Mortal Primetime. This NYC-based trio returned with their first new album in three years, and first since “Moment in the Sun” became a hit thanks to the TV series Heartstopper, this time adopting a harder rock sound that draws far more from 1970s glam-rock bands like T. Rex than any of their previous material. Standout tracks include “Nothing Romantic,” “Champagne Taste,” “There’s a Part I Can’t Get Back,” and “Crashing Highs” from the deluxe edition.

12. Coroner – Dissonance Theory. Coroner were more influential than commercially successful during their brief run from 1987-1993, when they released five albums, including the technical thrash metal masterpieces Mental Vortex and Grin, the latter of which was ahead of its time but boded poorly for its popularity. The trio broke up after that and didn’t release any further music for thirty-two years, with the guitarist and bassist from those albums still on board for this new album, which sounds like almost no time has passed at all since their last record. Highlights include “Consequence,” ”Symmetry,” and “Crisium Bound.” Some other metal albums of note that I didn’t mention on this list: Castle Rat’s The Bestiary, Messa’s Spin, Testament’s Para Bellum, and Paradox’s Mysterium.

11. Automatic – Is It Now? The third album from this LA-based trio, whose drummer is the daughter of the drummer of goth-rock icons Bauhaus, is a dark electro-rock affair that’s heavy on the synth and bass lines. You can certainly hear that Bauhaus influence here, but these women also clearly have their own sound, and it deserves a far, far wider audience than it’s received so far. Standout tracks include the title song, “Terminal,” “Black Box,” and “mq9.”

10. Obongjayar – Paradise Now. The latest album from this genre-defying Nigerian singer is a sprawling epic of styles and rhythms, often but not exclusively drawn from Afrobeat, with plenty of western rock influences evident across the album. Oddly enough, my least favorite track here is the one with his frequent collaborator Little Simz, “Talk Olympics.” Standouts include “Not In Surrender,” “Sweet Danger,” and “Holy Mountain.”

9. The Horrors – Night Life. Faris Badwan & company released their first full-length album in eight years, and for some reason, it didn’t make much of a dent in the music press at all, which is bizarre given how much praise the previous album, just titled V, received. This record is a darker, more electronic affair, but nearly as compelling as its predecessor, and maybe a little more accessible too. Standout tracks include “Ariel,” “More Than Life,” “The Silence that Remains,” and “Trial by Fire.”

8. keiyaA – Hooke’s Law. There were two albums this year that made me go “WTF” in a good way; this is the first of the two on this list. I’d never even heard of keiyaA before she appeared on (I think) an NPR weekly new music list, and I was already intrigued by the album’s title, which refers to a law of physics that says that the force required to compress a spring scales linear with respect to the distance covered by the deformation. She starts from a modern soul/R&B foundation, but experiments all around it, drawing on electronic music, alternative rock, rap, noise, and more. Her lyrics aren’t always easy to make out in the cacophony beneath them, but they’re sharp and often very funny, too. Standouts include “k.i.s.s.,” “i h8 u,” and “this time” featuring the wonderfully named rapper Rahrah Gabor.

7. Suede – Antidepressants. Suede promised this would be their post-punk album, and they delivered. This might be their best full-length in 20 years, and it’s probably their most polished and cohesive work yet. Standouts include “Disintegrate,” “Trance State,” and “Dancing with the Europeans.”

6. YHWH Nailgun – 45 Pounds. The absolute most WTF album of 2025, and even going back to it six months later I still find it perplexing and jarring. The entire album runs just 21:04, with ten tracks, none longer than 3:07, and it’s driven by drummer Sam Pickard’s use of a type of shell-less drum called a rototom, along with some complex meters and drum patterns. It’s like nothing I’ve heard before. I also don’t think they can just roll this sound out again on another album; this works once, otherwise you’re just black midi all over again.

5. Emma-Jean Thackray – Weirdo. Thackray’s second full-length album, written mostly by her (with assists on two songs), recorded and produced entirely by her, all in the wake of the sudden death of her partner of 12 years, is a sprawling nineteen-song record, a document of grief and anger at the world, showing no fear in the lyrics or the music. It’s modern jazz, with a strong funk influence and some pop notes, although she’s almost unable to finish a chord sequence in a typical pop pattern. Standout tracks include the title song, “Wanna Die,” and “Save Me.”

4. Heartworms – Glutton for Punishment. Jojo Orme’s debut album was a huge critical success, a real tour de force that blended electronic, post-punk, goth, and even classical elements across nine songs that pulse and throb and just scream their urgency. It sounds like the culmination of years of work, while also sounding like the product of a far more experienced artist. It calls upon some of the best music of my own youth – and I’m twice Orme’s age – without sounding at all derivative of any of it, or even too reliant on any particular genre. Standouts include “Just To Ask A Dance,” “Warplane,” and “Jacked.”

3. Little Simz – Lotus. This was the diss record of 2025, although I don’t think it was immediately obvious who or what it was about. Simz loaned her friend Inflo of SAULT over a million pounds to stage a concert, and he stiffed her, causing her to miss a huge tax payment to the British government and ending both their professional partnership and friendship. The first track, one of the many highlights of the record, is called “Thief,” with the couplet “You talk about God when you have a God complex/I think you’re the one that needs saving,” and it just goes from there. Other than “Young,” there isn’t a miss on the record; other standouts include “Lion,” “Flood” (both featuring Obongjayar), the title track, and closer “Blue,” featuring Sampha.

2. Sudan Archives – The BPM. Brittney Parks’ last album ended up at #2 on my year-end list in 2022 as well; she’s just wildly inventive, ignoring any restrictions of genre, and has an incredible ear for hooks. This is probably the closest I got to a no-skips album this year; “MS. PAC-MAN” is unlistenable, and a jarring departure from the rest of the record. Actual highlights include the title track, “Dead,” “A Bug’s Life,” and “My Type.”

1. Geese – Getting Killed. Obviously. Barely into their 20s, the boys in Geese have expanded beyond their very Gang of Four-ish roots from their debut album Projector, while continuing to eschew typical rock or alt-rock patterns and rhythms and even song structures. It’s post-something, and definitely experimental, but nowhere near as impenetrable as YHWH Nailgun or Yowie or Deerhoof, veering between screamed choruses with car-crash drums and 1970s-inflected vocal melodies that might trace their origins back to 10cc or Slik. Standouts include “Cobra,” “100 Horses,” “Trinidad,” the whole album, really. FWIW, I didn’t find Cameron Winter’s solo album nearly as compelling. (Also, his mother is Molly Roden Winter, author of More: A Memoir of Open Marriage, so that’s a thing.)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2025 in music, alternative, jazz, metal, Music, rankings

→ December 4, 2025
→ By keith

Music update, November 2025.

A funny thing happened to me on the way to making this playlist. I listen to my Release Radar playlist on Spotify every Friday, as I think the algorithm does a great job of identifying songs I might like while also presenting me with the newest tracks from artists I like, whether I follow them on the platform or not. One such track in November was a surprise to me, a song by Charly Bliss, who put out a tremendous album in 2024 and then hadn’t released anything – or even posted to their Instagram account – in over a year. I added it to the temporary playlist I use to stash songs for the monthly ones I publish without even listening to the song first, because my default assumption with Charly Bliss was that I’d probably like the song, and would just listen to it later on.

When it came time to curate and write up the playlist, I listened to the song in full, and it didn’t sound like Charly Bliss, not least because their primary vocalist is a woman, and this was sung, apparently, by a man. The song was sort of reggae-tinged, in kind of an anodyne way that sounded like nothing in specific. Since I was already suspicious, I checked Charly Bliss’s social media accounts and found no mention of the song. The video is posted to a Youtube account that isn’t theirs, with comments disabled. When I clicked on the artist name on Spotify, it takes me to a different page for a “Charly Bliss” that’s not the band’s verified one. Obviously, this is AI slop. I reported it to Spotify and Youtube three days ago and it’s still up on both sites. We’re losing this fight. Maybe it’ll kill the current streaming model, which wouldn’t be the worst thing given how much it has taken from artists’ ability to support themselves, but maybe people won’t care enough and they’ll just bop along to the AI garbage instead. I don’t matter in the broader music ecosystem, but I could see these lists becoming more difficult to compile and curate because I have to check everything to see what’s real.

Anyway, for now, I’m still posting to Spotify (here’s this month’s playlist) but also to Apple Music, which I’ve embedded below as well.

De la Soul feat. Q-Tip & Yummy Bingham – Day in the Sun (Gettin’ Wit U). Produced by Pete Rock, this track is one of the standouts from what I assume will be the final De la Soul album, since founding member Trugoy died in 2023. Cabin in the Sky is peak post-3 Feet High De la Soul, as they really veered away from the most commercial aspects of their debut and more into their lyrics and offbeat samples. “The Package” is outstanding as well.

Obongjayar – Give Me More. The best of the five new tracks on the deluxe edition of Paradise Now, called Paradise Now & Later. “Lipdance” isn’t too shabby, either.

Sampa the Great & Mwanjé – Can’t Hold Us. Two of the leading Zambian artists teamed up for this track from the soundtrack to the video game FC 26. Part rap, part Zamrock, the whole thing feels like a stadium anthem in the best possible way.

Tame Impala – No Reply. Deadbeat was a letdown; “Dracula” is one of Kevin Parker’s best songs ever, but the rest of the album is a mediocre techno record. This is one of the few songs on the LP that stood out at all. I miss the Tame Impala that rocked a little.

Hatchie – Sage. Hatchie’s third album, Liquorice, came out on November 7^th; while her sound is still firmly in the dream-pop space, I think the record is a small step backwards, less ambitious than Giving the World Away, less immediately catchy than Sugar & Spice or Keepsake.

Portugal. the Man – Knik. So it appears that Portugal. the Man is mostly a John Gourley project, although I see various listings of Zoe Manville and Kyle O’Quin as band members; their latest album, Shish, is a return to their psychedelic and somewhat experimental rock roots prior to Evil Friends, and a big step up from their post-Woodstock album that seemed like a rejection of their sudden commercial success.

Allie X – 7^th Floor. Allie X’s fourth album, Happiness is Going to Get You, came out on November 7^th, and is a little more mainstream in sound and production than some of her previous work – not that there’s anything wrong with that, as long as the hooks are still there. In a previous era, this would have been a big radio hit, maybe crossing over from alternative to pop stations, but I’m not even sure what constitutes a ‘hit’ at this point.

The Itch – Space in the Cab. Just the fourth single so far from this British dance/new-wave revival duo, with a great hook that got stuck in my head on first listen.

Demob Happy – No Man Left Behind. This British alternative band, now a trio after their lead guitarist departed, will put out their fourth LP The Grown-Ups Are Talking on January 30^th. This song is the second single from the record, with lyrics discussing the alienation of young men over an insistent bass & guitar line.

Nothing – cannibal world. This Ameircan shoegaze-revival band’s new album A Short History of Decay comes out on February 27^th; I like a lot of shoegaze, both the revival and the original movements, but I’ve found a lot of Nothing’s prior output to be too cold, even for a genre that thrives on frigidity. This song has a little more energy to it than their previous tracks, enough to separate it from their back catalog and the flood of shoegaze-adjacent music out there right now.

The Mynabirds – Labor Day Love Letter. Laura Burhenn removed all of her music from Spotify and replace it with this spoken-word track, damning Spotify for its failure to police AI slop on the site, for its industry-worst payment rates to artists, and for the CEO’s investment in an AI military-tech startup. (Note: This song does not appear on the Apple Music version of the playlist.)

White Lies – Nothing On Me. New wavers White Lies’ newest album Night Light was a mild disappointment to me, lacking the melodies or the energy of As I Try Not to Fall Apart or Big TV. This was easily the best song on the album, a pulsing, uptempo song that seems perfect for the highway.

SPRINTS – Pieces. All That is Over, the latest album from this Irish punk quartet, came out last month; it’s definitely a more polished effort than their previous LP, but also louder and bigger to balance out the loss of that garage-rock sound.

Picture Parlour – 24 Hr Open. I hadn’t heard of this British indie band before this track, which has a killer guitar riff throughout the song, but apparently there were some conspiracy theories around them in 2023 when they first broke out, with people claiming they were nepo babies or industry plants or something. That all appears to be nonsense, for what it’s worth. Also, the song is good, and that’s more important.

Aleksiah – Faker. There’s a sequence of chord changes in the bridge of this Aussie popster’s latest single that elevates it beyond the typical pop fare, echoed slightly in the chorus as well; I’m stereotyping a little, but American pop artists, run through the major-label machine, just don’t play around with chord or key changes like this.

PLOSIVS – Metacine. PLOSIVS is Pinback’s Rob Crow with two members of Rocket from the Crypt and the bassist from Mrs. Magician; they released an album in 2022, which I missed entirely, and now they’re back with this track and a new album, Yell at Cloud, that came out the day after Thanksgiving, which seems like a good way to make the entire U.S. miss it too.

Flight to London – No One’s Forgiven. I’ve said a zillion times that I’m a sucker for any band that channels the early ‘80s new wave that made up so much of my listening during my most formative years as a music fan; Flight to London (not an SEO-friendly name, unless you’re heading to LHR as well) is a brand-new duo who sound a ton like Heaven 17 and early Spandau Ballet and other bands of that niche, with this first single off their just-released album Instructions for Losing Control.

Ella Eyre w/Tiggs da Author – head in the ground. Eyre had a number of hits in the UK the 2010s, including her 2015 debut album Feline, which reached the British top 10, but her second album only just appeared last month. everything, in time includes this modern R&B banger, which first appeared in some form in 2023 and includes the Tanzanian-born rapper Tiggs.

Ashes and Diamonds – On a Rocka. Ashes and Diamonds is Daniel Ash of Bauhaus & Love and Rockets, Bruce Smith of PiL, and Paul Denman of Sade; they just released their first album, Are Forever, and this is the best song of the first half (that’s as far as I’ve gotten).

The Dead Betties – Whatever Anyway. So apparently The Dead Betties have been around for 25 years, and I’m embarrassed to say I’d never heard of this queerpunk trio. They’ve put out three singles this year after releasing an album last October, then dropped an EP, Whitey, last month, with this bass-heavy mid-tempo punk track.

Kreator – Seven Serpents. Kreator’s sixteenth album Krushers of the World comes out on January 16^th, featuring this track along with “Tränenpalast,” the latter a collaboration with Britta Görtz of the melodic death metal band Hiraes. I’m amazed how many of the giants of 1980s thrash still sound just as good today, as long as they stick to their original sound. It may not be “Betrayer” or “Toxic Trace,” but this rocks.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2025 in music, alternative, hip-hop, indie, Music, thrash

→ November 6, 2025
→ By keith

Music update, October 2025.

Three great albums and a whole host of other good releases in October, so this month’s playlist is overstuffed, clocking in at just over two hours. You can access the playlist on Spotify or, now, Apple Music.

Sudan Archives – A Bug’s Life. Brittney Denise Parks’s latest album The BPM is tremendous, easily one of the year’s best, with just one skip for me (“Ms. Pac Man”) and some absolute bangers like this track. The album is fundamentally a dance record, with influences from house music to techno to EDM to classic R&B. There’s even some string accompaniments on the album. It’s going to end up near the top of my year-end list.

Creeper – Mistress of Death. The sort-of title track from their latest album, Sanguivore II: Mistress of Death, is one of the best songs on it, although “Prey for the Night” is the easy leader. They’re such an anachronism: in the 1980s, they would have been lumped in with American hair metal bands, but now they stand out because almost no one is making music like this at all.

Just Mustard – Endless Deathless. This Irish shoegaze band just put out their latest album We Were Just Here – they capitalize everything, I’m too tired for all that yelling – and it’s excellent, although I’m undecided if it’s better than 2022’s Heart Under, which was one of the best shoegaze albums of this current revival period. They’ve got a lot of Slowdive to them, especially with a female vocalist whose voice softens the harshness of the walls of distorted guitars.

Courtney Barnett – Stay in Your Lane. Barnett hasn’t released a proper album of her own since 2021, although in 2023 she did an instrumental soundtrack for a film called Anonymous Club, and she hadn’t released any original music at all in the last two years. Then this lands, and it’s … almost a pop song? It’s really upbeat, catchy, more guitar-driven and a little less powered by Barnett’s idiosyncratic vocals and brilliant lyrics. Perhaps this is a new phase, and I’m into it.

Momma – Cross Your Heart. Momma is the Veruca Salt of the 2020s, and I’m fine with that. They’re not breaking any ground here, but they have a good ear for melodies, and the sound is so similar to Veruca Salt – who had a couple of absolute bangers, even though they burned out quick – that they strike a familiar chord in my brain.

Rocket – Crazy. Speaking of which, Rocket is named for the Smashing Pumpkins song, and they do sound quite a bit like their idols, although it’s not as overt, more like a similar vibe, and their vocalist is miles better than Billy Corgan anyway.

World News – Everything’s Coming Up Roses. The second great track this year from this British jangle-pop band, with a very U2-like guitar sound (including the use of a digital delay, more evident on their last single “Don’t Want to Know”). They’ve put out a few EPs, but there’s no album yet. They did tease an album in progress in an interview in July.

Automatic – Black Box. This LA-based trio does a very post-modern sort of synthesizer-driven rock, unusual in that it doesn’t call back much to the heyday of synthpop in the early 1980s. Their third album, Is It Now?, dropped in September, and it’s a strong listen that doesn’t truly have a standout single. It’s dark and moody, more of a vibe than a collection of hits.

Thrice – Gnash. One of the best songs off Thrice’s Horizons/West. I saw their live show at TLA in Philly on Sunday, and they sounded incredible, even though there are a lot of mixed feelings about that venue. I think the last time I saw them was at the Franklin Music Hall and I remember it being louder but less clear. Anyway, I’m a fan, not just because their drummer is half of Productive Outs.

Doves – Spirit of Your Friend. This track will appear on the upcoming best-of compilation So, Here We Are, but the song apparently is about twenty years old, and the band ‘unearthed’ it and pared it from seven minutes to 3:39. It’s quite good but I have a hard time placing it somewhere in their sound chronology; it’s definitely post-The Last Broadcast, but I guess before Kingdom of Rust?

Weird Nightmare – Forever Elsewhere. This is METZ guitarist Alex Edkins indulging his poppier inclinations – I actually like his solo work here more than I like METZ’s harder sound. If you like Cloud Nothings, you’ll love Weird Nightmare.

dust – Drawbacks. Wikipedia tells me there was a band called Dust in the 1970s that released two albums; this is not that band. The new dust is an Australian post-punk band that sounds a lot like early Fontaines D.C. with a little darker edge. This is the lead track from their latest album Sky is Falling.

Dear Boy – After All. It’s the chorus. I was lukewarm on the song, but that line, “are you close enough to change me,” absolutely stuck in my head for days. I’ve read some reviews that try to place them with Britpop or new wave, but none of that fits for me; it’s California indie-pop, with strong harmonies and a great hook in that chorus.

Massage – Daffy Duck. I can’t help but say this band’s name like that scene from one of The Pink Panther movies, where Clouseau asks if they have a message for him but says it like “massage.” Anyway, Massage is a five-piece indie-pop band from LA who just released their first LP, Coaster, and I found this on some playlist somewhere, after which I couldn’t get it out of my head. They have a clear pop inclination, with a guitar sound that’s much more college radio than OMGHITZ!

Portugal. the Man – Angoon. So far I’ve liked the singles from their upcoming album Shish, due out on Friday, more than most of their last album Chris Black Changed My Life, which felt very much like a reaction to the huge commercial success of Woodstock. This sounds much more like their true sound, based on their pre-Woodstock output.

Orchestra Gold – Baye Ass N’Diaye. Orchestra Gold is based in Oakland, while their sound draws heavily on Malian music – not too dissimilar to the Touareg music of Mdou Moctar – while combining it with psychedelic rock and a dash of early funk. I bet they give a hell of a live show.

Danger Mouse & Black Thought feat. Rag’n’Bone Man – UP. For now, it’s a one-off single, but after the outstanding collaboration Cheat Codes in 2022 I’ll take anything Danger Mouse and Black Thought do together.

Noname feat. Devin Morrison – Hundred Acres. This is the first single from an upcoming album from Noname, whose last album Sundial was one of my favorites of 2023, called Cartoon Radio; it’s spare, mostly just Noname spitting rhymes over a synthetic piano loop. She’s one of the best MCs going.

keiyaA – k.i.s.s. Did I put this jazzy, gritty R&B song on my list because the album is called Hooke’s Law? You’re damn right I did.

Cœur de Pirate – Les enfants des temps derniers. One of the most upbeat tracks from Cœur de Pirate’s latest album Cavale, “Les enfants” sounds like a celebration throughout, even though it’s about being “a child of these last times,” facing the possible end of the world.

Weakened Friends – Weightless. I loved their track “Awkward” from 2023, which this Portland, Maine-based trio chose not to include on their new album Feels Like Hell, which does however include a cover of Ednaswap’s “Torn” (the same one Natalie Imbruglia covered). Sonia Sturino’s wobbly vocals work in small doses, but the more she invokes that trait the worse it gets; it’s only there in spurts on this track, so it gets the seal of approval.

Mourn – Dormir Tarde. I’ve been a fan of Mourn’s for probably a decade now, boosting them when fellow Spaniards Hinds were getting all the love from the indie music press. This indie-rock trio put out an album last year, but this is their second new single of 2025, so perhaps there’s another album or EP in the offing.

The Twilight Sad – Waiting for the Phone Call. The Twilight Sad were a five-piece but are now just a duo, featuring singer James Graham and guitarist Andy MacFarlane; The Cure’s Robert Smith joins them here on guitar. They haven’t released an album since 2019, so I’m assuming this is the lead track from something due out next year. It’s a little more energetic than what I typically expect from this band (whose name is, as it turns out, accurate).

Miles Kane – Sunlight in the Shadows. Kane, who is also half of The Last Shadow Puppets with Alex Turner, comes up with some serious guitar earworms, although he doesn’t have Turner’s voice or charisma.

Sports Team – Medium Machine. This is one of the seven bonus tracks from the deluxe edition of Sports Team’s latest album Boys These Days, which is out now. I didn’t love the album, at least not as much as their previous record, the more raucous Gulp!

Yowie – Skrimshander. I don’t even know what to call this beyond “experimental,” but it grabbed me anyway, probably because of the inventive guitarwork at the forefront. They’re a trio from St. Louis whose drummer is the only original member still in the band. It’s weird, don’t be fooled, but I dig it.

Glass Tides – Failure. Glass Tides are a post-hardcore band from Adelaide, Australia, who’ve toured with Thrice, which gives you some idea of their sound, although their vocalist doesn’t have the power of Thrice’s Dustin Kensrue.

Litania – Ghunghru. Psychedelic doom from Italy and Serbia. I found this track buried on the Spotify All New Metal list and it stood out immediately, not least because the vocals aren’t screamed or growled. There’s a real groove to this track that I dig.

Friendship Commanders – FOUND. Sludge metal with vocal harmonies? Sign me up. They’re duo, with incredible vocals from Buick Audra, and just released their fourth album, BEAR. This is the first track I’ve heard from them; I like that combination of heavy, perhaps drop-tuned guitars and beautiful vocals.

Coroner – Consequence. Dissonance Theory, this Swiss thrash trio’s first album in 32 years, did not disappoint; it is as good as their final two records, 1991’s Mental Vortex and 1993’s more experimental Grin. The lyrics are a little trite, as on this song’s refrain “at least you’re having fun,” but man can these guys churn out some powerful riffs. I’ve always preferred them to Celtic Frost, who are generally regarded as the pioneers of the Swiss thrash sound and progenitors of European death metal (and for whom Coroner started out as roadies), and this album is a good example of why – it’s more accessible without sacrificing the power of the thrash riffs.

Testament – Shadow People. Para Bellum, the fourteenth album from these Bay Area thrash stalwarts, dropped last month, and it includes straight-on thrash tracks like this one as well as more death metal-inclined songs like “For the Love of Pain,” which has an outstanding riff but wears out its welcome between the vocals and the blast beats. Alex Skolnick can still shred, even at age 57. I guess there’s hope for me yet.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2025 in music, alternative, hip-hop, indie, metal, Music, thrash

→ October 3, 2025
→ By keith

Music update, September 2025.

September turned out to be a monster of a month with new albums and tracks ahead of album releases for the next two months; as it was I had a hard time keeping this list to 33 tracks. As always, you can access the playlist here if you can’t see the widget below.

Geese – Cobra. One reader-friend who’s very into music mentioned that Geese’s latest, Getting Killed, is his album of the year so far; it’s going to end up high on my list, although Cameron Winter’s vocals sometimes come across like he’s not trying, even when the music behind him is experimental and ambitious. Regardless of where the album ends up on my rankings, Geese are one of the most interesting bands around, and the members aren’t even 25 yet.

SPRINTS – Need. The first ten songs on SPRINTS’ second full-length LP All That Is Over run 32 minutes in total, and then there’s the six-minute closer “Desire,” is a strange, slow-burning, gothic/post-punk track that stands in stark contrast to the straight-on punk of the rest of the record – such as this song, where singer Karla Chubb describes the desperation of being in a one-sided relationship.

Paris Paloma – Good Boy. The song is fine, but the intro, taken from a video where Emma Thompson dramatically reads the tremendous title of this Rebecca Shaw editorial from January, is a hell of a way to get me to put your song on a playlist.

Public Circuit – Samson. Is this Heaven 17? Bronski Beat? Early New Order? Rarely does a song take me back to such a specific time period, but this is straight out of 1982, a musical era that will always be central to my existence. And there’s a sample of Monty Python and the Holy Grail too.

Kid Kapichi – Stainless Steel. Maybe not as strong as most of their past singles but I do love the driving bass & drum line that provides the foundation for this track, their first since two of the four members left the band in May.

Portugal. the Man – Tanana. Not sure if this is about Frank, but it’s got the sweeping, psycheledic-inspired feel of their 2011 album In the Mountain in the Cloud. They also put out another single, “Denali,” that I didn’t like as much as this one. Their next album, Shish, comes out November 7^th.

Maruja – Saoirse. If you like Geese, you might enjoy the debut album from Maruja, Pain to Power, which also reminded me a ton of the (probably) defunct band black midi and even a little of Swans. This track is probably the most accessible, combining free jazz, punk, and even hints of chamber pop.

Die Spitz – Riding with My Girls. Something to Consume, the debut album from this Austin-based punk/metal band, came out in September, and veers between those two genres, with some straight-ahead hard-rock numbers mixed in with more punk tracks like this one and a few that call back the crossover thrash era, like “Throw Yourself to the Sword.” (Speaking of crossover, Agnostic Front put out a new song in September. It was a big month for metal bands from the ‘80s, as you’ll see below.)

Creeper – Prey for the Night. The third single from the band’s upcoming Sanguivore II: Mistress of Death, due out on Halloween, is more in line with their previous stuff and less hair-metal than the last single, “Blood Magick.”

Sunflower Bean – Crashing Highs. A bonus track from the deluxe edition of Mortal Primetime, and a pretty strong indie-pop track – maybe a little too sunny for the album proper.

shame – After Party. Shame’s latest album Cutthroat, released on September 5^th, is their most expansive and ambitious yet, although I have to admit this very Yard Act-ish track is one of my favorites.

flowerovlove – I’m your first. This 20-year-old DIY pop artist from London has released at least twenty singles already, so at some point I assume there will be an album. She’s got a great ear for creating catchy pop hooks that would fit in – and improve – any pop radio station’s playlists.

Hatchie – Lose It Again. This Australian singer-songwriter’s third album, Liquourice, comes out on November 7^th; “Lose It Again” is yet another catchy-as-hell dream pop number from her, as she seems to have an endless supply of them.

St. Lucia – Lights Off. I know St. Lucia is never going to get back to the heights of his debut album When the Night, but this song, off the upcoming Fata Morgana: Dusk, is the closest he’s come since 2015’s “Dancing on Glass.”

Emma-Jean Thackray – Save Me (Radio Edit). A reworking by Thackray herself of one of the better tracks on her now Mercury Prize-nominated album Weirdo, one of the best albums of the year. Other notable nominees include the latest from Wolf Alice, Fontaines D.C., and, for some reason, Pulp.

Cœur de Pirate – Mélancolie. Béatrice Martin is having a moment, as “Corbeau,” from her 2008 eponymous album, was featured on The Summer I Turned Pretty’s final season, and Martin just released her seventh album, Cavale, last month, featuring this lush electro-pop track.

Tame Impala – Dracula. Best use of the name Pablo Escobar in a song yet. This is my favorite of the three singles released in advance of this month’s Deadbeat, by far.

Prides – Dynamite. This Scottish indiepop act had one of my favorite songs of 2014 in “The Seeds You Sow,” then disappeared after 2018 other than a few scattered guest appearances. They’re back this year with several singles, all of which have been pretty promising. They rose up during the peak of “landfill indie,” but I thought they were stronger musically and melodically than most of those groups.

Sudan Archives – Come and Find You. I haven’t loved the Sudan Archives singles this year as much as I did her last album Natural Brown Prom Queen, with this newest one the strongest yet because of the violin solo (as that is Parks’s main instrument).

Emma Swift – The Resurrection Game. The title track from Swift’s first album of original material is a lovely track of sophisticated folk-tinged pop, an impressive debut for anyone but especially someone whose previous output was an album of Bob Dylan covers and some tracks with her partner Robyn Hitchcock (who is 28 years her senior).

Yttling Jazz – Illegal Hit. I found this track on an NPR weekly new-music playlist, and only later discovered that this is Björn Yttling of Peter Bjohn and John, whose song “Young Folks” was a huge (and kind of annoying) hit about 15 years ago.

Lazarus & Rakim – Not to Be Defined. I love Rakim, and I’m warming to Lazarus, a Detroit-born rapper … and physician.

Bartees Strange – DCWDTTY. It’s not a cover of the DC post-hardcore song “DC Will Do That To You” by Smart Went Crazy, just alluding to it in the title.

Sloan – No Damn Fears. Sloan’s 14^th album, Based on the Best Seller, dropped on September 26^th, and the early reviews seem to be quite positive, although I don’t hear anything to match “Losing California” or “Everything You’ve Done Wrong.”

The Macks – Dually of Man. I don’t even remember where I found this song, from a longstanding Portland rock band that just put out their first proper album in September, but the intro synth riff is hypnotic, and the song just builds from there, passing through jam-band territory without ever drifting off into that direction entirely.

SONS – Do My Thing. This Belgian band has been putting out music since at least 2019 in Europe, although it seems like they’re making a push in the U.S. now with this latest single, which sounds a ton like The Hives (that’s a compliment).

Thrice – Albatross. Thrice’s latest album Horizons/West dropped today, the 3^rd, so I haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet, but this was my favorite of the lead singles, with a dark, ominous vibe that recalls their 2016 album To Be Everywhere Is to Be Nowhere.

Castle Rat – Serpent. Castle Rat is full of gimmickry, but this is some excellent Sabbathesque doom metal, reminiscent of The Oath/Lucifer (since both have female vocalists with similar voices).

Coroner – Symmetry. It should be illegal for a band to go away for thirty-plus years and come back sounding this good. Not just good – ferocious. I would have been excited for any new Coroner album, but I cannot wait for Dissonance Theory to drop on the 17^th.

Paradox – One Way Ticket to Die. This was a big month for ‘80s metal bands; Paradox put out two albums that decade, including one of the best concept albums in metal with 1989’s Heresy, then went on hiatus for 11 years. Their ninth album, Mysterium, was (possibly) recorded entirely by singer/guitarist Charly Steinhauer, the only remaining founding member, and it’s full of tight old-school Teutonic thrash, à la…

Kreator – Seven Serpents. The sixteenth (!) album from these German thrash icons, Krushers of the World, is due out on January 16^th; their first album, Endless Pain, came out forty years ago this month. They proved extremely influential on the development of extreme metal, with their early sound similar to that of Celtic Frost, all of which led to the growth of ‘death metal,’ but by their third album Terrible Certainty they’d transitioned to a variation of thrash that became known as Teutonic thrash. (Old-school metal fans might remember MTV airing “Toxic Trace” and “Betrayer” on Headbanger’s Ball.) They still sound … pretty good, actually, better than any band this old has a right to sound.

Testament – Shadow People. One American thrash band for you, as these pioneers of Bay Area thrash metal are largely back to basics with this track. Their latest album Para Bellum drops on the 10^th.

Elder – Liminality. Elder released two songs in September, but they’re a combined 18+ minutes, so isn’t that an EP? This sprawling prog-doom-metal track is a whole journey, full of the stuff that made their last LP Innate Passage one of my favorite albums of 2022.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2025 in music, alternative, doom metal, hip-hop, indie, jazz, Music, progressive metal, thrash

→ September 5, 2025
→ By keith

Music update, August 2025.

Solid month for new music, but there’s a lot more coming now that we’re into fall, with Suede’s latest dropping today to kick things off. As always, if you can’t see the widget below, you can access the playlist here.

Wolf Alice – White Horses. It’s crazy that my favorite track from Wolf Alice’s latest album, The Clearing, doesn’t feature Ellie Rowsell on lead vocals. She’s on the chorus, but that’s one of the boys doing the verses, and my god does this thing hum. I have such mixed feelings on the record; they’re one of the most interesting bands going now, so the album is all over the place, and I respect the ambition and daring. I just wish there were more bangers here. This song is awesome, so are “Bloom Baby Bloom” and “Bread Butter Tea Sugar.” There are some other highlights. I think closer “The Sofa” – not a tribute to JD Vance – is kind of a snoozer. I’m going to wrestle with this one through the end of the year.

Coroner – Renewal. I don’t usually push metal tracks to the start of the playlist, since I know some of you are here for pretty much everything but the metal stuff, but this is Coroner’s first new song in over 30 years. They never got their due while they were active, commercially at least, but their last two albums were landmarks in the thrash genre, sliding towards progressive thrash and also heralding some of what was about to come on the death metal side of things. It’s incredible that they sound almost exactly as they did on Grin, their final release before their breakup in 1993, which saw them shift hard towards proggier stuff. Their sixth album and first in 32 years, Dissonance Theory, is due out on October 17^th.

IDLES – Rabbit Run. IDLES did the soundtrack to the new Darren Aronovsky movie Caught Stealing, and to their credit they mixed things up a bit rather than just writing a bunch of new IDLES tracks. This sounds like a song from a tense, violent action film.

Geese – 100 Horses. I had both this and “Trinidad” on the original playlist, settling on this one because it’s a little more of a conventional rock track, while “Trinidad” sounds almost like a meteor hit the studio mid-song.

Wisp – Serpentine. Wisp is Natalie Liu, a 20- or 21-year-old singer/songwriter who sounds a lot like beabadoobee but with a harder guitar sound. This track, which combines breathy vocals with some crunchy hard-rock music behind it, is from her debut album If Not Winter, which came out last month.

Pynch – Post-Punk/New-Wave. I feel like this song’s title is making fun of me.

Richard Ashcroft – Lovin’ You. Yes, that’s the intro to “Classical Gas,” which is one of the two songs I typically use to warm up when I practice guitar. I can’t decide if I think this track from the former lead singer of The Verve is a clever interpolation of a classic guitar line or just weird derivative stuff from a guy who’s done this to better effect on other tracks.

Automatic – Mercury. The third album, Is It Now?, from this American synth-rock trio is due out on September 26^th. Their dark, almost gothic sound definitely hits the nostalgia vibe for me, but it’s more a hint of that early ‘80s sound I love rather than a complete throwback.

Creeper – Blood Magick (It’s a Ritual). I’ve loved most of Creeper’s work since their acclaimed 2020 album Sex, Death & the Infinite Void, but this track, from the forthcoming Sanguivore II: Mistress of Death, might be the campiest thing they’ve done yet. It’s giving hair metal in the wrong way. It’s still catchy, but I’m not sure this is the direction I want them to go in.

Courting – the twins (1969). These prolific British art-punks just put out their second album in fourteen months back in March, and they’re back again with a brand-new single, a very pre-Arctic Monkeys-sounding hard-edged bit of controlled chaos.

HAERTS – The Lie. This is the second single from HAERTS this year after they went dark in the wake of 2021’s Dream Nation; both are slow, piano-driven tunes that highlight Nini Fabi’s vocals, but neither has the incredible energy of their first album, 2014’s HAERTS. I don’t know if that sound just isn’t coming back, but I refuse to give up.

Color Green – Ball and Key (Free). This California quartet sounds like the next descendant in the line that runs from the Grateful Dead through Phish, and while I know there are a lot of pretenders to that throne, at least Color Green sounds great on record, which is more than I can say for a lot of so-called jam bands.

Just Mustard – We Were Just Here. Everyone is shoegaze now. Just Mustard actually does shoegaze, though, at least in terms of the musical style, with waves of sound that create as much of a sensation as they impart any sort of melody. It’s harsh and sometimes dissonant, but that’s what shoegaze originally entailed. This Irish band is more true to the subgenre than some of the original artists still going, like Slowdive and Ride, are in their contemporary music (which, to be clear, I’ve liked very much).

Black Honey – Soak. I’d call this song mid as Black Honey goes; they’ve had better, but I’m grading them against their own previous output there. It’s the title track from their fourth album, which came out while I was on vacation, so I still haven’t listened to it beyond the singles.

Cast feat. P.P. Arnold – Way It’s Gotta Be (Oh Yeah). That is indeed the Britpop band Cast, founded by The La’s bassist John Power, who racked up ten straight top 20 hits in the UK in the 1990s, including the bangers “Sandstorm,” “Alright,” and “Beat Mama.” They put out an album last year that didn’t have the same kind of edge or funk to this track, one of two singles featuring former Ikette (as in Turner) P.P. Arnold. Cast’s next album Yeah Yeah Yeah is due out in January.

The Hives – The Hives Forever Forever the Hives. Never let it be said that Howlin’ Pelle lacked for confidence. This is the title track from the band’s seventh album and second since they re-formed, coming out just a week ago.

clipping. – Forever War. This new track appears on Dead Channel Sky Plus, an expanded version of the trio’s second album that rearranges the existing songs and includes four new ones. “If you ain’t dead yet/you gon be there soon” should a rallying cry.

Bleak Squad – Strange Love. This is the title track from the debut album by this Australian supergroup, which includes Mick Harvey, who played in the Birthday Party, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, and PJ Harvey’s band, as well as three musicians from groups I don’t know. Their sound is atmospheric and dark – I saw one review call them “noir,” and that fits – but I’d best describe it as what I think or hope the upcoming Blondie album would sound like.

Drink the Sea – Rose Crested Sky. Speaking of supergroups, this one has Peter Buck (REM), Barrett Martin (Screaming Trees), Alain Johannes (Eleven, Them Crooked Vultures), and solo artist Duke Garwood. The band plans to release two albums this fall and to tour to support them. A post on REM’s Instagram quoted Martin as saying that this band’s sound will incorporate a lot of world music sounds; I hear some of that here, but this track is more dominated by the off-beat rhythm and what I think are varied time signatures.

Silver Gore – All the Good Men. This British duo formed in 2021 but just released their first music this year with three songs, including this jagged alt-pop number that got stuck in my head for days after I first heard it.

No Joy – Garbage Dream House. No Joy is now a solo project by Canadian guitarist/songwriter Jasamine White-Gluz, whose younger sister Alicia is now the lead singer of Swedish melodic death metal icons Arch Enemy. It’s shoegazey, but with ethereal vocals that push it towards dreampop. Apparently No Joy is playing tonight in Philly at a place I don’t know called Kung Fu Necktie.

Arcadea – Exodus of Gravity. Arcadea is a synth-metal side project of Mastodon drummer Brann Dailor, and far more accessible than almost all of his main act’s output (which I tend to like quite a bit). I had this on the playlist before the news about former Mastodon guitarist Brent Hinds’s sudden death,

Deftones – milk of the Madonna. I’ve never been a huge Deftones fan, although I’m sure I’m also biased by their first few albums as a nu-metal band, including that horrible “Shove It” song that was inescapable when it came out. With the caveat that I haven’t heard a ton of their stuff, this is the catchiest song of theirs I’ve heard.

Cloudkicker – Things You Can’t Change. Cloudkicker is the side project of Ben Sharp, a commercial airline pilot (according to Wikipedia) who releases music on Bandcamp etc. for fun; I’d never heard of him/them until Riley from Thrice posted about the new stuff on Bluesky. This track is instrumental, very post-hardcore (like Thrice) but a little heavier.

Asymmetric Universe – Feather on a Glass. This is some seriously progressive metal, like Animals as Leaders type stuff, from a pair of Italian brothers who handle guitar and bass, combining some very heavy djent-ish metal grooves with melody lines from – I can’t believe I’m saying this – smooth jazz. It’s crazy.

Crypt Sermon – Only Ash and Dust. This Philly-based doom metal band returns with a four-song EP that they describe as an extension of last year’s album The Stygian Rose, with three new tracks and a cover of the title from black metal pioneers Mayhem’s first album, retitled to change the word “Dom” to “Doom.” (Mayhem sucks, as a band and especially as people, to be clear, but they were highly influential on their genre.) The EP’s overall sound is more doom-plus, with some more energy and passages with quicker tempos compared to the LP.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2025 in music, alternative, hip hop, indie, metal, Music, thrash

→ August 10, 2025
→ By keith

Music update, July 2025.

July may have been the weakest month of the year for new music … or it might be that I was busier than ever between the day job and Gen Con, so I didn’t find as many new tracks or artists as I would in a typical month. Regardless of the reason, my playlist is shorter than usual, but August’s is already about to surpass this one in number of tracks. As usual, if you can’t see the widget below, you can access the playlist here.

Cerrone & Christine and the Queens – Catching Feelings. Cerrone was an Italo-French disco pioneer in the late 1970s; this new track is from a four-song EP with Rahim Redcar, who resurrected his Christine and the Queens moniker for this project after releasing two albums last year under other names. If you’re looking for a “song of the summer” that’s worthy of the title, this is it.

Jay Som feat. Jim Adkins – Float. Som’s new album Belong comes out on October 10^th; Adkins is the lead vocalist and guitarist for Jimmy Eat World, and you can definitely hear his influence on the rhythm lines in this pulsating indie rock track.

SENSES – call me out. This Britpop revival band put out their latest album all the heavens last month, one of the few bright spots among July albums.

Geese – Taxes. This inventive post-punk band from Brooklyn is set to release its fourth album, Getting Killed, in September, and I don’t think any of the members is older than about 22.

Rocket – Wide Awake. Named for the Smashing Pumpkins song, this LA-based band sounds a lot like their idols, but with better vocals that also serve as a softer contrast to the darker riffs on this track. Their debut album, R is for Rocket, comes out on October 3^rd.

Black Honey – Shallow. This Brighton band’s shiny take on indie-rock hooked me from the start almost ten years ago, and they’re still churning out catchy tracks that highlight singer Izzy Phillips’s sultry voice. Their fourth album, Soak, comes out on the 15^th.

Iron & Wine feat. I’m With Her – Robin’s Egg. It bothers me a little that Iron & Wine is one guy, not two, or a full band, but I’ll have to get over it. He’s put out two collaborations this summer, including this track with the trio I’m With Her, a supergroup that includes former members of Nickel Creek and Crooked Still.

Wet Leg – mangetout. Once again, everyone seems to be falling all over themselves to praise Wet Leg’s new album, Moisturizer, and I think it’s more style than substance with a couple of decent tracks, including this one. I don’t find their lyrics as humorous as the majority of critics do, so their appeal comes down to the quality of their hooks – and this is one of the best on the record, but not up to “Angelica” from their debut.

Kassa Overall – Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat). Jazz drummer and occasional rapper Overall is releasing an album of jazz covers of hip-hop classics called C.R.E.A.M. on September 12^th, featuring this Digable Planets cover and the titular one from the Wu-Tang Clan, along with Tribe’s “Check the Rhime” and Dr. Dre & Snoop Dogg’s “Nuthin’ But a ‘G’ Thang.”

Sudan Archives – My Type. I loved Sudan Archives’ 2022 album Natural Brown Prom Queen, naming it my #2 album of that year. This is her second single this year, more of a straight rap song with an electronic backing track, without quite the same experimentalist bent of NBPQ. Both are from her upcoming third album BPM.

Jorja Smith – With You. I’ll probably include every single Smith releases on my playlists, now and forever, but I do wish she leaned more into jazz and funk and less into this sort of EDM, which I just don’t think does her voice justice.

Luke Haines & Peter Buck – 56 Nervous Breakdowns. Haines was the leader of the Auteurs, a Britpop band who somehow get blamed for the downfall of the entire genre, and Buck was in some ‘80s alternative band before becoming best known as one of the guitarists in The Baseball Project. The two have collaborated here on an album called Going Down to the River to Blow My Mind; this song sounds much more like Haines’ prior work than Buck’s.

(The London) Suede – Dancing with the Europeans. I’d rank this third among the three singles Suede have released so far this year ahead of their upcoming album Antidepressants, just because I think it has the weakest hook of the troika. It’s still strong enough to make me more excited for the full-length record.

The Charlatans – We Are Love. One of my favorite bands of all time, The Charlatans came from the Madchester scene of the early 1990s and thrived right on through Britpop, even surviving the bizarre death of one of the founding members, but they ran out of steam around the turn of the millennium, and singer Tim Burgess’s voice, never the strongest, grew increasingly thin. That last part hasn’t improved any here, but this guitar riff is one of their best in 25 years. I saw them in concert in 2001, with Starsailor opening, and they were one of the most disappointing live bands I’ve ever seen because Burgess really can’t sing.

Wytch Hazel – The Citadel. Doom metal in the earliest sense – this song wouldn’t be out of place on a late ‘70s British hard-rock album. It’s from Lamentations, the fifth album from this relatively new band (they started up in 2011), released in July.

Blanco Teta – Perdida. This trio from Buenos Aires blends punk, noise, and experimental rock together in a frenetic blend that has some of the abrasiveness of extreme metal and the edge of early post-punk experimentalists like Art of Noise.

Forbidden – Divided by Zero. Thrash metal and math references – two great tastes that taste great together. Forbidden came up in the Bay Area along with some of their better-known contemporaries, never getting their due during their original run in the late 1980s, but I think they’re underrated. This is their first new song in 15 years, and first with new vocalist Norman Skinner, as their original vocalist Russ Anderson retired entirely from music.

Void – Apparition. This Lafayette, Louisiana, band is churning out old-school thrash in the Bay Area style, with crunchy guitars, abrupt tempo shifts, and vocals that you can still understand, mostly.

Sodom – Battle of Harvest Moon. Sodom are one of the pioneers of German thrash metal, and one fo the most prolific; this track comes from their 17^th album, The Arsonist, released in June. As with their compatriots Kreator, their sound has always included elements that would later become hallmarks of death metal, without the worst of the vocals or the blast beats.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2025 in music, alternative, hip-hop, indie, jazz, metal, Music, thrash

→ July 2, 2025
→ By keith

Music update, June 2025.

I don’t mean for these playlists to keep getting longer, but they just keep putting out great music – I end up cutting a few tracks every month to avoid them reaching three hours. This month’s has 34 songs and runs two hours, eleven minutes, with two of the year’s best albums released in June as well.

As always, if you can’t see the playlist below, you can access it here. And if you have a streaming service beyond the majors that you like, throw it in the comments.

Little Simz feat. Michael Kiwanuka – Lotus. The title track from Little Simz’s latest album is the jewel in this particular crown, an eclectic, ambitious record that seethes with indignation. The rapper loaned $2.2 million to her longtime friend, collaborator, and producer Inflo for the first-ever live SAULT concert, but he didn’t pay her back, causing her to be late on her taxes that year; she’s now suing him, and nearly every song and lyric on Lotus is in some way about her feelings of betrayal and hurt over the experience. Other standout tracks include “Lion” (feat. Obongjayar), “Blood,” “Thief,” and “Blue” (feat. Sampha). Remind me never to piss her off.

Kate Nash – GERM. Nash’s new single is a spoken-word affair that attacks transphobes like J.K. Rowling by pointing out that there’s no actual evidence that trans women pose any risk to cis women, while these so-called ‘feminists’ ignore the actual harm done to all women by cis men.

Creeper – Headstones. The British goth-metal throwbacks released this thrashy lead single ahead of their next album, Sanguivore II: Mistress of Death, which is due out in late October.

Hotline TNT – The Scene. Hotline TNT’s Raspberry Moon was the second-best new album I heard in June, a big step forward for this rock band – I hate when they’re called shoegaze, that’s flat-out wrong and a misunderstanding of the term – with stronger melodies from their heavily-distorted guitars. Other standout tracks include “Julia’s War” and “Candle.”

Lord Huron – Bag of Bones. The fourth single released ahead of Lord Huron’s newest album, The Cosmic Selector Vol. 1, is the strongest one yet; the record comes out on July 18^th.

Elbow – Timber. The four-song EP Audio Vertigo Echo is also part of the deluxe edition of Audio Vertigo, the album released last year that featured “Lover’s Leap.” All four tracks on the EP are solid, with “Adriana Again” the best of the set.

Calibro 35 – Reptile Strut. Thistrack from the Italian band funk-rock band sounds like Jethro Tull recorded the score for a 1960s spy film.

TAKAAT – Amidinin. TAKAAT is the band that backs up Mdou Moctar, and on their first EP as an independent act, they sound … well, a lot like Mdou Moctar’s music, just with a little less of the shredding. It’s still excellent.

WITCH – Queenless King. WITCH is one of the original Zamrock acts and returned in 2023 with their first album in 39 years, re-forming with a new lineup; they’re back again with Sogolo, released last month, with the same ebullient sound that melds 1970s psychedelic rock with traditional Zambian music. Only singer Emanuel “Jagari” Chanda remains from the original band, as the others all died from AIDS-related causes by 2001.

Sudan Archives – DEAD. Sudan Archives’ last LP Natural Brown Prom Queen was my #2 album of 2022; this is her first new music since then, although I can’t find any word of a new LP.

Emma-Jean Thackray – Weirdo. Thackray’s latest album, also called Weirdo, is largely a reflection on and document of her grief when her partner, producer Matthew Gordon, died unexpectedly in 2023. The record is similar in style to her last full-length, 2021’s Yellow, and despite the somber subject matter includes a lot of upbeat jazz/funk tracks, including this one and “Wanna Die.” I feel like Laufey gets a lot of the attention that should go to Thackray, whose music is more authentic to jazz but less poppy.

Nathan Salsburg – Ipsa Corpora (Excerpt). Salsburg’s latest album, Ipsa Corpora, is just one 40-odd minute track of him playing acoustic guitar, with nothing else, and it’s mesmerizing. I wasn’t familiar with him at all before finding this on the NPR new music playlist. This is just a two-minute excerpt from the back half of the album, and it includes one of my favorite sequences.

Suede – Trance State. The second track from Suede’s upcoming album Antidepressants continues in the dark post-punk vein of the previous single, “Disintegrate,” and I couldn’t be more excited for the full record. It feels like it’s squarely aimed at my age cohort, anyone who came of age as a music fan in the early 1980s.

Just Mustard – Pollyanna. Okay, this is real shoegaze. The Irish band’s last album, Heart Under, was also in my top 10 for 2022, as one of the purest distillations of the original shoegaze sound of the early 1990s, including some of its harsher elements. This track softens some of that, so vocalist Katie Ball is a little easier to hear above the music, but the result is that they sound a little more like Lush and less like MBV.

Steve Queralt feat. Emma Anderson – Lonely Town. Speaking of Lush, here’s their guitarist Anderson on another track from Ride bassist Queralt’s first solo album, Swallow,and it turns out when you mix Lush and Ride together you get a song that sounds like both bands. Weird.

World News – Don’t Want to Know. Dreamy jangle-rock from London. These guys look too young to be making music like this.

Lake Ruth – An Offering. Lake Ruth’s new album Hawking Radiation was inspired by Adrian Tchaikovsky’s novel Children of Time, the Heaven’s Gate suicide cult, and the art of Paul Klee, a diversity of sources that shows up in the music, which draws on psychedelic rock, electronica, and even some pop elements.

Sophia Stel – Everyone Falls Asleep in Their Own Time. Stel is a singer and electronic musician who released one EP last fall and is back with this single; it reminds me of Beth Orton, the better aspects of Sarah McLachlan’s music, even a little Tasmin Archer’s “Sleeping Satellite.”

Rocket – Crossing Fingers. This LA-based band took its name from the Smashing Pumpkins song, perhaps influenced by a desire to find the least SEO-friendly name possible, and their sound reflects that vein of early-90s alternative, guitar-driven rock. Think early Weezer, Helmet, Dinosaur Jr.

Mike Bankhead – Something that I Can’t Explain. Mike’s a longtime friend of the dish, long enough that I couldn’t even put a finger on when he started reading and commenting. He’s also a singer and bassist, and this alt-rock song is his first new track since 2023’s EP I Am Experienced.

flowerovlove – new friends. One of the weirder comments I’ve gotten on my music posts over the almost fifteen years that I’ve been writing them has been the claim that I dislike pop music. Like a lot of people, maybe most, I started out as a fan of pop music, and that’s still reflected in my playlists in music that reminds me of that era of pop. It has also made me wary of contemporary, big-label pop, because it’s so overproduced, but there’s plenty of good pop music out there if you’re willing to look a little harder for it. flowerovlove is a perfect example – she started out releasing her own music in the pandemic, and although she’s now signed to a major label, so far she hasn’t compromised her bedroom-pop sound.

Obongjayar – Gasoline. This song is from the soundtrack to F1, and continues the year of Obongjayar, as he released his second album Paradise Now in May and appears on two of the best tracks on Little Simz’s new LP. (Her appearance on his record, however, is its worst track. This song isn’t on his album but would fit quite well there with its mix of Afrobeat, electronic, and western pop traditions.

Young Fathers – Promised Land. Young Fathers did the entire soundtrack to 28 Years Later, most of which is background music rather than full-fledged songs. It also includes a reading of Rudyard Kipling’s poem “Boots.” “Promised Land” is its most traditional track, at least in line with the Mercury Prize winners’ typical output.

SPRINTS – Descartes. This Irish punk band’s second album, All That Is Over, is due outon September 26^th, and this first single is one of their best tracks to date.

The Minus 5 – We Shall Not Be Released. Another friend of the dish, so to speak, as I interviewed Scott McGaughey on my old podcast and have met him and the other members of The Baseball Project. The two bands are touring together this fall.

Arc de Soleil – Sunchaser. Arc de Soleil is composer/producer Daniel Kadawatha, who does a pretty solid Khruangbin impression – as does Balthvs, who I nearly included on a playlist earlier this year. I don’t think any of these knockoffs are as good as Khruangbin, but they’re good enough to listen to in their own right, and the guitar melody here reminds of some of the better stuff from the brief heyday of guitar instrumental albums from when I was in high school/college.

Wavves – Spun. The riff at the start of this track reminds me a ton of Superdrag’s “Sucked Out the Feeling,” a song that I love until the chorus until it seems to try too hard to be edgy; then Nathan Williams shifts gears slightly for the second half of the song without losing that core melody. This is the title track from Wavves’ latest album, their first of new material since 2021.

The Beths – No Joy. The second single from the Beths’ upcoming album Straight Line was a Lie, due out on August 29^th, isn’t one of my favorites from them, actually. The hook isn’t as good as those on their best singles, and I think the super-short lines in the verses take away from the wordplay in Elizabeth Stokes’ lyrics.

Jehnny Beth – Obsession. Jehnny Beth’s latest single is pure madness – cacophonous, disjointed, just glorious – and an excellent sign ahead of her new album You Heartbreaker, due out August 29^th.

Puffer – Jimmy. Puffer are a Montréal-based punk band who seem to have a DIY ethos, recording and releasing their debut album, Street Hassle, themselves. They don’t have much of a previous footprint, just two EPs to their name prior to this record, but it’s great if you’re a fan of classic, old-school punk.

Lowen – Waging War Against God. This track is actually from Lowen’s 2024 album Do Not Go to War With the Demons of Mazandaran, a superb blend of doom and extreme metal with Persian music. It would have made my list of the best albums of the year had I heard it in time.

Tulip – Arabella. I linked to the Texas Monthly story on Tulip’s origins in a Saturday roundup earlier this month; they blend symphonic metal and death metal elements, slightly overproduced in my view, and I’ll give anyone who escapes from the sort of controlling religious environment they escaped some extra points.

Unleashed – Hold Your Hammers High. Unleashed is one of the pioneers of Swedish death metal, before the ‘melodic’ death metal movement that grew out of the Gothenburg scene … but this track, from Unleashed’s upcoming album Fire Upon Your Lands, sounds a lot like late-80s thrash with vocals that are more shouted than growled.

DRAIN – Nights Like These. DRAIN is a crossover thrash (meaning a blend of traditional thrash and hardcore punk) revival band from Santa Cruz, which makes sense given that sound’s deep roots in the San Francisco area (Metallica, Exodus, Testament, and Death Angel all came from that scene). The vocals are a bit death-growly for me, but the riffage behind them should satisfy fans of the genre.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2025 in music, alternative, hip-hop, indie, jazz, metal, Music

→ June 1, 2025
→ By keith

Music update, May 2025.

I believe this is my longest-ever monthly playlist, at 42 songs and 205 minutes, and I even cut a few tracks (like one from Nilüfer Yanya) before settling on this set. We had a ridiculous number of new albums of note come out last month, along with some big announcements of new records and/or tours, plus any month with five Fridays is going to have more new music by default. As always, if you can’t see the widget below you can access the playlist here.

The Beths – Metal. For now, it’s a one-off single from The Beths ahead of a big tour this fall – and yes, I bought a ticket – with no word of a follow-up LP to their grade-80 album Expert in a Dying Field.

Suede – Disintegrate. Singer Brett Anderson (not the left-handed pitcher) has said Suede’s upcoming record will be their most post-punk album, and this lead single clearly leans that way. It’s amazing to me when a band can produce one of their best singles thirty years into their careers.

Wolf Alice – Bloom Baby Bloom. The Mercury Prize-winning London rockers are back, with this lead single ahead of their fourth album’s release on August 29^th. The piano riff that drives this song is almost smooth-jazz, channeling Jethro Tull’s “Bourée” or something similar, before drifting into hard rock and back again, Wolf Alice at their unpredictable, imaginative selves just as they were on their last album, the magnificent Blue Weekend.

Obongjayar – Not In Surrender. Obongjayar’s latest album Paradise Now is about as genre-spanning an album as you’re likely to hear all year, which means it’s pretty inconsistent but has some incredible high points like this pulsing Afrobeat/rock track and the earlier single “Sweet Danger.” I actually can’t stand the collaboration with his frequent musical partner Little Simz, “Talk Olympics,” because … well, listen to the intro and you can probably guess why I find it so annoying.

Elbow – Sober. Elbow is releasing a five-song EP, Audio Vertigo Echo elbow EP5, including this track and last fall’s tremendous “Adrianna Again,” on June 6^th; I believe this track is from the Audio Vertigo sessions, unlike the previous single, but whatever, it’s all great and I think Elbow is peaking.

The Itch – The Influencer. One side of a new single from this Georgia duo who’d previously released just a single track, last year’s “Ursula,” which is about one of my all-time favorite novels, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed. This is straight-up ‘80s new wave with some goth influences – think Bauhaus, Heaven 17, mid-80s Depeche Mode – and as such couldn’t be more in my wheelhouse.

Peter Murphy – Hot Roy. “Cuts You Up” is Murphy’s peak; when I did a list of the best songs of the 1990s back in (gulp) 2010, it was at #118; I might have it higher now, honestly. This is the first thing he’s done in probably 20 years that recaptured even some of the glory of that song for me.

Sunday (1994) – Doomsday. It’s a bad commando name, I admit, but if you like dream pop at all, especially the 1990s version, this band and their new EP Devotion are for you.

Indigo de Souza – Heartthrob. I can’t figure out if I’d heard de Souza’s music before and didn’t care for it, or if this was the first track by the Asheville singer/songwriter I’d heard. I thought it was a new song by Weakened Friends given de Souza’s warbly delivery and overly earnest lyrics, but the hook won me over. Her fourth album, Precipice, comes out on July 25^th.

Deep Sea Diver – Emergency. I’ve hadat least one Deep Sea Diver song on a previous playlist, and reader Brian in SoCal recommended I check out their newest LP; I found the album kind of uneven but when they let ‘er rip, as they do on this song, it’s fantastic, with a great pop hook in the chorus but enough roughness around the edges to keep a more authentic, almost college-radio sound.

TURNSTILE – BIRDS. I’m not sure what’s going on with TURNSTILE; they were a great punk band, and some of that is still evident on the new record, but they’ve gone well beyond that genre on this album, Never Enough, due out on June 6^th, and the experimentation doesn’t work as well as it did for the comparable record from Fontaines D.C. “SEEIN’ STARS” is almost a pop song; “LOOK OUT FOR ME” is a six-minute opus where the first half sounds too much like early Helmet. Also please stop writing everything in all caps, I feel like you’re yelling at me.

Black Honey – Insulin. I’ve been a Black Honey fan since their first handful of singles in 2015-16, which is hard to believe now. They started out as more power-pop but they’ve had a harder edge between their last album and this single. Their fourth album, Soak, is due out in August.

Hotline TNT – Candle. This noise-rock band’s last single, “Julia’s War,” was my favorite track from them to date … and this might be my second-favorite. Their third album, Raspberry Moon, comes out on June 20^th. I actually don’t like the third single, “Break Right.”

Jehnny Beth – Broken Rib. Beth was the lead singer of the short-lived post-punk band Savages, whose debut album Silence Yourself was #18 on my ranking of the best albums of the 2010s; she released a solo album in 2020, but has mostly appeared as a guest vocalist on other artists’ works, and even appeared in the film Anatomy of a Fall in a significant supporting role. Her second album, You Heartbreaker, You, is due out in August, and this lead single is a welcome return to that Silence Yourself form of raging feminist post-punk.

Preoccupations – Panic. Ill at Ease, the latest record from one of the most authentic post-punk bands out there, is solid if a little familiar, very much in that Joy Division/The Sound/Bauhaus vein.

Siracuse – Chase the Morning. Kind of Oasis meets psychedelic rock, a little less Madchester-y than their 2023 song “Saviour,” which made my top 100 for that year, more like the music I hoped the DMA’s were going to keep making until they threw up their hands and started making electronica instead of rock.

Sleigh Bells – Badly. Another band that seems to be good for one great song per album, although I think there’s a bit of gimmickry in their lyrics and sometimes videos (“Comeback Kid”) that I think takes away from the music. This isn’t quite up to “Rill Rill” or “True Seekers” but it’s in my top 5.

We Are Scientists – Please Don’t Say It. This song sounds like someone merged Sparks with a math-rock band, so it’s catchy but also has this intensity that I find grabs me early in the track and doesn’t let up.

The Supernaturals – Don’t let the past catch up with you. The Supernaturals hung around the fringe of the Britpop movement without quite breaking through to commercial success, splitting up in 2002 after their third album came out. They returned in 2015 and have now put out four albums post-hiatus, with this latest one, Show Tunes, coming out in May. I was and still am a big fan of Britpop’s original era, but I’d never heard of these guys until this record.

Sports Team – Boys These Days. The title track from their follow-up to the tremendous Gulp! is a good indicator of their downshift in style; the record has plenty of solid tracks but doesn’t hit as hard as the last record did, still playful and snarky, just lacking the huge hooks this time around. I also liked “Bonnie” and “Bang Bang Bang.”

The Head and the Heart – After the Setting Sun. I like when they stomp. That’s really it – when their songs build to a big stompin’ finish, like “Shake” does, I’m in. This one does that.

The Minus 5 – Let the Rope Hold, Cassie Lee. That is Scott McCaughey of the Young Fresh Fellows and, more importantly, The Baseball Project, along with his TBP bandmates Peter Buck and Linda Pitmon. The two bands will be touring together this September.

Peter Doherty – Felt Better Alive. Fresh off the triumphant return last year of his band The Libertines, Doherty followed it up with his first solo album in nine years last month. This is the title track from the record, which is a more subdued experience than the last Libertines record and which I at least interpreted as the work of a more mature, sober Doherty.

Natalie Bergman – Gunslinger. Bergman is a folk-pop singer from LA who is also half of the duo Wild Belle with her brother Elliot, and her second album, My Home Is Not in This World, is due out in July. Her previous record leaned towards some very religious material, but this song is secular and, I think not coincidentally, a real banger. Wikipedia says she’s the late Anne Heche’s niece.

Ty Segall – Possession. When Segall’s good, he’s very good – he crafts some really great rhythm-guitar hooks. He’s good for about one of them an album, which I guess is better than some artists.

Ezra Furman – Power of the Moon. Never been a fan of Furman’s music but this song is the best of hers I’ve heard, reminding me a lot of the Waterboys; I need to listen to the full abum, Goodbye Small Head, which came out on May 16^th.

Blondshell – Thumbtack. As I feared, “Two Times” turned out to be far and away the best song on Blondshell’s new album If You Asked for a Picture, and the album overall is a mixed bag. Sabrina Teitelbaum’s earnest lyrics and delivery wear pretty thin for me, unfortunately.

Shamir – I Love My Friends. Almost every Shamir song leaves me wondering why I don’t like his music more, but more often than not there’s just one thing that turns me off a song. This is the best track from his latest album, Ten, and an example of how good he can be when everything clicks … if you can live with his creaky delivery on the verses that belies his strong singing voice.

Wu-Tang & Mathematics – Mandingo. I suppose it’s a matter of semantics whether Black Samson, the Bastard Swordsman is a proper Wu-Tang release, but I would vote yes, as it features every living member of the Wu-Tang Clan on at least one track. It’s also pretty old-school, not exactly 36 Chambers level but in with similar music and, of course, a lot of snippets from kung fu movies.

Kae Tempest – Know Yourself. I still think of Tempest’s style as spoken word rather than hip-hop, although the chorus on this new track is at least more derived from the traditions of the Golden Age of the latter. I don’t think this is his strongest work lyrically – “I Saw Light” remains his best in my opinion – but it’s one of the best backing tracks he’s used to date.

Tune-Yards – How Big is the Rainbow. I used to hate “Water Fountain,” which I think is probably still Tune-Yards’ biggest hit, but it’s grown on me over time, probably because I’ve just become more open-minded about music that veers from what’s expected. Anyway, Tune-Yards’ latest album Better Dreaming dropped in May and I completely agree with Pitchfork’s comment that it’s their most melodic and accessible album to date. It’s almost poppy, at least within their typical framework of drum loops and globally-inspired beats.

Steve Queralt feat. Verity Susman – Messengers. Queralt is the bassist for Ride, the pioneering British shoegaze band, and here he teams up with Susman, the vocalist in Electrelane, for a spacey, time-out-of-joint sort of electronic rock track. It definitely seems like the sort of music you’d listen to while high, and I mean that in a good way.

deary – I Still Think About You. This dreampop duo has a couple of EPs under its belt, but this song, which reminds me a ton of early Lush (pre-“Ladykillers”), was my first exposure to them.

Nation of Language – Inept Apollo. This track is the new wave/synthpop trio’s first since signing with Sub Pop, and one of my favorite songs from them. No word yet on a new album, which would be their first since 2023’s Strange Disciple.

SENSES – Already Part of the Problem. I liked this Coventry-based quartet’s atmospheric rock track “Drifting” a couple of years ago; this one has a bit more energy and some more prominent synths, reminiscent of 1990s college radio rock.

The Chameleons – Saviours Are a Dangerous Thing. The Chameleons straddled the line between post-punk and new wave in the early 1980s but never found commercial success, even in their native UK, before breaking up for the first time in 1987. They reunited for one album in 2001, then broke up again, re-forming a second time in 2021 with two original members, singer/bassist Mark Burgess and lead guitarist Reg Smithies. They’re set to release their first new LP in 24 years, Arctic Moon, on September 12^th.

Jorja Smith – The Way I Love You. Idon’t love the frenzied techno beat behind Smith’s vocals, but I love her voice enough that I put the song on here anyway.

James BKS – Assia. TheFrench-Cameroonian musician/producer and son of legendary Afrofunk saxophonist Manu Dibango released his latest EP See Us Rise last month, including this midtempo, lite-jazzy number.

Suzanne Vega – Witch. I’ve never been a huge fan of Vega’s and this is the first song of hers I’ve put on a playlist, although that’s probably because Flying with Angels is her first full-length album in eleven years. Her lyrics can still get a little wobbly but I attribute that to her trying to be more ambitious in her storytelling. This song really rocks in a way I don’t totally associate with her, although she certainly has flashed that in her career (including on my favorite song of hers, “Blood Makes Noise,” covered surprisingly well by British thrashers Acid Reign).

The Budos Band – Overlander. So I’d never heard of the Budos Band until now, even though VII is, as you might have guessed, their seventh album, and their first came out 20 years ago. The whole album is like this, although this track has the best riff, and every song sounds like it belongs in a trailer for a movie you will be 30% more likely to go see because of the music.

Pelican – Cascading Crescent. How have I not heard of Pelican before? It’s mostly instrumental doom and sludge metal, and it’s awesome. This is one of several great tracks on their latest album Flickering Resonance. There is just too much music out there, dammit.

Witchcraft – Idag. The title track from this longstanding Swedish doom metal band’s latest album, their first rock album in nine years, is also its strongest, although the tempo is a little faster than typical doom – and that’s indicative of the album as a whole, which bounces around various styles, including some 1970s-ish blues metal, and has tracks in Swedish and in English. Some of the English lyrics are really silly (“Burning Cross”), but there’s some fantastic riffing across most of the LP.

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