→ February 8, 2026
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Music update, January 2026.

This playlist includes a handful of tracks from December 2025 that I heard after I compiled my top 100 tracks of the year or that didn’t make the cut, plus songs from this January, through songs released on the final Friday (the 30th), but not anything released this month. As always, if you can’t see the playlist below you can access it on Apple Music or Spotify.

Courtney Barnett feat. Waxahatchee – Site Unseen. This second single off Barnett’s upcoming album Creature of Habit features Katie Crutchfield, so it couldn’t be more in my personal wheelhouse.

Brigitte Calls Me Baby – Slumber Party. BCMB’s sophomore album, Irreversible, is due out on March 13th; they do one of the best new wave-revival sounds out there, honoring the genre without sounding overly derivative of it. It’s catnip for me.

Arlo Parks – 2SIDED. Parks will release her third album, Ambiguous Desire, on April 3rd; she has yet to miss for me, with this song leaning more into a dance sound beneath her unmistakable voice.

Daughter – Not Enough. This Irish trio’s album Not to Disappear turns ten this year, so they re-recorded one of the tracks that didn’t make the cut, “Not Enough,” which showcases Elena Tonra’s haunting voice over a typically sparse backing track that hints at electronica, folk, and shoegaze.

Makthaverskan – Pity Party. I’d never heard of this rock band from Gothenberg (a town best known for producing melodic death metal), but I love this song, which has some dreamgaze and post-punk elements, and is the lead single from their upcoming album Glass and Bones, which will be their first new album in five years.

Ratboys – What’s Right. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of Ratboys, in part because of Julia Steiner’s warbly, sometimes off-key vocals, but their best stuff can be pretty catchy folk-tinged alt-rock. Their latest album Singin’ to an Empty Chair came out on Friday.

DEADLETTER – It Comes Creeping. I loved DEADLETTER’s very Madness-like 2024 track “Mere Mortal;” and this song is in a very similar vein. Their second album Existence is Bliss comes out on February 27th.

Flea – A Plea. Flea, best known as the bassist who replaced Derf Scratch in Fear, is about to release his first solo album, Honora, in March; it’s a jazz album, featuring six original tracks and four covers, and the two singles to date – this one and “Traffic Lights” – are both fantastic, featuring Flea on bass and trumpet, with Thom Yorke providing vocals on the latter song.

Whitelands – Blankspace. Whitelands is a shoegaze band from London – aren’t they all – who just released their fifth album, but second on a proper label, at the end of January. Sunlight Echoes also includes an appearance from Lush’s Emma Anderson on “Sparklebaby.”

Tigers Jaw – Head is Like a Sinking Stone. Another new-to-me artist, Tigers Jaw hails from Scranton and they’re also about to put out their first album in five years, Lost on You.

The Cribs – Never the Same. I think the main thing I knew about the Cribs was that they’re one of the eighty-nine bands Johnny Marr has joined since the end of the Smiths. They’ve been around for over 20 years now, with their ninth album Selling a Vibe coming out last month; this is the best track I’ve heard, while the album as a whole gets a little one-note.

The Twilight Sad – Designed to Lose. It’s the Long Goodbye, The Twilight Sad’s first album since three members left the band, leaving only founding members James Graham and Andy MacFarlane, will be out on March 27th, a big day for new albums, as it turns out. This song is pretty vintage Twilight Sad, dark and a little gothic-new wave but also still informed by pop.

Butler, Blake & Grant – Lonely Night. That would be Bernard Butler (Suede), Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub), and James Grant (Love and Money). They released a self-titled album last March, while this is a folk-rock reworking of a song Blake wrote for Teenage Fanclub that that band recorded as “Dark & Lonely Night.”

Billy Bragg – City of Heroes. “When they came for the immigrants/I got in their face/When they came for the refugees/I got in their face/When they came for the five-year-olds/I got in their face/When they came to my neighborhood/I just got in their face.”

Arctic Monkeys – Opening Night. A midtier Arctic Monkeys track off the upcoming Help(2) charity album to benefit War Child, featuring other tracks from Olivia Rodrigo, The Last Dinner Party, Damon Albarn, Fontaines DC, and more.

The Format – Boycott Heaven. The Format just released their first new album in 20 years; they were Nate Ruess’ original band, before he and Jack Antonoff formed fun., which released that one album (note: and one before that, which I missed) and then broke up. I’ve always liked Ruess’ voice, even when they got stupid with autotuning it, and this track showcases it well in a great indie-pop vein.

SAULT – Chapter 1. SAULT’s latest album is full of … salt. It’s clearly a response to Little Simz’ Lotus, which was her album about how SAULT leader Inflo borrowed a seven-figure sum from her and didn’t repay it; here Inflo leans further into his religious act, with songs like “God, Protect Me From My Enemies” and “Lord Have Mercy,” along with hackneyed lyrics like “They’re jealous of what’s in your brain” and “Must go higher. I refuse to fight with fire.” But damn, nobody does ‘70s soul/funk revival like SAULT does.

TIGRA & SPNCR – Do It Like This. If you’re old enough to remember the 1980s rap duo L’Trimm, which had a couple of minor hits in “Grab It” and “Cars with the Boom,” Tigra was half of that group (as The Lady Tigra), and she’s back with an EP called Black Rice. Bunny appears on a different track, “Guillotine.”

Home Star – Come To. This track, by Evan Lescallette of the band Marietta, is perfectly fine punk-pop-emo whatever, but I couldn’t ignore an artist named Home Star.

Blackwater Holylight – Bodies. Metal in general is a male-dominated genre, and doom metal even more so, with the occasional female vocalist but very few all-women bands. Blackwater Holylight is three women, from Oregon, who put out three albums from 2018-21 and then took five years off before their fourth album, Not Here Not Gone, came out at the end of January. This track blends heavy, crunchy guitar lines with ghostly vocals to make it all much creepier than just some guy doing the Cookie Monster voice.

Maria BC – Marathon. Maria BC is an experimental singer/guitarist from Oakland whose music starts out as ambient but often goes in unexpected directions; here, their vocals sound like Alejandra Deheza of School of Seven Bells, set over dark guitar sounds like some of Alcest’s best work.

The Hu – The Real You. The Hu are a Mongolian folk-metal band that incorporates native instruments and throat singing into their music; they’ve toured with Iron Maiden and even covered “The Trooper.” Their third album will be out later this year, and yes, it’s pronounced like “the Who.”

Port Noir – Noir. Port Noir is a progressive rock band that has always at least toyed with metal, but their upcoming album The Dark We Keep seems to lean all the way into the heavy stuff – they’ve actually said on their Instagram that it’s the heaviest album they’ve ever made. Also in the metal space, The Ruins of Beverast has some great guitarwork on their newest album, but the death growls here are way too prominent for me; Kreator’s Krushers of the World had some solid stuff but also got a little clownish, as on the title track; and Sylosis’s “Erased” had some strong thrash riffs but got too metalcore for me.

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→ December 24, 2025
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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.)

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→ November 6, 2025
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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.

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→ September 5, 2025
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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 17th.

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 26th. 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.

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→ August 10, 2025
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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 10th; 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 3rd.

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 15th.

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 12th, 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 17th 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.

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→ July 2, 2025
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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 18th.

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 26th, 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 29th, 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 29th.

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.

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→ June 1, 2025
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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 29th. 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 6th; 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 25th.

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 6th, 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 20th. 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 16th.

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 12th.

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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→ May 2, 2025
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Music update, April 2025.

A couple of hotly-anticipated albums (by me!) dropped in April, along with one surprise release, although I’m not sure any of those albums truly lived up to expectations. As always, if you can’t see the widget below you can access the playlist here.

SAULT – K.T.Y.W.S. SAULT returns with 10, their tenth album, as usual with no fanfare or advance publicity. It’s better than Acts of Faith, the religious album they released in December, and probably ahead of any of the five individual albums they released on one day in November 2022. The album as a whole goes back to the ‘70s funk and R&B sound that characterized their first couple of albums, although there’s nothing quite as hard-edged, and much of the political songwriting is still absent here. All of the songs have initials as song titles, with this one standing for “know that you will survive,” which is kind of a gimmick and not a great one, in this case underscoring that the lyrics aren’t as strong as they were on SAULT’s earliest work. So my quick review of 10 is that the music is better and the lyrics are just meh when they’re there at all.

Obongjayar – Sweet Danger. Obongjayar first came to my attention with his appearance on Little Simz’s “Point and Kill,” fitting here as Simz has worked with SAULT’s Inflo multiple times. His music is a sort of crossover Afrobeat mashup, with some pop and electronic elements. This is the fourth song he’s released from his second album, Paradise Now, due out on May 30th.

Rachel Chinouriri – Can we talk about Isaac? Chinouriri put out an album last year that made Paste’s top 100 list for the year, although I missed it completely. She’s an English singer-songwriter who has cited two of my favorite bands, Oasis and the Libertines, as influences, along with Daughter, who’ve made a bunch of appearances on my lists here … and Coldplay, which can cut different ways depending on what part of their discography she likes. You can definitely hear the pop influences on this track, which comes off her new EP Little House.

Tunde Adebimpe – Ate the Moon. The lead singer of TV on the Radio released his first solo album, Thee Black Boltz, in April, and it was surprisingly tepid. I figured after this many years in the industry, with no new music since 2014, Adebimpe’s first LP would be bursting with ideas and ambition, but it’s not. There are two great songs in “Magnetic” and “Drop,” and a couple of decent tracks like this one, but I was hoping for a big swing and instead he just sort of went the other way for a soft single.

Hotline TNT – Julia’s War. My favorite track yet from this NYC rock act who are often miscategorized (in my view) as “shoegaze” just because they use a lot of distortion. It’s rock, definitely the sort you’d have heard on college radio 20 or 30 years ago, and this track has their best hook to date.

Say Sue Me – In This Mess. Say Sue Me are from Busan, South Korea, and have released three albums going back to 2014, but this was the first track of theirs I’d heard. It’s powered by a huge guitar sound that powers the track through six and a half minutes, veering a little into My Bloody Valentine territory near the end.

Turnstile – Never Enough. It doesn’t sound like a Turnstile song at the beginning, but be patient – the punk sound is still here. This is the title track from their next album, due out June 6th, and they’ve already dropped two more songs from it.

swim school – Alone With You. Not to get too deep in the weeds here, but I think swim school’s sound contains far more shoegaze than Hotline TNT’s does – which makes sense, as swim school, who hail from Edinburgh, have mentioned Slowdive as a major influence. Their self-titled debut album is due out on October 3rd, after a “mixtape” and three EPs so far in their short career to date.

Sunflower Bean – There’s a Part I Can’t Get Back. I thought Sunflower Bean might be running away from the hit, “Moment in the Sun,” when the first few singles from their new album Mortal Primetime all seemed heavier and more rock-oriented, but the album is pretty balanced between that and some more pop sounds. The best tracks are the singles they released ahead of the LP – this, “Nothing Romantic,” and “Champagne Taste.”

Momma – Rodeo. Someone, possibly a writer at Paste, described Momma as incredibly derivative of 1990s alternative rock, and yet still somehow really good. I completely agree. They sound a lot like Veruca Salt. I hear Hum in this track. If you remember the Sheila Divine there’s a little of that on the record. It’s all good, just maybe a little too familiar and pleasant to ever be great.

Wet Leg – Catch These Fists. I was thelow person on Wet Leg’s debut album, particularly the widely-praised hit “Chaise Longue,” but I did like “Angelica” and I think when their melodies show as much effort as their lyrics do, they’re on to something pretty good. This song fits that as well – the main guitar riff is catchy and the lyrics are smartassy but not obnoxious.

Yaya Bey – Dream Girl. Yaya Bey’s 2024 album Ten Fold earned widespread praise and made Paste’s top 50 albums of the year; it didn’t land for me at all. This is the first song of hers I’ve really liked, leaning hard into 1970s/1980s R&B sounds, with a little Prince vibe to the synth lines and vocals. Her next album, Do It Afraid, is due out on June 20th. (I only just learned that her father was Grand Daddy I.U. of the Juice Crew, one of the most important hip-hop collectives of the 1980s, where Big Daddy Kane and Kool G Rap got their starts. You may know their song “The Symphony,” which samples Otis Redding’s “Hard to Handle” and features both of those rappers along with Masta Ace and Craig G.)

DaWeirdo & Freddie Gibbs – Brother$. Here for the Freddie Gibbs verse.

Pat junior & Tecoby Hines – Nothing to Lose. This is the first song I’ve ever put on a playlist after discovering it on TikTok. That app’s algorithm showed me a slew of mediocre mostly white rappers before this song popped up; Pat Junior, who won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance in 2024, has incredible flow to his vocals, and the music behind him here would make Stetsasonic and Digable Planets proud.

Cœur de Pirate – Cavale. I’ll include anything Béatrice releases; outside of one single in 2023, this is her first new material since 2021’s Impossible à aimer, and her first since having her second child. There’s a new album coming later this year from the Québécois pop singer/pianist, but that’s all the details I could find.

OK Go – Once More with Feeling. This is the most classic OK Go-sounding song on their new album And the Adjacent Possible by a country mile. It’s their first album since 2014, but unfortunately it’s pretty downtempo for these guys, losing what I liked most about their sound.

The Amazons – Night After Night. I’ve always appreciated the Amazons’ big guitar sound – they offer huge, muscular, heavily distorted riffs, so most of their best songs automatically sound anthemic. Their fourth album, 21st Century Fiction, comes out in a week, on May 9th.

The New Pornographers – Ballad of the Last Payphone. This song came out on vinyl earlier this year but just hit digital platforms in April; it’s a mid-tier New Pornographers song.

Ball Park Music – Please Don’t Move to Melbourne. I should hate a band called Ball Park Music, but they’re a perfectly delightful indie-pop band with that jangly sound that I think has become distinctly Australian in the last decade or so. This should be the B-side to the Melvins’ song “Stop Moving to Florida.”

Hives – Enough is Enough. Just two years after their comeback album The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons, the Hives are back with another new LP, The Hives Forever Forever the Hives, and, uh, they’re being really humble about it.

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard – Deadstick. Are they just taunting us at this point? The Phish/King Gizzard crossover is pretty big, and now the latter have put out a song with a similar title to one of Phish’s most popular tracks, “Meatstick” (which I think is kind of annoying). I can’t imagine this is a coincidence.

Ghost – Lachryma. The act is a little tired, but beneath the silly Satanic trappings and the masks, this is straight-up ‘80s hard rock, and I suppose their gimmicky isn’t all that much worse than hairspray, is it?

Tropical Fuck Storm – Dunning Kruger’s Loser Cruiser. It’s not that great of a song, but how could I possibly pass up a title like this?

Onslaught – Iron Fist. Wikipedia mentions Onslaught as one of the “big four” of British thrash metal, but they weren’t all that successful in their original run in the 1980s; the only one of that quartet I’d heard of at the time was Acid Reign, so I suppose the “big” part is just local to Britain. Anyway, Onslaught re-formed after about a 15-year hiatus, and have released more albums since their return than they did in their first stint, with their eighth overall LP, Origins of Aggression, due out on May 23rd. It’s a double album of covers, including this one of a Mötorhead song, and re-recordings of Onslaught songs from the ‘80s.

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→ December 24, 2024
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Top 24 albums of 2024.

My gimmick of ranking a number of albums equal to the last two digits of the year lives once more, although I think I may just have to cap it at 25 next December before it gets out of hand. I had plenty of albums to consider in 2024, though, as it was a strong year for albums overall and for albums that might be 1-1 worthy in any year. Some honorable mentions include Blood Incantation – Absolute Elsewhere (some brilliant music, but I just can’t do with that much of the death metal trappings), Childish Gambino – Bando Stone & the New World, Bob Vylan – Humble as the Sun, Katie Gavin – What a Relief, Parsnip – Behold, Japandroids – Fate & Alcohol.

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

24. Griff – Vertigo

Griff is a pretty big deal in the U.K. and opened for Sabrina Carpenter and Taylor Swift this year, although she hasn’t broken through at all in the U.S. yet. I’m generally not a fan of highly polished pop music, but her brand of sophisticated pop that isn’t overproduced and that lets her powerful alto voice shine is much more in line with my tastes. Highlights include the title track, “Astronaut,” and “Tears for Fun.”

23. Wheel – Charismatic Leaders

Wheel keeps changing personnel, with only lead singer/guitarist James Lascelles left from the original lineup, but the sound remains the same. This is heavy, crunchy prog metal, driven by powerful and intricate guitar work, but never deviates into blast beats or death growls that might destroy the intense vibe of the music. I don’t think this is their best album, but it’s so much in my wheelhouse (pun intended) that I still like it quite a bit. Highlights include “Empire,” “Submission,” and “Porcelain.”

22. Pond – Stung!

Pond are all over the place yet again, and I’m good with it because the highs are high enough. They’re an experimental rock band from Australia with a heavy emphasis on psychedelic rock, but are comfortable veering into funk-pop (“So Lo”) or a mélange of 1970s hard rock and 1960s Motown rhythms (“(I’m) Stung”), or just straight-up psychedelic rock that your parents might have heard at Woodstock (“Neon River”). The album is 14 songs and 54+ minutes long, so it does wear out its welcome a bit as it goes on, so it’s a little lower here than it would have been at midyear, when I had it on my unordered list over some other titles like Ride’s Interplay.

21. HINDS – Viva Hinds

HINDS went back to its original lineup, shedding two members to become a duo again, and their first album since 2020’s The Prettiest Curse is their most assured and polished record yet. HINDS has always thrived on a bit of chaos, the question of whether these two women can really even play their instruments or carry a decent tune, only to have them pull it together with a strong chorus or wry lyrics. On Viva Hinds, they’ve tightened things up across the board but haven’t lost that sense that they’re always on the verge of careening off the track. It’s lo-fi and proud of it, but now it’s not quite so rough around the edges. Standouts include “Boom Boom Back” (featuring Beck), “Mala Vista,” and “En Forma.”

20. Foxing – Foxing

Pitchfork summarized this album by calling it “Nearer My God’s evil genius twin,” and I can’t beat that. It’s wild and weird and ambitious and despairing, the sound of someone coming apart at the seams, with death metal-style screaming, soaring and haunting backing tracks, and despondent lyrics about mortality and isolation. It’s incredible, but also a difficult listen – and, as you might guess, it’s really hard to talk about individual tracks here, although if forced I’d highlight “Barking” and “Hell 99.”

19. GIFT – Illuminator

This Brooklyn psychedelic rock band put out an album in 2022, Momentary Presence, that was largely recorded by singer/guitarist TJ Freda during the early days of the pandemic, when getting the whole band together wasn’t possible, so while Illuminator is their second album, it’s also a first in some ways – and it shows. This is a stronger, more coherent record, and it’s full of bright hooks and a blend of psychedelia and shoegaze that manages to feel fresh even though those styles date back decades. Highlights include “Wish Me Away,” “Going in Circles,” “Later,” and “Light Runner.”

18. Elbow – Audio Vertigo

I admit to being very late to the party on Elbow; I didn’t love their most acclaimed album, The Seldom Seen Kid, winner of the 2008 Mercury Prize, and kind of wrote them off as a dream-pop band that was too chill to hold my attention. That was unfair to them and probably to my ears, as they’re way more ambitious and experimental than that, which showed on their tenth album, Audio Vertigo, a wide-ranging collection of songs that go from the mellower sounds of Kid to some aggressively uptempo and progressive tracks like my favorites on this record, “Lovers’ Leap” and “Good Blood Mexico City.”

17. Ride – Interplay

Ride hit their stride here on their third post-reunion album, with a more mature sound that blends the shoegaze of their first incarnation with mellower synth-pop sounds from their influences, producing a record that shimmers enough to stand apart even with the glut of neo-shoegaze releases that have flooded the scene in the last two years. Standout tracks include “Peace Sign,” “Last Frontier,” and “Portland Rocks.”

16. SPRINTS – Letter to Self

The long-awaited debut full-length from this Dublin punk-rock band did not disappoint, and it’s one of the most true-to-form punk albums of the last few years, with spare lyrics and repeated lines over fast-paced guitar lines that mostly get out in under 3½ minutes. (Unfortunately, lead guitarist Colm O’Reilly left the band abruptly in mid-May.) Highlights include “Heavy,” “Adore Adore Adore,” “Literary Mind,” and “Up and Comer.”

15. Kid Kapichi – There Goes the Neighborhood

They’re probably never quite going to match their incredible, no-skips debut album, but Kid Kapichi keeps churning out angry yet catchy working-class anthems with a touch of Alex Turner in the lyrics but a heavier, crunchier backdrop of guitars more inspired by punk and pub-rock. Highlights here include “Let’s Get to Work,” “Can EU Hear Me?,” and the wonderfully weird “Tamagotchi.”

14. Charly Bliss – Forever

This is the album I was waiting for Charly Bliss to make, after the promising but a little tepid Young Enough in 2019. It’s mostly sunny power-pop goodness, with bigger and better hooks than their previous albums, although the ballad “Nineteen” is a stunner on its own thanks to Eva Hendricks’s plaintive vocals. Other highlights include “Calling You Out” and “Back There Now.”

13. Mysterines – Afraid of Tomorrows

I was all about the Mysterines’ earliest singles and EPs, but was disappointed when their debut album, Reeling, saw them take the pedal off the gas, eschewing some of the heavier, snarling riffs and vocals that made me a fan of the band and specifically of singer/guitarist Lia Metcalfe. This is a much stronger, more confident record, and has far more hooks than its predecessor. Unfortunately, the band cancelled their fall/winter tour at the last minute with an ominous note saying it was “due to recent circumstances,” with no further word from the band since that message on August 31st. Highlights include “Sink Ya Teeth,” “Stray,” and “The Last Dance.”

12. Yard Act – Where’s My Utopia?

Yard Act’s first album, 2022’s The Overload, was my #3 record of that year, as they nailed their contemporary twist on the classic post-punk sounds of Gang of Four and the Fall; their sophomore album finds them expanding their musical palate, with more electronic and disco elements and less post-punk in the music, although that ethos remains in the lyrics. I preferred The Overload, but this one still has some bangers, including “We Make Hits,” “Dream Job,” and “When the Laughter Stops.”

11. Courting – New Last Name

Courting sound like they’re having a blast on just about every song they produce, and the result is that this album, their second full-length, explodes with joy and youthful exuberance throughout. They’ve dialed back a little of the weirdness from their debut, Guitar Music, but they’re still off-kilter in smaller ways, including some of the tones they use for the lead guitars and the often lo-fi production that contrasts with the electronic elements that seep in. Standout tracks include “Throw,” “Flex,” and “We Look Good Together (Big Words).”

10. The Cure – Songs of a Lost World

The Cure hadn’t released an album in 16 years, to the point where I assumed Robert Smith, now 65 years old, was probably done writing new material. Instead he surprised everyone (I think) with the band’s best record since their best album, Disintegration, came out 35 years ago. Songs of a Lost World is, of course, a dark and brooding record, with mortality a major theme throughout the album, anchored by the melancholy “Alone” and “I Can Never Say Goodbye,” although there’s more of a hint of the band’s prior melodic leanings in “A Fragile Thing,” my favorite track from the album.

9. Opeth – The Last Will and Testament

When I heard Opeth was bringing back the death growls for their first new album in five years, I had mixed feelings; their 2001 album Blackwater Park, which is a progressive death metal record that has those vocals, might be my favorite metal record of all time, but they had gone so long without visiting that style that I worried this would come off as gimmicky or outdated. That worry was misplaced – this is a fantastic, complex, rich record that doesn’t overdo the death growls and still puts their intricate guitarwork front and center. It’s a concept record where all tracks but the last one are just named with the section symbol and a number, and if you listen straight through there isn’t the typical variation between songs, although if I had to pick one or two to isolate as the best it would be “§1” and “§3.” It’s a return to form, certainly, even though I liked their prog phase for what it was.

8. Jack White – No Name

Man, I’ve been waiting for White to rock out like this for a decade, at least, and he finally delivered. This is a crunchy, loud, old-fashioned rock album. It grabs you by the throat from the start, with the first four tracks all guitar-driven riff-fests, and doesn’t really let go. It’s not a White Stripes album, but it might be the most similar thing he’s done to peak White Stripes since they broke up. Highlights include “That’s How I’m Feeling,” “It’s Rough on Rats (If You’re Asking,” and “Old Scratch Blues.”

7. Michael Kiwanuka – Small Changes

Kiwanuka won the Mercury Prize with his last album, KIWANUKA, which leaned more into 1970s R&B with a dash of funk, including some unbelievable bass lines. On his follow-up, Small Changes, he goes for a much more understated sound, with slower tempos and sparse production (by Danger Mouse and inflo) that put much greater emphasis on his vocals. He doesn’t swing for the fences anywhere on the record, in his lyrics or the music, producing something that’s a little less immediate but ends up quite lovely in its own way. Highlights include “Floating Parade,” “Lowdown (part i),” and the title track.

6. Waxahatchee – Tiger’s Blood

I loved Katie Crutchfield’s 2020 album Saint Cloud, and still think that’s the superior album of the two, but she is on a heck of a run right now with those LPs and her newest single “Much Ado About Nothing.” Tiger’s Blood is a slower, more tenebrous affair than the previous record, and I prefer her music when she incorporates a little more rock or folk and works less in the traditional country lane. There are some great hooks here, though, and her voice shines throughout, perhaps even more so on the more somber tracks that don’t appeal to me as much with their music. Highlights include “3 Sisters,” “Evil Spawn,” “Bored,” and “Crimes of the Heart.”

5. Ezra Collective – Dance, No One’s Watching

This is the latest example of a band winning the Mercury Prize for an album that didn’t do much for me, only for their follow-up to become one of my favorites of its year; the same thing happened with Sampha, to pick one other case. Ezra Collective is a jazz quintet that brings in a lot of Afrobeat and other African musical traditions, and on their latest album they leaned a little more into Afropop and even just mainstream pop sounds to create an album that’s a bit more accessible and certainly more full of hooks. Highlights include “God Gave Me Feet for Dancing,” “Ajala,” and “No One’s Watching Me.”

4. Fontaines D.C. – Romance

Fontaines D.C. went from punk to something between punk and post-punk between their second and third albums, but on their fourth album, they went in a totally different musical and lyrical direction – several directions, really, delivering one of the most unusual and ambitious records of the year. Vocalist Grian Chatten is still front and center with his commanding delivery, while they go from sheer pop beauty on “Favourite” to something like nu-metal on “Starburster” to a bluesy, funky groove on “Death Kink.” There are elements of shoegaze, nods to rap, and still some vestiges of their punk origins. It doesn’t always work, but they absolutely went for it, and few bands have that kind of vision or musical courage.

3. Alcest – Les chantes de l’aurore

Alcest started out as a death-metal project for the musician who goes by Neige, then incorporated shoegaze sounds to create something called “blackgaze” that was later co-opted by Deafheaven (with whom Neige has worked), after which Alcest added a second member and released an album that was all shoegaze with no metal. They’ve varied their mix of genres on subsequent albums, but this latest one gets the balance right, as they did on 2016’s incredible Kodama. The album is primarily heavy shoegaze, with some very infrequent screamed vocals deeper in the mix, so the wall-of-guitars sound is really the emphasis. Highlights include “Flamme Junelle,” “Komorebi,” and “L’envol.”

2. Mdou Moctar – Funeral for Justice

Hailing from Niger, a country that has been torn by political strife including a military coup this time last year, Moctar blends Tuareg music with western rock styles, particularly psychedelic rock and blues rock, crafting indelible guitar riffs and furious solos beneath the protest lyrics (sung in his native language, Tamasheq) that have boosted his popularity in the Sahel. I caught the last show of Moctar’s U.S. tour, at Union Transfer in Philly, and he blew the doors off the place, with incredible shredding and extended jams for several of the songs he played, including jumping into the crowd for his final guitar solo. Highlights include the title track, “Imouhar,” and “Oh France.”

1. The Libertines – All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade

I ended up flipping this with Funeral for Justice because this is by far the album I came back to the most this year; if I’m pretending to be a professional critic, I probably put Mdou Moctar first, but the fact is this was my favorite record of 2024 and nothing else was close. The likely lads came back better than ever, with a slew of intoxicating and surprisingly upbeat tracks – ”Oh Shit,” “Run Run Run,” “Shiver,” and “Night of the Hunter” – that still bear that clear Doherty/Barât sound, just with better production and less breaking and entering. That this album exists at all might itself be a wonderful gift to their fans; that it’s this good is musical miracle.

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Music update, November 2024.

November was a big month for new music, including three albums that should show up on a lot of best-of-2024 lists and several singles I didn’t anticipate from artists I love. As always, if you can’t see the widget below you can access the Spotify playlist here.

Michael Kiwanuka – Small Changes. Kiwanuka’s self-titled 2019 album was my #2 album of that year and won the Mercury Prize the following September; his follow-up, Small Changes, came out in November and represents a big stylistic shift away from the previous record’s rock/soul hybrid with a lot of guitar towards a much slower, folk-influenced, bass-heavy sound. I prefer the previous album, but Kiwanuka is such a great songwriter that I still enjoyed Small Changes even though I almost always go for more uptempo stuff.

Jorja Smith – Don’t Let Me Go/Loving You. Smith wrote these two songs over a decade ago, but just recorded and released them, with guest vocals from Maverick Sabre on the second track.

Kendrick Lamar – reincarnated. Kendrick’s new album GNX omitted his biggest hit of the year, “Not Like Us,” instead delivering a motley collection of songs that vary widely in style, tone, and tempo; it’s a mixed bag, led by this track (which Pitchfork’s review called “unlistenable”) with a fascinating call-and-response bit towards the end, “Gloria” (with SZA), and “squabble up.”

Tunde Adebimpe – Magnetic. Adebimpe is the lead singer of TV on the Radio, and will release his first solo LP at some point in 2025; this single has a lot of the energy of TVotR’s best tracks like “Wolf Like Me” and “Mercy.”

Doves – Renegade. I didn’t expect to hear anything further from Doves after a middling response to their comeback album The Universal Want and lead singer/bassist Jimi Goodwin’s mental health struggles, which led the band to cancel the end of their 2021 tour and will have him sit out their upcoming UK tour this winter. Goodwin is on this single and their upcoming album, Constellations for the Lonely, due out on Valentine’s Day.

Sam Fender – People Watching. This title track from Fender’s third album, due out on February 21st, sounds like a great new song from the Killers, and I mean that as a compliment. I’m flummoxed at the lack of attention or popularity Fender has here in the U.S.

The Lathums – Stellar Cast. The Lathums have always earned comparisons to the Arctic Monkeys, but this might be the most overt reference to their main influence yet; singer Alex Moore sounds more like Alex Turner than ever before, and the whole enterprise could have come off Favourite Worst Nightmare. Their third album, Matter Does Not Define, comes out on March 7th.

The Rills – I Don’t Wanna Be. Another band heavily influenced by the Arctic Monkeys, the Rills tend a little more towards the punk-pop side – and I can pretty easily see them getting lumped in with the ‘landfill indie’ subgenre of the late aughts and early teens. The Rills’ debut album Don’t Be a Stranger came out on November 1st; I found it a little flat overall, with this by far the best track.

Elbow – Adriana Again. I’m becoming an Elbow fan, very late in the game, as I really enjoyed their album Audio Vertigo from earlier this year, and this new single – ahead of an EP to come out in early 2025 – is a pulsing, driving banger with a tremendous hook in the chorus.

WOOZE – Good Old Fashioned Fun. WOOZE’s self-titled debut album comes out on February 14th, although it follows a slew of singles and EPs; their sound is over-the-top dance-pop with plenty of guitars underpinning it, and they’ve got a great ear for a good hook.

Courting – Pause at You. Courting’s second album New Last Name came out in January and will be on my ranking of the top albums of the year, but they’re back already with another single ahead of the release of their third album, Lust for Life, Or: How To Thread The Needle And Come Out The Other Side To Tell The Story, due out on March 14th. I love their just off-center take on indie pop, sometimes called “hyperpop,” and I find their best songs really infectiously happy.

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard – Phantom Island. King Gizzard only put out one album this year, August’s Flight b741, which is a light year for them. This track was recorded in the same sessions but didn’t make the cut; I can’t even tell you if it should have made the album because they put out so much music that I find I often don’t remember their albums or individual songs beyond maybe recalling the style they went after on a particular record.

Nice Biscuit – Desolation. This Australian psych-rock band released their sophomore album, SOS, on October 4th, with “The Rain” the best track by far and this one probably my second favorite.

Inhaler – Your House. The new album from this Irish pop/rock band, OpenWide, comes out on February 7th; I feel obligated to mention that lead singer/guitarist Elijah Hewson is Bono’s son, if only because otherwise someone would say, “hey, that guy sounds a ton like Bono.” He does, though.

Allie X – Weird World. I didn’t love Girl With No Face, the latest album from this Canadian electro-pop artist, when it came out in February, and I still don’t really – a lot of it is too deliberately weird and offputting – but on revisiting it with the release last month of the deluxe edition, I do like this opening track, which is probably the most straightforward dance/new wave track on the album.

Lucius – Take a Picture. I don’t include many covers on these lists, but I’m putting two on this month because they are so interesting. This cover of the crossover hit by Filter from 1999 is amazing, because the harmonies in the vocals take the song somewhere completely different than Richard Patrick’s flat singing.

White Denim – Connection. White Denim are fairly experimental to begin with, so their cover of Elastica’s “Connection,” which was itself so derivative of Wire’s “Three Girl Rhumba” that Wire sued and won, is anything but faithful.

Manic Street Preachers – Hiding in Plain Sight. The Manics’ 15th album, Critical Thinking, comes out on January 31st, with this the second single off the record. I’ve been listening to their biggest hit, “If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next,” quite a it in the last four weeks.

Griff – Last Night’s Mascara. This one-off single has existed in demo and live forms before, but Griff chose to record a proper studio version after getting a strong response from fans as she opened for Sabrina Carpenter on part of the latter’s U.S. tour in October. (I would argue Carpenter should be opening for Griff, but alas.)

The Weather Station – Window. This track comes off the Weather Station’s upcoming seventh album, Humanhood, and gives me a strong School of Seven Bells vibe, especially from their final record, SVIIB.

The Wombats – Blood on the Hospital Floor. This is a bit more like the core Wombats sound than the prior single, “Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come,” with more energy and wittier lyrics. Their seventh album, Oh! The Ocean, is due out February 21st. I feel like they’ve settled into a predictable groove of producing solid indie-pop tracks without really ever approaching the highs of Glitterbug.

Phantogram – Jealousy. I had no idea Phantogram had a new album coming out until Memory of a Day dropped on October 18th; it’s very much their classic sound, although by the end of the record I’d kind of lost track of individual songs. This opener is the standout, I think, although there may be some primacy bias at work here too.

Mogwai – Lion Rumpus. This isthe third single from the Scottish band’s eleventh album, The Bad Fire, due out January 24th.I’ve never really gotten Mogwai, although I concede it’s probably the kind of music that rewards repeat listening. This particular track is almost metal in its use of distortion and walls of sound.

Opeth – §6. The Last Will and Testament is Opeth’s first album in five years and their first to feature death-metal vocals since 2008, although I’d argue they’re used judiciously here, and singer Mikael Åkerfeldt has said in many interviews that he brought the growls back because they fit the lyrics. It’s a concept album about the reading of a will and the drama that ensues, and as a result highlighting individual tracks is difficult – they do blend one into another, for sure. If pressed, I’d say “§3” and “§1” are my favorites, but the whole thing is mesmerizing, and has some surprising cameos by Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson and Europe’s Joey Tempest.

Tribulation – Poison Pages. This Swedish band went from boring death metal to more traditional heavy or gothic metal with death growls to something that’s barely even metal on their new album, Sub Rosa In Æternum, which features very little of those death-metal vocals and sounds a lot more like Sisters of Mercy than any of their forebears in Swedish metal. (I’m not the only person to notice that.)

Tungsten – Falling Apart. Tungsten is a Swedish band founded by the former drummer of HammerFall along with two of his sons; this song is heavier than HammerFall’s typical throwback metal style, although the soaring vocals are there (with some screaming too). But if they’re from Sweden, shouldn’t they be called Wolfram?

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