{"id":10825,"date":"2025-06-01T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-01T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=10825"},"modified":"2025-05-31T14:27:40","modified_gmt":"2025-05-31T18:27:40","slug":"music-update-may-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/01\/music-update-may-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Music update, May 2025."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>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 Nil\u00fcfer 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\u2019t see the widget below you can <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/playlist\/3MLhw053pB787wzrtoa0j4?si=87a144cf13194c96\">access the playlist here.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-spotify wp-block-embed-spotify wp-embed-aspect-21-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Spotify Embed: Klaw&amp;apos;s May 2025 music update\" style=\"border-radius: 12px\" width=\"100%\" height=\"352\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/playlist\/3MLhw053pB787wzrtoa0j4?si=300a2feab5c24594&#038;utm_source=oembed\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Beths \u2013 Metal. <\/strong>For now, it\u2019s a one-off single from The Beths ahead of a big tour this fall \u2013 and yes, I bought a ticket \u2013 with no word of a follow-up LP to their grade-80 album <em>Expert in a Dying Field<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Suede \u2013 Disintegrate.<\/strong> Singer Brett Anderson (not the left-handed pitcher) has said Suede\u2019s upcoming record will be their most post-punk album, and this lead single clearly leans that way. It\u2019s amazing to me when a band can produce one of their best singles thirty years into their careers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Wolf Alice \u2013 Bloom Baby Bloom.<\/strong> The Mercury Prize-winning London rockers are back, with this lead single ahead of their fourth album\u2019s release on August 29<sup>th<\/sup>. The piano riff that drives this song is almost smooth-jazz, channeling Jethro Tull\u2019s \u201cBour\u00e9e\u201d 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 <em>Blue Weekend<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Obongjayar \u2013 Not In Surrender.<\/strong> Obongjayar\u2019s latest album <em>Paradise Now<\/em> is about as genre-spanning an album as you\u2019re likely to hear all year, which means it\u2019s pretty inconsistent but has some incredible high points like this pulsing Afrobeat\/rock track and the earlier single \u201cSweet Danger.\u201d I actually can\u2019t stand the collaboration with his frequent musical partner Little Simz, \u201cTalk Olympics,\u201d because \u2026 well, listen to the intro and you can probably guess why I find it so annoying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Elbow \u2013 Sober. <\/strong>Elbow is releasing a five-song EP, <em>Audio Vertigo Echo elbow EP5<\/em>, including this track and last fall\u2019s tremendous \u201cAdrianna Again,\u201d on June 6<sup>th<\/sup>; I believe this track is from the <em>Audio Vertigo <\/em>sessions, unlike the previous single, but whatever, it\u2019s all great and I think Elbow is peaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Itch \u2013 The Influencer.<\/strong> One side of a new single from this Georgia duo who\u2019d previously released just a single track, last year\u2019s \u201cUrsula,\u201d which is about one of my all-time favorite novels, Ursula K. Le Guin\u2019s <em>The Dispossessed<\/em>. This is straight-up \u201880s new wave with some goth influences \u2013 think Bauhaus, Heaven 17, mid-80s Depeche Mode \u2013 and as such couldn\u2019t be more in my wheelhouse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Peter Murphy \u2013 Hot Roy.<\/strong> \u201cCuts You Up\u201d is Murphy\u2019s peak; when I did a list of <a href=\"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2010\/03\/25\/top-200-rock-songs-of-the-1990s\/\">the best songs of the 1990s<\/a> back in (gulp) 2010, it was at #118; I might have it higher now, honestly. This is the first thing he\u2019s done in probably 20 years that recaptured even some of the glory of that song for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Sunday (1994) \u2013 Doomsday.<\/strong> It\u2019s a bad commando name, I admit, but if you like dream pop at all, especially the 1990s version, this band and their new EP <em>Devotion<\/em> are for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Indigo de Souza \u2013 Heartthrob. <\/strong>I can\u2019t figure out if I\u2019d heard de Souza\u2019s music before and didn\u2019t care for it, or if this was the first track by the Asheville singer\/songwriter I\u2019d heard. I thought it was a new song by Weakened Friends given de Souza\u2019s warbly delivery and overly earnest lyrics, but the hook won me over. Her fourth album, <em>Precipice<\/em>, comes out on July 25<sup>th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Deep Sea Diver \u2013 Emergency. <\/strong>I\u2019ve 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 \u2018er rip, as they do on this song, it\u2019s fantastic, with a great pop hook in the chorus but enough roughness around the edges to keep a more authentic, almost college-radio sound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>TURNSTILE \u2013 BIRDS.<\/strong> I\u2019m not sure what\u2019s going on with TURNSTILE; they were a great punk band, and some of that is still evident on the new record, but they\u2019ve gone well beyond that genre on this album, <em>Never Enough<\/em>, due out on June 6<sup>th<\/sup>, and the experimentation doesn\u2019t work as well as it did for the comparable record from Fontaines D.C. \u201cSEEIN\u2019 STARS\u201d is almost a pop song; \u201cLOOK OUT FOR ME\u201d 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\u2019re yelling at me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Black Honey \u2013 Insulin.<\/strong> I\u2019ve 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\u2019ve had a harder edge between their last album and this single. Their fourth album, <em>Soak<\/em>, is due out in August.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Hotline TNT \u2013 Candle.<\/strong> This noise-rock band\u2019s last single, \u201cJulia\u2019s War,\u201d was my favorite track from them to date \u2026 and this might be my second-favorite. Their third album, <em>Raspberry Moon<\/em>, comes out on June 20<sup>th<\/sup>. I actually don\u2019t like the third single, \u201cBreak Right.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jehnny Beth \u2013 Broken Rib.<\/strong> Beth was the lead singer of the short-lived post-punk band Savages, whose debut album <em>Silence Yourself<\/em> was #18 on <a href=\"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2019\/12\/18\/top-25-albums-of-the-2010s\/\">my ranking of the best albums of the 2010s<\/a>; she released a solo album in 2020, but has mostly appeared as a guest vocalist on other artists\u2019 works, and even appeared in the film <em>Anatomy of a Fall<\/em> in a significant supporting role. Her second album, <em>You Heartbreaker, You<\/em>, is due out in August, and this lead single is a welcome return to that <em>Silence Yourself<\/em> form of raging feminist post-punk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Preoccupations \u2013 Panic. <\/strong><em>Ill at Ease<\/em>, 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Siracuse \u2013 Chase the Morning. <\/strong>Kind of Oasis meets psychedelic rock, a little less Madchester-y than their 2023 song \u201cSaviour,\u201d which made <a href=\"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2023\/12\/22\/top-100-songs-of-2023\/\">my top 100 for that year<\/a>, more like the music I hoped the DMA\u2019s were going to keep making until they threw up their hands and started making electronica instead of rock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Sleigh Bells \u2013 Badly.<\/strong> Another band that seems to be good for one great song per album, although I think there\u2019s a bit of gimmickry in their lyrics and sometimes videos (\u201cComeback Kid\u201d) that I think takes away from the music. This isn\u2019t quite up to \u201cRill Rill\u201d or \u201cTrue Seekers\u201d but it\u2019s in my top 5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>We Are Scientists \u2013 Please Don\u2019t Say It. <\/strong>This song sounds like someone merged Sparks with a math-rock band, so it\u2019s catchy but also has this intensity that I find grabs me early in the track and doesn\u2019t let up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Supernaturals \u2013 Don\u2019t let the past catch up with you. <\/strong>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, <em>Show Tunes<\/em>, coming out in May. I was and still am a big fan of Britpop\u2019s original era, but I\u2019d never heard of these guys until this record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Sports Team \u2013 Boys These Days.<\/strong> The title track from their follow-up to the tremendous <em>Gulp!<\/em> is a good indicator of their downshift in style; the record has plenty of solid tracks but doesn\u2019t hit as hard as the last record did, still playful and snarky, just lacking the huge hooks this time around. I also liked \u201cBonnie\u201d and \u201cBang Bang Bang.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Head and the Heart \u2013 After the Setting Sun. <\/strong>I like when they stomp. That\u2019s really it \u2013 when their songs build to a big stompin\u2019 finish, like \u201cShake\u201d does, I\u2019m in. This one does that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Minus 5 \u2013 Let the Rope Hold, Cassie Lee.<\/strong> 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 <a href=\"https:\/\/baseballproject.net\/\">touring together this September<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Peter Doherty \u2013 Felt Better Alive.<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Natalie Bergman \u2013 Gunslinger.<\/strong> 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, <em>My Home Is Not in This World<\/em>, 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\u2019s the late Anne Heche\u2019s niece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Ty Segall \u2013 Possession.<\/strong> When Segall\u2019s good, he\u2019s very good \u2013 he crafts some really great rhythm-guitar hooks. He\u2019s good for about one of them an album, which I guess is better than some artists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Ezra Furman \u2013 Power of the Moon. <\/strong>Never been a fan of Furman\u2019s music but this song is the best of hers I\u2019ve heard, reminding me a lot of the Waterboys; I need to listen to the full abum, <em>Goodbye Small Head<\/em>, which came out on May 16<sup>th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Blondshell \u2013 Thumbtack.<\/strong> As I feared, \u201cTwo Times\u201d turned out to be far and away the best song on Blondshell\u2019s new album <em>If You Asked for a Picture<\/em>, and the album overall is a mixed bag. Sabrina Teitelbaum\u2019s earnest lyrics and delivery wear pretty thin for me, unfortunately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Shamir \u2013 I Love My Friends.<\/strong> Almost every Shamir song leaves me wondering why I don\u2019t like his music more, but more often than not there\u2019s just one thing that turns me off a song. This is the best track from his latest album, <em>Ten<\/em>, and an example of how good he can be when everything clicks \u2026 if you can live with his creaky delivery on the verses that belies his strong singing voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Wu-Tang &amp; Mathematics \u2013 Mandingo.<\/strong> I suppose it\u2019s a matter of semantics whether <em>Black Samson, the Bastard Swordsman<\/em> 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\u2019s also pretty old-school, not exactly <em>36 Chambers<\/em> level but in with similar music and, of course, a lot of snippets from kung fu movies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Kae Tempest \u2013 Know Yourself. <\/strong>I still think of Tempest\u2019s 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\u2019t think this is his strongest work lyrically \u2013 \u201cI Saw Light\u201d remains his best in my opinion \u2013 but it\u2019s one of the best backing tracks he\u2019s used to date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Tune-Yards \u2013 How Big is the Rainbow. <\/strong>I used to hate \u201cWater Fountain,\u201d which I think is probably still Tune-Yards\u2019 biggest hit, but it\u2019s grown on me over time, probably because I\u2019ve just become more open-minded about music that veers from what\u2019s expected. Anyway, Tune-Yards\u2019 latest album <em>Better Dreaming<\/em> dropped in May and I completely agree with <em>Pitchfork<\/em>\u2019s comment that it\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/pitchfork.com\/reviews\/albums\/tune-yards-better-dreaming\/\">their most melodic and accessible album<\/a> to date. It\u2019s almost poppy, at least within their typical framework of drum loops and globally-inspired beats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Steve Queralt feat. Verity Susman \u2013 Messengers.<\/strong> 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\u2019d listen to while high, and I mean that in a good way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>deary \u2013 I Still Think About You.<\/strong> This dreampop duo has a couple of EPs under its belt, but this song, which reminds me a ton of early Lush (pre-\u201cLadykillers\u201d), was my first exposure to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Nation of Language \u2013 Inept Apollo.<\/strong> This track is the new wave\/synthpop trio\u2019s 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\u2019s <em>Strange Disciple<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>SENSES \u2013 Already Part of the Problem.<\/strong> I liked this Coventry-based quartet\u2019s atmospheric rock track \u201cDrifting\u201d a couple of years ago; this one has a bit more energy and some more prominent synths, reminiscent of 1990s college radio rock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Chameleons \u2013 Saviours Are a Dangerous Thing.<\/strong> 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\u2019re set to release their first new LP in 24 years, <em>Arctic Moon<\/em>, on September 12<sup>th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jorja Smith \u2013 The Way I Love You. <\/strong>Idon\u2019t love the frenzied techno beat behind Smith\u2019s vocals, but I love her voice enough that I put the song on here anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>James BKS \u2013 Assia. <\/strong>TheFrench-Cameroonian musician\/producer and son of legendary Afrofunk saxophonist Manu Dibango released his latest EP <em>See Us Rise<\/em> last month, including this midtempo, lite-jazzy number.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Suzanne Vega \u2013 Witch.<\/strong> I\u2019ve never been a huge fan of Vega\u2019s and this is the first song of hers I\u2019ve put on a playlist, although that\u2019s probably because <em>Flying with Angels <\/em>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\u2019t totally associate with her, although she certainly has flashed that in her career (including on my favorite song of hers, \u201cBlood Makes Noise,\u201d covered <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=5S-fmGg0rz0\">surprisingly well<\/a> by British thrashers Acid Reign).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Budos Band \u2013 Overlander.<\/strong> So I\u2019d never heard of the Budos Band until now, even though <em>VII<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Pelican \u2013 Cascading Crescent.<\/strong> How have I not heard of Pelican before? It\u2019s mostly instrumental doom and sludge metal, and it\u2019s awesome. This is one of several great tracks on their latest album <em>Flickering Resonance<\/em>. There is just too much music out there, dammit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Witchcraft \u2013 Idag.<\/strong> The title track from this longstanding Swedish doom metal band\u2019s latest album, their first rock album in nine years, is also its strongest, although the tempo is a little faster than typical doom \u2013 and that\u2019s 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 (\u201cBurning Cross\u201d), but there\u2019s some fantastic riffing across most of the LP.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 Nil\u00fcfer 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, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1433,359,1473,609,167,757,852],"class_list":["post-10825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-2025-in-music","tag-alternative","tag-doom","tag-hip-hop","tag-indie","tag-metal","tag-music","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10825"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10826,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10825\/revisions\/10826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}