Things are looking different around here these days. Not long ago, Stereogum moved to a new platform and a revamped membership system – changes that had to be made in a landscape where Google AI is choking the revenue out of small, independent websites like ours. The music world is also looking different. AI is threatening to replace everything over there, too. Artists from abroad are having a harder time touring the US. The mere act of using Spotify requires a certain level of moral calculus. Things are bleak, except where they are not. It’s pretty hard to stay pessimistic when you hear some of the actual music that came out in 2025.
Some things don’t change. Stereogum is still here, and we are still dedicated to tracking and highlighting the best, most exciting, most interesting music that we can find. And this year, there was a whole lot of that. People fretted about the health of individual genres – rap, hardcore, metal, pop itself – but many of 2025’s best albums twisted those genres up into unrecognizable new shapes, then lit them on fire. Genres and subcultures matter, but they can’t always contain the boundless human creativity out there.
Last year our year-end lists were dominated by a few pops stars who used their lofty positions to make exciting, personal statements. That was still happening in 2025, but motion was also coming from cult stars who pushed their sounds in strange, unexplored new directions. It also came from homespun, auteurist underground innovators with their own stylistic quirks, from underground institutions who haven’t run out of new ideas, and from legendary names who came back with some of their strongest work in years. Against odds, this also turned out to be a great year for rock ‘n’ roll music, any old way you choose it. When was the last time we had one of those?
Below, you’ll find a list of the 50 best albums of 2025, as selected by Stereogum staff and contributors. We’re just one small group of people, and these records are our favorites. You will doubtless disagree with some of our picks, but you might also discover a few great records that you haven’t heard yet, or maybe a few that you like better than you realized. We’ve also compiled some of our favorite tracks from these records into a playlist that you can sample at your leisure. Enjoy, and thanks for hanging out with us this year. —Tom Breihan
50
Behold, the country-fried slowcore album of your dreams! On God’s Gonna Give You A Million Dollars, Shallowater conjure the tumbleweed-strewn environs of their West Texas homeland in the form of patiently creeping pensive twang, but from time to time the gad-dang thing explodes like an improperly lit propane tank. The vibes are too dour to be described as immaculate, but you can just bask in this thing until it blows you away. —Chris DeVille
49
Armed with chorus pedals, gated drums, and a mood board that simply read “The Eighties,” the Italian band Messa made their masterpiece. The Spin isn’t great because it successfully emulates familiar sounds but because it finds Messa making those sounds their own. There’s bouncy post-punk, smoldering power balladry, and noirish dark jazz here to augment the fundamentally doom metal core, but it’s all processed through the singular machine that is Messa — four generationally talented musicians whose symbiotic closeness you can hear in every note. —Brad Sanders
48
Who asked for any of this? When did survival, rather than existence, become the norm? Why are we competing against ourselves? Again, did any of us ask for this? Cuntry is an enrapturing exploration of these questions that continue to multiply tenfold. “Who gets to go and spike up my rent? Who gets to tell me settle for less? I like to pop my shit and make bread,” Cleo Reed sings on the trippy dream-folk of “Da Da Da.” On Cuntry, the New York multidisciplinary artist speaks to the exhaustion that most of us feel every day, especially those of marginalized groups that carry the brunt of exploitation, violence, and constraining definitions. The album is rooted in awareness and resilience, but its true shining innovation is Reed’s ability to move through this exhaustion defiant but elastic. —Margaret Farrell
47
Let’s quit the pejorative “performative” — are we not all constantly trying to communicate something about ourselves to the outside world? Cosplay, the third album from the British sample-loving pop-rockers Sorry, is a particularly fitting album for an era where oversharing has never been more tempting and surveillance has never been more omnipresent. Witty and whimsical in its reappropriations of pop culture relics, yet bubbling with foreboding anxiety underneath, Cosplay laces its off-kilter hooks with introspections on identity: “I wanna move like that but I only seem to move like this,” Asha Lorenz murmurs on the groovy closer “Jive,” and you can tell that those sentiments extend far beyond the dance floor. Cosplay seems to argue that authenticity and performance aren’t inherently at odds with each other; maybe we learn most about ourselves where the two intersect. —Abby Jones
46
Ryan Davis has been in the game for years, but with New Threats From The Soul, he became the new sheriff in our hearts’ wild west. On his breakthrough album, the Louisville singer-songwriter and label head unlocks a new tier of sidelong wisdom, boiling down the country greats of old and the indie rock poets of not-quite-as-old into drawling baritone epiphanies. It’s playful in many ways, from lyrics like “The doorbell doesn’t work, but it don’t need to if the Rottweiler’s home” to the drum ‘n’ bass fiddle break that manifests in the same song, somehow making perfect sense. —Chris DeVille
45
Even though Dev Hynes’ music as Blood Orange has always felt conceptually tied to a place — New York, Sierra Leone, London — it continues to feel untethered. In so many ways, Hynes’ albums deal with grief and the memories, or lack of them, that are tied to a particular space. Essex Honey sounds like an endless scaffolding, maneuvering this grief in addition to processing his mother’s passing. Through dynamic compositional shifts and an endless roster of talented collaborators, Hynes continues to restructure his personal experience with loss. Essex Honey is a powerful and potent listen — graceful and haunted like time itself. —Margaret Farrell
44
Twigs, a dancer from the beginning, has always made music as a vehicle for dance; on EUSEXUA, she makes that literal. Twigs, Koreless, and a few other co-producers in absolute peak form traverse the last few decades of vocal club music, curating them for maximum evocative potential and flow state. Then, they amplify those tracks’ latent charge undereath Twigs’ receptive, sexualizing (ahem, eu-sexualizing) gaze. Like every “ethereal chillout” compilation ever recorded, melted down, and transmuted into gleaming dancefloor walls, and made to throb. —Katherine St. Asaph
43
Do we need more big-deal dance albums inspired by Joan Didion books? Apparently we do. A Tropical Entropy takes its title from a phrase in Didion’s Miami. It’s not a concept record or anything, but it feels rooted in geographic space, even as Miami producer Nick Léon brings in global guests – Erika de Casier from Denmark, Ela Minus from Colombia. In its tasteful swirl of house and reggaeton, A Tropical Entropy hits with the effortless precision of Didion’s prose. —Tom Breihan
42
After writing and recording his first two Hotline TNT albums almost exclusively on his own, Will Anderson decided it was time to go bigger. Raspberry Moon is the first Hotline TNT album made as a full band, and that added personnel is evident in the record’s heavy-hitting blend of power-pop and shoegaze. Amid all the fuzz, however, Anderson’s vocals still come out on top as he recounts the highs and lows of being newly in love. It’s a massive-sounding album for overwhelming emotions, with plenty of catchy melodies to help shake out the nerves. —Abby Jones
41
Arguably the most mosh pit-friendly rap record of 2025, Che’s Rest In Bass combines thick puddles of distorted bass with staggered synth lines, with the resulting music sounding like Members Only Vol 3 and 10,000 Gecs just had a baby. Breathing fresh life into rage rap, this 19-year-old agent of chaos from Atlanta stands out due to the way he simultaneously looks directly into the abyss, pondering whether a lifestyle snorting Ketamine might result in his premature death (“On Fleek”), while also displaying the kind of unhinged confidence that suggests failure is impossible (“She wouldn’t have sex with you, you pip-squeak” is the hilarious brag that lights up “DIOR LEOPARD”). This dichotomy mirrors the frustrations of Gen Z itself, which can’t work out whether the world wants it to disappear or to soar. —Thomas Hobbs
40
The best shoegaze bands understand that shoegaze isn’t just an aesthetic filter — it’s an artistic framework. With come back down, Total Wife treat shoegaze like a circuit board, rewiring its inputs with dank hardcore techno pulses and glitchy drum ‘n’ bass skitters. The Nashville duo isn’t merely tossing in a synth here and a drum break there. Rife with screwy details, these songs supercharge the genre’s spatialized expanse, running the gamut from cyborgian hellaciousness (“naoisa”) to noise-pop divination (“make it last”). —Eli Enis
39
Tyler, The Creator released Don’t Tap The Glass almost as an afterthought – a brief mid-tour curio with few big-name collaborations and an even sillier visual aesthetic than most of his records. Maybe that’s why it’s so much fun. Don’t Tap The Glass is a giddy blast of ’80s funk bass-squelches, Crime Mob samples, falsetto whoops, and nasty lyrical flexes. It combines the sonic scope of Tyler’s recent work with the dizzy energy of the stuff he made as a kid, and it ends with a shockingly beautiful cascade of melody. —Tom Breihan
38
There’s little you can do to prepare for the zigs and zags of Under Tangled Silence. It’s a perpetually molting record, rapidly developing and shedding motifs, rarely repeating phrases, and ricocheting between styles. Felix Manuel deftly chauffeurs us through all manner of club music, from ratcheting jungle to bruising techno to deafening gabber, taking detours through patches of spiritual jazz and contemporary classical. Manuel plays piano, harp, mbira, and programmed percussion with such dexterity that it’s hard to determine what’s MIDI data and what’s superhuman chops. Under Tangled Silence is completely entrancing and hypnotic, yet not anodyne, perhaps the most satisfying active-listening experience of the year. —Dash Lewis
37
When so much confessional, folk-leaning indie feels hypercurated, Blurrr is a breath of fresh air. Painter, poet, and experimental musician Joanne Robertson’s songs emerge in fits and starts, with improvisation a central practice throughout. Whether Robertson is cycling through a guitar phrase, putting phrases from her poetry to song, or meditating on an otherwise quotidian experience in her life as a Glasgow-based artist and parent, each song and feeling comes across as entirely organic. Cellist Oliver Coates’ flourishes add a touch of the sublime to Robertson’s unrushed haze. —Devon Chodzin
36
It’s such a joy to hear those Crutchfield harmonies again. Twins Katie and Allison have let their individual voices bloom in the time since P.S. Eliot’s disbandment — in Waxahatchee and Swearin’, respectively, among other projects — but that only makes their first record together in almost 15 years sing all the sweeter, their distinctness never lost in the intertwining. There’s more rearview reflection here than in P.S. Eliot, and the Crutchfields’ voices carry a bit more age, both in timbre and in posture. But it’s as breezy and buoyant as reignited collaboration can be; their mutual exhilaration is palpable. Backed by bandmates MJ Lenderman and Brad Cook, when the sisters sing, “I was younger once/ I’m holding on,” in tandem, the unspoken history seeps through the sentiment — so many years may pass, but their voices can still find their way back to each other, and they can bolster one another once again. —Natalie Marlin
35
For his greatest album yet, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio delved deeper than ever into his Puerto Rican heritage, brilliantly blending the island’s traditional music with the modern urbano sounds he built his career upon. DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS translates to I Should Have Taken More Photos, yet the album plays like a scrapbook full of memories, some of them blurry enough to be dreams, some so crystal clear you feel like the Super Bowl Halftime Show headliner has ushered you through a portal into his world. —Chris DeVille
34
On the surface, noise-metal ringleaders Chat Pile and art-folk musician Hayden Pedigo’s only shared trait is that they all live in Oklahoma City. But on In The Earth Again — not a split EP, not a list of features, but a truly collaborative album front-to-back — the two acts find a cohesive middle ground in this brutally dystopian guitar music, with Pedigo’s fingerpicking contrasting Raygun Busch’s seared vocals. The result almost feels like a southern gothic novel: devastating, vast, yet oddly warm all the same. —Abby Jones
33
It’s not a front. It’s not for style. Scarab really are this maladaptively angry, and that’s why it works. That’s why Burn After Listening is so wrathfully tantalizing. As hardcore’s upper echelon becomes more smoothed-over, Scarab’s debut LP revels in craggy contradictions. Primal ferocity doesn’t have to come at the expense of vein-popping refrains (“Ten Foot Shadow”). Articulation can coexist with unrestrained animus (“Animal In Pain”). D-beat songs can be improved with mosh parts (“Everybody in the Way”). As Scarab’s temper burns, hardcore heals. —Eli Enis
32
Hayley Williams, upon releasing her first independent album, couldn’t be in a better spot: enjoying hard-earned maturity and cred as a musician, admired by thousands of artists making unabashedly Paramore-indebted pop-rock. But she never disowned the emo strengths that made her a millennial icon, and as an adult, they serve her even better. She takes songs another artist might render mundane, then tears into the melodies and blows out the vocals like she’s still on a Warped Tour stage. And her songwriter’s voice, which always went to bitterly funny places her peers were too self-conscious to explore, is in peak form here — from the instant-classic title track itemizing the many sad venues of the precariously famous, to turning that Bloodhound Gang song that half her middle-schooler cohort can quote on command into something genuinely bitter. —Katherine St. Asaph
31
After all these years, Deftones still have the juice. The propulsive “my mind is a mountain” introduces us to a high-energy alt-rock masterpiece abounding with grungy anthems that are as catchy as they are acidic. “infinite source” is the most infectious of all, echoing the sound of early 2000s emo hits without the corniness. The finale “departing the body” serves as the perfect broody rock ballad to end on. —Danielle Chelosky
30
Brittney Parks’ jagged, folksy violin was her primary weapon of choice on her first two albums, Athena and Natural Brown Prom Queen. When it pops up periodically in the retrofuturistic techno pop landscape of The BPM, it feels like running into a beloved old friend on the dancefloor at a party and screaming one another’s names over the booming bass. Parks is chameleonic and charismatic as ever, still joyously herself in every persona she adopts and comfortable in the chaos. —Grace Robins-Somerville
29
Ableton gurus Purelink never meant to hit the big time. The Brooklyn-via-Chicago trio of Akeem Asani, Ben Paulson, and Tommy Paslaski emerged with a shimmery strain of dub techno in 2021. Issued by Los Angeles glitch label Peak Oil, Purelink’s third full-length, Faith, thrust the band into the international festival circuit. Echoing chord stabs mingle with melted pads, as well as vocal contributions from Loraine James and Angelina Nonaj. It is a fathomless response to an anxious era. —Ted Davis
28
Ian Shelton delivers the best “ooh ooh” of his life on Militarie Gun’s “Kick” intro; it arrives just before the waves of hyper-processed guitars, programmed drums, and multi-tracked vocals. Shelton’s trademark “ooh ooh” exhortation is a catchphrase, but it keeps Militarie Gun anchored in the basement. A few short years after debuting as a powerviolence drummer’s pandemic side project, Militarie Gun have evolved into an adventurous young alt-rock institution with hooks for days. The songs on God Bless The Gun are catchy, diverse, and expertly made, but their primal gorilla-grunt force is still intact. —Tom Breihan
27
“You are now a witness to something great.” 2hollis opens his fourth album star with this promise in the volatile prelude, which gives way to “flash,” a clubby anthem that magically encapsulates the thrill of a sweaty, rowdy crowd. Over the course of the 15 songs, the 21-year-old blends hyperpop, EDM, and rage rap, supplying endlessly catchy hooks, shattering beats, intense atmospheres, and never-ending energy. He proves that he’s not just a musician — he’s a force. —Danielle Chelosky
26
It’s been a long time since Deafheaven released an album as universally well-received as Lonely People With Power. Take the site you’re reading now: the scorching New Bermuda cracked Stereogum’s top 10 back in 2015, but 2018’s Ordinary Corrupt Human Love and 2021’s nearly metal-free provocation Infinite Granite missed the top 50 altogether. The blackgaze pioneers return to this list with an album that revisits New Bermuda‘s heavier-than-hell metallic edge but sounds comfortable pushing beyond it. Some of Deafheaven’s most purely metal songs are on Lonely People With Power, but the album’s deviations, both harsher (“Incidental II”) and airier (“Heathen”), are just as compelling. —Brad Sanders
25
Like the fever of a panic attack at the club smudging into an abstracted nightmare void, the tangible repulsion and fear of hexed! is as discomfiting as it is hard to shake. Where the London experimental producer’s debut im hole skulked in haunting negative space, aya’s vocals slipping in and out of apparitional presence, hexed! almost immediately explodes like a shrapnel burst of distressed screams, vein-throbbing bass, and squelching alien instrumentation. aya’s compositions are dense with multiplicities — acid house pivots like jumpscares, wordplay heavy on obfuscated homophones, and lyricism that keeps addiction and witchcraft and chilled affection as conjoined bedfellows. And when her voice does yield into rare whispers or absences, it’s as if you feel all the air and light sucked out of the room — just as breathless, suffocation by inversion. —Natalie Marlin
24
While Momma’s last album, 2022’s excellent Household Name, felt like a rock-star fantasy sequence, Welcome To My Blue Sky feels like a blurry summer in the city: late nights, cigarettes, intoxicating crushes, gloriously doomed romantic entanglements. They’re still the best doing the 120 Minutes revivalism (although they’ve maybe been listening to some more Deftones this time around) and as always, their choruses are world-class — try to stop singing “I Want You (Fever)” or “Stay All Summer.” —Spencer Hughes
23
About every four years, Lorde checks in to let us know where she’s at, and it’s usually a step ahead of the rest of us. Her debut, Pure Heroine, spun teen angst into gothic pop gold; Melodrama turned the dancefloor into a battlefield with maximalist synth-soundtracked heartbreak; Solar Power foretold and satirized an era of self-help songwriting. This year’s Virgin is unflinchingly direct, skeletal and unvarnished in its presentation. After mastering indulgence, Lorde proves herself equally compelling in her feats of restraint. —Grace Robins-Somerville
22
What’s romance without stakes? Nourished By Time’s Marcus Brown knows that passion requires both. The Passionate Ones lives in extremes: insanity, cults, bomb threats at the mall. His heart isn’t an abstract concept but a beating “organ”; his love letters are laced with talk of overthrowing masters and transcending mediocrity. There’s a kind of ecstatic resignation even in his lyrics about losing his mind, set to rippling synths: Love anyway! they declare. It’s what we’re hardwired for. —Arielle Gordon
21
Following her Little Mix chapter, That’s Showbiz Baby is Jade Thirlwall’s odyssey through the wide world of entertainment, forging stardom into something that would make her inner child proud. Her solo debut reads like a master’s thesis in pop music, including all the thorny facets we love or hunger for in the shape-shifting ouroboros: the bedazzled, bratty spectacle witnessed on “IT girl” and “FUFN (Fuck You For Now),” followed by the hairline cracks that reveal the human underneath the gloss. The vulnerable, jealous plea of the sleek “Plastic Box” gives way to self-destructive demons wreaking havoc in “Self Saboteur” and “Natural At Disaster,” reminding us that a star’s downfall is just as thrilling as its rise. JADE acts as a powerful ringleader with a heavy arsenal of camp and a dash of disco glitter, serving well-deserved jabs at an exploitative industry, while also packing in tributes to her diva predecessors. —Margaret Farrell
20
From the moment the blast-beat noise-pop chorus breaks out in the middle of the shrill opening track “My Garden,” it’s clear The Spiritual Sound will be full of delightful surprises. Agriculture are not shy about discussing their inspirations, and unlike some deeply cultured metal bands, the breadth of their influences is apparent in their music’s every twist and turn. Yet for all their hipster-friendly pivots into folk and shoegaze, they don’t forget to wallop you, to absolutely shred, to deliver the kind of horn-raising, head-banging thrills that were driving listeners to ecstasy long before “ecstatic black metal” became a snappy tagline. —Chris DeVille
19
No Water From Your Eyes song sounds quite like the others; singles from It’s A Beautiful Place included a gnarly tangle of math-rock and surf-rock on “Life Signs,” pulse-pounding keyboard-driven electronica on “Playing Classics,” and whatever you call the beautiful chaos of “Nights In Armor.” Yet thanks to the peculiar convergence of Rachel Brown and Nate Amos, every one of this band’s uncut gems boasts the same unmistakable imprint. The titular phrase refers to somewhere imaginary, but thanks to a pair of genius weirdos, this wildly inventive album exists in real life. —Chris DeVille
18
On 2021’s Glow On, Turnstile threw sonic curveballs seldom heard from a band still described as hardcore, setting the bar sky high for a follow-up. Never Enough easily cleared it, underscoring the Baltimoreans belief that boundaries are for suckers. The unorthodox elements, from trumpet flourishes to shimmering soundscapes, now feel even more integrated and natural. Why wouldn’t the rip snorting “Sunshower” slam on its brakes two minutes in for a Shabaka Hutchings flute-dappled coda? Ditto centerpiece “Look Out For Me,” a piledriver that ends in gorgeous atmospherics, with Brendan Yates soaring like Synchronicity-era Sting? And then there’s “I Care,” such an irresistible, bouncing gem that it can still be heard on BBC Radio 1 next to Olivia Dean and Sabrina Carpenter. As Bill Hader’s Stefon might say on an old SNL Weekend Update: “Turnstile’s Never Enough has it ALL!” This is the rare hardcore band that probably wouldn’t mind that image. —John Norris
17
The string of singles leading up to Addison Rae’s debut full-length were jarringly promising. “Diet Pepsi” was peak pop sweetness; “High Fashion” was a sleek ode to a chic lifestyle; “Headphones On” was addictive trip-hop beauty. Yet these enticing previews weren’t even the best part of the record. The Lana Del Rey-indebted “Summer Forever” captures the feeling of being young and invincible, and “Money Is Forever” is the playfully greedy anthem of a true superstar. —Danielle Chelosky
16
On her spectacular debut, Ninajirachi does more than pay homage to the 2010s EDM boom; she transports us back to a time when the internet’s possibilities felt more exciting than threatening, when bedroom boredom and the cool glow of the computer screen brought you closer to the real world without pretending to replicate it. I Love My Computer is sort of a zillenial coming-of-age story, dealing with thirst trap woes (“Delete”) and the punk potential of computer access and becoming an artist (“Sing Good”). The Australian’s approach to music is playful, relentless, and vulnerable. It sounds like ripped jeans, spilled cans of Red Bull, endless clouds of vape smoke in a dark musky room; like ecstasy and holding a secret; like coming alive with a computer, feeling seen and human because of it. You’ll believe her when she buzzes, “Anything is possible with fingers, eyes, a mouse, and a screen.” —Margaret Farrell
15
If that cover art wasn’t clear, Jane Remover is a firestarter. The box-resistant electronic virtuoso says they never want to make the same album twice, and the ferocious Revengeseekerz upended the hothouse shoegaze of 2023’s Census Designated in exhilarating fashion. Inspired by Uma Thurman’s Bride in Jane’s favorite film Kill Bill, Revengeseekerz takes no prisoners and swings wildly at all comers. “I can’t let these bitches win,” they declare on the glitchy, noisy “angels in camo”; blown-out stomper “Experimental Skin” wants to “blow the city up”; “TURN UP OR DIE” unloads everything but the kitchen sink; and the irrepressible Danny Brown brings the mental on the relentless “Psychoboost.” What a fearless, funny, long-on-talent, short-on-fucks wonder we have in Jane Remover. I can’t wait to see what they cook up next. —John Norris
14
Los Thuthanaka feels like a panoramic declaration. The siblings Chuquimamani-Condori and Joshua Chuquimia Crampton have been brilliant known quantities to digital crate-diggers for some time, but their first proper collaborative album as Los Thuthanaka is a maze of shredded, voluminous movements that wallop with emotion. They have a queer Aymara Midas touch; with every progressive beat, DJ tag, and rhythmic concoction, they exude an infectious pride and immediacy that commands your full attention and undying respect. —Devon Chodzin
13
An eight-piece rock band like caroline could make music that’s persistently explosive and overpowering, but that’d just be too easy. Instead, on their sophomore album, the London collective makes thoughtfully layered post-rock that gently commands your attention. You won’t find much in the way of verse-chorus-verse structures here, but the stunning, push-pull arrangements of caroline 2 effortlessly reel you in to its path, however meandering. —Abby Jones
12
After years of hiding her identity and reluctantly embracing fame, this was the year PinkPantheress fully leaned into pop superstardom, popping up everywhere from Glastonbury to Saturday Night Live. The irreverent British artist’s most accessible project yet — and ostensibly a mixtape — Fancy That is a candyfloss gumbo of pop, house, R&B, jungle, rap, and DnB textures, with each song hitting that endearing sweet spot between sexy smooth and wink-wink goofy. From turning awkward drug dealer interactions into bops (“Illegal”) to flipping Basement Jaxx bangers while cheekily boasting about working through lust in a car during a drive-in movie (“Girl Like Me”), every song here is irresistibly fun. Aside from all the slinky vocals, which hit like a combination of Nintendo’s Kirby and the Spice Girls’ Baby Spice, what’s most impressive is how effortlessly PinkPantheress flips so many conflicting genre traits into such a cohesive whole. You sense this will be the spark for even bigger things for Pink, as both a pop star and a dynamic producer. —Thomas Hobbs
11
james K has spent over a decade clubbing between Brooklyn and Berlin. Following a slew of experimental shoegaze releases, Friend finds her on the brink of pop stardom. It is platformed by London powerhouse AD 93, and her seraphic voice disintegrates into blunted strums and trip-hop grooves. Aided by contributions from Priori, Patrick Holland, ex-terrestrial, Ben Bondy, Special Guest DJ, and Hank Jackson, Friend is coated in gauze. This love letter to a rave community plays more like Cocteau Twins than Coki. —Ted Davis
10
Greg Freeman’s 2022 debut I Looked Out was an impeccable start, so it’s no surprise its followup Burnover was a masterpiece. The Vermont musician is an alt-country expert and a real poet, and his voice’s resemblance to that of the late Jason Molina is startling every time. Pedal steel, Wurlitzer, tambourine, trumpet, organ, and more instruments surround Freeman’s scrappy narrations and create absorbing scenes that feel like the remnants of a bygone era. —Danielle Chelosky
9
In the same year that he lent his swag to Justins Bieber and Vernon and convincingly portrayed Leonardo DiCaprio’s horny old revolutionary buddy, young R&B explorer Dijon Duendas constructed his own skitter-splatter lo-fi helium-funk opus, seemingly out of spare parts. On Baby, Dijon sings about love and fatherhood and ascendance over a playfully glitched-out soundworld that sounds like what might’ve happened if Prince fronted Pavement. It’s pure, sincere chaos, and it’s beautiful. —Tom Breihan
8
TAGABOW know how to make a guitar riff sound like a tidal wave. This is enhanced on the Philly shoegaze crew’s new album LOTTO, whose opener “the chase” crashes with dark immediacy. That evil sound contrasts sharply with the lighter textures — like on the vibrant “slo crostic” and the laid-back “american food” — to make up a sweeping record saturated with sonic and emotional turbulence. —Danielle Chelosky
7
Some theorists argue that for a story to be classified as “horror,” it must have a monster. Most would say that it should be supernatural — a ghost, a killer creature, the Devil in its many forms — but on GOLLIWOG, billy woods argues that the monster is humanity itself. We turn fundamental rights into commodities, we arbitrarily decide who among us is worthy of a decent life, we stab trusted comrades in the back when the opportunity is ripe, we drop bombs on entire populations over imaginary borders. GOLLIWOG, yet another masterpiece in a discography full of them, doesn’t need to invent monsters to present a vision of terror. It simply holds up a mirror and demands we make eye contact. —Dash Lewis
6
It seems like no one wants to party anymore. Gallup reported that Gen Z is drinking less; The Guardian declared them “generation stay-at-home.” On Big city life, Smerz teach us how to go out again: “IQ low and shoe heels high”; network on the dance floor; be unexpectedly sentimental. Catharina Stoltenberg and Henriette Motzfeldt are rave mothers on “Feisty” and motivational speakers on “Roll The Dice,” but never at the risk of losing their cool: Real party girls never dominate the mix. —Arielle Gordon
5
On the fourth album by his alt-country outfit Friendship, Dan Wriggins sounds weary. It’s in his voice, a gruff yet thin warble, usually taking the form of a resigned sigh and occasionally stretching into a pained cry. “Never have I seen the stars so boring,” he moans on “Hollow Skulls.” But these Philly-dwellers know well that there’s deep love and poetry in the city even as it tries to eat you alive. Caveman Wakes Up is music for resting your head on the bus window, trying not to fall asleep and miss your stop. —Spencer Hughes
4
Rosalía always goes big, and on LUX, her experimental orchestral-pop symphony to God, she reaches a new peak of grandiosity. The 13 languages, the umpteen prestige guest stars, and the seemingly infinite scope of her ambition add up to a statement album that feels like ancient history collapsing in on a cutting-edge present. Yet for all the pomp and circumstance in this elegant, impassioned, high-concept music, the album’s coup de grâce is Rosalía’s vocal performance, the kind of bravura display that inspires awe at the human capacity for beauty. —Chris DeVille
3
choke enough is a waking dream, mutating from spiraling synth pop to clubby trance hypnosis to gummy hyperpop like smoke slipping through your fingers. Oklou’s lulling, magnetic pop distracts from the harsh realities that blare in the background. There are sirens and natural disasters and surveillance paranoia and existential crises, but the stress of it all becomes a blur. Memories burn away at the edges, but focal points remain to orient us in a mist of spritely cadences. Playful melodies flutter, and Marylou Mayniel’s wispy vocals pied-piper us out of the overstimulation of modern life. “Forces I can’t see/ Speak louder than me,” she coos on “Obvious.” She’s aware of all she can’t control without letting herself dissolve into the static — a lesson we need to hold close in this grating world. —Margaret Farrell
2
Karly Hartzman has said that Carolina Girl was one of the working titles for her band Wednesday’s latest album, and it’s obvious why. Beyond the mentions of cicadas and bonfire parties and pickled eggs, these songs — spanning from rip-roaring slacker rock (“Wound Up Here (By Holdin’ On)”) to faithful bluegrass (“Gary’s II”) to searing hardcore punk (“Wasp”) — personify North Carolina with a nuance that could only be conveyed by someone as deeply infatuated with the state as this lifelong resident. Still, Bleeds is the more appropriate title; Hartzman’s lyrics are spellbound by the grotesque, charmed by misfortune, empathetic to the broken. North Carolina might be the album’s main character, but Hartzman’s the author, and it’s a treat to hear her bare it all. —Abby Jones
1
Magic is real, and we know this because science could never replicate the process that gave us Getting Killed. A bunch of talented Brooklyn teenagers emerge from the pandemic with a promising psychedelic post-punk sound. They make some noise, and they make some more after their frontman releases a cult-beloved singer-songwriter solo record. Just as the noise starts to crest, they link up with an underground rap producer who’s trying to figure out what to do next. Together, they make a towering edifice of marbled absurdist non-sequiturs, rubbery jitter-scratch guitars, sideways slop-funk rhythms, jagged screams, and occasional moments of overwhelming beauty. It’s bigger than the sum of its parts, and it actually catches on, capturing the internet’s imagination in ways that rock ‘n’ roll records rarely do in our corroded age.
Getting Killed is a wonder, an unpredictable and passionate and dangerous piece of guitar music that resists algorithmic tyranny through the sheer strength of all-elbows human personality. As the tech-lords and their robots work overtime to make our lives less interesting, the best antidote seems to be a serious, handsome, floppy-haired young man wailing that he’ll only pay his taxes when nailed to a crucifix, screeching that there’s a bomb in his car. —Tom Breihan
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/05TGiFK0y5bWL9dbB4PoxC?si=36e3527c3b7a43d0&pt=aa7098f6bbfb543f9ddb58090bbc6fa1
