Whether it’s a one-off project or a fleeting affair for all parties involved remains to be seen, though for the time being, the band’s gift for impromptu creativity has served them well.

Sun Coming Down constantly engages and enthralls with an odd sense of humor, cementing Ought as one of the few contemporary post-punk acts that seamlessly merge frantic irreverence with feral intelligence.

The strength in Held lies in how it takes electronic modulation to a more challenging path, fully conscious over the fact that the genre itself benefits when it's more about the songs instead of serving as foreground listening.

But the band is grounded in humility, always playing against each other with a drifting timbre that’s inviting and likable. But tucked within their textural progressions lay deftly written songs that honor their long-lived inclination to remain emotionally and intellectually independent.

Songs like All Blacked Out and Chemical Freeze are suffused with melancholic ambiance, where descending minor chords provide a fullness to their otherwise spare arrangements.

That's quite a timespan, though, and it does mean that one minute you're reeling from the hormonal stench of a roomful of anguished shoegazers and the next you're surrounded by happy little Japanese girls wearing anti-gravity shoes and doing Steiner dancing with wafty pastel banners. But that's just as it should be.

Buckner’s songwriting, both in the arrangements and vocals, is laser-focused on the development and exploration of his scorched-earth aesthetic. Together, they project it with grace, refinement, and skill.

Snaith is able to hold onto his Caribou identity despite the new techno influences. His new album Swim reaffirms the supreme artistic capability that is Caribou.

It's [their] mastery of one's musical landscape, both sonically and psychologically, that makes Beak>'s take on krautrock so poignantly effective, with >> possessing the ability to lure in both fans and newcomers to the genre into its paranoia-fraught world of distress.

He has come up with a gem of a record, heartfelt and true, that hopefully will get him some of the attention he richly deserves.

A finely crafted collection of indie rock.

This is a brilliant and varied album, risky and excessive at times, yet compelling and open throughout.

This Is How You Smile feels like an exercise in restraint but not in a dull suffocating kind of way. What makes it work is how even as he continues embracing more conventional instruments and structures, Lange still leaves room for himself to tinker and experiment at the same time. For music so understated and gentle, it's almost startling just how powerful it's capable of being.

Wondrous Bughouse, with its epic sprawl and quaint curiosity, successfully captures through its music the idea that the smaller you are, the easier you’re dazzled and overwhelmed by the world around you.

It is precisely due to the band’s finesse that It’s Blitz! is so refreshing, despite being an old sound wrapped in glitter veneer.

Quiet the Room is a worthy addition comparable to Julianna Barwick's The Magic Place and The Innocence Mission's We Walked in Song, chamber folk reveries so entrenched in their own little worlds you can practically live inside them.

Despite the weak ending, Imploding the Mirage is a powerful album from a hungrier and more passionate Killers that have once again embraced bombast with fearlessness, aspiration, and confidence. You can hear the band prevailing over struggles and finding the joy in making music and being alive.

A beautiful and steady album about defying the roles others put you in and pondering what went wrong. It’s a heartbreaking project as well, peppered with upbeat but cutting songs. It may not be Loveless’s best album -- Real is impossible to beat -- but it ideally captures the indescribable greatness of her songwriting.

There’s a lot to take in throughout Wed 21’s richly layered and complex matrices, but in no way do they hinder Molina’s streak of keeping things minimal.

Just a Souvenir reveals itself to be a solid record, up there with the best of Squarepusher's work--as any good performer knows, you always leave the audience wanting more.

Little Joy makes for a fine, self-contained little album.

Balloon Balloon Balloon is not Slater’s best album of 2025—it’s probably not even his second best—but any record that evokes the snotty power pop of Guitar Romantic is worth investigating in my book.

Like so many posthumous releases, Infinite is a tricky record to critique. It’s not Mobb Deep’s strongest record, but given the circumstances, it is a triumph—and a fitting testament to their legacy.

The tracks evoke comparisons to artists like David Gray (“Pretty Flowers”) and Josh Ritter (“Heart In The Mirror”), which may provide a side glance or two but perfectly complement his high-pitched twang. Regardless, Meek brings his own flair to whatever he makes.

Not everything works in Love Chant. He tries to sound self-serious with his stream-of-consciousness rambling on “Marauders,” but instead, comes across as artfully silly. Still, it’s just one of the many fun detours that Dando takes throughout the album, one whose existence—given his history of substance dependency—feels like a small miracle in itself.

While the remaining members, a power trio now, haven’t lost any of their edge, they’re channeling it with renewed energy.

Listening to their accomplished new EP, So Much Country ‘Till We Get There, I’m reminded of both Big Thief’s earlier work and Friko’s wonderful Where We've Been, Where We Go from Here.

For the most part, Birding follows the Cocteau Twins template to a tee, seemingly daring listeners and critics alike to find a better descriptor than the all-too-obvious ‘ethereal’. But deary are smart enough to inject some variety, which they achieve by incorporating heavier, almost explosive passages.