American Football has come back with a true classic whether you consider it post-rock, indie, emo or all of the above. Fans of all of those genres should be able to find lots to love about this album, and I'll tell you one thing, it's as addicting as music can be in this day and age.

On the whole, you’re getting looped, repetitious hooks that are accommodating the style of music being run with. Overall though, Melanie continues to deliver new music to a great standard, which, given how long she’s been in the game, is testament to her talents.

A Wave That Will Never Break is a nearly flawless comeback for WU LYF. The variation between the tracks and the pure emotion shown throughout has me asking why it took them so damn long to make another album and why they split in the first place after their classic debut, but it also proves that the band still has plenty left in the tank.

Overall, the album achieves its goal, unfolding a soulful listen with just about enough songs with vocals to keep you attentive throughout as well. It is also a nice change of pace for those who follow Moby’s more recent releases, but worth checking for anyone who is into ambient music too.

Lost on You does a fantastic job of embodying this scene’s classic traits in a way that feels authentic and true to themselves, even if it doesn’t need to take any bold risks to do so.

If there’s any grievance worth mentioning, it’s that they’re probably capable of going even deeper with this sound, but for now, they’ve tapped into something special here, revealing themselves as masters of balancing unconventional songwriting with accessibility.

The release may not be as fun as…well, Fun., but it marks yet another quality entry into Ruess & co.’s catalog.

It’s an album whose memory is firmly planted in this world forever, and one that will haunt you long after it’s done.

Overall, The Gaia II Space Corps is the most focused Motorpsycho album yet, crafting a truly cohesive listen from start to finish.

The fact that they still sound so visceral 32 years into their career is incredibly impressive, not to mention that this could very well be their best, most cohesive album to date. Into Oblivion is an album that shows off all the best qualities of Lamb of God and puts them all into one place.

These are simply ideas, a couple that resemble songs, a couple that resemble interludes, that hopefully signal a return to dedicated musicianship for the artist in the near future. Its vibrancy and warmth is as pronounced as it is well executed, and for those who can forget the mystique of Flying Lotus for a minute and appreciate what he’s trying here, you might find yourself dazzled.

It is an absolute instant classic that we will be talking about for years to come.

It’s technical excellence as a musical product cannot be overstated. For a pop album to be this busy yet possess a pocket as deep and rich as underscores displays here is simply amazing.

URGH is creative, scary and club-worthy all at the same time. If you're a fan of industrial music, techno, hip-hop and/or post-punk, there will be something for you to enjoy about this album.

This is an album for coffee and rainy Sunday mornings. For driving your kids to the park on an unseasonably warm February afternoon. For unwinding at the end of the night with a glass of red wine. The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve found beauty within rare moments of calm. Hen’s Teeth is an album that matches that mood, and perhaps you can chalk it up to a personal aligning of the stars, but right now it’s everything I need.

With Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally., he’s given us his biggest curveball yet. It may not be perfect, but the hustle deserves respect.

It would have been easy to expect the music to sound heavy, even morose, following such tragedy. But some of the deepest wellsprings of renewal come from places of profound loss, and The Mountain proves it. This is a rejuvenating record. A healing record. One that finds light without pretending the dark isn’t there.

There’s something here for every fan of his works, and it’s all executed concisely. More importantly, The Great Satan just brings that fun factor again, and frankly, that’s all you can ask for.

Liturgy of Death is still a decent slab of black metal, but for a band that has released so many classic albums full of banger riffs, hellish drum performances and demonic vocals, this album just doesn't measure up.

I’m intrigued but not enamored. Twenty-one years in, it’s certainly understandable how it’d be challenging to continually create that spark. In the meanwhile, Tenterhooks’ embers will keep fans warm.

If you're a fan of ambient, new age or soft folk music, there's not much here that you won't like. I can't think of many other albums where a harp is so prominent and the chilling, reverb-soaked vocals are a perfect compliment to the misty imagery that Julianna and Mary are able to solicit throughout the entire 42-minute runtime.

Overall, Conflict DLC showcases HEALTH at their most accessible in their career. Nevertheless, they discarded a large part of their experimental moments, opting to craft a direct, fun LP.

Mercado 48 feels like he's pouring out his soul more than usual while also bringing about a sense of resignation to life itself. It's hard to say what kind of mood the listener needs to be in the get the most out of this album, but one thing is for sure, Daniel makes something out of nothing more often than not and Mercado 48 is a perfect example of that.

Ultimately, Ascension is guaranteed to rub fans the right way, and it’s adventurous enough to open up new avenues for the future, and at the end of the day, what more can you ask for?

Overall, it is an exciting era for FKA Twigs fans, as she continues her winning streak.

Iconoclasts is pretty much a complete 180 from any of Anna's previous output. That may scare some long time fans, but let this fellow Anna lover ease your mind because this album is pure bliss.

That’s their secret sauce: there’s no bells, whistles, or trappings that can replace songwriting with an important core message. Once again, Silberman and co. deliver that incredible depth and meaning, with an earnestness like only they can muster.

Part of me wishes that Swift would do a bit more soul-searching. The Life of a Showgirl is good entertainment, but I'm still trying to figure out how any of it matters on a deeper level. If you’re not fully invested in all aspects of her life, and whatever drama stems from it, then it’s tough to get emotionally on board. That makes this a glossy, surface level pop record for the majority of listeners. It’s arguably her most infectious, energetic, and fun release in several years, which will buy this LP some instant mileage in terms of streams, but I wonder how its replay value will hold up once the novelty wears off.

This album might not flow as perfectly as others or have one consistent style, but what it does have is riffs, balls and atmosphere aplenty, and when creating music based in black metal, it doesn’t get any better than that.

AFI’s latest offering is a good one, but also one that seems to hint at a promise that it never quite fulfills.

Getting Killed rounds up the anxiety, desperation, and existential dread of 2025 and delivers it in a way that no other band alive could. Such an adept distillation of a tumultuous era is rare, and Getting Killed is an equally uncommon instant classic that should prove to be as valuable to its audience as those aforementioned indie-rock cornerstones once were in the late 90s and early 00s.

In short, LSD is a poignant celebration of nearly fifty years of music, and one hell of a send-off for a true pioneer of the industry. .... It’s certainly turned out to be one of 2025’s best releases.

The attention to detail is impressive and the resulting soundtrack is quite cohesive. Nevertheless, the brief runtime of most tunes here make Tron: Ares more of a Ghosts I-IV type record with an attached EP of what you would expect from a conventional Nine Inch Nails release.

While Bleeds may not have the monstrous impact of Rat Saw God, it’s a truly glorious follow-up with just as many moments of brilliance.

An album that nearly matches its predecessor in quality while going with an entirely different formula to achieve its greatness.

The flickers of brilliance are scattered all throughout Man’s Best Friend, and for the most part, it’s a great album with some moments of weakness. It’s a clear step ahead of Short and Sweet, and hopefully, will be another stepping stone on the path to her magnum opus.

The result is a smooth, glistening, experimental, and often powerful pop record – something Hayley has not necessarily aspired for before, but that she nails effortlessly here. [Review is based on the 17-track release]

Even if a few songs don’t quite leave a lasting impression, Dreams of Being Dust on the whole does.

The band have since long cemented themselves as absolute songwriting savants in the genre and here on album number 10, they successfully build upon that legacy without skipping a beat. Though at times lacking ambition, the finest moments of Private Music are absolute all-timers – poised to throw a wrench into any “top 5 Deftones albums” list for the foreseeable future.

From here ["Man on a Mission"], the album meanders a bit, yet manages to maintain a solid presence. No Rain, No Flowers ends up their most mature effort to date.

I Beat Loneliness continues their evolution, delivering an electronics-infused alternative metal sound that evolves into a melancholic and atmospheric catharsis that possesses a surprising authenticity and emotional resonance.

As Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You winds to a close, it feels like reading the final part of a novel that kept you hanging on its every word. No matter what Anhedonia does next, this will always be a classic chapter in her book.

Metal Forth isn’t a bad album—it’s just deeply disappointing. It doesn’t feel like a new release, and more importantly, it doesn’t sound like a Babymetal album. Ironically, the three excellent original tracks only highlight what the rest of the album is missing.

The Cosmic Selector Vol. 1 proves that they have the chops to pull it off, although they don’t commit to it here.

Phantom Island is King Gizz at their best producing yet another album that can not only be heralded for its precision and progression, but for once again showing how to take a bundle of diverse ingredients and transform them into a cohesive, intriguing, and overall fun experience, while remaining introspective and exploratory.

While Addison isn’t the essential listen that it clearly wants to be, it’s an intriguing start to a career that just might one day get there.

Lyrically, the album is demonstrably strong enough to stand on its own two feet, but I cannot explain just how phenomenally the narratives are bolstered by the instrumentals.

The overarching takeaway from Get Sunk, at least for me, is a reminder that few musicians can write a better sad sack meditation.

Birthing does not resolve so much as disperse into a shimmering lullaby afterworld. It releases you, maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it’s still playing and you haven’t noticed. Maybe you’ve changed afterward. Maybe not. It’s no new world for Swans. But it does feel like a world that’s more charged with that strange luminosity of those brightest days, when the edges of everything feel like they’re dispersing into the atmosphere. Whatever it is, it’s a beautiful thing.

The pairing turns out to be ideal - Sparhawk’s voice and presence maintains the kind of somber elegance he’s always had, while Trampled By Turtles provide a rustic backdrop which not only fits the material like a glove, but adds a world-weary sense of depth.

This album does not suck. It is disappointing, it is underwhelming, and it features some of the best pop cuts of the year. Yeule’s first hyper-playlistable album, I guess.

Something Beautiful is an absolute triumph that casts aside any qualifiers to make a strong bid for the best major pop album of 2025 so far.

In the end, if The Foel Tower reads as revivalist, it’s at least creative enough to stand apart from the bulk of contemporary acts in the scene, and the results speak loudly, resonating as one hell of a lonesome, dreary mood piece.

woods’s golliwog is the rare symbol that truly awakens from the dead on what seems like his twentieth stellar full-length, given breath by the cursed voodoo that permeates the entirety of the album.

Their return more than holds its own as a direct progression of Mclusky, but there’s a sense that they themselves feel like expectations should be tempered just a hair, a self-awareness that ends up dangerously close to hamstringing the cocksure arrogance that’s such a crucial part of their charisma.

Animaru is as gorgeous as can be, and undeniably triumphant as a debut. Mei’s music has all the exuberance of a sprint imbued with the mindfulness of sitting with your eyes closed; it fits just about every occasion. “There’s something I like about it” indeed.

What truly makes Shell~Wave unique is the uncanny ability of its creator to imprint himself in the music, making some of the most machine-like techno around sound uncharacteristically human. This was the genre’s calling card when it was invented, and decades later, it’s still the thing that makes techno interesting and exciting. Surgeon hasn’t forgotten.

Who Will Look After the Dogs? is a long way from a perfect record, but this is no obstacle to respecting it on its own terms — as a sadsack burnout trip from a band that has lost sight of almost all its past brilliance and knows it, but still has enough dignity to own its scrappy qualities for what they are, rather than inadvertently collapsing into them (The Unraveling of PUPTheBand) and/or self-consciously hawking them (per The Unravelling of PUPThegoddamnedBAND).

There’s something absurdly listenable about the whole package, and I suspect that the listening experience will only get better as the weeks go by and the thermostat cranks up to increasingly unbearable temperatures. This is, after all, one of those records built for those moments spent wallowing in the heat haze. Sounds like a bloody good time.

viagr aboys is a remarkably consistent affair that invites attention and dance-steps, but not by swinging for the fences. Instead, the band commits to a steady churn of tightly written songs, each one grounded in better hooks, tighter grooves, and a more coherent sense of pacing.

"Marks of the Evil One" and "Umbra" (I hope you like cowbells) could have easily been singles, they’re that good, and they solidify Skeletá as a worthy new chapter in the history of the only mainstream band that is able to sing about Satan in stadiums while having the ultra catholic zealots silent as a grave.

The Film is that rare kind of collaborative effort that sees both parties' voices enhanced into something distinct, marked by careful restraint and caustic volatility. .... The Film is one to be treasured.

Stygian Waves crafts a rich, immersive experience that thrives on atmosphere, melody, and mood. It’s an album that rewards patience, pulling the listener in with its delicate intricacies and dreamlike textures – all executed with remarkable finesse. At the end of the day, you may come for Alex Lifeson, but you’ll stay for the strong songs and capable vocals of Maiah Wynne.

Thunderball would greatly benefit from another 10 or 20 minutes worth of mid-to-low tempo grooves to grant their now-besotted audience a chance to sway like sluggish Evangelicals in a primal stupor.

There are a few tumbleweeds in the bunch (“Dirt” is curiously overlong to begin the record; “Showdown” fails to make much of an impression), but this is about as good a curiosity that I would imagine a Julien Baker and TORRES country spinoff to be. It’s evocative, heartfelt fun.

The record’s most profound and memorable experiences arrive at the hands of the tracks that are not afraid of crossing timelines, the ones that are unafraid of integration and understand there is no returning to the past.

The album's relatively narrow focus does it few favours here; its reluctance to experiment outside of sparkly, quickfire bangers inadvertently spotlights how the appeal of its weaker cuts is directly interchangeable with that of the highlights.

Scowl's push toward melodicism is overall a step in a positive direction; certainly nobody loves to see punks embrace melody more than me, but it feels like Scowl is still trying to appease their old fans and branch out at the same time, and they end up handicapping themselves in the process.

In spite of its more defined nature, Microtonic is an entirely immersive affair. There’s tiny sonic motifs littered across the record, connecting each moment to the next and making everything feel like one well-rounded experience.

Lonely People With Power is a masterpiece that turns Deafheaven’s story on its head, leaving greyed out charcoal marks where Sunbather was once penciled in. In fact, declaring it the band’s best work is probably the least interesting thing you could say about the album when there is so much thematic resonance to latch onto and seemingly endless points of musical intrigue packed into this dense of a package that will only continue to reveal itself in time.

Off-kilter rhythms and dark thundercloud choirs may occasionally spell doom, and the incessant shrieking of the newborn in the next room may keep you up all night, but the album’s captivating parlor trick is its ability to stand confidently in fire and brimstone and smile through the rupturing of its eardrums.

is is (yikes) a low-stakes and contented release, quite enjoyable for what it is and wholly inessential.

Though it may not match its forebears’ ambition or near-flawless execution, the speculative and nostalgic centrifuge spinning like a catherine wheel at the heart of the record assures listeners of the usual cutting insights, by way of brazen bars and some of the finest storytelling of the group’s career.

Whether they burn out sooner or stick around long enough to become cult heroes, 45 Pounds is the kind of record that will leave a mark—on your eardrums, on your nerves, on your ability to process sound in a rational manner.

Drive to Goldenhammer is a smashing success because it never lets these inspirations get in the way of actually feeling inspired. With a lot of bands, a debut can often feel like watching a weathervane settle in a direction; but with Divorce, it feels like they could go anywhere they want to go.

This is a fine release with great emotional depth, and its oft-haunted tone is given a perfect kiss-off with the final track, which can only be described as pure - a loving ode built upon classic country song imagery.

Little of the album ever actually dips in quality (“Don’t Call Tonight” is the only real leftover nacho), the confusing aesthetics of the album cover and the decision to tack “Die With a Smile” on here do go a long way to making this package feel a tad disjointed and lacking a bow. Still, the aesthetic failings are only a disappointment because the contents are so dang good.

There are minor exceptions here – the wondrous flourishes of opener "COLORATURA", the lilting inflections Aoba rides on "Luciférine", the aching nostalgia of the centrepiece "FLAG" (for my money, the one true Aoba classic here in every sense of the word) – but you'll be hard-pressed to find a record so full of subtle details that puts so little emphasis on the spectacle of individual moments, that drifts so freely within itself.

After nearly 15 years of middling releases, Parasomnia is a triumphant return to form – possibly their most creative, focused, and engaging work since Metropolis Pt. 2.

A Paradise In The Hold is one of the best albums you are going to listen to in 2025. It is focused and whole, while also being as breathtaking and wild as the land from which it derives its inspiration.

Saya Gray’s newfound streamlined approach comes at little cost to her oddball M.O.. She is remarkable for how she irons out what would once have been a lone idiosyncratic contour into the basis for a full track, stuffing verse/chorus structures with ideas so prickly that it’s a wonder to hear them sit so naturally in a conventional framework.

in spite of this record’s formlessness, i keep coming back to choke enough. there’s something intriguing about a pop album committed to never, ever popping, while presenting enough cute little bits that are just memorable enough to be able to describe oklou’s music.

Blindness doesn’t necessarily come together in the way a record ideally would, despite the fact that the songs are largely high-quality. Nonetheless, I’m quite intrigued by the record’s final stretch, which notably improves the overall feeling of this release.

Sure, The End of the Middle might not be as breathtakingly immersive as Ruby Cord or as transportive as Peasant, but it further cements Dawson's place as modern folk's most fascinating auteur, turning historical echoes into something eerily prophetic.

Where Magdalene found itself virtually overburdened by its own emotional weight, this album is almost ponderously short of it, yet malleable and playful in a way that vindicates its escapist bent.

The effects, walls of noise, sharp changes in tonality and song structure are engaging and well-executed. Despite stretches of atmospheric passages and droning instrumentals, Never Exhale doesn’t ever feel boring. It is deliberate without being robotic, and creates an introspectively bleak mood throughout the record.

Violet’s biggest victory is not only sounding like the sum of its lofty parts, but also having a personality that’s distinctly its own.

Although there are a handful of highlights, the group has settled into a comfort zone from which good tracks emerge effortlessly, but nothing outstanding.

I could go on for hours about the beauty within the story of You Are The Morning, but the record truly speaks for itself. From the luscious instrumentation to the heart-on-sleeve lyrics, jasmine.4.t’s first full-length shares a message that needs to be heard: a message of hope found within community. You Are The Morning is nothing short of raw and emotional, and that’s what makes it so powerful.

Those who take the time to unpack and absorb the content will almost certainly find aspects that crawl beneath the skin, but the collection is only as hard-hitting as the listener is receptive to the experience. It’s musically calming like a dusky sky pinpricked with stars, but unforgivingly immediate in its focus, like the underlying promise of thunder.

This thing is quiet. It’s cozy. It’s simple. It’s, to be blunt, a vibe. Horrible Occurrences is a warm blanket during this time of year where the days can stretch on forever and the nights can swallow me whole.

Perverts’ 90-minute runtime and average song length of ten minutes could be intended to alienate, and undoubtedly harmed the record’s replay value for me as I continued to dig deeper into it. Perhaps this is the point, or perhaps I’ve missed it entirely. Either way, my respect for these compositions never dwindled because of their bravery and clarity of artistic vision.

It just finds this fantastic middle ground, not only in the way that its frantic smattering of ideas somehow presents not as overwhelming, but comforting - the exuberance infectious, the fuzz electric - but, also, in how Night Palace ties in with the broader Elverum catalogue.

GNX is the sound of an artist stepping into their power and the newfound freedom that comes without have to prove a damn thing. It’s a several-victory lap long coronation that serves as the perfect capstone to what was already a legendary year that shifted the entire rap hierarchy with just a handful of songs.

Seed of a Seed doesn’t quite reach the heights of I Need to Start a Garden (and let’s be honest, that’s a HIGH bar to clear as it is), but it’s still quite an impressive offering. Instead of lazily rehashing what made her debut so special, Heynderickx decided to expand on it and give her songs a more panoramic space to roam in. Most importantly, the core characteristics of her style weren’t lost in the process.

All in all, Fate and Alcohol makes for a solid final act for a band which beat the actuarial tables by a wide margin.

Overall, Come Ahead turned out one of the most encompassing affairs in the group’s discography. The attention to detail paid off and there’s enough cohesiveness too. Nevertheless, Gillespie’s redundant voice and lyrics are often too angular, but that’s the hit and miss element all Primal Scream’s full lengths share.

Even with its minor misstep, Songs of a Lost World is a singularly sombre picture of triumph, a band in their collective 60s still making music so vital and beautiful it can genuinely steal the words from your mouth and the heat from the room.