My Favorite Music of 2025

More like every 2025 release I bought. Slim year for me.

Albums

FACS – Wish Defense

Angular, noise rock, neo-post punk. Unsettling, laid-back, yet aggressive. And yes it was the last album Steve Albini recorded.

Dax Riggs – 7 Songs for Spiders 

Blues metal? Shoegaze blues? I don’t know or care, I like it.

Civic – Chrome Dipped

Aussie punk in the vien of The Saints and Radio Birdman.

Årabrot – Rite of Dionysus

Former Black Metal, Noise Rock. Now weirdo noise pop? This is much quieter than their last release. Weird and haunting.

JG Thrilwell – Venture Brothers Vol 3

Spy movie jazz with some electronic bits?

Krokofant – 6

Hard jazz fusion. Maybe a bit prog. Harder Mahavishnu Orchestra.

Nine Inch Nails – Tron Ares

Love the instrumental songs, old school heavy synths. The songs with vocals are pretty typical NIN.

Anika – Abyss

Neo Post Punk with Nico type vocals.

Coroner – Dissonance Theory

The dreaded reunion album that turns out to be pretty good. Thrash metal with some proggish parts thrown in.

Carla Kihlstedt – 26 Little Deaths 

Violinist, vocalist from Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Book of Knots, Tin Hat Trio interprets Edward Gorey stories/illustrations.

Jim Jarmush & Anika – Father Mother Sister Brother (soundtrack)

More like Anika doing a couple covers and Jarmush doing some western-ish texture guitar instrumentals.

EPs

Swervedriver – Worlds Fair 

Are they shoegaze? I guess much more guitar forward but they do have the dream like quality.

Reissues

Andy Summers and Robert Fripp box set

Frippatronics meets the Police world-ish music. Disc 1 and 3 are great. 2 a bit too world music. No links.

Watchtower – Energetic Disassembly Remix/Remaster

Yeah, an acquired taste. Extreme prog thrash. Extreme on the prog technical end. Love it. Links are only the remaster disc. apparently the remix disc is not available for streaming.

Sorrows – Such Sweet Sorrow

Power Pop.

Songs

  1. Crome Dipped – Civic
  2. Wish Defense – FACS
  3. Graveyard Soul – Dax Riggs
  4. Volume Control – Swervedriver
  5. The Satantango – Årobrot
  6. Abyss – Anika
  7. Scan Mode – JG Thirlwell
  8. In the Image of – Nine Inch Nails
  9. B Childhood Friends – Carla Kihlstedt
  10. Symmetry – Coroner

My Favorite Music of 2025

Hate Your Friends No. 7

Once again it’s been a while. Another attempt to keep a regular cadence for posting here. We’ll see if it sticks.

Every week Apple Music makes a Friends Mix. Each week I will make off the cuff “reviews” of the songs in this list.

Spiritualized “Lay Back In the Sun” A broken record, I should like Spiritualized. I don’t, although this song is really good and probably why I keep trying. Listened to it all.

The New Pornographers “Myriad Harbour” I pretty much am done with them after the first three. This confirms my position. Listened to 10 seconds

Pavement “Stop Breathing” I have a great dislike for them, this doesn’t help. Made it through 25 seconds as I wasn’t paying attention.

Fugazi “Life and Limb” Recently I found all the Fugazi CDs I didn’t have and bought them. This is ok. Listened to all of it.

Frank Black “Don’t Ya Rile ‘Em” I like the first two Frank Black solo albums. This is like if The Beach Boys covered Pixies songs. Listened to all of it.

The Breeders “Opened” I like the Breeders way more than Frank Black solo stuff. Listened to all of it.

Deerhunter “Neither of Us, Uncertainly” Here is a band I actively avoid for no reason. This was pretty good, I guess I should explore. Listened to it all.

Swervedriver “Something Out of Nothing” Somewhere along the line Swervedriver became a favorite band. This is not one of their best. Listened to it all.

Husker Du “Dead Set On Destruction” Fucking great. Really have been into the the last two albums recently. Listened to it all.

Smoking Popes “Gotta Know Right Now” Here’s a band that fell off my listening radar. Still like them but don’t get the urge to listen much. Again not one of their better songs. Listened to it all.

Soul Asylum “Something Out of Nothing” Last good album, yeah they were great before “Run Away Train”. This album was a bit of disappointment after “Hang Time” and this song is one of the lesser efforts. Listened to it all.

Killing Joke “Primitive” Will we get to something I don’t know this week? This is great, the current bands obsessed with “post-punk” have nothing on this. Listened to it all.

The Vibrators “Whips and Furs” More power-pop than punk. Regardless good stuff. Listened to it all.

Protomartyr “Elimination Dance” Another band I should like but it just doesn’t click. Goth-ish (in the classic sense) post-punk. Listened to it all.

Squid “Pearl to Stone” Finally, something I don’t know. Very serious indie rock/post-punk. Pretty bland and nondescript Listened to it all.

Public Body “Break from Life” New Wave disguising itself as post-punk. Sounds like the singer from the previous band. Doesn’t move the needle. Listened to 32 seconds.

The Lemon Twigs “Every Day is the Worst Day of My Life” I really want to like this band. Super 1970’s throw back pop rock. I probably just need to sit down and take a good listen. Listened to it all.

Damien Jurado “James Hoskins” Never cared for his stuff, but this is intriguing but the song goes nowhere. Listened to it all.

Wire “Madman’s Honey” The missing piece of Wire in my collection. I don’t like this electronic period as much as everything else but it’s still good. Listened to all of it.

Sinead O’Connor “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got” I never listened to a whole album of her’s before she passed. Guess I’ve been missing out. Listened to it all.

Burn “Last Great Sea” Youth Crew mosh core goes alt-metal garbage. Maybe listened to 10 seconds.

Drug Church “Foam Pit” Shouty, kind of hardcore indie rock thing that’s popular. It’s ok. Listened to it all.

The Charlatans “Heaven” 1990’s hippy Manchester junk. All I can think of is that dumb white guy dance the singer would do. 30 seconds to write this.

Ozzy Osbourne “One Up the B Side” There’s a reason this didn’t make an album. 30 seconds.

Lungfish “Creation Story” Discord repetition kings. Sounds like Slint, it’s fine. Listened to it all.

Hate Your Friends No. 7

A Giant Dog, catchy, rocking, power pop

A Giant Dog

New to me.

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A little research turns up the band already has 2 full lengths out. Really digging this. The track above seems an anomaly with the amount of piano. I hear the Dickies, a little Sparks. Sounds like a band from southern California.

Here are their 2 previous albums.

Bone

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Fight

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A Giant Dog, catchy, rocking, power pop