Better late than never or maybe I'm just trying to forget 2025? At any rate, here is my rather belated list of 2025 favorites. I didn't get the chance to listen to everything I wanted to, but I gave it some acceleration at the end. It was a great year for music, honestly. My favorites:
 
1. Jason Isbell - Foxes in the Snow
Masterful in both guitar playing and songwriting, it's rare to get Isbell truly solo and with songs that are blisteringly personal.
2. Dax Riggs - 7 Songs For Spiders
Long-awaited comeback from the once reclusive legend doesn't disappoint with his trademark gothic moodiness making up for the short run-time of this EP.
3. Wednesday - Bleeds
The Asheville band keeps advancing with each record, each member reinforcing the other's talents with forays into some styles not approached yet.
4. Coroner - Dissonance Theory
Who could have predicted this legendary band would create magic with their first record in many decades? Every listen offers up more riches.
5. James McMurtry - The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy
McMurtry has been at the height of his folk rock powers for a long time with no end in sight.
6. Mal Blum - The Villain
The catchiest album on my list; Mal Blum's change in vocals took some geting used to on my side of the turntable, but the punkish-emo songwriting is still on such a superior level, it soon made sense.
7. Deafheaven - Lonely People With Power
Not sure if this is the *best* Deafheaven, but it's most certainly the most completely realized. If you ever complained about them not being moody/ atmospheric enough OR heavy enough, they have you covered both ways.
8. Billy Batts & The Made Men - ...For The Surly Types
Atlanta's best punk exports keep getting better, with the latest album balancing the best parts of pop punk and ferocious hardcore.
9. Graveripper - From Welkin to Tundra
Potentially the best blackened thrash from the US currently.
10. Exaggerators - Exaggerators
Local boys do good with some asymmetric punk that brandishes heart and originality.
11. Swans - Birthing
Up there with any of their 21st century output and still miles ahead of anyone mining this style.
12. Tourneforte - Make Good
South Carolina emo masters know exactly how to write perfect songs.
13. King Saul & The Heretics - Revival Songs
The King, indeed. Saul Seibert and his cast of musical accomplices are stone cold killers here, offering up a lot of traditional styles coming through a garage punk filter.
14. Gruesome - Silent Echoes
If the legendary Death had been a prog metal band, it might have sounded like Gruesome. Crucial death metal.
15. Castle Rat - The Bestiary
The band changed some musicians for the latest album and it served them well. Equal parts heavy and catchy; easily the most fun live band I've seen in forever.
16. Pentagram - Lightning in a Bottle
Liebling shows no signs of rust on this late-career foray into original tunes. The new band consists of veterans like Tony Reed who know exactly what a Pentagram album needs to be.
17. Warbringer - Wrath and Ruin
The more I listen, the more I'm convinced Warbringer are the best thrash band in the US currently.
18. Deadguy - Near Death Travel Services
New Deadguy album was not on my bingo card, but it being killer metalcore and going for the throat like always was definitely expected.
19. Geese - Getting Killed
This indie rock band hits me in a lot of different ways, starting out uncomfortably and then insinuating themselves into my brain. Unexpected favorite.
20. Bob Mould - Here We Go Crazy
It's Bob, he's doing his thing. He's been the master of it for decades now and he shows no sign of letting up.

21. Lambrini Girls - Who Let The Dogs Out
22. All Get Out - Side A
23. Gonemage - Coldest Keep in Bitter Heavens
24. Rwake - The Return of Magik
25. Blackbraid - Blackbraid III
26. Sallow Moth - Blue Permutations + Mossbane Lantern + Deformity in Ceremony
27. Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs - Death Hilarious
28. Erode The Dream - Neon Nightmares
29. Hellhunter - Hellbanger EP
30. Midnight - Steel, Rust and Disgust
31. SUMAC and Moor Mother - The Film
32. Pile - Sunshine and Balance Beams
33. Messa - The Spin
34. Interceptor - Metal Death
35. Paradise Lost - Ascension
36. Scowl - Are We All Angels
37. Mids - Big Pigs 2 + Prescription Mids
38. Panopticon - Laurentian Blue + The Poppies Bloom For No King (EP)
39. Lighterless - Agitprop of America
40. Osees - Abomination Revealed at Last
41. Bear Mace - Slaves Of The Wolf
42. Marissa Nadler - New Radiations
43. Pink Snot - Dead Messenger
44. FUCKED - DEMO 2025 + Reassuring the Abundance of Misery
45. Shame - Cutthroat
46. The Needmores - Side X Side
47. Testament - Para Bellum
48. EZ⁄PT - Live at The S.C. State Museum Observatory + EZ/PT/EP
49. Billy Idol - Dream Into It
50. Homeskin - Soul Washed Bleach
51. Health - Conflict DLC
52. Today Is the Day - Never Give In
53. Sacrifice - Volume Six
54. Allsalt - Ritual Abstract
55. Neko Case - Neon Grey Midnight Green
56. Young Widows - Power Sucker
57. Infinitefreefall - Catastrophe Magnet Live
58. Nefarious - Addicted to Power
59. Coma Cinema - Grand Delusion
60. Jesse Welles - Middle
61. McLusky - The World Is Still Here and So Are We
62. Propagandhi - At Peace
63. Gláss - S/T + Forbidden Cache
64. Never Any Ordinary - Life Everlasting
65. Sean Thomson - GORILLA
66. Viagra Boys - viagr aboys
67. The Black Strain - EP
68. Snodgrass + Buddies - Stay Stoked
69. Momma - Welcome To my Blue Sky
70. Sanhedrin - Heat Lightning
71. Frankie and the Witch Fingers - Trash Classic
72. Black Valley Moon - We Sleep
73. Agriculture - The Spiritual Sound
74. Florida Man - Plastique
75. AVTT⁄PTTN (The Avett Brothers & Mike Patton) - AVTT⁄PTTN
76. Boomtown Trio - Adrift
77. Forrotian - Forrotian + Lix Tetrax Thy Witchfather EP
78. Chris Brokaw - Ghost Ship
79. Ethel Cain - Perverts
80. FLOATING - Hesitating Lights
81. Patterson Hood - Exploding Trees & Airplane Screams
82. Christian Mistress - Children of the Earth
83. Dead Meadow - Voyager To Voyager
84. Alice Cooper - The Revenge of Alice Cooper
85. Corroder - Pyres of Uncreation
86. Scour - Gold
87. Slow Funeral - Conditions of Trust
88. Assertion - Basking In The Gaslight
89. Drudkh - Shadow Play
90. Machinegun Earl - Us Against Them
91. clipping. - Dead Channel Sky
92. Drugs Of Faith - Asymmetrical
93. George Fetner - Epoch
94. Cult of Fire - The One, Who Is Made of Smoke
95. Wonderflu - Milky Worlds
96. Desaster - Kill All Idols
97. Cloakroom - Last Leg of the Human Table
98. The Dirty Nil - The Lash
99. Sodom - The Arsonist
100. STRUCK A NERVE - Struck a Nerve
 


honorable mentions: Wet Leg, Christone ' Kingfish' Ingram, The Armed, When I Say Jump, Chad Price Peace Coalition, Slough Feg, Social Void, Militarie Gun, Infernal Legions of Mordor, 42, Angel Fury, GRA, Bleach Party USA, Carne Con Papas, Lammoth, Kevn Kinney tribute series (various).

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