Chris' Favorite Albums from 2025

Released 25 July on RCA Records

I love the old school barroom band feel of this whole album – it’s like I’m sitting on a torn-up old stool, whiskey in hand, nodding along, watching a few couples who are three sheets to the wind twirling on a tiny makeshift dance floor. It’s eclectic, it keeps you on your toes, the lyrical content shifts from light to dark to light again (from, “if there ever come a time I got rabies, you’re high on the bitin’ list” to “keep your nose on the grindstone and out of the pills”). In some ways, it’s like a sketchbook, a series of half-finished ideas, and you get to listen along as the band (a bunch of knock-em-dead ringers) tries to flesh them out. I’m not usually a fan of Rick Rubin, but what he’s cooked up with Tyler and this crew is unique – it feels egalitarian, it feels poppy enough to find a way in and deep enough to stay, and most of all, it feels like they were just having fun. (Listen)

Released 28 February on Domino Records (Bandcamp)

I’ve always referred to Panda Bear as “the Beach Boys recorded underwater,” and that’s not a bad thing. The pacing of this album feels stronger than his previous efforts, and it ebbs and flows in a way that allows you to engage with different parts on different days. The album catalogs a difficult time in his life, and I feel like “Sinister Grief” might’ve been a better title – grief that comes and goes, sometimes fast and sometimes slow, cyclical but unpredictable. (Listen)

Released 26 September on Mexican Summer (Bandcamp)

I have to be honest here: I didn’t really like this album at first – I love Le Bon, but I was expecting something similar to previous efforts: stripped down, bare, essential, minimal, etc. But what I got was something fuller, lusher, and occasionally, a little more shoe-gazey. Once I let this album be what it is (cascading, poetic, strange) not what I wanted it to be (post-folksy pop), it bloomed. A true “comparison is the thief of joy” moment. (Listen)

Released 28 April on Zegema Beach Records (Bandcamp)

This album rips your face off – I could compare it to a million things, but it’s none of those. Ragged, insensitive, full of improbabilities, it’s a storm that carries you along, tosses you about mercilessly, and just when you think you might catch your breath or respite might be coming, it forges ahead unexpectedly and unapologetically. (Listen)

Released 10 October on Century Media (Bandcamp)

A non-stop assault. I have a little side project no one knows about where I listen to a lot of death metal, and it’s hard to do something new that still participates in the tradition. The Bogg has succeeded in making something wholly new that nods reverently at everything that came before it. Percussive, gut-wrenching, and flawlessly executed (lol), nothing since Fulci has made me sit up and pay attention like this album. (Listen)

Released 31 October on Anti Records (Bandcamp)

If I were on a road trip and couldn’t go over 50mph, this would be the perfect soundtrack – it’s a mid-tempo mist of perfectly welded pop, just jangly enough to tickle and just smooth enough to swallow whole. It’s a happy escape, the relief you feel when you leave a place you’ve been too long and have no idea where you’re headed, but it doesn’t matter; all that matters is that you’re moving, you’re breathing, you’re doing something. (Listen)

Released 12 September on Third Man Records (Bandcamp)

I got a chance to see Die Spitz by accident before this album came out – they were scheduled to play a show that got cancelled, and ended up on the ticket with the Lambrini Girls and Amyl & the Sniffers. No idea what to expect, I walked through the door in the middle of the first song and just thought: “this sounds fucking BIG.” They filled the room, sound was everywhere, they were everywhere, they filled every empty crevice with energy. I hadn’t seen an opening band take over a venue that big in a long time. This album is everything they are: outsized, gritty, full, an impossibly large thing in a small package. If there’s a single album, and a single band, that signaled that straight rock was back in a big way, it’s Die Spitz. (Listen)

Released 28 March on Get Better (Bandcamp)

I have to be honest, this album found me through the algorithm. It’s reminiscent of Hole, Babes in Toyland, L7, and some other power post-rock groups that I dig, but it’s emotive in a way that feels a little more genuine than their predecessors. If you take a trip back through their discography, you’ll find even rawer, lo-fi, rambunctious offerings. Just like Die Spitz, I think this kind of unapologetic, unflinching perspective is what the world needs right now. (Listen)

Released on 3 July on Rebirth Records (Bandcamp)

This was a super late addition to the list! I was hanging out at a friend’s record shop and he had this playing; I was immediately like: what is this? Terminator is heavy hardcore, through and through, but their ability to integrate the heaviest breakdowns seamlessly into songs is unmatched. When I listen to a lot of recent hardcore, it’s like listening to two songs interwoven – there’s the crunchy, percussive breakdowns, then the standard verse/chorus verse/chorus construction, but they never feel like part of the same song, just adjacent to one another. Terminator melds them together in a furious storm that sounds like it was recorded live in a basement, and that muddy, murky tone paired with a kind of fury I haven’t heard in a long time makes this album a thing of beauty. (Listen)