Might as well bring this annual exercise over here — previous years dating back to 2019 are over at Medium!
With each subsequent release, our patron saints of modern countrygaze/bootgaze/creek rock/alt-country/whatever seem to realize their vision more fully, effectively tinkering with a formula primarily driven by Karly Hartzman’s razor-sharp narration, which sources inspiration from a deep well of lived experiences, hometown lore, and literary references. The title itself is a declaration of blood, sweat, and tears, of how much of the group is poured into these songs, further evidenced by instrumentation and vocals that are proudly rough around the edges but always in support of a cohesive whole. It’s fitting that Karly’s ability to marry the bitter and the sweet is made literal here — Bleeds’ heavier moments like “Wasp” and “Wound Up Here (By Holdin On)” are triumphs, but those sour notes on “Elderberry Wine” and “The Way Love Goes” are sure to linger for years to come.
At this point, I’m more than comfortable calling Aaron Dowdy a visionary and one of the great modern American storytellers — no one else populates proudly blue collar country-fried rock songs with the warmth, the depth of character, the specificity of place, and the sense of community and empathy like Dowdy and his bandmates can. These songs and their radiant harmonies invite singalongs (happy to oblige) and close listens (ditto), and feel like an old friend throwing their arm around your shoulder. It’s genuinely gorgeous music that makes me think better of the world we occupy and all that we can do with it.
Double Infinity — Big Thief
Big Thief’s six full-length takes Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You’s devout earthiness and steeps it in a starry-eyed sanguinity that embraces duality and change; the group finds beauty in both past and present, in youthfulness and aging, in distance and nearness, in the known and the unknown. In Adrianne Lenker’s world, songs are fundamental to the very fabric of day to day life — music begets love begets music, and so on; one simply wouldn’t be the same without the other. This is the sound of a band aging gracefully and thoughtfully, leaning into granola-y mysticism and further cementing Lenker’s place in the pantheon of great American writers.
Headlights documents a man standing at an inflection point — a decade and a half into the music life, Alexander Giannascoli is new to fatherhood and a major label roster, and the tension between those pillars is the key element to his most personally revealing album yet. The shimmering “Afterlife” examines that push and pull between family life (“heaven”) and professional obligations (“the TV screen”), all while landing as his most radio-friendly song ever. There’s a strain of adult contemporary signifiers throughout — honestly, “Real Thing” would slot perfectly into an early 2000’s rom-com — but those label resources ultimately provided space for a more intentional process while still allowing for experimental touches (most notably in the album’s middle stretch) that have long defined Alex as an artist.
Gelli Haha is our new cosmic embodiment of chaotic good, zigging and zagging at will and suddenly delivering the most inventive, absurd, and plain fun album of the year. She ecstatically propels these songs along like a child playing with an arsenal of toys in front of a TV blaring weekend cartoons, but it’s a testament to her and producer Sean Guerin that the album is so much more than cheap sugar rush; their craftsmanship is always on full display, with a fleet of synthesizers that make these songs sound absolutely immaculate (think “what if James Murphy turned into a clown?” and you’re close). Truly, Switcheroo is more than an album, but a Gelliverse unto itself, with psychedelic music videos and a deliriously inspired live revue serving as mandatory accompaniments to her “funny music.”
Caveman Wakes Up — Friendship
Ever the avant-garde poet, Dan Wriggins squeezes complicated meaning out of the minutiae of everyday life like he’s wringing water out of a soaked t-shirt. Nothing seems to escape the logs of his notebook, not even a singular stoop he’s chilled on before, but the prose of Caveman Wakes Up is just as memorable when zooming way out (my favorite one-liner is “world’s a scary place to be / but whose fault is that?” but “order at the bar / chaos outside” is equally sticky). The group’s latest output has more dirt under its nails than ever (even explicitly nodding to Wriggins’ landscaping day job), occupying and earning a seat between the Jason Molinas and Neil Youngs of the dusty canon.
You Wanna Fade? — Alien Boy
No one does melodrama like Alien Boy — on their third album, the Portland quartet stays true to what got them here (arena-sized anthems that actually work best when muscled into a cramped, dingy club), but You Wanna Fade? serves as their most expansive and fleshed out work yet. The hooks are still there (and catchy as ever), but it’s evident that the band has grown adept at turning their power-pop bangers into increasingly ambitious compositions. The big/small duality is fundamental to what makes Alien Boy so potent — there’s an undying commitment to maximalism and songs that practically burst from their seams, but not without maintaining a keen and almost uncomfortable sense of intimacy, like Sonia Weber is singing these songs from a few feet away, holding eye contact all the while.
Jane Remover makes music that’s basically impossible to pin down, but under this venturing moniker, an entirely new variant of rock music seems to have escaped from the lab; Ghostholding might as well be a transmission from Earth 2. There’s an underlying intensity and lovesick desperation that makes these songs play like matters of life and death, and the sonic textures only add to those stakes, particularly that guitar tone that might just approximate the grunge of a few decades from now. “Dead forever” is the ultimate showstopper and the most staggering single piece of music I heard this year — nothing better than being able to really feel the catharsis and emotion poured into an instrumental performance, so those tectonic guitars in the chorus absolutely kick my ass every time.
Brittney Parks has set a high bar for herself, but THE BPM successfully builds on her previous triumph Natural Brown Prom Queen by tilting towards icier arrangements and unvarnished emotion — this virtuosic production, defined by acrobatic, booming beats and her signature prancing violin, is aided by an inherent tension with the mercurial lyricism. Make no mistake, this is a club record, and one that presents itself as a high-concept, futuristic project at that, but Parks is an open book throughout, documenting all the highs and lows as they come, without pretense — there is a very real human aching lurking below all this bombast. As a listener, though, it’s easy enough to choose your own adventure — tracks like “MY TYPE” and “MS. PAC MAN” thunder loud enough to drown out all that other noise.
Little Action — Zach Romeo
I’m equally baffled that this record hasn’t gained more traction in the months following its release and grateful that it made its way across my desk when it did — it’s a scrappy bootgaze release from a regular Wednesday collaborator, what do you think I’m gonna think of it? That link caught my initial curiosity, but Little Action captured my attention all on its own, thanks to Romeo’s unassuming delivery and the breadth of performance across these songs (those furious violins on “I Hate It Too” instantly come to mind). It’s a captivating out-of-nowhere debut, one that further cements North Carolina’s status as our functioning music capital and hopefully leads to more music from this multi-hyphenate artist.
Lifetime — Erika de Casier
Erika de Casier’s dreamy fourth record is the most compelling distillation of her talents to date; given she wrote and produced Lifetime front to back, it’s also further proof of concept for her instincts as a visionary pop artist. No stranger to quietly penning hits for big names, here de Casier still shows little interest in really making this about her — she wins you over with a clear vision and consistent quality, not gravity of persona. It’s a silky and self-assured collection that probably best functions as a soundtrack for lonely romantics on late-night drives, whizzing past buzzing neon signs and waves crashing in the dark (Wong Kar-wai would absolutely crush a short film soundtracked by these songs, how do we make this happen?).
Before You Knew It — Sunblossom
2025’s best album that no one’s heard sounds like Ben Gibbard hopped in a time machine and got really into alt-country and shoegaze — honestly, this thing should sell itself. I do hear a lot of early Death Cab here — the emo riffs and melodic progressions, the vocal tone, (and of course) the yearning — but these shifting textures are what make the record so memorable. The songwriting is patient and often allows for extended instrumental passages, detours that play like meditations and wisely showcase the abundance of pristine guitar tones and emotionally affecting melodies.
Diamond Grove is a neo-traditionalist exploration of Americana that veers from naturalistic ambient soundscapes to group acapella singalongs to genuinely avant-garde folk experimentations. Credited instrumentation includes bowed dulcimer, pump organ, sheet metal, mouth harp, buck and turkey calls, weissenborn (I digress)…sounds like a lot, but it all adds up to an incredibly cohesive collection and one of the most arrestingly beautiful projects in some time. There’s a mystical, calming quality to these songs, and as a whole they function as a welcome respite from the rattling of everyday life.
It’s a Beautiful Place — Water From Your Eyes
It might be a reach to call an album this rangy and kaleidoscopic “accessible,” but Nate Amos and Rachel Brown seem to have cracked the code for melding their experimental tendencies with just enough pop appeal to make a cultural dent, much in the mold of Amos’ recent work under the This Is Lorelei banner. Brown’s existentialist deadpan is the ideal complement to all these mathy, hyperactive layers — the band leans more on guitar than ever before, but are still maximalists at heart, and the spectrum of exploration they accomplish in under half an hour borders on astonishing. The riffy “Nights in Armor” is my personal highlight, but I love how “Playing Classics” sounds like it was pulled from the depths of The Social Network soundtrack sessions — even with only six proper songs (accompanied by four instrumental interludes), there’s more detail to peel back with each new spin.
On its face, Losin’ scans like a bonus Wednesday album — recorded and produced by Alex Farrar at Drop of Sun, with a backing band consisting of Jake Lenderman, Ethan Baechtold, and Xandy Chelmis — but the story here is Miller coming into his own as a songwriter and solo artist after years mostly serving as a supporting player. “Cadillac” is the most fun and best song he’s ever made (and my personal song of the summer, along with “Elderberry Wine”), but mostly these songs are laments, dominated by melancholy and, naturally, a sense that something or someone has been lost. This album closes the page on a fruitful chapter of Miller and his creative partners’ lives at his defunct Haw Creek home and their time with its late owner, Gary King — but for all the ways that grief bleeds through here, it’s moreso a testament to shared memories and their friend’s enduring legacy.
Probably the most righteous, ramshackle country-rock outfit going right now, Florry make music to make a ruckus to, and crack a beer to, and smile wide to. It’s a relief that the band is able to distill the bombast of their live performances into studio form, and Francie Medosch writes with such an open heart that it’s almost jarring. Yes, this is yet another project recorded in the ever-abundant hearth of Drop of Sun, with customary assists from Colin Miller and co., but this band has footholds in scenes across the country (Philly, Vermont, and so on), and none of those other records sound as defiantly flamboyant and free-flowing as this one — it sounds like Florry!
Fancy That — PinkPantheress
Few pop artists these days are as uniquely engaging as PinkPantheress, a prodigal talent who unapologetically wears her influences on her sleeve but has carved out a lane seemingly entirely her own, unburdened by expectations or genre conventions. Y2K-era aesthetics and UK garage influences are prominent throughout (that Underworld sample on “Illegal” is one of my favorite production touches of the year), so it makes perfect sense that the standout “Stateside” is a de facto modern sequel to Estelle’s “American Girl.” The sample-heavy mixes are undeniably busy but still taut, while Pink comes across as equally vulnerable and self-assured; the tape is barely 20 minutes long, but contains multitudes.
Hell Is An Airport — Liquid Mike
Liquid Mike is Midwestern(/Rust Belt?) everyman excellence personified, casually cranking out album after album of kinetic garage rock that sounds a touch better with each cracked cold one. Small town malaise has been and probably always will be their enduring lyrical concern, but the songs are so hooky and compact you hardly notice the lingering permacloud. On their sixth full-length since 2021 (!), Mike Maple and crew continue to operate as a well-oiled machine — when you’ve got this kind of talent for cranking out earworm riffs, what the hell could be wrong with going back to that well again and again.
It’s been six years since the last proper Jay Som album, but from the first few bars of lead single “Float,” it’s immediately clear that was time well spent for Melina Duterte, the do-it-all “your favorite artist’s favorite artist” type who wrote, produced, and engineered this return to form. These songs glow with the sheen of her slickest and most confident production yet, and it’s a testament to Duterte’s songwriting chops and grasp of what makes this project tick that it never feels overproduced or heavy handed. Scoring guest contributions from living legends Hayley Williams and Jim Adkins elevates the record even further — “Past Lives” and “Float” are easily among the most catchy and dynamic songs she’s ever released.
Greg Freeman is a rarity — his freewheeling version of modern Americana feels genuinely singular, both in density of instrumentation and lyrical minutiae and the way he performs these songs, his nasally voice piercing that instrumentation with a peculiar but confident twang. Burnover and its predecessor, the excellent I Looked Out, feel like true musical scrapbooks for a couple reasons — he’s an expressive storyteller, melding together real life sagas and tall tales in a way that recalls my favorite novel I read this year (coincidentally set in the band’s native New England); these elaborate arrangements are also constructed and performed with such urgency it often feels like the song could fall apart at any second. It’s a record that immediately grabs listeners with its restless ebbs and flows (despite largely eschewing reliance on grabby hooks), but continuously reveals more of itself with every listen.
Fiery Gizzard — Joseph Decosimo
Like its spiritual sibling and labelmate Diamond Grove, here we find a remarkable exploration into/deconstruction of traditional Americana songs, specifically Appalachian fiddle and banjo music. It doesn’t sound much like Weirs at all, but I’m equally floored by Decosimo’s deep knowledge of and reverence for the region’s musical history and his ability to reshape these songs into something new and incredibly alive. He’s a wizard on each instrument, but the ensemble of players surrounding their bandleader fill out these lush recordings with the depth and communal spirit they deserve.
For an artist who was pegged into a static archetypal box (bearded, weepy singer with an acoustic guitar) from basically the very moment his solo career got off the ground, Justin Vernon sure knows how to play against expectations. The throughline from “Skinny Love” to “Everything Is Peaceful Love” is more winding and artistically eventful than his detractors would care to admit, and we’re now at a place where Vernon is making genuinely joyful music; the brief SABLE intro section is sparse and familiar, but fABLE flowers into bright, soulful arrangements that make those tortured breakup ballads of old feel like distant history. As a longtime diehard, I can admit the end result isn’t as intensely moving as 22, A Million et al, but it’s a relief to hear Vernon fully emerged from the cabin, with the sun in his eyes and breeze at his back.
Welcome to My Blue Sky — Momma
2022’s Household Name was always going to be a tough act to follow — for my money, it’s one of the best pure rock records of the last quarter century — but Welcome to My Blue Sky is a worthy successor. The power chords sound as crunchy as ever and Etta Friedman and Allegra Weingarten’s voices still sound like they were designed just to intertwine with the other, but here they crank the nostalgia meter up to 11 (both lyrically and via that ‘90s-indebted sound). The grease that coated Household Name’s burnt-rubber bangers is mostly gone, in favor of cleaner production that serves to highlight the strengths of a band that’s firing on all cylinders.
I Cleaned My Room For You — Short Frenzy
Like most people, Short Frenzy’s excellent 2024 album A Driving Tour of Southern California’s Backroads initially escaped me — but between that early 2025 discovery and I Cleaned My Room For You’s November release, it’s been a great year to get in on this band at the ground floor. Los Angeles’ best kept secret, helmed by Will Rydall, makes sturdy, lived-in indie rock that gets a hefty kick from shoegazey textures (far from a unique calling card, sure, but they’re doing it better than most). Between Short Frenzy and local peers like Finnish Postcard and Horse Rider, it’s clearly a scene worth keeping tabs on.
Esther Rose isn’t one of the flashier names on the alt-country circuit, but ever since immediately leaving a mark with her 2017 debut This Time Last Night, she’s been one of the most steady purveyors of homey Americana that leans more country than folk, grounded in classic sensibilities but gently moving forwards towards a more progressive sound. Want is maybe her strongest effort yet, boasting fuller arrangements on foot-stomping rockers like “Ketamine” and especially the jaunty “New Bad.” Rose’s confessional pen shines on every song, but I find “Want Pt. 2” to be particularly striking, offering up some beautiful perspective and closing the album with a big breath of fresh desert air.
