i listen to an irresponsible amount of music so here's my list of things i enjoyed the most this year. if you're my irl friends you know a bunch of these already. onto the writeups starting with honorable mentions!
fair warning this shit is so fuckin long, dog.
Honorable Mentions:
unkillable angel by ada rook
fav song: pee yuorself
I feel like it'd be borderline criminal of me not to mention ada rook at all on this list considering how much of her work permeates my friend group's listening habits. Before this year, i was familiar with black dresses because of Fantano, i tried to listen to peaceful as hell when it came out but didn't dive deeper into Rook or Devi's discog until this year when Rook came highly recommended by a dear friend of mine. This album is fucking crazy. Really noisy and abrasive in ways that scratch my brain in a good way. i hate that stupid mouse.
try by door eater
fav song: stay out
it didn't take long for rook to appear again on this list and this time she's with lauren bousfield of nero's day at disneyland fame. Lauren's production will always be so incredible to me, it's experimental, noisy, glitchy, and oddly circus themed. I've been a long time fan of Nero's so hearing that she was doing a project with Rook sounded like a match made in hell. Rook's screamed vocals over the fucked up circus music of Lauren is a great pairing.
psycho warrior: mg ultra x by machine girl
fav song: dread architect
so my first machine girl album was the neon white soundtrack. let me tell you that's a really great album but gave me a wildly incorrect idea of what machine girl is. i have since corrected this and have seen them live and god damn they rule. wildest and loudest concert i've ever been to. MG Ultra was on my top list last year so it's not a surprise that Psycho Warrior gets mentioned here somewhere. This album is loud as fuck and aggressive as shit and I wouldn't have it any other way.
dead channel sky by clipping
fav song: welcome home warrior
clipping is truly a one of a kind trio in the year of our lord 2025. while i didn't fuck with this album as much as There Existed An Addiction To Blood and Visions of Bodies Being Burned, clipping's shift into this electronic and rap combo for this album is fascinating. it perfectly pairs with the overarching theme of technological dystopia that we are slowly careening towards with each passing day. daveed diggs remains one of the best rappers alive and I cannot wait for their next album.
one room survival by serani poji
fav song: スマイリーを探して (looking for smiley)
another recommendation from the same friend who recommended Rook to me. this album is bubbly and absolutely infectious. such a wonderful and deeply nostalgic jpop album. the frontwoman of serani poji is sasaki tomoko, a regular composer at SEGA and the woman responsible for the NIGHTS into Dreams OST and you can hear it. Great production, great instrumentation, cute vocals.
--intermission--
y'all. writing about music is hard.
--intermission over--
clepsydra by chouchou merged syrups
fav song: 踊る、そして (dance, and)
chouchou merged syrups is a small kyoto-based jrock outfit with math-y and shoegaze-y sensibilities and i'm absolutely in love with them. 踊る、そして landed on my most listened to songs of the year list. The build up and climax of the latter half of the song is crack to my ears. Chouchou has a great knack for very catchy guitar melodies that I latched onto really quickly such as on 白昼夢は色彩の無い(hakuchumuha shiisainonai) and the lead vocalist, Chiaki Kawato has such a wonderful voice and I love her winding choruses.
the spiritual sound by agriculture
fav song: Bodhidharma
i learned about agriculture through Fantano and their Living is Easy EP and knew that they were special. Few black metal bands have such attention for storytelling and lyricism that Agriculture has in addition to their absolutely blistering guitarwork from Richard Chowenhill. The solo in Bodhidharma is one of my favorites of the year. The album is full of meditations on religion and spirituality that are extremely interesting.
conflict dlc by HEALTH
fav song: ordinary loss
this is a really recent release at the time of writing but HEALTH remains my favorite voice in industrial metal with their brutal riffs paired with despondent, misanthropic, hopeless vocals. at the moment, conflict dlc is hitting less hard than rat wars but i haven't had much time to marinate on it yet.
purity ring by purity ring
fav song: memory ruins
purity ring is back baybeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
this album is really good. as a self-described "gamer", i loved the soundfonts on this album so much. they're so whimsical and evocative and beautiful. corin's production on this album is stellar and megan's vocals are beautiful as ever. hard hitting and fantastic. the closest album to breaching my top 10. also one of the best concerts i've seen this year.
and with that, we're onto the top 10! if you've read this far, thank you for reading my words. i have a lot more to talk about, so lets get started wiiiith....
10
Les Chants De L'Aurore by Alcest
fav song: Améthyste
Alcest is a really special band to me, I've been following them for over a decade and they frequently place in my most listened to music on any given year.
If you are unfamiliar, Alcest is a French black metal outfit comprised of multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Neige and drummer Winterhalter. Through Alcest, Neige pioneered a new genre called blackgaze, a mix of black metal and shoegaze. From soaring guitar melodies to brutal tremolo picked grind sessions and atmospheric reverb laden passages, Alcest does it all for me, and Les Chants De L'Aurore is the next step in the band's progression. A beautiful combination of their more shoegaze centric music from their album Shelter and their heavier material from Kodama and Spiritual Instinct.
On this album, Neige grapples with his brand of spirituality and what it means to him and the world around him, how it effects him and the people he cares about while painting portraits of how he sees the world, a fantastical landscape full of promise and wonder. A far cry from the darker themes of Les Voyages de L'Ame or Écailles de lune. This album feels like a new leaf turned for him, and the music really evokes that feeling.
I can't wait to see what they do next.
9
Goldstar by Imperial Triumphant
fav song: Gomorrah Nouveaux
Imperial Triumphant is a band that I believe is brutally underrated in modern death metal. Pounding riffs, creative production, incredible instrumentation, they're really the full package, they even have a saxophone in the mix!
Hailing from New York City's underground, Imperial Triumphant paints a dissonant and bleak picture of the city they come from through the lens of a corrupted and rusting Gilded Age, shown prominently through the album art, harkening back to old cigarette advertisements of the 20s. Their music evokes the peak of luxury in the gold tipped spires of New York unknowingly supported by the abused and trampled-upon working class of the city, reminding their listeners of the true cost of progress in the name of capitalism.
The lyrics of Goldstar reflect this perspective. They are regularly fanciful and flowery, almost poetic, steeped in metaphor and invoking imagery of cold, apathetic old gods who rule the city. Industry of Misery sees the most dramatic call to action on the album as vocalist Zachary Ezrin growls out "Bring down the guillotine!"
A powerful album about the current late-stage capitalist hellscape a lot of us happen to reside in. Imperial Triumphant continues to be one of the most exciting voices in death metal, and I hope they keep it up.
"Hail Satan, my child. Don't worry, he will fix it."
8
Revengeseekerz by Jane Remover
fav song: TURN UP OR DIE
2025 was really the fucking year for quirky transfem music and in my opinion the finest example of this was Jane Remover's Revengeseekerz.
Until this album dropped, I was unfamiliar with Jane's music. I largely missed the train on the hyperpop that Jane helped pioneer on albums like Frailty, but I'm glad that I decided to check this out because wow!
This album is a blistering and energetic romp through trap, hardcore, digicore, and a million other niche subgenres. Every song is unbelievably produced and maximalist as fuck. You can hear Jane's FL Studio screaming for relief and she continues to brick the fuck out of every mix. As Rook said when referring to her own bricked out waveforms: "it leaves no room for the bad sounds." and I believe that Jane heard that and took it personally, but despite the rampant clipping present through the album, it works like an absolute charm and sounds amazing. Any single one of these songs would be welcome on the dancefloor of the best club you've ever been to.
Jane's lyricism really runs the gambit on topic and theme. She jumps between fighting off her dickriders on Psychoboost to more introspective tracks like Angels in Camo where she grapples with fame and the people who seek to take advantage of her for money.
"Jesus never had it with a freak bitch, yeah!"
7
Imaginal Disk by Magdalena Bay
fav song: Image
This is an album I listened to when it came out, as I was a fan of Mercurial World, but for some reason Imaginal Disk didn't stick with me initially. I'm really glad a friend of mine brought it up to me again, because I guess I just needed to marinate on this album a little. What an incredible record. Picking between it and Mercurial World is sort of like picking children but I think Imaginal Disk edges it out slightly.
There are a lot of claimants to the synthpop throne that was left vacant after Depeche Mode abdicated and I can think of none better to fill those shoes than Magdalena Bay. Matt and Mica continue to prove themselves as an unbelievable creative duo with their glittery and sparkly production dripping in groove and style that made the greats as good as they are. This album blends together in a way that makes it such an easy and addictive listening experience.
Lyrically and thematically, Matt and Mica jump topics from the struggles of romance, to the discovering yourself. Well written and catchy as all hell.
"It's here, say hello, it's you!"
6
Tidal Memory Exo by Iglooghost
fav song: Echo Lace
I've been listening to EDM and IDM for a long time now and very very few artists have absolutely captured me like Iglooghost.
Iglooghost is the producer's producer. He's an absolute master at what he does, and I hope he gets more prominence for it soon. He weaves these intricate soundscapes that are a joy to listen to. On this album, Iglooghost incorporates his own voice into the production more than on past projects, of course he also has his normal suite of featured artists like the absolutely haunting whispers of Cyst on Spawn01. His songs are winding, multilayered, and heavy. I almost feel like I know just enough about music to know what he's doing is crazy but not enough to tell exactly what sort of witchcraft he's manufacturing. His basslines are always earthshaking, his melodies are perfectly ethereal. This album feels like standing at the bottom of the ocean. It's hard to describe fully what this album does to me.
Please go listen to it.
"So rot in me, I wither, sink."
5
Magic, Alive! by McKinley Dixon
fav song: Could've Been Different
I need someone to explain to me how McKinley Dixon isn't the most popular rapper ever because that shit eludes me.
Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!? was my album of the year in 2023 so you know I was waiting with baited breath for McKinley's next project and did he ever deliver. Magic, Alive! is a concept album about a trio of young boys whose friend dies tragically and they wrestle with the turmoil that follows. The crux of the story is the trio wondering what they can do to bring their friend back, through any means. It's a contemplation on magic, what it means, what it is, and what can constitute as magic. Can a pull from a bottle be magic? or a puff of a joint? These are the kinds of things that Dixon grapples with on this album, and I am absolutely enamored with it.
Musically, Dixon is in top shape coming off of his previous record, an album that was already chocked full of gorgeous live instrumentation. In Magic, Alive! the album takes a notably more upbeat and jazzy angle on his previous work. McKinley floats over saxophones and tubas with grace and ease, his bars perfectly complimenting his accompaniment
McKinley is as potent a storyteller as ever. Full of heart and emotion as he raps from the perspective of kids sneaking out of their houses late at night for a rendezvous, putting basketballs on their pillows to fool their mothers and the subsequent fallout when they get caught on "We're Outside, Rejoice!". A thrilling, groovy, and swaggy album full of great stories and touching, heartfelt reflections on loss and grief and the importance of community during tragedy.
"We ain't ran from where we grew up, shit, we'd probably go insane
Oh my God, oh my God, I just wanna jump off the roof"
4
You Won't Go Before You're Supposed To by Knocked Loose
fav song: Don't Reach For Me
As usual, I am late to the train on Knocked Loose and this album. This album absolutely blew the fucking doors off the metalcore scene last year and I just got around to listening to it this year, and holy fuck what an achievement of a record.
This thing is absolutely brutal. Loud, aggressive, fast, pounding. It gives you no breaks as it seamlessly moves from song to song. I'm not traditionally a metalcore guy and haven't been this absorbed in a metalcore album since Code Orange's Underneath. You know metalcore is good when you're genuinely worried for the health of the lead vocalist. Bryan Garris absolutely fucking demolishes this album front to back. Incredible production work from Drew Fulk (real time edit: i thought this album was produced by the guy who did Jane Doe by Converge, I was wrong!). As with most extreme music, there's always seems to be a dick measuring contest on who can make their music the loudest, most abrasive thing ever without causing you physical pain, and Knocked Loose is absolutely winning that contest by a mile.
Lyrically Knocked Loose covers a lot of topics. Retribution for an abuser (Don't Reach For Me), Societal divide (Slaughterhouse 2), and blind adherence to religion (Blinding Faith) and they treat all of these subjects with an equal level of hostility and brutality that sometimes feels inherent to a genre like metalcore.
Incredible and not for the faint of heart.
"No lies can spread from a tongue removed."
3
Private Music by Deftones
fav song: I Think About You All The Time
Deftones is fucking back man. This album rules.
I haven't really been hot on most of Deftones' recent releases, I bounced off of Ohms and haven't gone back to visit it. Though, my first Deftones album was Gore so I guess I shouldn't talk too much.
I was really surprised by this album. It's heavy as hell and produced really cleanly as is expected from a band of Deftones' stature. My Mind Is A Mountain is an incredible opener, such an infectious opening riff. The transitions on this album are so good, it feels like most of the large tracks on the record are meant to be listened to as a two parter. My Mind is a Mountain into Locked Club, I Think About You All The Time into Milk of the Madonna.
Lyrically is where Deftones always falls apart for me a bit, I think Chino Moreno is a perfectly good lyricist but I don't think he's ever really blown me away, and I believe this is the case with Private Music too, but it's more than made up for with his incredible vocal work. Chino is like 53 years old and sounds like a god damn animal on every track, it's amazing. Super solid, catchy, well produced metal album.
I got to see them perform part of this album live and it absolutely hits.
"All of my life, you've been the same. All of our days, and we'll never change."
2
Almost Static by Keep
fav song: Sodawater
shoegaze guy posts shoegaze album. i will not apologize.
Keep is a small shoegaze outfit from Richmond, Virginia and I love them.
If you know me personally, you know that I absolutely adore an even smaller shoegaze outfit from New York named Warm. Keep is the closest a band has come to topping Warm for me.
I found Keep through Spotify's discover weekly and their song called In The Deep off of their 2023 album Happy In Here (which is also very good, go listen to Hand2Hand) and since then I've been waiting for their next project. Almost Static is a fantastic follow up. I'm ace and I want to fuck whatever they use to make their guitar tone. It's so luscious and comforting. I always say that I want music to make me feel like I'm drowning and Keep achieves this in spades. It's such a dreamy, blissful album that follows a clear progression as the album plays. The sound is colder at the beginning compared to the end, a nice detail on a detail laden album.
Keep isn't weaving any expansive long reaching narratives on Almost Static like the next album on this list (spoilers) but they're getting to the heart of whatever topic they're singing about. They're simple, but there's nothing wrong with that. Hurt a Fly's opening of "Always terrified, I just try to get it right, all the time" still hits as the anxious mess that I am.
"I'm always needing what I don't need, that's just the way it goes."
1
Lonely People with Power by Deafheaven
fav song: Revelator/Magnolia
I'm not even sure what to say about this album, honestly. If you know me, this isn't a surprise. I've been talking about this album with my irl friends since March. As soon as I listened to it, I knew it would be at the top of this list.
I guess I'll start with a bit of background on Deafheaven.
Deafheaven is an American black metal band from San Francisco and they released an album in 2013 called Sunbather. Sunbather was a paradigm shift in American black metal. The scene was struggling compared to the flourishing European scene and I've never seen an album as abrasive and hard to listen to as Sunbather make such a colossal impact on music, to the point where it got mainstream coverage. Several years passed, Deafheaven release New Bermuda, Ordinary Corrupt Human Love, and Infinite Granite, all of which fail to stand up to Sunbather. That sets the scene for Lonely People With Power.
To get personal for a moment, in November of 2024 my father passed away suddenly. That was a very confusing time in my life as normally I think you're supposed to celebrate the death of your abuser, but instead I didn't really know how to feel. My mom was devastated but I felt conflicted.
That following January, Deafheaven released the first single off this album called Magnolia, and wouldn't you know it, that song is about the death of a parental figure, specifically a father. To say that this moment was a parting of the clouds moment would be a bit of an understatement. It's a song about grief, about conflicted feelings about the passing of a loved one, confronting how much of your abuser is still a part of you, and how much you love them anyway.
It was pretty hard. I cried a lot.
I knew then that this album would be one of my favorite albums of all time, almost regardless of the content of the rest of the album (fortunately it was also very good and talked about similar topics) and here we are.
It means a lot to me.
"At Heaven's gate, standing with the guards
My love is endless
Everything of you is me
Every step is toward the grave.
Could it be flesh and blood were all we gave?"
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Epilogue
Hi!
If you read all the way to this point, honestly I probably know who you are, but in case I don't, thanks! It means a lot to me, regardless, that you took the time to read my rambling and semi-incoherent thoughts about things that I love. I wrote this in a single 6 hour stretch with minimal breaks. Adderall will do that to you I guess.
I want to shout out my friends who send me their music and share their thoughts and opinions with me about music or anything else, you know who you are. I love y'all a lot. Please continue to send me anything you find, if its interesting, bad, good, whatever, maybe it'll end up in the post for 2026!
there was a lot of stuff I didn't mention in this post, incredible albums in their own right. little simz's lotus, pilotredsun's achievement, and many more. maybe a post for another time as i have currently written over 3600 words for this post.
thank you all for reading
kurtis xoxo
