Armand Hammer is the New York based hip-hop duo of Billy Woods (whom you'll see again later on this list) and Elucid. Their 2025 release finds them paired once again with producer and DJ The Alchemist and plays like a surreal daydream, like slowly sinking, sinking, sinking into your seat in a haze of smoke and blurred peripheries. There is a particular kind of hip-hop sound that i am a total sucker for, and these guys have my number. Make a stiff drink or roll a joint and give this one a whirl.
Canadian based rapper Backxwash channels all of her rage, inner turmoil, and disdain for the world at large into everything she releases. It lies somewhere between emotional catharsis and a veritable explosion. The artist's own words describe the album best: "These are the songs of a person who was brought back to life but is now haunted by death itself." Hell yeah.
Dallas artist Black Taffy made what might be my favorite record of the year with Out Moon. Album opener "Pendulum Swing" is the sound of watching an old black and white movie's musical and dance sequence while time slows and you fall into it yourself. The rest of the album follows suit with old classical samples, subdued beats, and warbled tape hiss, a dark, surreal, and ethereal world. I listened to this probably more than anything else this year.
New York experimental indie pop band Blood Cultures give us a new album of catchy, chugging electro-pop that also serves as the soundtrack for the new Skate Story video game. Every track is weird and slightly off kilter and will worm its way into your brain.
This one might be cheating a little bit since it's really just a 16-minute mini-album, but the combination of Dean Blunt's music, the drawl of Iceage front man Elias Bender Rønnenfelt, and additional production from Blunt's longtime collaborator Vegyn make those 16 minutes an absolutely intoxicating listen.
Austin's Daydream Twins make the dreamiest of dreampop and shoegaze, the kind of layered sound and haze that feels like a soft blanket wrapped around your soul, sugary sweet and ethereal all at the same time.
Andy Santella, AKA Deer Park, makes a hard to define style of pop music, a woozy mix of indie folk, lo-fi bedroom pop, and experimental electronica. Like a lot of stuff i listen to, Terra Infirma plays like a melancholy daydream.
Until this year, i never really paid too much attention to Ethel Cain, the music project stage name of Hayden Silas Anhedonia, but was urged to check out the artist's work after catching wind her 2025 album Perverts. Holy moly. The album is a droney, ambient, sprawling piece of work, full of negative spaces, darkness, barely there sounds, and a deep, deep sadness. The whole thing is kind of overwhelming, but i have been transfixed since that first listen.
Three artists meet at a mutual friend's wedding and decide to get together and record a wedding album. The end result is a cinematic mix of Spanish music and indie folk, a veritable sonic love letter from M. Ward, Giant Sand's Howe Gelb, and Irish multi-instrumentalist McKowski.
Philly lo-fi shoegaze and psych-tinged indie band Halloween released their crowning achievement this year with Shadow House, a warbly, woozy effort that feels like fingers digging around in your subconscious and tickling your eardrums. It's the kind of stuff i wish i could make.
Korean shoegaze artist Parannoul goes full on psychedelic noise rock with side project Huremic, the first release of which was this year's astounding Seeking Darkness. Elements of said psych and noise combine with spacey, experimental post rock for a sprawling and often chaotic sound. It rules!
Ohio band The Laughing Chimes have a kind of jangle pop, college radio, post punk thing going for them with elements of goth and more. It's like they tailor made an album for me.
Though he hails from Harrisburg, Virginia, singer/songwriter Babe Lewis's 2025 album Sunspot is practically bathed in West Coast vibes, a California psych pop record from the other side of the country. I've been digging on the dreamy bedroom psych since it dropped back in May.
Manchester band Maruja put on one of the most amazing and intense shows i saw all year back in March at SXSW. The band's pulverizing mix of post rock, post punk, jazz, rap, and noise rock combined with a very angry and political (and pro-Palestine) message left me dazed and awed. And i was fortunate enough to run into them later that week on the street, and given a chance to express how phenomenal i thought they were. Their Pain to Power full-length album came out a couple months later and lives up to that performance. Here's hoping they make it back to Texas again in the future. These socks need knocking off.
I'm kind of cheating again here with not one, but two new albums from Montreal indie pop band Men I Trust. Sister albums Equus Asinus and Equus Caballus ride on a blend of lo-fi bedroom folk, synth pop, R&B, French pop, and a general vibe that feels like the soundtrack to old European films I go back and forth on which record i prefer pretty much on a weekly basis, so i've just got to include them both. These may be the group's magnum opus.
And the other one...
On Love Is Colder that Death, UK producer Romance uses tape loops, samples, and effects to create a fog-laden, film noirish, black and white world full of old Hollywood types, broken detectives, femme fatales, and a deep and profound yearning. At points it feels like falling asleep while watching old movies on TCM with the sound barely audible, images and half-heard music notes invading your encroaching dreams. This one has been on constant repeat while i'm working. It can make it all just fade to black.
Another Manchester band, this time around making the kind of noisy post punk that i would have listened to at any given point in my life. 16-year old Tommy would have been just as big a fan of Rude Films' raucous sound as 46-year old Tommy is. Some things never change i guess.
Speaking of things i would have liked just as much as a teenager as i do now, Alabama's Sister Ray Davies (excellent pun name by the way) bring all the dreamy, reverby shoegaze you can handle. I listen to a lot of shoegaze music every year, and in 2025, this one is my go-to. Floating in audio.
I told you we'd hear from Billy Woods again. The New York artist has quietly become my favorite rapper over the last 3 years, each release seemingly earning a spot in my regular rotation as well annual visits to my year-end best-of lists. GOLLIWOG does the same. Woods is nothing if not prolific, and i find myself always wanting more, more, more. Please keep it up sir.
My first listen through the new album by Hilary Woods, my initial reaction was just..."Whoa." My second listen through, my reaction again was..."Whoa." A dark and haunting collection of twilight folk spattered with Morricone vibes that feels simultaneously broadcast from some alternate past and some other foreign dimension, the whole thing makes for a perfect late night or early morning listen.
And there you have it. I truly hope you enjoy these records just as much i have this year. Tune back in tomorrow for my favorite songs of 2025.
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