Best Albums of 2025
Snocaps - Snocaps
The Crutchfield sisters are back together for the first time (officially) in 14 years, co-fronting a brand new supergroup, Snocaps, whose self-titled record was dropped on Halloween with little warning. The debut finds the sisters running fast with “no direction,” ripping through a tight collection of songs that feel broken-in on first wear, and liberally borrow from their shared recording history. Katie and Alison have always had knacks for sharp insights delivered by sharper hooks, not to mention their deadly harmonies, and Snocaps has some of the deepest cutting heaters of either’s career. “Heathcliff” is Alison’s cheery mutual destruction anthem that may never leave my head, “Angel Eyes” sees Katie staring directly into the void that makes her songs cut us all down to where our bones are supposed to be. All together, it feels like the product of a cathartic retreat and reconnection between family members and friends, rather than a statement of intent from two of the best in the business. That attitude extends to the supporting cast. MJ Lenderman’s guitar heroics are content to just be a good hang, with gently arresting licks that impress, but never threaten to take over, and Phil Cook is happy to play host, as we all get to listen to two great songwriters let loose and egg each other on.
The Spiritual Sound - Agriculture
It’s a good bit to call your band “ecstatic black metal”. Ten years ago, you wouldn’t be able to get out so clean. But in a post Deafheaven and Liturgy world, I like to think black metal has relaxed a little. L.A.’s Agriculture would be the first to tell you that The Spiritual Sound isn’t a black metal record. Not really. The music is too vast, too eclectic, and too curious to neatly fit under one constraining genre tag. There are plenty of the genre hallmarks: screams, blast beats, tremolo picking, swords, etc. But Agriculture’s identity lies beyond. Album opener “My Garden” plays like a death metal band ripping itself apart and starting over as an indie band once the chorus comes back around. The Emma Ruth Rundle assisted closer “The Reply” sounds like alt country bursting out of a Transylvanian Hunger cassette. Richard Chowenhill’s absolutely volcanic guitar solos split the difference between Eddie Van Halen and basement show noise assault. They even go full My Bloody Valentine on the soft and swooning “Dan’s Love Song”. The sheer enthusiasm and fearless invention are what’s so captivating about The Spiritual Sound. “Bodhidharma” may not be black metal, but it will get you closer to God.
Til Vinden I Dine Øjne - øjeRum
This year, I was introduced to the music of Danish drone artist, øjeRum. Sitting at 2.3K listeners on the music streaming platform that shall not be named, he has flown completely under the radar. And he might be one of the best doing it right now, full stop.
This album, whose title translates to “For the Wind in Your Eyes,” is one of the most transformative sets of drones I've come across this decade. It is a total spiritual balm, a whistling of wind through an impossibly resonant forest, a caressing stream through a horizonless ocean, and a universal heartbeat clicking at the center with rapturous gravity. When I first listened to it, I was transfixed and unable to move for the full hour. I have not been able to leave its gaze since, setting up residencies on these two whirling islands of suffocating solace.
To quote the description on the album’s Bandcamp page: “To listen is to stand still inside the wind, to let it pass through your eyes, your hands, your memory. This is not so much music as it is a place. A place where wind sings through bone, where time folds into itself, where sound becomes breath.” Truly, this place gives life as it passes through me. Discoveries like this are at the core of why I'm thankful to be alive.
Under Tangled Silence - Djrum
I admire the musician that can channel the messiness of their authenticity by marrying disparate traditions in a novel harmonic synthesis. Djrum is one of the latest names that has blown me away in this fashion with his combination of free-flowing classical invention and daring electronic manipulation.
“Under Tangled Silence” rests in the clough between the glitchy, scattershot paroxysms of an Autechre and the organic, polished sprawls of a GoGo Penguin. The improvised piano passages glide effortlessly into hypnotic dance grooves, the songwriting blending and weaving this jumble of textures with just enough direction and framing to curate a listen that is both seamless and infectiously catchy. Highlights like “Waxcap” and “Galaxy in Silence” tickle the brain as they burrow like viruses - you catch yourself helplessly bobbing your head as you shimmy in the shimmer and breathe in the iridescence. Then you’re suddenly thrust into a “Three Foxes Chasing Each Other” and “Let Me,” the scintillating drum patterns sweeping you through a sandstorm of modulations and syncopations as a plucky tonal expanse envelops you in childlike wonder. Many outfits that take this sort of maximally-technical approach come off extremely austere and alienating - but the soulsearching truth in the color of these arrangements really shines through and reveals an environment that is somehow as inviting as it is bewildering.
The World is Still Here and So Are We - Mclusky
With the way the world has turned out in 2025, one wonders – as Yorgos Lanthimos did in one of 2025’s best films, Bugonia – how thrilled we should be that it is still here. But so long as the world continues to exist, we are better off for having McLusky to guide us through the chaos. Those who have spent time with 2004’s Mclusky Do Dallas and the other discs Mclusky dropped in their 2000s run will feel right at home from the opening power chords of “unpopular parts of a pig,” a song that concludes with lead screamer Andrew Falkous baying, like latter-day Scott Walker, “the unpopular parts of a pig are good business! The unpopular parts of a daft fucking pig!” Yet The World is Still Here doesn’t simply go through the motions; even as it isn’t a total reinvention of Mclusky’s sound, it revivifies it in a time where the band’s discordant and bludgeoning style feels urgent, even needed. Falkous and his bandmates get straight to the point; as they ask, correctly, “‘cuz who’s got time to be fuckin’ around? / Not me, not you, or the other characters.”