It’s that time of year again: We’re halfway through 2025. Can you believe it? WHAT A SHIT SHOW IT’S BEEN. Here are the 10 best albums so far to help you ignore the real world.
10: Give My Remains To Broadway: This Party Still Sucks
Jangle-Goth. I’m not really sure how else to describe this band. The music is happy, but sad at the same time. They don’t have a wiki page. I can only find an extremely simple bio on their bandcamp page. So all I can say is that the lead singer has the gothiest voice I’ve ever heard, which is the strangest juxtaposition given the sound. I’ve never heard an album before that makes me want to mope around while bounce up and down at the same time.
9: Underworld: Strawberry Hotel
Underworld is the early Electronica band that keeps on giving. This album is warm and beautiful that sounds like they’re still being guided by Darren Emerson. Full of long, minimal, dark, epic techno jams like their Born Slippy days, but easier to listen to. They’ve matured, much like their audience, yet haven’t lost their soul. Give “Techno Shinkansen” a listen if you need one track to geta feel for this album.
8: TURNSTILE: NEVER ENOUGH
To all the Turnstile haters: Grow Up. Yea they started off years ago as a hardcore band. Artists move on. If you stagnate in the same genre and don’t move on, you’re not going to remain interesting. If you don’t like what they’ve become, I understand. They’re clearly not for everyone. But they’ve evolved in a similar way as the Deftones over time; a band looking to take a harsh sound they know they could only honestly make for a few years and to try to make something softer, but still energetic.
This album is class. It still has some head bangers, but it’s a work by a band aging gracefully. No matter how hard some of us pretend to be, we all have lighter music we love; whether it’s synthpop, shoegaze, pop punk, Cocteau Twins, The Police, or what have you. There’s no reason a band can’t try to blend all these styles. This album treads into unknown waters and it works.
Like David Bowie once said: “If you feel safe in the area you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.”
8: THE MURDER CAPITAL: BLINDNESS
This album rocks nuts. I could try to write some fancy Pitchfork/Rolling-Stone-esque review to sound intelligent. But I won’t. It’s post-punk. It’s Irish. But it’s not Fontaines DC. It’s raw and simpler and fun and serious. It sounds like how the album cover looks.
6: Miki Berenyi Trio: Tripla
I miss Lush. We all do. And this album sounds like what Lush would sound like if they kept making music and evolving. The closest we got was a mini reunion in 2016 with a handful of singles on the EP, Blind Spot. This album isn’t much different… in a good way. A bit more chill, thought.
5: The Horrors: Night Life
The Horrors pick up where Marilyn Manson left off in the late 90’s before he started sucking. The first half has a bit more hard-rock/indie flair, but the second half descends into some atmospheric creepy darkwave madness. It’s more eclectic than the rest of the albums on this list. It’s reflective of the post-album world we live in now where “albums” feel more like collections of singles to pick and drag onto various curated playlists rather than to be listened to entirely. On that note, give the final track, “L.A. Runaway” a shot if you want to give this album just one track to judge by.
4: Whirr: Raw Blue
Shoegaze: Goth’s manic pixie girl cousin. There’s quite a revival going on now and it’s great, but nothing is really like the early 90’s heyday… except for Whirr. This album is as close as you get to that early lightning in a bottle of an era. The title track rivals the best tracks from MBV or Slowdive. If you get what I’m saying, there isn’t much more to write. If you like that style, you’ll LOVE this album. It’s a wall of beautiful rainbow vacuum cleaner sounds.
3: Swans: Birthing
Swans are… well.. Swans. and this is a Swans album… meaning you’ll love it or hate it.
I first listened to this album driving along a dark, woodsy, windy road that hugs the Potomac River just outside Washington DC and it started putting me into a trance. By the time I got to my office I had to park and sit for a bit. It’s fucking powerful.
It’s the apocalypse. It’s the creation of the universe. It takes Dead Can Dance and crushes their albums into a pile of dust, puts that dust into a Folger’s coffee can and in accordance with what we think your dying wishes might well have been, we commit your final mortal remains to the bosom of the Pacific Ocean, which you loved so well. Good night, sweet prince.
2: Snapped Ankles: Hard Times Furious Dancing
I don’t know what the fuck kind of music Snapped Ankles is, but I just know that I need more of it in my life. A little bit LCD Soundsystem. A little bit Aphex Twin. A little bit Liars. A little bit Suicide. All rolled into one.
1: Perfume Genius: Glory
Every Perfume Genius is an explosion of trauma coming from someone born in the wrong part of America. His entire catalog is filled with the emotion of Bronski Beat’s “Smalltown Boy” but articulated with so much more individual talent and experimentation.
Ultimately a folk artist, this album returns to more of this early style after a long period of experimenting, and touring with bands like Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Faint. If you’re new to Michael Alden Hadreas’s work, I’d start with his first album. “Mr. Peterson” is the first track I heard by him, and it haunts the back of my brain even today. I hope he keeps making new music, but this album feels like a great bookend to a brilliant career.
| Honorable Mentions:Farba Kingdom: Latest Model, Chimes: Pile of Parts,VNV Nation: Construct,Stereolab: Instant Holograms on Metal Film,Pulp: More |
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