Pruning the Lower Limbs - Moving Mountains Winner! - Head North Side A - All Get Out Sable, Fable - Bon Iver Copper Changes Color - Caamp Jellywish - Florist Further From the Country - William Prince Never Enough - Turnstile Bloodless - Samia Natural Light - Dan Mangan
The Armed - THE FUTURE IS HERE AND EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE DESTROYED claire rousay - a little death Macie Stewart - When the Distance is Blue La Dispute - No One Was Driving the Car Bon Iver - SABLE, fABLE clipping. - Dead Channel Sky Hayley Williams - Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party Ichiko Aoba - Luminescent Creatures AFI - Silver Bleeds the Black Sun… Black Taffy - Out Moon Honorable mentions in alphabetical order: Agriculture - The Spiritual Sound Apparitions - Volcanic Reality Apres Pompeii - Paint Clipse - Let Got Sort em Out Deafheaven - Lonely People With Power Dijon - Baby First Day Back - Forward Jake Muir - Campana Sonans Lambrini Girls - Who Let the Dogs out Laura Stevenson - Late Great M. Sage - Tender / Wading Model/Actriz - Pirouette Patrick Shiroishi - Forgetting is Violent Rosalía - LUX Shallowater - God's Gonna Give You A Million Dollars Smut - Tomorrow Comes Crashing Snocaps - Snocaps to eat flowers and not be afraid - to eat flowers and not be afraid wøunds - What it Means to be a Body Your Smith - The Rub
I've finally finished my annual end of year summary - if anyone is interested you can read here. Includes a couple of book recommendations and a list of the gigs I have been to this year. 1. Dance Myth – The Shapes We Make 2. Ethel Cain – Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You 3. Matt Maeson – A Quiet and Harmless Living 4. Lucy Dacus – Forever Is A Feeling 5. Hayley Williams – Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party 6. La Dispute – No One Was Driving The Car 7. Ollie Dixon – Rebirth 8. Thrice – Horizons/West 9. Jensen McRae – I Don’t Know How But They Found Me! 10. SUDS – Tell Me About Your Day Again 11. Underoath – The Place After This One 12. Sigrid – There’s Always More That I Could Say 13. Mumford & Sons – Rushmere 14. Suzzallo – The Quiet Year 15. mewithoutYou – [Live] vol.2 16. Denison Witmer – Anything At All 17. John Mark McMillan – Cosmic Supreme 18. Will Reagan – I Love It When You Smile 19. The Callous Daoboys – I Don’t Want To See You In Heaven 20. Moving Mountains – Pruning of The Lower Limbs
Album of the Year = La Dispute - No One Was Driving The Car No One Was Driving the Car is my runaway album of the year. I didn’t think that La Dispute would ever top Wildlife, but here we are 14 years later and they have released one of the most exhilarating albums of all time. Vocalist Jordan Dreyer weaves a tale of existential dread and disillusion at the state of the world that stirs me at every turn. It is an angry and thought-provoking album about the every day horrors of humankind and generational complacency to save what was once beautiful. No One Was Driving the Car is all consuming once it sinks its claws into you. It is best enjoyed with the lyrics in hand to allow you to pull back the layers. Every listen to this album presents a new instrumental flourish that I didn’t notice or a lyric that strikes me in a way that it hadn’t before. This is everything that I love about music and my journey with this record and the accompanying documentary really made me sink into a record in a way that our distraction filled lives rarely encourage us to do so. RIYL: mewithoutYou, Touché Amoré, Casey Best Albums of 2025 La Dispute - No One Was Driving The Car Ethel Cain - Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You Olivia Dean - The Art of Loving BRUIT ≤ - The Age of Ephemerality you, infinite - you, infinite Pelican - Specific Resonance Mychelle - Good Day Anxious - Bambi Beach Bunny - Tunnel Vision Moving Mountains - Pruning of the Lower Limbs Ruston Kelly - Pale, Through the Window GROS COEUR - Vague Scélérate Tom Basden & Carey Mulligan - The Ballad of Wallis Island Thrice - Horizons/West Pool Kids - Easier Said Than Done Joy Crookes - Juniper Turnstile - NEVER ENOUGH KAUAN - Wayhome Petey USA - The Yips The Beths - Straight Line Was A Lie (I'm currently checking out a bunch of stuff I missed out on or didn't give much time to, but this is where my feelings land on what I spent most of my time with in 2025) Best EPs of 2025 Now, Now - 01 Gatsbys American Dream - Chyron Izzy Withers - Freckleface Best Gigs of 2025 Mychelle (support: Izzy Withers) @ Jazz Cafe, London GROS COEUR @ Blondie’s Bar, London The Get Up Kids: Something to Write Home About 25th Anniversary (support: Lakes) @ Electric Ballroom, London This Will Destroy You: TWDY Full Album Set (support: Nordic Giants) @ Islington Assembly Hall, London Maybeshewill 20th Anniversary @ EartH, London Best Movies of 2025 The Ballad of Wallis Island Sentimental Value Weapons Eternity It Ends (I missed so many movies that I still want to see, so this is a pretty rudimentary list) Letterboxd Stats: Tonerish’s 2025 in review Best Video Games of 2025 Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Hollow Knight: Silksong Blue Prince BALL X PIT Monster Train 2 (Still have a lot to play from one of the most stacked years in gaming in recent memory… I’m currently enjoying Arc Raiders, Clover Pit, Hades 2 and Cast n Chill)
End of the year feature is up! Full list: Chorus.fm’s Top 30 Albums of 2025 My list: Jason Tate’s Top Albums of 2025
Interesting that a lot of those artists are from the same scene and have been making music for at least 10-20 years now. Very few new artists listed. Chorus fam, love y’all but we may need to expand our curiosities.
A year ago we had a decidedly non-AbsolutePunk artist at the top of our list, and got shit for that, too.
Also, this is one of the only places on the internet that consistently gives late-career work a fair shot. I’m personally proud of that! Plenty of other place that have more of an “out with the old, in with the new” mentality, if that’s what you’re after.
Hot take, but I've tried to get into Dijon a bunch of different times and it's just not landing for me.
Alright I've procrastinated long enough. Top 10: Alex G - Headlights Deftones - Private Music Cloakroom - Last Leg of the Human Table Excide - Bastard Hymns The Starting Line - Eternal Youth Greet Death - Die In Love Turnstile - Never Enough LS Dunes - Violet Spencer Radcliffe - Ohio Vision End It - Wrong Side of Heaven Honorable Mentions: Bleary Eyed - Easy Superheaven - Superheaven Moving Mountains - Pruning of the Lower Limbs Hard Chiller - BABY! TAGABOW - LOTTO Orchid Mantis - In Airports The Acacia Strain - You Are Safe From God Here The Callous Daoboys - I Don't Want to See You In Heaven Drain - ...Is Your Friend Liquid Mike - Hell is an Airport Cryogeyser - Cryogeyser Bedridden - Moths Strapped to Each Other's Backs King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Phantom Island Glitterer - erer PUSH - maybe our days are numbered The Berries - The Berries Glare - Sunset Funeral Rocket - R Is For Rocket
I’m slightly late but 1. Hayley Williams - Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party 2. The Weeknd - Hurry Up Tomorrow 3. Lady Gaga - MAYHEM 4. Turnstile - NEVER ENOUGH 5. PinkPantheress - Fancy That 6. FKA twigs - EUSEXUA 7. CMAT - EURO-COUNTRY 8. ROSALÍA- LUX 9. Laufey - A Matter Of Time 10. Lorde - Virgin 11. Bon Iver - SABLE, fABLE 12. Tyler the Creator - DON’T TAP THE GLASS 13. Clipse - Let God Sort Em Out 14. Addison Rae - Addison 15. FKA twigs - EUSEXUA Afterglow 16. DARKSIDE - Nothing 17. The Last Dinner Party - From the Pyre 18. Djo - The Crux 19. Wet Leg - moisturizer 20. Geese - Getting Killed
Not really implying late-career artists shouldn’t be given their due. It’s more about the artists themselves, and the same music scene that’s given attention year after year. If it’s not one emo artist, it’s another one that sounds almost exactly like the first one. Doesn’t surprise me that certain genres have their biases here on ex-AbsolutePunk.net, but I’m always hoping to see more of the new, more from the fringes, more international stuff, more artists that challenge the status-quo—just something different than what is primarily given the spotlight here.
The stuff you’re talking about is so much more likely to appear on individual lists rather than the combined list. You’re posting on a website that sprung from a very specific music scene and are surprised that the consensus artists/albums for the 10 people writing about music on that website are from that same scene. Of course those are the artists on this list; they’re our common ground.
I hated Foxes In The Snow, maybe more than any other album I've heard this year, but your writing about it is fantastic Still working through other stuff in other lists but I wanted to read that one in particular since I hated it so much and thought you did a great job
Hey, thanks! May I ask what irked you about it? It's a polarizing album, to be sure, but I thought it was beautiful. (Amanda's response album, on the other hand, was a real tough sit for me.)
Sonically I just prefer his 400 Unit stuff in general and thought some of what he was delivering came across too corny, not sure if there's a better way I can put that, lyrically I thought there were a lot of, what I will call, "manchild moments" and while I get that he's not being proud of em and is being self-aware it still wasn't enjoyable for me to hear about I loved Amanda's album, her sound isn't typically my thing but I thought she did some very musically interesting things that I enjoyed
I prefer the 400 Unit stuff, too, but I kind of liked getting a breather and hearing him just play acoustic (which he does so beautifully). "Manchild moments" is probably fair, but those felt honest to me.
But the thing is... I'm not surprised lol. It's expected at this point. Maybe I just want writers for other types of music.