top 10 albums of 2025 so far

bless you, you tasteful beauties, and bless this music too. some strong aoty candies in the mix.

we’re halfway through the year. so hear my takes. in order of excellence:

1/ sunflower bean — mortal primetime | april 25, 2025

hands down my favorite album of the year. sunflower bean’s blend of neo-gothic grunge and floaty vocals is just delightful. the steady chords and progressive drumline in the opening track lure you into thinking you’re just listening to another indie punk record when bam, 50 seconds in, the key shifts and julia cumming rolls right into one of the melismatic choruses that seize your attention and insist that they’re up to something totally different. it’s fresh, wild, and expansive, yes — but also tight. disciplined.

mortal primetime rocks. you should listen to the whole thing. most times though, i start on the fifth track. “i knew love” is where the album ditches power chords for piano and violin — slowing down to survey the heartbreak that had fueled the prior tracks’ reactive energy. in a landscape where heartbreak songs go desperately basic, julia’s emotional maturity is bright exception. she rejects self-indulgence, instead recognizing with gratitude the way that love can — even when lost — irrevocably enrich a life thereafter. the album’s not-so-subtle religious allusions give the impression that she also recognizes something in the experience that transcends the particular. “yes i did // taste heavy dripping fruits and bore no shame // and i’ve been devoured as the rib from whence i came… // i knew love and it shined on me // it shines on me still.”

but this revelation — if it is that — is realistically fleeting. two tracks later she sings, “there’s a part i can’t get back // you stole love from me // there’s a bag i can’t unpack // it’s always with me // if i die before i wake i pray the lord // let’s me get even first, i do, i do.” we are mortal, the album’s title reminds us. so for now, gratitude and transcendence yield as the ego reasserts itself.

“do you really want a piece of all this pain?” she asks in the penultimate track. yes! is my answer. i have cried to this music, danced to it, bench-pressed to it. no other album this year is sonically and emotionally diverse enough to embrace as much of you as this one. bravo sunflower bean.

2/ adrianne lenker — live from revolution hall

big thief’s adrianne lenker is without question, a generational talent. so a collection of ~40 of her live songs is bound to be a big deal. and even if the songs aren’t new, live from revolution hall deserves independent praise because, thanks to andrew sarlo’s producion wizardry, it succeeds in bottling the live show feelings more than any comparable recording to which i’ve listened. as amanda wicks from pitchfork explains,

sarlo used a handheld cassette recorder, a four-channel cassette recorder, and a reel-to-reel tape machine to move listeners around: from soundcheck to live performance, from back of the hall to front, from private moments to public ones.

these recordings are then overlaid into something wholly unique, which goes beyond even what a live show can be. because they all were made in different contexts with different equipment, the layers come together in a final product that is raw, honest, playful, and spirited. fidelities and contexts are mixed, but the subject is singular. this is the closest i’ve felt to lenker’s music — which is to say, it’s the closest i’ve felt to the love about which she can’t stop singing. “all my songs are love songs” she says to the crowd at one point, as if apologizing.

beyond the effects of the recording medium, this album sounds so present because every track features — even names! — the background ambient noises that animate a live concert. the second track “- door & how are you? -” is a recording of the ushers checking tickets at the door followed by ambient sound of the crowd cheering and laughing before adrianne gets up to start tuning her guitar. “some really good giggles going on, all i did was walk on… i could be a sitdown comedian.” you’re so enmeshed that by the time she opens with “little things” you’ve already been washed in the excitement, bubbly nerves, and gentle surrender that the audience in portland, oregon surely felt when this was recorded over two nights in june 2024. another track, “indiana & sneezing” is so-titled because one audience member can be heard repeatedly sneezing in the background. it’s charming. but more than that, it’s a demonstration of just how abundant adrianne’s love is. you can’t help but catch the bug.

adrianne’s reverence is indeed contagious. at one point we’re transported to a laughter-filled rehearsal recording where she recites the entire robert burns poem, composed in august. the album is filled with sacred little moments like this. i could go on and on about them. but you should let the album do that. like mortal primetime, it is music that can meet you in your wholeness and inspire your best instincts while recognizing where you will fall short. you should absolutely listen to it.

3/ antony szmierek — service station at the end of the universe

this album is so cool. you’ve probably not heard anything like it. i certainly hadn’t. you may have heard spoken word house from the uk like benefit’s constant noise, but you probably haven’t heard something that weaves together catchy beats with lyrics that are this wildly associative and still smart as hell. most critics have rated constant noise more favorably than service station but i think antony’s album is the clear favorite. it’s just so much livelier — buoyed by an unstoppable procession of sharp, associative, often absurd lyrics that somehow manage to hang together in a tight rhyme scheme. it’s great dancing music.

“rafters” in particular, is an absolute banger. if you’re not playing this song at 1am to liven up your sleepy millenial house parties, i don’t know what you’re doing. that said, i don’t know what you’re doing in general if you’re at a millenial house party at 1am because i always leave before midnight.

while “rafters” is definitely the best track on the album, it would be a mistake to miss out on others like “the hitchhiker’s guide to the fallacy,” “big light,” or “take me there.” if i were still djing, this album would certainly be near the front of the crate. service station at the end of the universe is upbeat without sliding into superficiality. fresh, without abandoning the core commitments of house music. it is just what the moment demands. strong recommend.

4/ parker mccollom — parker mccollom

on a hot summer night in 2023, my friend jake and i crowded into virginia’s rfk stadium with twenty thousand of our beautiful fellow americans in daisy dukes, wranglers, and trucker hats to see morgan wallen. parker opened, and even then, it was clear to me that he would be the more mature artist of the two. his were the songs i couldn’t stop humming as my friend and i left the concert.

this album is personal — as any self-titled album should be. it’s parker at his most vulnerable to date. navigating tensions between his own insecurities and a more seasoned embrace of community and obligation. on tracks like “hope that i’m enough” or the massively-popular “what kind of man” he’s stuck on questions about himself. on others, like “my blue” or his cover of danny o’keefe’s “good time charlie’s got the blues,” the humble, confident, and empathetic texan is in allowed to bloom.

this makes parker mccollom feel like it’s almost a coming of age album. one where the would-be country bro demonstrates that he’s got enough agape to sing love songs that aren’t all eros. despite naming his last album gold chain cowboy, i don’t think parker is really the kind of dodge charger-ripping, bling-sporting, can’t-pin-me-down hometown boy that he often presents publicly. i suspect we’ll look back in several years and mark this album as a turning point.

ultimately, this one makes my top 10 simply because i’m a fan, the songs are good — many are great — and i like its trajectory. you can bet your last nickel it’s the first album i’ll turn on when i turn off the pavement into the idaho backcountry this week. or you can save that nickel “to hear a little john prine on the radio.” can’t lose.

5/ maribou state — hallucinating love

hallucinating love is joy-filled, funky electronic music that draws inspiration from the happy hardcore scene, aphex twin, and the influence of other artists on london’s ninja tune label (odesza, bonobo, etc.). if you’re craving a full-throated affirmation of life that’ll buoy you through the summer, then this is the album you need.

that uplifting spirit is definitely intentional. as the duo, chris davids and liam ivory, explained to billboard in an interview last year,

a lot of the music was shaped around the theme of struggle, and creating to remove yourself from a difficult period and projecting into something that’s brighter and more hopeful

the album has received a really warm critical reception. josh crowe at clash called it “a powerful contender for album of the year.” it’s certainly got a spot in my rotation.

6/ billy woods — GOLLIWOG

billy woods describes the album this way:

GOLLIWOG is a haunting collection that weaves horror, humor, surrealism and Afropessimism into a cinematic tapestry, aided and abetted by a murderer’s row of producers. African zombies, time traveling trap cars, malevolent ragdolls and a dying Frantz Fanon are just a few of the revelers in woods’ danse macabre.

when he says haunting, he means it. the second track ends with a muted 45 second sample from the horror film when a stranger calls. the subjects dance between horror and humor. “waterproof mascera” loops a sample of a woman whimpering in terror overseen by a higher-pitched ethereal loop that doesn’t seem to care. the samples aren’t all fictional. some come from live recordings — reports on war and torture; drugs and poverty; abuse and rejection.

GOLLIWOG is not easy listening — its focus is fear. but this is the human condition, and billy woods’ album is a good reminder to reckon the darkness. i thought i’d find the afro-pessimism presumptuous, but between listens i happened to be reading a paper about race relations in the united states written by one of the world’s best living political philosophers. he made a compelling argument that if progress feels stalled, it may be because we’ve actually reached equilibrium between integrationist and nationalist ambitions and so are just intractably stuck, in ways that they just aren’t in other countries.

not exactly pick your girlfriend up from the airport music, but definitely worth a full listen when you can prepare all parties involved.

7/ lida pimienta — la belleza

lida pimienta worked with the medellin philharmonic to compose this orchestral blend of liberation anthems inspired by european classical, gregorian chant, and traditional columbian music. the result is impressive, but pimienta’s vocals — pimienta herself, really — are what leave the largest impression. there is fire in her voice. the kind that can only come from righteous conviction and world-historic ambition. pimienta thirsts for justice and insists that we find it through light, now.

it’s also the stuff that scores are made of. you can’t listen to her belt “que vive el caribe, libre!” over the chorus of trumpets on the album’s final track, “busca la luz,” without getting major chills. these are songs of triumph — the kind of thing that can move people, not just as individuals but as a commons. i won’t be surprised if she’s featured in some major motion pictures in the coming years. i hope her music can inspire more towards the world she envisions. it certainly has inspired me.

if you’ve been feeling weighed down by darkness, see what that last track can do for you. it’ll be even more powerful if you listen to the preceding tracks first. ¡libre!

8/ model/actriz — pirouette

“okay i’ll share this // when i was five i remember clearly // my want to have a cinderella birthday party // and when the moment came and i changed my mind // i was quiet, alone, and devastated.” not exactly the lyrics you’d expect to hear on an post-industrial punk-pop album, but openly gay frontman cole haden blends genres seamlessly. he even gets to enact the dream with his bandmates in a cinderella fantasy music video.

the album starts really strong. “vespers” and “cinderella” clearly establish model/actriz’s ambition to create something that defies categorization without sacrificing fun. bangers abound, but you’ll quickly get the idea with “vesper’s” opening synth riff — a simple 1-bar, 134bpm loop that brings in a driving kick and bass after the first phrase. it’s good club music.

that synth riff becomes a motif that repeats throughout the album (e.g. in “departures” and “audience”) which contributes to a feeling that you’ve never really left the world they initiated you into during the album’s first moments. it’s almost like you’ve been seated at a table in the middle of a circus bar while they parade their desires around you like a little sonic freak shows. pirouette has a spinny feel, but it’s not dizzying. if you enjoy the first 45 seconds, you’ll enjoy the album. if nothing else, you should enjoy cole getting princess-wild in this video. pirouette summer anyone?

9/ songhoy blues — héritage

if your vision of desert blues involves the american southwest and lee hazlewood, forget what you know. the hottest desert blues in the world is coming straight outta the world’s hottest desert — the sahara.

that said, 2025 has been a bit of a quiet year for saharan desert blues. i wanted to like mdou moctar’s tears of injustice but it is an acoustic version of all the ripping electric guitar tracks from the prior year’s album funeral for justice. of course, this is intentional, as daniel bromfield explains for pitchfork. but it still feels unsatisfying. i also wanted to like yazz ahmed’s new desert jazz album a paradise in the hold but it’s just too much trumpet for my tastes. it did receive high marks though, so if that’s your cup of tea though, give it a look.

by contrast, the acoustics on héritage are much more colorful — full of the textures and activity of life on the niger river. while most desert blues center a wide-open slide guitar to evoke saraharn winds and starry nights by a caravan campfire, the rich percussion of héritage returns to more traditional songhai instrumentation. while the band is effectively exiled from mali because their music is considered heretical, their work is still a strong call to care for a region with a natural heritage demanding preservation. “issa” the album’s final track is a plea to blue eyed people to protect the river from which so many malians draw their life.

10/ jason isbell — foxes in the snow

i love this album. it’s only last on the list because it’s so simple. but simple can be stunning, and isbell’s latest delivers that in droves. between a divorce and a new love, jason’s got a lot to process on this album, so a guitar and microphone are all he needs. the first five lines present these spare intentions via raw a capella instructions for the singer’s burial. these opening notes will stop you in your tracks. just a man and his mortality. full on sein zum tode. the ten tracks that follow are no less arresting.

this is an album about particular seasons in a life, but thanks to isbell’s wisdom and skill as a songwriter it’s also about the subject of life itself. during an interview with npr shortly after the album was released, isbell reflected on explicitly on these themes:

There was definitely a time early on after Amanda and I had split up, when I was driving in the car and the radio wasn't on and I was alone and I just heard myself say out loud … "Is this going to kill me?" And I didn't even know that I was thinking that question, but I heard it bounce off the windshield. … Everything is brief — so, so brief, but it's so beautiful.

“bury me,” “eileen,” and “gravelweed” are clear masterpieces. but my favorite is “crimson and the clay” — it’s the wide-angle view on the trajectory of his life that situates the album’s particular suffering and excitement within the mind of a man who’s earned the wisdom to say, “well, if I died today, then I've had a good time.” isbell is a master lyricist, vocalist, and finger-picker to be sure — but this album makes my cut because he’s just so clearly caught the spirit and shared it with us here. it’s raw, yes. but unlike so many immature confessionals, we never feel lost in his processing. here again, is an artist capable of telling us — honestly and precisely — what human life can be.