It’s the end of the year and all the music rags are putting out their “Best Albums of 2025” lists, and I want to participate like I’m a cool music rag too and not just some dork on his computer awkwardly struggling to be hip by saying “music rag.”
This is not a definitive list nor is it necessarily a “Best Of” list, it’s just the albums I can pull from my dusty distracted noggin that came out this year that I recall being most stoked on. I’m sure I missed some gems, but that’s fine. This is good enough. Ten great albums that collectively kicked 2025’s ass.
Check ‘em out if you haven’t yet, and let me know in the comments what I’ve overlooked or forgotten!
Listed in order of release month.
The Tubs – Cotton Crown (Mar 2025)
I stumbled upon The Tubs very recently, and their jangly guitar-driven alternative pop sound immediately transported me back to my college days in Athens, GA in the early 90s. Brings to mind some of the greats of that time and town like REM and Five Eight, and also some non-Athens essentials like Bob Mould. Bands that are just as relevant and important to me three decades later. This is a fun, catchy and energetic album that induced my nostalgia for bands from the good ole’ days while very much establishing its own unique, modern identity.
Propagandhi – At Peace (March 2025)
Another brilliant album of furious fist-pumping punk rock by the beloved long-running Canadian punk legends. The title track is so good that I have to play it multiple times in a row before continuing with the rest of the record. I love how the band members seem like such fun, goofy fellows off stage, while their music is just so damn heavy and angry and makes you want to punch yourself or your friend in the face. Fuck, these guys are so good.
Counting Crows – Butter Miracle, The Complete Sweets (May 2025)
I’m such a nerd for the Counting Crows that I would have included this album in my Top list even if it wasn’t great. But it is, because these guys are pros. If you only think of the Counting Crows as a band with some massive radio hits from the 90s, don’t do that anymore. Go back and listen to their entire catalog including this one, over and over, and understand why so many bands from so many genres hold them in such high esteem. The track “Under the Aurora” belongs up there next to some of their timeless classics like “A Long December,” “Have You Seen Me Lately,” “Sullivan Street,” “Round Here,” and, well, you get the point.
Friendship – Caveman Wakes Up (May 2025)
For being such a subdued, sorrowful album, it packs some real power behind it. Slow and steady, but with an underlying earnest intensity that pulls you in like a big hug while also feeling like it might throw an empty bottle at you at any minute. “Tree of Heaven” and “Free Association” are a couple tracks that really get me. And of course, there’s the excellent tune “Resident Evil” towards the end of the record with one of the best angry choruses of the year: “Who’s that shithead in my living room playing Resident Evil!”
Fishbone – Stockholm Syndrome (Jun 2025)
I wasn’t even old enough to drive when I first heard Fishbone and I’ve loved them ever since, and I love that they’re still making music, and I love that this new album is so good. Stockholm Syndrome does not mince words when expressing its outrage at our current political/cultural landscape, but as with all their albums, there remains an inherent positivity and an optimism that there’s still maybe a chance that love can get us through this. Frontman Angelo and team maintain the same manic celebratory energy they had when they were youngsters, and it’s infectious. Horns, keyboards, screaming guitars. It’s a fucking party. Listen to and love this album, and do anything you can to catch these guys live.
Turnstile – Never Enough (Jun 2025)
It took me a few listens before I understood all the hype around this album, but once it clicked for me, holy shit. This album rocks. Keyboards that sound like a 70s prog rock band’s idea of what dance music will sound like in 2025, layered over intense grinding hardcore guitar and absolutely ferocious percussion, this doesn’t seem like it should work, but man, it does. At times it conjured up in me a crazy mixed bag of memories of 80s RUSH, some Helmet, a smattering of early Yes, and maybe even a bit of old school Rage Against the Machine guitar shreds. Yet it’s very much an original, through and through. A prog hardcore moshpit dance party from Mars. I was late to the Turnstile craze but glad I finally made it there.
James McMurtry – The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy (Jun 2025)
The latest from James McMurtry is what you would expect from James McMurtry – equal parts extraordinary songcraft and extraordinary storytelling. This album is basically the old timer bartender or neighbor down the street who’s had like 50 different careers throughout his life, is far more proud of his scars than his successes, is always primed with a new dirty joke on deck, and smiles every time he sees you. It’s a fool’s errand to try to play this album passively as background music. The stories draw you in and insist that you participate, and you’d be wise to oblige.
Petey USA – The Yips (July 2025)
A fun, high energy album full of introspective, down-to-earth tunes backed by heavy guitar and upbeat 80s style keyboards. Petey USA excels at telling stories from the perspective of the every-man, with lyrics that are straight forward enough to be taken as is, or you can dig deeper for the larger themes buried within. Love, loss, growing old, growing apart, figuring it out, fucking up, fixing it. Lots of good human stuff in here, and some really catchy music to boot.
Check out my unnecessarily lengthy review of the album here.
Alex G – Headlights (Sep 2025)
I’m pretty much an Alex G newbie, having only become aware of his music with his previous masterwork of an album, God Save the Animals. Since then, I’ve gone down the rabbit hole and discovered how unique and original and talented this dude is. Headlights is his first major label album, and it succeeds in capturing the gorgeous weirdness of his earlier stuff, with just a bit of extra sheen. A great new piece of art from a consistently inventive individual.
Geese – Getting Killed (Sep 2025)
This is the 2025 album that everyone is gushing over, with grandiose claims of Geese being the rock n roll saviors that Gen Z needed. The hyperbole is not without merit. This album is insane in all the right ways. It somehow manages to be both challenging art rock and hooky indie jam rock at the same time. It’s like they were deliberate in not giving two shits what the public thinks and, oops, they ended up with the public standing in line to kiss their ass. Well deserved. A wild, eclectic, original and inspired album.
Check out my dumb, overly excited review of Getting Killed here.
Well, that’s it! How’d I do? What’d I miss?
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