How are you doing? Have you listened to these 10 great albums from 2025?
1) My best 2) Yes. And you should, too
How are you doing?
I haven’t asked in a while, but I just want to check. Because this shit is crazy.
There was a negative-30-degree wind chill in Minneapolis last week. Next week, it’s going to be in the 40’s.
Sometime between now and then, my wisdom teeth will leave my skull, this newsletter will arrive in your inbox and the country will (almost certainly) be several steps closer to social media-fueled autocracy.
It’s a lot.
Weaving writing, leisure reading, Severance watching, new music listening, doomscrolling, heart palpitating, coffee drinking and job hunting into a few hours a day isn’t easy. But I want to find a way for Sounds Great to fit into that quilt, for both you and I.
So I’m asking a two-part question:
How are you? Seriously, I hope you’re well.
What would you like to see from this newsletter? Essays? Profiles of artists with new releases, like I’ve written the last few weeks? Lists of new music, like this one? Concert reviews? I’m curious. Because you may have noticed I’ve been throwing a lot of words at the wall and seeing what sticks. It’s been fun, but I’d love to get an idea of what words are sticking for you. Let me know. This blog is young. I appreciate your patience. Comment on this piece or shoot me a message with what you’d like to see. Or just send me an album to check out. That’ll make me happy, too.
In the meantime, I guess I’ll do the music journalism thing.
I’ve been on an insane hot streak of new albums the last few weeks. I keep a little spreadsheet that monitors and sorts new releases into different categories, based pretty arbitrarily on my own emotional response to the album.
Let’s call it Music Data Refinement. The work is mysterious and important.
It helps me keep track of the albums that stick with me, so I don’t get too carried away with the appeal of something new and forget to revisit them.
All this exposition is necessary so I can say: I’ve stumbled onto about a dozen albums in just the last few weeks that fit into the tippy-top category on this spreadsheet. That’s an absurd hit rate. Usually, I have to sift through a lot of snoozes to get to that point. So in today’s blog, I need to get some of these releases off my chest.
I’m never short on words, so I’ll include a For Fans Of list with each album for all the skimmers. No shame. Hope you find something you like.
A few great albums from 2025 that I won’t be writing at length about today, for a myriad of reasons but mostly due to my sanity and your time
jasmine.4.t - You Are The Morning
I anticipate this boygenius-produced, indie opus being on my Album of The Year podium in December, so I’m going to save my words for at least a few more months. Keep ‘em guessing. Still, you should listen to this. It’s absolutely gorgeous.
Bartees Strange - Horror
This is another one I expect to have high on my end-of-year rankings. “Baltimore” is an early Song Of The Year contender. I’ll get to it down the road. I’m certain of that. In the meantime, read what my favorite writer Hanif Abdurraqib had to say about it for The New Yorker.
Anxious - Bambi
One of my favorite emo bands released their sophomore LP this week and it fucking rips. I want to sit with it a bit more before I put words to it. But I am absurdly excited to see this band live In April in Minneapolis.
Denison Witmer - Anything At All
This is another one I want time to sit with. It came out last week, but I didn’t get around to it until yesterday. Anything It All is full of really great folk music recommended for fans of Kevin Morby, Greg Mendez, or Tapir! For now, chew on this timely lyric from the album’s best song, “Making Love”:
In your life, you cannot be neutral, but you can be kind.
Winona Fighter - My Apologies To The Chef
As good as pop-punk has been this year or last. But… I wrote about it already and interviewed frontwoman Coco Kinnon last week! Read that!
Cut The Kids in Half - What We Became
Two college kids in Boston put out one of the first indie albums to rock my soul this year. They wrote it when they were teenagers. Teenagers! Read my interview with them from January.
Okay, let’s jump in.
Sleeper’s Bell - Clover
FFO: Florist, Sun June, Bloomsday, Searows, Keep For Cheap
I listened to Clover, from Sleeper’s Bell, for the first time on a sunrise flight from Minneapolis to Las Vegas. Snow covered the landscape beyond my window. Worry blanketed the fields within my eyelids. Planes are falling every day now, after all.
But Clover was a great flattener. Calming, like a family dog brushing its ears against your shin. In fact, this debut album from the Chicago indie-folk duo is an early candidate for my favorite folk release of 2025.
Sleeper’s Bell songwriter Blaine Teppema writes with knife-like precision and Wednesday-esque observational savvy. It all starts with the lyrically surgical title track, which gives way to the catchy “Bad Word” and bass-bouncing “Phone Call,” brought to life by its emotive electric guitar flicks and orchestral waves.
Outro “Hey Blue” is the one I can’t get out of my head. It’s familiar. I’m almost certain I’ve heard it before, in this life or an earlier one. The acoustic three-minute tune is a tender, empathetic-yet-ruthless second-person address. Teppema’s guttural two-line conclusion could bring anyone to their knees.
Hey blue, hey you,
Your world is so real, but mine is, too.
Rapt - Until The Light Takes Us
FFO: Nick Drake, Damien Jurado, Buck Meek, “For A Dancer” by Jackson Browne
This is the newest album on this list … because it just came out Friday. Until The Light Takes Us is the fifth studio album from London folk artist Rapt, and it’s pure poetry.
On this eight-song record, Rapt singer-songwriter Jacob Ware pairs sprawling verses about grief, death and finding meaning in between with lush, spacious acoustics. It grips you tenfold with each lyric and hum. Ware’s whispery coos are an instrument of their own, but the gorgeous string accompaniment on tracks like “Attar of Roses” and “A Theory of Resistance” gives Until The Light Takes Us listeners one extra nudge into sweet slumber.
The title track is the most visceral on the album. It might be my favorite lyrical confrontation of grief in years. The second verse paints an unfiltered picture of a deceased former neighbor. It fades into an epiphanic refrain.
He came to me in a dream and said
‘Jacob, Jacob. I never smoked a day in my life’
‘You see some people come, some go,’ he said
‘Some people say they will lay with their god
But me I pictured a peaceful black, you see
Where I would lay and think of all that I’d had’I don't know where I’m going but I know that I’ll meet meet him there
This I know to be true
The Lumineers - Automatic
FFO: The Lumineers (seriously, I know you know what these guys sound like)
If The Lumineers have a million fans, I am one of them.
If The Lumineers have a thousand fans, I am one of them.
If The Lumineers have a hundred fans, I am one of them.
If The Lumineers have one fan, it is me.
If The Lumineers have no fans, I am dead.
The oft-misunderstood-by-consensus titans of early-10’s indie-folk are back with their fifth studio album, and it’s their best release in a long time. I wasn’t a huge fan of 2022’s BRIGHTSIDE, so — as someone who thought songwriters Wesley Schultz & Jeremiah Fraites were essentially undefeated until then — this was a really refreshing return to form.
Automatic confronts the mundanity of life’s second wind, as Schultz and Fraites search for conclusions in the inherently inconclusive cracks of parenthood, marriage and artistry. The strummy “Ativan” and piano lullaby “Better Day” are two personal favorites. But “Keys on The Table,” with its callbacks to killer single “You’re All I Got,” is the best track on the album. It belongs in the canon next to older Lumineers deep-cuts like “My Eyes” and “Leader of The Landslide.”
A shallow interpretation would label this album the “back to basics” record every major rock band puts out two decades into their career. But those albums often fall flat. Automatic doesn’t. Long live The Lumineers.
ZORA - BELLAdonna
FFO: Kenny Mason, Doechii, the SOPHIE production on “Yeah Right”
Sound the alarm: The best rap album of 2025 so far comes from the Twin Cities!
The sophomore project from queer singer-songwriter-rapper-producer ZORA is one of a kind. It’s a two-disc concept album that gracefully shifts gears from intimate to vengeful. There’s a violence to the production from start to finish, brought to life by ZORA’s crisp cadence and emotive vocals. At times, this project sounds like the future, transgressive in ways that it feels like haven’t even been invented yet. At other times, it’s familiar. It’s Prince meets SOPHIE meets 2010’s pop-rap, all at once.
“tinytown” toys with electro-R&B grandiosity with an ease that would make Because The Internet blush. “FASTLANE” is club-ready and flips the Uncle Luke sample — don’t stop! — that you’ve absolutely heard in “Pop That” or “Balloon” or “SICKO MODE” or “Still Not A Player.” The first-lush, later-industrial “ANGEL/GHOST” has a flip halfway through that you’ll want to revisit several times before moving on. “THE BITCH IS BACK (Press)” is as addictive as they come, with a dynamite verse by Destiny Spike and a bass line reminiscent of Drake’s “Nonstop.”
All this being said, none of BELLAdonna sounds derivative. In fact, ZORA’s singularity puts her atop my watchlist of performers to blow up in the next few years. The album even ends with the cheekily titled “bye… for now;)” — so we’ll be hearing more from ZORA. That’s for sure.
Postcards - Peace, Love, the American Dream, Sadness, and Everything In-Between
FFO: Future Teens, Carly Cosgrove, Saturdays at Your Place, Vagabonds
Several years ago, I jumped headfirst into DIY emo, listening obsessively to all the classics and new releases with religious fervor. Now, I get cynical sometimes and think about emo like I’m Theodore in the movie Her:
Sometimes I think I have felt everything I'm ever gonna feel. And from here on out, I'm not gonna feel anything new. Just lesser versions of what I've already felt.
The feeling never lasts too long. Because thankfully, there’s an album that puts me in my place. This month, that was Denver emo band Postcards’ Peace, Love, the American Dream, Sadness, and Everything In-Between. Seconds in, this album throws you to the wolves with a lyric about expired ibuprofen that arrives with the energy of a bridge. As the track list progresses, songwriter Aidan Grapengeter digs even further inward, trying to get answers on the catchy “Endlessly” and confronting dogma on “The Tao Has Been Helping.” “Rabbit’s Foot” is my personal favorite, an explosive, crescendoing track with a borderline-bacterial guitar riff on the chorus.
“It’s like life caught me by surprise,” Grapengeter sings. “And I might make it out alive.”
There are so many lyrics on this album I want to revisit and read like a book. So Postcards, if you’re reading this, I’d love a copy. Thank you for reaffirming my faith in the Great American Art of Independent Emo Music.
Sean Thompson’s Weird Ears - Head in The Sand
FFO: The Medium, Eagles, The Reds, Pinks and Purples
Sean Thompson is really good at picking a band name. His first group — according to his artist bio on Spotify — was called Gnarwhal. This one is simply Sean Thompson’s Weird Ears.
Both memorable. Both hilarious. But neither forecasts the Thompson skillset that surpasses band-naming: crafting country songs that fucking rock.
This sophomore album from the Nashville instrumentalist is full of great pedal steel whines, synth accents and songwriting as self-critical as the Weird Ears moniker would indicate. The guitar riffs are the stars of this show, though. There’s something vintage about it. The tones call to mind memories of self-titled Eagles and Southern Accents Petty, if albums that big were recorded and christened at your local fair & rodeo. The slow-burning, mournful “Not in The Cards” and the breezy “New Memories” are my personal favorites.
Pigeon Pit - crazy arms
FFO: Ramshackle Glory, house shows, “How’s It Going To Be” by Third Eye Blind
I’ve been eagerly awaiting Pigeon Pit’s next album ever since I heard 2022’s Feather River Canyon Blues. It was one of my favorite albums that year and tracks like “Fire Escape” and “Sunbleached” still beckon. The fourth album from the Olympia, Washington, folk-punk band lived up to my hype.
Somewhere between Uncle Tupelo, Ramshackle Glory and Semisonic — seriously, there’s a very “Closing Time”-ish line on this album — crazy arms has just about everything I love: choppy folk-punk strums, 90’s-reminiscent rock hooks, gang vocals, voice-cracking catharsis, string accompaniment, harmonicas, stellar lyricism and the almighty *twang*.
It’s simultaneously manic and meditating, a perfect soundtrack to the first few months of a year defined by AI, atrocity and ambivalence. Frontwoman Lomes Oleander shift vocal gears between breakneck and delicate. The songwriting is arboreal and full of questions that stick like sap.
“But who needs a headrest with a shoulder blade to catch you, do you?” goes “apple.”
“Have you seen the tide pools on the coast, their miniature worlds constructed carefully?” asks “tide pools,” before later wondering:
“Don't you know that you could hotwire this old haywire heart and drive it off a fucking cliff?”
Biig Piig - 11:11
FFO: Magdalena Bay, Remi Wolf, the Kilby Block Party music festival
The year’s best alt-pop album so far, Biig Piig’s debut 11:11, lived up to hype, too. The pop project from Irish songwriter Jessica Smyth first caught my eye in 2023 with the EP Bubblegum. But this one takes a step beyond that.
With warping, groovy basslines and sighing, sweet vocals, this is the kinda record you want to throw on while high. In a room full of gentle, colorful lights, perhaps.
Ear-worm single “Favourite Girl” sounds like if you put last year’s consensus classic Imaginal Disk and the 2010’s electro-pop hit “WESTWORLD” by EVAN GIIA in a blender. “I Keep Losing Sleep” is a one-minute, intoxicating hi-hat-heavy interlude that drops you through an Alice in Wonderland hole into the B-side. The chant-able “Stay Home” answers the question of: “What if the chord progression and instrumental warmth of John Lennon’s “Imagine” was applied to a sensual indie-pop song?” This project rocks.
Sarah and The Sundays - Like A Damn Dog
FFO: Peach Pit, Flipturn, okay alright, Flood by Hippo Campus
I spent several years of college loving every sunburnt indie-pop band I could find. Spacey Jane, COIN, Circa Waves, you name it. Bands that either are British or sound British. And then, for whatever reason, I grew out of it. Many of those bands have released albums since that underwhelmed me to varying degrees. I’m jaded and I wish I weren’t, because those were some of the best days of my life.
Sarah and The Sundays were one of those indie-pop bands I dug a lot in college. They last released an album — the summery, singable The Living End — during my senior year. They’re back now with Like A Damn Dog, and I worried that the letdown would come. It didn’t. This new LP is a noticeably maturer, moodier record that maintains the liveliness that endeared me to the Austin-based group in the first place. I’ve grown a lot since 2021. And they have, too.
Like A Damn Dog demands your heart from the opening moments, with the moving, dynamic “The Cue,” a song with a coda conclusive enough to be an outro. It’s immediately followed by “Afterlife,” a song about death with a weeping guitar solo before the final hook, which reflects on grief with devastating helplessness.
If grief is a part of love
Then I'll love no more, I've had enough
I cannot watch my mother cry
I cannot find the afterlife
I'm not as sure as I used to be
That I'm not afraid of the end of me
I'll live and die this way
From start to finish Like A Damn Dog is full of anxiety and insecurity, bluntly honest in all the best ways. 100-degree strummer “Sweet Tooth” rounds the A-side out. It delivers a first-verse lyric that loyal Sounds Great / Sounds Good readers know screams my name:
Still have a sweet tooth, still have a dark side
I still hate my hometown for no good reason
Lead vocalist Liam Yorgensen — notably not named Sarah! — confronts existential feelings with the earnestness of a grade-schooler raising their hand. You can feel that little ache in the shoulder from holding the hand so high for so long. You know the feeling. I know the feeling.
Before we move on, teacher, please confirm to me that I’m understanding things correctly. I don’t want to feel left behind.
I don’t know that we’re ever really called on. So open your textbook and figure it the hell out.