Imperial Triumphant – Goldstar

It probably has been dark outside for a couple of hours already. I haven’t really been paying much attention to the outside conditions. Not much daylight filters through the plastic covered windows anyway. The only source of light I have is a construction lamp placed in one corner of the room and the only source of heat available is a small heating fan I’ve placed on the floor on the opposite side of the room. If the frequency with which the fan starts and the prolonged periods it stays on is anything to go by, it’s probably getting below zero (that’s Celsius for ya, you Americans) outside. 

I’ve recently bought a house in the middle of nowhere, originally built in 1876 and judging by the state it’s in, that’s about the last time someone took care of it. I have taken two weeks off from work to get some things done around the house. It’s late, I’m tired and this is the last Sunday before I’m supposed to be back at work. I haven’t gotten as much done around the house these past two weeks as I initially hoped I would. But before I call it a day, I’d really like to get the roof painted in the nursery.

I decide it’s time to listen to Goldstar. I’ve been wanting to do that for the last week, but I haven’t really been in the mood for what I imagine is…

Saya Gray – SAYA

SAYA wasn’t the album I was expecting from Saya Gray. Given the direction of her QWERTY EPs, it seemed like she was diving deeper into the fragmented songwriting approach of 19 Masters—instead, she took a different route. Sonically, SAYA still plays in the same blurry space between r&b, pop, electronic, and folk, but where her past work felt like a chaotic patchwork of ideas, this album has a clear throughline. The genre-hopping, effortless melodies, eccentric vocal yips—it’s all still there, but every twist and turn feels deliberate.

Tracks like “PUDDLE (OF ME)” and “H.B.W.” showcase her ability to turn eccentric vocal patterns and unconventional structures into something that fits seamlessly within more traditional frameworks, while lead single “SHELL (OF A MAN)” offers a calmer, more streamlined indie/pop sound without compromising the emotional depth of her songwriting. There are only 9 proper songs on this album, but they all work to form a cohesive sound that balances the quirky with the accessible. And sure, one could make the argument that in so doing, Gray loses a bit of the unbridled creativity that her previous stream-of-consciousness approach to songwriting afforded, but it’s hard not to be impressed by her ability to channel all her creative chaos into something so deliberate and guided. In hindsight, SAYA seems like the logical evolution of Gray’s sound; it takes fewer risks than its predecessors, sure, but as a result, it refines her vision into something more focused and palatable.

-Gyromania

The Great Old Ones – Kadath

In many ways, Kadath is the culmination of everything The Great Old Ones has done up to this point. We have the mysterious H.P. Lovecraft storytelling at the bottom of it all…but what we have behind it is even more glorious. In some way, this is the most progressive TGOO has ever been. Kadath feels almost theatrical in nature. The core of their sound is still that glorious mixture of haunting, horror inducing and blistering black metal and atmospheric sludge/post-metal but the album feels like an opera of sorts. No better example of that than the 15 minute instrumental mammoth that is (song of the year) “Leng”. The build ups, and ultimate tsunami, of the dense and tar induced riffage blended with that ever-present atmosphere weighing so heavily on you that it almost brings the listener to tears. Kadath is a monumental album full of twists, turns and eerie dread around every corner. 2025 is still in its infancy but The Great Old Ones have dropped an AOTY contender here.

-Hawks

Bello and Shem – Original Flavour

Bello & Shem’s “Original Flavour” presents a fascinating, albeit brief, sonic expedition worthy of any Hip Hop connoisseur’s consideration. This EP, defying categorical conventions, showcases a duality emblematic of contemporary anxieties regarding artistic authenticity. The seemingly unstructured lyrical dissemination, at first, suggests an absence of overarching thematic coherence. However, a more meticulous investigation uncovers carefully constructed narratives, often employing unconventional rhythmic implementations. The production, simultaneously nostalgic and futuristic, appears deliberately ambivalent, preventing facile interpretation.

The artists’ intentional obfuscation of meaning requires a sophisticated analytical framework to deconstruct their nuanced commentary on musical inheritance. The listener is compelled to navigate a complex labyrinth of intricate wordplay, mum jokes, and deliberately repetitive sonic passages, demanding a multi-perspectival understanding. “Original Flavour,” therefore, transcends typical genre classifications, functioning instead as an intriguing experiment in postmodern performativity and the obfuscation of universally accepted sonic parameters. Its enigmatic nature necessitates subsequent scholarship with potentially transformative consequences for understanding the evolution of contemporary hip-hop.

-SlothcoreSam

The Cure – Songs of a Lost World

Although Bloodflowers has its champions, The Cure released what many considered their last great album in 1992 with Wish. Robert Smith had been promising new material, but few were optimistic that we would ever again hear anything worthwhile from the legendary band. And then new songs began creeping into live performances: in October 2022, Latvia witnessed the debut of two tracks that would eventually bookend the new album – “Alone” and “Endsong”, which opened and closed their main set in Riga, and surprisingly, they didn’t sound out of place at all. Two years later, Songs of a Lost World was released, and Cure fans were almost uniformly satiated: “Their best since Disintegration,” was the general consensus, and after living with the album for two months, it is hard to argue the sentiment was hyperbolic.

“Alone” and “Endsong”, like most of the songs here, feature extended instrumentals before Robert Smith’s ageless voice enters, evoking desolate portraits of loss, isolation and mortality. I read somewhere that Smith now looks indistinguishable from the writer’s “ageing, alcoholic great-aunt”, but whatever pact he made with demonic forces to keep his voice sounding so young is clearly working, it is truly astonishing how vital his vocals remain.

While the album lacks a pop highlight like “Just Like Heaven” or “In Between Days”, it doesn’t need one – it’s not that kind of album. The placement of “And Nothing Is Forever” early in the tracklist is a masterstroke;…

Blood Incantation – Absolute Elsewhere

By all accounts, what Blood Incantation has done with Absolute Elsewhere shouldn’t work. A core of sophisticated, tasteful death metal (yes it exists, shut up), a big gulp of Pink Floydian psychedelics and a cheesy science fiction sauce, blended together roughly and without much stirring. It has all the ingredients for a disaster that’s just sour all over. Yet apparently yuck-face and stank-face are in close proximity to one another, because despite its shortcomings, it delivers a fucking marvel.

You could make the argument that a lot of good parts individually does not a good album make. The metal and ambient parts aren’t so much mixed together as bluntly glued in a way that shouts whiplash city for any other band with even a smidge less skill. It creates heroes out of riffs and passages that border on the grandiose. I could go on, there is a lot to critique here. And yet it’s still a close frontrunner for my album of the year. The normal rules go out the window when everything on my plate just tastes so god damned awesome. Whether it’s the breathtaking conclusion of “Stargate [Tablet III]”,  the fast drumming over the clean broken chords sprinkled throughout “The Message [Tablet I]” or the blissful guitar solos in multiple songs, Absolute Elsewhere has so many highlights on offer that it doesn’t need to become more than the sum of its parts to be amazing. Yet it still manages to become more by…

Nala Sinephro – Endlessness

If the terms and sentiments of love and peace have an official sound yet, I propose Nala Sinephro’s latest to be its edenic image. At every possible turn the album swells and swirls like pacific waves, conjuring occasional electronic sharpness to break up the otherwise breathless flow of calm. It is the sound of a desert in an 80s movie, peaceful yet showing the potential of a menace. There is a sweaty underline caressing every note, every new instrumental lick, every harmonic sway. I love how the album ramps the subtlety like it is the most sensitive TNT explosive known to man. I adore its gentle touches on the spiritual, as if divine sorcery were a commonplace occurrence. Within the modernist techno-religious leanings the album takes, the main thread oscillates between transcendental zen and a digital night-(mare/dream). Herein comes the album’s most daring proposition: what if beautiful, but 8-bit? And all horrifyingly in-the-now gorge ensue. Nala Sinephro makes this look easy. Her punks of jazz cohorts help the effort. We can only sit back and be transported to a technoutopian domed world of pure beauty and peace, where the airy weightlessness of our dreams is tangible and the future with all its possibilities is endless.

–someone

Alora Crucible-Oak Lace Apparition

If birdwatching on a brisk morning could be broken down and translated into audio frequencies, it would sound like Alora Crucible. The haunting melodies whirl and dip and ascend in their own imperfect weather, fighting the wind for just a moment before it turns ally and allows for soaring once more. 

Gentle mists creep over the landscape and the promise of snow looms over the heather as each songbird mourns in its own special way the falling sun beyond the frosty mountain peaks.

Alora Crucible’s Oak Lace Apparition represents 80 minutes of alluring hope, 80 minutes of teasing an adventure in the clouds and beyond, 80 minutes of inward birdwatching that satisfies the mind, body, and soul with each flap of its unerring wings.

–Zakusz

State Faults – Children of the Moon

State Faults’ newest album Children of the Moon is so immediately classic that it’s hard to put into words. The evolution of this band from the lofi, unhinged sound of Desolate Peaks to where they are in 2024 is staggering. At their core they’re still that emotionally draining band, hitting you with songs fueled by distorted riffs and banshee shrieks such as (my personal favorite) Divination and Transfiguration, but now also being able to pull off a 10+ minute behemoth such as No Gospel. A track that takes you through every high and low, every desolate peak (pun?) to every epic mountain top with influences from prog rock to post-hardcore. Or a ballad such as Bodega Head that REALLY gets you in your feels with its soft acoustics and melodic vocals. State Faults have crafted a perfect album that will indeed go down as one of the best screamo albums of all time. But to pigeonhole Children of the Moon as just “screamo” would be a huge disservice. This album transcends any genre tag. So get off your ass and jam this beast. You will not regret it!

-Hawks

SUMAC – The Healer

The collective of Aaron Turner (ISIS), Nick Yacyshyn (Baptists), and Brian Cook (Botch) have once again proven there is such a thing as beautiful bleakness.Too often as bands progress through their careers they take the comfortable, digestible, and tried-and-true elements of their sound and pair them down into cohesive, intimate, and relatable vignettes of their former selves. SUMAC has achieved the opposite with The Healer, a sprawling 75 minute behemoth built on the assumption the listener is both patient enough to allow the band to stretch out, and eager enough to explore alongside the musicians as they dig down deep into chasms of dissonance, dread, and finally catharsis.

-Zakusz

us

Knocked Loose – You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To

Knocked Loose have nothing left to prove. The Louisville quintet are one of the most successful mainstream hardcore acts out there, even playing sets at major festivals like Coachella. And yet, despite all the success and attention, they cranked the aggression up to eleven with You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To, while still including some unexpected experimentation which separates them from their peers in the genre. For example, when’s the last time you heard a dang reggaeton beat in the breakdown of a hardcore song? Knocked Loose created a fantastic record that’s 27 minutes of catchy, moody, and aggressive hardcore. You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To is everything a fan could’ve wanted – and then some.

–JoyfulPlatypus

In Vain-Solemn

To put it simply, In Vain’s newest album Solemn is a near masterpiece. It’s an absolutely seamless blend of epic and natural sounding progressive death metal and devilish black metal passages. People talk about albums sounding epic, but Solemn is the epitome of that very word. The way that these guys effortlessly float between these different subgenres not only showcases a cohesive unit firing on all cylinders, but also goes to show the amount of time and effort they put into the album. Solemn is an extreme metal opera that may ultimately go down as one of the best of the decade. Do not miss out!

–Hawks

Frail Body-Artificial Bouquet

To put it simply, Frail Body’s Artificial Bouquet is an immense record. From the clear influences of Converge and Deafheaven being found in almost all corners of the band’s sound, it is obvious that this was going to be the case. The band plays their strongest hand all the time – their seemingly innate ability to arrive at the needed potency for each moment. The riffs feel like an explosion for each harsh, dissonant chord that is attacked, and the visceral vocals manage to add even more intensity to the overall composition. However, this abrasive soundscape isn’t the band’s only trick. Before the album’s most effective crescendos, the band tones it down to rather lush soundscapes. While they may not last long, they do maximise the catharsis of these crescendos to their fullest potential. In its essence, Artificial Bouquet’s main goal is to be an emotional catharsis for both the band members and the listeners. They without a doubt achieved this goal, making for an absolutely monstrous 41 minutes of raw, honest chaos.

–Zac124

Slift-Ilion

The best thing I can say about Ilion is that it is the first album in a while, in my memory, that really sells the idea of it being a journey, or telling a story- the moments that eclipse the album’s experience as a whole come few and far between, but every moment serves to communicate this great journey. And what a journey it is, told through an enormous, ever-shifting wall of sound, and through the three members’ stellar musicianship including great riffs, looming bass, passionate vocals, and propulsive, furious drumming. These elements are able to successfully carry the momentum across the entire length- not only does Ilion cover 8 songs in 80 minutes, but these songs really ROCK too. Even the repetitive closer feels like music that might play while looking at the destruction created after a final boss is defeated, or ceremony music that symbolizes a great and terrifying change in the life of a protagonist. Even if better albums come along later in the year, this is a story that must be told, and an album you must hear.

–Squiggly

Peter Gabriel-i/o

The usual hesitations behind releasing a record in December seemed to matter fuck all to legend Peter Gabriel, who kicked off the month with his first studio album of original material since 2002, which he had been tracking since as far back as 1995.  i/o’s nearly 30 years in development did not go to waste either, as this may be his richest and most densely produced record since the ’80s.  The man even released three separate mixes of the record, each highlighting enough new subtleties in the production to make any of them a reasonable candidate for “the definitive version”.  Peter approaches the sonic palate here blending electronics and traditional instrumentation perhaps the furthest he’s ever gone, spanning a range from beautiful, lush, and sprawling orchestration (“Playing for Time”) to tightly constructed borderline sculptural beats that almost sound assembled in a musical junkyard out of any scrap he could find (“The Court”).  This is a notably more patient and subdued record than some of his bombastic and thunderous early work (understandably so at 73 years old), but even a few throwback bangers rear their head and show the man can still sell jubilant pop tunes overflowing with vibrancy, most notably the exhilarating “Olive Tree”.  It’s the title track however, a warm and moving piece on universal connectedness that only feels more earnest and resonant in Peter’s old age, that serves as the heart of the whole project.  Although i/o admittedly falls short of the unfairly high…