The 50 Best Albums Of 2025 So Far
I don’t envy anybody who decided to put out an album within the 12 months succeeding Brat Summer, Manning Fireworks Fall, and “Not Like Us” — especially considering that 2025, broadly speaking, did not exactly begin on the highest of notes. And yet, we here at Stereogum have once again spent Q1 and Q2 playing a never-ending game of catch-up with all the new music being released, filtering through the best of it so that you don’t have to. Sometimes what keeps us going is the comfort in knowing that, somewhere deep in our inboxes, we might soon find our next favorite album.
If you follow our Album Of The Week column, you’re already familiar with some of our favorite releases of 2025 so far. But this annual mid-year countdown also allows us to spotlight dark horse picks that will probably get edged out by the time our Year In Review package rolls out. There are some LPs on this list that haven’t been covered on Stereogum in depth before, and they’re worth your attention just as much as the records that we’ve already reviewed.
There’s one important change this year. In the past, June 30 has been our cutoff date for releases on this early June article, which meant we included albums we’d heard that hadn’t yet been publicly unveiled. This time we decided to make the eligibility window January 1 to May 31. We make the rules around here and time isn’t real. And before we get into list, just know that if your favorite record of the year so far didn’t make the cut, it is a personal attack against your taste and you will change our mind if you complain enough.
Check out the Best Albums Of 2025 So Far below. As always, we welcome you to share your picks in the comments. —Abby Jones
Artificial Go are from modern-day Cincinnati, but you could be forgiven for assuming they hail from early ’80s Europe. On Musical Chairs, the band’s playful and surreal take on post-punk feels like an invite to the coolest, loopiest party. The album is a world unto itself, populated by colorful characters and full of endlessly quotable lyrics like “Nobody has a red convertible/ I want to drive a red convertible!” and “The world is my runway, I go my way/ I do the catwalk from the shower to the bed.” Artificial Go perform these songs with a verve that backs up those kinds of sentiments. —Chris DeVille
Grace Rogers honed her craft in the realm of Kentucky bluegrass and other traditional Americana, but she’s found her calling as a folk-rock and alt-country singer-songwriter. Rogers knows how to write a memorable lyric, from “I wanted to be that genre of man on Instagram” to “I think she played secular songs better than a man.” She imbues those lines with an untamed, conversational delivery that lends her melodies a piercing edge, and her band brilliantly blurs the line between roots music and glittering indie rock, intuitively shifting between poles as each song demands. —Chris DeVille
The idiosyncratic German dance producer Stefan Kozalla makes music slowly and deliberately. He’s been putting out records since the late ’90s, but Music Can Hear Us is only his fourth full album and his first in seven years. He makes it count. Music Can Hear Us unfolds as a lush, trippy whole that stops by in different aesthetic playgrounds, with familiar voices like Damon Albarn and the Notwist’s Markus Acher stopping by. Even with all of Koze’s playful experimentation, everything serves the beat’s hypnotic throb. —Tom Breihan
Before yeule became a cyborg sorcerer of glitch-pop shoegaze, they were a painter. Their follow-up to 2023’s softscars is a sonic homage to that first creative outlet and draws inspiration from visual artists like Japanese photographer and filmmaker Eikoh Hosoe, Polish painter Zdzisław Beksiński, and Swiss artist H. R. Giger. Evangelic Girl is the soundtrack for the surreal violent odysseys of these predecessors. Compared to the pastel mask of its predecessor, it inhabits a high contrast, tactile world littered with broken marble ruins, Kurt Cobain-like lyrics, and soft, breathy vocals nestled against the cold click of gun-reloading sound effects. —Margaret Farrell
Emo is alive and well, partly thanks to Charmer’s invigorating new album Downpour. Since their beloved 2018 eponymous debut, the band has been upping the ante and trading mathy riffs for pure shredding that almost reaches post-hardcore territory. “Blue Jay” is an irresistible Title Fight-esque banger, and “Scream” is an angsty anthem designed for stagediving and cathartic mayhem. The title Downpour is fitting, but I’d even say it’s more of a deluge; Charmer’s energy has never been this high. —Danielle Chelosky
Italian doom metal experimentalists Messa used “the ’80s” as a loose jumping off point for The Spin. The result is a triumphant seven-song suite marked by guitars run through flangers and chorus pedals, gated drums, and a bright spotlight on singer Sara Bianchin’s howling wails. But The Spin is no more a Reagan-era cliché than an exercise in doom metal by numbers. There’s room for a jazz guitar and trumpet break on “The Dress” and country-blues slide guitar on “Reveal.” And few bands are making power ballads as epic as “Immolation” anymore. —Chris DeVille
A lot of dudes wish they could be king for a day, but Model/Actriz frontman Cole Haden has always aspired to something with a little more elegance and pizzazz — at least that’s the way he tells it on Pirouette. After the grating, noisy dance-punk of their 2023 debut Dogsbody, the Brooklyn underground mainstays return with a sophomore LP that’s polished without losing its edge, a diamond that’s still in the rough, a pair of pointe shoes concealing bloodied toes. Beyond the distorted guitars, Haden documents his coming-out journey from memories of his childhood to scenes of sexy nights on the town. Pirouette isn’t pretty, per se, but there’s something beautiful in its brashness. —Abby Jones
Under the quickly, quickly name, Graham Jonson used to specialize in lo-fi hip-hop beats. Then he took a Beatles deep dive on Spotify, got way into underground treasures like Phil Elverum, and started making the kind of brilliant basement pop-rock deconstructions heard on I Heard That Noise. Whether keeping a skip in his step on “Enything” or zooming in on the gorgeously intimate “Take It From Me,” his music boasts the melodic intuition of a born songwriter and the off-kilter idiosyncrasy of a home-studio mad scientist. —Chris DeVille
It’s not easy to follow up a record as canonized and beloved as 2020’s Whole Lotta Red, and Playboi Carti made fans wait quite a bit. Despite being over an hour, Music thrives off instant gratification — which might be a fault to some, but serves as intrigue for most — from the abrasive, glitched-out madness of the opener “Pop Out.” The memorable moments are plentiful: the playful Kendrick Lamar collab “Mojo Jojo,” the buzzy trap serenade “I Seeeeee You Baby Boi,” the blown-out anthem “Opm Babi.” The Carti hype may never die. —Danielle Chelosky
“This nausea’s got a beat,” would be a great catchphrase to sum up Ditz’s sophomore album Never Exhale. The Brighton five-piece understands how to decorate rancid sensations with thrilling tension (“Smell Like Something Died In Here”). Bass lines simmer viciously and uneasy staccato guitar strums fill the air with a variety of foreboding stenches. Houses are burned. Bodies are shed. God is far away. Smudged mirrors refuse to be wiped clean. These songs violently burst and feel like they’re hanging on by ripped tendons. They transform terrifying, uneasy encounters into suspenseful odysseys. —Margaret Farrell
Earlier this year, Yung Lean revealed his hot take: “The party is officially over.” But that doesn’t mean he’s done having fun; lead single “Yung Forever” takes us on a funeral parade, grieving his royal sadboy persona. “Sometimes life is just a joke,” he raps, sitting in the back of a truck dressed as Uncle Sam. He’s miles away from his drug-fueled fantasies, even though Jonatan flaunts a creatively unhinged Leandoer. This latest studio album gives us a new Lean, one that’s clear-headed and happy to be alive. This album plays like a love letter to music history, loaded with references — like to the Rolling Stones on “Horses” and to ABBA, Gil-Scot Heron, and Bill Withers on “Might Not B” — and songs that range from orchestrally embroidered synth pop (“I’m Your Dirt, I’m Your Love”) to stripped-down grunge that tonally colors outside of the lines. —Margaret Farrell
Moontype - I Let The Wind Push Down On Me (Orindal)Moontype - I Let The Wind Push Down On Me
To follow up their spectacular 2021 debut Bodies Of Water, Chicago’s Moontype returned with the sprawling I Let The Wind Push Down On Me, an indie rock masterpiece that weaves together anguish, beauty, and hope. “How I Used To Dance” glows with the cosmic sounds of a glass harp, while “Crushed” is weighed down by a bewitchingly dark slowcore atmosphere. Oscillating between whimsical and gloomy, I Let The Wind Push Down On Me is an emotional trip. —Danielle Chelosky
After achieving stardom with her massive debut album Preacher’s Daughter, the reclusive Ethel Cain promptly denounced fame with Perverts, a dark ambient project that fights against the concept of easy listening. The 90 minutes drone and haunt, and Cain’s voice only sometimes emerges through the eerie echoes, like on the astonishing piano ballad “Punish.” A distorted voice evocatively repeats “I love you” on the buzzing “Housofpsychoticwomn,” almost casting a spell over the listener. Listening to Perverts is like getting sucked into a black hole and getting a glimpse of the cosmos. —Danielle Chelosky
Theoretically, Friendship are a country band, but Caveman Wakes Up is more like a slacker indie album that’s absorbed the sad-eyed splendor of Music Row at its best (along with plenty of grizzled Drag City types from across the Midwest and South). Dan Wriggins’ husky baritone maps out scenes from a listless thirtysomething life marked by repressed heartbreak, shithead roommates, and dead-end day jobs in between tours. Accentuated by the subtle sundown beauty Friendship have spent years homing in on, it feels good to luxuriate in all those bad feelings. —Chris DeVille
The Danish singer and producer Erika de Casier helped perfect the slinky, minimal style that’s given the pop world an injection of energy in recent years, and she showed her brilliant command of that sound on her 2024 album Still. On the surprise-release follow-up Lifetime, de Casier tweaks her style, sinking deep into the throwback grooves of late-’90s trip-hop and downtempo. Even without the futuristic pulse of her other work, Lifetime casts a spell, placing her atmospheric grace in a deeper historical context and linking it to past generations of aesthete makeout music. —Tom Breihan
Soft-focus ’80s nostalgia has been hip longer than some Men I Trust fans have been alive. But in the hands of Emmanuelle Proulx and company, the aesthetic feels like a renewable resource, not a trend to be cycled in and out of fashion every few years. On their second album of 2025, the band nails its signature blend of moody hooks, grainy textures, and low-key irresistible grooves, delivering what may be Men I Trust’s strongest body of work in a catalog brimming with great albums. —Chris DeVille
Weatherday is a preeminent figure in today’s state of emo, his prerequisite noodly guitars often shrouded in digital noise and distortion. The latest project from the Swedish musician, Hornet Disaster, is a muddled, turbulent record that finds a sense of belonging amid its chaos, and at 76 minutes long, it’s not hard to get totally lost in it. But Weatherday also describes Hornet Disaster as his “pop” album, and it has enough hooks to make its existential dread a little fun, too. —Abby Jones
Irish musician Maria Somerville clearly learned a lot from the homespun ambience of Grouper, but her own dreamy and mist-shrouded reveries have their own sense of place. Compared to Grouper, she might as well be Sabrina Carpenter; her tracks are direct and defined enough that they could almost work as pop music. Whispering over acoustic guitars, thrumming post-punk basslines, and sigh-gasp keyboards, Somerville projects serenity without ever fading into the background. Sometimes, a sharper focus can make a landscape that much more inviting. —Tom Breihan
For their self-titled LP, LA’s Cryogeyser gloriously fine-tune their balance of shimmering dream-pop and wound-prodding grunge. Moments of self-acceptance crystallize as Shawn Marom’s vocals cut through clouds of anxious distortion. They easily fit into the lineage of magical, sepia-toned guitar music — Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil, and the Cranberries — with a sunshower sound, helmed by drummer Zach CapittiFenton’s production, that feels like a small miracle. “My love language is crying in the shower,” Marom reveals on the closer “Love Language.” Cryogeyser feel exactly like that: an emotional rinse and an intimate surrender. —Margaret Farrell
If you, too, were immediately endeared to the late Lil Peep upon realizing he’d sampled the Microphones, then fish narc’s frog song might just make you swoon. The musician born Benjamin Friars-Funkhouser spent the latter half of the 2010s producing for Peep and their fellow GothBoiClique cohorts; after eventually relocating to the Microphones’ homeland of Olympia, Washington, fish narc caught the ears of Beat Happening frontman Calvin Johnson, whose K Records released frog song. Beyond just being a delightful full-circle moment, the record is a blast of melodic, stylish power-pop with bite, professions from a gothboi at his most content. —Abby Jones
If I had to pick a breakup album of the year so far, Clover by Sleeper’s Bell would be my #1. These sprawling indie-folk ballads tug at your heartstrings with poignant acoustic guitars and cleverly painful lyrics like, “Love is a kind of carefulness/ And I’m falling over and dropping shit,” on “Room.” Blaine Teppema’s musings on love and anguish are gut-punches every time: “Looking back at the heartache/ God, what a lovely pain,” she sings on the particularly moving “Bad Word.” Clover is a stellar debut. —Danielle Chelosky
With their self-titled debut as Los Thuthanaka, siblings Chuquimamani-Condori and Joshua Chuquimia Crampton created 2025’s most unique thrill ride. There are so many layers of context and culture at play in the album’s eight tracks: ideas about Indigenous heritage, queer identity, the blurring of boundaries, the drawing of lines in the sand. Even without grasping the conceptual framework, the duo’s blend of avant-garde club music and ancient ceremonial fare — brought to life in a flurry of DJ tags, samples, and relentlessly percussive live instrumentation — is enough to change the way you hear music. —Chris DeVille
The adult-contempo Bruno Mars collab “Die With A Smile” is now one of the biggest hits of Lady Gaga’s career, and it’s also a total red herring. Most of Gaga’s MAYHEM is dedicated to a much trashier, showier, and more ecstatically ridiculous vision of pop music. Sometimes, that means that Gaga does eerily accurate pastiches of early-’80s David Bowie or circa-now Taylor Swift. Mostly, though, she’s in the dramatic, club-ready, mega-pop zone, and she still does that better than just about anyone. Paws up. —Tom Breihan
Chrystia Cabral has often felt like the odd one out. On Portrait Of My Heart, her latest album as SPELLLING, the Bay Area singer/songwriter wields her eccentricities and turns them into catharsis. While previous SPELLLING records have luxuriated in moody, witchy art-pop, the more grounded Portrait Of My Heart plugs in the amps, turns them up to 11, and lets Cabral’s rip-roaring vocals run wild, something like a Rid Of Me for today’s generation. —Abby Jones
The hype surrounding a new FKA twigs album often threatens to tip over into overserious silliness, with the artist attempting to sell ideas like the meaning of the made-up word that she uses as a title. But there’s the conceptual contorting, and then there’s the music itself. Eusexua is twigs’ ode to the physical pleasures of sex and dance, and the way her voice tumbles through the artfully arranged layers of bleeps and thuds is practically a physical pleasure unto itself. —Tom Breihan
Ashanti Mutinta, the artist who raps and produces as Backxwash, exists in many paradoxes. “Is this a daydream or dissociation?” she asks on her new album Only Dust Remains, a record that ponders how to keep yourself alive when the universe seems to want otherwise. Over metal-influenced beats that come from the heart instead of a desire to trend-hop, Only Dust Remains sees Backxwash balance her own demons with the outside world’s collective pain: On the piercing opener “Black Lazarus,” she envisions herself passed out from an overdose before remembering the kids in Gaza who’ve died without a choice. Only Dust Remains is undeniably dark, but darkness makes it easier to find the light. —Abby Jones
Rose City Band started out as the solo project through which psych-rock lifer Ripley Johnson would make hazy, bucolic choogles that sound best when wafting across your back porch on a sunny day. But they’re an actual band now, and Sol Y Sombra gets much of its glorious buzz from the way that pedal steel maestro Barry Walker winds his way through Johnson’s unhurried bliss-outs. Sometimes, you just need a record that’ll chill you out, and this does the trick every time. —Tom Breihan
star is an accurate title for the rising hyperpop rapper’s latest album. With the success of 2023’s ecstatic club banger “Jeans,” 2hollis has become ubiquitous. It may seem like he came out of nowhere, but star is his fourth record, and it arrives at the perfect time to serve as the afterparty for Charli XCX’s world-dominating Brat. The beats (which he makes himself) are entrancing and invigorating; the 21-year-old’s voice is addictive and bewitching. From the fuckboy slowburner “cope” to the Carti-indebted anthem “sidekick,” star is a snapshot of an artist who’s ready to have a massive moment. —Danielle Chelosky
Scowl are great at making hardcore, but they might be even better at sleek, polished, hook-centric alterna-rock, which is mostly what they do on their sophomore LP. Are We All Angels has the speed and focus and ferocity of the stuff Scowl made as a DIY band, and their hooks and charisma are sharper than ever. Their riffs are sticky and bouncy, and Kat Moss brings a theatrical sass that feels entirely new. They don’t sound like the band they once were. They sound better. —Tom Breihan
Terraplana show they’re masters of the art of shoegaze on their sophomore LP. The Brazilian band’s Natural, which has singing in both English and Portuguese, is indebted to Creation Records pioneers as well as sweet, Slumberland indie pop, never letting the pursuit of a vibe take precedent over songwriting. Turns out there’s a lot you can do with vacuum-roaring guitars, and Terraplana are proof. —Abby Jones
Aya’s sophomore album is a sensory overload akin to being on acid and partaking in one of those Halloween mystery box games where peeled grapes pass for a handful of eyeballs. Stream-of-consciousness vocals melt and congeal over steroid zaps and clanging percussion. From the beginning moments, hexed! is a Willy Wonka panic attack — chaotic, unrelenting, and too close for comfort. Aya explores themes of addiction and the suffocation of the present with an exorcism of sound. —Margaret Farrell
In an era of too many shoegaze bands, Glazyhaze have managed to stand out amongst the masses. The Italian crew instantly proves itself on new album Sonic, whose opener “What A Feeling” bursts with urgent guitars and alluring vocals that make up a sweeping whirlwind. Even without immediacy, Glazyhaze create startlingly compelling atmospheres, like on the dream-pop “Nirvana” and brooding “Stardust.” There’s not a moment on Sonic that doesn’t hypnotize. —Danielle Chelosky
The Brooklyn-based quartet YHWH Nailgun aggressively weld together wilting organs, euphorically syncopated drums, and Jurassic guitars into geometric sonic totems. 45 Pounds sows elements that feel simultaneously organic and machine-made, primally innate and supernaturally exorcised, a memory and a vision that place the band outside of time. YHWH Nailgun’s urgency is electric. Zack Borzone’s dried vocals sound like a man clinging to his last breath and Sam Pickard’s drumming feels like a menacing lifeforce. 45 Pounds is gritty and all-consuming like digging your fingers into the earth, reminding yourself of a force that existed before you and will echo long after you’re dust. —Margaret Farrell
Somewhere between the ramshackle post-rock of Spiderland and the folk-pop futurism of 22, A Million is caroline 2, the sophomore album by London experimental rock collective caroline. While their 2022 self-titled debut embraced ambient slowcore and field recordings, caroline 2 gently ups the ante by grounding those languid, contemplative instrumentals in a pop flair; a standout Caroline Polachek feature and some AutoTuned embellishments seamlessly flit between the strum of a banjo or the hum of a bass clarinet. It might be the prettiest thing you hear this summer. —Abby Jones
Since 2022’s 19 Masters, Saya Gray has treated pop music like an ever-expanding, fearless collage. That sense of adventure is still intact on SAYA, but this time with a hi-def polish to her playful songcraft. It’s like watching a flipbook animator graduate to claymation — the movement is smoother, the sonic shapes more sculpted, but the imagination stays bold. The eccentricities that once felt X-Acto-knifed and patched now flow more organically. SAYA spends more time ripping up the rules for folk and old school country, using a breakup to rebuild the past in the present. “There’s a difference between revisiting a memory and living in the past,” she sings over a chugging twang on “(Shell) Of A Man.” Likewise, Gray isn’t trying to replicate bygone song structures, but uses the past as raw material to continually build her own kind of bizarre pop framework. —Margaret Farrell
After a detour into more expressly rock-oriented sounds — first on Census Designated and then with the side project Venturing — Jane Remover plunged back into headspun digicore with renewed aplomb on Revengeseekerz. The album’s glitchy, ultra-online blend of rap, emo, hyperpop, and more is overwhelming in the best way, somehow transmuting the circa-now sensation of constant distressing stimulation into satisfying bursts of coordinated anarchy. —Chris DeVille
Over the years, Deafheaven have followed their own muse, branching out in every direction from the oceanic art-metal of their beloved classic Sunbather. But now that they’ve revived the vast ferocity of that sound, Deafheaven still don’t sound like they’re doing fan service. The gorgeous abrasiveness of Lonely People With Power seems to take in everything that Deafheaven have ever done, synthesizing it into one monumental and moving hour of music. They’ve made the record that people wanted from them, and they’ve done it because it’s what they wanted to do. —Tom Breihan
Anxious are one of the many bands borne out of the post-Oso Oso emo-pop boom, but they’re one of the few bands to do it so damn well. The Connecticut rockers’ new album Bambi is a best-in-class work, replete with boundless riffs and melodies that fall together so near-flawlessly it’s almost hard to believe they weren’t already written. But Anxious aren’t just rehashing the Bleed American formula: Throughout Bambi, you get the sense that the members of Anxious are making exactly the type of music they want to make. Now that’s real emo. —Abby Jones
When she first appeared on the radar as an unlikely teenage dance-pop queen, PinkPantheress flirted with pop stardom without ever seeming larger-than-life. She made club music, but the pandemic meant that she’d never actually been to a club. On her brief and gloriously fun new mixtape Fancy That, PinkPantheress is as shy and flirty and conversational as ever, but her music is brighter and more direct than ever. The way she flips those Basement Jaxx and Underworld samples, you can tell that she’s been to some clubs now. —Tom Breihan
Nothing is Darkside’s third album and the follow-up to 2021’s Spiral, but it is also their first release as a newly defined band. The project welcomed drummer and touring member Tlacael Esparza as an official member for a collection of psychedelic jam sessions that feel both searching and grounded. The tracks on Nothing drift through a chaotic world with deep sighs. On “Are You Tired? (Keep On Singing),” spectral vocals decry colonialism and a maimed earth, floating over swirly synths and bluesy guitar plucks that gradually morph into twangy country western struts. Darkside sound more certain than ever in their wandering grooves and existential surrender. —Margaret Farrell
Oh, Loveless made you want to start a band, too? That’s cute. While a lot of Bedridden’s peers might look to My Bloody Valentine’s magnum opus as a north star, the Brooklyn-via-New Orleans indie rockers remind me more of the rough and subtly rowdy ways of Isn’t Anything, a blueprint mirrored in Moths Strapped To Each Other’s Backs. Along with fuzzed-out production, Bedridden’s full-length debut has a gnarly, gritty edge, and an unnerving ferocity that belies their somnolent name. —Abby Jones
Alien Boy are a reliable source of hooky, nostalgic indie rock, and You Wanna Fade continues that pattern. From the incredibly catchy “Changes” to the blown-out “Another Brand New Me,” the album is packed with fun, loud guitars and Sonia Weber’s candid voice singing conflicted lyrics that add to the emotional intensity. The group leans into dreamier, softer textures on the sweet “Morning” and celestial title track; no matter what they do, they don’t lose your attention. —Danielle Chelosky
Normally the anonymous musician behind Parannoul creates carefully arranged shogaze-emo symphonies, highly orchestrated pop songs with a hard-driving backbone, laced with spine-tingling beauty. On his first album as Huremic, he stretches out and gets weird. The five sprawling, towering tracks on Seeking Darkness work as epic background music but thrive as a means for locking in, rocking out, and voyaging to the edges of consciousness. —Chris DeVille
Whether she raps over rumbling post-punk guitars or circusy synths or a trickling ambient beat, John Glacier’s delivery remains objective and unflinching. On Like A Ribbon, the London-based artist’s matter-of-fact blankness feels like a remedy for these chronically discouraging times. “Let it thaw, have a meltdown, have a drink till you say it raw/ On the rocks, on the wave, feelin’ like I’m never sure,” Glacier raps deadpan on “Nevasure.” Her steadiness is reassuring even as she moves through shape-shifting vulnerability. Like A Ribbon is a trust-building exercise as she soldiers forward — from a tumultuous state to self-accepting resolve (“Steady As I Am”) to refuge (“Home”). —Margaret Farrell
As the bandleader of Ribbon Skirt, Tashiina Buswa makes striking, melody-focused indie rock that draws inspiration from her Anishinaabe heritage. “Save me, white Jesus,” she asks over the scrappy, upbeat jangle of “Cellophane,” but there’s a sarcastic snark to the sentiment: What’s the point of relying on such a deity when his so-called followers have inflicted so much irreparable damage to your people? Brimming with hardiness, sincerity, and a whole bunch of hooks, Bite Down is a lesson in perseverance. Sink your teeth into it. —Abby Jones
Ela Minus’ sophomore effort is all energy and atmosphere. DÍA is full of glitchy, woozy textures surrounding the Colombian singer’s breathy vocals, offering effective reflections: “I want to be better/ I thought I was better/ But I just seem to keep acting like a little kid,” she announces on the lush “I WANT TO BE BETTER.” Another highlight is the effervescent anthem “ONWARDS,” whose buzzy synths and confident beat have the power to make the listener feel totally unstoppable. —Danielle Chelosky
“You can’t make this shit up, but you’re welcome to try,” billy woods proclaims over a sample of someone sobbing on “Waterproof Mascara,” one of many highlights of the underground rapper’s latest studio album GOLLIWOG. Named after the racially-caricaturized ragdoll pictured on its cover, GOLLIWOG absorbs listeners into woods’ Black American experience, where “home” doesn’t necessitate safety and where punishments never fit the crimes. These nightmares, as guest Bruiser Wolf declares on “BLK XMAS,” don’t happen while you’re sleeping. Arresting and audacious, GOLLIWOG will wake you the fuck up. —Abby Jones
Horsegirl had already nailed their aesthetic on the first try with their 2022 debut Versions Of Modern Performance, channeling their favorite parts of the late 20th century indie rock canon into songs imbued with coming-of-age emotion. Now, with producer Cate Le Bon in tow, they’ve delivered a less-is-more sophomore LP that affirms they’ll be vital contributors to the genre long after the novelty of their teenage origin story wears off. Phonetics On And On is the product of so much hard work and refinement, but damn if it doesn’t feel like a brilliant song falls out every time one of these three shrugs. —Chris DeVille
In 2022, Momma released Household Name, a breakthrough album that proved them as one of the catchiest groups in indie rock. Its follow-up Welcome To My Blue Sky immediately exceeded expectations with the invigorating singles “I Want You (Fever)” and “Rodeo,” and the entire album is full of gripping moments. Slower, more evocative songs like “Take Me With You” and “Sincerely” offer breathing room; bangers like “Last Kiss” and “Ohio All The Time” soar with infectiousness. —Danielle Chelosky
Last year, loud and brash and snotty dance-pop records dominated the zeitgeist. Oklou couldn’t be any further from that. On Choke Enough, the French artist born Marylou Mayniel sings in a sad, resigned sigh and puts her voice through enough filters that it sounds like a distant alien chirp. She and her collaborators surround that voice with a deconstructed take on superclub thump, reducing anthemic synth riffs to minimal, muffled beeps. The songs have all the melodic force and anthemic urgency of the best mainstream bangers, but now they work as glinting mysteries. When you stare at this mirrorball long enough, you might get lost. —Tom Breihan
Here’s a playlist with tracks from (almost) all of the albums on our list:
