KHRUANGBIN
Released November 6, 2025
I now that I should tread lightly with this but I do need to thank the algorithms for bringing Khruangbin into my life.
It was as auspicious as anything else, because for quite a spell several years ago, while poking around videos on You tube, the algorithms suddenly placed a suggestion into my feed. At first, I didn't notice at all. Soon, I realized that this suggestion kept appearing, as if a gently persistent rem in der from a friend. Finally, late one night, after essentially tiring of seeing the suggestion, I clicked upon the link to see what this was all about and within moments...I was floored...and shortly afterwards, I never looked back.
The semi-instrumental, hypnotically rhythmic music of the Houston, Texas based trio of guitarist Mark Speer, bassist Laura Lee and drummer Donald "DJ" Johnson Jr. feels exactly like the translation of the band's Thai moniker, which is "airplane." Certainly, the sensation of flight is apparent. But, what I think of is the emotional sensation that rests within travel, whether physical or spiritual, because essentially, we, as a species, are forever within the process of the journey. Ruminating over the past, contemplating the future, while attempting to gather sense of the present simultaneously. The destination, by contrast, is not essentially the point and here is where Khruangbin exists for me.
"The Universe Smiles Upon You ii" is a tribute to, and full recreation of, the band's debut album on its tenth anniversary and the result is as mesmerizing as everything we have experienced. Yet now, Khruangbin is in a period of simultaneous reflection and progression as they utilize their debut to ponder where they have been and where they exist in 2025 after five previous albums and two EPs with Leon Bridges. The album firmly exists as one of 2025's instantly repeatable albums as it could play upon a loop and you would be intoxicated for the entire duration.
This is seductive, sometimes propulsive, genre defying, hallucinatory, transportive music that is their idiosyncratic signature. And then, smack in the middle of the album is the surprise..."Bin Bin ii"...less than two minutes and an explosive window into fully unexpected Hendrix-ian psychedelia. If this album is lacing a metaphorical period at the end of this ten year musical sentence, I am excited to see where the next sentence begins.
STEVEN WILSON
Released March 14, 2025
Discoveries...
I know nothing, absolutely nothing about Steven Wilson. He has not existed upon my musical radar whatsoever until this year as he released his eighth solo album, a conceptual work that dives directly into my progressive rock beating heart--a genre that I admittedly have not paid much grand attention towards in recent years.
"The Overview" is a two track album, with each selection divided into eight and six movements, running 23 and 18 minutes respectively, that embraces the cosmic concept of the overview effect, a shift in one's view of humanity and existence upon viewing Earth from space. Featuring some lyrical aid from none other than XTC's Andy Partridge, Steven Wilson, who handles vocals and the lion's share of the instrumentation, has fashioned a work which contains a dash of Pink Floyd here, splashes of Tangerine Dream there but it most widely reconnected me to both Yes' "Close To The Edge" (released September 13, 1972) and Yes bassist/vocalist the late Chris Squire's solo effort "Fish Out Of Water" (released November 21, 1975).
As heady as the album is with its conflations of the mundane and the majestically existential, I would urge listeners to not find approaching this work as impenetrable as some of prog rock openly embraces. For me the warmth of the instrumentation, the vocals and the superb melodies drew me inwards and held me enraptured for the duration, all sticking to my brain powerfully. In so many ways, I have always found the finest of prog rock music to exist as music for introverts, as the crescendos and musical; dynamism abound represent what is happening to us internally.
To paraphrase David Bowie's "Blackstar," we have eagles in our daydreams and diamonds in our eyes. Steven Wilson's "The Overview" took me through the wormhole and back again...over and again.
RYAN ADAMS
Released December 1, 2025
I realize greatly that the topic of Ryan Adams may be a powder keg for some of you. I understand. Deeply. For me, the controversies that have existed around this figure for the entirety of his career--from his youthfully brash days as an alt-country/punk rock styled enfant terrible, to the more recent issues of sexual misconduct which all but fully derailed his career--have been profoundly troubling. And still...somehow, I wish to believe that the truth of him exists within his enormous musical body of work, songs and albums of such emotional fragility that always feel as if he is charting the map of the human heart one track at a time...often to heart aching degrees.
With full disclosure, I will admit to taking a pause from Adams' discography after the news of that day fell, largely out of respect to what was being said as so little information was explicitly known. Since that time, only one article/interview was released during which it was revealed that charges against Adams had been fully dropped yet that information was not widely reported as he and his publicist of that time had parted ways. After reading, I chose for myself to wade back into the Ryan Adams waters as I wanted, again, to believe that the truth of the man rested within the music. I wanted to have hope for the humanity of the situation, the nuances within all of the behaviors as you have an especially gifted artist fueled with restless creativity clashing with issues with anger issues, depression, addiction, a public divorce, grief for the bandmates and family members lost over the years as well as debilitating Meniere's disease.
Trust me, I am not making excuses for his often reprehensible behavior. But again, we are dealing with the war between the artist as a person and the art that we may love. As stated, I chose to return for myself and furthermore, if we are being honest, if we were to look into the human lives of all of the artists we each love, I am certain we would find a mountain of reprehensible human behaviors to reckon with.
At any rate, I have kept up with Adams' frighteningly prolific releases these several years and his latest, a new 24 track double album, is emotionally shattering. Fueled through a more lo-fi approach, sprawling and a bit messy, "Self Portrait" is a raw, devastating listen for as always, there is almost nothing one could say about him that he is not already singing about himself in his songs, as well as within his stark cover versions of New Order's "Blue Monday," and R.E.M.'s " The One I Love."
Yes, sometimes, it veers in and out of self pity but not one moment ever struck me as performative or false in its intent. In songs like "Saturday Night Forever," "Bye Bye Balloons," "I Am A Rollercoaster," "Thunderstorm Tears," "Try Again Tomorrow" and "Theo," a ballad to a beloved cat since passed on and more, the maw of loneliness and regret is palpable, the pain of mistakes made, emotional avenues closed and potentially lost forever exist as an existential howl of sorrow, making for exquisite music for a cold rainy day or the depths of an endless Winter.
As of this time, Ryan Adams has sought counseling and even achieved sobriety for a good two years before apparently falling out of it again, demons fully intact and ready to lash outwards. Simultaneously, he has announced that he is retired from touring and plotting three new studio albums. I genuinely hope for his health and healing above all else and if channeling into his art is at all helpful, then so be it.
As it stands, I was profoundly affected by the living diary of "Self Portrait."
"MORTAL PRIMETIME"
SUNFLOWER BEAN
Released April 25, 2025
Now, we're really reaching the top!
Just a mere seven months after releasing their roaring EP entitled "Shake" (released September 27, 2024), the trio Sunflower Bean unveiled their fourth and best album to date. "Mortal Primetime" opens with their trademark arena rock riffs merged with 1970's AM radio melodies but this album soon takes an enormous swan dive into their most emotionally vulnerable material yet.
Beginning with album's fourth track, "Look What You've Done To Me," Sunflower Bean takes the listener through a variety of colors and moods that just ache with yearning, longing, the stretch for connection and love and somehow not ever quite reaching it. Bassist/vocalist Julia Cumming, already an extremely gifted singer, really emerges as a star as she channels both Ann Wilson and Karen Carpenter while unearthing one heartbroken pang of the lovelorn with such robust sensitivity. Guitarist/vocalist Nick Kivlen is no slouch himself as the shimmering, stunning "Please Rewind" took my breath away.
And man, by the shoegaze fuzz album farewell of "Sunshine" fades away, you will be drying your eyes.
"THE CLEARING"
WOLF ALICE
Released August 22, 2025
I really wish that I cold see Sunflower Bean on tour with this band, for they feel so evenly matched in approach, intent and emotional intensity. But, I'm telling you, on tis album, Wolf Alice has raised the stakes grandly.
Opening with thunderous applause, Wolf Alice's fourth album places vocalist/guitarist Ellie Rowsell front and center and what an extraordinary frontwoman she is! Her spectacular vocals skyrocket from one end of the album to the other, again with bombastic riffs and drums merged with outstanding 1970's AM radio melodies.
Trust me, dear listeners, "The Clearing" just does...not...stop! Like Sunflower Bean, it is a work that shifts in a variety of colors and moods. "Bloom Baby Bloom" explodes in manifestation. "Bread Butter Tea Sugar" is a veritable ELO tribute. The ghostly "Midnight Song" exists proudly alongside the sunshine joyride of "Passenger Seat," the interior "Leaning Against The Wall," the elegiac gallop of "White Horses" and the defiantly absorbing finale of "The Sofa," demonstrates that Wolf Alice is a band that pop music desperately needs. To create ear catchers that demand your attention and vibrate with their powers. These are songs that stick to the brain and the heart rapturously,
And my word! The downright phenomenal "Just Two Girls" to my ears, sounds like it could be their version of ABBA's "Dancing Queen"!
ALBUM OF THE YEAR
DE LA SOUL
Released November 21, 2025
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