By now, you all know that this is not my actual listening space! But, you also know that you have now officially reach the third part of my listening experiences of 20205. Here are more of the albums that made the greatest impressions and impacts upon me.
"FROM THE PYRE"
THE LAST DINNER PARTY
Released October 17, 2025
Operatic, flamboyant, theatrical, swaggering and filled end to end with all manner of vocal, instrumental and lyrical flourishes, The Last Dinner Party kind pf upended me when I first heard of them as they carried an aesthetic that reminded me a little bit of 1970's era Queen without ever really sounding like them at all.
Arriving just one year after their startling, audacious debut "Prelude To Ecstasy" (released February 2, 2024), "From The Pyre" smooths out the jagged edge just a hair and ultimately presents a dynamic follow up that blows away any pre-conceived notions of any potential sophomore slump. Album openers "Angus Dei" and "Count The Ways" set the stage brilliantly with soaring choral vocals and swinging dark riffs, as if a curtain is being raised within a vast, ornate theater. The wrathful "This Is The Killer Speaking" and especially the stunning, chilling "Woman Is A Tree," feels like a sinister coven casting grim spells from around the cauldron.
And still, the band possesses a terrific pop edge through tracks like "Second Best," "Inferno" and "The Scythe," showcasing they are as radio ready as anyone...should some adventurous radio programmers give this terrific album the proper attention it deserves.
BIG THIEF
Released September 5, 2025
I could easily listen to this album upon a loop.
Feeling as if explicitly spun from the cosmic earthiness of the track "Spud Infinity" from their excellent previous release "Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You" (released February 11, 2022)--my entry point into this band--the sixth album from Big Thief is especially liquid in its sonics, lyrics and the stream of consciousness flow from the album's beginning to its conclusion.
It is a work that feels to pus further than past albums as I felt even more submerged in the folk psychedelia that took me on a luscious head trip throughout. From the sky lifting "Words" to the plaintive "All Night All Day," the spacey mantras of "No Fear" and the trilogy of embrace found in the album's closing section of "Grandmother," "Happy With You" and "How Could I Have Known," and more, Big Thief have constructed a campfire in the clouds and the result is hypnotic.
POST ANIMAL
Released July 25, 2025
Another album with an impeccable sense of flow was the fourth album from the Chicago based sextet--Joe Kerry a.k.a. Djo returned to the band for this project--which, like one of the album's song titles, feels as warm as a "Setting Sun."
Despite its mid-Summer release, "Iron" is a work tailor made for Autumn as you can clearly see and feel the falling leaves and the colors of the season in your mind's eye as you listen. Clean, clear vocals and instrumentation, combined with some occasional off kilter humor and sonics--as on the dark cautionary fable of "Dorien Kregg"--you gather the sense that this album was made by a group of people who genuinely enjoy each other. It is that sense of brotherhood that I think reached out and grabbed me beyond the warmth of the overall production the most. It's not an album that is going out of its way to jump in front of your face and demand attention from you and it is not polite background coffeehouse music either. Post Animal has created something designed to inspire you to lean in closer as you breathe in deeply.
It feels like a beauteous pastoral day listening to the grass grow.
"TIMELESS WORLD FOREVER"
GRAHAM HUNT
Released June 13, 2025
This is has a personal connection as this artist lives in my city, I have seen him perform several times and this album was created with the aid of 4/5 of my beloved band and friends in Disq. That being said, if I had no personal connection to any of the figures involved, it would still be one of the best albums I heard in 2025 and further, I feel it is Hunt's best album to date.
GRAHAM HUNT
Released June 13, 2025
This is has a personal connection as this artist lives in my city, I have seen him perform several times and this album was created with the aid of 4/5 of my beloved band and friends in Disq. That being said, if I had no personal connection to any of the figures involved, it would still be one of the best albums I heard in 2025 and further, I feel it is Hunt's best album to date.
Self described as an "imaginary magic realist version of Madison," Hunt's latest album caps a planned trilogy of releases strung together thematically as well as by the basement East side Madison studio location in which all three were recorded. For me, it is a swirling confection of songs that suggest an updated version of '90s era Beck ("I Just Need Enough"), the hip hop, punk rock hybrid within the David Lynch-ian narrative of quintessentially East side Madison lore ("East Side Screamer"), a relaxed dream world ("Been There Done That"), romantic loneliness wrapped in an altered state invitation ("Movie Night"), post rock with a riff Queens Of The Stone Age would kill for ("Cave Art") and more.
Graham Hunt's "Timeless World Forever" is an always surprising, defiantly left of center, fully idiosyncratic power pop album that is more than deserving of your full attention and it yet another musical statement informing the outer world of the deep pockets of talent we have right here in Madison, WI.
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