The Best Albums of 2025

This is the latest I have ever shared my Top 10 albums. It took longer than I thought to sort through the options, and I’ve been working to avoid – as much as possible – later edits as I rethink my choices as I get to know these records from 2025 better (and discover new ones I missed earlier.

I found 113 albums I enjoyed enough to buy (or put on my purchase list) and I considered every one of them while making this list. 2025 was a good year for music, just like every other year. It is OK to take those old records off the shelf, but finding new ones is also worth your time.

As I’ve done previously, I’ve included a link to albums I previously reviewed that you can read more about it. I’ve also provided a youtube link to a song of note for each record in the Top 10.

10 The Doohickeys – All Hat, No Cattle

-          Yes, these old school throwback country songs can get a bit kitschy, but this record is fun without ever sacrificing clever. Music is supposed to be fun, right?  Here’s “This Town Sucks”

9 Nite – Cult of the Serpent Sun

-          Nite was one of my happier discoveries of 2025, with their old school metal vibe and creepy cultist vibe – these guys get better on every record. Here’s “Crow (Fear the Night)

8 CMAT – Euro-Country

-          In 2022, CMAT first landed on A Creative Maelstrom’s Top 10 list with an honourable mention, but in 2025 she takes the next step. Think Chappel Roan, with a bit more country and you’ll have an idea. Clever and vulnerable with lots to say, here’s an example with “Take a Sexy Picture of Me”

7 Tyler Childers – Snipe Hunter

-          Every Tyler Childers album is different, as he routinely pushes the boundaries of the country genre. “Snipe Hunter” has a very traditional sound, with some sneaky and thoughtful songs nestled like Easter eggs amidst the plain brown packaging. Here’s Oneida

6 Panopticon – Laurentian Blue

-          Long-time Panopticon fans who have grown used to the band’s clever blending of bluegrass and black metal might feel left behind by this record, that doubles down on the bluegrass and leaves behind the double bass drumming and growling. Don’t be fooled, though, as this record has metal sensibility at its heart, and is as moody and black as anything they’ve done to date. My favourite is “An Argument With God” but I’m going to go with the also awesome (and more accessible) “Ever North” in a shameless attempt to get your attention

5 Craig Finn – Always Been

-          I’m a sucker for the hardscrabble stories that Craig Finn spins (he also made the Top 10 in 2022). This year we have a thoughtful collection of songs that once again peer deep and uncompromisingly into the human heart. Here’s The Man I’ve Always Been

4 Geese – Getting Killed

-          Along with CMAT, Geese is a band that this year will get more notice than for their previous releases. While I first encountered Geese through their 2021 album, “Projector” “Getting Killed” takes them to a whole other level. While not my usual scene, it is so innovative and amazing that it can’t be ignored Here’s Au Pays du Cocaine

3 Kora Feder – Some Kind of Truth

-          From my review: Kora Feder is a singer-songwriter with a young heart and an old soul. Listening to her records is like receiving a confessional from a close friend or curling up on the couch with a book of poetry for an afternoon of feeling the feels. Here’s the sad and thoughtful In a Young Person’s Body

2 Julien Baker and TORRES – Send a Prayer My Way

-          When I reviewed this last July I boldly claimed it would be making the Top 10, and here it is. I’ve always been a TORREs fan, and what she does in collaboration with Julien Baker is simply sublime – the whole better than the sum of the already amazing parts. Here’s Bottom of the Bottle

1 Ken Pomeroy – Cruel Joke

-          Ken Pomeroy straddles the line between folk and country, which is the perfect vehicle to deliver songs that are intensely personal, and grounded in natural space and place that puts substance and gravitas to her self-exploration. Like all great works of art, “Cruel Joke” taps into something that makes the personal into the universal. Here’s a live version of Coyote to show that all Pomeroy needs is her voice and a guitar to summon greatness

Honourable Mention – all great, but fell short because I could only pick a top 10. Here are 5 more in no particular order in the event you aren’t sated by the official winners:

• Annahstasia – Tether; Cory Hansen – I Love People; Wet Leg – moisturizer; Lommi – 667788; Master Spy – Maze Runner

And for those new to the Top Ten Experience, click on the year below to get the full from that year (I’ve proved #1 as a teaser):

Best of 2024 (#1 was Amyl and the Sniffers)

Best of 2023 (#1 was Boy Golden)

Best of 2022 (#1 was Grace Cummings)

Best of 2021 (#1 was Lucy Dacus)

Best of 2020 (#1 was Katie Pruitt)

CD Odyssey Disc 1866: Cory Hanson

I was up a bit earlier on a Saturday than usual, mostly because of the two new kittens we adopted last night. They didn’t wake me up (they are very polite for kittens), I was just excited.

Disc 1866 is… “I Love People”

Artist: Cory Hanson

Year of Release: 2025

What’s up with the Cover? This is not the cover - The actual cover is a photo of Hanson (also in a suit) in the centre of a gunsight. What is above is a picture of Cory Hanson from his Bandcamp profile. If you want to view the actual cover (and/or buy the album - which is awesome - visit Hanson's Bandcamp site here. 

As for this rare "go find it yourself" moment, maybe I just needed a break from violent imagery on a Saturday morning in a house newly full of kittens. Or maybe I thought I'd provide a "trigger warning" before you decide if you want to go contemplate the cover on your own. If you are OK with viewing the image I've described, go take a look and then read my thoughts below. If you are not OK, then just skip to "How I Came To Know It" and carry on from there.

...

For readers who decided to take a look, you may have also noted that the title of the album is in quotes. Is Cory Hanson quoting himself or is he suggesting that deep down he doesn’t really love people at all? Or, given that the person in the sights of the scope is Hanson himself, maybe he’s suggesting a lack of self-love?

Whatever the case, the combination of the aggressive graphic and the passive aggressive punctuation leads one to thinking, which is maybe the intent here.

How I Came To Know It: I already knew I liked Hanson from his previous album, 2023’s “Western Cum” (more about that when I roll it). This led me to check out his latest when it came out.

How It Stacks Up: I have two Cory Hanson albums and if you’ve been diligently reading, you already know which two. I like them both, but I’m here to stack, not equivocate. I’ll put “I Love People” at #1.

Ratings: 4 stars

“I Love People” is less a statement of philanthropy, and more a question posed by Cory Hanson to himself. Does he love people, or are they more a confusing mix of good, bad and just animal instincts? Or is he asking these questions about himself, and everything external is a that same question reflecting back in different lights? There are a lot of layers to this onion, and Hanson is here to peel them back and divine the resulting patterns for meaning.

Before we get into that, let’s note that for those of you who like the psychedelic rock sounds of Hanson’s parent band, Wand, or the harder rock stylings of his previous solo record “Western Cum” be warned: this record is many steps to the mellow of that.

Instead of doing more of the same, Hanson has embraced a folk/country vibe here that feels like a reborn Laurel Canyon sound. The Byrds or the Flying Burrito Brothers reimagined for the 2020s. it doesn’t feel derivative at all, as Hanson is not copying a sound, just embracing a vibe.

Gone for the most part is any guitar reverb or odd arrangements, replaced with what could best be called optimistic anxiety. The record feels hopeful in places, but it is also world weary and uncertain. Maybe it is best exemplified in the opening stanza of “I Don’t Believe You”:

“You tell me the wolf is at the door
And he's gonna slaughter all the hens
The rats have eaten through the crops
And there's nowhere to bury the dead
Well I do appreciate your words
Yet I don't care what you've said
Cause I don't believe you”

The arrangement is piano forward and feels majestic and deliberate, and even though there are some minor chords and step downs to lead you to a place of discomfort, the undercurrent of the melody is “tired, but still standing.” It’s one of music’s great “don’t let the bastards get you down” moments.

Other times Hanson gets metaphysical in his explorations of doubt. On “Final Frontier” he notes that:

“Well, it’s good to be God
Cause when the shit hits the fan
You just go on believing that you don’t exist.”

On first blush, it’s a bit apocalyptic but the message is a hopeful one – you’ve got all the power you need for this moment, and all you gotta do is believe in yourself.

While a lot of Hanson’s songs are more explorations of thought than stories, near the end he lands a gem of a character study with “Old Policeman”, a song about a worn out and weary cop. While you could easily read this song as an indictment of a policeman who has lost touch and needs to retire, Hanson’s depiction is artful and sympathetic in strange ways. This cop has some bad work habits, but he’s also a sad and lonely soul that no longer feels connected to his community – in no small part because his job creates a separation. Like a lot of songs on “I Love People” its complex, layered, and offers no easy answers.

“Old Policeman” is mostly a heavily played and emotional piano piece, with some light horn in the background that combined makes you feel…tired. It’s indicative of a record that consistently knows what mood, melody and arrangement is necessary to pull every ounce of meaning out of its songs.

This record may not be what Wand or Cory Hanson fans will necessarily expect, but it is a damn fine record, and a likely contender for 2025’s Top 10.

Best tracks: Bird on a Swing, I Don’t Believe You, Final Frontier, Bad Miracles, Old Policeman