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 1868: Ken Pomeroy

Up early and (as usual) feeling inspired by the power of music. Whether today finds you distraught or down or uncertain, or joyful, hopeful and inspired I can assure you, there’s a song for that. Go put it on. But first, read this music review.

Disc 1868 is… Cruel Joke

Artist: Ken Pomeroy

Year of Release: 2025

What’s up with the Cover? Ken Pomeroy in the flesh. Well, actually it is just a photo, but Pomeroy’s gaze is so powerful and immanent, it’s like she’s in the room with you, staring into your soul.

That place of raw exploration and discomfort is where art lives, and if you are intrigued by the experience the cover offers, you’re going to love the music inside even more.

How I Came To Know It: I read a review of her on a website I’m partial to called Americana Highways. If you like folk, country and americana music, then Americana Highways is a great place to discover bands you might not read about on bigger music platforms.

You can also do that right here on “A Creative Maelstrom”, of course.

How It Stacks Up: This is my only Ken Pomeroy record, but I have a feeling I’m going to have a long and fulfilling relationship with her music for years to come.

Ratings: 5 stars

Growing up in rural coastal British Columbia, I take solace in the closeness of dense coastal rainforests, jagged inlets and lush understory. Ken Pomeroy’s music features none of those things, but hearing her paint pictures of the quiet solitude of the Oklahoma plains and foothills, I felt blanketed by the same soothing, contemplative spirit. Or put simply, this record will you chill you out and make you think.

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.

If you are looking for experimental sounds and new melodic structures, you won’t find that here. You’ll get similar song structures on any number of other singer-songwriters out there, but like anything, it is all in the execution.

Pomeroy’s vocals have sneaky range, climbing high and bright, or descending into a low register whisper. Whatever serves the song. I haven’t heard someone instinctually manage a vocal with such deliberate ease since Heather Maloney did it ten years earlier on “Making Me Break” (reviewed at Disc 1200 and also a 5-star record).

Pomeroy is no slouch on the acoustic guitar either, again not engaged in any Django Reinhart level innovation, but just playing with grace and feeling that lets you sit down into a song and let it take you on a journey.

Lyrically, this record is not only compelling at the individual song level, but Pomeroy goes a step further, weaving common imagery through the record that makes the full listen a journey bigger than each tune.

Featured prominently are images of coyotes, wolves, and dogs. The common use of canine imagery allows Pomeroy to move from the wild to the domestic and back again all the while internalizing each animal into her own state of mind.

On “Pareidolia” the coyote walks against the wind, capturing the spirit of feeling wild but constrained at the same time. Pomeroy blends this natural imagery with everyday rural experiences like “talking about money” and “switching to flats,” even that last image connecting footwear to a broader exploration of her environment. Even the concept of pareidolia –seeing faces or images in random places like clouds – speaks to the interconnection of the human experience with the natural one.

On “Wrango” Pomeroy writes a love song to her dog. I’m a cat person and I’m even a little bit scared of dogs but listening to “Wrango” I loved that dog. “Wrango” features some of Pomeroy’s sweetest vocals and guitar picking, and lyrics like “I’ll turn off the bedroom light/’Cause that sparkle in your eyes is bright enough to light the sky” that will melt your heart.

“Coyote” is a duet features the considerable talents of fellow Oklahoman John Moreland, and the nexus of the thematic blend of animal and emotion. Evocative lyrics like:

“Honey look out for the coyote
Sleuthing around the hens
Meet him with a stare and don’t turn away
If you don’t he’ll be back again”

On the surface is advice on keeping your chickens safe, but more deeply it is confronting your inner self, with all the strengths and the faults you’ll find there, and not turning away. Like the cover of the album, it’s an intense stare that rewards you if you have the strength to hold it and let it take you where, deep down, you know you need to go.

I’ve listened to this record a half dozen times, and on each run through, I find a new layer of exploration. Where Pomeroy is drawn to earth and big sky my West Coast mind goes to the sea as my equivalent, her music drawing me out into deeper water to the point that my feet can no longer touch the bottom, but where the surrender to that expanse is freeing and restorative.

Best tracks: all tracks