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)

The Best Albums of 2022

I often load my best of albums list into the introduction to a regular review, but I’m going to break with tradition this year and give it an entry all its own. This year will also have the excitement of links to songs so you can have an immediate sampling of just what I’m so damned excited about.

If you like it, please check out the artist’s entire record, and if you like that, please buy it. That’s how artists get paid. Or stream it a whole bunch of times. That also works.

I listened to an untold number of records released in 2022 and found 80 of them worth buying. Of those I have successfully bought 66 (still searching for the rest) and gotten rid of 4 (errors). Still on the hunt for 14 more, some of which made the list regardless.

After considerable soul searching, here is the best of the best. I reserve the right to change my mind as I dig into each of these (and others) deeper, but for now, this is it. For those records I’ve already reviewed, I’ve embedded a link:

10 Ghost – Impera (reviewed at Disc 1592)

• Hard rock/metal from Sweden, Ghost has long enjoyed pretending they really love Satan, but don’t be concerned. It is just pretend.Here’s a track about their favourite subject called “Call Me Little Sunshine”. 

9 Julia Jacklin – Pre Pleasure

• Jacklin just keeps getting better. 2019’s Crushing was good, but I think this is even better. For the sake of balance with the previous record, let’s go with “Lydia Wears a Cross”.  

8 The Beths – Expert in a Dying Field

• More great music from the Beths. Here’s the title track as a sampler: 

7 Danger Mouse and Black Thoughts – Cheat Codes

• I find Danger Mouse hit and miss but combining him with hip hop mastery of Black Thoughts and the many guest stars on this record is inspiring. Here’s one called "Strangers" with some Run the Jewels guest starring.

6 Craig Finn – A Legacy of Rentals

• If you like the band The Hold Steady you’ll already know its lead singer Craig Finn. If you like that, I think you’ll like this just as much. I liked it even more, but you have to be OK with listening to the lyrics, because Finn tells a hell of a story, but you gotta pay attention. Here’s "The Amarillo Kid". 

5 Dropkick Murphys – This Machine Still Kills Fascists

• Woody Guthrie lyrics have been set to music by Wilco and Billy Bragg previously, and the latest collaboration is with the Dropkick Murphys. I think it may be the best yet. Here’s “The Last One”. 

4 Kevin Morby – This is a Photograph

• Just an all-around great record that is half chill, half-anxiety, all awesome. All the tracks are good, but I’m picking this one because I like the tone of the banjo and it features Erin Rae, who I also discovered this year. Her 2022 album is Lighten Up and it is good, even though it didn’t make this list. Here’s “Bittersweet”.

3 Mattiel – Georgia Gothic

• Mattiel’s 2019 album Satis Factory is one of my favourite records of all time. Georgia Gothic is good enough for #3 in 2022. Here’s “On the Run”.

2 Ezra Furman – All of Us Flames

• Brilliant, anthemic, and emotionally overwhelming, Furman is a wave you want to both catch and have crash over you. Here’s “Forever in Sunset".

1 Grace Cummings – Storm Queen (reviewed at Disc 1573)

• Listening to Grace Cummings is like being transfixed by the keening of a ghost as she warbles her fell and beautiful secrets to you from the underworld. Here’s “Up in Flames”:  I also strongly recommend “Heaven” if for no other reason than the arresting quality of Cummings eyes as she stares right at you in the video.

Honourable Mention – all great, but I could only pick 10. Here are 5 more in no particular order in the event you want even more great music to choose from 2022:

• Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway – Crooked Tree; CMAT – If My Wife New I’d Be Dead; Ethel Cain – Preacher’s Daughter; Wet Leg – Self-Titled; Angel Olsen – Big Time

CD Odyssey Disc 1584: Wet Leg

I’m back from a short mid-week holiday to celebrate my mom’s birthday. It was great to connect with family again and now I’m preparing for a return to work tomorrow. But first, one last fun thing must happen – a music review!

Disc 1584 is…. Self-Titled

Artist: Wet Leg

Year of Release: 2022

What’s up with the Cover?  Side hug! Because sometimes a full front-to-front hug is too much.

How I Came To Know It: I heard the song “Chaise Longue” on a “best new songs” list at Paste Magazine many months ago. I liked it and kept an eye out for the band to release a full album. It took forever but at last, here it is!

How It Stacks Up: There is only one Wet Leg album and this is it, so no stacking up.

Ratings: 4 stars

Wet Leg’s debut record is a perfect summer fun album, full of all the silly joy that a good summer’s day holds, and all the sunburn of regret from any flings that went sideways along the way.

As you might expect from such a record, there is not a lot of deep philosophizing. This is fun pop music that is to easy to digest and full of hooks that are much harder to write and produce than will appear on first blush. Delivering catchy pop tunes like Wet Leg members Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers manage here may appear to be easy breezy, but it is damned hard work.

Often with young ingenues I will talk about how they are old souls, but these two feel very much like young souls. Young souls are also great, because they are filled with breathless enthusiasm. That enthusiasm is infectious, and makes you feel young again just by listening. Wet Leg takes your ears and mind on a journey of sound that will make you want to dance, or at the very least rock your head back and forth and smile at the sky.

The record features a plethora of clever turns of phrase, typically linked up with a catchy bass hook that makes the words an extra step more clever than they actually are. From “Chaise Longue”:

“Is your muffin buttered?
Would you like us to assign someone to butter your muffin?”

Do we know what this means? We do not, but it is pop gold and nigh impossible to resist singing along once you’ve got the timing down well enough to not flub it (the music on this record is notable for its well-timed phrasing).

Or sometimes the lyrics are even more simple and straightforward, like this from “Angelica”:

“I don’t even know what I’m even doing here.
I was told that there would be free beer.”

Aah, I remember the days when a party could draw people simply by advertising there would be a complimentary keg in the garage, and plastic cups a-plenty. Nowadays I’m more likely to get sidelong glances telling people to BYOB but what can I say? I’m old school.

“Chaise Longue” made them famous, but as anyone who starts to get to know this record will tell you, ““Wet Dream” is the better song.” Indeed it is, with a killer driving riff and the well-placed hand claps that are the sugar high of many a sing-a-long pop hit.

There are some bummer tunes, of course. As noted previously, no summer is complete without a bit of a late-day bummer where you can clink your beer bottles and cheer ‘c’est la vie’ to one another as the setting sun shines through the amber glass. There are a couple of grade A entries here. “Loving You” and “Piece of Shit” are both brilliant and sad little “fuck you” post-break up songs. The well-placed swear words on these songs feels vigorous and deliberate; the kind of swearing one engages in when the words are still relatively new and exciting. As a long-time swear veteran, I miss that.

Because this album is so sugary and fun (even in its dark moments) I set out determined to give it 3 stars. However, when I got to the end of this review I realized I’d put 6 of the 12 tunes in the “best tracks” section below. If half the album are its best tracks, that’s a 4-star album. So yes, this record is excellent. Maybe it won’t make you discover some deeper inner truth, but it might help get you back in touch with the wild and wonderful feeling of being young, and maybe even get you dancing along the way.

Best tracks: Chaise Longue, Angelica, Wet Dream, Loving You, Ur Mom, Piece of Shit