Top Albums of 2025

In the grand scheme of years in history, 2025 wasn’t too bad, was it? I mean, it wasn’t 536 CE, after all. We didn’t face mass crop failures and famines. We will, down the road, but we didn’t this year. It wasn’t the year of the Plague of Justinian in 541 CE or the Black Death of 1347. Hell, it wasn’t even the covid pandemic of 2020. Sure, there was geopolitical instability, genocide, the arrival of fascism in the West again, the 1968-style flu epidemic, the onrushing apocalyptic climate crisis, and the nagging idea that bird flu is waiting to make all this seem like a lark. No nuclear weapons detonated, though. An asteroid didn’t collide with the planet. The theme for the year could be summed up succinctly as this: 2025 – It Could Be Worse.

As usual, of course, there was some great music that was put out, regardless of what your dumb drunk uncle told you. They have made great music after 2000, and contained herein are 100 examples of this. This could easily have been 300 examples, but anything over 100 is a list comprised mainly of madness. These are the top albums of 2025, and the cut off has to go somewhere. Regardless, beyond the top albums of 2025, there are piles of new music released every week that deserve your attention. Below are five albums that almost made the cut, but didn’t – honourable mentions, if you will. After, follow the link to begin the top albums of 2025 proper.

Honourable Mentions

**Park Jiha – All Living Things [tak:til] – February 14th**

**Jason Isbell – Foxes In The Snow [Southeastern] – March 7th**

**Sunny War – Armageddon in a Summer Dress [New West] – February 21st**

**Lambrini Girls – Who Let The Dogs Out [City Slang] – January 10th**

**Sharon Van Etten – Sharon Van Etten and The Attachments [Jagjaguwar] – February 7th**

Continue to #100-81 of the Top Albums of 2025!

[ 100 – 81 | 80 – 61 | 60 – 41 | 40 – 21 | 20 – 01 ]

Lost Ghosts: A New Collection of Haunting Short Fiction

We Make The Village: The Kickstarter

Out now live and loud is the Kickstarter for We Make The Village, a new collection of short fiction by Canadian authors surrounding the theme of community, and what it means.

Put together by West Coast author Asha Jade Goodwin, this collection features a wide array of thoughts on what it means to be in and out of community with others. As per the Kickstarter page:

From rejection to acceptance, support to sacrifice; in this anthology, you’ll find a mix of it all, fiction and non-fiction, stories and poems. What does community mean? Who is a part of our community? How do we cultivate community in our own lives? What if we are rejected from our community?

We Make The Village will feature 40 stories from 30 Canadian authors and at least five original illustrations from a Prince George artist.

Learn More

More to the point, We Make The Village will feature “Rooming Situation,” a new short story from me that was written during a period where I was in some despair about the state of the housing market and the future of how we live together. That period has not ended, of course, and it’s worth taking some time to think through the consequences of a world where you aren’t likely to be able to buy a house if you didn’t own one by 2021 at the latest. Multiple roommate living situations become a sort of forced found family situation, and while that can be difficult to deal with, there’s also a certain magic in the relationships that get formed.

Until one of them snaps, of course.

There are a lot of great reward tiers available for We Make The Village and it’s worth the time to go through them. In addition to getting the hardcover edition, you can also get collection boxes with stickers, bookmarks, and postcards, as well as multiple copies of the book that you can give as gifts. The authors are from all over Canada, so if you’re looking to keep your elbows up, you might as well go all the way, eh?

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congratulations – Join Hands

congratulations

Join Hands

Released February 13th, 2026 on Bella Union

Per Spectrum Culture:

Congratulations’ Join Hands might not be groundbreaking, but it is a hell of a lot of fun.

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Gorillaz – The Mountain

Gorillaz

The Mountain

Released February 27th, 2026 on Kong

Per Spectrum Culture:

After a string of albums that ranged from slapdash to merely good, Albarn returns refreshed and hungry to do something big.

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Remember Sports – The Refrigerator

Remember Sports

The Refrigerator

Released February 13th, 2026 on Get Better Records

Per Spectrum Culture:

The first Remember Sports album in five years often feels like a band wrestling with its own past, tussling between sugary power pop and a more contemplative, rootsy sprawl.

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Puscifer – Normal Isn’t

Puscifer

Normal Isn’t

Released February 6th, 2026 on Alchemy/BMG

Per Spectrum Culture:

Normal Isn’t delves into early-’80s goth and post-punk, a sharp turn from Puscifer’s former electronic and industrial-tinged hard rock sound.

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Tashi Dorji – low clouds hang, this land is on fire

Tashi Dorji

low clouds hang, this land is on fire

Released January 30th, 2026 on Drag City Records

Per Spectrum Culture:

Tashi Dorji’s first exploration of the electric guitar is, paradoxically, his quietest, gentlest album yet, though that doesn’t deprive it of its power.

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Modest Mouse – The Moon & Antarctica

So, Spectrum Culture does these features called “Resequence” where you take an album and rework the track list so it’s more to your liking. On one hand this feels unholy, but on the other there are a lot of albums that, once I think on it, I would love the ability to rework the order. Modest Mouse’s The Moon & Antarctica is probably foremost among them. I’ve always felt that it sagged in the middle; putting “The Cold Part” basically next to “The Stars are Projectors” with only a short little rocker between to separate them kills the energy halfway through. So here’s my proposed fantasy realignment of the album that puts “Stars are Projectors” down at the end where it’s wild psychedelic outro can carry out The Moon & Antarctica like it was always meant to.

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The Paper Kites – If You Go There, I Hope You Find It

The Paper Kites

If You Go There, I Hope You Find It

Released January 23rd, 2026 on Nettwerk

Via Spectrum Culture:

The Melbourne folk-rockers stick too closely to the formula on this familiar effort.

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Mandy, Indiana – URGH

Mandy, Indiana

URGH

Released February 6th, 2026 on Sacred Bones

As per Spectrum Culture:

By cleaving closer to the bone of what they’re about, Mandy, Indiana avoid the too-clever, angular detached observational style that might have sunk their sophomore effort quickly.

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Joyce Manor – I Used to Go to This Bar

Joyce Manor

I Used to Go to This Bar

Released January 30th, 2026 on Epitaph Records

From Spectrum Culture:

In a scant 19 minutes, I Used to Go to This Bar taps into the allure and the danger of living in the past, as well as the runaway joy and fear of living in the present.

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