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The Bad Penny’s Top 50 Best LPs of 2025, Pt. 2: Drain, Castle Rat, SOM, Mawiza, Blackbraid, Bleed

Posted in Album Reviews, Lists, Reviews with tags Blackbraid, Bleed, Castle Rat, Cave Sermon, Der Weg Einer Freiheit, Drain, In Mourning, Malevich, Mawiza, SOM on 12/09/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

A lot of fucked-up up shit happened in the U.S. this year. Way, way too much of it. For many of us Americans who actually carry values in our hearts instead of bloviating about them or slapping bumper stickers on our monster trucks, it was almost too much to bear.

Fortunately, 2025 also saw the release of a staggering number of stellar records, which made the year a little more … well, bearable. Hence, for the first time ever, The Bad Penny is deviating from its usual annual tradition of limiting out favorite listens to just 10 and breaking them into a five-part series containing 10 records per installment.

What follows is the second batch. (Go here for The Bad Penny‘s favorite albums, #41 through #50.)

31. Blackbraid – III (Wolf Mountain)

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Turnstile’s ‘Never Enough’: Two Cent Review for The Line of Best Fit’s Best Albums of 2025

Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Turnstile on 12/08/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

Turnstile are the standalone, undisputed pillars of the hardcore resurgence that sparked in 2021 thanks to this very band’s last album Glow On. The record rose so rapidly that many assumed it would fall just as fast, and we’d be left looking like idiots, holding a pan with a proverbial flash in it. Four years later, nothing could be further from the truth: Their staying power is proving to be as reliable as the assertion that tomorrow will deliver us a day that ends with a Y. Read my full review of their 2025 masterpiece, Never Enough, part of The Line of Best Fit‘s best albums of the year feature.

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Avett Brothers & Mike Patton’s ‘AVTT/PTTN’: Two Cent Review

Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Avett Brothers, Ipecac, Mike Patton on 12/07/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

Apparently proving that the “Who’s doing which drugs now?” head-scratching Avett Brothers-play-in-a-sandbox-for-a-while-with-Mike Patton-until-someone-gets-dirt-thrown-in-their-face escapade isn’t a hoax, the collaborators just shook hands to make their first festival appearance at Big Ears in Knoxville, Tennessee, on March 28. That’s after their bizarro late-night-TV debut on The Tonight Show that took place two weeks ago – and a day before the pranksters/collaborators performed four tunes as part of the Grammy Museum’s series (moderated quite appropriately by Eric André).

With that in mind, here is The Bad Penny‘s review of their new record. Can you listen critically to music while also trying to solve a mystery at the same time? We did our best.

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Black Magic Tree’s ‘Terra’: Two Cent Review

Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Black Magic Tree on 11/29/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

“Psych” and “groove” are not mutually exclusive terms, as Berlin boys Black Magic Tree prove on their sexy second album. This beaut of a psych-based record is unforced, fun, unpretentious and, simply put, a pleasure to listen to. Read my full review on Treble.

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Papir’s ‘IX’: Two Cent Review

Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Papir on 11/28/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

A 75-minute album consisting of one song divided into seven parts, of course this is a psychedelic album. Copenhagen instrumentalists Papir are fully accepting and aware of their identity, knows exactly what they are and what they have the capability to do: exert a Svengali-like control over a willing audience. Read my review of IX on Treble.

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Void of Sleep’s ‘The Abyss Into Which We All Have to Stare’: Two Cent Review

Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Void of Sleep on 11/27/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

One imagines that Italy’s Void of Sleep turns in a rider for every tour that simply requests “Smoke machines. And more smoke machines. Did we mention we need a lot of smoke machines? We refuse to perform without smoke machines.” Read my review of their new album, The Abyss Into Which We All Have to Stare, on Treble.

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10 Best Free Bandcamp Downloads #3: Dead and Dripping, FACS, Sulaco, Frontierer, Earthbøund

Posted in Album Reviews, Lists, MP3s, Reviews with tags Artoffact, Boyracer, Délirant, Dead and Dripping, Depravity, Earthbøund, FACS, Frontierer, Sulaco, 夢遊病者 on 11/27/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

Strapped for cash but hungry for great music? You won’t have much luck camping out at the grocery store these days; Bandcamp is a way better destination. Here’s a rundown of 10 rad releases, about half of them newly released, that The Bad Penny recently came across on Bandcamp.

(Note: If you do have some green to spare, please show your thanks to these deserving artists and labels.)

1. Dead and Dripping’s Nefarious Scintillations (Transcending Obscurity)

The physical editions of this release by New Jersey’s brutal death metal band Dead and Dripping aren’t out till tomorrow, but the always-generous Transcending Obscurity Records granted us the digital version early – and for free. Fans of Suffocation and Wormed will eat up this latest journey into the grotesque courtesy of Evan Daniele, who is responsible for every lick of music and even the artwork that comes with Nefarious Scintillations.

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La Luz’s ‘Extra! Extra!’ EP: Two Cent Review

Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags La Luz, Sub Pop on 11/26/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

Are we hearing what La Luz did on News of the Universe, or is the band — which has parted ways with five members over the course of the same number of records — pulling a forced perspective trick here? We’re pretty sure it’s the latter. Read my review of La Luz’s Extra! Extra! EP on Treble.

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Saintseneca’s ‘Highwalllow & Supermoon Songs’: Two Cent Review

Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Saintseneca on 11/25/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

It’s hard to pin down exactly when the hippie term “far out” went the way of the Dodo bird, but chances are if you say the phrase to someone under age 30, they won’t know what the hell you’re talking about. If they bother to ask what it means, you can try explaining that it was an LSD-inspired term suggesting that one’s mind was being blown. Or you read this excerpt from a new Saintseneca album that came out on Halloween — because it encapsulates not only the gist of the phrase but the ridiculous and unserious culture that crouched and enabled the term “far out” to last well beyond its shelf life.

‘’The band’s first album in more than seven years launches the listener onto a ten-song landscape orbited by two sonic ‘moons,’ Viridian Moon (tracks 11-16) and Cinnamon Moon (tracks 17-21), named for the colors bandleader Zac Little experienced through synesthesia while writing. … In a world orbited by two moons, lunar phases dance in tandem, tugging at the tides. Beneath these amulets of light lies the landscape in which Saintseneca’s new album Highwalllow & Supermoon Songs came to be.”

Ya dig?

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Two Cent Review: 夢遊病者 (Sleepwalker)’s ‘РЛБ30011922’ (Skopofoboexoskelett)

Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Sleepwalker, 夢遊病者 on 11/25/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

And the winner for this year’s most difficult-to-pronounce band name and album title belongs to … 夢遊病者 and their album РЛБ30011922. The production is raw, the experimentation unlimited and the sound just about as atonal as music can get. But sing-songy guitar passages and merciful breaks allow the listener to catch their breath and, like a good workout, push through what is ultimately a very rewarding listen that will make music fans who thrive on challenging themselves all the stronger for it. Read my full review at Treble.

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