Few living artists embody the word “integrity” more than Jason Isbell, who is on the fast track to receiving the universal respect that forebears Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson garnered. Isbell continues to bring together Americans in an age where cultural fragmentation is omnipotent, and he’s done it once again with Foxes in the Snow. Read my reflection on his LP as part of Treble‘s best albums of 2025 feature.
Every Greet Death song is blessed with a brilliant touch. The shoegazing musicians look directly at you, instead of their feet, the entire time they play Die in Love – because they rightly know this is the next-level rock. Read my reflection on their LP as part of Treble‘s best albums of 2025 feature.
The Spiritual Sound is Agriculture’s declaration that they’ll stay true to themselves and abide by the self-described “ecstatic black metal” gauntlet they threw down with their self-titled debut two years ago. With this follow-up LP, the LA quartet delivered a terrifying listen made by terrifyingly talented musicians that’s just as singular and spectacular as their debut. Read my reflection on their LP as part of FLOOD‘s best albums of 2025 feature.
Within days of No Kings I, The Armed gave us “Kingbreaker,” which could’ve easily served as the head-banging set’s theme song for the day. And then, less than two months later, The Armed unveiled The Future Is Here and Everything Needs to Be Destroyed, a long-form manifesto of the Detroit-based band’s opening salvo that made a spectacular case supporting the name of their latest album. Read my reflection on their LP as part of FLOOD‘s best albums of 2025 feature.
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)
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.
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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“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.
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.
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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