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.
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Trivium, one of the hardest-working metal bands that also boasts an ever-reliably broad appeal, are close to clocking their 100th date in another year of rigorous touring. Their 2025 regiment has focused heavily on celebrating/resurrecting interest in their second full-length, Ascendency, a formidable effort – some might call it the Florida band’s breakthrough release – ostensibly because it came out 20 years ago.
But as Matt Heafy and company look back on that release – currently playing four selections from it in their current 14-song set, as The Bad Penny witnessed last month in Garden City, Idaho – we can’t help be reminded what short shrift Trivium continues to give 2006’s The Crusade, the successor to Ascendency. More specifically, we’re confused as to why the band continues to bury the record’s strongest tracks, which still constitute some of the best material Trivium have crafted in an admittedly cramped catalog with loads of compositions adored by fans of the band, thrash and metalcore, and even critics.
Chief among those neglected songs are The Crusade‘s opening track “Ignition”; first album single “Detonation”; and the most politically charged number in Trivium’s career, “Contempt Breeds Contamination.” Since Trump became president for the first time in 2016, the metal band has played all three songs two times in concert. Not apiece – combined.
The Bad Penny has knocked guitar maestro Heafy in the past for his sometimes substandard lyrics. But the ones he wrote for those aforementioned songs stand among his best-written, not to mention his most admirable. So why don’t we hear them – or, more importantly, the sentiments he expressed in those compositions – more often?
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Callous Daoboys do the unspeakable by taking the wind out of the sails of those who’d seek to eradicate “metalcore” from the contemporary music lexicon. Read my take on their standout tune “Distracted by the Mona Lisa,” part of Treble‘s “The 100 Best Songs of 2025” feature, here.
Though Smerz’s name might come across like a fun kids’ candy loaded with sugar, their tune “But I Do” is something much more grown up. Read my review, part of Treble‘s “The 100 Best Songs of 2025” feature, here.
Touching the surface and brimming with the joy of youth that only a new band can exude, Los Angeles’ Touching Ice are so badass, they can barely be found on the Internet. Read my full feature story for The Line of Best Fit – the first I’ve written for the biggest independent online music magazine in the UK – here.
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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In his first-ever interview with an English-speaking music journalist, Pamplemousse’s Nico Magi speaks transparently (with a capital T) about how his noise-rock band’s fresh sound is the result of his fear of not being able to play music “properly,” the enormous pressure he puts on himself and those with whom he collaborates, and his belief that whatever he creates is never good enough. Even more than providing insights into his French band’s recently released album, Porcelain, Magi provides us with a clear assessment of the life of a true artist who creates some of the most innovative, unconventional and compelling music put on record anywhere in the world.
Veil of Sound has the full interview.
British metalcore thrill-seekers Heriot eked out their first song, “Cleansed Existence,” five years ago – and, after very long last, they’re winding their way through the U.S. in style with like-minded metal legends Trivium. In addition to introducing itself to America, Heriot is supporting its new album, Devoured by the Mouth of Hell, which came out in September 2024 via Century Media.
Guitarist and vocalist Debbie Gough answered a handful of questions we tossed the band’s way a few weeks before the gig. Here’s our exchange:
Hiya, Debbie. Did you decide to come here simply because of routing, or were there other reasons why you’re choosing to grace this city for the first time?
Hey! This is our first time over to the States, so it’s also our first time playing Boise! We’re really pleased the routing allowed us to visit here.
Aside from integrating new material, is your set on this tour gonna be different in any other ways than in tours past?
For this tour, there is definitely an element of seriously having something to prove since we’re on tour with such a huge band! Not that we ever don’t play with the intention of delivering our best, but there is a lot of weight behind playing with a band like Trivium, who have such an important legacy in metal.
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