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 first batch.
41. Sharon Van Etten – & the Attachment Theory (Jagjaguwar)
Whatever you were expecting from a solo album by A Perfect Circle and Zwan collaborator Paz Lenchantin, you won’t be prepared for what you hear when you press play. Read my full review of Lenchantin’s Triste at Veil of Sound, one of Germany’s premiere sources for alternative, experimental and heavy music, with a particular predilection for post-rock, blackmetal and krautrock.
Seattle singer-songwriter Robert Deeble has a lot on his mind these days, and it isn’t just his seventh record, The Space Between Us, which is planned for release Feb. 6 through his own Mind Bomb Publishing imprint. Nay, the socially attuned, voracious reader, prolific musician and contemplative in the truest sense of the world is trying to gather what he gained from spending four years mostly in isolation – but with some help with trusted collaborators. They include bassist Viktor Krauss (Allison Krauss/Robert Plant), drummer Lacey Brown (Damien Jurado) and producer Ric Hordinski (producer, string arrangements, guitar).
A new band named Fimbul Winter is here to deliver fresh songs that hearken back to the earlier sound of Amon Amarth, much like the Halo Effect is doing for those longing for what many consider to be the peak albeit bygone era of In Flames. Also similar to the Halo Effect, Fimbul Winter have cemented their legitimacy and ensured they’re not merely a bunch of wannabes by featuring some of the most important musicians that Amon Amarth has counted in its ranks over the past three-plus decades.
They include founding members Anders Biazzi and Niko Kaukinen, who play guitar and drums, respectively, for Fimbul Winter; and another ex-Amon Amarth member, Fimbul Winter’s lead guitarist Fredrik Andersson (who recently shared with us a poignant memory of recently deceased At the Gates frontman Tomas Lindberg). Rounding out Fimbul Winter’s lineup is vocalist Clint Williams of Munitions note. The Bad Penny caught up with the majority of Fimbul Winter’s lineup last month, ahead of the band recently releasing its five-song debut EP, What Once Was.
“I feel, like, not so complacent, but enthused, honestly, in a great way. I feel good. It’s my job. I’m an artist, and that’s kind of what I need to do. I need to provoke and I need to demand answers and I need to challenge things.” -Roddy Bottum
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With his new memoir The Royal We out now, I recently spoke with Roddy Bottum of Faith No More, Imperial Teen and Man on Man fame about a very wide range of topics. Read some of them in my FLOOD feature and my Bad Penny story (in which he recalled a bizarre incident involving his paranoid ex-girlfriend Courtney Love).
In this part of the interview, part of The Bad Penny‘s On Tyranny series, Bottum shares his first-hand accounts about the shameful and horrific acts occurring in the United States: the exodus of trans people leaving out of well-justified fear; and ICE attacks on immigrants, demonstrators and U.S. citizens.
But Bottum also discusses what he sees as a silver lining: The recent election of Democratic-Socialist Zohran Mamdani as the youngest-ever and first Muslim mayor of New York City. Here’s that portion of our wide-ranging conversation:
Taking a break from our normal routine of chatting with musicians and our pets, we shifted the focus of Pet Sounds to whether your dog likes the same music you do. If you’re into soft indie-rock or meditative sounds, you’re probably in the clear; if you think your pooch wants to head-bang or mosh along with you to metal or punk, brace yourself for some bad news.
The Bad Penny recently spoke with Natalia Shahmetova, CEO & founder of a new app called “Woofz,” about this subject. Try not to get upset, fans of heavy music, but Shahmetova disclosed that: “Small or anxious dogs settle with acoustic, soft indie and warm tones. In our playlists, we use tempo as the guiding principle: music that fits the dog’s natural energy level tends to work best.”
Major labels suuuck. This we know. But sometimes they get bruised by the little guys – let’s call them “Davids” – who manage to land a clean blow on the Goliaths. Scarsdale, New York’s Too Much Joy accomplished this feat when they regained the rights from Warner Bros. to their second LP, Son of Sam I Am – and that motivated the four lifelong friends who comprise the band to start recording and even play shows again in earnest.
The circumstances also gave Too Much Joy the opportunity to commiserate with how much the U.S. had changed for the worse when they got together in 2000. It’s a dialogue they continue to have now, and which they let The Bad Penny take part in as part of our ongoing series On Tyranny, in which musicians talk about the direct damage that Authoritarian America is having on their artistic careers and personal lives. If Too Much Joy can defeat Warner Bros., can’t the 75 million Americans who didn’t vote for Trump take him down too?
Enjoy this lively conversation with Too Much Joy vocalist Tim Quirk and singer/bassist Sandy Smallens, which took place exactly a month ago, and then hear from many more artists like The Locust, Brett Bradford from Scratch Acid, Bobby Conn, Deaf Club, Carcass, Moonspell and 50 more artists in the On Tyranny archive.
May these discussions motivate you to learn about the horrors happening in this country, spur you into action, realize that you are not alone, and get involved in the thousands of communities fighting fascism before it is too late.
Go here to Too Much Joy’s Bandcamp page for much more on the band. And stay tuned for the next print edition of The Big Takeover to read my feature story on them.
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.)
It’s audacious for an NYC hipper-than-thou band to craft its first LP in the style of Sunny Day Real Estate. Those old codgers have not only come and gone but come and gone again, and then a third time. Hell, even most of their protégés have melted away at this point too. To their enormous credit, Rose of the World has pulled off a maneuver worthy of the Olympic Games with this catchy keepsake of a record. Just released on November 12, snag Heaven Is a Broken Heart before those who can make money off realize that palm-against-forehead revelation and start charging 18 bucks for it.
With his new memoir The Royal We out now, I spoke with Roddy Bottum of Faith No More, Imperial Teen and Man on Man fame about coming out in the early ’90s, provoking MAGA and more. Read my FLOOD feature and my Bad Penny story in which he recalled a bizarre incident involving his paranoid ex-girlfriend Courtney Love.
The Bad Penny (beta) 