Archive for Bleed

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 , , , , , , , , , 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. BlackbraidIII (Wolf Mountain)

Continue reading

Bleed’s ‘Bleed’: Two Cent Review

Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags on 05/02/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

With cascading guitars and soaring vocals by Ryan Hughes, this maddeningly catchy, shimmering record harnesses the blissful naïveté of the early ‘90s and ushers it into the present, when such innocence is desperately needed. Read my review of Bleed’s self-titled debut on Treble.