Hi, everyone. Slapthony Choptano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It is the halfway point of the year, which is why I figured now I would go over what are my favorite albums of the year. So far, basically my 15 most favoritest albums of 2025 up until this point. They are displayed and listed in no particular order, but what you can most definitely guarantee is that all of these records are going to be landing pretty high on my year-end list once we hit December.

Without any further ado, let's get into it with the mention of the first album in the list here. That would be Tropical Frick Storm's Faeriland Codex.

If you are looking for some heavy, noisy, but sometimes catchy, and always dark and dystopian art punk with a psychedelic and very discordant flair. You're going to love this album. It is an ugly and horrifying representation of the current state of the world, but also in its deepest cuts, reveals some, I would say, tender and personal and confessional moments, too.

In some ways, this really is the band's softest, saddest, and most subtle record to date. I would actually say the best album they've put out since their debut. So yeah, really exciting to hear these guys continue to kill it as one of the best Australian bands on the scene today.

Next, we have McKinley Dixon's Magic Alive!

I think probably the jazz rap album of the year, one of the best concept albums of the year as well. As Dixon explores, themes of death and mortality and also memory and resurrection on a series of tracks that feature a full band of instrumentation, funky grooves, killer horns, impassioned and amazing rapping and lyricism, too.

Yes, it's a record that is rooted in a lot of pain as well as trauma, but what it strives for, something that hopes to see a nicer day ahead of itself. I'm just loving that brightness that McKinley brought to this record and just how thoughtful the content on this album is across the board.

Also really enjoying this new Little Simz album, Lotus.

Simz really continuing to prove why she is one of the best and most creative rappers out of the UK right now on this project, really hitting the reset button on these songs in more ways than one, not only in terms of experimenting quite successfully with some new sounds and ideas, but getting quite personal with some, I guess, examples of betrayal, you could say, in her personal life recently, diving deeply into that, and as a result, having to go about creating her music and creating her albums with a totally different approach and coming out of it, I would say, successfully, achieving some great things on this new record, passing with flying colors, if you will. But yeah, some amazing tracks on this record, fun cuts as well as really heart-wrenching ones as well. Also, I would nominate the track with Wretch 32 as potentially being a track that has maybe the best feature of 2025 on it. But yeah, there you go. Lotus, Little Simz delivers once again on this one.

And next, we have the album Soft Spot from Honningbarna.

A Norwegian punk band that has been around for years, apparently, but I am just getting hip to through this album. And it's one of the rowdiest and wildest and most fun noise rock and post-hardcore experiences I've had in a long time, really throwing it back to the days of the Refused. I would say there's a little The Hives mixed in there as well. Just fiery performances, killer vocals, great guitar work. It's just running on all cylinders much of the time, and they actually managed to work some very thoughtful and occasionally anthemic tracks into the mix as well, occasionally. But yeah, badass record from them for sure.

Moving on from there, Model/Actriz, hitting with their Pirouette album over here.

A record that sees the band staying consistent, staying fantastic, continuing to specialize in this very danceable and groovy, like no wave era rock sound, bringing together elements of post-punk and noise rock and goth rock.

It's a sound they pulled off so well on their last record. But some of the weakest moments on that LP were ones that saw the band maybe getting a bit more melodic or trying to experiment with some more subtle approaches. And I would say on this LP here, that is where the band really managed to succeed on the cuts where they're experimenting more with melody, putting together catchier choruses, maybe softening their sound a little bit, making it a touch more approachable, but still maintaining some of those eerie, unnerving, and infectiously groovy vibes that made them so special out of the gate. So really the same Model/Actriz that impressed me with their earliest singles, with their debut album, but now just a little bit better, a little more varied.

Moving on from there next, we have the new Natalia Lafourcade record, Cancionera.

Once again, Natalia hands us one of the best singer-songwriter records of the year, and yeah, it's sticking to her guns, giving us, yet again, a bunch of tracks that explore the sounds of Latin folk music – Mexican folk music, specifically. This record is a bit less jazz-centric than her last, De Todas Las Flores, I would say it's not as consistent either, but I am loving the super-lush and beautiful arrangements that many of these songs are wrapped in.

And one of the things that does make this record special is that apparently these performances were all done live, captured to tape. We're talking one take on these recordings, and as a result, just everything sounds so organic, sounds so live, sounds so in the moment. There's an essence to these performances that you just can't capture in any way. They have such a strong sense of place. You really feel like you're in the room with them as these performances are happening. The band sounds amazing per usual. Natalia's vocals sound amazing per usual. If Natalia is dropping a record, you know it's going to be one of the best albums of the year every time.

All right, moving on from there, we have the new Viagra Boys album, viagr aboys.

The scuzzy, fuzzy, nasty Swedish post-punk outfit is back, and they have really settled into their sound quite nicely on this one, delivering tracks that go toe to toe with some of their most fun and ridiculous songs up until this point, like "Dirty Boys", for example.

But also the band's experimenting a bit more with some grungy '90s rock aesthetics, too. Lyrically, there's also a focus on this LP in regards to mental and physical health, a crunchy, cultish, health-obsessed culture thing. I go over this and many other topics with the band's lead singer in a recent interview where he shed a lot of light on the record's creative process and a lot of the thoughts that went into his lyrical approach this time around. But yes, another very solid and enjoyable one from Viagra Boys, is one of the most consistently entertaining and somewhat satirical rock bands out there right now, just killing it once again.

We also have the new album from Infinity Knives and Brian Ennals, A City Drowned in God's Black Tears is the title of this one.

And this is a very fiery, very in your face, very unapologetic experimental hip hop album. That sometimes experiments so far, it's not even making hip hop anymore, because side to side with some of the very brash and entertaining hip hop cuts that fuse in elements of Latin music and industrial music and pop, you also have legit explorations into a very slow doomy metal riffs, indie folk as well. The closing track on this thing is also totally crazy to me still. But yeah, really one of the most mind-blowingly versatile albums of the year with some of the, I would say, how to put this, unfiltered bars I've heard in 2025. No, I'm not even going to say in 2025 – ever put to tape and thrown onto an album.

Following this, we have the new Backxwash album, Only Dust Remains.

A record that I think you could argue is the Canadian hip hop artist's most revelatory and also personal and moving project to date, with many of the instrumentals on this project drifting away from a lot of the industrial and metal influence sounds that sound tracked every freaking Backxwash album up until this point. And what we get instead are a series of beats that have much softer, much rounder edges. And this makes space for Backxwash to essentially analyze a lot of the pain and trauma and fear and judgment that fueled the negative emotions that built a lot of those records. And we're going through this process of soul searching and self-understanding and healing and growing as a result of all of that. And it all reaches this very beautiful and self our peak at the very end of the album that sees Backxwash growing not just as an artist, but as a person, too.

And for somebody who has been following all of her major album releases up until this point, witnessing that process on this album was pretty moving. And it's a process I think just about any listener could get something out of because I think Backxwash has also created her most accessible project to date on this one, too.

Moving toward the end of the list here, I also want to shout out Jane Remover's Revengeseekerz.

If I could characterize this album in a few words, it would be artistic brain rot, because man, the beats, the noisy and persistent samples, the autotune, just the insane glitches and details laced throughout all of these tracks that are just almost nonstop throughout the entire record, it's quite overwhelming. It is intensely stimulating, borderline insane. The density, the sonic density and layers of the songs on this record are just absolutely nuts. And yet, fiery and exciting, memorable choruses managed to shine through the chaos pretty much every every single time, making for one of the most adventurous and mind-blowing pop albums. I hesitate to simply call it a pop record. I mean, I would say pop is maybe the biggest influence at its bass line, but there's so much more to it than that. Everything but the kitchen sink being thrown into this album into an impressive display of controlled chaos. Really a special record, in my opinion, that is mind-blowing every single time I revisit it.

Moving on from there, another very impressive album from this year. We have the new Black Country, New Road record, Forever Howlong.

After a pretty significant and surprising lineup change, the band is back with their first full-length studio album since then. It's just a wonderful and beautiful display of chamber folk tunes, indie folk tunes with a lot of arrangements, a lot of beautiful instrumentation. Also love hearing the ladies in the band sharing vocal duties on this one, telling different stories, giving different perspectives in each one of their songs. The band is sounding more nuanced and tighter than ever. But yeah, really great collection of songs from the band, and it really sounds like they have found their footing once again with a different sound, a different approach, after really having to recalibrate in a way that I think just most groups wouldn't make it through.

This one from Imperial Triumphant, Goldstar.

Excellent LP, and personally, my favorite project from this New York avant-garde metal outfit. The band brings their most visceral and condensed tracks to date on this record, are really hitting you with some of the most explosive and catchy and grooviest fusions of death metal and black metal and just any discordant shade of extreme metal they could possibly conjure up across the board. And around these performances, they deliver some pretty interesting concepts and lyrics around capitalism and the destruction of mankind through greed. Using the sale of a product such as cigarettes is an inspiration point.

But yeah, really amazing album from these guys with a closing track that features some riff passages that I would say are pretty clearly an interesting little Beatles nod as well. So if you hear anything from this album, at least give that a listen. But yeah, there you go.

We also have Panda Bear, Sinister Grift.

Look, despite enjoying a great deal of Animal Collective's music over the years, I've never really been a huge fan of Panda Bear's solo stuff. That is until now where this series of trippy, playful combinations of vintage vocal pop and garage rock, and occasionally reggae, floored me with all of its sunny production, all of its catchy choruses, all of its shouty lead vocals, all of its entrancing grooves and loops and echoes.

Yeah, I just feel like Noah wrote a very direct and enjoyable set of songs on this one, with the exception of one track that's a little lost in the sauce and haze of effects. But outside of that, I feel like it's a very beautiful, cut and dry set of songs that are snappy, maybe a little "uncle rock-inspired." But yeah, I really do think he smashed it on this one, and I think it's a great spring/summer record, one of the most enjoyable casual listens I've had thus far this year.

Also been enjoying the new Mac Miller album, Balloonerism.

Really had a lot of positive stuff to say about this record in the review. I mean, the full backstory is there as well. But I mean, this is essentially an unearthed Mac Miller album that was crafted around the Faces mixtape era. It was pretty much shelved. Now it is seeing the light of day commercially. And what a killer and adventurous set of tracks for Mac Miller. If this thing had actually come out around the time that it dropped, this would have been his most adventurous combination of beats yet, and could have potentially reset some stuff as well.

However, that's not to say that the album couldn't still have that impact today, given the very positive reception that it's seen, and just, again, all the great tracks that are hidden in its tracklist. But yeah, very happy something this good is actually seeing the light of day, and blown away once again that Mac had so much going creatively for himself that we've gotten not just one, but two very impressive posthumous records from him. All right.

And finalizing things, we have the new Deafheaven album, Lonely People with Power.

Where the band is really going back to their black metal roots on this one, sometimes with tracks that aren't even really giving us that much of a shoegaze, screamo or post-hardcore pre-tense like some fans may be used to from their classic Sunbather record. I mean, for sure, there are some tracks that bring that to the forefront, others that experiment more with some of the spacey dreamy indie-centric sounds that some of their most recent records have been toying with, but maybe I wasn't so big on.

Somehow, though, with this record, it finally all comes together and culminates into an excellent LP featuring tracks that dive pretty deeply into some dark themes, really some of the most telling lyricism on any Deafheaven album so far. It's just inspiring and exciting to hear the band come out with a record that is really about on par with the great and, pretty much at this point, classic Sunbather.

All right, that is going to be it for my favorite albums of the year so far.

Anthony Fantano, albums 2025, Forever.