Let's talk about my favorite albums that have dropped or I talked about over the last month. We are transitioning out of October, and with that, there have been some records that personally I think are excellent, and are very much worth your time. I want to point them in your direction.

Gaby Amarantos – Rock Doido

[Amarantos] is one of the biggest and most respected singers and songwriters on the pop scene, on the techno-brega scene down there – has been for a while. This latest record of hers is truly an exciting one, not only because you're getting banger after banger after banger on this record, but the production and the instrumentals are just so hard-hitting. I feel like I am on crack when I'm listening to this album, honestly. It is that high octane. It is that high energy. The beats are that hard-hitting because the whole thing sounds like a never-ending party.

The tracks seamlessly segue into one another. The whole thing just blasts like you are in the midst of a really great outdoor festival, sound system set, that kinda thing. It's just absolutely just the thing that lights my brain ablaze. Her vocals actually are just incredible across the record as well. It's not really just the production that is the selling point of the album. It is the versatility of all the songs coming together because you have different Latin music styles, different dance and electronic music styles coming together across this record, but Gaby vocally is just such a stunner and such a star still at this point in her career. The drama and the range and the presence and the volume and the power of her voice. It really just soars over all of these really aggressive and noisy instrumentals in the way that only a really powerful and talented vocalist could. Badass album for sure.

Geese - Getting Killed

A lot of you saw this one coming in the list. Of course, it is definitely one of the best rock albums of the year with no question. It is funky, it is noisy, it is groovy, it is well-written.

Love the Kenny Beats production – love some of the wild, punky art rock vibes flowing throughout this record. The more I listen to it, the more I'm feeling like some Velvet Underground influence as well on the instrumentals, and continue to love Cameron Winter as a lyricist and a vocalist as well. I still continue to liken him to, if you could have a weirder I guess, like Scruffy or Jim Morrison vocally speaking, anyway, with a very odd swagger about him. So many of the band's best songs ever land on this record, and it's no surprise the album has been getting the attention that it has in terms of really renewing a lot of faith across the board with a lot of rock fans in terms of the genre's salience and relevance at this point in 2025. Incredible record.

Hannah Frances - Nested in Tangles

Really great, dusty, beautifully produced, (weary vocals as well) kind of folk record with a lot of very personal lyrics and songwriting around family trauma, separating yourself from that, getting a greater awareness about the downsides of certain toxic relationships you might have with those who are very close to you in your life.

It's quite a thoughtful record on that front, and some cool features from Daniel Rossen of Grizzly Bear fame in the mix as well. Production that's very inspired by Grizzly Bear's early work, honestly. It's cool to hear the torch getting passed over on this record and just hear that classic 2000s indie folk sound done so well on this record.

The Hives - The Hives Forever Forever The Hives

An album that kicks ass and is super catchy. The riffs are awesome, the vocals are awesome, the drums are kicking ass. It's very raw. Definitely one of the more raw and noisy albums they've come out within a long time. I don't know if this is a record that really needs too much explanation. It's a "what you see is what you get" album in terms of punky garage rock tunes with in your face choruses that are very anthemic.

This is definitely a gym soundtrack album. You're either getting it or you're not. It's a very fun record. I think one of the best things the band has put out in a long time.

Mon Laferte - FEMME FATALE

Killer album from her, and an interesting switch up, considering how electronic and forward-thinking and art-poppy her last album was, which I loved. This one is even more interesting, considering that it's more something going in a traditional direction, given that there are so many tracks on this thing that have a classic soul, vocal, jazz vibe to it – a Latin jazz vibe to it.

And listen, Mon Laferte's vocals are just really up to the challenge of bringing the drama and the presence and the power of a good quality vocal jazz album with a lot of lyrics that deal in Love on the Rocks in a very raw and raunchy way. The storytelling on some of these tracks is great. Just loving the album all around. The vocal performances are just absolutely incredible. Some of the best singing you will hear this year. I promise you, I freaking guarantee it.

Maruja – Pain to Power

The band's big breakout debut album, Maruja is definitely an interesting case as far as the rock and experimental rock scene over in the UK right now. They've been around for quite a long time, but it's only been until recently that they've had a bit of an aesthetic and stylistic reinvention with some EPs they've dropped over the past few years that have dabbled a lot more in experimental rock, post-rock, art rock.

A lot of people that are crazy about the Windmill scene right now are enjoying what Maruja is doing on those EPs and this record, too. Since that big stylistic switch up on their past couple of EPs, people have been waiting for what a new album is going to sound like, and the answer is this over here. You just have one compelling, emotional, powerful, and dramatic track after the next that just deals with the state of the world, the darkness of it, but also trying to, in listeners, inspire hope in terms of things potentially getting better so long as we communally band together and advocate for a brighter future. Impassioned vocals, great chemistry between all the band members instrumentally, a lot of lengthy song structures that are winding but have a great momentum and flow to them as the group moves from one passage to the next.

Fusions of experimental rock, post-rock, but also jazz, and a little bit of hip hop, too, and it somehow just works. Really powerful record, really incredible record, and awesome to hear the band sounding this fantastic at this point in, not their career, but this new sound and direction they are going in. I anticipate that a switch up from here could be exciting. Diving further into this sound could be exciting, too. Who knows what's next Maruja. That's all I can say.

Snooper – Worldwide

A little bit like The Hives album, what you see is what you get in terms of just weird, fuzzy, punky, zany synth punk. It's very weird. It's very odd. It's very tongue and cheek. It's very left field. It's very absurd. The songs are quite short and quite full of character. There's even a really sick cover of The Beatles' "Come Together" in the midst of the tracklist. That's really entertaining and really fun. Continuing to enjoy this band's output quite a bit, and I think you will, too, if you like groups like Devo, Viagra Boys, that thing.

Rochelle Jordan – Through The Wall

I did a review of this, a very positive one. I wasn't blown away by the record, but I still do think it is a very quality album that is worth a shoutout, and that is the new Rochelle Jordan album, Through the Wall. If you're looking for a very dreamy, very groovy, very linear, entrancing house tunes, deep house tunes with some beautiful and angelic vocals, you are going to want to listen to this. It's definitely, again, a record that will have you mystified and really lock you into its very beautiful, pretty, and classy vibes.

Guerilla Toss – You're Weird Now

One of my favorite weirdo punk adjacent albums that I've heard this year. It's just so genre-defying and out there and cartoony and over the top and eccentric and fun. It's just a record that is pure fun. It's pure fun. It's pure silliness, but with great songs – a lot of character. If you don't take yourself too seriously, if you don't have a stick up your ass, I think you will enjoy what this album has to offer.

The album sounds like mandatory Pogo sticks and propeller hats in the mosh pit. That's a very silly, but also, I think, very authentic way of describing the vibe and the momentum of the music across this album. These guys, again, continue to work with post-punk and experimental rock and synth-punk and psychedelic music in just creative ways that, to me, just don't read anything else out there on the music scene right now. I think maybe the closest thing I could compare the band to in a way is the Snooper album I was talking about earlier. But that album is a lot fuzzier, more distorted, more straightforward. There's much more of a prog rock element going on with what these guys are doing here. But it's not like a snooty prog.

It's very interesting. And also, shout out to Stephen Malkmus, who was in the mix on this album. Also, Trey Anastasia of Phish fame is on the record as well. Those are just two key touchstone points for the band creatively. Again, you're just hearing a lot of interestingly fused styles of music on this record that you truly are not getting anywhere else.

A lot of the influences are clear and are apparent, but the influence combination itself is just completely wild and out there, and unlike anything that I can name, frankly. Guerilla Toss are continuing to kill it.

Now, as we get toward the end of this video, I want to shout out a few shorter projects, too. These are great listens as well. First off, singer-songwriter Adam Green of Moldy Peaches fame has a new Falling Around EP out. It's got an assembly of very quaint and very funny acoustic tracks on there, which I think have a lot of character and a lot of flavor. Adam, in my opinion, is still a one of a kind vocalist at this point and has a very awkward swagger about him still to this day that makes him stand out to me in the singer-songwriter field.

And then finally, I would like to shout out the Gothic Mountain Bluegrass EP from Clover-Lynn. This is an artist who I've come across on TikTok who dabbles in a lot of bluegrass and folk music. And the title of this EP is just incredibly accurate in terms of, yes, you do get folk music, you get those bluegrassy Appalachian vibes, but there is a weirdly dark aura around it and a very dire sound to the recording and the chord progressions that do make it have a weirdly gothic aura around it, and I like it a lot. It's a handful of tracks, just five songs, but each of them are awesome.