Indie Rock

My Favorite Music of 2025

fistfulofdave, Leave a comment

More like every 2025 release I bought. Slim year for me.

Albums

FACS – Wish Defense

Angular, noise rock, neo-post punk. Unsettling, laid-back, yet aggressive. And yes it was the last album Steve Albini recorded.

Dax Riggs – 7 Songs for Spiders 

Blues metal? Shoegaze blues? I don’t know or care, I like it.

Civic – Chrome Dipped

Aussie punk in the vien of The Saints and Radio Birdman.

Årabrot – Rite of Dionysus

Former Black Metal, Noise Rock. Now weirdo noise pop? This is much quieter than their last release. Weird and haunting.

JG Thrilwell – Venture Brothers Vol 3

Spy movie jazz with some electronic bits?

Krokofant – 6

Hard jazz fusion. Maybe a bit prog. Harder Mahavishnu Orchestra.

Nine Inch Nails – Tron Ares

Love the instrumental songs, old school heavy synths. The songs with vocals are pretty typical NIN.

Anika – Abyss

Neo Post Punk with Nico type vocals.

Coroner – Dissonance Theory

The dreaded reunion album that turns out to be pretty good. Thrash metal with some proggish parts thrown in.

Carla Kihlstedt – 26 Little Deaths 

Violinist, vocalist from Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Book of Knots, Tin Hat Trio interprets Edward Gorey stories/illustrations.

Jim Jarmush & Anika – Father Mother Sister Brother (soundtrack)

More like Anika doing a couple covers and Jarmush doing some western-ish texture guitar instrumentals.

EPs

Swervedriver – Worlds Fair 

Are they shoegaze? I guess much more guitar forward but they do have the dream like quality.

Reissues

Andy Summers and Robert Fripp box set

Frippatronics meets the Police world-ish music. Disc 1 and 3 are great. 2 a bit too world music. No links.

Watchtower – Energetic Disassembly Remix/Remaster

Yeah, an acquired taste. Extreme prog thrash. Extreme on the prog technical end. Love it. Links are only the remaster disc. apparently the remix disc is not available for streaming.

Sorrows – Such Sweet Sorrow

Power Pop.

Songs

  1. Crome Dipped – Civic
  2. Wish Defense – FACS
  3. Graveyard Soul – Dax Riggs
  4. Volume Control – Swervedriver
  5. The Satantango – Årobrot
  6. Abyss – Anika
  7. Scan Mode – JG Thirlwell
  8. In the Image of – Nine Inch Nails
  9. B Childhood Friends – Carla Kihlstedt
  10. Symmetry – Coroner

My Favorite Music of 2025

Man vs Machine No. 2

fistfulofdave, , , , ,

Still looking for an image. Better first half of the list this week.

Every week Apple Music makes a New Music Mix for users. Each week I will make off the cuff “reviews” of the songs the algorithm “thinks” I will like. I can manipulate this list much easier than the friends list by what I listen to. That being said it loves feeding me Black and Death Metal which for the most part isn’t my thing.

Jack White “What’s the Rumpus?” While not a pastiche of himself it’s close. It’s listenable but unremarkable. Listened to it all.

Dinosaur Jr “Whenever Your Ready” The AC/DC or Slayer of 80s indie rock? Quality reproductions of past glory that don’t get near the heights of the classics. Listened to all of it.

Guided By Voices “Serine King” I wish Apple Music would stop feeding me GBV. This song is pretty good but I have all I need. Listened to all of it.

Loma “Pink Sky” Slinky slightly creepy and laid back. Kind of like Blonde Redhead with more 60s French pop thrown in. Listened to and bought the album, more of a US Broadcast. Listened to all of it.

Water From Your Eyes “Tired of Being Alone” First clunker of the week, modern indie rock aping the 70s California thing fronted by a woman that can’t sing. 36 seconds.

J.R.C.G. “Dogear” Beak> meets Girls Against Boys. Not sure what I think, need to revisit. Listened to the entire album and bought it. Great stuff, unique. Listened to it all.

1349 “The God Devourer” Long time tradition Black Metal vets, it’s fine but not good enough to buy. Listened to it all.

Ripped to Shreds “Perverting the Funeral Rights…” Things I hate about modern metal is that it’s so mechanical and artificial sounding. Death/Grind Grind/Death. 44 seconds.

Nachtmystium “Predator Phoenix” Dull black n roll. 42 seconds.

Loudblast “From Beyond II (The Return)” The music I like, kind of a melodic metallic hardcore, the vocals are that over the top how low can I go growling crap. Listened to it all.

Fulci “Human Scalp” More of the low growling vocals, this time over paint by numbers death metal. 32 seconds.

Mayhemic “Triumph Portrit” Sometime I think metal has completely run out of ideas. 50 seconds.

Dark Angel “The Shadows” The electronic music taking a known band name to cash in. Apple needs to fix this. 22 seconds.

Ceremony of Silence “King of the Mountain” A rip off of early Mastodon but a bit more Death Metal. 55 seconds.

Aeternus “Fire Pendulum” This seems to be a former metal band doing awful EDM. 26 seconds.

Holocausto “Seres Inertes” Kind of entertaining retro thrash. Listened to all of it.

Black Lava “Colour of Death” It’s got to be a drum machine Black metal. Listened to 2 minutes and three seconds.

Swervedriver “Butterfly” Left overs from 99th Dream, probably better than anything that made the record. Listened to all of it.

Swami John Reis “Ketchup, Mustard, and Relish” I want to love this, but I heard this hundreds of time from John Reis. Well done but not needed. Listened to all of it.

X “Ruby Church” X with all the edges sanded down. 1:00.

Ron Keel “Hollywood” Excruciating pop metal country cross over. 27 seconds.

Sacri Monti “Desirable Sequel” I was intrigued by the song, then it started for real. 1:09.

Stratovarious “Heroes” i was hopeing for a power metal cover of Bowie’s “Heroes” for a good laugh. No such luck. 1:32.

dirt “Wreckage” Metal is dead. 23 seconds.

Radon “Azufee” Not sure what this is supposed to be but it’s terrible. 46 seconds.

Man vs Machine No. 2

Man vs Machine No. 1

fistfulofdave, , , , , ,

A new take on my “Hate Your Friends” series. I’ve not found a suitable image.

Every week Apple Music makes a New Music Mix for users. Each week I will make off the cuff “reviews” of the songs the algorithm “thinks” I will like. I can manipulate this list much easier than the friends list by what I listen to. That being said it loves feeding me Black and Death Metal which for the most part isn’t my thing.

Deep Purple “Light it Up” Deep Purple’s expiration date was somewhere in 1984/85. 52 seconds.

UK “Light it Up” Not the prog band. Electronic music scammers love to use old band names to drum up cash. How Apple hasn’t fixed this is beyond me. 2 seconds.

Voxtrot “Esprit de Cœur” Usually my friends list and new music list don’t cross over. The is terrible, seems to be attempting to sound like poppy Eurythmics. 22 seconds

Redd Kross “I’ll Take Your Word for It” Why does Apple Music recommend albums that are already in my collection? It knows what’s in there. Anyway this is great, if you dig power-pop, punk, bubblegum. Great songs. Listened to all of it.

Fantasy of a broken heart “Loss” A nice updated 70s bubblegum track, then the lead vocals start. 52 seconds.

Sex Week “Kid Muscle” Sounds like a twee take on early Low, but not nearly as good. 54 seconds.

Kim Gordon “ECRP” Same problem as recent Low. Music is some kind of poor hip-hop backing track. 1:32.

Les Savy Fav “Mischief Night” another repeat from “Hate Your Friends”, still don’t like it. 57 seconds.

Karate “Mystery Man” i don’t remember Karate sounding like The Hold Steady. Unlistenable. 37 seconds.

Wormwitch “Inner War” Here comes the metal. Black Metal. Nothing you haven’t heard a billion times if you’ve heard Black Metal. Why has Metal got so boring. 53 seconds.

Tribulation “Tainted Skys” Tribulation went down the we’ll be the goth/black metal Ghost a while ago. It’s fine. Listened to all of it.

Extinction AD “Epidemic of Mutation” The most robotic shitty drums I’ve heard in a while. Sounds like a d level The Haunted. 41 seconds.

Scald “Ancient Doom Metal “ Bad Viking Candlemass like doom. 33 seconds after I skipped the intro.

Hyperdontia “irrevocable Disaster” Grind I guess. So boring. Metal is in a sorry state in 2024. 18 secondsl.

Jesters of Destiny “If You Want To” Goofball 80s weirdo crossover band but this is from 1988 and sounds like a shitty band trying to cop Blue Oyster Cult. Odd. 1:04.

True Black Dawn “Fish, Sin and Soma” At least the title is interesting. Listened to 5 seconds.

Baphomet “Crimson Abyss” starts with the guttural bleaaarrrrrrrrggggghh thing, pass. Listened to a minute and three seconds.

Wraith “Asylum” Ed Repka rip off cover, if you understand that you know what this sounds like. 30 seconds.

IRONFLAME “Blood and Honor” Starts with an AC/DC Thunderstruck thing then goes into boring power metal. A dime a dozen. 1:20.

The Hard-Ons “Buzz Buzz Buzz” I loved the Hard-Ons. No idea what the hell this is but it doesn’t sound like the Hard-Ons. 1:18.

The Effigies “Sortie” No clue if this has anything to do with the Chicago punk band, I can’t find any connection. Regardless it’s bad. 59 seconds.

Nap Eyes “Passageway” Ughh I’d rather have more shitty metal. Modern twee folk? 28 seconds.

The Shivas “Hellbound” I think, judging by the cover, that this is supposed to be psychedelic. Sounds like the Sundays without the songs. 1:21.

Sunflower Bean “Shake” Stoner grunge? Poop. 52 seconds.

Orden Ogan “Prince Of Sorrow” Why is most power metal not powerful? 18 seconds.

Man vs Machine No. 1

Hate Your Friends No. 8

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Fistful of Dave Hate Your Friends

Spurred to do this again. We’ll give it a try.

Every week Apple Music makes a Friends Mix. Each week I will make off the cuff “reviews” of the songs in this list. As Apple Music likes to put the same bands on the list often, so I will skip some of the tracks.

Les Savy Fav “Void Moon” I try liking this band every once in a while. Nothing once again. Like a pop-punk version of Fugazi. 40 seconds.

Alan Sparhawk “Can U Hear” All the bullshit vocoder electronic stuff that was on the recent Low albums. Sounds like a hip-hop backing track. 40 seconds.

Polvo “The Purple Bear” North Carolina’s Sonic Youth? Even more atonal. This is a wobbly one. Love it. Listened to it all.

Drive Like Jehu “Super Unison” You should own both Drive Like Jehu albums. Angular and powerful 90s DC like post-hardcore. Listened to it all.

Lungfish “Seek Sound Shelter” See previous Hate My Friends post. Skipped.

Soul Side “Pocket Hurts” Influenced slightly by Fugazi. They’ve got their own spin on it, so more than a clone. They turned into Girls Against Boys, well some of the members. Listened to it all.

Arcwelder “The Carpal Tunnel Song” I listened to them a ton in the 90s, still great. What if you took Husker Du “Flip Your Wig” and mixed in some Big Black, you get Arcwelder. Listened to it all.

Sebadoh “Mystery Man” Bakesale is the best Sebadoh record by a mile. Fully realized and nothing that seems like a joke song. Not the best song on the record. Listened to all of it.

The Breeders “Forced to Drive” As I just told someone all you need from The Breeders is “Safari” ep, “Pod”, and “Last Splash”. It’s fine. Listened to a a minute fourth-eight.

Husker Du “Don’t Want to Know if You’re Lonely” One of the greatest songs ever recorded. A Grant Hart jam. Listened to all of it.

Wipers “Someplace Else” Not familiar with later Wipers. Not as urgent but still sounds like the Wipers. Will have to investigate. Not as good as the early stuff, a little too alt-rock. Listened to it all.

Hum “Why I Like Robins” My Bloody Valentine playing Slayer? The other way around? Regardless, fucking great. How to be heavy without being heavy metal. Listened to all of it.

Unwound “Kantina” I try and I try. Nothing that makes it stick for me. They fit in that Fugazi / Drive Like Jehu sound. Listened to it all.

Crooked Fingers “Big Darkness” Archers of Loaf are one of my favorite bands. This is what Eric Bachman did after the band originally spit. I dig the first two albums but this ventures into Springsteen territory. Listened to it all.

Portastatic “Sour Shores” Mac from Superchunk. I’d rather listen to Superchunk. Listened to 59 seconds.

Voxtrot “Fast Asleep” Always thought this was post punk. guess not, jangly indie rock. Listened to a minute and five seconds.

Built to Spill “Hindsight” You don’t need any Built to Spill after “Ancient Melodies of the Future”. This is from after that. 30 seconds.

Versing “By Design” Decent 90s Sonic Youth worship. Listened to it all.

David Nance “Negative Boogie” New to me. I kind of like it and hate it at the same time. It wore out it’s welcome. Definitely unique. 1:25.

Guided by Voices “Romeo Surgen” Not sure who’s still buying GBV, but it sure seems to have run it course. 53 seconds.

Cocteau Twins “Garlands” One of the parents of shoegaze. Kind of like the dreamy Cure stuff but with a drum machine, Listened to it all.

Metallica “The Wait” From the last great thing Metallica did. A great cover of the Killing Joke song. Listened to it all.

7 Seconds “It All Makes Less Sense Now” When they decided to be U2. Kevin isn’t much of a singer, better as a shouter. 1:15.

Rolling Stones “Midnight Rambler” I’m a “greatest hits” Stones fan, This is a “greatest hit”. Listened to it all.

Hate Your Friends No. 8