Art via Evan Solano
Douglas Martin still won’t hesitate to stretch you like Zack Sabre Jr.
Every year for the intro for this list, I feel like I’m writing a slightly altered version of the same sentiment: As the music industry continues to stagnate, the underground thrives in the shifting soil. As artists in the middle space between underground and mainstream struggle to sustain a living as career musicians, artists below the surface are not only creating influential work, they’re also earning a little coin in the process.
There are still far too many “indie” bands doing a full-on dress rehearsal for the mainstream, but the bands that center the “Work” are keeping the underground meaningful.
Recently, I had dinner with a friend who mentioned my standing in this “very small corner” of the music landscape. I considered this part of her statement deeply for months afterward and came to the realization that this little corner is home—and I’ve made a good living in it. I’ve let go of the ambition of being one of the top music critics in the world, and I never got into this game to become rich.
As long as there are great underground rock bands making music that inspires me to write about them, I’m right where I need to be.
By now, this should go without saying, but this is an incomplete list of my favorite guitar records of 2025. I wrote about some for this column’s spiritual sibling see/saw, my own newsletter Trick Bag, and in my latest attempt to think about DMDS as a monthly column, will be saving a few for future installments in this space. Special shoutout to Optic Sink—yes, that is a programming spoiler.
Thankfully, this tiny corner of music keeps putting out more than enough gems to keep this annual list fully stocked. Now, officially, onward to 2026!
All due respect to my friends and readers who legitimately like Cameron Winter/Geese and are not just swept up in a tidal wave of industry glazing, but I’ve been saying for the entirety of 2025 that people have been gassing up the wrong mid-period Gen Z wunderkind. Kai Slater, the Chicago-raised, 21-year-old prodigy partially responsible for keeping the men’s section of mod vintage stores in business, put out multiple great albums in 2025 (including Lifeguard’s long-awaited Matador debut, Ripped and Torn, which I wrote about for the aforementioned see/saw).
Balloon Balloon Balloon, Sharp Pins’ third LP (all of which were either released or rereleased to much fanfare in ‘25) is the middle point between the delightfully weird but largely unfocused Turtle Rock and the beloved Radio DDR, which was a little too pop-oriented for my tastes.
Like many albums of its ilk—Sharp Pins have been favorably and endlessly compared to the Kinks, Guided by Voices, and Rubber Soul-era Beatles—Balloon is frontloaded; the run from “Popafangout” to “(I Wanna) Be Your Girl” might be the catchiest five-song sequence of the year. That’s not to say the album as a whole is not rife with jams; the languid beauty of “Gonna Learn to Crawl,” the punchy “Fall in Love Again,” and the float of “Maria Don’t” are just a few examples.
The combination of pop melody and tape hiss, as well as the deliberately included imperfections—recorded by Slater in Chicago and Perennial impresario Hayes Waring in his beautiful home studio in Olympia, WA—make Balloon a compulsive listen, and exactly the type of album you’d fully expect to see on this list.
If you’ve been reading these year-end lists (or really, any of my work) for the past three or four years, you’re already aware of my distaste for the term “post-punk.” It had some bearing back when the first major label punk bands were being promoted and purists thought the scene was terminally ill, but half a century later, we all know that was a false-positive diagnosis. Most so-called “post-punk” bands are just punk bands who know how to dance.
Case in point: Long Beach group SELF IMPROVEMENT, whose black-clad, sometimes-twitchy funk-punk is highlighted by Jett Witchalls’s surprisingly-not-fake British accent. The Brixton Hill-raised Witchalls works as the centerpiece of the band’s style, as her mostly spoken and chanted vocals are what old the vaporous guitars and synths alongside its grounding rhythm section. Opener “Settle Down” is a tense number about the expectations society puts on people, from childhood to womanhood; it’s two and a half minutes of wind-up with no release.
Although Syndrome has many well-worn aspects of what people call post-punk—”angular” guitars here, a sturdy, punchy backbeat there—something about the album feels… unfamiliar. Maybe it’s the bent guitar notes on “Just Like Me,” or how the beat flirts with a driving tempo on “Dissolved” but never takes off running, or the chiming quarter notes ringing throughout “Change My Mind.” SELF IMPROVEMENT’s brilliant second album manages to be endlessly compelling because it totals out to much more than the sum of its parts.
In 2024, these Calgary art-punk weirdos had a breakout year without releasing a “studio” album, instead playing their first United States shows to small-but-rapturous acclaim and releasing a lathe-cut, eight-inch live EP. They followed all that up in 2025 by finally releasing their long-awaited second album, which builds on the fuck-it experimentalism of 2022’s The Stones are Watching and They Can Be a Handful.
Alongside the fuzzy bass, ringing xylophone, and general synthesized chaos of “Fire Pit,” the addition of drummer Jay Wong inspired the founding duo of Arielle McCuaig and Kayla MacNeill to bang out more rock-oriented tunes without sacrificing the avant-bizarre spirit that brought them to the proverbial dance. “Puppets Jamboree,” the awesomely-titled “The Unabomber Used to Come and Dance at Events,” and their cover of first-wave U.K. punk band Septimus’ “Do You Want to Touch My Safety Pin” have a distinctly garage-rock flavor. The latter nails the kind of punk rock pastiche many other bands have tried but ended up looking silly doing.
Bill Orcutt is not just arguably—and I’d say that’s a mighty short argument—the world’s greatest living guitarist because he’s melted faces all over the Western Hemisphere with ease, but because of the breadth of his work. In 2022, Orcutt released Music for Four Guitars, the greatest evidence of neo-classical guitar arrangement this side of Glenn Branca. In 2025, he (along with some very noteworthy collaborators) crafted three of the calendar year’s best releases—two LPs and a live cassette—which are remarkable for being as equally great as they are markedly different.
Orcutt’s first release of the year was a tape issue of a live collaboration with drummer Chris Corsano, who together recorded Made Out of Sound. Empty Bottle, named after the famed Chicago venue where its songs were recorded over two nights in June 2025 (opening for the great Tropical Fuck Storm), features six new compositions a little spikier and punkier than the dreamy free jazz of their 2021 opus.
From there, Orcutt forms an avant-rock supergroup with Ethan Miller (who you may know from Howlin Rain or Comets on Fire, the latter from a fargone time when Sub Pop actually released noisy rock records pretty regularly) and Steve Shelley (who I hope to g-d you at least know from Sonic Youth). The five live-recorded, improvisational tunes are proof positive that Shelley has now been in two of the greatest art-rock jam bands of the 21st Century. To paraphrase Bandcamp Daily’s Mariana Timony, if you’re a Deadhead of any stripe, it’s obvious Orcutt Shelley Miller was your favorite new album of 2025.
In November, Orcutt released yet another live-recorded LP, his first set of solo electric tunes since self-titled 2017 album. Featuring solo versions of Empty Bottle standouts “O Platitudes” and “The World Without Me” and a few more elegiac numbers with titles centered around death (the life of Jesus is one of the most enduring stories in the history of mythology because of how his life ended), there’s no reason to look too far into Orcutt having The End on his mind. Even so, Another Perfect Day might be the most heartfelt and gorgeous collection of songs Orcutt has laid to tape in his nearly four decades as a musician.
The lively spirit of Kleenex/LiLiPUT is still alive in Western Europe—as MARAUDEUR, a sextet hailing from three different countries (thank goodness for Eurostar, I suppose) deliver their second set of tightly-wound, structure-agnostic art-punk. And when I say “art-punk,” I don’t mean the kind that dwells in self-seriousness (like a decent amount of artistes practicing in the subculture). Opening track “EC Blah Blah” is a great example, certainly emblematic of the piss-taking fun Kleenex used to have before getting hit with a C&D by Big Tissue.
Most of the songs on Flaschenträger sound like they’re sprinting downhill—especially “Ah” and album highlight “Syncope.” “(Legacy)” carries an air of wistful regret, heads into a rabbit hole, comes back to its opening motif, and then heads down another one. There’s a spark of originality that flickers across Flaschenträger, and if MARAUDEUR haven’t already obtained the status of being the best punk band named after an A Tribe Called Quest album, they have to be in the top three easily.
Another year, another spectacular LRD set pulled from archives and mixed by Makato Kubota. This live performance was held and recorded on Marantz cassette at a traditional storehouse-turned-venue in Kyoto—where Takashi Mizutani formed the ranks of this Japanese noise-rock dynasty. Captured on tape mere months before the performance that became the band’s iconic ‘77 LIVE, Jittoku ‘76 carries much of the same blistering energy.
Near-ambient opener “Dream Again Today” makes way for the motorik-punk-leaning ripper “Wilderness of False Flowers.” “Flame of Ice” here is slower, bluesier, and far less homicidal than the ‘77 LIVE version, but it still rips—blasting out of the speakers rife with gnarled art-damage and serving as an ideal companion to the slow lurch of “Carnival” preceding it. You can practically imagine a lightbulb flashing above Lee Renaldo’s head in a flashback sequence, the way “Saw the Night in Your Eyes” splits the difference between fucked-up guitar noise and Grateful Dead-style skyward jamming.
Given Jittoku ‘76 has the same lineup as the aforementioned ‘77 LIVE, it’s no coincidence the newly-released set shreds so hard. It’s one of the truly vital Les Rallizes Dénudés LPs.
It’s a shame that in 2025, a year where indie-pop and all things jangle have witnessed a revival unseen in 15 years, the year’s best pure indie-pop album was widely overlooked. Josie is a quartet from Copenhagen but comes closer to the twee-punk sugar rush of Tiger Trap than any other band to come in the three decades since the Sacramento pop icons broke up.
And while indie-pop is widely dismissed for being too reverential, too cloying, too white, too confrontationally grating, etc. etc. etc.—the best stuff is winsome and simple. Not simple as in lacking skill, but simple as in foolproof.
Singles “Cupid Strikes a Blow” and “My Boy and I” would’ve been surefire hits in either the C86 or IPUC era, but really, every song on A Life on Sweets Alone could have feasibly been a single. The album dials back to a time when full-lengths like these were essentially singles compilations anyway—a la the immortal comp Backwash by twee-punk creators Talulah Gosh. Even when the band slows the tempo on songs like “Falling Apart” or strips the drums back like Marine Girls on closer “If You,” Josie write indelible, downright irresistible songs.
The album so beloved, it went from being on Rotten Apple (the tape label run by Martin Meyer of Soup Activists) to getting a vinyl release on Carpark Records (onetime label home of Beach House, Toro y Moi, and Cloud Nothings). The album which became so popular in the underground that Pitchfork had no choice but to run its review a full ten months after its initial release. If you’ve read this far through this list, I’m sure you’ve heard of good flying birds’ debut full-length Talulah’s Tape. But have you heard Talulah’s Tape?
Once named as reference to aforementioned indie-pop pioneers Talulah Gosh (by being named “Talulah God”) and now in tribute to fellow Midwestern pop genius (see: the Guided by Voices song “A Good Flying Bird,” from their all-time great album Alien Lanes)—Kellen Baker of Indianapolis recorded the overwhelming majority of Talulah’s Tape by himself between 2020-2024, and then turned his bedroom pop project into a full band because it was unanimously decided that it was awesome.
Turns out Baker wasn’t just dropping all the right names (American indie-pop catalysts Beat Happening are also cited as an influence), he also shares their gift for melody and idiosyncratic songwriting identity.
It’s easy to say parts of Talulah’s Tape takes cues from Teenage Fanclub or that others sound like early Yo La Tengo tied to a ripcord, but this is not just vibes, not just Chickfactor type beats; there is a craftsmanship present in these songs. Tunes like “Golfball” and “Pulling Hair” elicit genuine emotions with every listen, and “Wallace” is easily one of the very best songs of 2025 full stop.
The emergence of good flying birds and the out-of-nowhere inclusion of Talulah’s Tape into canon as one of the decade’s best albums is the antithesis of hype. It’s the notion that once every few years, the cream actually does rise to the top in the oversaturated pot of music.
Yet another overlooked gem from the Year of Jangle, the second LP from San Francisco quartet Galore finds the group managing to improve in every category from their already-great self-titled debut from 2020. Cohesive but not homogenous, the songwriting duties on Dirt are shared. And the songwriting is confident (“Field Trip” and “Bastard” are just two examples). The appeal of the album doesn’t lie in cute little pop tunes, but ace-level playing (that doesn’t distract from the meat of the songs), punchy production, and a penchant to occasionally add a little grit to their perfect pop songs.
When you hear about flawless guitar pop coming out of California, this is always the kind of music you’re hoping for.
It’s true, this year’s DMDS list is a little light on punk rippers. But I’m thrilled to report that the best punk album of 2025 comes from the Pacific Northwest—DMDS HQ and a hotbed for punk rock music for nearly 50 years. Olympia, Washington trio Fugitive Bubble follow up their awesome 2024 LP Delusion with an opus that sounds like it could be dropped in SST’s 1986 release schedule and no one would be the wiser.
Kurt Stevens rips through guitar riffs like it’s as easy as breathing. Harley Moore plays bass like a bridge between Saccharine Trust and the Au Pairs. They share songwriting duties. Typhoid Mary plays just ahead of the beat like a jazz drummer, and it gives the effect of Fugitive Bubble falling into the doorway without knocking in order to tell you what they have to say.
And boy, does Fugitive Bubble have a lot to say. Stevens is more elliptical and poetic, and Moore gets down to brass tax. The album’s title track is basically an anarchist’s manifesto.
What Will Happen if We Stop? is fueled by righteous anger and teeming with musical ideas, inventive structure, unbelievably memorable songcraft, and a piano interlude to break up the sides. It’s a reminder of the possibilities of punk rock music and culture as a tool for uprising. And, crucially, it fucking rips.
Aren’t Philly’s Eraser supposed to be a no wave band? Because the razorblade guitar lines are there, so is the prominent Downtown-scene-at-midnight bass. But the band (both on their Siltbreeze twelve-inch and their live show) seems to be having… a great time? Every no wave band I’ve ever heard worth their weight in Lydia Lunch chapbooks looks and sounds miserable. The thing is, the fact that these six songs seem like they were a blast to record is part of the appeal here.
Pier Harrison’s guitar work is engrossing, getting a warped dial-tone sound on “Talk to Me” and blending whines with Sonam Parikh’s synth on “Trans Air Force 2.” The rhythm section of Kat Bean and Juliette Rando are at their most compulsively danceable on “Paint Peeling,” but serve as the anchor for the entire LP. As the “post-punk” realm remains overcrowded, even in the slightly more spacious underground, Eraser stand out by letting their collective hair down and getting everybody to join in on a rousing game of Simon Says.
It speaks to the charisma and undeniable charm of Cincinnati’s Artificial Go that I can share a new favorite band with my friend’s four-year-old kid. Let’s temporarily forget frontperson Angie Wilcutt wearing a marching band uniform or singing exclusively in an accent lifted off of Portobello Road. The songs on the band’s debut Hopscotch Fever were as cool as the ones here are deliriously silly and amusing. “Circles” is basically a birthday party at a doggy daycare and “Red Convertible” is about not settling for anything less than your dream car.
Not only does the band make a rollicking good time by leaning into Wilcutt’s captivating goofiness, but the songs on Musical Chairs hit perfectly. The rhythm section (and, yes, also the faux-British vocals) on “Yaya” is pitch-perfect early Rough Trade. The music on “The World is My Runway” wisely lays back a little while Wilcutt struts on the catwalk, “Playing Puppet” is a better Dry Cleaning song than Dry Cleaning could muster without unintentional self-parody.
And much like the classroom game it’s named after, Musical Chairs is a breeze to get through and is over before you know it. If it’s not the funnest release of 2025, I dare you to show me another cool band who can appeal to both punks and children.
Due in part to its relative proximity to Washington D.C., when people have considered Richmond, Virginia’s music scene since time immemorial, they likely have thought about hardcore. But for the past few years, hip-hop, garage-rock, and punk of other varieties have been flourishing in Virginia’s capital city. To wit: Added Dimensions, who, like a few bands on this list, was once a solo project (the brainchild of Sarah Everton) until people realized how great it was.
Everton played nearly every instrument on the smartly-titled Jane from Preoccupied America—both a Swell Maps reference and a wink at its core thesis. There’s a lot to be distracted by in the United States these days.
Recorded on a TASCAM 488 by Everton and drummer Rob Garcia, Jane from Preoccupied America deftly pivots back and forth between big melodies and rhythmic spoken word over measured, elevated bedroom-punk arrangements. Not that I like to quote other people too much on my own shit, but in his Bandcamp liner notes for the album, Alex Howell nailed it when he said it sounds like Tender Trap backed by Buck Biloxi.
There’s a saying that a loved one says to me quite often, “Sometimes you thrive, sometimes you survive.” Everton’s lyrics are a dozen meditations on this observation (and the emphasis on its latter half). “What’s Gonna Happen” ruminates on 24-hour news cycles being brought to our phones and social media feeds. Closer “Productive Life” is about how we’re all caught up in the rat race of living in a capitalist society. Many of the album’s songs circle around its central theme of being overstimulated, overwhelmed, preoccupied.
It’s easy to write a referendum or a bunch of empty platitudes about “these troubled times” in the 2020s, when scores of people are being eradicated in various parts of the world and our friends and neighbors are being snatched off the streets (and sometimes worse) at home. It’s obvious that it’s increasingly difficult to gain a little perspective on your own place in the world these days, especially if you have even a marginal amount of empathy for other people.
Most of us are scatterbrained at best; I don’t know if I want to know what the worst is. Jane from Preoccupied America cuts across the social divisions of race, gender, and class to reach for something close to a universal perspective. The only truly shared cultural experience in the 2020s is existential trauma. This is a proper soundtrack for those feelings.
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