New Playlist: July 2025

The July 2025 playlist is here, and it’s a great one! It’s full of hit singles, both from albums I’ve written about recently and some from albums I’m looking forwarding to hearing later this year.

Julian Cubillos, Gosh Diggity, Beauty, Mal Blum, and Walter Mitty and His Makeshift Orchestra have two songs on this playlist.

Here is where you can listen to the playlist on various streaming services: Spotify, Tidal. Be sure to check out previous playlist posts if you’ve enjoyed this one, or visit the site directory. If you’d like to support Rosy Overdrive, you can share this (or another) post, or donate here.

“Grass”, Abel featuring Cornfed
From How to Get Away with Nothing (2025, Julia’s War/Candlepin/Pleasure Tapes)

Inspired by slowcore, noisy indie rock, and 90s emo, Abel’s How to Get Away with Nothing is frequently loud but even more consistently insular and introverted. The album’s dozen tracks and forty-five minutes are an overwhelming, greyscale listen, more adventurous and sprawling than last year’s Dizzy Spell yet with that record’s scattered moments of beauty still intact. The Columbus group make the bold choice to start How to Get Away with Nothing with what’s easily the catchiest and most accessible song in “Grass”–and it’s also a red herring, as the slightly twangy (reminiscent of fellow Columbus act and previous collaborator Villagerrr) country rock of the opener doesn’t really come up again for the rest of the album. Read more about How to Get Away with Nothing here.

“Fruit Stripe”, Julian Cubillos
From Julian Cubillos (2025, Ruination)

Julian Cubillos is just an absolute blast of pop music–it’s short and pretty straightforward in its instrumental choices, but the Queens-based musician has jammed so much stuff into it nonetheless. Cubillos has the touch of a studio rat and auteur (Wilson, Rundgren, Prince, et cetera), and though he’s an understated frontperson, he has the material and attitude to justify a mini-whirlwind through funk, folk, psychedelia, and R&B (among other stops). Julian Cubillos finds an impressive second wind in its B-side, featuring (among other highlights) something called “Fruit Stripe”, which is 60s pop sped up and slightly distorted to create something sugary and intoxicating out of nowhere. Read more about Julian Cubillos here.

“I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!”, Gosh Diggity
From Good Luck! Have Fun! (2025, Worry)

As one should be able to surmise for the album’s cover art, Good Luck! Have Fun! is absolutely loaded with bright colors, quick energy, and 8-bit/chiptune hooks strewn all over the place. Gosh Diggity’s co-lead vocalists CJ Hoglind and Joe Marshall are an excellent tag-team, both displaying the ability to emote like proper emo/pop-punk frontpeople while not sounding absurd with the technicolor, digital symphony going on around them. I think that that’s Hoglind on lead vocals on second-half highlight “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!”; whoever it is, it might be my favorite vocal performance of the year thus far, expertly guiding the rest of Gosh Diggity through a synth-pop-punk sing-speaking extravaganza. Read more about Good Luck! Have Fun! here.

“This ‘n’ That”, Mint Mile
From andwhichstray (2025, Comedy Minus One)

Mint Mile recorded andwhichstray with Steve Albini at Studios de La Fabrique in Saint-Rémy de Provence, France in late April and early May of last year; it is, I believe, the last recording session Albini finished before his passing (he was in the midst of finishing up FACS’ Wish Defense at the time). Jeff Panall’s drums do sound a bit more “Albini-like”, but otherwise the first single from andwhichstray, “This ‘n’ That”, sounds like the Mint Mile of last year’s Roughrider. We’ll see if the Crazy Horse-type (but tighter) country rock sound of “This ‘n’ That” simply rolls confidently into the next Mint Mile LP or if this isn’t the complete picture yet, but it’s already a strong entry into Mint Mile’s songbook. “It’s about freedom. The real kind, though,” writes bandleader Tim Midyett, and if the song’s lyrics don’t make it clear he’s talking about queerness in a society bent on destruction (“Do whatever / With whomever / Whenever you can / Whichever way it lands”), he goes on to make that clear, too.

“Polar Bear Ice Cream”, Beauty
From I’d Do Almost Anything for You (2025, Strange View)

Beauty’s first LP is nothing less than some of the finest 90s power pop revivalism I’ve heard in recent memory, harkening back to a time where acts like Sloan, Teenage Fanclub, Matthew Sweet, and Fountains of Wayne were able to smuggle Cheap Trick/Beatles-level hooks and huge guitars onto the periphery of the mainstream of so-called “alternative rock”. Beauty don’t overthink it, but they don’t miss anything either: where there should be harmonies, there are harmonies, where there ought to be a nice big guitar riff, a sharp solo, or some well-placed handclaps, they’re all right on time. “Polar Bear Is Cream” is a slam-dunk Sloan-style groovy rock-and-roll rave-up; it’s not the first great song on I’d Do Almost Anything for You, but it cements the album’s excellent early on in Side A. Read more about I’d Do Almost Anything for You here.

“Must Get Lonely”, Mal Blum
From The Villain (2025, Get Better)

The New York-originating, Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Mal Blum has always displayed flashes of brilliance, but The Villain is, for me, where they’ve finally “put it all together” and made a cohesive, potent, front-to-back classic album. It’s Blum’s first album made entirely with their “lower register after several years on testosterone” (their first LP in six years, in fact), and they’ve embraced their new voice’s ability to sell a specific kind of low-key, muttering darkness. As understated as Blum’s direness comes off from their perspective, the Mal Blum band and producer Jessica Boudreaux don’t lay down with them–“Must Get Lonely”, one of my favorites on the album, is as breezy as it is uncomfortable. Read more about The Villain here.

“Even Stephen (Ludic Realm Adventures)”, Higher Selves Playdate
From The New Apocalyptic (2025, Olly Olly)

The New Apocalyptic is a colorful and glitzy pop album, equally anchored by sparkling synthesizers, taut and rhythmic basslines, and delirious sugar-high tempos. Higher Selves Playdate name Devo, Grace Jones, and the B-52s as some of their favorite acts, and while The New Apocalyptic doesn’t precisely sound any of those artists, it certainly sounds like an album made by people with a deep understanding of the freakier sides of dance music, the transformative power of new wave, and the rich inner mythologies suggested by those names. “Even Stephen (Ludic Realm Adventures)” is the closest thing that Higher Selves Playdate have to a straight-ahead pop rock track, but even this one has some exciting sped-up dub influence baked into it, too. Read more about The New Apocalyptic here.

“The End of Your Empire”, Peter Peter Hughes
From Half-Staff Blues (2025, Tired Media)

I didn’t see this one coming, but in hindsight I probably should’ve. After stepping down from his position as the longtime (we’re talking since the 1990s, more or less) bassist for the Mountain Goats last year, Peter Hughes was finally faced with the time to make his first solo album in a decade and a half. After the dour The One Hundred Thousand Songs of Peter Peter Hughes in 2004 and the New Order-inspired Fangio in 2010, I wouldn’t have expected Flying Nun-esque organs and motorik tempos, but here we are–clearly I forgot that he used to play in a band with indie pop scholar Franklin Bruno, for one. “The End of Your Empire” was recorded in Australia with members of The Ocean Party and Pop Filter, and, indeed, is an awesome excursion into Aussie guitar pop. The cheerful gravedancing of “The End of Your Empire” only makes me more excited for Half-Staff Blues (what will songs like “Two-Stroke Solution” and “Barack Obama Playlist” bring?).

“Heaven All the Way”, Ali Murray
From The Summer Laden (2025, Dead Forest)

The Summer Laden has plenty of detours, but it’s primarily an album fully re-embracing the kind of folky, slowcore-inspired indie rock of both the acoustic and electric varieties that originally got northern Scotland’s Ali Murray on my radar. Sometimes The Summer Laden is pin-drop quiet, sometimes it’s relatively amped-up, but it pretty much always feels like a delicate, thoughtful thirty-minute journey through the world of a talented and somewhat iconoclastic singer-songwriter. The range of Murray is on full, constant display in The Summer Laden’s first half–he begins the record with the title track, a carefully-arranged chamber pop exercise that folds unexpectedly into the fuzzed-out indie rock of “Heaven All the Way”, the record’s loudest song and the one with the most divergent vocal performance from Murray. Read more about The Summer Laden here.

“Afterlife”, Alex G
From Headlights (2025, RCA)

I think I really like this new Alex G album! I’ve always thought the guy’s records were worth a listen even if I’ve never been fully on-board with the excessive adoration he’s gotten (there are far worse subjects of such treatment, to be sure). The last LP of Alex’s that I remember fully enjoying front-to-back was 2017’s Rocket, but I think Headlights is better than that one based on my initial impressions (that in and of itself is remarkable, because Alex G’s music usually takes some time to grow on me). “Afterlife” is some pretty solid polished 80s-influenced pop music, but I think that it really just comes down to “I like the mandolin playing on this one” that gives it the edge over “Louisiana” and “Logan Hotel”.

“My Diving Board Game”, Walter Mitty and His Makeshift Orchestra
From Yikes Almighty (2025, Lauren/Making New Enemies)

Dubbed “a calming existential crisis set to children’s toy instruments”, Yikes Almighty is low-key folk-pop music that’s about as “relaxed” and “chill” as its creator could reasonably allow it to be. Like a lot of “cult”-ish-type bands, it’s hard to say what, exactly, Walter Mitty and His Makeshift Orchestra is. Are they a vehicle for a uniquely talented singer-songwriter? A bunch of quirky, lo-fi, underground outcast punks (in attitude, if not in genre)? Classic pop music nerds tinkering away at their own personal Pet Sounds? The post-“adult alternative” party-acoustic-rock of “My Diving Board Game” is a bit of everything. After a brilliant aw-shucks chorus, Dustin Hayes declares “I don’t know what it is I’m trying to find / But I’m diving in, without a deep breath”–and then a kazoo rises up to meet him. Read more about Yikes Almighty here.

“Tricky Questions”, Allo Darlin’
From Bright Nights (2025, Slumberland/Fika)

On their first album in more than a decade (and following a lengthy hiatus), Allo Darlin’ do indeed sound like an indie pop band who’ve allowed themselves to age. Somewhere between the stalwart folk rock of The Innocence Mission and the elder-statespeople twee pop of The Catenary Wires, Bright Nights is the record that the British indie pop quartet needed to take some time off to make. Frontperson Elizabeth Morris sings thoughtful, vibrant, slow-moving folk-pop songs yet is also able to put on a show to the tune of busier but still unhurried indie pop hits like “Tricky Questions”; it just takes time to develop this kind of subtle range. Read more about Bright Nights here.

“Forgotten Generation”, Williamson Brothers
From Aquila (2025, Dial Back Sound)

Led by Lee Bains III + The Glory Fires’ rhythm section and featuring help from members of Drive-By Truckers, Model Citizen, and The Great Dying, this group of Alabama “alt-country”/rock-and-roll professionals pick up right where their first LP left off. Bits and pieces of punk rock and power pop/college rock shade these dozen songs, but Aquila is first and foremost a ripping, roaring collection of fuzzed-out southern garage rock. On the “pop” end of the spectrum, the bottle-rocket “Forgotten Generation” finds the Williamson Brothers putting all they’ve got into a massive hook-heavy chorus to create an amped-up southern power pop singalong. Read more about Aquila here.

“Advertising”, Pacing
From PL*NET F*TNESS  (2025, Asian Man)

Aside from the advance singles (both of which turned up on earlier monthly playlist), my favorite song on Pacing’s PL*NET F*TNESS is called “Advertising”. Of all the album tracks, it’s the one that benefits the most from the sophomore album’s musical toolkit–it’s hard to imagine Katie McTigue and company pulling something like this one off on 2023’s more patchwork Real Poetry…. The production forms itself around McTigue’s subdued but clear vocals, which deliver a desperately confused plea for some kind of meaning. “I guess I don’t mind / Being lied to / I don’t see what’s wrong with / Wanting everyone to like you,” McTigue confesses about the titular well-despised field, and then “I’m not so sure where / I’m supposed to get my cues / Now that I don’t believe in you”. Read more about PL*NET F*TNESS here.

“Better If You Make Me”, Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band
From New Threats from the Soul (2025, Sophomore Lounge/Tough Love)

I don’t need to sing the praises of Ryan Davis as fervently these days, because the rest of the “music writing world” has finally caught up to his brilliance (I only jumped on board with the final State Champion album, 2018’s Send Flowers, so it’s not like I can claim to be a day-one supporter anyway). If you liked the expansive alt-country sagas of 2023’s Dancing on the Edge, I’ve got good news with regards to what you’ll hear on New Threats from the Soul. I think I still prefer the debut Roadhouse Band album over this one so far (not that Davis is someone whose music lends itself to easy first impressions), but it’s a worthy sequel to the unlikely breakout alt-country hit record of the post-MJ Lenderman era. Normally I’d chew out “the media” here for not giving Davis the credit he deserves here, but–good job, everyone! 

“Still I Wonder”, The Queen & I
From At Peace (2025)

The Queen & I’s version of pop music is distorted and electric but immaculate and polished, with bits of psychedelic pop, shoegaze, and Britpop sneaking into material that could’ve just as easily been read as more traditional jangle pop and/or power pop. At Peace feels like a classic rock album, in a way. It’s eight songs long and only a little over a half-hour, and bloated six-minute rockers sit right next to concise pop rock pieces because “rock music” can and should take us anywhere. In The Queen & I’s punchier moments, the Bay Area group feels like a more overtly-psychedelic-indebted version of the Guided by Voices-influenced shoegaze-pop of Ex Pilots and Gaadge–and the jangly fuzz-pop rave-up of “Still I Wonder” certainly qualifies. Read more about At Peace here.

“Thrill Eater”, Pretty Bitter
From Pleaser (2025, Tiny Engines)

Pretty Bitter’s debut album, Pleaser, feels like a real group effort, the result of a bunch of talented artists getting together and working towards something. Take “Thrill Eater”, which begins with a strange banjo part and acoustic guitar strumming from Zack Be, and then frontperson Mel Bleker’s first words are “My brother’s baking bread / The call to 911 dropped and I felt like a child again”. I could call either one of their contributions the centerpiece of the song, but I point them both out to emphasize the symbiosis going on here (perhaps “A dead kid owes me favor / And I’m younger when I’m sober” would’ve haunted me regardless, but the subtle synth touches that Be adds at the end of the line certainly help). Read more about Pleaser here.

“Quiver and Quill”, Rip Van Winkle
From Blasphemy (2025, Splendid Research)

A promising new Guided by Voices side project–what else is new? The lo-fi, clanging experimental EP The Grand Rapids introduced us to Rip Van Winkle last year with a brief but tantalizing offbeat teaser, and now the project’s first album, Blasphemy, is here to deliver on the promise. On the surface, Blasphemy has the same sloppy, surprising qualities of Robert Pollard’s albums where he himself plays (nearly) everything, but there’s a secret polish to the playing of the rest of Rip Van Winkle (members of the band Joseph Airport) that provides a link to Pollard’s more obviously pop-forward material. “Quiver and Quill” hides the best pop song on the record–a timeless jangle pop warbler–behind a psychedelic spoken-word introduction. Read more about Blasphemy here.

“Be Right Down”, The Telephone Numbers
From Scarecrow II (2025, Slumberland)

There’ve been a bunch of exciting new albums and announcements of albums in the past month, but I don’t want the news of the first new Telephone Numbers LP in four years to fly under the radar. I don’t know if Thomas Rubenstein is my favorite San Francisco indie pop songwriter, but he’s probably the one I’m most excited to hear new music from–2021’s The Ballad of Doug has only grown on me, and every non-album song in between them and the announcement of Scarecrow II has been increasingly excellent. “Be Right Down”, the album’s first single, is an instant Telephone Numbers classic, more brilliant Game Theory-informed jangle pop with just the right amount of polish. 

“MRI”, The Symptones
From Ricardo Papaya (2025)

In my experience, a lot of modern rock groups who try to graft soul and R&B into their music come off gimmicky and/or totally unequipped to do so, but The Symptones make it sound easy and natural on Ricardo Papaya, an obvious-in-hindsight extension of their foundational power pop reminiscent of formative acts like Big Star and NRBQ. The best track on the four-song EP, “MRI”, is right up front–when you have a pop rock song this strong and triumphant, there’s no point in trying to bury it. There are bits of The Replacements and even Wilco in the slightly rootsy Midwestern power pop of “MRI”, although neither act ever really made something this cleanly, unreservedly big and retro-polished. Read more about Ricardo Papaya here.

“To My Zombie”, Uniflora
From More Gums Than Teeth (2025, Shuga/Charm Co-Op)

Uniflora’s first LP is crisp-sounding, guitar-forward Chicago indie rock through and through–if I didn’t know better, I’d think it was recorded by a group of unfashionable music lifers at Electrical Audio two decades or so ago. More Gums Than Teeth is a record made by people who’ve spent plenty of time with the spacier, jammier side of 90s indie rock as well as the “art rock”/punk groups who inspired them. These songs, which are dead-serious, laser-focused, ever-so-jazz/“math rock”-y post-punk dispatches, don’t really sound like a band trying to imitate their influences (in fact, I’m not sure what Uniflora are trying to do, exactly, which makes More Gums Than Teeth such an interesting listen). Uniflora kick things off with the low-key, chugging indie rock of “To My Zombie”, a song that stubbornly refuses to tip its hand and sounds great while doing so. Read more about More Gums Than Teeth here.

“Young & Dumb”, Jacob Perez
From There’s So Many Ways to Live a Life (2025)

Cincinnati’s Jacob Perez calls his music “alt-country”, although maybe it’s closer to “roots rock” or “Americana” depending on one’s perspective–it’s a plain and refreshing singer-songwriter album made by an artist who writes with a Midwestern earnestness and doesn’t sound like he’s trying to sound like any one of his idols in particular. Perez also calls his music “bookish”, and I think what he means by that is that there aren’t really any “rockers” on There’s So Many Ways to Live a Life; it’s not until track number three, “Young and Dumb”, that we learn that Perez is perfectly capable of writing a “heartland rock anthem”. Read more about There’s So Many Ways to Live a Life here.

“Cherry Pit”, Salty Greyhound
From Alligators (2025, Dog’s Mouth)

It’s a bit difficult to pinpoint exactly what Allston’s Salty Greyhound “sound like” on Alligators–if I wanted to be not specific at all, I’d call them “folk-influenced New England indie rock”; in relation to their peers, they’re less rootsy than Hey I’m Outside and less medieval than The Croaks. Alligators does sound like an album made by a band with multiple creative heads–Salty Greyhound are just as likely to rip through an electric rocker as twist their way through an oddball folk track, or even occasionally just drop a solid, unfussy pop song. The opening track, “Cherry Pit”, is worth the price of admission alone–it’s one of the best indie pop songs I’ve heard this year, nailing a certain subset of twee “disaffecting but bouncy” brilliance. Read more about Alligators here.

“The Season”, Gosh Diggity
From Good Luck! Have Fun! (2025, Worry)

Every part of Gosh Diggity is doing the absolute most on Good Luck! Have Fun!–take lead single “The Season”, which features everything from a sprawling sing-song manifesto of a lyric and vocal performance that reminds me of the great Bad Moves (another band who have managed to wade into well-worn critiques of organized religion in their music while still sounding fresh), bouncing and bounding 8-bit touchstones, and nice, big, shiny guitars. I’m not even sure if it’s the biggest wrecking ball of a pop song on Good Luck! Have Fun!, but it’s certainly a strong and powerful one. Read more about Good Luck! Have Fun! here.

“Alien”, Beagle Scout
From Beagle Scout (2025)

On their debut EP, 90s indie rock-inspired trio Beagle Scout mix everything together: noisy, stumbling guitars, gentle, almost whispered vocals, and diamond-in-the-rough melodies all present as one. There’s a bit of an early Built to Spill (or even early Modest Mouse) thing going on in Beagle Scout’s writing, with its casual, kind of shy version of lo-fi guitar pop/weirdness; the trio mention being influenced by shoegaze, and while Beagle Scout is plenty noisy, I’d say that the downward-staring attitude of the name of the genre is a better fit for them than the bands most prominently associated with it. “Alien” is, for Beagle Scout, pretty dramatic, steadily-creeping guitars and quite sad-sounding vocals nonetheless sending the track on an exciting, sprawling journey. Read more about Beagle Scout here.

“Let It Ring!”, Beauty
From I’d Do Almost Anything for You (2025, Strange View)

I can’t entirely put my finger on what exactly makes something like “Let It Ring!” (probably my favorite song on the B-side of I’d Do Almost Anything for You) work, other than that it’s a prime example of the tension that goes into all great power pop–cliche-risking lyrical (and musical) choices delivered with the passion to pull them off, an extremely tightly-constructed pop creation played with just enough looseness to make it feel off-the-cuff. Read more about I’d Do Almost Anything for You here.

“Omfg”, Walter Mitty and His Makeshift Orchestra
From Yikes Almighty (2025, Lauren/Making New Enemies)

Dustin Hayes’ project(s) (Walter Etc., Walter Mitty and His Makeshift Orchestra) have always been “the band with the silly name(s)” in the periphery of my mind until I gave Yikes Almighty a shot; they get referred to as a “folk punk” act, and I can hear how they might’ve initially been one, but Yikes Almighty is in the realm of underground iconoclasts falling somewhere between “lo-fi pop” and anti-folk/folk punk. I’m not sure what the single greatest moment on Yikes Almighty is, but the striking, somewhat alarming slacker pop of “Omfg” is a great candidate. “Oh my fucking God / I can’t believe she died / She hung herself in the living room of her ex-husband’s bride”–Jesus Christ, why does this sound so peppy? Read more about Yikes Almighty here.

“Use a Friend”, Josh Halper
From Schlemiel (2025, Glamour Gowns)

Schlemiel, Josh Halper’s first solo album in five years, is a charmingly freewheeling listen–sometimes, Halper sounds like spacey, jazz-influenced, “cosmic Americana” guitar explorers, other times like he just wants to make offbeat alt-country rock. The common denominator is Halper himself, taking a break from playing lead guitar for hire to make–well, pretty much whatever kind of music he wants to make at any given moment, it seems. Halper and his players aren’t above embracing a great alt-country tune every now and again, though–there’s certainly nothing wrong with the fluttering folk rock pick-me-up of “Use a Friend”. Read more about Schlemiel here.

“Drunk on Leaving”, Pat Hatt
From Pat Hatt (2025)

Pat Hatt, the titular artist’s first new music in a decade after a stint as a professional barber and a cross-country relocation from Lancaster, Pennsylvania to California, ends up landing in the rootsy, earnest, post-Replacements no-man’s land between punk and classic rock in which fellow Pennsylvanians The Menzingers also live. There’s also a jovial, focused aspect to the EP, however, reflecting somebody who’s been newly reinspired. Pat Hatt sounds like perfect summer windows-down guitar music, allowing the singer to indulge in some classic imagery of bars and deserts and nomadic behavior. The opening track is called “Drunk on Leaving”, and its huge sound does everything you’d want a song combining these motifs to do. Read more about Pat Hatt here.

“Legends of the Niche”, Karl Frog
From Yes, Music (2025, Spoilsport)

I’m new to the world of Karl Frog, but my impressions of Yes, Music are that of a wholly agreeable, odd, but understandable pop album. It’s indie pop music that cheerfully merges the “orchestral” and “digital” sides of it together; it’s “sophisti-pop” with virtually no hint of pretense. It took me a few listens to Yes, Music to fully get on board with it not because the pop songwriting isn’t immediate (it is), but because Frog delivers it in such a low-key manner that the album really benefits from a consciously-trained ear. “Legends of the Niche” is the Canberra-originating artist’s clearest foray into Aussie guitar pop, but it still finds a way to fit under the Karl Frog umbrella effortlessly. Read more about Yes, Music here.

“I’m So Bored”, Mal Blum
From The Villain (2025, Get Better)

The press release implies that The Villain isn’t entirely a break-up album, but there’s a lot of relationship ugliness in here, and the character that Mal Blum adopts throughout the album–passively, sardonically observing one royal mess after another as if they aren’t even there at all–ends up being a very fascinating byproduct of a major personal transition. The Villain is marked by moments of realization, but Blum is even more committed to demonstrating how awareness can only get one so far–there’s an inevitability, even a fatalism to stuff like “I’m So Bored”, which shrugs and continues down the pothole-filled path it’s been down before and will go down again. Read more about The Villain here.

“The Big E”, Editrix
From The Big E (2025, Joyful Noise)

Despite all three members’ other projects, Editrix still seems to be going strong and the group was able to put together a new album called The Big E, adding a third LP to a discography of bonkers, topsy-turvy math rock. The Big E doesn’t precisely pick up where their previous album, 2022’s Editrix II: Editrix Goes to Hell, left off–Editrix still primarily sound like themselves, true, but The Big E is the album of theirs that’s the most comfortable being a “rock record”. Classic rock guitar riffs, blistering solos, low-end-heavy noise rock rumbling–you’re gonna find all of this on The Big E. In fact, you’re going to hear it all on “The Big E”, the opening title track to Editrix LP3. Read more about The Big E here.

“Talking to Myself”, Julian Cubillos
From Julian Cubillos (2025, Ruination)

Julian Cubillos starts with a two-minute acoustic folk-pop song that, while quite compelling in its own right, also kind of feels like it exists to set us up for “Talking to Myself”, a stunning 80s synth-funk pop creation that is just executed perfectly. It’s sophisti-pop synth selections delivered with a Prince-like attitude and groove; Cubillos sounds laid-back and overtly casual for most of the track, but when it’s time to push himself and hit some higher notes, he’s right there, too. Read more about Julian Cubillos here.

“(That’s Just My) Dream Girl”, The Wind-Ups
From Confection (2025, Dandy Boy)

If you’ve enjoyed the incredibly lo-fi/fuzzed out sound, one-man-garage-band energy, and big hooks of previous Wind-Ups records, I’ve got good news with regards to what you’ll find on Confection–it’s comparatively more collaborative than the previous Wind-Ups releases (which were mostly Jake Sprecher solo affairs), but Confection still sounds as crunchy and clanging as ever. The no-fi, scuzzy garage punk side of The Wind-Ups never quite goes away on Confection, but single “(That’s Just My) Dream Girl” moves things closer to the world of straight-up jangle pop (through a hazy lens, of course). Read more about Confection here.

“It’s About the Money”, Robbie Fulks
From 50-Vc. Doberman (2009, Boondoggle)

Something short-circuited in my brain last month and I found myself needing to listen to almost every album by alt-country veteran Robbie Fulks in order. That’s how I ended up fixating on “It’s About the Money”, a song I’d never previously thought twice about from a release that nobody outside of serious Robbie Fulks-heads know about. 50-Vc. Doberman was a fifty-song digital data dump (kind of before that became a known category in music) that I don’t believe you can hear or purchase anywhere anymore in 2025, but there’s a “sampler” on streaming services that contains “It’s About the Money” and a few other highlights (“Coastal Girls”, “Little Brother”, and “Arthur Koestler’s Eyes” all rule). “It’s About the Money” is an awesome electric, dirty, sleazy country rocker about–well, you can read the title. Fulks’ career is littered with gems like this, but this time around it’s the money’s turn in the spotlight.

“Still It’s News to Me”, West Coast Music Club
From Poppelganger (2025, 72rpm)

From January to May, West Coast Music Club released four EPs, all of which were conceived as teasers for an eventual full-length LP.  If you’ve been keeping up with those EPs as I have, it won’t come as a surprise that Poppelganger is made up of enjoyably fuzzed-out, crunchy, quite British guitar pop music; the group put together a collection of meandering but electric fuzz-pop that hangs together very well as an album. Poppelganger runs the gamut from simple and straightforward to muddy and distorted, but the pop side of West Coast Music Club comes through crystal clear even at their muddiest. The sugar-blast indie pop refrain of “Still It’s News to Me” is perhaps the best hook on Poppelganger, but there’s plenty of competition. Read more about Poppelganger here.

“Never Never”, Lammping & Bloodshot Bill
From Never Never (2025, We Are Busy Bodies)

Toronto’s Lammping are a psychedelic duo comprised of drummer Mikhail Galkin and producer Jay Anderson, and Bloodshot Bill is a one-man rockabilly machine from Montreal who has been reliably releasing albums since the late 2000s. Never Never has a really wild sound, but it’s a natural and pretty intuitive one, too–it really does feel like the synthesis of its three creators. It’s very psychedelic and experimental hip-hop-focused, a vibe that is equally due to Galkin’s rock-band-evoking samples and Anderson’s live-wire, shuffling drumbeats. The freaky, muddy blues-funk of the title track kicks off Never Never with some pretty aggressive mood-setting between the cartoonishly warped instrumental and a Bill performance to match it. Read more about Never Never here.

“Safety Car”, OK Cool
From Chit Chat (2025, Klepto Phase/Take a Hike)

Windy City duo OK Cool confidently take their place in the middle of a very specifically “Chicago” style of indie rock that’s equal parts “folky” and “Exploding in Sound-inspired guitar explorations”, somewhere in between Ratboys, Moontype, Patter, and Morpho, among others. OK Cool have always had a bit of a “playful” side to their music, and while it’s still there in Chit Chat (their debut LP after a collection of EPs and singles), the duo sound locked-in and focused on making a palpable step forward in the form of a coherent long-player. “Safety Car” comes after a couple of more dramatic tracks and shrinks OK Cool down to the world of a more personal, grounded style of guitar pop (which, as it turns out, sounds good when practiced by the duo, too). Read more about Chit Chat here.