2025 - Year in Review (Amanda’s List)

The tarot card of the year was The Hermit—
INTROSPECTION
INNER VOICE
FINDING THE LIGHT (WHEN EVERYTHING’S DARK, 2025 was a bit dark)

So yeah, I went inward.
Witchcraft.
Kundalini.
Pagan roots clawing their way back.
Listening to myself instead of the noise.

BUT THE WORLD WAS STILL BURNING.

Genocide livestreamed daily.
TERFs screaming.
Capitalism eating everyone alive.
Skinny and anti-aging being the golden ticket.

And the album I kept coming back to—
THE ONE—
was Lambrini Girls: Who Let the Dogs Out.

🔥 PRO-PALESTINE
🔥 ANTI-TERF
🔥 ANTI-TOXIC MASCULINITY
🔥 FUCK YOUR CAPITAL
🔥 FUCK YOUR GENTRIFICATION
🔥 FUCK YOUR BODY STANDARDS

Spitting. Laughing. Barking.
Rage with sharp jokes.

While I was working on with my inner voice,
Lambrini Girls were turning my VALUES into NOISE.
Giving my anger a beat, my feminism teeth.
Making me laugh when I wanted to scream.

This is Hermit energy with a molotov.
This is introspection with fuzz pedals.
This is knowing who you are and being LOUD about it.

Let’s keep the dogs out, cunts.

🖤ab

1: LAMBRINI GIRLS - who let the dogs out

2: MOMMA - welcome to my blue sky

3: KORINE - a flame in the dark

4: CLOAKROOM - last leg of the human table

5: XWEAPONX - demo 2

6: MILITARIE GUN - god save the gun

7: DHYANA - mu

8: SYZYGYX - sinner

9: PET SYMMETRY - big symmetry

10: LADY GAGA - mayhem

11: SCOWL - are we all angels

12: GRAHAM HUNT - timeless world forever

13: CRUSH YOUR SOUL - living gracious

14: PAIN OF TRUTH/SUNAMI - coast to coast split

15: RESCUË CAT - flesh & weapon

16: PELICAN - flickering resonance

17: PUP - who will look after the dogs?

18: WESTSIDE GUNN - 12

19: MIZMOR/HELL - alluvion

20: TURNSTILE - never enough

Best of 2025 - Vince's Lists

In some years three or four releases dominate most year end lists, but 2025 was different. The wide range of records championed on 2025’s year end lists is emblematic of the sheer volume of great music being released each year (especially in the world of hardcore, metal & punk). Honestly, any of the 20 records below could have easily ended up in my top five, but Agriculture gets the crown. The Spiritual Sound is Agriculture’s best yet & exactly the type of transcendent, beautiful, queer black metal that we need right now.

I always strive to read more and this year I actually did it. Thanks to the Chicago Public Library & audiobooks on the commute to work, I spent a lot of time with some great books. I added my favorite 10 books I read this year….some were new while others have been sitting on the shelf for years.

I hope you find something on the list below that speaks to you & check it out. My first listening journey of 2026 will be checking out all the cool shit on other year end lists that I missed earlier in the year.

-vh

Best Records of 2025

1 - Agriculture - The Spiritual Sound

2 - Lambrini Girls - Who Let the Dogs Out

3 - Militarie Gun - God Save the Gun

4 - XweaponX - Demo 2

5 - Korine - A Flame in the Dark

6 - Anxious - Bambi

7 - Ragana & Drowse - Ash Souvenir

8 - Graham Hunt - Timeless World Forever

9 - Gruesome - Silent Echoes

10 - MSPAINT - No Separation

11 - Cloakroom - Last Leg of the Human Table

12 - Yellow Eyes - Confusion Gate

13 - Turnstile - Never Enough

14 - Pet Symmetry - Big Symmetry

15 - Deafheaven - Lonely People With Power

16 - End It - Wrong Side of Heaven

17 - Melpomene - A Body Is a Suggestion

18 - Pup - Who Will Look After the Dogs

19 - Basic Needs - The World Isn’t My Concern

20 - Greet Death - Die in Love

Best Books I Read in 2025 (but not necessarily published this year)

1 - Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

2 - The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt

3 - A People’s History for the United States: 1492 - Present by Howard Zinn

4 - The Fort Bragg Cartel by Seth Harp

5 - All Fours by Miranda July

6 - Original Sins by Eve L. Ewing

7 - You Dreamed of Empires by Alvaro Enrigue

8 - Outclassed by Joan C. Williams

9 - Yoko by David Sheff

10 - Exiles by Mason Coile

2024 - Year In Review (Amanda)

I have suffered, for most of my life, with an affliction of hating what is “popular”… It started with Star Wars and has hit at different times - Boy bands, the tv show Friends, MySpace, the list goes on. Some symptoms include hastily made decisions, binary thinking, and stubbornness. As a parent, I have had to really sit with this sort of thinking and have deemed it problematic and have actively been holding up the mirror to myself. Not sure where this all started… let’s get real probably some traumatic childhood event. In my younger years, I wanted to fit in by having hard boundaries on what’s folx deemed cool and have thankfully gotten out of that. We just like what we like and that’s is fucking rad. To be completely unadulterated - what liberation. So as I try to gracefully enter my 40th year - I am saying fuck off to the idea of guilty pleasures/stifled thinking and embrace pleasure. All that to say.. the BRAT album is PURE PLEASURE. It makes you dance, feel, move, think, and just be in the moment. It is a sandwich of sick ass pop music and raw emotion. I didn’t want to like it - I snickered at Vince and my son who were sooooo into early on. There isn’t much to say other than pop music doesn’t get much better than this. Pop albums like this might only be a once or twice in a lifetime thing. I am glad I am there to witness it, hear it, and be into it. Just like may the 4th be with you day or whatever that is - there is a reason that last year was a brat summer. (Also the original Star Wars movies slam, thanks to my son for wanting to watch them with me).

Enjoy 2024 in review - it’s a nice reprieve from 2025. Much love.

-a

1:CHARLI XCX - brat

2:CONTENTION - artillery from heaven

3:KNOCKED LOOSE - you won't go before you're supposed to

4:FRENCH POLICE - bully

5:LESSER CARE - heel turn

6:SOFT KILL - escape forever

7:MALE TEARS - paradísco

8:KALI UCHIS - orquídeas

9:REMI WOLF - big ideas

10:ALKALINE TRIO - blood, hair, and eyeballs

11:SHOOTING DAGGERS - love & rage

12:GOUGE AWAY - deep sage

13:GLARING - dr666 & hope

14:DOECHII - alligator bites never heal

15:COLD CAVE - passion depression

16:CIRCUS - one big joke

17:THE BODY/DIS FIG - orchards of a futile heaven

18:SPENT CASE - s/t

19:SINKANE - we belong

20:JUICEBOX - s/t