Don Wowsville’s 2025 in Review
By WTJU Rock
This is NOT a best-of-the-year list. I certainly didn’t hear every new album released in 2025, and I reserve the right to find my favorite disc of 2025 in 2027, 2034, whenever (there’s just too much music, y’all).
Many of my favorite discs of 2025 were spearheaded by female musicians trafficking in their own distinct sounds and approaches (electro-pop, folk punk, etc.). There were also performers who made triumphant returns to the scene. While the past year didn’t appear to equal 2024’s onslaught of great new music — there was nothing as earthshaking as Cindy Lee’s “Diamond Jubilee” or Jessica Pratt’s “Here in the Pitch” — there was plenty to like and even love.
Tchotchke, Playin’ Dumb (Tchotchke)
This New York City pop trio effortlessly conjures up the vibe of the classic girl groups of the early ’60s (The Shirelles, the Angels, The Shangri-las) but with a knowing, sardonic wink. This album is awash in pop hooks, singalong choruses and moxie. The title track, for example, is a feminist masterwork wrapped in bubblegum — any lady who endures a boorish male’s mansplaining (“I’ll misunderstand / So you feel like a man”) will sympathize and sing along.
Automatic, Is It Now? (Stones Throw)
Automatic has been turning out stellar disco punk for more than a decade, but the L.A. femme trio’s new LP is leaner, meaner and cleaner, crammed with rhythmic propulsion and pointed commentary on contemporary life (greed, isolation, environmental concern). The dub-like “Don’t Wanna Dance” is the pick hit, but this entire, wondrous, set will make you think and bust a few moves.
The New Eves, The New Eve is Rising (Transgressive)
Who says that there’s nothing new under the sun? The debut of the year came from this quartet of U.K. punk priestesses who fuse the snotty anarchy of X Ray Spex and the Raincoats with the freak folk of Joanna Newsom and Incredible String Band. These ladies sound like they mean it, too. I probably played “Cow Song” — an inspired vocal round that builds in intensity and meaning — more than any other tune this year.
McKinley Dixon, Magic, Alive! (City Slang)
Fusing hip-hop, jazz, choral music, indie-rock and pure soul, this cinematic, kaleidoscopic wonder rewards repeated listens. Dixon, a former Richmonder now based in Chicago, who doesn’t just cut hip-hop tracks, he tells involving stories, and his fifth album continues an impressive streak of outstanding long-players. Can someone tell me why he hasn’t blown up in the mainstream? No one else in contemporary hip-hop is doing anything like this, and he just keeps getting better.
The Bug Club, Very Human Features (Sub Pop)
After a slew of memorable EPs, and a 2022 debut album, “Green Dream In F#,” that still sounds aces, this Welsh indie-rock band hit a sophomore slump with the overly-pretentious “Rare Birds: Hour Of Song.” This latest set is their triumphant return to form, an endlessly hooky and snarky assemblage of bouncy love songs and funny cautionary tales. “Jealous Boy” is the most honest song about unrequited love you’ll ever hear, and “Blame Me” will resonate with anyone nursing a guilty conscience that they just aren’t doing enough to save the world.
Babe Rainbow, Slipper Imp and Shakaerator (P(doom))
While King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, with mixed results, dabbled with symphony orchestras and blues boogie, Babe Rainbow quietly assumed the role of Australia’s best psychedelic rock band in 2025. Its sixth album harks back to the lysergic melodies of psych-era Beatles and Donovan, but with a rhythm section that means business. It’s filled with great songs, breezy and intense in equal measure, but pity about the album title.
Hot Lava, Queen of Fools (Hot Lava)
This was the comeback of the year. After a decade of inactivity, Richmond’s Hot Lava, led by singer-songwriter Allison Apperson, returned with a great new disc that retained the band’s giddy pop-punk sound while integrating a more mature lyrical bent — it was billed as a “break up with yourself” record. “What Not To Wear” was the first single, and it’s great, but the title track is what hooked me in. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait so long for the next album.
Stereolab, Instant Holograms on Metal Film (Duophonic UHF Disks/Warp)
No, this was the comeback of the year. Stereolab’s first LP in 15 years exceeded all expectations, with bandleaders Tim Gane and Lætitia Sadier expanding the band’s signature electro-pop range and introducing some new classics into its repertoire. “Electrified Teenybop!” is the perfect song to test your speakers (and your nervous system), while “Melody is a Wound” is 7:27 of pure Krautrock-damaged bachelor pad music. Like the good old days.
Miramar, Entre Tus Flores (Ansonia)
OK, I mean it this time — this was the comeback of the year. Keyboardist Marylsse Simmons and vocalists Rei Alverez and Laura Ann Singh burst out of the music scene eight years ago with a smoldering set of bolero music, “Dedicated to Sylvia Rexach.” Their return album retains the heated Latin romanticism of that excellent LP while fusing it with a more contemporary rock sound, a 30-piece orchestra, and even, with “Un Astro,” the pulse of dance music. Simmons and Singh had a banner year overall — their excellent collaboration with Rosette String Quartet, “Crumb of Me,” and Singh’s free jazz exploration, “Mean Reds,” are also essential listening.
De La Soul, Cabin in the Sky (AOI/Mass Appeal)
Sigh. OK, this may not have been the comeback of the year, but it was perhaps the most affecting. Nine years after their last album, “And the Anonymous Nobody…,” and two years after the death of David Jude Jolicoeur (Trugoy the Dove), this solid return integrates Trugoy’s final raps (and guest appearances from Nas, Slick Rick and Q-Tip, among others) into a moving — but still grooving — avalanche of song. The pick hit is “Don’t Push Me,” where the late Trugoy quotes Grandmaster Flash, namedrops Emmett Till, and reminds us all of how this group revolutionized hip-hop when they ushered in “The Daisy Age.”
Reissue: The Monkees — Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. (Rhino Deluxe Edition)
One of the best rock albums of 1967 (change my mind!) gets a deluxe edition worthy of its price point, with illuminating alternate takes and remixes that bring out sound elements Monkees fans never knew existed. While it’s fun to hear the Beatles fumble about on “Anthology 4,” this is that rare reissue that makes us reevaluate, reassess and re-appreciate. Album hero: Michael Nesmith, one of the most underrated songwriters and singers of the era. He’s in peak form here.
Don H co-hosts Radio Wowsville, Sundays, 1 1 p.m. – 1 a.m.
The post is also published in Richmond’s Style Weekly magazine, a publication for which Don is a frequent contributor!
