Rick’s 2025 in Review
By WTJU Rock
Rick’s Best of 2025!
[a year in which the only good news was record release news]
Hallelujah the Hills – DECK
Leave it to the best DIY band in Boston to crowdsource their biggest, most ambitious album yet. DECK, a 54-song quadruple album, is composed of songs titled by the band’s fans via a clever Kickstarter campaign, and boy, are there songs: one for every card in a playing deck, plus a couple Jokers to boot. DECK covers just about every mood, every emotion: from regret to hope, easy new love to love worn and well-tested, righteous anger to universal wonder. Shuffle the DECK and see where it takes you.
Haley Heynderickx, Max García Conover – What of Our Nature
Their second collaboration, HH and MGC are back with a stunning collection of folk songs inspired by the life and work of Woody Guthrie. Simultaneously gentle and furious, What of Our Nature hit me hard. Easily one of the best and most urgent albums of the year. We need protest music now more than ever.
The Boojums – The Boojums
Sometimes you need a little old-fashioned rock and roll that sounds like it slithered and stomped its way out of what must be the warmest garage in Nova Scotia. This 3-piece from Port Hawkesbury burst into my Youtube algorithm last spring with some fun, simple, high energy videos that also rocked, like, SO hard. So it was a joy to get their full debut LP on Halloween. If you can listen to this record without dancing around the house, check your pulse.
Samantha Crain – Gumshoe
She’s been making great music for nearly two decades now, but mark 2025 as the year that Samantha Crain put it all together. Gumshoe has all the poetry and verve and bite you can expect from a Samantha Crain record, but the songs are laser-focused and show some fantastic pop leanings that caught me totally by surprise. It’s just a really, really great album, y’all.
Indigo De Souza – Precipice
Speaking of leaning into the power of pop, Indigo De Souza’s follow-up to 2023’s fantastic All of This Will End has some bonafide pop bangers. She’s still fixated on love and death, like all my favorite artists are, but now she’s making you dance while she makes you ruminate.
Garrett T. Capps – Life Is Strange
Y’all know everything GTC does makes me happy (thanks, Don!), and his new “solo” record was no exception. More country and not as cosmic as the last two NASA Country releases, if it lacks an abundance of psychedelic flourishes, it more than makes up for that fact by being maybe Garrett’s most personal and intimate record yet. Turns out even space cowboys have daddy issues, y’all, and they sound great on wax.
SPRINTS – All That Is Over
SPRINTS just keep getting better and better. Every song on All That Is Over is an earworm that still manages to rock your fillings loose. Put it on, play it loud, and repeat.
Aesop Rock – Black Hole Superette
Speaking of getting better, Aesop Rock is almost 50 years old, and good god, has he matured into the most entertaining and eloquent storyteller in hip hop or what? Aes has always been a fantastic storyteller, even if those stories seemed a little obtuse on those early releases. Black Hole Superette, however, carries the torch he lifted with songs like “Long Legged Larry” in 2021, proving that he can truly rap about anything and make it just the most marvelous, mind-bending, bazooka-toothed tale you will ever have the joy of bumping your head to.
The Protomen – Act III: This City Made Us
Okay, this one is kind of a cheat because the official release date isn’t until January 9th, BUT all the songs have been released on Bandcamp already, and it’s freaking Act III by the Protomen, y’all. We’ve been waiting over 15 years for these Nashville geeks’ epic conclusion to their rock opera about Mega Man and his struggles against fascist robots. And did I mention lead singer Raul Panther III sings like a young Freddie Mercury? Get on the Protomen hovercraft already, GEEZ.
Geese – Getting Killed
I am way late to the party with these Geese kids, but holy moly. If you put early Radiohead, Car Seat Headrest and a little Julian Casablancas sneer into a blender with a pinch of PCP, I feel like you’d get something like Getting Killed. It’s one of those albums that gets the brain percolating, if only for how new and different it sounds. If a record can rewire your brain even just a little, you know you’re listening to something special.
Honorable mentions: The Bestiary by Castle Rat, SQUAWK! by SAVAK, Bleeds by Wednesday, Fate Unknown by HOT LOAD, Dance Called Memory by Nation of Language
Rick hosts Radio Free Carthage, Thursdays, 1 a.m. – 3 a.m.
