#spill tab

alex’s albums of 2025

EPIC ALBUM COVER #380

spill tab - AngieAngieAngie

Released: 2026 (Because, reissue)

Not sure who’s interested but I love sharing music with anyone willing to listen! Take a gander at some of the jams I’ve been blasting to all year 😀 (I’ll list my favorite EPs some other time) I’ve listed my favorite songs from each if you’re curious!

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#11: Hope We Have Fun by Mt. Joy

Arguably their best album since their debut, this band has come so far from “that one folk band who opened for another band (that I don’t like and I didn’t wanna be there) and they surprised me with how good they were.” They’re at their best when they’re groovy and funky and honestly not folk at all but that’s my personal taste. There’s a few songs I’d skip on this album, which is why it barely misses my top ten. But some really fun stuff!

Favorite Track: “She Wants To Go Dancing”

#10: Burnout Days by Flipturn

Indie rock that’s just incredibly pleasant and comforting through some really solid riffs. This is one of those “Yeah I know that album” sort of albums, where you can’t exactly name every track by memory but once you put the album on you just can’t stop until you get to the end. Groovy and crisp and intense when it chooses. 

Favorite Track: “Burnout Days” (this isn’t a joke about how you can’t always name a song from the album that’s literally the closing track)

#9: Anyway by Anamanaguchi

After the first single “Darcie” dropped I was NOT about this new direction for my favorite chiptune band. I was so sure I wouldn’t like the album. Then I listened to it when it was released. And then again. And then a third time back-to-back-to-back. Safe to say it won me over VERY quickly. A very personal album that, while much more garage-rock than their previous body of work, is distinctly and unashamedly Anamanaguchi.

Favorite Track: “Nightlife”

#8: A Matter of Time by Laufey

Practically a musical in its own right, this album blends jazz-club vibes and orchestral majesty perfectly. Laufey’s voice has such a great range and she commands every song with grace and charisma. The trepidatious nature of love, loss, and recognizing all your own flaws and hoping no one else does but if they do you can warn them about your flaws so they’re prepared. Get on the carousel and don’t look back. 

Favorite Track: “Castle in Hollywood” (because no one sings about friend-breakups and this one makes me cry)

#7: Breach by twenty one pilots

If there’s 21 pilots how come the band’s only got two guys in it? Where’s the other 19? Breach is the culmination of more than a decade-long concept album or something. I can’t keep up with the story. There’s a guy named Clancy and he lives in the Trench and I think a torchbearer is up to something silly- Yes I gotta figure this out, but it doesn’t matter right now. Right now, this album comes packing a punch right after their 2024 album Clancy. I think that album stuck the landing better than Breach but it's undeniable that they threw everything at the wall and most of it really stuck. It feels like the album they needed to make, right before an indefinite hiatus.

Favorite Track: “Tally” (“still now, you believe in me somehow” 😭)

#6: WOW! by BETWEEN FRIENDS

Eclectic half-noise pop half college rock half “weirdo shit” (yes that’s three halves just roll with it). The sibling duo is the definition of “hey this sounds cool lets just do it” and it works every time. This album bounces off the walls more than their last release, jam packing music into 35 minutes like marbles shaking in a jar that’s falling off the empire state building. Does that help you understand? No? Good, now get to work.

Favorite Track: “XD” (or “Jackie.” or “You and Me Time.” or “American Bitch.” You decide.)

#5: ANGIE by Spill Tab

Okay so what if funk was subtle and dulcet tones carried you from song to song and what if alt pop shifted tones so quickly and so effortlessly that you don’t even notice? All of this and more will be answered with Spill Tab’s debut album. As soon as you get into the swaying gentle grooves of “Hold Me” you’ll eventually get assaulted by the pounding grungy “De Guerre” (also get ready to learn french, idiot (it’s me i’m the idiot)). Crazy how good her first album is.

Favorite Track: “Hold Me”

#4: Big Talk by Couch

Big-band brass-driven horns and a disgustingly sexy bass grab you by the hair and take you for a RIDE. Seven musicians and every single one gets a chance to shine. They’re so synced that it’s beautiful to behold. Every song is one I want to hear in the air when I’m visiting a big city or planning a romantic adventure (for someone else lol). Each chorus keeps ramping and ramping so much that by the end of each song you’ll have no idea how we got here.

Favorite Track: “So Myself” (a song about loving yourself and “if I felt it once I can feel it again.” If “One Night” made me tear up every time, I’d pick that instead. But it doesn’t. So here we are.)

#3: BUZZKILL (forever) by Lyn Lapid

Lyn’s last project was a loose concept album about blossoming love and how quickly it can fall apart, that lost isolation of separation leading to newfound independence. I like to think BUZZKILL continues that saga, with many of the songs about pressure, friendship, things lost, reliance, and self-fulfilment. Wrapped up in a head-bopping pop album is one of my favorite lyricists in recent memory. And she’s always got some bonus tracks to fill in the gaps of the original release 😏

Favorite Track: “i’ll be happy when”

#2: I’m Only Fucking Myself by Lola Young

Plucky, giving no fucks, addicted to drugs, working on herself but get off her ass about it. Lola’s last album with the mega-hit “Messy” was good, but kinda lost steam for me in the back half. I wasn’t expecting to be absolutely blown away by this one, yet here I am. It narrowly misses my album of the year. It’s incredibly personal and stripped down in so many unexpected ways (the closing track being just a phone recording of her and her guitar that her producers insisted on cleaning up but she said “haha no”). It’s about independence from the toxicity in your life, it’s about the crippling reliance on things you need to break away from. It’s human. And it’s just fantastic.

Favorite Track: “Not Like That Anymore” (Honestly, like 8 other songs could go here)

ALBUM OF THE YEAR

#1: Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan by The Mountain Goats

Anyone who knows me should have seen this coming. It only released in October so I was worried that it was recency-bias. But, after listening to the album literally once a day every day since it dropped, I think it’s safe to say this one’s a winner. John Darnielle is at his best when telling stories, sometimes vague and sometimes loosely tied around themes he so expertly navigates. Every time they drop an album, I say “Okay it’s not gonna be better than the last one.” And it isn’t. Because every album is such a different beast, in tone and sequencing and themes: You can’t compare them very easily. 

This is a musical drawing from a lot of different genres, mostly “indie rock that makes you want to not die.” It’s about a shipwreck, surviving (but definitely not thriving), stranded on an islet that can barely sustain itself. The food runs out. The starving survivors begin to hallucinate. The rocks in your pockets help you to sink. It’s a hell of a ride, and absolutely deserving of my personal album of the year.

Favorite Track: “Armies of the Lord” (my fav track changes daily)