It's me again, Jesse Vitelli. 2025 has been a hell of a year for me. I went from being freelance to Associate Editor over at Restart.Run. I'm a bit biased, but I think we do some really cool work, and have a lot of great freelancers who like working with us too.
I get to run the social media side, which is a new challenge for me, but if you've seen our TikToks and Reels floating around the ether, I like to think you'll agree that we make some cool shit. If you haven't heard of us, go check us out!
You're going to be reading a lot about video games this year, and I'd like to take y'all on a different journey if you'll indulge me. Consider me your Bargain-Bin Anthony Fantano if you will.
For me, 2025 was a year of falling back in love with music in a big way. This is me trying to reignite passions and discover what the hell I actually want to talk about. I'm tired of the discourse, I'm tired of regurgitating the same four conversations, and I'm tired of trying to decide what game arbitrarily gets to be the best of the year. So we're not doing that this year!!
Instead, we're talking about the music everyone should walk away from 2025 having listened to. I don't talk about music in long-form written style, so this is a first for me. I hope I do it justice!
Before we get into it though, I'd of course like to thank the GB crew for including me on content this year. I don't think words will ever truly encapsulate how much these guys mean to me. From being trapped in the Love on the Leash/Noobz VR headset to choppin' it up in the morning with Grubb, I think 2025 was a solid year for shenanigans.
I've had a lot of personal and family issues this year that made trying to stay focused on gaming tough. Constant trips back home made music a much more integral part of my life again. I used to book shows on Long Island, I used to be heavily involved in the scene there, which, if you know, has birthed some of the most formative pop-punk, emo, and hardcore bands. So it felt really good to rediscover a part of me I thought lost, even in all the turmoil.
Everything continues to be bad, so we have to turn to our community, the people who lift us up and can remind us that we have each other because no one else out there does. Lean on those you need, don't be afraid to ask for help, and remember that sometimes the internet truly doesn't matter. Turns out, going outside is pretty sick!
10. Rosalia - Lux
I'll be real, I don't think I fully grasped this album my first few listens. It's a dense journey filled with moments of pure brilliance. Rosalia runs the gamut here rhythmically, stylistically, and provides maybe one of her most comprehensive albums to date. The best way to describe Lux is if Rosalia turned up with the great composers of the classical era and then came back to write about it. Lux spans multiple languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, and more. It's a tricky album to write about because it covers so much ground in just 49 minutes. Swelling strings sections, pop bangers, and dance numbers that will have you partying with the woman of faith.
La decepción local, rompecorazones nacional
Un terrorista emocional, el mayor desastre mundial
Es una perla, nadie se fía
Es una perla, una de mucho cuida'o
9. Clipse - Let God Sort Em Out
Despite its lower ranking on the list (and lower than another hip-hop record on this list), Clipse came out swinging with one of the most impactful records of the year. Hip-Hop duo Malice and Pusha T are back after their last studio album in 2009. Rolling out high-energy features from iconic artists like Kendrick Lamar and Tyler, The Creator, Clipse isn't here to play. Pulsating beats and hard, punctuated lyrics poke and prod every track. Much like their faith, Clipse has always been a duo that lets the beat guide them, everything in service of a good beat that paints the entire track. "Let God Sort Em Out" is no different.
Thumping bass and synths spread over tracks like Ace Trumpets to underscore powerful lyrics. Clipse came back with chiseling tools, using their lyrics and beats with pinpoint accuracy to strike the marble hard and fast. Self-reflection permeates the record, but the way Malice hits "My homies that didn't die was all in prison, visits behind the glass, my mirror image, Skin is blemished" still sends a haunting image down my spine. Let God Sort Em Out is filled with small moments that hit over and over again.
Just a million trapped between skeletons
This the darkest that I ever been
The diamonds make you taste peppermint
You ain't thrive in the snow like it's The Revenant
And send orders back down and keep shovelin'
8. Florist - Jellywish
I always gotta show love to a Brooklyn band, and Florist is one of the best. Jellywish explores depression and extensionalism with a razor-sharp knife. Cutting through to your core without lifting more than a finger. Somber riffs and low hums layer the album, but don't be fooled. Tracks like Moon, Sea, Devil will deliver a gut punch when you least expect it. Draping themes of death into an ordinary-sounding album shows that saying sad things for the sake of it doesn't really cut it anymore. You need to marry a concept, and the way Florist intertwined depression with functioning adults is what brings Jellywish onto this list.
"So I reach out my hand
Isn't it all just impossible timing?
Every day I try, then I fail
Isn't that all we're doing here?"
7. Home is Where - Hunting Season
As I've gotten older, I've found myself listening to more and more folk/Americana music. I'm not really sure if that's just a sign that time never slows down or if there's something more existential going on that I should talk to my therapist about.
However, Hunting Season by Home is Where finds a way to blend folky guitar noodling with your typical Midwest emo guitar noodling. It's just a noodlefest over here. It's becoming more and more of a trend for artists incorporating folk into their sound in 2025. Home is Where manages to do this without ditching singer Bea MacDonald's raw vocals. Hunting Season paints vivid pictures of trailer parks, the fresh natural air, and how nothing manages to stay the same. Conveying a picture of yearning for how things used to be, but also managing to quickly shift gears on Bike Week, which paints a very different picture. Images of a hundred American flags juxtaposed against motorcycle accidents and scraping leather on the asphalt. Home Is Where isn't interested in celebrating America or glossing over its pitfalls and problems, like other Americana music tends to. It's critical, reflective, and a must-listen to emo album of 2025.
Yeah, you tear your insides out
Grass grew through and around
The building equipment abandoned with the house
Now the birds only come down
To the ground from the sky and the power lines
For the dead dragged by the wayside
6. Drain - …IS Your Friend
I'm the first to tell you that Long Island and New York Hardcore is where it's at, but Drain proves that Santa Cruz can still shred with the best of them. Their third studio album, "...Is Your Friend" is about finding common ground through sick riffs and breakdowns.
Sonically, "...Is Your Friend" is like sifting through a trough of mud with your bare hands. It has a sludge to it that you've come to expect from Drain. Who have been putting on some of the most interesting and electric live shows the scene has seen. Every blast beat and riff keeps the energy high, like you could fight godin the street without any enhancements. It's emblematic of Santa Cruz and California at large, elevating the vibes from their 2023 record "Living Proof" which focused more on proving themselves to the scene and kids who grew up on hardcore. While "...Is Your Friend" mixes up metal influence with hardcore, it still remains true to the band's roots. Blending genres isn't a bad thing, and Drain toes the line quite nicely here.
It's the quintessential hardcore listen of the year, with a runtime of only 27 minutes. Drain manages to remind you they are here to stay, and it's cool to party with them if you can handle some static.
'Cause you're the loudest in the room
It's all talk and nobody here respects you
'Cause the loudest has got the least to say
Wow
5. Kerosene Heights - Blame It On The Weather
I've spent a lot of 2025 mourning my youth. As I look back on countless nights roaming with friends, getting drunk in the woods, and falling in love. Moments I'll never get back, feelings I'll never feel again.
Kerosene Height's sophomore album, "Blame it on the Weather" manages to distill all of these feelings into a framework that resonated with me far more than any other album this year. It's emo in its purest form. Longing for things that don't exist anymore. It's reflecting on past loves, trying to determine if you've made the right choices in life. That's the shit I live for. I love to stew in my own sadness and have it expressed so eloquently when words fail to formulate in my brain.
People will always remind you that you're not alone, but what does that actually mean? Sure, everyone has their hurdles and trials in life, but sometimes it's hard to parse how someone can have the same problems as you. It's not until you overcome some of those that you realize everyone in the room has struggled with something similar, even if not exactly the same.
"Blame it on The Weather" was that album for me. The album to remind me to slap myself in the face and say, "wake the fuck up dude." For that, I'll forever be grateful.
It takes one to know one
But I feel likе I'm a no one
And I, can't help but run from
Everyday likе it's my last one
4. Turnstile - Never Enough
You knew we were going to talk about Turnstile at some point. Don't act surprised. You and everyone you know have been yelling about this album all year.
Frontman Brenden Yates finds a way to turn his plague of perfectionism into a highly focused and cutting record. The feeling of never being enough for those around you, your art never being enough to be recognized by your peers, and that nagging voice in your head telling you everything you do is never enough.
A theme that is central to the album, but one that any creative can relate to. Even as I type this list out, I overanalyze every word on the page. Am I good enough? Do I have any fucking idea what I'm even doing here? Do people care? Why am I never enough?
All of this is conveyed through a pointed and trippy hardcore record. Sure, it's softer than even their previous record, Glow On, but it still brings the heat when it needs to. We don't always talk about pacing of a record, and I think the pacing of "Never Enough" is incredibly vital to why this thing works at all. Lullaby intros of songs like the title track into high-octane breakdowns and chorus punctate the lyrical prowess of Yates.
A thoughtful introspection into the creative process and the rise to stardom that many hardcore bands never see. Turnstile has been positioned to bring hardcore more and more into the mainstream. I've gone from seeing them in 200 person rooms where they are the bottom of the bill to selling out arenas and racetracks.
Tracks like Birds still let that Baltimore punk scene shine through, even if that venue size has changed. "Never Enough" works because it's raw, honest, and doesn't show a band showered in stardom turned cynical, but a band that still has that dog in them.
You know I've come to find it hard
To know exactly where you are
You left me folded in the dark
3. Lambrini Girls - Who Let The Dogs Out
Lambrini Girls put out their debut record "Who Let The Dogs Out" in the beginning of January, and this shit rips. The Brighton-based duo takes on male-dominated workplace culture, misogyny, and Homophobia.
Lambrini Girls write like an axe to the skull. It's simple, yet effective. They don't need to dress up the ugly things they are writing about into easily marketable and digestible snippets. It's not about being clean, it's about being real. Fast-paced lyric delivery over heavy guitar and bass provide everything you need.
It's a cathartic record, the feeling of finally telling someone off for being racist or homophobic. Telling them to fuck off with everyone around you singing along. A communal experience of dunking on clowns for being shitty. Sometimes you just need a record to say something, even if it's not a new something. Songs like Big Dick Energy call out toxic masculinity for what it is. Swift, blunt, and straight to the point. If you see stuff like this in the world, call it out, do something about it.
Hang the pigs that hunt your daughters
Stop-and-search, lambs to the slaughter
Reprimands supercharged
Protect and serve, point and shoot
2. Geese - Getting Killed
Geese is the band I kept hearing about; I couldn't escape them. Everywhere I looked, my friends were talking about Geese. Not to be confused with Goose. I see how you could do that.
"Getting Killed" is a dense record, and I mean that positively. It's not a record you're going to get immediately, and if we're being honest, I still don't know if I fully understand all of its complexities. Cameron Winter layers it on this record. Every track builds into a musical interesting crescendo with interesting little pokes of what I call rhythmic adhd. Stray guitars, percussion, and a lyrical volume that makes "Getting Killed" feel full.
Tearing down what came before them to put it in a blender and build something new forces us to also reevaluate how we evaluate music, with so many of the great before them have done. Winter's lyrics constantly stunlocked me, left me with so much to chew on, I couldn't focus on the actual instrumental tricks that we're being done to me. Opener Trinidad paints a violent picture of how he sees the world through surreal and cathartic moments.
It's not a record to listen to once or twice, but one that you'll walk away with something new upon subsequent listens. The Brooklyn-based group have cemented their legacy in rock incredibly early in their careers. I'm still listening to this record to pick apart a new guitar twinge or bass walk that feels out of left field.
We don't always get a record that can redefine what it means for a genre, but Geese have given that to us in 2025.
The Lord has a lot of friends, and in the end
He'll probably forget he's met you before"
Oh Charles, tell me about the end
You were there the day the music died, and
I'll be there the day it dies again
1. Danny Brown - Stardust
If you made it this far, congratulations, you did it. We're here to talk about my favorite album of 2025.
The new Danny Brown album is a triumphant moment in his career. A hyperpop rap album about being proud of yourself, persevering through addiction, and coming to terms with your legacy, the ugly parts, and the beautiful ones. Stardust sees Danny unafraid to be weird, using his lyrical contortionism to rap over anything and everything. From the opening Book of Daniel, which sees Brown exclaiming that he isn't going anywhere, he's done and seen it all, and has been embraced for his weirdness in this space.
Hyperpop beats run rampant on this record only put in their place by Brown's ability to subdue them into instant classic beats. Starburst hits with a tectonic beat with precision strikes from Brown. It's hard to keep up with the words Brown weaves. From hitting bars about Evanescence to sending his ass to heaven, it's a trip. The midway switch up to a beat that sounds straight out of Tetris Effect proves that Brown is using this entire album as a victory lap. A culmination of everything he's worked toward. It's all for this moment.
Interstitial reflective and trippy monologues coat the song to wrap them in a bouquet of existentialism.
Punctuated by pop bangers like Copycats and Whatever The Case with features from underscores and ISSBROKIE round out this album. Brown is boxing the audience, and I never knew where the next hook was going to connect. Stardust is simply operating on a level of clarity I don't know I've ever seen from him. There's a level of acceptance on this record, especially in the 9 minute track The End which features entire verses in Ukrainian. Brown goes off on this track, with beefy reflective verses about his life and how far he's come. Lyrics like "Been through that fire, ain't no liar, made it up out that struggle (Yeah) Had a couple buyers, I got tired, wrapped up in that hustle (Uh-huh)
"Can't tell my dream, they can't believe I made it and I'm still here" showcase Brown's versatility as a writer, but also his ability to cut straight into the issue.
A record about believing in yourself and reaping the rewards making it work. The things you go through, even if you don't think you'll come out of the other side in one piece, define who you are. Celebrate all parts of your life, the ugly ones and all, because that's what makes you, you.
Danny Brown has found his place, he's happy with who he is and what he has done, A powerful message to the haters that he's still here and isn't going anywhere.
We all love a comeback story (Style)
They was worried, underdog, lost it all, got my head up off that fall (Style)
Now it's all up from here, living life without a fear
Shedding tears 'cause I'm still here, blessed to see another year
We did it chat. It's over, I hope you'll give these records a spin. Have a happy holidays and I'll see y'all in 2026. Bargain-bin Anthony Fantano out.