Imperial Triumphant: Goldstar (2025)

Maybe I’m just basic. An imposter. But let me explain my take on Imperial Triumphant and their whole vibe/aesthetic (not to mention their discography) and why now I’m more confident and sincere when I say I’m a fan. Because Goldstar is not only their best, most accessible album, it also helped me to analyze my own complicated feelings when it comes to bands everyone else loves, and I just don’t get. I’m sure that wasn’t their intention, but I think they’d be happy to know their brazen concoction of jazzy technical death metal helped me feel more comfortable about, well…me.

ChrisDecember 29, 2025December 29, 20251 Comment

The 9C Files, Vinyl

The 9C Files: Kryptograf’s Kryptonomicon

Shocking, I know: the stoner rock guy fell hard for the new album by Scandinavian retro rockers Kryptograf. What can I say? I’m an easy mark, one made easier by the fact that since their 2020 self-titled debut the group have been churning out an intoxicating brew of stoner rock and doom in the vein of classic Black Sabbath mixed with more modern sensibilities – think Witchcraft in their heyday. And had Kryptograf stayed the course with album number three, the wonderfully titled Kryptonomicon, I would have been content. But rather than stayed glued to a proven formula, there are enough tweaks here that I came away even more impressed with how the band can absorb influences and spit them out in a cohesive whole uniquely their own.

ChrisDecember 28, 2025December 28, 2025Leave a comment

Nankai TRIO: Antarctica (2025)

Hope everyone out there is having a good holiday if you celebrate, or just a good day if you don’t. On the music front, I received some lovely gifts from family, including a few killer records and the complete recording of Henry Cow I’ll eventually get to. Nothing from 2025, though (are you surprised?) so as I kick back post-Christmas with a cup of coffee, let’s talk jazz fusion. Since seeing the sublime ridiculousness of the cover art, I’ve been hooked on Nankai Trio and their debut Antarctica. The Japanese trio take the technical virtuosity of classic fusion groups like Return to Forever and inject some modern shred into their songs, and the result is one of the most enjoyable, exciting albums I’ve heard this year.

ChrisDecember 26, 2025December 29, 2025Leave a comment

Vinyl

Psychedelic Porn Crumpets: Carpe Diem, Moonman (2025)

Discovering Psychedelic Porn Crumpets was a happy accident, one of the good things that came out of my VNYL subscription years ago. I thought there was something fun about 2019’s And Now For The Whatchamacallit, the Australian band’s sophomore collection of psych, prog, and gnarly garage rock. There were similarities to what I was digging and discovering in King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, and this year with the May release of Carpe Diem, Moonman (not to mention the October’s Pogo Rodeo) the group have risen up with the kind of driving rock I’ve come to love, and miss from the ’70s southern boogie KG&LW have been putting out lately.

ChrisDecember 24, 2025December 29, 2025Leave a comment

Vinyl

Dominic Sanderson: Blazing Revelations (2025)

I love it when a band or artist stretches just a little bit further than what the majority of listeners expect when they come to an album. Dominic Sanderson is in his mid-20s, and while his brand of analog progressive rock has some of the usual touchstones, I can hear more avant-garde leanings, taking bits of Van der Graaf Generator and swirling them around with the more modern vibes of The Tangent on Blazing Revelations, his sophomore album released earlier this year. It’s an incredible album, growly and thick and heavy with jamming, yet still tied to intricate arrangements and structure. Plus, flute…so you know it’s got a little of that angular Tull riffing.

ChrisDecember 22, 2025December 29, 20251 Comment

The 9C Files, Vinyl

The 9C Files: Mean Mistreater’s Do Or Die

There’s an alternate reality, a shadow world if you will, where Mean Mistreater, the Austin, TX metal upstarts came out in the late 80s, and after months of hard work delivered their sophomore album Do or Die to the label. The response from some cigar-chomping exec with dollar signs in his eyes (I’m thinking specifically of this image) would leer and hand them a dictionary-sized pile of notes, probably starting with things like “the drums are too busy”, “why is it so fast?” and – perhaps most horrifying – “can you make it more, you know…sexy?” Thank god we don’t live in that shadow world, and thank god Mean Mistreater are here not changing a damn thing from their fantastic debut, giving us a ripping storm of a heavy metal record, all bite to accompany its massive bark.

ChrisDecember 21, 2025December 29, 2025Leave a comment

Consuming the Tangible

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Tag: best of 2025