Yoo Doo Right, Population II & Nolan Potter: Yoo II avec Nolan Potter (2025)

Ever have one of those workdays that beat you down to the point you can’t remember your name, let alone whatever you had planned when you got home? Today was one of those days, and with only two hours to go I’m going to be very brief about my love for Yoo II avec Nolan Potter, the (possibly) sole output from a two-hour live jam session between Austin, TX psych rocker Nolan Potter and the experimental explorers from Québec: Yoo Doo Right and Population II. TL;DR? Hawkwind circa Space Ritual meets garage groove for some sweet extended jams, perfect for settling down into a better headspace.

ChrisDecember 9, 2025Leave a comment

Vinyl

Dwellers: Corrupt Translation Machine (2025)

There was a moment during the opening of Corrupt Translation Machine, the third full-length from Salt Lake City’s Dwellers where, returning from a moment of distraction, I could have sworn I was listening to an Alice in Chains song. That’s a huge compliment, because outside of the actual AiC (themselves evolving past their ’90s roots) I can’t think of anyone else embodying this blend of psychedelic doom, grunge, and Americana folk and blues so cohesively. A real surprise of a discovery, but no surprise to have found them on Small Stone Records, fast becoming one of my favorite and most dependable labels for heavy, progressive, and psychedelic rock albums. Add this one to an already impressive list of great releases.

ChrisDecember 8, 2025December 7, 2025Leave a comment

Vinyl, The 9C Files

The 9C Files: Sykofant’s Red Sun EP

At Nine Circles we go on and on about the Norwegian metal scene thanks to teeny, tiny signifiers like the birth of second wave black metal and labels like Pelagic leading the post-metal charge. But did you know there was, and is, a massive progressive rock scene there, too? It’s true; even Bandcamp thinks so! If I’m not here writing about trad and stoner metal, chances are I’m chasing down prog by the likes of bands like Wobbler and Tusmørke. But out of the crop of fresh blood peeking out across the country Sykofant has been one of my favorite bands to don the tag. Too many bands forget the “rock” part of the genre, content to rest on the laurels of the 1970s UK pioneers who built the genre. Sykofant never forget, and their new EP Red Sun is another testament to that fact.

ChrisDecember 7, 2025November 26, 2025Leave a comment

Vinyl

sunn O))): Eternity’s Pillars (2025)

BWOOOOOOWWWWWMMM! How a band like sunn O))) can basically take that feeble attempt at onomatopoeia and twist it into something so hypnotic, so mesmerizing and frankly…beautiful is beyond me. Such is the case with Eternity’s Pillars, the new EP/single from the band’s recent signing/partnership with Sub Pop Records. Unhurried and as intentional as ever, the band doesn’t so much rip as thrum their way through three massive tracks that spill molten love all over you.

ChrisDecember 5, 2025Leave a comment

agriculture - the spiritual sound album cover

Cassette

Agriculture: The Spiritual Sound (2025)

Welcome to an experiment. As I write this, my brief take on The Spiritual Sound, the phenomenal sophomore LP from California’s Agriculture, I’m actually listening to their self-titled debut – an album I really, really did not care for. Summoning the joy and fervor the new album gave me while revisiting a debut I found anonymous and cowering behind a wall of bricked production, I began to identify fragments of the things that would fully bloom two years later. I won’t say I’ve come around yet, but man: what a giant leap this album takes – and lands – successfully.

I think.

ChrisDecember 4, 2025December 4, 2025Leave a comment

Vinyl

Kadavar: I Just Want To Be A Sound (2025)

This was supposed to be a different review. But I watching a review on YouTube for the latest from German psych/stoner/prog rock band Kadavar for their just-released second album of 2025, Kids Abandoning Destiny Among Vanity And Ruin and we needed to pivot. Not to review that album – the vinyl doesn’t come out until January – but to address the other album the band released this year, the one a lot of critics and content creators rolled their eyes against and fretted and squawked about the change in direction. And yeah, sure: I Just Want To Be A Sound is a bit jarring if you came expecting more of the deep stoner and ’70s rock worship Kadavar have embraced to varying degrees of success since their debut. A few more listens, though, reveal a real sense of adventure and a fine ear for hooks that recall both ’90s and ’00s rock/pop hybrids even as they remain tether to their flared, bellbottom roots.

ChrisDecember 3, 2025Leave a comment

Consuming the Tangible

We are what we consume

Tag: best of 2025

Yoo Doo Right, Population II & Nolan Potter: Yoo II avec Nolan Potter (2025)

Dwellers: Corrupt Translation Machine (2025)

The 9C Files: Sykofant’s Red Sun EP

sunn O))): Eternity’s Pillars (2025)

Agriculture: The Spiritual Sound (2025)

Kadavar: I Just Want To Be A Sound (2025)