ACF Mid-2025 Check-In

the best of 2025 so far

i’d like to do this without much ado at all but i’ll give myself a little ado, as a treat. the big thing you should know right now is that my friends and i over at Power Goth Recordings released the new Flesh Tape EP, Gravesite. It’s a rock record about america’s industrialization and the people killed or left behind by it. politics aside, it rips. it’s 8 minutes but it’s on endless loop in my mind. it sounds like Ride and Smashing Pumpkins fighting in an alleyway.

and now, the best of 2025 thus far

Best records

billy woods - GOLLIWOG

at one point i thought i’d heard billy woods rap about it all before and realized that wasn’t the point. the point is that life regularly challenges us all and the challenges feel similar to the ones before them, but we adapt and excel regardless of the situation. the more i listen to woods, the more i realize he’s a good rapper not just because the rhymes are tight and the beats are selected with such a careful touch, but because he’s also really funny. he’s quick, he’s sharp, he’s incisive, and witty in ways plenty of artists are not. i’m still thinking about the darko miličić line.

Whirr - raw blue

technically yes it was released last year but w/e. i’m not one to espouse some idea that real shoegaze sounds a certain way, but it should feel a certain way. whirr is a band who clearly makes shoegaze in a tradition of love and not one of teen angst or anger like 70% of your local scene who tried to make shoegaze and made a bunch of songs that would speak to fans of something like three days grace.

Kaleidoscope - Cities Of Fear

the situation is dire: punk music doesn’t sound like punk music anymore and for the most part, doesn’t stand for anything. in an increasingly apolitical soundscape, kaleidoscope do whatever they can to upset the status quo. you should listen to “blood minerals” ASAP.

Los Thuthanaka - Los Thuthanaka

oppresively wondrous music that makes me think about how beautiful and vast this world is.

Dynamite - Settle The Score

no bullshit, nothing fancy, just a damn good hardcore ep that doesn’t aspire to be anything more than the best of what it is.

Grand Scheme - EP

same sort of description as the dynamite record would apply here but it’s a different kind of hardcore and it’s the best of its kind.

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Trending Upwards

Erika De Casier - Lifetime

downtempo nostalgia r&b done the right way

Puffer - Street Hassle

so many bands wish they could write rock tunes half as good as puffer but they won’t turn their brains off like puffer does. just a ripper of a record.

Retirement - Attention Economy

yep, another week mentioning this record but if you check it out, you’ll understand why.

Identity Shock - Traces

i think every year is a pretty good year for hardcore because hardcore is kinda the same every year, but the identity shock record is really good and just different enough to make me say “i want to listen to this more than other records”

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Best Old Stuff I’ve Heard in 2025

Fucked Up - Who’s Got the Time and a Half?

can’t embed this one because it basically doesn’t exist. fucked up released the record for 24 hours and it’s on soulseek. i don’t really like this band and i haven’t for a long time but i heard this was good and wow, what do you know? it’s really good.

Existence - Go To Heaven

cro-mags worship is usually very bad but this? this is very good.

Glifted - Under and In

guitarist of Hum’s old project. music for blowing out the speakers in an ‘80s volvo wagon

Pardoner - Came Down Different

never heard these guys before this spring and i am really rocking with it. very much reminds me of parquet courts but much less professional and that is very good imho

Tim Hecker - Mirages

i slipped into the tim hecker back catalog in early winter and never quite crawled out.

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thanks for reading, more to come next week. thanks