We’ve reached the top 15 of albums I reviewed (not released) over the last five years. Read on to see who made the list!
#15: Maquina – Prata (2024)
That cover image pretty much sums up the sound of this wild post-punk / noise rock / dance rock album. It’s a stunning record, and I’m happy to report they’re close to releasing a new one.
#14: Lair – Ngélar (2024)
Indonesian psych-rock? Yes, please. Funky, groovy, weird, and playful. This is a delight from start to finish.
#13: Sextile – yes, please. (2025)
Possibly the best dance-punk album of 2025. This record slams non-stop and gets you moving whether you want to or not.
#12: Ki Oni – A Leisurely Swim to Everlasting Life (2023)
A beautiful album about grief, our continued, changed existence after death, and a salute to Ki Oni’s late grandmother all wrapped up in lush ambient music.
#11: No Joy – Bugland (2025)
A brilliant return for No Joy and their shoegaze rock. This album sprinted into the top ten of 2025 for me the first time I heard it.
Speaking of the top ten, come back tomorrow to see who’s in the top ten of the last five years!
Miss Grit‘s new album, Under My Umbrella, is an album about loneliness – both the embrace of it and the sadness of it. Loneliness can be liberating at times. It can feel great to be on your own with endless possibilities before you. It can also feel crushing, like your world has stopped and no one even thinks to look for you while they’re rushing around outside.
The pulsing, symphonic synths of “Tourist Mind” build to an upbeat outlook as you drop the car into drive and head out for a solo road trip to wherever you’d like (as Miss Grit / Margaret Sohn did around North America during a tour). When they sing, “I never wanted to be so alone,” you can’t tell if they’re happy or sad about it. It could be both depending on the moment. “Mind Disaster” sizzles with electric hums and Sohn’s modulated voice sounding like a robot awakening from a weird dream about someone they can’t place but whose presence they can still feel.
“I Won’t Count on You” has Sohn embracing the idea of not having to rely on someone (“I’m going to enjoy this. I won’t count on you.”). “It Feels Like” could be a shoegaze track if you swap the synthesizers for distorted guitars. “Where Is My Head?” is a hypnotizing trip-hop track with Sohn repeating simple lyrics like “You’re all so free.” and “You’ll never see inside of me.” as bubbling, brewing beats and bass surround them.
“Stranger” has Sohn feeling alone as a lover grows detached from them and they’re just trying to keep up before the race is finished. “You Will Change” seems to be about making your way out of the maze of grief with lyrics like “And one day it could all change. While you wait for pain, your heart will go on pushed into another day.” The track (appropriately) flows into “Overflow” – a song about wondering if you’ll know when it’s time to leave a relationship or if you’ll only realize after the other half has left.
The album ends with “Waste Me.” It’s a bit upbeat even though Sohn’s lyrics are sprinkled with sadness (“And it’s very me to feel misunderstood, but I barely try to explain myself to you.”). Sohn is facing the fact that they’re going to be alone, again, for a while, and that might be okay. They’ll just have to ride it out.
It’s all any of us can do, really, but this album helps you navigate it by not feeling so alone.
Keep your mind open.
[Subscribing for music news and reviews might help alleviate loneliness.]
Here we are at the top 20 albums I reviewed over the last five years. Read on to see who made the list!
#20: BODEGA – Broken Equipment(2022)
Sharp, witty post-punk that the world needed then and still needs now. Songs like “Doers” both poke fun at and slap around over-achievers and the work grind, while “All Past Lovers” is a heartfelt love song.
#19: Dry Cleaning – New Long Leg(2021)
Speaking of good post-punk, Dry Cleaning’s first full-length album was a great dose of it. Weird guitar, heavy bass, funky drumming, and odd spoken lyrics? I’m all in.
#18: TV Priest – Uppers(2021)
More damn good heavy post-punk here from these Londoners. The whole album is sweaty, gritty, and growling.
#17: Bonnie Trash – Mourning You(2025)
Holy cow. This record is heavy in both tone and emotion. It’s an album about grief and how it can crush you if you’re not careful. There is beauty here. It’s not just gloom. It’s a stunner that captures all of the emotions you feel after a heavy loss.
#16: Meatbodies – Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom(2024)
These guys were my favorite discovery of 2024. It’s groovy, heavy, and trippy psych-rock that we need more of in this day and age.
Come back tomorrow to see who’s in the top fifteen!
I’m far behind on this, as it’s already mid-May 2026, but I’ve meant to create a list of my favorite records (and concerts, see other posts) of the last five years. I created such lists for my top stuff from 2020 through 2024, so I’m continuing the trend. Mind you, these are the top twenty-five albums I reviewed, not albums released during those five years. There were many excellent albums that slipped through the cracks. Enough backstory. Let’s get to it before this gets delayed yet again.
#25: Rochelle Jordan – Play with the Changes(2021)
This is a beautiful, funky, and sexy record that introduced me to Ms. Jordan’s music and instantly made me want to find out more about her work that mixes house music with R&B with ease.
#24: Brijean – Feelings(2021)
This lovely dream pop record came out of nowhere (for me at least) and floored me. They’re a fun duo who have yet to make a bad album.
#23: Ty Segall – Harmonizer(2021)
I was a bit surprised to hear Ty Segall embracing synthesizers and going into electronic music somewhat on this record, but then I wasn’t surprised because Segall is always exploring different genres and embracing his many influences. It was a cool surprise from him.
#22: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – The Silver Cord extended version(2023)
Speaking of cool surprises: King Gizzard goes full rave! There was the “regular” version of this all-synth album by the Australian psych giants and then this “extended” version of the album that I preferred. Once again, KGATLW showed they can adapt to anything they decide to play.
#21: Anika – Change(2021)
Haunting and gorgeous. That’s the best way I can describe this synthwave album from Anika. It snuggles / slithers up next to you and doesn’t leave for days.
Who’s in the top twenty? Come back tomorrow to find out!
There’s a strange thing that happens when you go through a heavy grief process. Sure, you have all the agony, regret, emptiness, and at least brief moments of madness, but sometimes, after the dust settles a bit, you also have a moment when you realize you can, will, and must continue your journey. It’s an empowering, powerful flash of insight that can zip past you if you’re not careful. You have to grab it when it arrives. It might not return.
Lauren Lakis grabbed it while making her excellent new record Deadlights. She’d already lost friends and family to addictions as she grew up the kid of a single mom in Baltimore. She turned to music and film to make sense of it all, joined some bands, and went around the world. While singing in one of those bands, she went through a bad breakup and then learned her mother had been in a car accident that left her paralyzed.
That’s a lot to carry and channel, and she faces the challenge head-on with “There” opening the album with shoegaze guitars and her voice rising above the dissonance. “Heaven Felt Too High” roars with heavy bass grooves that would make Greg Edwards proud.
“I Fall Apart” has Lakis acknowledging the tough parts of grief, but also how she can keep moving (“I won’t let you down. I won’t turn back and around.”). The bass on “The Other Side” hits as hard as anything Kris Novoselic ever dreamed up and probably starts a mosh pit whenever Lakis plays this song live. She makes some Zen allusions on “It’s So Amazing” in which she sings about being in the here and now.
The title track buzzes like your head after you’ve endured a heavy loss. It’s quiet and yet deafening. “No One’s Around Now” reminds me of advice one of my best friends gave me a couple days before my late wife’s funeral: “You’re going to be surrounded by people who love you…and then they’re all going to go home.” It’s true. Eventually, no one is around to help. You have to do it yourself. Lakis knows this and accepts the challenge. What else can you do?
“Love Like a Dog” is a contender the saddest song on the album. The guitar tones let you know it’s going to be rough sailing for a bit, but there is sun on the horizon. “I Want You Here” probably takes the “saddest song” title, and the drone-like bass and melted guitar chords emphasize the loneliness in the lyrics. Ending with “With That Body,” the album drifts away on almost a dream-psych note. The guitars wind around you like a desert wind and the synth bass and drums nearly pull you into a trance.
Deadlights hypnotizes throughout its length. Its a solid record and one that you’ll revisit a lot during late night drives and gray days.
Thanks to everyone who listened to my first Manic Monday show on WSND of the 2026 summer break. Here’s the set list for the first all-80s show of the season!
The Who – Eminence Front (1982)
Eurythmics – Here Comes the Rain Again (1983)
Fine Young Cannibals – She Drives Me Crazy (Justin Strauss remix) (1988)
Prince – Take Me with U (1984)
House of Large Sizes – T-Time in Memphis (1989)
Steely Dan – Time Out of Mind (1980)
David Sanborn – All I Need Is You (1981)
Dire Straits – So Far Away (1985)
Micheal McDonald – I Keep Forgettin’ (Every Time You’re Near) (1982)
Donald Fagen – Green Flower Street (1982)
Sade – Paradise (1988) (request)
Taylor Dayne – Tell It to My Heart (1987)
The Clash – Capital Radio (live) (1980)
Asia – Only Time Will Tell (live) (1982) (request)
Bruce Springsteen – Bobby Jean (1984)
Huey Lewis and The News – Hip to Be Square (dance remix) (1986)
Eric B. & Rakim – I Ain’t No Joke (1987)
Jody Watley w/ Eric B. & Rakim – Friends (1989) (request)
Kenny Rogers – All My Life (1983)
Patrick Simmons – So Wrong (1983)
Kenny Loggins – Welcome to Heartlight (1983)
DeBarge – All This Love (1983)
Little River Band – We Two (1983)
Walter Egan – Fool Moon Fire (1983)
Daryl Hall & John Oates – One on One (1983)
Jim Capaldi – That’s Love (1983)
Bee Gees – The Woman in You (1983)
The Kinks – Come Dancing (1983)
Queen – I Want to Break Free (Reflex revision) (1983)
UB40 – All I Want to Do (1986) (request)
Lindsey Buckingham – Trouble (1981) (request)
New Order – Ceremony (1981)
The Specials – Message to You Rudy (live) (1980) (request)
Pixies – Broken Face (1988)
The Church – Under the Milky Way (1988) (request)
Love & Rockets – A Private Future (1985)
a-ha – Hunting High and Low (1985)
Public Image Ltd. – Rise (1986)
A Flock of Seagulls – Space Age Love Song (1982)
Madness – Our House (12” mix) (1982)
Mary Jane Girls – Our House (1985)
Motörhead – Back at the Funny Farm (1983)
Killing Joke – Requiem (1980)
Jerry Goldsmith – Night Work (1989)
Jan Hammer – Miami Vice theme (1984)
Rajesh Roshan – Sannata theme (1981)
Charanjit Singh – Raja Malkuns (1982)
Quadrant Six – Body Mechanic (1982)
Van Halen – Everybody Wants Some (1980)
Frankie Goes to Hollywood – Two Tribes (1984)
Hüsker Dü – Hardly Getting Over It (live) (1987)
Abba – Lay All Your Love on Me (1980)
Erasure – A Little Respect (12” mix) (1988)
The Doobie Brothers – Long Train Runnin’ (live) (1981) (request)
The Smiths – How Soon Is Now? (1984)
Kajagoogoo – Too Shy (1983)
Xmal Deutschland – Allien (live) (1981)
Agent Orange – Too Young to Die (1981)
Duran Duran – All She Wants Is (1988)
Adam and The Ants – Red Scab (1982)
Run-DMC – It’s Tricky (1986)
The Cramps – Chicken (live) (1987)
Devo – Soft Things (1981)
Be sure to come back next Monday for another mega-dose of 80s music!
I love how the title of Automatic‘s newest album Is It Now? can be pronounced multiple ways to create multiple meanings, which I think was the point when they named it. It’s open for interpretation. Is it pronounced Is It Now? or Is ItNow? or Is It Now? I think it might be all three.
Halle Saxon‘s funky bass on “Black Box” opens the album with synth player / lead vocalist Izzy Glaudini singing about the frustration of fighting a losing battle, be it in a relationship or the world at large. “MQ9” reveals their love of Devo and krautrock. Drummer Lola Dompé (who has since quit the band) puts down some of her best cyborg beats on the whole record here.
“Don’t sleep your life away,” Glaudini urges on the ultra-cool / sexy hot “Mercury” – a song about not finding excuses for your bad choices. On the next track, “Lazy,” she proclaims, “The thing you thought you wanted was just the image of control.” That’s some Zen right there.
I love how “Country Song,” a song about getting out of the city and embracing a quieter life, is pretty much a city pop song. Glaudini’s bright synths, Saxon’s happy bass, and Dompé’s dance drums put the song in a city club while Glaudini sings about embracing nature. The title track brings OMD and early New Order to mind with its fast beats, grumpy badger bass, and fuzzy synths. Also, the title track doesn’t give any indication on the “proper” way to pronounce the album and song’s title, which is a fun move by them.
“People are polite and frightening,” Glaudini notes on “Don’t Wanna Dance.” She’s stuck in a loud, bright club and would rather avoid the crowd and hang out on the back steps. “Smog Summer” has the band reluctantly returning to city life (“I’ll miss the rain. I’ll miss the moose. I’ll miss the sweet wind whispering tunes.”) as a thick bass riff from Saxon leads the way. It and the following track, “The Prize,” have heavy environmental themes. “Smog Summer” talks about wanton destruction of natural environments, while “The Prize” snarls at the lust for oil and how it ruins everything around it (“You’re gonna learn what the cost to the future means.”).
“Playboi” is a warning to women on the verge of a toxic relationship (“The little boy is losing his head. A malcontent that you’ll never fix. You better run, you better be quick.”). The three of them making this track one of the sultriest on the record is a great in-joke.
The closing track, “Terminal,” is sung in Arabic, with the main (only?) lyrics being “Enough is enough. The coffee boils and the fire doesn’t go out.” It’s almost a drum and bass track and ends the album with an energy boost to inspire us to do something now.
Perhaps that’s the key to the album’s title. Automatic is asking us “Are you going to do something now? How many more red flags do you need?” Now is it, because now is all we have.
I hadn’t heard of Dutch electro artist Joost Klein until a month ago when I heard him mentioned by a local high schooler. I asked my stepdaughter about him and she almost jumped out of her chair. “I love Joost!” she said and was even more thrilled when we learned he was playing in Chicago. The show was originally scheduled for Thalia Hall, but as you can see from that photo, they realized they needed a lot more space for the 3,000+ who showed up at The Salt Shed.
First on the bill was a DJ of sorts – ipadkid2001. I write “of sorts” because I’m not sure if this chap was a DJ or someone pretending to be a DJ. It might have been an act. The crowd was so jazzed that they screamed when ipadkid2001 just turned on the light above his turntables. He played an odd mix of songs, ranging from drum and bass bangers to The Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.” Most of these songs weren’t played all the way through. They were usually snippets or perhaps two verses and a chorus. At one point he played vocal samples that stated, “This is my first time DJing. I don’t know what I’m doing.” and “Wow, ipadkid, that transition was terrible.” I was willing to believe the first statement, and the second was accurate. There were so many awkward transitions between tracks that I wasn’t sure if they were intentional or not. Again, was all this a parody? I don’t know, and by the end I don’t think the audience knew.
A DJ set? A clever joke? I’m still not sure.
Klein’s DJ, DJ Chool, played a set that was so short that I wondered why he even bothered. I mentioned this to my stepdaughter, who rightly stated, “He’s just warming up for Joost.” He was both a DJ and a hype man, who was having a blast dancing around the stage for the few moments he had it to himself.
You were going to try cramming all these people into Thalia Hall?
Klein ran out on stage as soon as DJ Chool got back to his decks and the crowd went bonkers as he began with “Ome Robert” (otherwise known as the lovely ballad “Suck My Ditch, Bitch.”).
SMD, bih!
The whole show was as crazy as the opening number. Klein twice told the audience to look out for each other in the crowd and stay hydrated, once stopping before he started a new song so someone could be removed from near the front due to them being overheated.
My stepdaughter was delighted to hear “1,” and the younger folks in the crowd went nuts when he played a version of Crazy Frog’s “Axel F” while this Gen X’er was amused and baffled. I later told my stepdaughter, “I feel like I should know the story of the crazy frog.” Her response was, “It’s an old YouTube video.” I later learned it’s a Swedish animated character from Eurodance.
My stepdaughter: “He’s gonna play 1!”
Other fun highlights were “Tetetetete” – a Spanish song as a salute to Cinco de Mayo, the “We can all relate to this” track “TRAFIK!” (about being stuck in traffic), and the “We can relate even more to this” cut “Capitalism :D” (about both hating and needing work).
The work hamster wheel / toilet paper roll never ends!
“Zonder Jou” and “Europapa” were other big hits for the crowd. It was a fun show, and one that hadn’t been on my radar. Klein was genuinely appreciative of the crowd and response, commenting multiple times on how he was stunned by the number of people who showed up.
Be prepared to dance, and laugh, if you can catch him. It’s a good time.
