2025: Top 5 New Discoveries

 (5 favorite albums from 2023 or prior that I discovered this year)

5. Eldritch Anisette - Complete Fairytales

Released as a cassette demo and 7" in 1997.
Reissue compilation: Numero Group 08/2025

2025 was the year of the Emo Reissue for me. Eldritch Anisette was one of the brightest spots on the Sequoia box set (more on this later), and I snagged the insanely limited-run LP from Numero. This is great, unheard 90s indie with female vocals. Now that Numero's plugging it, it's going to be all over your spotify just like Everyone Asked About You.

 

4. Brian Eno - Another Green World

   

Island Records, 1975

Yes, it's taken me this long to finally hear this album. And yes, it's exactly as good as you would expect. This is one of Eno's "pop" albums, but about half the songs are instrumental. Recommended if you like Bowie's berlin albums, Talking Heads, or just really good rock music.

3. Cypress Hill

   

Columbia Records, 1991

I don't listen to much rap. But I totally dig this. This is G-funk the way I like it. West coast and silly. Yes, the Insane in the Brain beat gets put in half the movie trailers nowadays, but this is some cool stuff. This, technically, is their first album, before Insane in the Brain... but this album is just as good as Black Sunday. Sounds like they're having a lot of fun making this. OK, so I'm a little bit annoyed that they keep rhyming things with "trigger"... oh well...

 

2. Blow It Out Your Ass It's Veruca Salt

 

DGC, 1996

Major label EPs seem to get lost in the hype machine. I missed this EP the first time around, and I haven't run into it since. After being the overhyped alterna-next-big-thing with their 1995 debut American Thighs, Veruca Salt pulled a Nirvana and recorded with Steve Albini (yay! lots of Albini love in this list, always). This EP is what I always wanted from Veruca Salt. Shimmer and grit. More than just a Breeders rip-off, but a snarling, layered, melodic treat. This is 4 GREAT songs from Veruca.

1. Sequoia / Sycamore box set

 

Numero Group, 2025

A big square box that will forever sit in my living room-- This is an ambitious 25 7" box set (plus bonus 2x7" Sycamore comp) reissuing a whole bunch of late-80s/early-90s emotive indie rock. Everything here has been released before, but surprisingly, given my collection, I only owned one of the 7"s. Many of the others, I had on other formats, but also, many of the rest were new to me. I could nit-pick and say that this collection over-represents 1993 and California. It tends to get a bit repetetive in the middle, but there are some real gems. Top notch include some Hated, Unwound, and I think my favorite 7" (At least today) is The Lazarus Plot. I also really dig the Rye Coalition song -- how did they turn from that into their later AC/DC phase?

Anyway, I am going to paste the tracklist here because it's lengthy:

Carpe Diem - No Merge
Carpe Diem - Carpe Diem
Carpe Diem - Turning Over
The Hated - Underground 
The Hated - Not Mine
The Hated - Damned Heart
The Hated - Psalm
Wind of Change - Rain
Wind of Change - How I Feel
The Vagrants - Open Book
The Vagrants - Gone
The Vagrants - Alone
Chino Horde - Merit
Chino Horde - Racket
Unwound - You Bite My Tongue
Unwound - Kid Is Gone (Chant of Vengeance)
Unwound - Understand and Forget
Native Nod - Bread
Native Nod - High Tide in Alaska
Native Node - Back to Mimsey
Universal Order of Armageddon - Sympton
Universal Order of Armageddon - Visible Distance
Universal Order of Armageddon - Flux
Clikatat Ikatowi - Saxby's Gail
Clikatat Ikatowi - Off to Here
Pot Valiant - Volar
Pot Valiant - Low Dexterity Points
Boys Life - Lister
Boys Life - Without Doubt
Thumbnail - Parallels
Thumbnail - Split Decision
Thumbnail - Shirts and Skins
Thumbnail - Burning Bridges
Mohinder - The Mission
Mohinder - Alien
Mohinder - Division
Mohinder - Acceptance
Mohinder - The Static Cult
Mohinder - Beautiful
Mohinder - One Warrior
Mohinder - Expiration
Indian Summer - Aren't You Angel
Indian Summer - mm.
Indian Summer - Woolworm
Boilermaker - Used to Be
Boilermaker - Besame Mucho You Fucker
Allure - Little Engine
Allure - Rise and Run
Patterns Make Sunrise - Silo Concordance
Patterns Make Sunrise - Quilceda Creek
Patterns Make Sunrise - So As To
Patterns Make Sunrise - Light to Your Heart
Don Martin Three - Katahdn
Don Martin Three- Inefficient Engine
Current - Basis
Current - Repetition
Current - Continued Rantings
Current - Overbearing
Karate - Cherry Coke
Karate - The Schwinn
Bells on Trike - I Drive
Bells on Trike - The Old Adam
The Lazarus Plot - Friday the Thirteenth
The Lazarus Plot - Confessions to An Early Summer Nightmare
The Lazarus Plot - Dissolving Substance
The Lazarus Plot - Sleepwalker
The Lazarus Plot - Ending Time
The Lazarus Plot - Goodbye, Again
Eldritch Anisette - Suckerpunch
Eldritch Anisette - Pessimism Goes to Work
Eldritch Anisette - Dissection of Silence
Everyone Asked About You - Paper Airplanes, Paper Hearts
Everyone Asked About You - Me Vs. You
Everyone Asked About You - It's Days Like This That Make Me Wish the Summer Lasted Forever
Everyone Asked About You - Everyone Asked About You
Cars Get Crushed - Warped Speed
Cars Get Crushed - Hey Sister Vampire

Frail - Drought
Rye Coalition - Don T. Nils
Endive - 10,000 Dead Roses
Ethel Meserve - Calba's Last