Setlist Kitchen's Best Albums of 2025
- Josh Kitchen
- Dec 30, 2025
- 12 min read
All Write-Ups by Josh Kitchen, except where noted By: Melina Aguilar, Danielle McDuffie, Deepa Mahadevan, Stephen Irvine, and Ricardo Avendaño Vera
Ken Pomeroy - Cruel Joke
It’s all in the storytelling. Ken Pomeroy comes from a long line of storytellers—her great-grandmother (her Mamaw) imbuing in her the traditions of her Cherokee lineage and giving her the name “Little Wolf with Yellow Hair (ᎤᏍᏗ ᏀᏯ ᏓᎶᏂᎨ ᎤᏍᏗᎦ).” That foundation helped shape Pomeroy’s outlook and how she sees herself in the world. Growing up in Moore, Oklahoma, music was all around her, her dad opening their home garage to traveling musicians. Pomeroy heard and saw firsthand what it meant to be that kind of storyteller. Along with discovering John Denver when she was six, it set her on the path she finds herself on today—one of the brightest new lights to emerge from the Tulsa country music scene.
Spread across twelve songs, Pomeroy's second album, Cruel Joke, spins tales of rodeo clowns searching for happiness, coyotes and wolves as allegories for a lover and her Cherokee heritage, a love song to her strange and ornery pup, Wrango, and all of it carried by a voice filled with pure authenticity and power.
Cruel Joke is the best album of the year because of what it stands for. At just 23 years old, Pomeroy has heard stories passed down through generations and witnessed the lives lived by so many of her family and ancestors. Her voice is authentic and powerful, and when she plays the songs from Cruel Joke live, you believe her.
The album opens with “Pareidolia,” where Pomeroy sings about seeing things that were never really there, and closes with “Innocent Eyes,” about her mind playing tricks on her to hide things she doesn’t wish to confront. It’s a profound storytelling device that makes the songs even richer. “I know I’m the coyote, I bite just ’cuz I’m scared,” Pomeroy sings on “Coyote,” joined by fellow Oklahoman John Moreland. What makes Cruel Joke a record that will stand the test of time is the passion and fire in Pomeroy’s voice and the way she tells her stories—with truth and honesty, just like the stories and songs she grew up with.
RosalÍa - lux
On Lux, ROSALÍA fully leans into her classical training and delivers a perfect pop album shaped by an ambitious lineage that stretches from Kate Bush and Björk to the sacred grandeur of Antonio Vivaldi and Johann Sebastian Bach, filtered through a modern, shape-shifting art-pop lens not unlike Yves Tumor. It’s no surprise she even features two of those influences on the record (Bach and Vivaldi, sadly, unavailable), and on the album’s standout — and arguably the best track of the year — “Reliquia,” she comes tantalizingly close to summoning Kate Bush herself. ROSALÍA previously shared a behind-the-scenes Lux working board that paired each song with dream collaborators, including Lady Gaga and Björk, with “Reliquia” explicitly linked to Bush, whose influence ROSALÍA has spoken about openly and channels throughout the album. On “Reliquia,” ROSALÍA catalogs the pieces of herself she’s left scattered across the world — objects, memories, fragments of art — lamenting that her heart has never fully belonged to her, and hoping lovers and friends might keep parts of her when she’s gone, their own relics of an art-pop visionary. Devotion runs as a central theme across Lux, extending a lineage rooted in religious music and carried forward by artists like Nick Cave, Robert Smith, and contemporary pop auteurs such as Caroline Polachek and Weyes Blood. The result is a truly transcendent pop album: ROSALÍA’s operatic vocals moving effortlessly through religious imagery and reverence, buoyed by strings that feel almost divinely touched, making Lux not just immaculate pop, but something approaching the sacred.
Tchotchke - Playin' Dumb
Tchotchke’s sophomore album Playin’ Dumb is a riveting and fully realized set of eleven tracks that builds on the tongue-in-cheek, rock-revival energy of their 2022 debut while sharpening their hooks, tightening their songwriting, and expanding their emotional range. It’s a record that skips effortlessly between kaleidoscopic power-pop, sun-soaked ’60s and ’70s influences, and sharply observed reflections on love in all its phases — falling in, falling apart, and everything in between — making it the clearest and strongest representation of the band to date.
Across the album, Anastasia Sanchez’s dynamic vocals and drumming, Eva Chambers’ propulsive bass and keys, and Emily Tooraen’s guitars and vocals lock into a sound that feels both playful and purposeful, fueled by furious drumming, killer guitar solos, and an unmistakable sense of momentum. Songs like the bright, airy “Skipping Around,” which marks Tooraen’s first turn on lead vocals, and the laid-back glow of “Now I Love You” show the band’s ability to stretch out without losing their grip on immediacy, while the title track closes the album with warm, swelling textures that nod lovingly to classic sunshine pop. Elsewhere, touches like the Hammond-driven “Poor Girl” wear their Brian Wilson–era influence proudly, not as pastiche but as something fully absorbed into Tchotchke’s own musical language. Crucially, Playin’ Dumb benefits from an intentional, disciplined recording process — arriving in the studio with the songs fully written and arranged — resulting in a confident, career-high statement that feels like a fully formed world the band has long inhabited and is now finally inviting listeners into. Wrapped in a playful, imaginative concept (right down to its own board game), the album radiates joy, color, and immediacy, delivering bubble-gum pop satisfaction with real rock & roll bite and a deeply personal voice underneath.
Viagra Boys - viagr aboys
By: Stephen irvine
The fourth album from Viagra Boys sees them stepping out of the Cave World and into the despair, absurdity, and humanity of our current day-to-day lives. Viagra Boys is a window into a band that now feels fully realized. Lyricist Sebastian Murphy continues to expand on his world of meth-addled super-creeps and ghoulies, as fans might expect from previous Viagra Boys records. But the real charm of the album lies in the vulnerability and sincerity of songs like “River King”: “Lookin’ at you. Everything feels easy now, and lookin’ at you feels easy.” For fans, investments into Shrimptech Enterprises are paying dividends. (I’m currently writing this from a yacht off the coast of St. Barts — thanks, Viagra Boys!)
Hannah Cohen - Earthstar Mountain
Hannah Cohen’s Earthstar Mountain feels like a deeply intentional and organic record shaped by its surroundings in her Catskills mountain cabin, where the crisp, pure air and snowy landscape instill a sense of renewal and rebirth that the music seems to breathe itself; named after the Earthstar mushroom used by the area’s original Native inhabitants for respiratory care, the album’s title perfectly reflects the way the songs — from the kaleidoscopic and dreamy “Earthstar” to the disco romp “Summer Sweat” and the folky “Draggin’” — unfold with variation and texture that could only come from this natural, quiet world. Alongside her partner and collaborator Sam Evian, Cohen has built a life grounded in mountain community and removed from the city, and that life — its pace, its environment, its sense of rootedness — permeates the record, placing Earthstar Mountain in the lineage of classic albums born of secluded, organic surroundings. Listening to it, you can almost smell the frozen air, and it’s clear that this record marks her first new music in over five years, a return to songwriting inspired by a changed perspective on life itself. As Cohen explains, moving up to the land changed how she views love, relationships, and life, and that shift shows in the natural, collaborative tapestry woven with long-time friends and musicians, making the album feel like a product of both place and community, rich with lived experience and sonic warmth.
Goon - Dream 3
Kenny Becker had not planned to write about a breakup for Goon’s third album, Dream 3, but to paraphrase what Lennon sang, life often has other plans for you. Dream 3 is arguably the best record from Becker and co., filled with the band’s signature dream-pop sound but fuller and richer thanks to producer Claire Morrison. The album is full of tracks that wash over the listener, with Becker’s angelically high vocals, shoegazey guitar work, and beautifully poetic lyrics giving visions of worlds like our own but touched with hints of magic and wonder. On “This Morning Six Rabbits Were Born,” a song whose title evokes just as much beauty as the track itself, Becker sings the verses with innocent grace, letting heavy guitar lines bridge them while he delivers lyrics like, “Everything rhymes / So bear this in mind / The hand of the devil behind / This time I’ll be sleeping in the pines.” It’s a gorgeous track on an album that extends a hand to anyone looking for solace in the muck.
Lady Gaga - Mayhem
Mayhem from Lady Gaga is a complete triumph. On her seventh album, she returns to the goth-dance art-pop she perfected on her opus Born This Way, reinventing herself without abandoning what made her so popular in the first place — searching for the beauty in the dark and divine, with dancey hooks, synth drops, and vocal freakouts in the mayhem, to borrow the album’s title. She’s doing enough new and interesting things here to continue cementing herself as a visionary.
From the Bowie/Prince funk vibes on “Killah,” to the out-of-this-world lead single “Abra-Cadabra,” to the Michael Jackson–style groove on “Shadow of a Man,” Gaga is so fucking back. On "Perfect Celebrity," Gaga gives ua a Nine Inch Nails–esque track, where she sings about the ugliness of being a celebrity — being forced to play the game like a seal — while at the same time inviting you to dance in a techno-goth-rock odyssey. It's a career standout, on an album that is chock full of them. Mayhem is one of Gaga’s best albums and one that helps cement her as a modern pop legend.
Wolf Alice - The Clearing
Ellie Rowsell on Blue Weekend is the same Ellie Rowsell who fronts The Clearing, but on The Clearing it feels like she’s reached her final form. On Blue Weekend and the albums that came before it, Rowsell was Wolf Alice’s fearless rock frontwoman—slinging her guitar in full guitar-hero mode, her astonishing vocals pushing songs like Lipstick on the Glass and Smile to towering emotional peaks. On The Clearing, she steps away from that archetype and into something more exposed and expressive. On the album’s first single and accompanying video, Rowsell moves across the stage like she’s inside a theatrical production, dancing and acting with manic, ferocious intensity that makes it impossible to look away, emotion fully written across her face. Bloom Baby Bloom is a revelation, opening with piano lines reminiscent of Freddie Mercury before detonating into a blistering rock section where Rowsell screams, “Look at me trying to play it hard / I’m so sick and tired of trying to play it hard,” then lifts the song into the stratosphere in the chorus: “I’ll bloom, baby, bloom / Watch me, yeah, you’ll see just what I’m worth / Yes, I’ll bloom, baby, bloom / Every flower needs to neighbor with the dirt.” It’s in this space between ferocity and release that Rowsell reveals the heart of The Clearing—an album about rebirth and renewal, shedding old skins and stepping forward unguarded, finally ready to be seen as she truly is. It’s a stunning track, one that grows richer and more beautiful with every listen.
Wednesday - Bleeds
North Carolina alt-rock icons Wednesday had a lot to live up to after their 2023 record Rat Saw God, and on Bleeds, they surely have. Karly Hartzman’s honest and oftentimes brutal lyricism reflects life in Greensboro and growing up in the South. Hartzman and bandmate — and fellow indie-rock god — MJ Lenderman broke up after the album was written, but you can tell listening to the record that things were not peaches and roses.
“But everybody gets along just fine / ’Cause the champagne tastes like elderberry wine / And the pink boiled eggs stay afloat in the brine / ’Cause even the best champagne still tastes like elderberry wine,” Hartzman sings on "Elderberry Wine," over a country-tinged slide-guitar groove, letting listeners glimpse how even the most beautiful things can be tinged with an unspoken unraveling.
Automatic - Is It Now?
Automatic’s third album Is It Now? is a stunning and fully realized record built on resilience and urgency, where pulsing synths, relentless drums, and hypnotic, loop-driven grooves make you move even as they demand reflection on the world around us. The trio — Izzy Glaudini (vocals, synth), Halle Saxon (bass, vocals), and Lola Dompé (drums, vocals) — craft soundscapes that feel like a “dark lullaby,” blending dreaminess with a critical, haunted edge, from the mechanical drone of “mq9” to the fiery intensity of “Smog Summer.” Across eleven tracks, Is It Now? refuses to surrender to despair, instead finding joy and beauty as acts of defiance amid a world that often feels like it’s burning down, anchored most powerfully in the closing “Terminal (طرفي),” where guest vocalist Diana Quandour sings in Arabic in a poignant act of solidarity that brings political weight and emotional depth to the record. Throughout the album, the band balances sweet grooves with heavy subject matter, using their music to reclaim trauma and heartache as creative fuel and to draw listeners into a conversation about hope, endurance, and resistance; as Izzy puts it, with art as their weapon, “creativity is stronger than destruction.”
Jack Ladder - Separation Rock
On Jack Ladder’s latest opus, Separation Rock, he goes meta. “What kind of man gets his kicks from singing about the bad things that happen to him?” Ladder asks on “Missing,” a sprawling six-minute ballad built around melancholic piano that recalls Weyes Blood’s “It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody.” Ladder — aka Tim Rogers — dives inward rather than outward, circling the idea that maybe the thing he’s missing was never really there, his cavernous baritone lower than ever before. Joined by Sharon Van Etten, the track swells into something lush and cinematic, echoing classic Jimmy Webb, and stands as one of many highlights on the record, which also includes the Bob Dylan tribute “Sparrow” and “I Want the One (I Can’t Have).” When I spoke with Ladder in 2024, he was still working on the album, telling me it would be something of his Los Angeles record. With Separation Rock, Ladder has made one of the best examples of this micro-genre — man goes west to the big city, man ponders his existence, man lives through love and loss — a record you can sit with and feel lonely and loved all at once.
toro y moi - Unerthed
By: deepa mahadevan
On 9/20/24, I saw Toro y Moi perform Hole Erth at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, and the whole night had that quintessential Chaz energy: genre-bending, feature-sprinkled, and buzzing with alt-rap-rock-pop-punk chaos. Hole Erth live felt bold, messy, and intentionally maximalist.
Exactly a year later, he released Unerthed, the stripped-down counterpart, and I saw him perform it beside the Big Sur river on release day, which was the perfect contrast. Same songs, completely different undercurrent. Where Hole Erth pushes outward, Unerthed pulls you in with its alt-country warmth, revealing a depth that was harder to find in the original.
I didn’t connect with Hole Erth at first, but Unerthed clicked immediately. When he performed “HOV,” hearing the lyrics “I’m biodegradable / I’m an energy angel / I’m nothing but soul / ideas in a skull” against the backdrop of mountains and redwoods made the album’s themes of identity and collective angst feel bigger, sharper, and more human than ever before. Chaz frames the two as a dual album, but Unerthed stays with you as his raw representation of Americana sound.
geese - getting killed
By: ricardo avendaÑo vera
I was watching TikTok videos of the mosh pit at multiple Geese shows during "Trinidad" and felt emotional (💣🚙). It reminded me of being a teenager at shows in the late 90s, early 00’s. A loud, weird, young NYC band. It sounds like Radiohead at times, it sounds like Captain Beefheart, it sounds like The Strokes or Talking Heads with the wrong turntable setting — "Islands of Men" begins like a Cornelius song!!! Geese are making rock and roll exciting AND appealing at the same time for a generation that grew up distanced from alternative guitar-based music - in fucking 2025. They are loud, they are sincere, they are emotional, they are technical, and they are cool as hell. Getting Killed is not only one of the best the albums of the year, it’s a record we all needed. Rock and roll can change and still choose us.
Hayley Williams - Ego Death At A Bachelorette party
By: Danielle McDuffie
Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party from Hayley Williams is a hard-hitter album that covers a beautiful range, from the feeling of losing sight of one’s true self to the pain and longing that comes along with heartbreak. With one listen to the album, you can feel Hayley’s emotions with every word and fully understand why it’s earned her four Grammy nominations this year. The album is full of powerful tracks where her gritty, emotional vocals and powerful lyricism shine. “True Believer” is a song that shows Hayley’s got guts and isn’t afraid to say her true feelings, with lyrics that tackle systemic issues, racism, and her opinions on America’s political state. “They pose in Christmas cards with guns as big as all their children. They say that Jesus is the way, but then they gave him a white face, so they don't have to pray to someone they deem lesser than them.” Grammy-nominated songs “Glum” and “Mirtazapine” cover that familiar fear of not being enough and relying on the “genie in a screwcap bottle,” to make it all go away. Hayley really lets us in on her self-loathing on “Negative Self Talk,” which talks about her very painful, real-day-to-day feeling of emptiness and the repetitive cycle she puts herself through. “Negative self-talk. A veteran, self-taught. Et cetera, on and on. I'm sick of hearing myself talk.” Hayley truly takes us on the search for the light at the end of her tunnel throughout this album. Even if she hasn’t found it yet, Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party provides listeners with a shoulder to lean on, knowing that they’re not alone in their darkest moments, proving how much it deserves a spot on the list of best albums of 2025.
cola boyy - quit to play chess
By: melina aguilar
Cola Boyy Forever and ever!! This is the last album Matthew Urango aka Cola Boyy aka The Disabled Disco Innovator got to work on and it was released posthumously early this year via the French label, Record Makers. It’s like he gave us one last gift to boogie with, get down with, and critique and challenge the powers that be. PLUS there’s even a reggae song in there which I believe was his first original song in this genre. Shout out to Matthew’s best friend, Luis, for continuing to keep Cola Boyy’s name alive and of course to all of Oxnard too! Fav songs: “Homegirl”, “Heroes and Villians”, but especially “Babylon”- 🎶Baby, tell me if there’s Hennessy in Heaven, if not i’m gonna nose dive straight to Hell 🔥🎶. All power to the people.