Best of 2025

 

Galactic and Irma Thomas Audience with the Queen. My #1. (The rest are in no particular order.). Irma Thomas continues to produce one late-career masterpiece after another. After The Rain 2006, Simply Grand 2008, Love Is The Foundation 2020, and now Audience with the Queen. Galactic shines with songs, arrangements and knockout playing.

Sloan Based On The Best Seller. Canadian pop-rockers continue a hot streak. 

Ricky Byrd NYC Made. Veteran rocker and long-time Blackheart makes a great record. It doesn't need to be complicated, it's rock 'n' roll.

Gyasi Here Comes The Good Part. Bowie/Bolan hybrid brings back the 1970s without stealing every riff. Great songs, solid musicianship, right attitude.

London Suede Antidepressants. Since their return in 2013, London Suede has made five well-received records. Glam is not dead. See Gyasi above.

Wet Leg Moisturizer. A big step forward from their solid debut, and a fine record all around.

Haim I Quit. Another big leap forward from their previous work, See Wet Leg above.

Van Morrison Remembering Now. Van returns to greatness. Shockingly good after several years of real junk. Remarkable recovery, and way unexpected.

Mavis Staples Sad and Beautiful World. Mavis never shies away from politics, protest or faith. A great song selection, lots of reverent guests, and Staples' magnificent, weathered voice. Revel in her very deep and spiritual soul.

Peter Holsapple The Face of 68. Holsapple has been a part of much great music. In the dBs, as a touring pro with REM and Hootie and the Blowfish, in the Continental Drifters, with Chris Stamey as a duo, and on his solo records, Out of My Way in 1997, and Game Day in 2018. He puts it all together on this new one.

Honorable Mention Just Part of the Whole Release: David Bowie Montreux Jazz Festival. This 2002 concert recording was broadcast on radio and unofficial versions have been around. Technically it isn't a new release of its own, but it is two of the CDs in the 13 CD I Can't Give Everything Away (2002-2016) box set. The tour was promoting Heathen, so eight of the twelve songs from Heathen are included, and the live versions beat the studio ones. Well chosen career highlights fill the rest. But wait, there's more, for the final encore, Bowie and the band play all of Low. It is a monster show. The set is available for streaming.

Honorable Mention Reissue/Compilation: Fleetwood Mac Like Crying: The Songs of Danny Kirwin. Every song Kirwin wrote for Fleetwood Mac and released on Then Play On, Kiln House, Future Games, and Bare Trees in chronological order. Kirwin's songwriting, guitar and singing during Fleetwood Mac's most oft-neglected period. Kirwin's songs were balanced with those of Christine McVie and Bob Welsh. Isolating Kirwin's songs is a lovely exercise. Digital only release, at least for now.

Galactic and Irma Thomas Audience With The Queen 2025

New Orleans funksters Galactic have written an entire record (there's one cover song) for the amazing, still great Irma Thomas. At 84, Thomas can still sing like she sang 40 years ago, if not better. Of course if you heard her at the Jazz and Heritage Fest or on After the Rain 2006, Simply Grand 2008, or Love Is The Foundation 2020, you already knew that. Here, her classic soul/blues/gospel style is updated both stylistically and lyrically, and she storms into 2025 backed by the members of Galactic that both revere her and refuse to take a single step back from their funky march forward.

There's new/old school soul Piece In My Heart, Be Your Lady, and People, all of them sounding a tad like the best of Sharon Jones and the Daptones. Funk oozes out of Where I Belong, Love's Gonna Find A Way, and the social message of the great first single, Lady Liberty. Over You is bluesy, and How Glad I Am and Puppet On Your String have gospel overtones. Gang backup vocals, full choir on a few, and frequently super horn charts spruce up the sound. There's hot guitar and keyboards, and the always fabulous drumming of Staton Moore. The arrangements are darn near perfect every time.

And Irma Thomas sings everything to the ground. She had her first hit in 1959, and she's as great as ever right now. She inhabits, indeed embodies, every lyric in a way only a few singers can. She is magnificent.

I thought After The Rain was her late career pinnacle. Then came Love Is The Foundation, and that raised the bar again. This time a rare, beautiful legacy artist charges into the present and gives us something so wonderful it's just hard to even believe. But here it is. Anyone Who Knows What Soul Is (Will Understand).