Billboard Heart by Deep Sea Diver

Deep Sea Diver can easily be labeled “Seattle darlings.” Heavily played on KEXP, the band’s fantastic fourth album Billboard Heart and their first since signing to Seattle record label Sub Pop in September 2024, was voted by listeners as their #2 favorite album of 2025 (behind Wet Leg’s moisturizer, which appeared on this year’s Top 31 at #30.) As I, too, live in Seattle, nobody would blame you for saying I might be a little biased.

It’s true, I have liked this band for a long while. Their amazing debut album, History Speaks, was #23 in 2012, and equally good 2021 album Impossible Weight (KEXP listeners’ #1 album that year) was #22 in 2020, but they’re not without their faults: their sophomore album, 2016’s Secrets, did not make it onto the Top 31 at all. #23, DNP, #22, and now again with #22 – I swear I didn’t place them here intentionally, but I feel it does say something about the band if they’ve been featured by never broken the Top 20 in any year.

I’ve written plenty in my past posts about the band’s derivative but no-less powerful delivery. With Jessica Dobson on vocals and lead guitar, Peter Mansen on drums, Garrett Gue on bass, and Elliot Jackson on keyboards, they blast out powerful highs and exceedingly intimate lows. And they can also have fun and not always take themselves too seriously. Watch the video featured above, for their great song “What Do I Know?” It has the band performing in a small room while a cast of characters and excitement happens around them. The video for “Shovel” feels dark and brooding, shot in one take and focusing on the powerful presence Dobson brings to the screen. The video for the lead single from the album, the equally-titled “Billboard Heart,” is your more typical “rock & roll band outdoors in slow-motion” vibe.

For the best view of the band, check out their 2025 KEXP Performance, in front of a packed house at the KEXP Gathering Space at the Seattle Center. You get to hear live versions of five songs from the new album, with the added bonus of Kristyn Chapman on rhythm guitar and backup vocals (Gue is replaced by Michael Dondero on bass). If you still don’t get Deep Sea Diver after watching that, then there’s no convincing you, and we’re just going to have to agree to disagree. But also, you’re wrong. Billboard Heart is a great album, much deserving it’s place here on the Top 31 of 2025.