#5 on the 2025 Bacon Top 31 — Dean Johnson

January 27, 2026 by Royal Stuart in 2025, Top 31

I Hope We Can Still Be Friends by Dean Johnson

For his 50th birthday in May, 2023, the angel-voiced alt.country singer/songwriter Dean Johnson released his debut album, the utterly fantastic (and sadly overlooked by the Bacon Review that year) Nothing for Me, Please. He felt it was finally time — he’d been working on (and working up the courage to let loose into the world) the album for the better part of two decades. Half a century into his time on this earth, and he was now ready.

Born on Camano Island in the San Juan Islands here in the PNW, the Seattle-via-Bellingham performer, who has the look of a starved Pacific Northwestern longshoreman in a mustachioed Sam Elliot costume, has been a known, much-loved entity around Seattle for a long while. He’s a regular at Al’s Tavern in Wallingford (an institutional dive bar that opened in 1940, and has therefore been around longer than other Wallingford institutions Dick’s Drive-in (1954) and Archie McPhee’s (1983)), where he spent much of the 2010s working in addition to hanging out and getting lost in the background while playing in other going-almost-nowhere country-esque bands.

It was while working at the bar that he mastered his own song craft, but remained hidden due to crippling self-doubt of his own abilities. He’d play a show of his own music here and there, but only because the people who knew him and what he was capable of would drag him out of hiding to do so. He put his debut album to tape in the late 10s, but committed it only to a private SoundCloud link that he’d share around to those he knew. There’s a YouTube video from 2016 of Johnson performing “Faraway Skies” for a submission to NPR’s Tiny Desk competition that didn’t result in anything.

The pandemic of the early 20s only solidified his hidden-in-plain-sight stance. Finally, in 2023, many years after he’d recorded it, he released that debut album. Nothing for Me, Please is a masterpiece in song-driven storytelling. I first heard Johnson sometime that year, possibly when his song “Faraway Skies” was featured on FX’s Reservation Dogs at the start of Season 3 (one of my favorite shows – highly recommend!). Or, even more likely, I heard Johnson for the first time on KEXP radio’s Sunday morning show “The Roadhouse” with DJ Greg Vandy, which is typically on in my house every weekend.

I still hadn’t heard that debut album in full before I saw him perform at Bumbershoot during Labor Day weekend of 2024, over a year after the debut had come out. What I do remember about that performance was learning that his delicate tenor voice was not built for the festival stage, unable to overpower the din of the crowd. I moved on to another stage. Shortly thereafter, I came across Johnson’s video recordings of some of his debut-album songs on a live performance video channel called Western AF¹, and that was the tipping point — I was finally hooked.

I eventually fell in love with the full album album, growing enamored with the singer’s quietly sarcastic delivery and darkly funny lyrics. Listen and watch the video for “Acting School,” a song about learning how to act in order to pretend that everything is a-ok after a harsh breakup. Or the title song, “Nothing for Me, Please,” which is about the potential of spending an eternity in Heaven sounding actually quite awful. Music to my ears, literally.

And now we’re finally caught up to his every-bit-as-good-as-the-debut sophomore album, I Hope We Can Still Be Friends. Everything about Johnson and his music is endearing. On “So Much Better,” he brings a new dimension to getting over a past love, the humor catches you off guard. “Well, I’m feelin’ so much better now / Since I had my mind erased / If I passed you on the street / I would not recognize your face.” There’s a beauty in how he drags out the “sooooo” with his gorgeously high vibrato.

“Before You Hit the Ground” (featured in the video above) is another song about a big heartbreak Johnson experienced, this time with a woman from Oklahoma in the late 00’s. Buddy Holly gets a prominent mention in the song, as a way for Johnson to eventually imagine his own demise in a way similar to Holly, via plane crash. The song ends with Johnson interpolating Holly’s “That’ll Be the Day” with the final lyric “That’ll be the day, darling / that’ll be the day that I die.”

Johnson’s stage presence is best described as “unassuming.” He’s quiet, and his headlining shows (I’ve seen him twice more since that 2024 Bumbershoot performance, once at the Tractor and again that Showbox) are pin-drop quiet between songs, as that’s the only way to hear the inevitable sideways joke he throws out that will make you belly laugh. Watch his KEXP Performance from August this past year and you’ll get a good sense of his command of the stage (or lack thereof).

I Hope We Can Still Be Friends was produced by Seattle’s own Sera Cahoone, who has released many a solo album, and has played drums for Carissa’s Weird and Band of Horses (she does not appear on BoH’s Why Are You OK? that appeared at #16 in 2016). She plays drums, expertly and reserved, on Still Be Friends as well.

In a fantastic article / interview from Paste Magazine from June this past year, Johnson talks about the future. “I have so many compositions — from fresh ones to old ones — that are really dear to me and I really need to finalize words for them and commit to lyrics. I think my next three albums will be, by far, the most exciting things for me that I’ve ever done. I really want to get into a recording life as soon as I can. I’m fucking 52 and I am changing.” I’m right there with you, Dean (I turn 52 tomorrow). And I’m glad you’ll be right here with me for these next few years and maybe longer. The music world is a much better place with you in it.

^{1. I highly recommend you check out Western AF’s playlist of Johnson’s songs.↩}

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#6 on the 2025 Bacon Top 31 — Snocaps

January 26, 2026 by Royal Stuart in 2025, Top 31

Snocaps by Snocaps

My love for all things Waxahatchee and MJ Lenderman knows no bounds. Snocaps is the name of a side project “supergroup” betweenn Katie Crutchfield (aka Waxahatchee), her twin sister Alison, and guitarist du jour MJ Lenderman. The three of them got together in 2025 and then surprise-released their self-titled debut on halloween. For me it was love at first listen.

The Crutchfield twins have a long history of performing together, starting when they were only 15 years old with their band The Ackleys. Three years later, in 2007, they formed a pop punk band, the feminist-centric P.S. Eliot, that caught some farther-ranging attention before disbanding in 2011. They had separate but equal musical drives, and needed to each find their own path to greatness.

Katie went on to become Bacon Review fave Waxahatchee, which you may remember hearing (and extensively read) at #2 in 2024 and #1 in 2020. Alison’s band, Swearin’, hasn’t hit my radar, but that may be because that band hasn’t released any music since 2018, before I really even started listening to either twin. Snocaps marks the first time the two have recorded music written by each of them together since P.S. Eliot broke up 15 years ago.¹

MJ Lenderman, whose own album was #9 in 2024, and who also featured prominently on the #2 album from Waxahatchee that year, is seemingly everywhere today. A fantastic guitarist, his work with Snocaps is no different. Although, when I saw the band perform these great songs together in December in LA, Lenderman chose to play the drums for all but one song in the set, letting the Crutchfield twins and others take over duties on the stringed instruments (watch them perform “Hide” live in LA on Dec 5).

The album is split down the middle, with each Crutchfield twin writing and singing lead on half the songs. Their voices and the tone of the band shifts between the two sister’s proclivities, with the Allison-led songs having a more upbeat, indie-rock, Rilo Kiley-esque vibe, and the Katie-led songs trending naturally towards the slower, twangier, alt-country Waxahatchee side. “Coast” (featured in the video above), is my favorite Alison-penned song from the album. The only other video the band has released from the album is for the Katie-penned song “I Don’t Want To.” It’s a great song, but not my favorite of hers on the album. That distinction goes to “Hide,” (watch my own handheld video of that song, linked at the end of the previous paragraph), a slow dirge of a song about openly questioning the love and dedication of a partner. The song reminds me so much of the 1988 song “Tugboat” by Galaxie 500, I often find myself playing one after the other on repeat.

The future of Snocaps is completely unknown. Supergroups like this (see boygenius, at #1 in 2023, for another example) are often one-offs. They capture an exciting moment in time, but with the alt-universe itch scratched, the superstars inevitably move back into their usual groove.

This album came out so quickly and surprisingly, the record industry was caught off guard (the vinyl for Snocaps isn’t even going to be ready to deliver until April, six months after the album was released digitally). Maybe that release will be the impetus of another, more wide-ranging tour for Snocaps later this summer. Lenderman and Waxahatchee are going on a 17-date co-headlining tour in April, but it’s not billed as a Snocaps tour. Surely we’ll hear some of these songs then? No idea if Alison will make an appearance, but here’s to hoping.

Given the familial relations of the twins, and the currently-close ties between Katie and Lenderman, I would be very surprised if this is the last we hear from the three of them together. But, if nothing else comes from Snocaps, we’ll have this phenomenal record to remember them by.

^{1. Allison and other Swearin’ band members have performed on some various Waxahatchee songs in the interim.↩}

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#7 on the 2025 Bacon Top 31 — The Mountain Goats

January 25, 2026 by Royal Stuart in 2025, Top 31

Through This Fire Across from Peter Balkan by The Mountain Goats

Car Seat Headrest’s concept album The Scholars (at #8) was built on a dream-like, convoluted story that you could easily disregard and still love the music. In stark contrast, the concept album here at #7, the fantastic 23rd (!) album from Claremont, California-via-Durham, North Carolina stalwarts The Mountain Goats, is grounded in a linear, easy-to-follow narrative that is so present in the lyrics and up-front in the vocal arrangement that it is impossible to separate from the music. Neither album should be considered lesser to the other, nor an “incorrect” way to create a concept album — if the idea of “concept album” were a spectrum, Scholars would be on one end and Through This Fire Across from Peter Balkan on the other.

The name “Peter Balkan” came to John Darnielle, The Mountain Goats’ lead singer/songwriter, in a dream, along with the album title. The story starts with a fishing boat carrying 16 men sinking in a rough storm, leaving the three survivors (the narrator, Peter Balkan, and us – the listener) stranded on a beach. “Cold at Night” (featured in the video above) tells the story of them immediately after the ship has gone down, making their way to shore. The next few songs bring us, rhyming couplet after rhyming couplet, through the travails of the trio over the next few days. The other video from the album, for the song “Armies of the Lord,” has our crew nearing the end and thinking of those lost. By the song after that, “Your Glow,” Peter Balkan has “disappeared” (died?) and we (the listener) are “well on our way.” The last song in the story, “Broken to Begin With,” sings of the demise of our narrator, bittersweetly repeating the empowering refrain started in “Cold at Night”: “The first thing you learn is how far you can go with no gas in the tank / And the next thing you learn is how cold it can get at night.”

In spite of the obvious recency bias, I have no qualms saying that Peter Balkan is my favorite Mountain Goats album. Two previous albums of theirs, Beat the Champ and Transcendental Youth have featured on the Top 31 (#24 in 2015 and #19 in 2012, respectively), but they don’t hold a candle to this epic tale of oceanic demise. Overall, there are better Mountain Goats songs scattered throughout their 35 year history than any one song on this latest album, but when taken on the whole no other Mountain Goats album comes close.

But The Mountain Goats aren’t for everyone. The driving force behind the band is John Darnielle, who started the “band” on his own, releasing his first album (just his voice and his guitar) — recorded direct-to-cassette on a Panasonic boom box — in 1991. Darnielle has an amazing way with words (The New Yorker called him “America's best non-hip-hop lyricist” in 2005) and a singing voice that is more “middle-class caucasian” than “melodic.” But his lyricism and consistent output has given him a cult-like following in the ensuing 3+ decades.

Peter Balkan is the most orchestral the Goats have ever been, giving the album a “Broadway Original Recording” vibe. Strings, horns, and backing vocals by none other than Lin-Manuel Miranda (on four songs, including “Cold at Night” above) all feature prominently throughout. Tommy Stinson, bassist from the seminal The Replacements, features on my two favorite tracks as well, “Cold at Night” and “Dawn of Revelation.” You can get a great sense of everything working seamlessly together (with Miranda replaced by two female backup singers) on the band’s performance of “Cold at Night” on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert from December.

Like Cheekface (at #13), it’s impossible to not smile and get pumped up watching Darnielle perform. He is not your typical lead singer, I would not call him graceful, but he is so god damn earnest. It’s clear he is doing exactly what he should be doing in life, and we’re all lucky to have him. If you’re unfamiliar with The Mountain Goats, give Peter Balkan a shot. Don’t give up after one or two songs – give it a full, undivided listen. If it’s still not for you, rest assured you gave it your all, and that’s fine because it means there will be one less person to be fighting over a seat with next time they come to town.

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#8 on the 2025 Bacon Top 31 — Car Seat Headrest

January 24, 2026 by Royal Stuart in 2025, Top 31

The Scholars by Car Seat Headrest

The album at #8 this year was a much-welcome surprise from Bacon Top 31 alum Car Seat Headrest. The Scholars is the unbelievably good 13th studio album from band, their first in five years, and it almost never came to be.

In October 2022, an ominous message came out from lead singer / songwriter / driving force Will Toledo: “After another month of struggling to regain my health, I am currently forced to face the fact that my body lacks the basic levels of functionality necessary to leave the house most days, let alone embark on a tour.” Earlier that year, on tour and finally able to promote 2020’s Making a Door Less Open (#10 that year), Toledo caught COVID-19. That eventually turned into what was thought to be symptoms of Long Covid, resulting in the October health issues and indefinite cancelations. Considering his health, the band even discussed breaking up for good. Fortunately, Toledo’s health started to improve in the Spring of 2023 after a diagnosis of histamine intolerance and a shift in diet, allowing the band to reconvene and start looking towards the future.

A couple years (and a live album, 2023’s Faces from the Masquerade) later, we get the prog-rock concept album The Scholars. The album circulates around eight characters at Parnassus University, a fictional college. The songs are all sung from the perspective of one of the characters. The band went deep on the lore behind these characters, releasing a statement:

“After an experience bringing a medically deceased patient back to life, [Rosa, the central protagonist,] begins to regain powers suppressed since childhood of healing others by absorbing their pain. Each night, instead of dreams, she encounters the raw pain and stories of the souls she touches throughout the day. Reality blurs, and she finds herself taken deep into secret facilities buried beneath the medical school, where ancient beings that covertly reign over the college bring forth their dark plans.”

Thankfully, you don’t need to understand the story or how the lyrics string together to appreciate the majesty of this album. These nine songs meander through 71 minutes of music, taking myriad turns, ultimately the result of Toledo relinquishing his usual control over the band’s output, allowing for a joint effort in which everyone provides a piece of the puzzle. In addition to Toledo on most of the lead vocals, and rhythm guitar, Andrew Katz provides drums and background vocals, Seth Dalby is on bass and background vocals, and lead guitarist Ethan Ives takes the lead vocal role on a couple songs. These three gentlemen have been with the band since 2016’s Teens of Denial (at #7 that year), and through my previous favorite CSH album, Twin Fantasy (Face to Face) (#3 in 2018).

“CCF (I’m Gonna Stay With You),” the opening track on the album, is classic Car Seat Headrest: quiet slow intro slowly building into a frenzy that finally comes to a close eight minutes later. Check out the video for “Gethsemane,” featured above. At just under 11 minutes long, it’s my second favorite on the album. Some of the central themes in that song also show up two songs later, in “Planet Desperation,” my favorite track on the album, clocking in at just under 19 minutes long. You can watch their nearly hour-long KEXP Performance from August 2025, where they blow the socks off of DJ Cheryl Waters by playing both of those songs in full, live on the air.

I’m excited by the new “full band” experience Car Seat Headrest are presenting here on The Scholars. I got the sense on Making a Door Less Open, which in its own right a great album, but much more pop-hook driven and my least-loved (but still loved!) album from them in the last 10 years, that Toledo was nearing the end of his creative rope. Scholars has proven me wrong — in spades — and I can’t wait to hear where they collectively head next.

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#9 on the 2025 Bacon Top 31 — Sharon Van Etten

January 23, 2026 by Royal Stuart in 2025, Top 31

Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory by Sharon Van Etten

Revisionist history tells me I’ve been a fan of everything Sharon van Etten has done since she started releasing music back in 2009. The reality is, I completely missed her first two albums (but have since gone back and now love them), and I didn’t really start loving her work until I saw her at SXSW twice in 2012. Since then, her work has been a staple on the Top 31 ( #13 in 2012, #4 in 2014, #5 in 2019, and #6 in 2022) with good reason.

Her latest album, Sharon van Etten & the Attachment Theory, shows her ability to continue to adapt and shift for the better, including a full band who shared in the writing and production of the album with van Etten. With the Attachment Theory (Jorge Balbi on drums, Devra Hoff on bass and backing vocals, Teeny Lieberson on keyboards and backing vocals), van Etten proves she can collaborate with others and still create an unmistakable Sharon van Etten album. You could blend the songs from this album with her last two and you’d have no way to truly tell the difference.

This is great for the band, and great for us: it takes some of the burden of writing off of van Etten, and opens the door to greater longevity as an artist and now band. Her sultry voice is still ever-present, the songs still written from her unique perspective. “Afterlife” (featured above), is a gorgeous song about sticking by someone’s side, co-dependency in its best light. “Southern Life (What It Must Be Like)” evokes 90s-era Sky Cries Mary (psych-rock band from Seattle who rose to prominence in the heart of grunge but without the grunge sound) with its dissonant harmonies and drone-like melody. “Idiot Box” is a rocking classic van Etten tune, pushing against the screen-based lives we lead. Producer Daniel Knowles gets a co-writing credit on “I Can’t Imagine (Why You Feel This Way),” my second favorite song from the album. I can still picture van Etten’s groove on stage when singing this song, Hoff’s driving disco baseline making her sway left and right to the groove.

I recommend checking out their KEXP Performance from May, you’ll get a front-row seat to the band and what they’re capable of. Stripped down, with added piano, van Etten’s voice rings true and makes it impossible to look away.

Few artists have been as consistently good as Sharon van Etten. With the new Attachment Theory behind here, there’s renewed energy and excitement about where they’ll go next. I hope the band sticks around, and they continue to explore the possibilities together with van Etten.

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#10 on the 2025 Bacon Top 31 — Horsegirl

January 22, 2026 by Royal Stuart in 2025, Top 31

Phonetics On and On by Horsegirl

Welcome to the Top 10 of 2025! The trio of people who make up the phenomenal band Horsegirl met at the School of Rock (the globally-franchised for-profit music education program) in Chicago in 2019, while the three of them were in high school, which says something about their chemistry and why they work so well together. Setting aside whatever outside factors drove them to the School, they all had a youthful love of music and their instruments enough to want to learn more, to then find each other in that environment, and then form a band around that shared experience, to the benefit of us all.

Now, having relocated to New York while two of the three of them attend NYU, they deftly balance the demands of university while creating music as “indie darlings.” Phonetics On and On is their second album; I have not heard their debut album, but through my research I’ve learned that their “high school record” debut is louder and bigger, probably not for the better. What I can tell you is that Phonetics is 11 songs of pure indie-rock bliss.

With Nora Cheng and Penelope Lowenstein (the NYU students – although it’s possible they’ve graduated now? And possibly even moved back to Chicago? My sources are decidedly mum about their more recent history, since Phonetics came out nearly a year ago, on Valentine’s Day 2025) alternating lead and background vocals and lead and rhythm guitar, and Gigi Reece behind the drum kit, the band fills a void last filled by a slew of late 90s / early 2000s bands such as Built to Spill, Liz Phair, and Rural Alberta Advantage. There’s even a line of similarity you could draw all the way back to the Violent Femmes’ 1983 self-titled debut.

All of those reference points have louder, more in-your face songs in their catalog, but Phonetics is a quiet affair. Finger plucked acoustics, with the occasional fuzzed out guitar, time and key changes that evoke my favorite prog-rock turns, and the dueling voices of Cheng and Lowenstein blending together in a slightly-off but oh-so-endearing way. The album was produced by Welsh musician Cate Le Bon, who is at least partially responsible why Phonetics may feel like a left-turn for those who got into the band’s debut album. “Play less notes” was a key bit of production advice from Le Bon, who has produced albums by other indie luminaries, such as Kurt Vile, Deerhunter, and even Wilco’s most recent album, 2023’s Cousin.¹

I could have picked any one of their videos as the “best” from this album – they’re all just so good. “2468” (featured above) is a bouncy, brain-wormy song that could easily have been created during grade school recess. Cheng even picks up the violin for this song – I love a band that can break out the orchestral stringed instruments. “Switch Over” is also bouncy, but in a more droning, jam-session clip. “Frontrunner” is twangy, with the un-harmonic doubled vocals pulling you through. And “Julie” slows it way down, with lots of non-word vocals (da da da da da da da…).

There aren’t many bands that evoke the music I fell in love with when I first moved to Seattle back in 1997, but Horsegirl is one of them. I suspect we’ll be hearing much more from the trio as the year rolls on, and I will be first in line to pick it up.

^{1. Phonetics On and On was recorded in Wilco’s Chicago studios, The Loft.↩}

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#11 on the 2025 Bacon Top 31 — Nation of Language

January 21, 2026 by Royal Stuart in 2025, Top 31

Dance Called Memory by Nation of Language

It’s awesome to have been with a band since they first started, watching them grow and evolve over time. Nation of Language, the synth-pop trio out of Brooklyn, have released four albums in the last six years, all of which have been in the top half of the respective years’ Top 31 (#3 in 2023, #4 in 2021, #15 in 2020, and now with their fourth, Dance Called Memory, here at #11 in 2025). Vocalist Ian Richard Duvaney, his longtime romantic partner, keyboardist and backup vocalist Aidan Noell, and bassist Alex MacKay have created one great album after another since they formed in 2016 (MacKay joined the band in February 2022 as they started their North American / European tour for 2021’s A Way Forward, after original bassist Michael Sue-Poi left).

If, like me, you’ve been a fan of what Nation of Language has produced so far, then Dance Called Memory is right up your alley. These 10 songs will not surprise you with a left turn, or something un-NoL like — which is impressive in and of itself. When I wrote about the band’s 2021 album, I assumed I’d grow tired of their music, attributing what I considered “derivative” to mean it would not carry them forward. And I’m happy to say I was completely wrong. I still hold that their third album, 2024’s Strange Disciple, is their best, but it’s not a very easy call to make.

To get a good sense of these new songs, you can check out the band’s KEXP performance from August of this past year. Additionally, watch the video for “Inept Apollo,” featured above. Directed by bassist Alex MacKay’s brother John, the song’s lyrics speak to times gone by: “I still remember how it was before.” The video for “I’m Not Ready for the Change” was also directed by MacKay. With its repeated “I’m not ready for the change” chorus, evokes that feeling we all get when we’re not ready for whatever big life change is coming around the corner. “Nights of Weight,” a more somber song featuring Ian Devaney’s guitar strumming and haunting vocals mixed with a bit of harmony and synths drowned out in the background, has a 1-take video shot by Ian’s brother Sean. Like the other songs, its message is a bit obtuse, but the emotion it conveys is one of melancholy. “I can’t handle your silence / Used to be comforting, long ago.”

With lyrics like these you’d expect that Devaney’s life was full of broken relationships and sadness – but he and Noelle have been married since July 2018, and together for even longer. 2025 was supposed lead into a glorious 2026 for the couple, but instead ended in immense sadness for them when on December 11, Ian announced the loss of their first child, daughter George Margaret, on Instagram. She arrived much too early, at only 22 weeks, and did not survive. According to their social media presence, they appear to have a fantastic foundation of support that has helped them through this rough time. I can also see that the band has decided the best road to recovery is to not get in the way of progress for the band, resuming their tour with a couple of shows in January and then they move onto Mexico in February.

We all have to find our way to move forward when faced with tragedy, and I’m glad the couple has been able to get back out and perform. But I can’t help what wonder what the rest of 2026 will bring, once the already-booked tour stops have been played. Heartbreak often makes for beautiful art, but it can be an impossible hurdle for relationships. I wish them both and the band the best, and I hope they make it through the rest of the year stronger than ever and ready for whatever comes next.

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#12 on the 2025 Bacon Top 31 — The Beths

January 20, 2026 by Royal Stuart in 2025, Top 31

Straight Line Was a Lie by The Beths

The New Zealand band The Beths has been a slow-burner for me. I haven’t heard their first two albums (despite critical acclaim), and while I did listen to their third album, 2022’s Expert in a Dying Field, I didn’t love it enough to place it in the Top 31 that year (although upon re-listening, I clearly made a mistake). I have even seen the band perform three times (2022 THING festival; opening for the Death Cab / Postal Service reunion tour that same year; and headlining their own tour this past November). It was that November performance, paired with the August release of they fantastic fourth album, Straight Line was a Lie that finally saw them break through my musical barrier into the “Bacon Review Says This is a Great Band” promised land.

The four-piece is made up of bassist Benjamin Sinclair, drummer Tristan Deck, guitarist and producer Jonathan Pearce, and principal songwriter, guitarist, and lead singer Liz Stokes. Pearce and Stokes have been romantic partners since shortly after the band formed back in 2014, where they all met at the University of Aukland, studying jazz.

You may notice that the Beths are not jazz. They fall squarely in the jangly indie rock mold. You can watch the videos for “No Joy” (and “The Beths Make: No Joy) and “Metal” (and “The Beths Make: Metal”) to get a sense of where the band typically falls. The band has release one more demo video, for the “Take.”

“Mother, Pray For Me” (the song featured above) is a departure from that norm, with Stokes performing the song solo, quietly. It is such a gorgeous song, all about Stokes’ relationship with her Indonesian mother (Stokes’ parents moved to Auckland when she was four). The poetic lyrics don’t paint a straightforward picture of their clearly complicated relationship, but the rawness of Stokes’ voice and the repetitive nature of the lone guitar lead you down a darkly emotional alley.

After the 2022 tour ended, Stokes apparently fell into a deep depression. On top of that, her body was failing her through undiagnosed Graves’ disease, which causes hyperthyroidism, leading to irritability, insomnia, and physical symptoms like heat sensitivity, shifts in one’s menstrual cycle, frequent bowel movements, and bulging eyes. Stokes took SSRIs for the depression, which helped greatly and pulled her back from the brink. And then figuring out the Graves’ disease, and then medically treating it, has led Stokes to a much better place overall.

Straight Line was a Lie chronicles the last three years for Stokes – the emotional depths explored on the album are likely what drew me in most (despite not having gone deep on the lyrics). The rawness comes through, via Stokes’ up-front voice and the beauty of the band playing behind her. At the show in November, the band has a playfulness that feels very Kiwi to me. It’s an approachable-ness that immediately draws you in, and makes you feel like the band is your new friend. When Stokes performed “Mother” solo in the middle of the set, we all held our breath. The collective exhale that came at the end of the song was full of elation. (You, too, can experience the majesty of this song and the band via their KEXP set from 2025.)

And that’s what Straight Line can do for you. On the surface, it’s all indie rock happiness. Underneath, there’s an earnestness that brings a level of emotion to the whole thing, it’s impossible not to love it. I recommend you check it out right now.

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#13 on the 2025 Bacon Top 31 — Cheekface

January 19, 2026 by Royal Stuart in 2025, Top 31

Middle Spoon by Cheekface

If Daughter of Swords defined their 2025 album Alex as “a happy-sounding record about the death of humanity on planet Earth” (as read at #15 this year), then I wonder what pithy way the Los Angeles band Cheekface would define their fantastic fifth album, Middle Spoon. Every single album that the trio has released since they formed in 2017 has been pretty much that: dark and dire topics conveyed via bouncy, can’t-help-but-smile hooks.

Middle Spoon is the third Cheekface album to be featured on the Top 31. Their third album Too Much To Ask was (mis-ranked a little too low given how much I still listen to it) at #22 in 2022, and their fourth, It’s Sorted, was (more appropriately ranked) at #8 in 2024. The only reason their first two albums did not make the Top 31 is because I hadn’t yet heard of them, which is a travesty.

Their 2025 album is a continuation of everything great about their previous albums: Greg Katz’s co-songwriting, lead vocals and guitar; Mandy Tannen’s co-songwriting, background vocals and bass; and Mark “Echo” Edwards’ drums sound every bit as good as they always have. They started off near the top of their game, and they just continue to tweak and refine, making the listening experience even better each time.

“Living Lo-Fi” (featured in the video above) is a great example. Upbeat, infectious groove with a killer, infinitely repeatable chorus that you want to learn every word of so you can shout it at the top of your lungs when it rolls around. “Flies,” the other video they released for this record, is equally fun.

My favorite from the record is an already-classic Cheekface song called “Art House.” The chorus is so so good:

You’re an independent movie
And you’re a little hard to follow
And I can only turn you on if I want to get confused
You are a gray and grainy scene
You are not big on dialogue
And I can only turn you on if I want to get confused
Here on the sticky art house floor
You have a weird love language
And it’s hard to read even with the subtitles on
You’re an independent movie
And you‘re so hard to follow
And I can only turn you on if I want to get confused

I’m a big fan of dad jokes (being in my 50s and a dad), and the longform pun that makes up that chorus feels like it’s written just for me.

I learned via the Middle Spoon Full Album Commentary they band put out after the release that for this album, the band had the joy of getting to replace what would normally have been synthesized sounds with real instruments. Grand piano, Hammond B3 complete with Leslie Amp, a live harp, even harmonicas apparently once spit upon by the one and only Elliott Smith (found in a box labeled “Elliott’s Harmonicas” at the studio they recorded the album in) all make appearances throughout.

One of the best things about Cheekface is their connection to their fans. Self-proclaimed as “America’s Local Band,” they remain fiercely independent, doing all of their own promotion and album releases. This year they started up a fan club called The Stubbs Clubb, which is a value at just $7.11 a month. Free merch and special content come your way, and you get to feel good spending your money on something that brings you pure joy – a difficult thing to come by here in the Year of our Lord 2026.

I got to feel that joy first hand (for the 2nd time) when the band came through town in May 2025. Their shows are legendary affairs, and I highly recommend you go check them out next time they play your hometown. Remember the “infinitely repeatable choruses” I mentioned above? That comes out in spades by the sold-out crowd. There is nothing like the feeling of singing loudly along to your favorite songs with 700+ other people. The effort the band puts into keeping a connection with their fans pays off in spaces when the fans get to return that favor at these shows.

I used to call a Flaming Lips show “the happiest place on Earth,” (but having seen them this past summer, I have to say lead singer Wayne Coyne’s demands for “more energy!” from the stage make it feel more like work than fun nowadays). Now? That title goes to a Cheekface show. It is truly the happiest place on Earth – your cheeks will hurt trying to smile as broadly as lead singer Greg Katz does throughout the entire set. Seriously, I can’t wait for the band to come back through town, and I also can’t wait for whatever they put out next. I hope by now you’re on this train with me – but if not, be sure to get on at the next station. It’s quite the ride!

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#14 on the 2025 Bacon Top 31 — Lorde

January 18, 2026 by Royal Stuart in 2025, Top 31

Virgin by Lorde

It’s been 12 years (and two non-charting albums) since we saw Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor, aka Lorde, grace us with her presence on the Top 31. With Virgin, her fourth LP, the 29-year-old singer/songwriter has given us what I would call her best album yet.

Lorde has been through quite a bit since her 2013 debut, Pure Heroine, was at #28 that year. After the success of that platinum-selling, #3 in the US album, her sophomore album, the Jack Antonoff-co-produced Melodrama, full of synths and beats made for moving your body, went all the way to #1. Her third album, Solar Power, also co-produced by Antonoff, abandoned the beats for acoustic indie pop, and consequently fared the worst, “only” charting at #5 in the US.

In the years that ensued after Solar Power, which came out in 2021, Lorde had a bit of an identity crisis. She set out and succeeded in overcoming the crippling stage fright she’d been experiencing up to that point, but then turned that critical eye towards her weight in an unhealthy way, which she sang about on a Charli xcx track that was released as part of the Brat remix project called Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat, on a song called “Girl, so confusing,” released summer 2024. “And scared to be in your pictures / ‘Cause for the last couple years / I’ve been at war with my body / I tried to starve myself thinner / And then I gained all the weight back.”

In an interview with Rolling Stone released around the time Virgin was released, Lorde spoke of how her healing from the stage fright involved MDMA and psilocybin therapy (successfully). But she was not only treating that and the eating disorder. She was also reconciling a life (between the ages of 13 and 27) of relying on (and sometimes dating) boys and men significantly older than her, and the inherent power-dynamic problems that creates. Ultimately, Virgin is the outcome of that personal growth. Not only does she now feel she’s got a grip on her life, but she’s better understanding what it means to be Lorde — who she is, what she needs, and what life will look like going forward as a near-30-year-old megastar.

As part of this new understanding, gender identity has come to the fore. The Lorde we see in the videos from this new album still exude the overt sex appeal that comes with being a pop icon, the shift in how she represents herself has become less girly-girl femme all the time, in her words more “masc.” Take a look at the video for opening track “Hammer” (featured above). Lorde seductively lies in the grass in a bikini and suspended in a warehouse completely naked while singing about the themes for the rest of the album. “I burn, and I sing, and I scheme, and I dance. Some days, I’m a woman, some days, I’m a man.”

She goes even harder on the gender fluidity on “Man of the Year,” a video where she duct tapes her chest flat and sings “Gliding through / Like new from my recent ego death” and “Take my knife and I cut the cord / My babe can‘t believe I‘ve become someone else / Someone more like myself / Who’s got’ love me like this? … Let’s hear it for the man of the year.” There’s a definite masculinity rooted in her psyche that has finally started to show itself, and she wants the world to know it.

Musically, there’s a good reason this album hits different. On Virgin, Lorde parted ways with Jack Antonoff and the acoustic folkiness of her last record. Instead, she co-wrote and co-produced the album with producer Jim-E Stack, who also happens to have co-written and co-produced Top 31 favorite Bon Iver’s¹ latest, the amazing SABLE, fABLE. Together, they brought the Melodrama beats back, too. Check out “What Was That”, a dancey, get-your-body moving song about the fallout from the aforementioned relationships with unnamed older men.

I’ve loved Lorde’s sultry delivery since her debut, and I’m glad she’s coming out of her third decade on Earth stronger, more self-aware, and in control of her situation. We’re all better off for it, and I can’t wait to hear what she does in her 30s.

^{1. All of Bon Iver’s albums that have come out in the duration have been featured on the Top 31 since I started it in 2009: #17 in 2009, #6 in 2011, #1 in 2016, and #9 in 2019. And that’s not to mention lead singer Justin Vernon’s other collaborations that have been on the Top 31, such as Big Red Machine and his work with Taylor Swift.↩}

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#15 on the 2025 Bacon Top 31 — Daughter of Swords

January 17, 2026 by Royal Stuart in 2025, Top 31

Alex by Daughter of Swords

Thank god the history of and my history with the artist at #15 is limited – after two nearly 1,000-word write ups for Florence and Clipse, I’m glad to have the opportunity to be a bit more brief. But please don’t take my brevity as any sort of slight on Alex Sauser-Monnig, otherwise known as Daughter of Swords, and their wonderful sophomore album Alex.

Sauser-Monnig has been making music for some time – they’re part of the folk trio Mountain Man, which has been around since 2009. Alex is the follow-up to their solo debut, Dawnbreaker, that came out in 2019. Go ahead and hit play on the video above, for the lead single from the new album, “Talk to You.” It’ll be a great introduction into the brilliance that is Daughter of Swords, and maybe you won’t even need to read the rest of what I write before you download / buy the album yourself.

Bouncy, ecstatic hand claps and what feels like general happiness draws you in immediately. And you could likely leave it at that and thoroughly enjoy the record. But it’s when you start to pay attention to the lyrics that things get really interesting. Sauser-Monnig told Indy Week, “I wrote a happy-sounding record about the death of humanity on planet Earth… I have a hard time saying the world is dying… I don’t want to give up on it, but it feels like we’re Thelma & Louise–ing toward the cliff.”

“Money Hits” is a favorite of mine, with its sparse acoustic guitar, low-fi percussion, and piano solo in the middle. It could be a brief, joyful, escape with a new fling, or a cry for escape. “Running through the woods / while the water rises / lightning flashes / worlds collide / all I wanna know / is there anything / better than letting go?” Later on in the album, “Strange,” while bubbly, is particularly dark. “I feel strange / but it’s just a natural reaction / to a world coming apart at the seams.”

Alex hits all the right indie rock sweet spots, landing somewhere in the early 2000s for me. The Shins meet Rilo Kiley, but with a healthy dose of the kind of “overwhelming social anxiety while in love” we can easily find ourselves in here in the 2020s. It’s right up my alley, and I hope it is for you, too.

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#16 on the 2025 Bacon Top 31 — Florence + the Machine

January 16, 2026 by Royal Stuart in 2025, Top 31

Everybody Scream by Florence + the Machine

In the immortal words of our Queen Bey, who run the world? Girls do, of course. And despite my best efforts to try and ignore the artist at #16, Florence Welch and her band The Machine have been in the ruling class for the better part of two decades. It took six albums, but I’m finally here to pay homage to one of the greats.

Florence + the Machine have been making music since 2007. Of the eight musicians in the band, four of them (Florence Welch – the primary songwriter of the band – on lead vocals, Isabella Summers on keyboards, Robert Ackroyd on lead guitar, and Tom Monger on harp) have been together for all 19 of those years. The other four (Cyrus Bayandor on bass, Aku Orraca-Tetteh on percussion, Dionne Douglas on violin, and Loren Humphrey on drums) joined the band in 2018.

The band released their debut album, Lungs, in 2009, which went to #1 in the UK and Poland, and #14 in the US, selling over 3 million copies globally on the strength of singles “Kiss With a Fist” and “Dog Days Are Over.” They were also given the British Album of the Year award that year at the Brit Awards. All worthy accolades. The band released four albums over the next 12 years, landing at #1 or 2 in the UK and within the top 10 each year in the US – amazing feats. And I still didn’t pay close attention.

In the time between their fifth album, Dance Fever, in 2022 and this latest in 2025, Welch made a high-profile guest appearance on what I would call the best song on Taylor Swift’s (#29 this year, and #4 in 2020) lackluster 2024 album Tortured Poets Department, “Florida!!!.” She even performed its anthemic, triple-exclamation-point worthy chorus on stage with Swift at Wembley Stadium during an October 2024 stop on the Eras Tour.¹ Because I live with a couple of Swifties, this meant for a brief time Florence’s voice could be heard throughout my house.

One of the main drivers of The Bacon Review early on was to share music videos. As a child of the 80s, and a designer by trade, I have a deep affinity for the visual forms that music can take. And that is how this album, Everybody Scream, Florence’s sixth, found its way to the front of my playlists in 2025: through a video. I stumbled across the video for “One of the Greats” (featured above), and was enthralled. It features Florence, 39, in the back of an old whale of a car, white leather and polished wood finishes. She’s wearing wayfarers, a black velvet suit jacket over a white button-down, and holding an unlit cigarette, giving a strong Patti Smith vibe, as if she’s on her way home from the shoot for the cover of Smith’s 1975 album Horses. The car is moving forward, with remnants of a recent rain splashed on the windows, and streetlights moving slowly by, while Florence lip syncs to the lyrics. The song is over six minutes long, and the video is done all in one take, locked on Florence and her flowing red mane.

The song is a slow burn that builds, not to a towering crescendo like a lot of F+tM’s songs do, but to a mild cacophony that disintegrates into madness at the end. Welch performed the song once in the studio, with IDLES (#16 in 2024) guitarist Mark Bowen taking lead guitar, performing alongside her during that one take. The song also features guitar and production from Aaron Dessner (he of The National and Big Red Machine, who has been featured on the Top 31 so many times I should probably try running for president of the Aaron Dessner fanclub). The song won me over instantly – the entire package: the video, Florence, Bowen and Dessner.

The video itself was directed by Autumn de Wilde, whose work I’ve been loving for a long while (check out her video for “Once In My Life,” the Decemberists song for their #14 in 2018 album I’ll Be Your Girl). Unbeknownst to me, De Wilde has had a long partnership with F+tM, having directed five videos for the band from their previous two albums.²

That partnership carried into Everybody Scream, starting with a great little teaser called “Bury a Scream” that was released a couple months prior to the album release. Then came the title song, “Everybody Scream.” That, and “Buckle” both feature Top 31 regular Mitski (#9 in 2023, #18 in 2022, and #24 in 2016) on backing vocals. “Sympathy Magic” rounds out the videos de Wilde has made for this album, and goes so far as to feature Welch naked at the beginning of the video (meaning, it’s mildly NSFW).

Bowen and Dessner combine with Welch to take production credits for the entire album. So, what I like about the songs in the videos above stretches across the entire length of the album. “Drink Deep,” is particularly good, with Welch’s drawn out vibrato, evokes another powerful female voice: Cocteau Twins’ Elizabeth Fraser, from This Mortal Coil’s cover of Tim Buckley’s “Song to the Siren.” Fraser is one of many voices with whom you can call Welch’s ancestry. You’ll hear odes to Janis, Stevie, Tori, PJ, Fiona, and Sharon throughout.

Who doesn’t love a great and powerful female lead? Don’t let this album slip past you – it’s a swift kick in the gut mixed with the unsettling warmth of a house fire. I’m now a committed Florence + the Machine stan, and I can’t wait to hear what they do next.

^{1. Welch also sang drowned-out background harmonies on The Weeknd’s “Reflections Laughing,” from his 2025 album Hurry Up Tomorrow, which also featured rapper Travis Scott. It’s such a minimal appearance, it barely begs mentioning at all.↩}
^{2. De Wilde directed “Big God” from 2018’s High as Hope, and “King,” “Heaven is Free,” “My Love,” and “Free from 2022’s Dance Fever. That last one, “Free,” is fun, starring Bill Nighy alongside Welch as her anxiety come to life.↩}

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#17 on the 2025 Bacon Top 31 — Clipse

January 15, 2026 by Royal Stuart in 2025, Top 31

Let God Sort Em Out by Clipse

My newfound love of hip-hop, described at length throughout the 2024 Top 31 (culminating in Kendrick Lamar’s #1 album, _GNX),_ has carried through into 2025. As I’m new(ish) to the genre, I didn’t have a connection to the duo at #17 prior to 2025, despite them having been making music together and individually for over thirty years. Brothers Gene and Terrence Thornton, better known by their stage names Malice and Pusha T, are collectively known as Clipse. Between them, they have ten studio albums (and countless guest appearances), but Let God Sort Em Out is only their fourth album together, and their first in sixteen years.

It took the brothers a bit to hit their stride. Malice, the older of the two (currently 53) started rapping in junior high. In 1990, he was introduced to Pharrell Williams by mutual friends. He went into the Army after high school in 1991, and then tagged back up with Pharrell once his stint was done. Pusha, still in high school (now 48), began tagging along with his big brother into the studio. They recorded their first song together in the mid 90s, and Pharrell pulled the strings to get the duo signed to Elektra records in 1996. Their first full album together, Exclusive Audio Footage, produced by Pharrell and his business partner Chad Hugo under their production name The Neptunes, was slated to be released three years later. Due to poor marketing and even worse reception for the lead single, “The Funeral,” the album was shelved and the duo were dropped by the label in 1999.

Pharrell, continuing to believe in the brothers, signed them again in 2001, this time to his new Star Trak imprint at Arista Records. In 2002, their first official album, Lord Willin’ was released, along with what has become their most famous song, “Grindin’,” which of course features Pharrell as well. (The video is worth checking out just for how silly Pharrell is and how serious the young Thornton brothers are.)

Controversy continued to follow the duo around. While they recorded material for their follow-up album, Star Trak moved onto Interscope Records, leaving Clipse stuck in their contract with Jive Records, which had recently merged with the rappers’ label. While Jive focused on its non-rap acts, Clipse were left in the lurch, finishing the recording of Hell Hath No Fury but having no means to release it. They ended up suing Jive, and eventually reaching an agreement in 2006. The sophomore album, also produced by Pharrell, reached mass acclaim for songs like “Mr. Me Too” and “Wamp Wamp (What It Do).” In 2007, the band moved over to Columbia records and began working on their third album, working with Diddy’s production team The Hitmen over Pharrell. Released in 2009, Til The Casket Drops did not fare as well as their previous two records.

A year later, the brothers disbanded to pursue solo careers. Pusha signed with Kanye’s GOOD Music label with whom he released four well-received albums. He succeeded West as the president of GOOD in 2015, and stuck with the label until until the end of 2022, eventually cutting ties with West after his antisemitic and pro-race remarks. Malice found god, wrote a memoir, and announced a name change to No Malice. He released two albums to mixed acclaim – people still praised him for his lyrics, but the lack of Pharrell production hurt him musically.

Between the split in 2010 and their eventual reunion as Clipse in 2024, the brothers made limited appearances together. They featured on each others album’s and even rapped together as Clipse on Kanye’s 2019 song “Use This Gospel” and on DJ Nico’s track “Punch Bowl,” which was produced by The Neptunes. The duo started to hype their new Clipse material that would eventually become Let God Sort Em Out in 2024, hyping up the all-Pharrell production and key guest appearances from artists like Nas and John Legend. They had signed to Def Jam Records at the end of 2024, and were prepared to release the album in early 2025. Due to continued controversy, including issues related to Pusha T’s own feud with Drake back in 2018, the album was held back and the brothers were dropped by Def Jam. The duo finally self-released the album in July 2025.

Whew.

And we’re all the better for it. The album is wall-to-wall fantastic, and jam-packed with great Pharrell production and key guest stars:

“P.O.V.” (featured above), has Tyler, the Creator (#25 this year, #12 last year)
“Fico” has Stove God Cooks
“The Birds Don’t Sing” has John Legend (#17 in 2017) and Voices of Fire – in spite of the Legend chorus, this is quite a moving song, having both brothers recount their last conversations with their mother and father, who recently passed within four months of each other
“Chains and Whips” features Top 31 fave Kendrick Lamar (#1 last year, #16 in 2022, #21 in 2018, #22 in 2017, and #29 in 2015)

They’ve released one other video from the album, So Be It,” which has no guest star but has an amazingly catchy sampled hook created by Pharrell. While you’re at it, check out their tiny desk concert from July. I love that we live in a world that a curse-laden set by two middle-aged brothers can still make waves on NPR. Putting a capper on the year, Clipse appeared on JID’s God Does Like Ugly, on the song “Community.”

With a wealth of music under their belts, Clipse have proven that you can keep doing what you do and remain at the top of your game. My love of this new album proves you don’t need to listen to their earlier work to enjoy the current. The brothers have a flow unlike most rappers out there, and I can’t recommend this album enough.

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#18 on the 2025 Bacon Top 31 — Black Country, New Road

January 14, 2026 by Royal Stuart in 2025, Top 31

Forever Howlong by Black Country, New Road

Despite having been featured on the Top 31 twice in the past three years, the album at #18 should really be consider a debut studio album. Ants From Up There, the sophomore album from the original incarnation of Cambridge, England band Black Country, New Road, was featured at #11 in 2022. As I wrote in my review of that album, the band’s then lead singer, Isaac Wood, had left the band four days prior to the album’s release. His departure left the band without a front man and a full slate of 2022 festival shows to fulfill. Determined to carry on, the band threw together a full set of new songs to be sung by others in the six-piece.

Just over a year after the release of Ants, the newly defined band with their newly defined sound (they made no attempt to carry on with their Wood-led songs or to try and replace Wood’s gorgeous voice), the band released Live at Bush Hall, which landed way up at #6 in 2024. The album made a statement: we’ve moved on, and we’re even better than we were before. But a studio album it was not. In fact, the songs released on that fantastic live album will likely never be recorded in the studio.

Two years after that, the band has (hopefully?) finished redefining who they are, releasing the first studio album for this new incarnation: Forever Howlong. In place of the missing Wood, the three women in the band are now alternating on singing lead. Violinist Georgia Ellery (who is also half of the duo Jockstrap, whose lone studio release I Love You Jennifer B landed at #21 in 2022); bassist Tyler Hyde (daughter of Kyle Hyde, who is half of Top 31 alums Underworld¹); and pianist May Kershaw (whose “Turbines/Pigs” was my favorite from Bush Hall, and drove me to tears when seen live at THING 2023) each take lead on the songs whose lyrics they wrote.

Beyond the major shift in lead singing, there is very little similarity between this album and their last studio album. (On the interim live album Bush Hall, saxophonist Lewis Evans wrote and sang two songs, but he sticks to his instrument on Howlong.) I’ve been staring at the end of that last sentence for so long, trying to figure out how I would define this new era for BC,NR. The best I could come up with is “indie chamber pop prog rock,” which is, funny enough, how I’d probably define The Decemberists. But they are nothing like BC,NR, so that must be a terrible way for me to describe them.

Instead, I’ll do it the best way I can – by asking you to listen to them yourself. Check out my video from the band’s performance at the Moore Theatre back on May 24 last year, where they played the title song, “Forever Howlong.” You’ll notice the entire band are all playing tenor recorders while songwriter May Kershaw conducts from behind her keyboard. Yes, a song performed entirely with recorders, the instrument we all first learned how to play (badly) in elementary school band. Then there’s the opening track and lead single from the album, “Besties,” written by violinist Ellery. The harpsichord opening to the song is unlike anything else you’ll hear in indie rock today. “Happy Birthday” (featured in the video above), written by Hyde, is a lovely, meandering song about intergenerational discontent. And finally, I recommend watching the band’s KEXP Performance from May 2025. They perform the three songs mentioned above as well as “For the Cold Country,” also written by Kershaw.

It’s been a wild ride being a BC,NR fan for the past few years. I’ve loved every iteration of the band, and will stick with them should they decide to shuffle the deck again. But I also hope they stick with the good thing they’ve got going right now. Either way, I can’t wait to hear what they do next.

^{1. Underworld appeared at #30 in 2016 and #25 in 2024↩}

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#19 on the 2025 Bacon Top 31 — King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard

January 13, 2026 by Royal Stuart in 2025, Top 31

Phantom Island by King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard

As the old adage goes, “another year, another fantastic King Gizzard album.” I’ve only actively listened to King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard for just over two years, which makes me a downright KGLW noob. But it was practically love at first listen, with their 2024 album Flight b471 landing at (#20 that year) and their two 2023 albums, PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation and The Silver Cord landing at (#5 that year).

Phantom Island, the band’s 27th studio album ¹, is the sibling to last year’s Flight b471, as the core tracks were recorded currently for both albums. The band has explained that they put the “rowdy” songs on Flight, leaving the non-rowdy songs to eventually end up on Phantom Island, but not without some additional production. The songs that would eventually end up on the new album “felt like they needed this other energy and colour,” said frontman Stu Mackenzie. “We needed to splash some different paint on the canvas.”

It helps to be a global band with a massive following – the “other energy and colour” turned out to be the addition of British conductor Chad Kelly, who wrote elaborate orchestral arrangements for the songs and assembled a group of musicians to dub over the original tracks. The album that resulted feels like an extension of the 70s roots rock ethos developed on Flight b471 cranked to 11. The Reeses Peanut Butter Cup commercial comes to mind, but instead of chocolate and peanut butter, it’s “you got your symphony in my rock & roll!” vs “you got your rock & roll in my symphony!” Somehow it all works. “Grow Wings and Fly” (featured above) has gorgeous subtle strings flowing throughout the song. “Deadstick” has the entire brass section going hog wild².

As I mentioned at the end of last year’s review of Flight b471, my fandom of KGLW grew to the point where I was flying to another city to watch them perform. Throughout 2025, the band toured globally, performing with the local symphony in each locale. So, off to San Diego I went to witness the spectacle first hand. KGLW have the reputation of a jam band, as they tend to not play the same songs at consecutive performances. (Having 27 albums of material to pull from makes it quite easy to not duplicate, but quite a task to keep the band fresh and ready to go on any number of hundreds of songs for each concert.) But playing with a 30-40 person orchestra with a conductor leading the charge made their usual fluidity impossible.

What transpired in San Diego was still fantastic: a tight two-hour set, performing Phantom Island in its entirety, with a 20-minute intermission (where the band played an extended version of one of my favorites, “Motor Spirit”). They did play many other past KGLW songs, now reworked for an orchestra accompaniment, and it was glorious. Would do again.

Phantom Island is not King Gizzard’s best album. But with 27 albums now under their belt, the creative output of the six-piece is still surprisingly top notch. And they’re still having so much infectious fun, it’s impossible to not smile any time you hear and see them. If you give this album and find it’s not your speed, I suggest diving into one of the two 2023 albums mentioned above (if one doesn’t work, try the other). If that doesn’t work, keep trying. There is so much variety in their music, I guarantee something will eventually click. And then you and I can book tickets to see them jam out somewhere soon. I’d love that.

^{1. The band’s debut, 12 Bar Bruise, came out in 2012. Phantom Island came out in 2025, with 25 studios albums having been released between those two records. That’s an insane pace of creativity for any band: nearly two albums a year, every year, in under less than a decade and a half.↩} ^{2. The band released a 13 minute documentary, The Making of Phantom Island, which doesn’t so much tell the story of the making of the album but instead provides a mishmash of clips that gives a tonal overview of how it all came together.↩}

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#20 on the 2025 Bacon Top 31 — Juana Molina

January 12, 2026 by Royal Stuart in 2025, Top 31

DOGA by Juana Molina

I’m gonna fuck this up. I don’t know how to write about this wonderful musician. I don’t have the depth of knowledge necessary to wax on about a Spanish-singing Argentinian auteur. Or maybe I just don’t have the usual tropes I fall back on? Maybe this is more of a challenge than I’m used to, and that voice in the back of my head is balking at needing to go outside of my comfort zone? Growth at age almost-52 is harder than you might think. Here goes nothing.

Juana Molina is not the kind of artist you’d typically find in the Top 31. Living in Buenos Aires, 64 years old, creating dreamy “folktronica” that she typically sings in her native Spanish – she’s not the typical indie musician I am drawn to by any measure. And yet, with her eighth album DOGA, she’s made what I feel is the 20th best album of 2025.

Molina’s path to college radio play across the world started in 1961, when she was born to a tango-singing father and an actress mother. Unable to make money in a career in music, she focused on the stage, quickly reaching some fame in Argentina as a sketch comedy actress. Apparently in the early 90s she was quite popular across the country, and at the height of her acting career she quit, finally able to turn her focus back to the music that was overwhelming her psyche.

Since releasing her debut album, Rara, in 1996, her climb to recognition outside of Argentina grew slowly. That album did not find an audience in her home country, but she was undeterred. A quick jaunt to Los Angeles allowed her the space to put together her second album, 2000’s Segundo, which caught the attention of David Byrne (see #27, who as you remember founded world-music focused record label Luaka Bop). He asked Molina to open for him on his tour that year. Her audience grew slowly over her next three albums, expanding her global presence into Europe and Japan. Her fifth album, 2008’s Un dia, got an unexpected boost when her music was featured in the background of a Radiolab episode in 2008 titled “Sperm.” Due to an outpouring of inquiries about that music, the popular podcast ran a whole segment featuring Molina in 2009, adding an even greater amount of US-based attention to the singer / songwriter.

Her sixth and seventh albums, 2013’s Wed 21 and 2017’s Halo were well-received, and while I know I had heard of the artist by this time, I still hadn’t given her or her music any attention. Then DOGA came out in November. And this time, thanks to a friend who earlier in the year had forced me to listen to a Juana Molina song¹, I paid closer attention. It may have taken me nearly 30 years to come around, but I’m so glad I finally did.

DOGA is one hell of an album. Molina’s soft-spoken voice sounds to my non-Spanish speaking ears like an additional instrument, delicately laced across the top of intricate, off-kilter, mostly-electronic beats. Hit play on the video for “Desinhumano,” above. I hear what sound like influences of Björk (Icelandic, 60) and The Knife / Fever Ray (Karen Dreijer, Swedish, 50), but as Molina is older than both of those huge, international female artists, I wonder if I should actually be saying they’re influenced by her. I can confidently say if you’ve been a fan of either of those artists in the past, then Juana Molina is right up your alley.

It’s a rare thing to come to an artist for the first time on their 8th album and 30 years into their musical career. Normally at this point, if an artist makes it to their eighth album, they’ve settled into their “only the super fans will dig this” era of their career, no longer able to bring in new fans the way their earlier albums may have. Molina and her album DOGA is clearly different. Hopefully you hear it, too. And I hope this review did justice to her and this fantastic album.

^{1. In January 2025, I created a new way for new music to enter my life. I gathered a small group of friends for the purposes of sharing music between us. We dubbed it “Record Cabinet,” and decided to gather every ~6 weeks or so and bring two songs to share based on a theme as established by that session’s host. For the October “Foreign Exchange” theme, a friend (hi Brent!) brought the Juana Molina song “El Perro” from Segundo as his song representative of “a song from the Southern Hemisphere. I love all the different ways new music can make it to my ears.↩}

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#21 on the 2025 Bacon Top 31 — Daisy the Great

January 11, 2026 by Royal Stuart in 2025, Top 31

The Rubber Teeth Talk by Daisy the Great

You may remember Daisy the Great from when their 2023 sophomore album, All You Need Is Time, was (#29 on that year’s Top 31). I’m excited to report that their follow-up, The Rubber Teeth Talk has the band focusing in on what they do best, to great effect. When I wrote about their last album, I dubbed the band “First Aid Kit without the twang.” But I don’t know if that description holds true.

The pop-songs-with-great-hooks mentality is there, same as it always was. But the depth of Daisy the Great’s lyrics and the skill with which they execute their songwriting has become richer, sharpened to a fine point. When I listen to the album, I can tell something has changed that brought out this new feeling, but I couldn’t point at anything in particular and say “there – that’s why it’s better.” However, while researching for this review, I discovered one wonderful reason: DtG brought in the big guns to produce this record. Catherine Marks, who co-produced my #1 album of 2023, boygenius’s the record, figured out how to bring out the best of lead singers Kelley Dugan and Mina Walker and their quirky, wonderful harmonies.

Beyond the harmonies, Dugan and Walker know how to craft a hook. The opening track on the album, “Dog” (featured above), a listen. That, and “Mary’s at the Carnival,” are solid indie-rock gems. “Ballerina” is fun and makes me bounce off the walls, a rocking Courtney Barnett-esque song from another dimension

“Bird Bones,” with its repeating chorus “She was just back in town, where’s my friend where is she now” sounds innocent enough, until you realize they’re singing a heart wrenching line about a lost friend. The caption accompanying the instagram post about the song said “written in memory of our dear friend, Stephanie Rae Shafir, who passed away Feb 26, 2023. All of the drawings in the video are hers.”

I love that Dugan and Walker are starting to explore more interesting / trippy ways to build out their dual voices. They’re becoming masters of a musical technique called “hocket,” which is difficult to describe in words (and equally difficult to perform, I’d wager) but easy to understand when you see if performed. Check out their cover of Suzanne Vega’s venerable 80s song, “Tom’s Diner,” and you’ll get it immediately immediately. I had the immense pleasure of getting to hear them perform the song live, back in September.

The energy and excitement Daisy the Great bring to indie rock is infectious. I can’t wait to hear what they do next.

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#22 on the 2025 Bacon Top 31 — Deep Sea Diver

January 10, 2026 by Royal Stuart in 2025, Top 31

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.

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#23 on the 2025 Bacon Top 31 — Tunde Adebimpe

January 09, 2026 by Royal Stuart in 2025, Top 31

Thee Black Boltz by Tunde Adebimpe

Tunde Adebimpe, the co-lead singer of stellar 2000’s band TV on the Radio (who are still touring despite having not put out any new music since 2014), has a higher-register voice that is pristine, and it rings through much more than it ever did on the grittier TVOTR stuff. His debut solo album, Thee Black Boltz, more than fills the ten-year void since his full band released their last album.

Born in St. Louis, MO, to immigrant Nigerian parents, Adebimpe has always had a commanding presence on stage, and his star has only gotten more shining now that he’s aged into a man whose dark skin is starkly contrasted by the half inch of bright-white hair atop his head and full beard. Over the past twenty years he’s been able to do so much more thanks to his talents and his looks, appearing in numerous films and television series (such as Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married, Noah Baumbach’s Wedding Story, and Disney’s Star Wars: Skeleton Crew).

But it’s his voice that keeps me coming back. On Boltz, he seems to alternate between a few personas within his solo work. There’s some skit-like jokey singing, paired with a couple songs that could have easily been found on a Living Colour album 30 years ago. For the lead single from the album, “Magnetic,” Adebimpe channels his best Ozzy, to great effect. This song also sounds the most like a TV on the Radio song, thanks to the appearance of his TVOTR bandmates Jaleel Bunton and Jahphet Landis.

“At The Moon,” the third track on the album, feels like a lost Nine Inch Nails song with the strong synth rhythm driving the song forward. And then there’s my favorite from the album, “Somebody New” (featured in the video above — it’s fun, you should watch it). Clearly influenced by the New Orders of old, this amazingly-fun hand-clappy dance song could easily have been a b-side to a recent song by The Weeknd.

With the success of this new solo album and with TV on the Radio touring again, Adibempe is just starting the ascent of a new arc in his career as he enters the second half of his century on earth. Check out his full KEXP performance, with his touring band that also includes Bunton and Landis, but distinctly lacks founding TVOTR member David Sitek. Sitek has been on hiatus while the band tours on the 20th anniversary of their smash debut Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes. I have seen no indication of anything new coming out, but if experience tells me anything, there’s got to be something on the horizon. This is all too good not to.

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#24 on the 2025 Bacon Top 31 — Panda Bear

January 08, 2026 by Royal Stuart in 2025, Top 31

Sinister Grift by Panda Bear

The artist at #24 has been with the Bacon Top 31 since the very beginning. Panda Bear, whose real name is Noah Lennox, is a founding and current member of Animal Collective, whose 2009 album Merriweather Post Pavilion was #3 in 2009 and is likely the album I’ve listened to the most from that year’s top 10. (Does that make Merriweather the actual best album of 2009? Likely. But that’s a discussion for another day.)

Born in 1978, Panda Bear started producing music at 21/22 years old, with the release of his self-titled debut album in 1999. His first official album with Animal Collective is their debut album, Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished¹ from the year 2000. Since then, Lennox and his Animal Collective friends have been making music together and in various combinations of solo, duos, and triples ever since. In addition to the 12 albums Animal Collective have released, Panda Bear has released eight other albums, putting him at a pace of roughly three albums every four years for the past 26 years.

That is one hell of a pace for a person to be creating music. Granted, not one of those albums since the release of Merriweather has broken into the Top 31 until now. But to have been making music practically non-stop since 2000 and to still create something unexpected, relevant, and pleasing 26 years later is a huge accomplishment.

Sinister Grift, Panda Bear’s eighth official solo album, is pure joy, and unmistakably Panda Bear. It’s full of bouncy melodies, copious amounts of reverb, and doubled/tripled/quadrupled Beach-Boy-like harmonies. Engineered and mixed by Lennox’s second-grade classmate and Animal Collective bandmate Deakin (real name: Josh Dibb), you could easily mistake the album as being from the full Collective rather than just the two of them.

Numerous people helped with the album, including the other two members of Animal Collective, Geologist (real name: Brian Weltz) and Avey Tare (real name: David Portner), on a handful of songs. Cindy Lee, whose triple album Diamond Jubilee was on the Top 31 at #7 last year, performs on the wonderful song “Defense,” dropping in a masterful guitar solo in the middle of the song.

The video above, for the song “Ferry Lady,” is indicative of Panda Bear and Animal Collective’s trippy aesthetic. Just watch 30 seconds of the video above and you’ll swear someone has dropped something in your orange juice. The video for “Praise” is equally psychedelic.

Lennox put together an actual live band to tour the new album, a first for the Collective. You can watch them perform three songs on their “Tiny Desk Concert” for NPR earlier this year. I had the pleasure of seeing Panda Bear on the band’s tour back in May, and it was lovely if a little underwhelming. Through no fault of their own, I was seeing the band in the middle of my busiest show-going week of the year. Sandwiched between Sharon van Etten, Kendrick & SZA, and Jack White on one side, and Cheekface and Black Country, New Road on the other, my brain and body were experiencing live-show overload, and I was not prepared for the mellow chillwave ² attack that Panda Bear delivered.

I’ve been listening to Sinister Grift on repeat all day today, and I’m now beginning to wonder if I’ve underestimated the staying power of this album. Outside of Animal Collective’s Merriweather and their 2005 album Feels, I have a feeling this new album by Panda Bear is going to keep finding its way back into my rotation. Maybe you’ll feel the same way.

^{1. This album was actually first released as an album by Avey Tare and Panda Bear. It was reclassified as the debut album by Animal Collective sometime later.↩}
^{2. Panda Bear’s unbelievably good 2007 album Person Pitch is credited as the start of the electronic music microgenre “chillwave.” That album, and subsequent songs by Animal Collective and others, carved out a fairly substantial area of the music industry for themselves, resulting in the rise of bands like Neon Indian, Washed Out, and Toro y Moi.↩}