2025 was the best year of my adult life when it comes to music. I feel blessed that so many of the bands on this list are bands who have been on our show (the instant hit podcast, Emo Kids Anonymous). That’s not a case of bias or favoritism, that’s just me truly loving this scene and the bands currently in it. I love music, it’s given me basically everything I have in my life.
Subjectively ranking something as personal as art is impossible, but some are more impactful than others. These are the albums that fucked my shit up in 2025:
#1 Kerosene Heights - Blame It On The Weather
From the beginning of Sunsetting, to the final notes of the title track, BIOTW is a complete listening experience. A religious experience in the form of rock & roll. In a content driven world where all art seems to be created with the intent of algorithm fodder, every single second of this record feels deliberate. There’s no wasted motion. New Tattoo, in my humble opinion, is not only the best track of 2025, but arguably one of the best tracks in genre history. The song dances on the edge of chaos throughout the song, only to come together in time for a chorus big enough to land a plane on. It’s the MakeDamnSure of Midwest Emo. The Dookie of DIY.
Subjectively speaking, sure it’s definitely possible to rank an album above this one. But objectively speaking BIOTW is so far above the pack that any list that doesn’t have it at the top immediately loses all credibility to me.
Simply put this band is the total package. From the way Elle just beats the living shit out of the bass and Benji assaults his kit, to the effortlessly cool noodling from Justin, to the heart on sleeve blue collar charm of frontman Chance Smith, you can’t help but root for them. This band and this record breathed life in me. It made me feel things music hasn’t made me feel since I was a teenager. I told Chance I was gonna get a “new tattoo” tattoo. I think it’s time I go do it.
#2 Summerbruise - Infinity Guise
“I’ve got no common sense. I’m only book smart if the books about wrestling”. It was this lyric from the track “Man, I Feel Like a Dumbass”, that made me think Summerbruise frontman Mike Newton is the best friend I should have had. A perfect mix of anxious restlessness, wrestling references, and Weakerthans style songwriting, Infinity Guise is the sound of a band finding its groove and doing what they do best at an impossibly high level. I’m not sure 2025 had a better ballad than “Rusev Day (Say Hi To Kate)”, easily the most emotional track named after the former WWE US Champion.
#3 Saturdays at Your Place - These Things Happen
“Do you ever think about me? I bet you do. I get nervous and I can’t speak. When I’m around you.” This lyric from the opening track really sums up the magic of SAYP. This nervous, wallflower energy that encapsulates the earnestness and charm of the Kalamazoo trio. Between Esden and Gabe’s rhythmic prowess and knack for melody along with Mitch’s ability to sprinkle color all over the songs with his guitar, These Things Happen sees the band take what made the Always Cloudy EP special and somehow bring it to a new level. The yearning nature of “forest bubbles” and “what am I supposed to do”? the cathartic release during the outro of “i’d rather be in michigan”? Let’s not forget that emo at its core is short for emotional. There’s not a single emotion not covered across these 10 songs.
#4 Aren’t We Amphibians - Parade! Parade!
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again here, in print. This is the GREATEST debut album from an emo band in decades. Decades. Earlier this year before Parade! Parade! Dropped we interviewed sports. and when I proclaimed that Kerosene Heights had released the AOTY, Kris told me the only thing better was the new AWA. In hindsight, this felt like a passing of the torch. Like the Undertaker making Jeff Hardy a superstar in that ladder match. Alright, maybe it wasn’t that big of a deal but considering Josh Talbot and the twins grew up on sports., I’m sure it feels validating to be able to gain the respect of the heroes who have become your peers. Musically, this record takes the best of third wave through fifth wave emo and spits them out in a near perfect 10 song, 30 minute runtime. Lyrically, this album seems to always attack the negative with a speck of light at the end of the tunnel. It feels hopeful, triumphant, and victorious. I guess the album name checks out.
#5 Scarlet Street - No Alternative
I wish I could do this album justice with my words but truthfully, I’m not not sure I’m intelligent enough. You need to hear it for yourself. The existential dread we all feel living in a world of social media slop, AI “art”, and a future where less and less of us will be able to retire? Scarlet Street is the soundtrack. This is late stage capitalism emo. This is ethical Brand New. No Alternative is the feel bad album of the year.
#6 Various Artists - Counter Intuitive Presents: Cosmic Debris, Vol. 2
Compilation albums feel like a bit of a lost art. Growing up, label comps and samplers were the way I was introduced to nearly all of my favorite bands. I miss compilations! Sure we still get them, but in the world of the playlist it’s very rare for a physical compilation to move the needle in any sort of cultural sense. This new CIR comp is the exception to that. The record kicks off with Combat’s only new track of 2026 and leads into “We Only Say It Out of Habit Now”, the newest and arguably best song in the Riley! catalogue. From Prince Daddy to Gami to Macseal to Oso, this comp simultaneously shows you why this label is so special while also feeling like an immersive experience.
#7 Pretty Bitter - Pleaser
The way this DC dream pop band is able to merge such hauntingly poignant lyrics and imagery with such ethereal 2000s indie sounds makes Pretty Bitter stand out amongst their peers. This album sounds like it was recorded on a major label budget but it was done in a bedroom. It sounds so beautifully serene yet it constantly battles feelings of dread and discomfort. “Pleaser” is the record that I would have gatekept from all my friends if I found it in high school.
#8 Camp Trash - Two Hundred Thousand Dollars
Raw, Uncut, Uncensored. No, I’m not describing the hot new POV flick on the pervhub, I’m talking about Camp Trash’s long awaited follow up to The Long Way, The Slow Way. This record feels like a band of friends getting in a room and playing music together, mistakes and all. It feels alive. This record is what would happen if Superdrag, Superchunk and Fountains of Wayne made a baby in a car hotboxed with cigarette smoke, parked at a gas station.
#9 The Tisburys - A Still Life Revisited
This record is like a game of fuck marry kill with Bruce Springsteen, Vampire Weekend and Wilco except the person playing doesn’t quite understand the rules of the game so it’s kind of just a polyamorous party between them. Frontman and lead songwriter Tyler Asay has such an innate earnestness in his approach to songs that skips right past dorky to impossibly cool. Simply put, this band feels like a nostalgic breath of fresh air, a modern spin on what makes guitar music so special in the first place. The album closer “Here Comes the Lonesome Dove” feels like a sermon echoing out in the pews of the church of rock and roll, and I am there singing out “oh yeah you’re not the only one” with my hands up and tears rolling down my eyes.
#10 Clipse - Let God Sort ‘em Out
I look at hip hop like wrestling. Larger than life characters, cutting promos on their oops that walk the line of fantasy and reality so well that you can’t tell what’s real. We have our favorites and we latch on to their every word. Thats why Pusha T is my favorite rapper of all time, he’s the coolest character in hip hop. He’s the Bezos of the nasal, the Kim Jong of the crack song. The man that kept Kanye in check for nearly a decade, the man that told the world about Drake’s son in a diss track. Push had had a helluva run while his brother Malice was No Malice, but much like the Hardy’s and Dudley’s, these brothers are truly better as a team.
11-25 (IN NO ORDER)
Drought - Souvenir
Tiny Voices - Reasons I Won’t Change
Lorde - Virgin
Ben Quad - Wisher
Winona Fighter - Apologies to the Chef
Cheem - Power Move
First Day Back - Forward
The Low Blow - Forest For the Trees
Anxious - Bambi
The Starting Line - Eternal Youth
Skiimo - Nothing Ever Changes
Algernon Cadwallader - Trying Not To Have a Thought
Action/Adventure - Ever After
FinalBossFight - The Life Of My Dreams
Liquid Mike - Hell Is An Airport
Honorable Mentions:
Bad Bunny “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS”, Charmer “Downpour”, Hot Mulligan “The Sound a Body Makes When it’s Still”, Turnstile “NEVER ENOUGH”