Best albums of 2025: #1 No Joy “Bugland”

Well, here we are. We’ve finally made it to the last full day and hence, the last post of the year and exactly as planned, we’re going to be talking today about my favourite album of 2025: No Joy’s “Bugland”.

Originally formed as a duo in Montreal, Canada in 2009 by Jasamine White-Gluz and Laura Lloyd, No Joy has gone through a number of personnel compositions over the years but is these days, for all intents and purposes, the musical vehicle for White-Gluz. My first exposure to No Joy’s music was sampling their 2013 sophomore release “Wait to pleasure”. As I hinted back at the beginning of December*, I was alerted to this record care of a post on a Facebook group page that I had forgotten joining on all things Shoegaze. This happy introduction began a long love affair with their music. I immediately went back to pick up the debut “Ghost blonde”, ate that up, and since then, have stopped to take notice whenever a new EP or LP was announced. It was the term shoegaze that first drew me to No Joy but White-Gluz keeps adding to the arsenal and experimenting with sounds, colouring far outside the lines and stretching the label to its limits.

Indeed, when I wrote about No Joy’s fourth album “Motherhood” for my Best albums of 2020 list, I suggested that Wikipedia might soon need to erase all reference to shoegaze from its No Joy page. And though I think the progression has continued ever onward on “Bugland”, I’ve changed my thinking on that sentiment, especially after finally catching No Joy live back in October and seeing White-Gluz and company perform these songs in the flesh. This fifth record doesn’t always live in that space where guitars are layered, screeching, fuzzed out, and dreamy controlled chaos, but it’s still there at the heart. And there’s so much more. There’s some metal, some dance, experimental noise, prog, and synth pop. White-Gluz makes music for herself, that’s obvious, bucking trends and taking names, and she’s most definitely having fun on this album.

“Bugland” is big and magical. It begs to have all the knobs cranked to eleven. It calls you dance along with it, though its ups and downs, to close your eyes and sing/scream. It is definitely weekend music. Eight songs for living free. Each one worth your attention but as always, I’ve picked three from the group for you to sample.

“Garbage dream house”: “Erased the laughs all off from your face. And I’m wondering how.” The opening track feels like a collage. It starts and ends with mutated dial tone sounds, bringing to mind the days of dial up internet, when the world seemed limitless, if you could only have the patience for it. Then, there’s the heavy handed drum beat and the muscular guitar skipping the light fantastic around it. White-Gluz’s vocals sound at times a part of the ether, an echo of a dream, and at others fed through the machine, syllables and vowel sounds becoming key strokes. By the end, everything is thrown through the blender, and the song sounds like many different songs from one moment to the next, roaring and soaring and challenging your ear drums.

“Bits”: “I walk around the back and you’re all around me. You’re all around.” Track three is a dichotomy, setting angst and discordance against pastoral freedom. It is angry and noisy and angular guitars. These build and get more aggressive but when they take a break, to gear up for more, you notice that the dreamy synths were there all along. The vocals float around the proceedings, fading in and out of coherency. When you do catch a word or an idea, you can’t help but wonder whether you are missing something important with all those other words and ideas flitting about. You aren’t given long to ponder though. The vocals just continue to play hide and seek in the mix, even the spoken word bit at the end feels like a conversation walked in on halfway through, but before you can ever ask for a repeat, the song is over and you press play again.

“Bugland”: “You’re in bugland. Leave you suntanned. You look better with eyes eyes eyes.” The title track is only two and a half minutes long but it sounds infinitely bigger and more pronounced. The beats are frenetic, almost rave material, and they don’t quit, though they do slip behind the screen of heavy riffing guitars at points and the washes of synths at others. The words almost unintelligible, voice in the high registers, calling to mind early Cocteau Twins, but the energy and tech interruptions scream Curve. Indeed, White-Gluz is leaving us breathless, really selling us on this Bugland. I would never think that I might enjoy a place that would be run by the creepy crawlers but she almost has me convinced.