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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.

*In a story I’ve told a couple of times that I won’t repeat here.

So that’s it, my favourites for 2025. In case you missed them, here are the previous albums in this list:

10. Snocaps “Snocaps”
9. Nation Of Language “Dance called memory”
8. Robert Ascroft “Echo still remains”
7. Doves “Constellations for the lonely”
6. Miki Berenyi Trio “Tripla”
5. Suede “Antidepressants”
4. Wet Leg “Moisturizer”
3. Pulp “More”
2. The Limiñanas “Faded”

You can also check out my Best Albums page here if you’re interested in my other favourite albums lists.

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Albums

Best albums of 2025: #2 The Limiñanas “Faded”

I trust that those of you who celebrate had an enjoyable Christmas holiday. I passed a great couple of days with my lovely wife but now I’m back to continue this countdown of my fave albums of the year. So let’s go.

Seven years ago I fell in love with an album. It was called “Shadow people” and it was by this band that I’d never heard of before: The Limiñanas. I placed it at the number eight position on the list of my top ten albums of 2018 when I sat down to put it together. But the album continued to grow in my esteem over the months and years that followed and it would likely place even higher if I were ever to redo said list.

Strangely and sadly, I was never able to learn much more about this band. I can tell you that The Limiñanas were formed in 2009 in a small town in the south of France by husband and wife duo, Lionel and Marie Limiñana, but that’s nearly all I can say for sure. I went back and tracked down a handful of their previous albums and found that there’s much to like there as well. So I then set to waiting impatiently for a new album, an album that didn’t immediately appear. Instead, they focused on scoring and soundtracking a bunch of films and collaborating on material with some of their friends, including actress Emmanuelle Seigner and Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Anton Newcombe*. I was almost starting to expect that a new album would never materialize, especially after the release of their retrospective compilation, “Electrified”, back in 2022, but then, I was surprised yet again.

Somehow its February release escaped my notice and I came at “Faded” from behind. From the opening notes of the instrumental intro track, I knew the album I had been waiting for had arrived. The double album is cinematic in scope and heavenly dramatic. The duo enlist likeminded guest vocalists to lead certain tracks, adding to their own shared duties, giving the proceedings a compilation feel, albeit one with a shared vision and a droning, retro psychedelic rainbow coloured coat of paint. It’s music as haunting and indelible as the blanked out faces draped across the album’s cover. The mood is late-night art-house film or darkened, half-empty, wine soaked dive bar.

The thirteen tracks are hard to separate and dissect as distinct entities apart from the delicious whole and I wouldn’t bring myself to do so if it weren’t the tradition with these posts. I’ve perservered, however, and managed to come up my three picks for you to peruse.

“The dancer”: Track seven is an instrumental beast. It starts with a steady drum beat. It is quickly layered with an arpeggiating bass line that just climbs up in down your spine like a fit athlete on a rope ladder. Pretty soon you’re deep in a jungle of organ chords and effects, easily lost to the sounds. The fuzzy guitars are the last straw. Queue the smoke machine and the retro coloured light show and you’ve somehow forgotten there’s no words to sing along to. Your whole body is absorbed in the delicious washes of sound. You can almost picture the scene in the film to which this could soundtrack, a mass crowd on the dance floor, soft filters, the protagonist succumbing to the lateness of the hour and the alcohol levels of her umpteenth cocktail.

“Shout”: “Shout shout, until you lose your soul.” The vocals on track four are provided by Timothée Régnier (aka Rover), a French musician that grew up in New York City and sings mostly in English. A haunting voice that echoes bouncing down an infinite hallway, ominious and foreboding. Set against a punishing beat, hammering keys, layers of guitars, you almost feel like this could be a lost outtake from the self-titled Velvet Underground debut album. Yeah, another insatiable track yanked firmly from another time and another place. An anachronistic journey from beginning to end.

“Prisoner of beauty”: “Poor little diamond crashed out on the rocks again.” Apparently, the advanced single and second track on the album was inspired by Primal Scream’s “Rocks”. It certainly has a similar driving beat as the Scottish psych rock band’s 1994 hit single and of course, “Prisoner of beauty”’s vocals are perfectly and unmistakably delivered by Primal Scream’s frontman, Bobbie Gillespie. It’s an almost perfect collaboration and feels like it was fated, written in the sparkling stars. I couldn’t imagine any other way that this song could have been delivered better, the man and myth sounds like he’s cozying right up to fuzzy guitars and screaming organs and wrapping them around himself like the most comfortable robe. This is without a doubt one of the greatest indie rock singles to see the light in the last year** and one that I could see dragging these sorry old bones of mine out on to any dance floor, at any time to shake a leg and slap a thigh. So great.

*Who produced the aforementioned “Shadow people”.

**Though in truth it was released as a single near the end of 2024.

We’ll be back on New Year’s Eve with the final post in the countdown. In the meantime, here are the previous albums in this list:

10. Snocaps “Snocaps”
9. Nation Of Language “Dance called memory”
8. Robert Ascroft “Echo still remains”
7. Doves “Constellations for the lonely”
6. Miki Berenyi Trio “Tripla”
5. Suede “Antidepressants”
4. Wet Leg “Moisturizer”
3. Pulp “More”

You can also check out my Best Albums page here if you’re interested in my other favourite albums lists.

Categories
Albums

Best albums of 2025: #3 Pulp “More”

Looking back over the pages on this site, I’ve come to realize that Pulp hasn’t gotten near enough love on this blog*, especially given how much I’ve listened to them, sang along with them, and danced to their tunes over the years. Back in 2018, I did publish some words on my top five favourite tunes by the band and in that post, explained how my first time listening to the group in earnest was when I saw them opening for Blur at Toronto’s Phoenix Concert Theatre back in the fall of 1994. I expressed how clueless we all were when Jarvis Cocker and his five bandmates, Russell Senior, Candida Doyle, Nick Banks, Steve Mackey, and Mark Webber, strode on to the stage and proceeded to blow us all away. We all went out to buy their 4th album “His ’n’ hers” the next day and played the hell out of it. Shortly afterwards, “Common people” hit the airwaves and Britpop exploded and Pulp became legendary. I continued following them through the release of three more albums and right up to their dissolution in 2002.

Frontman Jarvis remained relatively active, released a couple of solo albums and an additional album with a new band called Jarv Is, but the other members of Pulp were relatively quiet, at least in terms of the music industry. The group reformed in 2011 and toured extensively for the next couple of years before calling it quits again in 2013. In 2022, they announced they would be re-forming again** but before they were able to play a single show, bassist Steve Mackey passed away in March 2023 after being hospitalized with an undisclosed illness. The first run of their latest reunion shows were wildly successful, once again taking them all over the world, including a larger spate in North America that included two sold out shows in Toronto, one of which I was hoping to attend with my friend Tim***. But sadly, I never made it.

Last December, Pulp announced they were signing on to Rough Trade records, which tipped off that we might finally get an 8th studio album, new material, hints of which had been heard at those aforementioned shows. When “More” was announced and went up for pre-sales on the internet earlier this year, I immediately put in for a copy on vinyl. I had no idea what I was going to get but I had a feeling it was going to be special. Thankfully for me, I was right. “More” isn’t just any old reunion album. It is the example by which any group that had their heyday thirty years ago and thinking of giving it another go should follow. This isn’t a retread of old ground or a resurrecting of old ghosts. This is a veteran band that had more to say and more to contribute.

“More” is Pulp giving us more of what they always did best, an older and wiser Pulp that still has an eye on the world like no other. It is eleven voyages and colourful tales, each one worth delving deeply into but as usual, I’ve put together three picks for you as a starting point.

“Grown ups”: “And I am not aging. No, I am just ripening. And life’s too short to drink bad wine and that’s frightening.” With a staccato guitar riff that is reminiscent of a cross between “Roxanne” and “(I just) Died in your arms”, “Grown ups” is a raucous bounce and jive. It’s a six minute riff on being a grown up, looked at the through the eyes of youth and later by contemporaries. In Cocker’s hands, the subject matter becomes laughable and almost cool in its awkward existence. He delivers the diatribe much like he did in songs thirty years ago but back then, it was sordid tales of extramarital affairs and slumming because it was cool. “Why am I telling you this story? I don’t remember.” Just crank up the tune and dance along.

“Got to have love”: “Without love, you’re just making a fool of yourself. Without love, you’re just jerking off inside someone else.” I mean, yeah, he ain’t lying. Though I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone else put it quite that way. And that’s what makes Jarvis such a great lyricist, as well as a great showman – he’s pretty fearless and damned honest. But if you weren’t listening closely you could easily miss gems like these, especially here. “You got to have love” sounds like a gigantic party and ready-made dance floor filler. The sampled vocal refrain and gang strings just scream disco hit and celebration. A beat that doesn’t quit and cymbal crashes that explode with confetti. You wanted more Pulp, right? Well they certainly deliver here.

“Spike island”: “I was born to perform. It’s a calling. I exist to do this, shouting and pointing.” You think Jarvis is talking about himself? Sure is. The advanced first single off “More” was the first piece of new music from Pulp in more than a decade and it was a welcome sweet sound for sore ears. Purportedly, the song takes for its subject Cocker’s feelings towards Pulp’s getting back together and an optimism towards the future. Meanwhile, the song’s title and chorus were inspired by a legendary Stone Roses gig that took place just around the time that Pulp hitting their stride in the mid-90s. It’s got slide guitar, a bold bass, unbreakable beat, and plenty of swagger for good measure. “Spike island” pronounced in capital letters that Pulp was indeed back.

*Before this post, there’s been only a measly three out of the close to one thousand posts that I’ve published since this blog’s inception in spring 2017.

**With the entire “Different Class” era lineup, excepting of course Russell Senior.

***Lucky jerk somehow made it to both shows and by all accounts they were both phenomenal.

We’ll be back before you know it with album #2. In the meantime, here are the previous albums in this list:

10. Snocaps “Snocaps”
9. Nation Of Language “Dance called memory”
8. Robert Ascroft “Echo still remains”
7. Doves “Constellations for the lonely”
6. Miki Berenyi Trio “Tripla”
5. Suede “Antidepressants”
4. Wet Leg “Moisturizer”

You can also check out my Best Albums page here if you’re interested in my other favourite albums lists.