Quick-fire Roundup - September 2025

Short reviews for some of our favorite releases of the past month.

Quick-fire Roundup is our chance to highlight a few of the albums we’ve been digging from the past month that we may not have had the time or energy to pump out full essays for. These releases nevertheless deserve a gold star and a spot on the podium.

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La Dispute – No One Was Driving The Car
64:21 // September 5th, 2025 // Epitaph

By La Dispute’s own admission in the album’s accompanying multi-part, making-of documentary, No One Was Driving The Car crystallized not with the intent of changing anything fundamental about the band’s musical or thematic ethos, but burrowing deeper into their inescapable DNA. Anyone expecting a detour from their increasingly indie rock-ified post-hardcore will only glimpse that image in the margins at first—front man Jordan Dreyer still talk-shouts over tense, meandering instrumentals about the ruin and resilience of post-industrial Michigan—but No One’s unique contributions to the band’s canon surface in exponential form late in the tracklist, unknowingly foreshadowed in (and eventually emboldening) the vignettes preceding them.

Dreyer’s interrogations of history, agency, and capitalism peak with a stretch of tracks (8-10) that rival their previous career high, Act III of Wildlife, in widescreen enlightenment and sheer intensity, exorcising stifled baggage about Calvinist rhetoric and prosperity gospel horseshit through the context of run-ins with pyramid scheme grifters, an old friend’s suicide, and a corporate party interrupted by Biblical rapture. The album’s comedown is just as mesmerizing, offering no solution to social unrest or environmental collapse and no prescriptive read on if a deity has control of the wheel, simply simmering to a close with a preacher’s plea for compassion. Even if every musical moment up to that point isn’t equally stunning (appreciation of “Autofiction Detail,” for instance, will hinge on how much you miss MewithoutYou; “Self-Portrait Backwards” and “Saturation Diver” are amorphous segues and “Sibling Fistfight...” is so La Dispute it verges on self-parody), No One Was Driving The Car is an experience greater than the sum of its parts that largely succeeds in its stated mission. (8.0/10)

- Zack Lorenzen

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Mulatu Astatke – Mulatu Plays Mulatu
61:20 // September 26th, 2025 // Strut Records

As the legendary founder of Ethio-jazz, Mulatu Astatke needs absolutely no introduction! The man’s trademark motifs unravel at the peak of solemnity, but he endows them with a leisurely funk sensibility to such success that he has opened doors, crossed borders, reimported and redefined jazz to more listeners over more decades than I could possibly count! Perhaps a key logistical factor to his legend is that his modestly-proportioned discography is focused on different performances of a handful of key standards, and so it’s a simple matter to draw all one imagines one needs from a couple of highlight releases (most famously, the iconic Éthiopiques 4 compilation). Within just a few hours, one has the feeling of going from freshly initiated to intimately acquainted, and it’s all too tempting to stick to one’s entry points and call it a day.

Mulatu Plays Mulatu begs us to reconsider! Dubbed his first major album in over a decade, this record reinvents a handful of his classics with an inventive set of Ethiopian big band arrangements that allow for more improvisation and dynamic variation than ever, all while ushering in a whole range of exciting new timbres that I am not remotely qualified to cite instrument-by-instrument (krar, masenqo, washint, kebero and begena, cites the Bandcamp — believe you me, those words will take on fresh album by the end of this album).

All of this is exemplified on the latest version of his staple “Yèkèrmo Sèw”, which takes a newly cinematic life as it rides successive peaks and valleys to accommodate understated solo sections. The ebb and flow of the track make for a distinct contrast to the linear stylings of the Éthiopiques 4 version, but if linear funk is your fix from Astatke, this latest version of “Nètsanèt” makes for a deliciously indulgent jam around a single, insistent groove. Perhaps the most drastic transformation here is that of the perennial “Mulatu”, the airy mystique of which is hardly recognisable as the claustrophobic noir-funk we heard on his 1972 masterpiece Mulatu of Ethiopia — it’s a neat reflection of the wider phenomenon at play here: although these may be the most exotic renditions of these tunes to date, their timelessness has never been so palpable. (8.5/10)

- Hugh Puddle

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Night Tapes - portals//polarities
49:16 // September 26th, 2025 // Nettwerk Music Group

I feel like I’ve spent the past month praising fusions of shoegaze and electronic music with my Total Wife and Forever ☆ reviews, but in doing so, I have been neglecting how beats and synths have been informing the other greatest genre of all time: dream pop. Allow me to introduce you to Night Tapes, a London-based band creating some of the floatiest vibiest music out there. Their new album portals//polarities is an entirely lovely experience with some serious highlights: “babygirl (like no1 else)” bathes in the kind of wonderfully hypnotic textures that are amped up by “storm”s mesmerising ebb and flow, while tracks like “patience (waiting for the setting sun)” and “lemon tree midnight” transform unsuspecting melodies into entrancing ambient-tinged dream pop cuts. Even though the record slips into pleasant-if-unmemorable territory from time to time, these exceptional moments easily carry its weight. And, tbh, you’ll never find me not cheering on dreamy vibes entering the world of electronics (or vice versa). (7.0/10)

- jesper

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Siege Column - Sulphur Omega
37:21 // September 3rd, 2025 // Self-released

In a year dominated by a torrential downpour of core-informed BroSDM, mimetic atmospheric black metal, and alarmingly standardized simulacra doing their best to approximate the once-feisty black-death tab, you can hear a collective ‘oh shit’ echo through the global speakeasy we call the online metal community whenever something more self-sufficient pops up from under the counter. Siege Column are a trusted brand precisely because of their unabashed quirks, and it’s wholly in character for them to shadow-drop a new album like they’ve done here. Sulphur Omega isn’t just a steadfast continuation of their anti-trend attitude, but the crest of that very concept, where a prosaic mindset meets a perfervid performance, and letting the simplicity of the ideas hit you square on the nose has always been the end goal rather than a reflection of stifled imagination. If Blood Incantation are death metal’s Porcupine Tree, these lads are its Sex Pistols. (7.0/10)

- Nex

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Last Retch - Abject Cruelty
27:39 // September 26th, 2025 // Time to Kill

On the opposite end – firmly in the pro-trend camp – we find Last Retch cautiously tip-toeing across the brittle roof of a Nissen hut tagged with ‘GROOVE’ in bold red letters by a Taki 183 copycat, coming dangerously close to having the whole thing collapse and plunging into its musky interior adorned with hunting rifles, fishing rods, and a flooring made from tread-down Smokey Bacon Pringles tubs and gas-station coffee cups.

While they display more than just a few hardcore-emanating mannerisms on their second full-length, they do so with class and a keen ear for catchy progressions, which in turn makes songs like “Dissolved in Lye (Down to Rot)“ and especially “Resinous Drip of Decay” haunt the listener long after their pods have hit the charging station. These Canadians know how to skillfully blend their 90s with their 2010s and the results – despite their saliently stripped-down pathos – speak to a high level of awareness for what’s fun, especially in a live setting. Some of it may seem a bit tame, maybe even trite, if you pride yourself on knowing the ins and outs of ‘core-kid DM’ lore, but this will assuredly get some vertical neck movement out of you when it’s blaring through a club PA. (7.0/10)

- Nex

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Joan Shelley - Real Warmth
43:19 // September 19th, 2025 // No Quarter

Real Warmth is the perfect title for Kentucky singer-songwriter Joan Shelley’s latest LP - while it’s hard to pin down any area in which these lush folk tunes truly excel, they consistently convey a feeling both tangibly human and deeply comforting. In the nuts and bolts, all musical elements are strong yet not quite incredible - Shelley’s vocals are sublime but don’t transcend, her lyrics are thoughtfully poetic but rarely striking, and the melodies and arrangements are graceful but scarcely memorable. In the end, it matters little that none of these thirteen tracks will be likely to grace my (possibly hypothetical) “best tunes of 2025” list - taken together, they fit together into an absolutely lovely snug and cozy mood. This is one hell of a feel-good listen, especially amid the wan sunlight and crunching fallen leaves of early autumn. (8.0/10)

- Sunnyvale

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The Goslings - Plexuses, Planes
46:39 // September 5th, 2025 // Self-released

Of all the bands to launch an entirely unexpected comeback this year! The Goslings were once a premium ticket to shattering your windows from the inside the house, to tuning your tinnitus to the pitch of an emaciated angel’s nails on God’s jailhouse chalkboard, or simply to soundtracking your own car crash. Centred around the Floridian husband-wife duo of Max and Leslie Soren, their amps-to-eleven, doom-infused clamour stood out in the shoegaze extended universe for its all-too-rare resolve to deliver a genuinely abrasive onslaught of scourging noise (best heard on their 2006 masterpiece Grandeur of Hair). Said noise being at once impeccably realised and far too fucking much to handle in extended doses, I never questioned the whys and wherefores behind their decision to halt activities in 2009, and did not expect them back — yet here they are!

Plexuses, Planes may consist of previously unfinished material from their original run, but it casts a decisively new light on the Goslings sound. The furnaces of noise seem to have cooled during the group’s hiatus years, and rather than relight them, the Sorens seem to find more intrigue in poking around the ashes and asking lateral questions about whatever foul fuel sources they once burned to such extremes. The upshot is markedly ‘softer’, avoiding any sense of an overload without shying away from abusive gain levels on whatever amplified ex-horrors at the heart of each track. These trundle along with a fresh sense of lonesomeness, and the band use the reprieve to spotlight the delirious psychedelia that has always underpinned their sound and cast their doom tendencies in a newly plaintive light. The likes of “Mystery Guest” and album highlight “Statuette/Landing” are half-dirge, half-hymnal, and for a handful of seconds, the closer “Muddlemoon” could almost pass as an everyday outing from stereotypically maudlin shoegaze or slowcore act — such moments don’t exactly point to a wider streamlining of the Goslings sound as much they underscore how deeply fractured the melodies and arrangements are across the board here.

Whatever feverish, droning spirit of clashing tones and nauseous refrains suffused the Goslings’ earlier work, it is alive and well here, and if hearing it at a lower volume only reinforces this fact, then so much the better. I’m not convinced that Plexuses, Planes‘ zany meanderings will hold the attention of anyone who doesn’t have the contrast with the band’s earlier material to weigh them against, but no matter: it’s more than adequate as the start of a new chapter, and that is enough for now. (7.0/10)

- Hugh Puddle

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Wendy - Cerulean Verge
17:26 // September 10th, 2025 // ASND

Marking her first release following her departure from SM, Red Velvet vocalist Wendy’s third mini-album is a stark improvement over the lowkey and understated vibes that dragged 2024’s Wish You Hell into mediocrity. Having been given the freedom to actually use what many consider to be one of if not the best voice in k-pop to its fullest extent, she wastes no time in belting her way through an assortment of so-so synth-tinged pop rock instrumentals that make up for what they lack in identity by virtue of simply being way too damn catchy. Opening track Fireproof is emblematic of much of the rest of the release, with it’s driving Carly Rae Jepsen-biting instrumental carried heavily by Wendy’s impeccable performance, The only real outlier here is closer Believe, an emotional ballad with a minimalist piano-based arrangement which seems to exist mostly to prove a point, showcasing exceptionally the full power of her voice. As a whole though, nothing really here surprises and there’s a lingering feeling that she could be doing something a little more interesting or inventive with her talents, but Cerulean Verge is a solid outing nonetheless. (7.5/10)

- Tom Read

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Hadopelagyal – Haematophoryktos
44:50 // September 19th, 2025 // Amor Fati

As much as most black metal cuttings often fail to excite me, every now and then an album comes along that sparks my interest in exploring the deeper layers of the genre, in immersing myself in the dark magmatic streams flowing beyond its unalluring crust. August gave me Vörnir; September followed that up with Volahn and Hadopelagyal. Even someone as unconversant as myself can tell from a dead-rudimentary comparison of Popol Vuh and Haematophoryktos that the former is considerably more nuanced, but there’s something about the latter’s primordiality that keeps luring me back in.

Someone infinitely better informed about all things BM lovingly called it ‘almost an Archgoat B-side’, but to me this feels a good deal more calculated, well-nigh transcendental-philosophical in its execution, unflinchingly chipping away at the listener’s mind from all angles, sending them into a trance through mantra-like repetition of long-form riff shapes and hypnotizing mixing choices. This agency of constant erosion is aided by Hekla’s fantastic vocal performance, which - just like the rest of the instrumentation - benefits from the (by genre standards) finely granulated production. Much like what more war-leaning outfits such as Teitanblood or the likewise Hekla-fronted Haemalharia are going for, everything blends into an earsplitting wall of sound that rewards repeat listens by unfurling into something more shaded than the first impression might let on.

Other bands in this sphere or even orbit may be more technical, faster, rawer, or more complex, and yet, to this BM boor, this is more spellbinding on a full spin than ninety percent of what has come out this year. The creeping but ineluctable disintegration of the nous, set to music. (8.0/10)

- Nex

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kurayamisaka – kurayamisaka yori ai wo komete
46:14 // September 10th, 2025 // Tomoran

Kurayamisaka’s semi-self-titled, full-length debut arrives off the heels of a 2022 EP that lit junkies of underground shoegaze abuzz. The three years since have been restless for the Tokyo-based quintet, dropping single after single and keeping their fanfare alive in anticipation of this larger breakthrough. Across this LP’s twelve charming tracks, the consistency and poise of Kurayamisaka’s songwriting cements that first taste as no fluke.

They collectively follow the footprints of Japan’s indie rock forebears even more than their ostensible current compatriots; the rough-edged grunge tones and perky jangle pop chord progressions call to mind The Pillows or early Supercar while the band’s yearning emo tendencies can trace a lineage back to the scrappy compositions of Bloodthirsty Butchers. Lead singer Sachi Naitō pigeonholes demand for that sort of songwriting helmed not by frenetic, gruff vocals but airy, tender ones—a comparison once made about Chiaki Satō and her once-cherished, soon-burnt out band Kinoko Teikoku. Whether or not Kurayamisaka tread a similar path towards eventual obsolescence, here they sound young and hardly premature, blooming and yet already rewarding on the strength of their hooks and the vitality of their un-sterilized production. Need some grade-A power pop that you probably won’t linguistically understand but will intuitively feel? Look no further. My fingers are crossed Kurayamisaka’s love won’t run out anytime soon. (8.0/10)

- Zack Lorenzen

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Humming Urban Stereo - MOOSA
12:43 // September 4th, 2025 // Waltzsofa

This blast of groovy dance-pop is as much a light fluffy sugar rush as its pastel cover art suggests, skipping between cute retro R&B and more vibey drum and bass with ease, whilst managing to avoid weak nostalgia bait. Bringing in a pretty impressive lineup of guests including former LOONA member Chuu to handle vocal duties also contributes to the surprising diversity across the short runtime, with her track BBB being an obvious highlight thanks to its sparkly chorus and punchy bassline. Elsewhere key moments include the straight-out-of-2001 2-step banger TECHI with vocalist Risso, and the atmospheric closer AYA, whose layers of ethereal pads and bouncy jungle sub-bass are equally as vintage and equally as compelling. Above all else though it’s just nice to hear Humming Urban Stereo get back into his groove again after a couple of milder releases, and if moving past his more subdued lounge-esque origins is what it takes to get him in full form again, we can only hope for more in this vein in the future. (8.0/10)

- Tom Read

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