Rambling Fox

January 2025 Music Roundup

Art by Sancoon/Snouts

Let's have a little round-up of what's been the haps in the world of music during January!

Which... isn't much, because someone's clogging up the vinyl plants right now and that's meant a number of album releases have been pushed to February - and the ones due to release in February to begin with have been pushed further back. So there's not much in the way of new releases, but I guess that's always the case for January.

New Music Immediate Impressions

Franz Ferdinand - The Human Fear
Franz operate on a reverse Star Trek film rule - the odd-numbered albums are great, the even-numbered are varying degrees of middling-to-decent. The Human Fear is their sixth and it's not breaking the curse, and in fact it's probably their most middling to date. Where's the hooks, the charm, the suave wit, the adventurous energy - and why does it all just sound so disengaged? The Human Fear sounds like what people who only remember the debut album hits from their university party days think Franz Ferdinand sound like. Great cover though.

Kemopetrol - Engine
The moody Finnish pop group Kemopetrol come back with their first album in 14 years... and it sounds like there's barely been a day since the last album (2011's wonderfully atmospheric A Song & a Reason which was also a comeback album). But I'm not sure that's really all that much of a compliment this time? This, too, is the sixth album for the band and to date all Kemopetrol records have had a very distinct identity. Engine meanwhile sounds like a group of friends settling back into an old comfort zone of a groove, and then you end up with the inevitable comparison that this mode of operation simply sounded better last time around. It might surprise with some repeat listens later down the line, but the band annoyingly haven't made it easy - there's no CD version! It's like they don't want people to listen to their music...

Stick Crickets - Mini Mart Projectionist EP
My buddy Duster released a new EP under his Stick Crickets solo project right on at Jan 31st so I've not had a chance to listen to this loads, but I just love his sense of melody and energy and these new tracks are a great example of it. Six tracks of ecstatic, giddy power pop with rich and whimsical arrangements under a cosily mid-fi aesthetic - check it out!

Dyl Fox - Fox Tape II
I had the pleasure to both meet Dyl and dig deeper into his various musical projects last year, so this is another 'someone I know is a hecking good musician and you should listen to them' kind of entry. Fox Tape II is ostensibly a collection of instrumental demos but they're strong enough to stand proudly on their own two feet. Moody post-punk and gothic indie vibes centered around Dyl's rich bass playing

Hoard Updates

One of my 2025 resolutions is to calm the heck down with buying CDs constantly, at least until I get my brand new shelves sorted this year because I am critically running out of space. So, I'm not trying to go as nuts about buying random things as I did last year but, we'll, let's see how that goes.

Here's what got added to my collection in January 2025 (besides any 2025 music):

CD

Digital

You might guess who my CD single collection project for 2025 are! Chumbawamba are one of the first bands I really fell in love with (really) and I've long adored their vast collection of non-album tracks and other curios, so I'm making a point to grab what I can this year physically. All in anticipation to them being on the shortlist for my next long discography review project once I'm through the Pet Shop Boys back catalogue, foreshadowing... On a similar note, I've also been making an effort to get all the Further Listening reissues for the Pet Shop Boys that I've been missing, so I've been ordering one a month - truly some of the best reissues going around and a must for any fan.

Over in the digital world, it's a bunch of lo-fi/chillhop style Sonic remixes. January is deadline month in my IRL dayjob and this year it's been particular hell, and I've not had the focus to really listen to music while working. I have had to however fill the space with something and fairly often it's been the 24/7 Sonic Lo-Fi Stream - honestly I think January 2025 is when I realised why lo-fi beats to study to has such a presence in today's music culture. Because I'm someone who wants to own the things I like, I've been tracing a number of Sonic chillhop collections that I can actually buy (most of this stuff is random Soundcloud uploads annoyingly) and this is just a few I grabbed this time around. You know what you're getting into with these just from the name alone.

Most played song of the month according to Last.FM

Courtesy of the ongoing, soon-concluding Mew album reviews, it's the twisted freak funk of "Introducing Palace Players". It's like Mew listened to RHCP and thought "we could do that", and then went nuts about it. Lead by that skrunkly guitar and that bass with presence, my favourite moment is when the keyboard pad texture finally appears in that lengthy intro jam and the song just lifts up. Brilliant.

Next month - let's see if any of those albums meant to come out in February actually come out.

#music