Rambling Fox

March 2025 Music Roundup

Art by Sancoon/Snouts

It's time for another edition of Flint rambling on about what's been happening in music in the past month! Besides the first gig of the year.

New Music Immediate Impressions

BDRMM - Microtonic
The Manchester band's third album came out on 28th February but I didn't get a chance to properly dig into it until a couple of weeks later. I was a big fan of their last album, where trendy shoegazey sounds met slightly Radiohead-esque electronic textures, and the third album is going all-in on those electronic elements. For the better - I think this is a brilliant album. There are hints of other familiar sounds in it (I would definitely recommend this to anyone who loved the last Slowdive album) but BDRMM are starting to come to their own with their music, with these hazey atmospheric textures with swanky groovy rhythms underneath sounding both fresh and exciting. Big fan - this has been playing a lot in the fox household this month.

Lucy Dacus - Forever Is a Feeling
Dacus is happily in love, and I'm happy for her. And her latest album, so much inspired by her budding love, is all very lovely and romantic and pleasant. This isn't me thinking that artists can't do great art when they're happy nor do I think a bit of edge is necessary for Dacus (I think Home Video is her best album), but Forever Is a Feeling comes across a little too lightweight and fluffy at times. It's all soft soundscapes, soft vocals and soft lyrics, and as a fan of Dacus' voice that combination does bring some inherent enjoyment within it - but I just don't long back to hear it again. Most of my listens of this have been through second hand exposure while Shez has been listening to it, and that's been enough for me to be honest. Just not finding this very gripping, personally, as nice as it all is.

Destroyer - Dan's Boogie
It's a Destroyer album. Dan Bejar mutters his idiosyncratic stream-of-consciousness rambles over swanky, classy grooves and deftly orchestrated arrangements - classic Destroyer, in other words. Dan's Boogie returns to more of a band sound after the last couple synthesizer-hefty albums, and as Destroyer albums are wont to do it's both incredibly familiar territory as well as something with a bit of its own flair that distinguishes it from the others. That flair this time around is perhaps a certain kind of looseness and relaxed joy of it all: everyone's having a great time in the studio just jamming along to some swish passages, and Bejar's eyes have a cheeky twinkle.

Great Grandpa - Patience, Moonbeam
What a stunningly good album. Patience, Moonbeam is a wonderful continuation from the excellent Four of Arrows, taking the expansiveness of that album's sound and fully leaning into it - the band highlights their multiple voices (both literal as well as songwriting) as a strength and presents a varied yet cohesive statement of incredible indie rock that keeps you on your toes with its dips in different sounds while also capturing the listener within its world. I keep returning to this - a real highlight of the year so far.

Japanese Breakfast - For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women)
The early murmurs about the fourth Japanese Breakfast album was that it was heading to a noisier, darker direction - but it's anything but (and maybe that's explained by the fact that this was recorded over a year ago by this point, and not reflective of Zauner's latest songs). Instead this is a very quiet and subtle album, full of somber ballads and wistful mood moments - and also a few stray shots into a suddenly Wilco-esque direction, which is a pleasant surprise. It's all very lush as well, as Zauner's voice is draped in richly layered arrangements - the songs may not necessarily sound like it, but there's a lot happening in the background. It's good but it's definitely giving signs of a grower. Good job these are but first impressions.

My Morning Jacket - Is
My Morning Jacket are a bit like a favourite microwave meal: I don't think about them much and I don't necessarily connect with them that deeply, but there's something very comforting and lovely about them and let's face it, sometimes you just want some charming good ol' jammy rock without many intricacies. Is sounds like a My Morning Jacket album and I've been enjoying it as one - can't see myself ever becoming truly passionate about it, but I enjoy it whenever it's on. Jim James' voice is one of those things I could honestly listen to all day and the world would feel like a sunnier place.

Jenni Vartiainen - Origo
The Finnish pop singer Jenni Vartiainen has a place in my record collection because of her phenomenal album trilogy from the turn of the 2010s: the confident debut Ihmisten edessä (2007), the artistic magnum opus Seili (2010) and the moody and epic Terra (2013). They are cinematic, atmospheric and emotionally evocative and really some of my favourite pop albums of the new millennium - and since then, Vartiainen has found herself drifting a little. Her fourth album Monologi (2018) was an unconvincing break away into less introspective, flirtier material and basically came and went, and after that Vartiainen took a long break (partly due to maternity). Origo sounds like an attempt to capture some of the spark of her first three albums but it's left superficial: it's nice and all, but it lacks both the bangers and the surprisingly devastating confessionals. It's fine, and better than the last album, but maybe there's just no topping that initial magical run.

Hoard Updates

Each month I keep telling myself to calm down, and each month I always end up not doing so. Here's what got added to the ever-overflowing shelf (besides any of the new 2025 albums out of the above that I've ended up buying)

CD

Digital

The CD purchases have mainly been various whim purchases: the Tame Impala and Nick Drake albums got added to my bag when randomly popping to HMV with a friend (first time buying anything from HMV in a couple of years, I think...), and the R.E.M. deluxe reissue was on a random sale. The Chumba single marathon continues, and my Sonic soundtrack mission has now reached the point where all the main game OST I'm still missing are insanely expensive, and so I'm finding myself grabbing these random side game soundtracks because you can find those for pretty cheap still. Collectors gotta collect.

It wasn't Bandcamp Friday in March but I still wanted to clear a bunch of my overtly bulging wishlist. Ended up with a bunch of furry electronic music (from dance to ambient to retro game style soundscapes) that have piqued my curiosity along the way, and another Curious Quail release from this really good and massively unrecognised band that I discovered through Cohost (RIP Eggbug).

Most played song of the month according to Last.FM

This month's big hit comes from one of last month's (and 2025's) best albums: "Angie's Wedding" is off Antony Szmierek's debut album Service Station at the End of the Universe and it's one of my favourite songs in it, representing so well what exactly makes that album so captivating. Szmierek's charming spoken word with wit and heart, and some real tight dance grooves.

#music