Rambling Fox

May 2025 Music Roundup

Art by Sancoon/Snouts

So as mentioned in the other entries, May has been a weird one and my usual music listening habits have been a little off. Ironically, it's also been a downright bonkers month for new music releases. I did have my fair share of downtime between the various mental breaks I took from work etc on account of things happening, so it did give me a chance to catch up on all this new music, but because I've had to split my time between so much new music I feel like I'm still getting to grips with a bunch of them. But let's binge on what's been going on.

New Music Immediate Impressions

Alien Boy - You Wanna Fade?
One of my least favourite trends is a new band releasing their debut album on CD, then going digital/vinyl only for the follow-up releases. But anyway... Alien Boy's guitar-crunchy midwest emo isn't really anything new under the sun but it proves that some formulas can be consistently reliable in good hands - and they've got them. On their second album, the band add more early Smashing Pumpkins guitars into their sound and deliver a readily enjoyable, catchy as heck blast of angst and vigour. It's a good follow-up to the debut and though it does suffer slightly from the vibe of trying to catch lightning twice in the same bottle, it's a lot of good vibes. I feel like there's potential for Alien Boy to release a real genre stand-out one day; this isn't one yet, but it's paving the way in further.

Arcade Fire - Pink Elephant
The internet has been kind of doing the most on this again as sharks out for easy blood often do, but even so, let's be honest - this isn't a good album. Even outside any odd vibes that Win Butler's mere presence generates after the accusations and general oddness a few years back, just on pure musical terms this is not up to scratch and definitely not what they needed at this stage. The idea of a dreamier, calmer album is fine but the songs are largely middling, the arrangements unexciting and there are some truly weird mixing choices. We already had hints that Butler and Chassagne were starting to treat Arcade Fire as solely their project, but given the COVID-related circumstances that was somewhat understandable; but Pink Elephant drives head-on into that territory, given the full band has only been involved in a small handful of the songs and the rest is largely Butler, Chassagne and producer Daniel Lanois. It only serves to highlight what everyone else brought to the table, even if the Butler and Chassagne have always been the lead writers, and no doubt that decision contributes to the apathetic and phlegmatic nature of this album. Dismissable.

Matt Berninger - Get Sunk
The National head sad dad's first solo album was a set of suave, loungey mid-tempos in tribute to such albums of the 50s and 60s that Berninger grew up listening to through his father's record collection. His second solo album meanwhile sounds like a "classic" frontman solo record: effectively a diet version of his day job. But I'll take that! Berninger's as magnetic as he's ever been and the songs are super solid, with a couple of truly excellent ones thrown in the mix as well - especially "Nowhere Special" where he brings back his stream-of-consciousness rapid fire word association rambling over a tight, atmospheric groove. This only came out at the end of May but is proving to be a really repeatable treat which I keep wanting to come back to, and I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of the year it'll rank quite decently. I've got tickets to see him live in a few months as well, so got some time to study this further by that point.

Car Seat Headrest - The Scholars
Phew, what a dense beast! And so incredible too! CSH return with a bang, with a concept album indie rock opera packed with bewilderingly arranged songs from anthems to 20-minute suites, and with a libretto of a lyric sheet that's practically mandatory to understand the characters, the context and who sings what. But best of all, it's also got some incredible songs. CSH have grown to be a fantastically dynamic band act and the instrumentals and arrangements are so exciting, while Toledo's vocal melodies are some of the best in the genre. It's a hefty album but also incredibly inviting and one that practically commands me back to listen. One of the year's highlights, for sure, and with "CCF" in particular being a real stand-out for 2025 (and it's going to be a real pain to add into my end of year mix with its 8+ minute length...). Plus, it's just so joyous to see someone lean so heavily into furry aesthetics in a "mainstream" release like this - the artwork is so beautiful and vividly imaginative throughout and really does add a lot to the story.

Friendship - Caveman Wakes Up
I jumped into the Friendship boat with their last album, 2022's Love the Stranger, which waded through 17 songs of cosy contemplative indie rock in 45 minutes. Caveman Wakes Up takes up almost the exact same time, but features only eleven songs. So, the songs are longer and that means the subtle, delicate atmosphere that the band weave are given more time to expand and wrap around the listener. An album for quiet mornings and introspective evenings, providing a safe harbour within its lush arrangements, gentle pacings and Dan Wriggins' quivering deep voice that strikes right in the heart. My copy only arrived a few days ago so I've just started properly digging into this, but I can already safely say that "Free Association" is one of the songs of the year: one of those tracks that just stopped me in my tracks to pay attention the first moment I heard it.

Furry Loser - Only Some Dogs Go to Heaven: The Best of Furry Loser
Ed St. Clair has built a veritably sizeable discography under his Furry Loser moniker, with numerous albums, EPs and re-recordings of his earnest, mid-fi and deliriously melodic indie pop all waiting to be found in Bandcamp. In that sense, it's nice that the first CD release he's done is a brand new best of compilation, consisting of a curated 16-song selection of some of Furry Loser's highlights. You could quibble here and there about a particular personal favourite or two missing from the tracklist, but that somewhat feels beside the point when this selection is still such a strong, fun run-through of giddily passionate indie pop straight from the heart - and at the end of the day my favourite Furry Loser song "Cliché" made the tracklist so I can't complain. As a primarily physical listener I'm really happy to have this representation of this act in my shelf, readily there for me to whip out whenever the mood strikes to hear more of St. Clair's bouncy, bright and subtly poignant songs.

Monday9 - A Bucket of Soil (In the Future)
Monday9 is the musical project of Totan, a Japanese fursuiter with a talent for beautiful and delicate acoustic songs, perfect to sink into for moments of time to simply enjoy the stillness and peace with. So far everything he's released has been Youtube-only and that continues with his latest full album, which is guaranteed Totan quality and with some additional bursts of bright volume to add a bit of flair. Absolutely worth it to hit play on this on a rainy Sunday morning and just let Totan's gentle voice and calm guitaring take you away. I really wish there was a version I could download or buy because it's such a charming thing to daydream to.

Pup - Who Will Look After the Dogs?
After the more experimental/expansive last album, Pup return to their trademark sound: explosive punk/power pop anthems just as full of hooks as they are punchlines both funny and starkly morbid. This is a wonderful mix of melody and brute force and has become a repeat favourite both for me and my partner in the household; it also feels like this is hitting me a bit more than usual - it's been accompanying me during a very difficult month and has struck that sweet spot where I want something energetic and loud but nothing too upbeat. Starting to form a personal relationship with this one, which is always a great thing - and it's also got "Hallways", another song I'd put in the Song of the Year club.

Suzanne Vega - Flying With Angels
Well, time to be a little less superlative here. Vega returns after several years with brand new music and it's... fine. Her wonderful voice is intact but the songwriting and especially her lyrics are a long measure away from her 1980s and 1990s works. Vega's talent lies in the grounded nature of her songs: understated but powerful melodies, straightforward but poignant arrangements, observant lyrics that say a lot with relatively few words. Flying With Angels sounds like it tries to aim for the same, but instead it's just awkwardly direct and blunt, like the bare minimum of time was spent thinking up any rhymes beyond the most obvious. It's all a bit aggressively mid and beige - not a comeback album that comes out like a fanfare, but like a seasoned veteran pushing out a record because it's something they're used to rather than because they have something they specifically want to say with these songs.

Hoard Updates

May was surprisingly busy for purchases, though largely by coincidence - I had ordered a bunch of music from my favourite Finnish record store (Levykauppa X/Record Shop X) while they were having a sale some time back, but thanks to stock delays I finally received the stash in May. I also thought that Bandcamp Friday was back in May and lined up some purchases ready for the day; even though BC Friday didn't happen, I still felt like clearing my digital wishlist accordingly. So there's a fair bit of new stuff here, besides any of the new releases above and the items I brought back from home (per my last update).

CD

Digital

This month's Sonic soundtracks show the point I'm at, where I'm just scrounging out music for the random side releases given how expensive all the mainline entry titles I'm missing are. Did you know that the mobile free runner title even had a physical soundtrack release? Me neither! But it slaps way more than you'd expect. The fun thing with these spin-off/side title soundtracks is how much cheaper the budget is for them, as instead of lavish thick jewel cases with big booklets and expansive liner notes, you get slim jewel cases, digipacks and minimal liner notes.

One of the main things of note is the 2001 Best Of compilation for the insanely popular Finnish angst rock band Apulanta, an act I never really cared for but whose music I've been listening to a lot more now that my Finnish #1s project has reached the period where they first began their reign over the charts. I did mainly get this as a helpful research tool for that project, but turns out time's been very kind to early Apulanta - and my taste has evolved too. There's some excellent alt rock songwriting here and I've actually been really enjoying spinning this compilation. I might need to start buying the early period albums...

The other release I'd like to highlight is Peter and the Mountain's debut and only release, the (extra long) EP You Are a Bear, Take What's Yours. I ended up bumping into this really coincidentally and it quickly won me over; its hazily melancholy yet comfortably homely, with echoes of log cabin era Bon Iver in its gentle acoustic songs. It even comes on CD on Bandcamp and in all honesty I was surprised to receive it given it's over a decade old from an artist who seemingly hasn't done anything else since, but they delivered it quickly and with some lovely messages. It's a little bit of a hidden nugget and worth investigating, and it's a shame there's not more music from them.

Music reviews in May

I figured I may as well use these monthly updates to highlight the music reviewing I do on my personal website, where I go through artist discographies in my music collection at an usually-steady pace. Of course, May was a bit of a quiet period for this activity as well and maybe it would make more sense to have brought this up on a month with more reviews, but adding this here now lest I forget.

I'm currently going through Pet Shop Boys' discography as my "big discography" project, and so most of May's reviews reflect this. There's also a review for the Sonic Team spin-off band Crush 40's self-titled "debut" album, to break the pace a little bit.

Most played song of the month according to Last.FM

A boring month for this segment: given my limited music listening time in May I spent most of it simply listening to the new releases, so all my most played songs are from releases already mentioned above. We'll have to dig in a lot deeper in my scrobbles to find something "new", and this is courtesy of the Crush 40 album review cycle. So here you go, a hard rock deep cut.

#music