Winter 2024/2025 Roundup.

By R. Loxley

Heavy music is showing vigorous life across subgenres.

A new generation of extreme metal acts is rejuvenating old-school sounds: Danish death metal upstarts Neckbreakker channel the grisly grind of Cannibal Corpse and Carcass on their debut Within The Viscera, The Barbarians of California fuse West Coast hardcore with a metallic stomp on And Now I’m Just Gnashing My Teeth, and Alabama’s No Cure put their hometown on the hardcore map with I Hope I Die Here. These ferocious releases illustrate a broader hardcore/metal resurgence: whether it’s Jinjer’s progressive metal from war-torn Ukraine, DITZ and Lambrini Girls, or veteran industrialists Godflesh reimagining their own 2014 album through dub, heavy music is innovating and cross-pollinating with other genres. From doom-gaze (Finland’s Shedfromthebody) to noise-rock (Australia’s Major Arcana), it’s clear that extremes are thriving, while seasoned legends respond in kind. Despite grim inspiration, Godspeed You! Black Emperor harness their trademark fury to produce music more potent than ever, signalling a trend of making the epic more immediate.

In alternative pop, artists blur lines more than ever: Poppy’s highly anticipated Negative Spaces pushes her ever-evolving fusion of pop and industrial metal. Likewise, Rebecca Black completes her transformation from viral teen to bona fide hyperpop icon on SALVATION, a 21-minute “sonic rebellion” that fuses hyperpop and electro into a bold manifesto of reinvention. Biig Piig’s long-awaited debut 11:11 traverses between funk-pop, and R&B, yet often thriving in intimate, after-hours moments rather than full club drops. Even instrumental music finds playful new forms: Yesness - a collaboration between Damon Che and Kristian Dunn - delivered a knotty instrumental carnival on See You At The Solipsist Convention, dubbing their uncategorizable sound “post-everything” built on 8-string bass and polyrhythmic drums, exemplifying how virtuosic experimenters are making complex music fun and accessible. In sum, genre hybridity is the new norm. Geordie Greep’s The New Sound gleefully jumps between over-the-top art-rock genres while satirizing toxic masculinity, and Saya Gray’s debut SAYA glides through folk and beyond with limitless sonic curiosity, moving between anger, sadness, and acceptance, all while blurring genre lines. Across these selections, artists are breaking out of one-genre confines, proving that creative vitality often lies in the margins and the mixtures of styles.

Indie rock and folk-oriented songwriters continue to produce deeply compelling work, often with a new found emotional intensity. A standout is Mount Eerie’s Night Palace, Phil Elverum’s 11th album culminating 25 years of lo-fi experimentation folding in everything from Zen meditation reflections to flashes of black-metal drone within its indie rock tapestry, a testament to how introspective songwriters are infusing their music with life’s hard-won wisdom. Similarly, Canada’s The Weather Station turns personal turmoil into art on Humanhood, a lush folk-rock record written in the wake of personal crisis, and in the midst of global upheaval. Tamara Lindeman balances acoustic warmth with electronic texture, searching for meaning in chaos and confronting climate grief and heartbreak simultaneously, on an emotionally attuned, genre-fluid folk album that finds quiet power in vulnerability. Laura Marling also returned with Patterns In Repeat, an album born from motherhood and family introspection, exploring patterns passed down through generations with gentle folk and string arrangements. Marling’s trademark intimate songwriting gains new depth as she contemplates the cycle of life, and her and Lindeman’s albums show how folk and singer-songwriter genres are tackling bigger societal and life themes while retaining the music’s personal touch. Indie rock ensembles are likewise evolving: Brighton/London trio Our Girl overcame a years-long hiatus to create The Good Kind, blending heavy guitar dynamics with earworm melodies and quiet intimacy. It’s a warm, honest indie-rock record that celebrates perseverance and self-determination, exemplifying a trend of indie bands doubling down on authenticity. Juanita Stein (with the dreamy, nostalgic The Weightless Hour) and Tyler, The Creator indicate that across genres, introspection is paramount, with artists mining their inner lives and personal identities for creative fuel. These works reinforce that introspective music is gaining fresh urgency and innovation in 2025.

Malian band Songhoy Blues deliver a radiant tribute to their musical heritage on Héritage, mixing new songs with reimagined Malian classics, all with traditional instruments woven into their desert blues rock. It’s a gorgeous acoustic turn for the band - less distortion, more roots - that reflects on nature and land stewardship while giving a big thank you to the ancestors who inspire them. This deeper exploration of Malian sounds exemplifies how world-rock hybrids are thriving by looking inward to tradition, and the fact that Héritage was recorded with a cadre of Malian music masters and released on a respected UK label (Transgressive) illustrates the international network supporting non-Western artists. Another example of cross-continental creation is Obverse, whose members spanned the US and Australia in a remote partnership that melded progressive metal with harp. Likewise, Belgian ensemble Black Flower continues to invigorate the Ethio-jazz/psychedelic revival on Kinetic. And then there’s HENGE, whose Journey to Voltus B might be the most eccentric world-building project of all. HENGE’s fourth record provides an immersive, chronological account of a journey to a distant planet, complete with a cautionary tale to Earth about our own world’s fate, highlighting how even the most fantastical acts can carry a social message.

Metal is getting heavier and weirder, pop is getting more experimental and personal, folk and world artists are doubling down on authenticity, and genre boundaries are dissolving.

The United Kindom emerges as a major centre of vitality, especially in alternative and heavy music. From London-based acts like Biig Piig and Geordie Greep, to Brighton’s thriving scene that produced feminist punk duo Lambrini Girls, post-punk terrors DITZ, and indie trio Our Girl, suggesting a fertile local scene on England’s south coast nurturing female-fronted punk and experimental rock, producing bands that are getting national (and international) attention for their authentic voices.

Canada’s scene stands out: Montreal’s GY!BE remain a global force in post-rock activism, and Toronto gives us both Fucked Up and The Weather Station, and one striking lyrical and emotional thread across these albums is reckoning with trauma, mortality, and hope. Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s title explicitly memorializes the lives lost in Gaza, embedding political mourning into their art, and forcing us to consider where that number stands today. Similarly, Fucked Up’s Someday grapples with the state of the world and personal disillusionment, sitting with unanswerable questions of meaning and belonging. The Weather Station’s Humanhood explicitly entwines personal heartache with environmental catastrophe, asking how to piece oneself together when both the heart and the climate are shattered, speaking to a generation processing collective crisis and private grief simultaneously. New York’s enduring hip-hop legacy is upheld by Smif-N-Wessun out of Brooklyn - a testament to the longevity of classic hip-hop. The hardcore/metal underground is clearly surging not just in traditional strongholds but in unlikely places: The American South and Midwest, Scandinavia and Northern Europe. Biig Piig’s transnational background (Irish-born, Spanish-raised, London-based, bilingual) speaks to a cosmopolitan pop scene where artists comfortably pull influence from multiple cultures. Similarly, the internet-enabled collaboration of Yesness and Obverse indicate that geography is no longer a barrier to collaboration. The broader musical landscape is truly global and interconnected in early 2025, and creative energy is not confined to the traditional capitals, often with artists linking up across borders to make something new.

Hand in hand with trauma is the theme of healing and transformation, a number of artists using their albums as catharsis, documenting journeys from darkness to light. Maribou State’s Hallucinating Love was created during five harrowing years including mental health struggles and a life-threatening brain surgery. It’s an album that turns near-tragedy into art and camaraderie, reflecting a broader post-pandemic trend of artists processing trauma through collaboration and optimistic creativity. Mount Eerie’s Night Palace finds Phil Elverum achieving a sort of hard-won zen after years of grief; Our Girl turn chronic illness (singer Soph Nathan’s epilepsy and seizures) into empowering songs that celebrate survival and friendship. Out of hardship, artists are forging strength, solidarity, and joy. Another prominent theme is identity. Our Girl also address sexuality and womanhood with an honest, positive lens on The Good Kind with warmth. On SALVATION, Rebecca Black reclaims her narrative as a queer pop artist, shedding the shadow of Friday infamy to create an unapologetic bid to rewrite her story, complete with bold celebration of self-love. Lambrini Girls infuse their brash punk with explicitly feminist, LGTBQ+ inclusive humour and rage, making them part of a wave of queer punk visibility. Even Poppy embraces the idea of negative space (the unseen parts of the self) in her new album, implicitly pushing back on the music industry’s habit of confining artists. The through-line is that self-definition - be it gender, sexual, cultural, or artistic identity - is a key theme, with these albums often serving as declarations of “this is who I am now.”

So where does the broader musical landscape seem to be headed as 2025 unfolds? The picture is one of pluralism and cross-genre fertilization. Subgenres like doomgaze, and hyperpop that barely existed a few years ago are now producing masterworks. The post-pandemic creative surge is real, with so much delayed or pent-up expression now being released, often with themes of coping and rebirth. Whether it’s Lindeman writing through climate grief, Maribou State surviving a health crisis, or Godspeed marking a genocide’s casualty count, music is indeed, once again, becoming a chronicle of history and a vehicle for protest/solace. The trends are toward bold experimentation, heartfelt storytelling, and greater inclusion, geographically and socially. The broader landscape seems headed toward ever more blurring of lines - between personal and political - with artists wielding music as a tool for empathy, expression, and empowerment, into a future that is eclectic and boundary-free.