Best of 2025… So far.
We are officially halfway through 2025 and it feels like an entire year’s worth of albums and EPs have already been released. It has been a crazy year and we’ve tried to cover as many releases as possible but it’s simply not possible to highlight them all. It’s also soooo easy to miss some gems due to the sheer magnitude of really good indie releases to fall in love with. Our “Best of 2025… So Far” article is here to help you navigate what you may have missed or simply learn what the team members at Cups N Cakes have been swooning over. Please enjoy digging into our favourites of the year… so far.
Jeff MacCallum
Night Committee - Your Plans Mean Nothing
Franco Rossino - #1
David Ivan Neil - I Hope Yer OK
Destroyer - Dan’s Boogie
SENTRIES - Gem of the West
I went about this mid-year list in a very “matter-of-fact” way. What are my five most listened to albums of 2025… so far? What had me taking listening time away from upcoming writing assignments? What became (or still are) obsessions? Let’s start with Night Committee - Your Plans Mean Nothing which is easily my most played of 2025. It’s just great rock music. It’s banger after banger of really well written and recorded songs. Listening to this record makes me happy to be alive so I like to listen to it a lot. Next in line is Franco Rossino - #1. This is the debut solo album from Rossino who is best known for his work with Dumb. The album is a bit folk, a bit punk, and truly unique as Rossino delivers sarcastic diatribes over outsider-folk acoustic guitar melodies. It’s better than any Dumb record I’ve heard. David Ivan Neil’s I Hope Yer OK is third on my list. This is Canada’s greatest outsider folk artist. One who’s not afraid to add grandiose crescendos to his songs. His lyrics have the power to break your heart while simultaneously making you laugh, one of Canada’s most underappreciated artists. I’m a huge Destroyer fan, I have been for almost twenty years now, and Dan’s Boogie is my favourite album he’s released since Destroyer’s Rubies. This record feels like a culmination of all of Bejar’s various sounds and styles over the years. It’s brilliant and the perfect entry for those new to the Destroyer catalogue. Finally, Lethbridge noise-rock band SENTRIES released Gem of the West two months ago and it’s the first time the recording project of Kim Elliot has given us a perfect start-to-finish experience. It has a few more less-abrasive, melodic moments than past albums which will help you catch your breath after having your head pounded to pulp.
Simone Atenea Medina Polo
I feel like the last couple of years for music have been just great all around — 2025 is no different. Even prior to returning to the Cups N Cakes Network team, I was actively keeping up on what is coming out next and who is doing what. In fact, that’s part of the reason why I came back, because I wanted to take that energy somewhere.
In 2025, the new albums that have been on my rotation include:
First, Devours’ Sports Car Era stands out to me as one of the most fleshed out versions of Devours we have seen yet, with iconic industrial pop production holding space for Jeff Cancade’s lush emotional vocals. Thematically, it is reflective of the last decade of his work as Devours as well as of the prospects of the future for the project, where it stands right now, and what it even wants. Devours always keeps on raising the bar over his own work.
We have been blessed with two new records by Quinton Barnes: CODE NOIR and Black Noise. Each of these records is incredible, albeit in very different respects. CODE NOIR fleshes out the usual mix of hip hop, R&B, and experimental industrial that is his signature. Black Noise is a far more deconstructed and conceptual album taking on the work of creative improvisation to give way to Quinton’s most poetic album yet.
In Relation by Cassia Hardy has been a long-await album, personally. Since her former Wares wrapped up in recent years, I’ve wondered where this thoughtful and socially-conscious songwriter would find herself next. As I would hope, she came back with an album attuned to the people and situations around her. As a follow up to Wares’ Survival, In Relation responds to a jarring world with care and respect for those who hold her.
Backxwash’s Only Dust Remains also answers the question of what would Ashanti Mutinta get up to next after wrapping up her most recent trilogy of critically acclaimed albums. Accordingly, this record is keeping up with the quality and expressiveness that we’ve come to expect from Backxwash — but this time with a twist characterized by softer instrumentals
Emma Goldman’s all you are is we is perhaps one of the most pleasant surprises I’ve come across. It is probably some of the most fun and dynamic skramz acts I’ve seen in a long time — and a unique one at that as they combine elements of experimental noise, breakcore, and electronica into some of their coolest tracks. Legit rearranging my Sled Island plans to see them because they are that good.
Clay Geddert
We’re only halfway through 2025, but already the year has given us a crop of records that feel weighty, urgent, and full of voice. Whether it’s the sound of personal reinvention, spiritual healing, or political reckoning, these albums don’t just document a moment — they carve it out in full. Across psych-prog, hyperpop, krautrock, free jazz, and noise rock, here are five albums that have defined the year in sound (so far).
Population II – Maintenant Jamais
With Maintenant Jamais, Quebec’s Population II cement their place in the prog canon by doing the impossible: making chaos efficient. A wild fusion of garage-rock haze, psychedelic sprawl, and krautrock precision, this record tears through tightly wound tracks that never stop moving. Drummer-vocalist Pierre-Luc Gratton leads the charge with infectious momentum, while his bandmates shift seamlessly between instruments and textures—wrapping ferocious fuzz, synth squalls, and ambient detours into one fluid package. Tracks bleed into one another with hypnotic momentum, making the album feel like a single, extended trip. Maintenant Jamais is a dizzying, 44-minute rollercoaster that’s both immediate and elusive—and one of the most confident records of the year.
Devours – Sports Car Era
Devours’ fifth LP opens with a hangover and ends with a kind of liberation. Sports Car Era is Jeff Cancade’s midlife crisis on tape, dressed up in glittering hyperpop and delivered with a cocktail of self-loathing and self-love. It’s the sound of someone giving up on fitting in, only to find a strange kind of peace in the fallout. While sonically in step with his earlier work, there’s a new clarity here: beneath the jittery synths and glitched-out layers, Cancade leans into lush melodies and sharply observed lyrics that cut through the chaos. “Loudmouth” is an instant classic, both absurd and sincere in its pleading hook. With SCE, Devours isn’t reinventing himself—he’s arriving, bruised and smirking, in the middle of his own story.
Jairus Sharif – Basis of Unity
Grief is the raw material of Basis of Unity, and Jairus Sharif shapes it into something transcendent. If his debut Water & Tools was noisy and chaotic, this follow-up is meditative and searching. Laced with drones, fractured electronics, and free-jazz saxophone, Basis of Unity feels like a séance for the self—one that drifts between memory and oblivion. Repetitive phrases blur through static and reverb until they take on a kind of sacred weight. Sharif’s playing is loose but emotionally exact, as if each note is tugging something from the air. It’s an album full of texture and grief, but also one of presence and healing. Put on headphones, close your eyes, and go with him.
SENTRIES – Gem of the West
There’s something intensely personal about Gem of the West—a noise-rock record that feels like both a reckoning and a homecoming. As SENTRIES, Kim Elliot turns cracked amps and dissonant guitars into emotional artillery, channeling grief, nostalgia, and restless anger into songs that feel urgent and carefully unhinged. From the lurching stomp of “Charmed Houses” to other tracks that shimmer and sway, the album veers between chaos and clarity without ever losing its shape. Some songs stagger and seethe, others breathe and shimmer, but they all feel cut from the same weather-beaten cloth. It’s loud, raw, and full of ghosts—but it’s also remarkably focused. With Gem of the West, SENTRIES doesn’t just hold their own in the noise-rock scene—they bend it around their own story.
Chris Lammiman
Halfway through the year and while things may not be going swimmingly on the human existence front, it’s still been a heck of a six months for Canadian music. Although it can be hard to pin down definitive rankings and the positions will undoubtedly shift as the year winds through its second half, here are a handful of the top new releases in my rotation so far in 2025.
5. Brock Geiger - Some Nights
An audiophile's delight, Some Nights is the debut solo record from Calgary scene staple Brock Geiger. The record punches well above its weight and deserves listen upon listen through its intricate production and intelligent composition. It’s also fun and dancey and sad and heartfelt, and just generally a very excellent pop record.
4. Ribbon Skirt - Bite Down
Armed with a singularly compelling voice and highly intriguing song-writing, the duo of Tashiina Buswa and Billy Riley have created a spiraling and layered record in Bite Down. It is a mournful and emotive offering, with deep and thoughtful explorations of colonialism, indigeneity, and intergenerational trauma. But there are also elements of levity and joy as these themes are interwoven with refreshing takes on a variety of fuzzed out post-punk influences.
3. Night Committee - Your Plans Mean Nothing
Maybe it’s just that there’s just a Hot Little Rocket shaped hole in my Calgarian heart, or maybe it’s the length in time since their last release, but Night Committee’s Your Plans Mean nothing scratches and satisfies a very specific itch I didn’t know I had. With the stepping away of Lorrie Matheson on this latest release, Night Committee is back in power trio form, but what a form it is. Catchy and boisterous, Your Plans Mean Nothing is just simply a great rock record.
2. Motherhood - Thunder Perfect Mind
One of my top active bands in Canada, hands down, Motherhood is playfully weird enough to be endlessly interesting, but smart and catchy enough to also be endlessly listenable. As their sound continues to evolve and tighten, they throw in a concept album about an extraterrestrial abduction and time travel, and well, there’s not much I can say other than yes, I’m in. Let’s go.
1. Destroyer - Dan’s Boogie
Without question, Dan’s Boogie has been the most compelling and listened to record of the year for me. We all know Dan Bajar’s particular genius, but this latest record is perhaps his best and most accessible work in years. Characteristically weird and tautological (I mean that as a compliment), Dan’s Boogie is also achingly beautiful and uplifting in its dreamlike explorations of consciousness and existence.
SN
In no particular order:
1. Motherhood - Thunder Perfect Mind
Is it a surprise to anyone that I love this record? Thunder Perfect Mind has the classic mix of proggy, art-rock, poppy goodness, with a substantial dose of the heavier stuff thrown in for good measure. “Wandering” and “Sunk” are two of my favourite songs from the band.
2.Very Gerry - Sunny Beaches
I sent this to the whole Cups N Cakes team when it came out, and several of our volunteers joked that it checked all the boxes for a record that I, specifically, would like. “Flat Pop” and “Blame the City” are absolute gems.
3. Christo Graham - Clown Riot
I feel like I’ve been waiting all my life for someone to make a concept album rock musical about the 1855 brothel brawl between travelling American clowns and Torontonian firefighters. I’m glad Christo finally did it. Set aside some time, and listen to the whole thing: Graham is one of the best songwriters in the country right now.
4. Penny & the Pits - Liquid Compactor
I’ve been listening to Liquid Compactor since I saw Penny & the Pits second show ever (!!!) at Sled Island this year. They ripped. This album rips. Penny rips. “Thick Black Gloves” is an all-timer.
5. Eliza Niemi - Progress Bakery
Eliza Niemi writes songs that make me learn things about myself when I listen to them. She’s uncommonly insightful, and on top of that, her records are always packed full of hip musicians doing really cool shit. I heard a lot of these songs for the first time on Niemi’s two cello + drums tour last year, and I’m so happy to be able to listen to em again.
