Monthly Report: October 2025 Albums
Wednesday, November 05, 2025 
1. Amber Mark - Pretty Idea
A great sophomore album that subtly expands Amber Mark's sound, which was already pretty fluid and omnivorous to begin with. Mark made a lot of Pretty Idea with Julian Bunetta and John Ryan (who she duets with on "Different Places"), two guys who are behind a lot of One Direction and Sabrina Carpenter's hits, but the sound of the album isn't really 'pop' per se, it's still more on the adventurous side of R&B and singer/songwriter stuff. Interestingly the two songs that Mark wrote and produced by herself, "Cherry Reds" and "The Best of You," are folky guitar-driven songs. Those are a couple of my favorites on the album, along with "ooo" and "Let Me Love You."
2. Florence + The Machine - Everybody Scream
Florence Welch has been a hugely talented vocalist for her whole career, but where I think she's really blossomed and gotten more interesting with each release is as a lyricist. On Everybody Scream, she weaves together Norse mythology and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and her personal tales of show business and asshole male rock stars into an album that's often grandly dramatic or dryly funny, sometimes even in the same song.
3. Mobb Deep - The Infinite
Nas and Mass Appeal Records launched the Legend Has It series a few months ago, 7 new albums from legendary hip-hop acts, a really beautiful concept and so far the execution has been great, especially on the first Mobb Deep album since Prodigy's death. There are a lot of posthumous P verses and they're up to a pretty high standard, he's just incredible on "Pour The Henny," it feels like the perfect sendoff for one of the greatest MCs of all time. And Havoc and Alchemist make sure everything sounds like classic Mobb, and Nas guests on three songs.
4. Repelican - Dim Halo
Jon Ehrens lives in Vermont these days and continues to pump out the same kind of brilliant, unpredictable lo-fi rock records that he made in Baltimore back when I started writing about his work. In the last few years he's released some collaborative projects and a compilation of his early stuff and an EP and a mixtape. So Dim Halo is kind of the first straight-up Repelican album in a while, and it's awesome, there's some movie dialogue samples and segues making the whole thing feel very put together and cohesive but there's still a tossed-off 4-track vibe that I love, and I feel like he's always writing lyrics that have never been written before, just always interesting word choices on songs like "I Think I'm Thanking God" and "The Worst Win."
5. Flock of Dimes - The Life You Save
Jenn Wasner's been one of my favorite voices in the world for, wow, I guess almost 20 years. I started going to Wye Oak shows in 2007 before they were even called Wye Oak, and was at her first performance as Flock of Dimes in 2011, which was a show with one of Jon Ehrens's projects, White Life. At the time Flock of Dimes was fully a solo thing with more synths and beats, but her third proper Flock of Dimes record is a lush singer-songwriter record with occasional more electronic textures on songs, and "Defeat" and "The Enemy" have these gloriously noisy guitar solos that I just love. Wasner has worked on some pretty big albums by Bon Iver and Dijon this year, but I hope people don't miss out on her own stuff, she's so consistently great.
6. Miguel - CAOS
Miguel Pimentel, another one of my favorite voices and the creator of my favorite album of the 2010s, released his fourth album 8 years ago. His 2011 single "Sure Thing" had a TikTok resurgence and became the biggest chart hit of his career about 2 years ago, and around the same time he previewed his fifth album, then called Viscera, with a bizarre performance where he hung suspended in the air by metal hooks in his skin. Along the way he separated from his wife, reconciled, then finally divorced, and he recently had a baby with his current girlfriend And then in October he finally released his fifth album, now called CAOS with practically no publicity and zero radio play, and it completely missed the Billboard 200 (after a trio of top ten albums). So basically, I have no idea what happened with this guy and it's depressing that he's back from such a long hiatus with so little to show for it, and I almost wish CAOS was some kind of daring uncommercial thing instead of a natural progression from his previous work. But he remains a great vocalist with interesting taste, and the George Clinton cameo on the closing track "Comma / Karma" is a nice way to Miguel to nod to one of the forebears of the murky guitar-driven psychedelic R&B he makes.
7. The Lemonheads - Love Chant
It was kind of a fluke that the Lemonheads' biggest songs back in the day were covers, but then there was a stretch of nearly 20 years when the only albums the band releases were cover albums, which suggests that Evan Dando is just fine being underestimated as a himbo with more taste than talent. But the guy has written some great songs and I'm glad he's finally sharing some new ones with us on Love Chant, including one that borrows liberally from The Troggs' "Wild Thing" without feeling like a mere tribute or troll. I love that J Mascis plays on a good number of later Lemonheads tracks, his face-melting solos are never quite what I expect to hear on an Evan Dando song but I'm always happy when they arrive.
8. Monaleo - Who Did The Body
Houston's Monaleo has been one of my favorite underrated up-and-coming rappers the last couple years, and it really feels like she's reached a tipping point in recent weeks, both from the publicity around her wedding to fellow rapper Stunna4Vegas, and her subsequent album release. The single "Sexy Soulan" is kind of a pro-Black anthem, as one of her biggest white fans I think it's kind of funny, I'm not mad at it ("all the non-Blacks to the back...I ain't shaking white hands"). But it's interesting that as a young newlywed with a blossoming career she made this album that's very morbid and preoccupied with death, it's kind of her Ready To Die.
9. Brandi Carlile - Returning To Myself
Brandi Carlile is only a few months older than me but she's kind of graduated to this rarefied air as a musician where she can write songs about her friendship with Joni Mitchell (who she has the same number of Grammys as) and make a joint album with Elton John (who she actually has more Grammys than). I kind of wish Returning To Myself had some more of those jaw-dropping moments where she shows off the power of her voice like on previous records, but there's some really beautifully understated singing on here and "You Without Me" is an impressive piece of songwriting. Also the token rocker "Church and State" is righteous and kickass and reminds me of U2 circa 1983, which is not really a sound she's done before.
10. Taylor Swift - The Life of a Showgirl
I put this album (just barely) in the upper half of Taylor Swift's discography, which I suppose would be considered high praise considering that a lot of people are calling this the worst thing she's ever done. I dunno, I think the obnoxious lyrics have been part of the package since Red, but she's returned to bright, elegant Max Martin tracks after a few albums of drab, washed out Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dressner palettes, and I don't mind the song-length dick joke. The last two tracks are probably my favorites, though, the album does take a little while to find its footing, I'll say that.
The Worst Album of the Month: Lily Allen - West End Girl
This could've been an email. It would've been a long email, but I could've read it while listening to some music that isn't such a listless and lifeless trauma dump.
