Made up of an all-star roster (Anna Butterss, Jeremiah Chiu, Josh Johnson, Booker Stardrum, and Gregory Uhlmann), Los Angeles-based quintet SML assemble their recordings from a hybrid of live and in-studio performances.
Small Medium Large introduced their style of fluid, groove-heavy improvisations, and second effort How You Been continues in the same direction, but feels more assured and deliberate. The group’s members have clearly become more in tune with each other, and their chemistry is tighter and stronger. There’s a more natural flow to the rhythms here, as well as a bit more studio polish, making the tracks sound closer to planned-out compositions rather than jam sessions. They’re able to balance blippy, off-kilter…
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…featuring unreleased demos and a pair of previously unheard tracks from the original sessions.
Paz Lenchantin, the Argentine American bassist, has worked up a hell of a resume. In 1999, she helped form A Perfect Circle, Maynard James Keenan’s “other band” at the turn of the century. A few years later, she joined Billy Corgan’s indie-rock super-group Zwan, appearing on that group’s only full-length platter. An accomplished violinist in her own right, Lenchantin offered backing strings for a Queens of the Stone Age song in 2002. She returned to the “featured guest” post three years later on Silver Jews’ Tanglewood Numbers. Lenchantin’s C.V. and discography are not short on substance. This year, Paz releases her third solo outing, Triste.
…This new remaster, lovingly rendered from an almost impeccable source, is a revelation for anyone who wished to hear more of how this music was meant to sound. Our longtime collaborator Jessica Thompson carefully restored it with updated tools in her state-of-the-art studio.
There’s a well-known line, originating with Brian Eno, that although the first Velvet Underground album only sold 30,000 copies, everyone who bought one formed a band. Ghana-born musician 
Swiss label Bongo Joe has been an unstoppable force of cosmopolitan post-punk gems this year, and perhaps no single-artist release encapsulates their 2025 sound more cleanly than 2, the trilingual sophomore release from 
Fast strumming on the ardine, the multi-stringed lute of Mauritania specifically played by women. 
A drummer first, but a bandleader foremost, Brandon Sanders leads his urbane, hard-swinging quartet on his third solo album, 2025’s Lasting Impression. Once again working with producer and fellow drummer Willie Jones III, Sanders has delivered what feels like the third in a trilogy of albums that began with 2023’s 
Pianist Aaron Parks returns to Blue Note with By All Means. The quartet includes drummer Billy Hart and bassist Ben Street who, as a trio, recorded 2017’s excellent 
It’s weird, right? We’ve somehow stumbled into a world where, for all we’re told that algorithms homogenise music, actually more people than ever are exposed to very, very odd and abstract soundmaking.
The Numero Group kicked off their 200 line of titles in 2017 with Savage Young Dü, an unprecedented archival dive into the early works of Minneapolis punk trio Hüsker Dü. Fifty entries later in that chapter of the label’s discography, Numero has a new Dü title that takes a special look at what may be their most pivotal year as a band.
Kings of Leon’s first EP, Holy Roller Novocaine, was the first official release from the Southern rock band who dominated so much of the noughties with their thrilling steel-wire sound. Now, they’re back with EP #2, a four-track romp with a chip on its shoulder and everything to prove.
Now onto her third album, it’s clear that 
…expanded 25th anniversary edition featuring additional live bonus tracks from other periods in Wilson’s solo touring career.
After making a name for themselves, including charting on the Billboard independent, rock, and alternative lists, with their warm, mellifluous take on vintage folk- and country-rock, 
The Cranberries performed on MTV’s Unplugged in 1995 in promotion for their sophomore album, ‘No Need to Argue’, but the audio has never been released, until now. Released in the full 9-song, 45-minute performance.