Tonitruale Wrapped: Our Favorite Albums of 2025

Illustration by Jooen Choi

Now that 2025 has officially come to a close, it's safe to say it was an incredible year for music. There was never a dry spell or lack of music worth exploring, which is something you can't help but be continually grateful for. From debuts of supergroups, to new breakthroughs, to artists continuing to push the boundaries on what their music can sound like, there was always something captivating to shift your attention onto. As we usher in the new year, we'd like to share a few albums we loved here at Tonitruale. We're keeping our list brief this year, it's unranked and all killer, no filler.

Real Lies - We Will Annihilate Our Enemies

Young love, bikes cutting through a city where the rain swallows everything whole, romance as life’s most precious keepsake. We Will Annihilate Our Enemies gathers these soft-hued, hazy moments and renders them in high-definition electronic bliss. It’s Real Lies’ most complete and assured work to date, stitching together everything that has ever made them enthralling. Lyrically, it reads like a new manifesto on love, hopeful, defiant, tender, and the music carries every word with elegance and emotional weight. 

Oklou - choke enough

One of France’s most precious musical exports, Oklou feels less like a pop artist and more like an elemental force. Her melodies drift, dissolve, and reform, fluid as water, fleeting as vapor. She’s always had a gift for hypnotic patterns and otherworldly arrangements, but choke enough crystallizes that talent with startling clarity. Every track feels weightless yet emotionally precise.

Greg Freeman - Burnover

Can’t help it, I love whiny boys. Freeman is killing the game quietly, and I think everyone’s gotta start listening. He’s one album away from MJ Lenderman / Cameron Winter treatment…​

Besides all that, I think his instrumentals are kickass and drawlyyy. Every song feels like the first day in fall, the day when you actually have to wear a coat. Burnover is incredibly well done. The lyrics are solid, the guitar is solid, I think it just needs its flowers. I also hear a Jason Molina vibe all over the place, and I love that.

A lonely cowboy, or sailor, wanderer, or lonely wandering cowboy sailor would listen to this album, and in my heart I wish I were a cowboy sailor. This record is a small stroll with lyrics that catch your ear and pull you home. 

Nourished By Time - The Passionate Ones

Holy F. Nourished By Time. I think I’ve sent this album to 561 people this year. That’s how much I love it. This record came out towards the tail end of Summer, when everyone is packing everything in. Lake trips, a wet bathing suit at the bottom of your bag, one last sunburn, one more mosquito bite, one more missed train. The Passionate Ones encompassed that restless energy in a way that makes you feel slightly better about waiting in line at the ice cream shop a little too long.

“If I’m gonna go insane/At least I’m loved by you.” The production is beautiful, lyrics are crafted in a way that makes you play the tracks over and over again, trying to catch another one of Marcus Brown’s nuggets of gorgeous words. This record really does swell with passion. It makes my heart flutter, hands shake, and the corners of my mouth turn up.

Back to that restless energy…there’s an urgency in The Passionate Ones. The feeling of running out of time, getting a little frustrated, snapping your fingers, rolling your eyes at the slow walker ahead of you. A lot of his tracks deal with this theme of being creative in an environment that isn’t suited to that way of thinking. When your mind is constantly spinning stories, where do you turn, where do you go? To me, that’s the whole underlying point of The Passionate Ones.

At first, this piece doesn’t come off in that way. I admittedly got caught up in the dancey beats that Brown does so well.  But, listen to it again and again and again, you start to hear it, and can’t ignore it. What a f-ing record.

Also, “Baby Baby,” I love love that song. I’m a sucker for a pleading song asking you to give a crumb of attention. I’m there.

Snocaps - Snocaps

God, I am such a Waxahatchee sucker. This year, Allison Crutchfield (her sister, badass A&R extraordinaire, and amazing artist herself) released a record together. I was a fan of P.S. Eliot in college, and once I heard about this I freaked out. Release day was a big one for me.

I will confess something I hate to admit…but if an album doesn’t catch me on the first listen, I give up on it. There have been a few that have crept past this gatekeeper in my mind.

​Yet, the first time I listened to Snocaps, I immediately fell, and fell hard. Each song feels like a red hue working its way to your cheeks, forcing you to look down. A record encompassing a sour patch kid. I keep coming back to it, not getting enough of the sour and then sweet taste it’s leaving in my mouth.

Erika De Casier - Lifetime

Erika De Casier is bringing back trip hop to the forefront of the cultural zeitgeist, but she's also crafting a sound that is so wonderfully her own. Released as a suprise drop last spring, Lifetime is the perfect blend of 90s dreamscapes, trip-hop, R&B, and everything in between. Even when a track is so simple and straightforward, her cadence and stylistic production choices showcase her personality effortlessly. Even when a song is portraying betrayal or disappointment, her cheeky delivery atop entrancing beats keeps you afloat. Even in the mundanity of waiting for a text back, or realizing you aren't able to get what you want from someone, Erika makes the sting just a little less painful.

TOPS - Bury The Key

After several quiet years and a handful of solo detours, Montréal’s TOPS return with what might be their strongest album yet. The pause seems to have been genuinely rejuvenating: ideas that once hovered at the edges are now fully realized, and every member sounds more at ease with their craft. The melodies are immediate and addictive, while moments of experimentation, like the striking “Falling on My Sword”, push the band into fresh territory without sacrificing their signature warmth. 

Anna von Hausswolff - ICONOCLASTS

ICONOCLASTS is among the most thrilling listening experiences in recent memory. Eclectic to the point of defiance, it radiates novelty, fearlessness, and unprecedent intensity. Hausswolff’s performance is staggering, operatic, physical, and emotionally devastating, placing her in a lineage with the greatest vocalists alive. The album resists categorization entirely, playing out like a series of revelations rather than songs. Whatever expectations you bring to it, ICONOCLASTS exceeds them, often violently so.

S.G. Goodman - Planting By The Signs

Ugh wow. This album was a slow burner for me. I came back to it later in the year, and I’m so happy I did. Goodman welcomed me back with open arms.

Planting By The Signs grabs you in the heartstrings and takes it right out. It’s introspective and careful, taking its time with each word. This record followed the passing of her dog and mentor/friend, Mike Harmon. It toys with heavy feelings of grief, guilt, and all of the mess in between. Because of this context, there’s an underbelly to the record that gets gritty, but never unnerving.

​S.G. Goodman is definitely a “Fire Sign”; you can hear the snarl and flame extinguished (or lit) in every track. Ultimately, Goodman is an incredible storyteller. Planting By The Signs gives the same air of red wine-stained lips asking an old friend, “Did you hear what happened?”

Dijon - Baby

Dijon's latest album is an overwhelming expression of love and desire, unashamed in its boldness and meticulous in its execution. It's a work of collaborative genius that reimagines what music can do.

Wednesday - Bleeds

Wednesday's Bleeds has been an album impossible to escape from, and for good reason. The music of Wednesday has always been supported and elevated most by the songwriting of Karly Hartzman, and this record is no exception. On Bleeds, the songwriting is heightened; it's at the forefront of the mix and impossible to ignore. Hartzman weaves stories of both observation and introspection into visceral patchwork lyricism, while the band balances alternative country textures with heavier soundscapes the band continues to move towards. The band's sound is a balancing act that never feels anything less than perfectly aligned.

caroline - caroline 2

caroline 2 is a record that preserves restrained meditations behinds rounds and polyrhythms, using subtle vocal manipulation and digital warping to contort a lush orchestral underbed. It's revolutionary in production and form, cathartic and breathtaking, body and mind in motion.

Cameron Winter - Heavy Metal

Heavy Metal is a generational debut from a songwriter whose unexpected turns of phrase provoke the inevitable. It casually tapping a near biblical well of profound ambiguity while remaining unflinchingly sincere.

Jane Remover - Revengeseekerz

Jane Remover's latest album is a masterwork of sample upcycling, spinning a frenzied dance party into a final boss battle that's ear splitting with irresistible anthems from a producer who knows no ceiling.

Adrianne Lenker - Live at Revolution Hall

Adrianne Lenker's live album is an audience forward, mixed fidelity live album, cutting between fuzzy and distant snippets to close recordings and offering an intimate concert experience in your living room. These songs are timeless ones about love refracted through the ears of many listeners.