Music Year-End List || Dennis’ Favorite Singles and EPs of 2025

By / / Alternative Rock, Blues & Roots, Country & Folk, Garage Rock, Glam Rock, Indie Pop, Indie Rock, Jangle Pop, Power Pop, Psych, Punk, Surf / Leave a Comment

Last week we posted the overviews of our favorite LPs of 2025 (here is Niek’s, there is mine), but this year also saw countless short-format releases that deserve to be listed. Below you can listen to the 50 singles and EPs that I enjoyed most last year (note: individual songs are excluded), in alphabetical order. Links point to Bandcamp or another sales outlet (the titles), and to previously posted reviews (in the body text).

While I traditionally prefer albums, if only because you don’t have to get up as often to turn the record over, but also because it literally gives you more time to immerse yourself in the artist’s world, I’m increasingly enjoying the pleasures of singles and EPs. They’re often explosions of positive energy packed with hooks, which immediately make for a good time, and that was certainly the case over the past 12 months. If this were the soundtrack to a night out, I’d return home exhausted but utterly delighted.

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New single: Eye Ball || Of The Northern Americas

Tiny songs, huge payoff

By / / Punk / Leave a Comment

I once overheard someone define volunteer work as “being asked to do something and forgetting to say no.” That came to mind when Eye Ball released this one-minute single simply because a label (Knuckles on Stun) asked them to.

In that single minute, Eye Ball cram in two 15-second songs and one 30-second one. All three are perfectly formed little blasts, with Making Babies Smile At Me standing out as an absurdly catchy pop-punk hit. The two shorter tracks don’t waste a second — pure blink-and-you-miss-it punk jolts.

Fun idea, nailed execution.


Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Knuckles on Stun

New album: The Photocopies || Counterintuition

Heartfelt fuzz-pop melodies amid boredom, burnout, and backlash

By / / Indie Pop, Jangle Pop / Leave a Comment

Just when you think Sean Turner is finally slowing down, new work from The Photocopies pops up in our mailbox. With Counterintuition, he adds ten new songs to his already impressive discography (plus eight equally enjoyable bonus tracks, for those still unconvinced by his unbridled productivity). It all seems so easy, but what lies behind all those sugar-rush melodies?

The lyrics here suggest a world where personal lives and public forces collide: love persists amid boredom, fear, and precarity, while hope flickers stubbornly against systems that seem designed to grind people down. It fits the DIY approach, born from a lack of any budget, as nicely reflected in the title track: “Got a world full of nothing and I’m losing my way // Happens to me every time.”

All things considered, we listeners benefit: this combination of warm melodrama and charming energy with jangly riffs and earworm choruses is simply so enjoyable that we can’t, and won’t, ignore it.



Counterintuition—written, performed, and recorded by Sean Turner—is out digitally, on cassette, CD, and 10″ vinyl, through Plastidisc / Subjangle. The digital en CD version have eight bonus tracks from recent digital-only releases.

Add to wantlist @ Bandcamp: Photocopies || Plastidisc || Subjangle

New EP: Barpinson || Population

Four songs of dirt-pop charm from Jakarta

By / / Punk / Leave a Comment

This week we’re sharing our favorite short-format releases of the year. Those lists are already locked, so this EP from Jakarta sadly missed the cut on timing alone. That’s a shame, because Population would have fit right in.

Barpinson is the brainchild of Prabu Pramayougha , who clearly has a knack for writing catchy, sugary pop-punk — the kind of dirt-pop that would feel right at home on Bloated Kat Records. The EP packs four songs, including a cover of Foreign Girls by The Tours. Dance Off! is my jam here. Pure bubblegum, all bounce and charm.

Simple, sweet, and very easy to like.


Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New single: The Lemon Drop Gang || Mind and Wine

A double dose of punked-up energy

By / / Garage Rock / Leave a Comment

The Lemon Drop Gang returns with a double A-side single that underlines our previously expressed enthusiasm. My Mind’s Got a Mind of Its Own and Wine Song basically blend 60s garage rock and 70s power pop—gritty and commanding in both instrumentation and vocals—but then they take it a step further with fiery punk-funk and cinematic rhythm & blues influences, respectively. The songs twist and turn, playing with confidence and urgency, hiding darker edges beneath the hooks. Unsettling, in the right way.

Mind and Wine, recorded by Matt Rendon, is out now digitally via Rum Bar Records. Featuring Steph O’Halloran (vocals), Johnny O’Halloran (guitars, saw), D. Walker (bass), and Matt Rendon (drums), with Jimmy Carr (piano) on Wine Song.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New single: Mod Lang || TV Star b/w 3+1

Throwback hooks with forward momentum

By / / Garage Rock, Power Pop, Psych / Leave a Comment

Named after a Big Star song and made up of familiar faces from the Detroit rock-’n’-roll underground (members of Sugar Tradition and Fen Fen), Mod Lang arrive with expectations already humming. Their two-song debut 7″ is out now on Just Add Water Records, and honestly, it would’ve landed on my best short-format releases list if I hadn’t already wrapped it up (that one drops Thursday, with Dennis’ list arriving tomorrow).

TV Star kicks things off immediately—immediately immediately. From the first second, it feels like one long, perfectly wired pre-chorus and chorus, stitched together from deep-buried fragments of rock history the band instinctively knows how to recombine. The B-side 3+1 rides a sweet, confident guitar riff and keeps the momentum locked in place.

This has all the ingredients of the next buzz band, and Mod Lang sound fully aware of it—without overplaying their hand.


Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Just Add Water

New album: The Roves || Pope & The Computer

Warm melodies hiding big questions about care and belonging

By / / Indie Pop, Jangle Pop / Leave a Comment

As the year draws to a close, the flood of new releases has calmed down, but luckily we can count on British indie pop stalwarts The Roves for a nice surprise. In mid-December 2022, they released the Needle Factory LP, which they now follow up with the mini-album Pope & The Computer—seven songs in 23 minutes—around the same time. It paints a nervous portrait of modern emotional life: people desperate to connect but never quite managing to say the right thing, or be heard at all.

On a bed of shimmering guitars and a solid sound, the lyrics circle insecurity, loneliness and quiet mental-health struggles, mixing self-blame, social comparison, and romantic jealousy with the dull grind of work, financial worries and days slipping by without resolution. Yet a gloomy phrase like “I’ve got money in my hand // But it never lasts forever, oh no” can easily turn into an infectious “Woah yeah” (in I Don’t Know Yet). The warm melodies, rich orchestration, and vibrant harmonies ensure an uplifting remembrance no matter what.



Pope & The Computer—produced by Dom Monks—is out now digitally and on 12″ vinyl through Discotif / The State51 Conspiracy.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New EP: Baby Muffler || Baby Muffler

Fun and scrambled egg punk

By / / Punk / Leave a Comment

For some, 2025 was the year where the egg punk label should retire. For others, that playful, synthy, hyperactive mutant strain remains one of the most fun directions punk has taken in recent years. Whatever crate you want to file Baby Muffler under is up to you—I’m less interested in labels than results, and this one delivers.

Created by Keegan Turner with support from Jacky Downey, Baby Muffler stands out through sheer charm and momentum. It’s scrappy, catchy, and genuinely fun, the kind of EP that feels like it was made without overthinking any of it.

This self-titled EP is out now on Teenage Mutant Ninja green cassette via Ink Spot Tapes.


Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New album: Jay Millar || Peppermint Shake

"Boogie to the left, boogie to the right"

By / / Garage Rock / Leave a Comment

We’ve come to know Frankston, Australia-based singer-songwriter/guitarist Jay Millar—still in his teens—as the brain behind The Gnomes, whose self-titled debut LP made it into the top 20 of my year-end list, but there’s plenty more where that came from. At home in his bedroom, he writes and records one banger after another—not intimate bedroom pop, but cheerful garage beat—and here we hear some great examples of that.

This new solo album, Peppermint Shake, is a wonderful and telling release—the artist aptly describes it as “five originals and five covers, all in mono, nothing serious, just a bit of fun”—that perfectly captures what the prodigy stands for and where his heart lies. In terms of style, theme, and quality, the originals easily rival the well-chosen covers—Love Potion No. 9 (The Clovers) is probably the most famous cut here—as everything here is equally exciting and danceable, before closing track Goodbye lets you recover.



Peppermint Shake is out now digitally via Goblin Records.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

Music Year-End List || Niek’s Favorite Albums of 2025

By / / Alternative Rock, Country & Folk, Garage Rock, Glam Rock, Indie Pop, Indie Rock, Jangle Pop, Power Pop, Psych, Punk / 1 Comment

Five years of Add To Wantlist, and the underground music scene is still fighting the algorithm with the only weapon that matters: better music. Look, 2025 had plenty of reasons to spiral: A.I.-generated music clogging up the web like malware, streaming services paying artists in pennies while investing in war machines, shipping costs that make you weep, and indie labels on shoestring budgets battling tariffs and trade barriers. And yet—and yet!—the real music kept showing up like it had something to prove.

Because 2025? It was stacked with the good stuff. Tiny labels dropping masterpieces from basements. Bands recording in bedrooms, kitchens, storage units, sheds—somehow crafting songs with more soul than anything focus-grouped into existence. Punk bands running on spite and failing systems. Garage weirdos alchemizing chaos into pure joy. LGBTQ+ musicians turning their most vulnerable moments into anthems that hit like freight trains. Jangle-pop obsessives writing hooks so good they feel like they’ve existed forever. For those paying attention, it was a year full of human fingerprints on every beat, and it was everything.

And here’s the wildest part: people still give a damn. Scenes are rebuilding from the ground up. The daily release count keeps climbing. Bands are back on the road in whatever form of transport their budget allows. I witnessed a legendary pop punk label throw an anniversary show that sold out to a room full of believers who actually showed up and loved every second of it. I stood with 5,000 people losing their minds as the hottest band around redefined what a hardcore band can be. Every week brought a new obsession—some scrappy little record punching way above its weight class. And our blog grew this year, which means more of you beautiful weirdos have joined us in the crates. Welcome aboard!

So yeah, the world’s a mess. The internet’s a dumpster fire. But independent guitar music? Still kicking, still vital, still the best argument for why we started this blog in the first place: community, curiosity, and that unbeatable high of stumbling onto a band that sounds like everything you’ve been looking for.

Here are the 50 albums (plus 50 more) that, for me, made this year worth it. As Dennis wrote in his eclectic and amazing AOTY list this Tuesday—our overlap is minimal, so dig in—rankings are just taste. What matters is the joy, the discovery, that moment when a song connects and suddenly your day is better. My ranking criteria? Simple: which records did I love spending time with the most…

You’ll find all of them below. Enjoy reading, enjoy listening, and if something grabs you, the links go straight to Bandcamp or Discogs—and to earlier reviews when we wrote about them in depth. Check out our favorite short format releases of 2025 next week! Oh, and here is a playlist with 91% of my picks  (FYI: pretty sure this time next year we’ll be on a different streaming service).

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