Curran's Top 10 of 2025

My 10 favorite albums of 2025 (excluding artists I worked with this year):

1. Pixel Grip – Percepticide: The Death of Reality

Album of the year. Banger after banger. Perfect pop songs with industrial bones. Rita Lukea is the baddest singer there is. She dominates, she captivates.

2. Today Is the Day – Never Give In

Each one of Today Is The Day’s albums sounds different from the last. Together they add up to one beautiful portrait of their maker, Steve Austin, a man brave enough to show you his weakness, his strength, his love, his hate, and everything in between. A true artist. Forever out on a limb, forever hanging by a thread.

3. Escape-ism – Charge of the Love Brigade

I put Ian Svenonius on the same pedestal as Steve Austin. A true artist, doing his thing, decade after decade. No compromise. Wildly entertaining.

4. Ramleh – Hyper Vigilance

A totally engrossing sonic journey, likely to excite Swans fans.

5. Dax Riggs – 7 Songs for Spiders

Dax’s voice is devastating. This is the blues, transmitting from a coffin at the bottom of the swamp.

6. Årabrot – Rite of Dionysus

Dark and haunted like Dax Riggs, but instead of the blues in the swamp, it’s a theatrical, Scandinavian rock n’ roll thing.

7. Kontusion – Insatiable Lust for Death

Kontusion stands out from the old school death metal pack. For me, it’s the excessively cavernous production and the supremely satisfying mid-tempo parts.

8. Barren Path – Grieving

Pure exhilaration. It’s not just the blazing fast tempos and laser precision, it’s the sweet, sweet riffs. A new standard in grindcore.

9. Gagbags – Hypnotic Desire

Some of you know Chuck as the owner of the best store in NYC, The Cast. In Gagbags he sings muscular punk rock anthems that cruise along in a late ‘70s kinda way.

10. Broncho – Natural Pleasure

Cryptic and blissful. Ryan Lindsey sings in a language all his own. Broncho’s album Double Vanity was my AOTY a few years back. This one is altogether mellower and that’s OK.

Honorable mention: 1-800-BAND – 20th Century Masters

A posthumous EP from a wonderful band.

Check out this list and many other good ones, here: https://thebadpennyblog.com/2025/12/15/friends-of-the-bad-penny-share-their-top-10-lists-of-2025-best-albums/

HEAVY HALO x My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult

HEAVY HALO announces spring US tour with My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult

NYC alt-industrial dream team Heavy Halo will join the legendary My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult for the band's "Delicate Terror Tour, Part Two," tearing across the western half of the US in Spring 2026.

Also featured on the tour is darkwave powerhouse Light Asylum (with whom Heavy Halo toured this summer and collaborated on the track, "Die Cast Down"), Die Sexual, and Devora.

Founded in Chicago in the 1980s, My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult began amidst the Wax Trax! Records industrial scene, alongside labelmates Ministry and KMFDM, then evolved toward its own signature sound incorporating house, funk, psych, and B-movie obsessions. Always provocative, always fun, the band has toured with the likes of Marilyn Manson and Siousxie and the Banshees and its songs have been featured in iconic films such as The Crow and Showgirls.

Operating out of Spellsound Studios in Brooklyn, NY, located inside a historic 19th-century building that formerly housed a hospital, Heavy Halo members McKeever and Gosteffects are purveyors of their own unique vision of industrialized alt-rock, a mix of human vulnerability and electronic power, hailed by CVLT Nation as "thundering, soaring industrial metal" and by Revolver Magazine as "chunky riffs and EBM-panicked beatwork... nihilistic yet melodic vocals." Heavy Halo's latest album Damaged Dream is out now on Silent Pendulum Records, and their official remix of Erasure frontman Andy Bell's song "Godspell" was released last week as part of Bell's new album The Crown Jewels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP7g8Y6eHQY

Heavy Halo's McKeever states: "We are beyond ecstatic to join the upcoming leg of My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult’s Delicate Terror Tour. The legendary band has been a source of endless inspiration for us and seeing them was one of the first shows Gosteffects ever attended so this will be a full circle moment. The rest of the lineup features the unreal Light Asylum, Die Sexual, and Devora who are keeping the dark energy of the underground alive. It will also be our first time playing on the West Coast, Southwest, and Midwest and we are grateful for the opportunity to take this impractical art experiment we started in our bedrooms, further out into the world. See you on the road."

My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult
"Delicate Terror Tour, Part Two"
w/ Light Asylum, Die Sexual, Devora, Heavy Halo

3/25 San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall
3/27 Portland, OR @ Crystal Ballroom
3/28 Tacoma, WA @ Spanish Ballroom
3/31 Boise, ID @ Shrine Social Club
4/01 Salt Lake City, UT @ Metro Music Hall
4/03 Denver, CO @ Oriental Theatre
4/04 Colorado Springs, CO @ The Black Sheep
4/07 Oklahoma City, OK @ Beer City Music Hall
4/09 Austin, TX @ Mohawk
4/10 Dallas, TX @ Echo Lounge & Music Hall
4/11 Houston, TX @ Numbers
4/12 San Antonio, TX @ Paper Tiger
4/14 El Paso, TX @ Lowbrow Palace
4/17 San Diego, CA @ The Music Box
4/18 Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom

Tickets are available here: https://mylifewiththethrillkillkult.com/

Photo by Michelle Lobianco

PILGRIMS - Gemini

PILGRIMS: South American post-punks transcend borders on new album Gemini; "Glow" music video streaming now

Post-punk trio PILGRIMS announce the February 13, 2026 release of new album Gemini.

Pre-order the album, here: https://pilgrimsofyearning.bandcamp.com/album/gemini

Stream the official music video for the album's first single, "Glow," here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TWqD46F44Q

Operating out of Boston, Massachusetts, PILGRIMS was initially known as Pilgrims of Yearning. The band was founded in 2018 by Chilean vocalist Juls Garat and Colombian musician Claudio Marcio, who met in Chile and emigrated together to the US. 

"We met in Chile, before moving to Boston a decade ago," recalls Marcio. "We just celebrated our tenth anniversary in the US. We moved here for a job opportunity and started the band a few years after. The band helped us a lot, to sort out those first years navigating a different culture, and to meet great people and build a solid network in this country."

Garat and Marcio put Pilgrims of Yearning on the map by way of a series of releases, most notably 2022's Hadal EP and its dreamy lead single, "La Mar." Defined by a duality of cold and warm elements, the sound was built on rigid beats and stark basslines interlacing with ethereal guitars and synths, as Garat held court with her impassioned, Spanish-accented vocals. The songs paid homage to the early works of Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Cure, yet throbbed with their own heartbeat, unique to their makers.

Returning now with their first new music since Hadal, Garat, Marcio, and bassist Sean Woodbury have rechristened themselves, simply, PILGRIMS. Upcoming new full-length album Gemini is the first release under the new name.

Marcio gives this statement about the new, concise moniker: "With the name PILGRIMS, we reflect not only our spiritual journey, but our living experience as immigrants, our pilgrimage. The new album is touched by our experience as immigrants existing in this moment and place in history. We feel a lot of people can relate to the archetype of the traveler, the wanderer."

Gemini's spirited first single, "Glow," drives forward with scraping guitars and shimmering synths, swirling atop rhythms evoking Miami Vice's heyday. Garat's lush, awestruck vocals feel timeless and eternal, expressing universal feelings. "I paint landscapes with words instead of brush strokes," she states. "With this particular song I wanted to paint a picture of what happens in your brain and your body when you’re in love."

Across Gemini's ten tracks, Garat sings in both English and Spanish. She explains: "Spanish is my first language, so when it comes to writing I feel inspired mostly by great lyricists and poets who write in Spanish – Cerati and García Lorca, to name two. Given the themes of this album, addressing our existence as immigrants, it made sense to combine the two languages in my lyrics."

Transcending nations and borders, PILGRIMS' music seems to tap into the humanity connecting all people. Accordingly, Garat and Marcio speak of a global post-punk community where they have found a home: from Chilean artists such as Amöniacö, Binzatina and Diavol Strâin, to Iceland's Kælan Mikla and Türkiye's She Past Away. PILGRIMS have played shows with all of these bands, as well as with great North American artists, from Vision Video, to Xeno & Oaklander, to ACTORS. In an age of division, PILGRIMS are reminding us that there is an alternative.

Gemini was recorded and mixed by Cooper Leardi at Radio 100 Studios in Boston and mastered by Martin Bowes at The Cage Studios in London, UK.

Tracklist:
1) Glow
2) Alien
3) Blissing Hour
4) Datura
5) Storms
6) Amethyst
7) Glass Cages
8) Elegia
9) La Mar
10) Liminal Travel

Lineup:
Juls Garat - vocals
Claudio Marcio - guitar, synth, drum programming, vocals
Sean Woodbury - bass

Photos by Rachael Shorr
Cover art by Cristian Lizama

HEAVY HALO x Andy Bell

HEAVY HALO: alt-industrial dream team remixes Erasure's Andy Bell

With their new album, Damaged Dream, released this summer, followed by US touring with Light Asylum, New York City alt-industrial dream team Heavy Halo have unleashed their official remix for "Godspell," a new song by Erasure frontman Andy Bell.

The remix appears on The Crown Jewels, a special expanded edition of Bell's acclaimed 2025 solo album, Ten Crowns.

Produced by Dave Audé (U2, Lady Gaga, Rihanna), Ten Crowns includes a collab with Debbie Harry and has been called "a majestic moment in Andy Bell’s forty year career” by The New York Times.

Released today, The Crown Jewels is a 4-disc boxset featuring expanded versions of the album's ten songs, live tracks, and remixes by a short list of artists including Heavy Halo and Bell's Erasure bandmate Vince Clarke.

Stream Heavy Halo's remix of "Godspell," here:

https://open.spotify.com/track/0mYw3qpDR0G8QfeqMEyGrB

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP7g8Y6eHQY

Operating out of Spellsound Studios in Brooklyn, NY, located inside a historic 19th-century building that formerly housed a hospital, Heavy Halo members McKeever and Gosteffects are purveyors of their own unique vision of industrialized alt-rock, a mix of human vulnerability and electronic power, hailed by CVLT Nation as "thundering, soaring industrial metal" and by Revolver Magazine as "chunky riffs and EBM-panicked beatwork... nihilistic yet melodic vocals."

McKeever states: "It was an honor to be asked to remix 'Godspell' from Andy Bell’s new album Ten Crowns. As lifelong fans of Andy's otherworldly vocals and futuristic synth pop sound palette, we were absolutely psyched. We had to finish the remix within three days after getting home from our summer tour with Light Asylum. After sleeping for a solid 24 hours in our own beds, we got right to work. The song was already unique, melodically and lyrically, so it was hugely inspiring to dig into. The verses are laced with castigating vitriol and disdain for grifters and selfish hangers-on. We tried to echo this venom in the instrumental we created and up the aggression quotient. Heavy kicks, biting bass, and serrated synthetic guitars were the order of the day, with a layer of spectral haunting chords hovering over the whole affair."

Photo by Michelle Lobianco

Out today: SIRE LANGUISH - Pull to God

Pull to God, the debut EP by Sire Languish, is out today on Spring Effete.

Sire Languish is the new solo project of NYC guitarist/vocalist Garett Bussanick. Known throughout the avant-metal scene for his exploratory guitar work and emotive death metal vocals, Bussanick is most widely known for his band Aeviterne, whose latest release on Profound Lore Records was described by Stereogum as “ominous and malevolent... also hooky as hell.”

Followers of Bussanick's work will instantly recognize his fingerprints all over Sire Languish. Broadly speaking, the core musical elements of Sire Languish are similar to those of Aeviterne and Aeviterne's predecessor, Flourishing: brooding atmosphere, propulsive beats, the juxtaposition of dissonant and melodic guitars, and impassioned roars. A line can even be drawn to an early, key band of his: Cardiovascular Sub-Hypothermia, an industrial-tinged death-grind unit he joined in the mid-90s.

Sire Languish is sure to thrill any fan of Bussanick's other music, and is a chance to hear the man behind the drum kit for the first time. Beyond that, Pull to God stands as a stellar slab of avant-metal for any newcomers to feast their ears upon. Like everything Bussanick has delivered thus far in his 30-plus years of making music, it is the sound of an artist refining and deepening his commitment to his work.

Stream the EP and buy it, here: https://sirelanguish.bandcamp.com/album/pull-to-god

"Sometimes a solo project lands sounding exactly like the person who made it—every contour, every impulse, every shadow unmistakably theirs. Sire Languish, the new project from avant-metal lifer Garett Bussanick, is one of those rare cases... If you’re familiar with Bussanick’s body of work—Aeviterne’s eruptive dissonance, Flourishing’s cerebral churn, even the long-buried mutations of Cardiovascular Sub-Hypothermia—you’ll recognize the DNA. But Sire Languish is its own creature. The architecture is leaner, the melodic angles sharper, the rhythmic pulse more direct. The rep nailed it: imagine a convergence of Immolation’s tectonic lurch and Killing Joke’s apocalyptic propulsion, rendered with the nervous-system precision Bussanick’s become known for."
–Decibel

"A familiar name in the avant-metal world, Bussanick has spent decades shaping his voice across a number of forward-thinking bands since the nineties. He’s best recognized recently for his work in Aeviterne, where his adventurous guitar style and powerful, emotionally charged growls have become defining traits. Sire Languish pushes those instincts into new territory... like a meeting point between black metal’s bleakest side and the pulse of experimental industrial music."
–Destroy//Exist

"A caustic, rather horrifying EP, full of dissonant dread and tortured, charismatic death yowl-growls... Pull to God is also heavily influenced by Killing Joke and other post punk and industrial sounds, helping to give it that feeling of urban decay... A thoroughly engrossing debut."
–Last Rites

"Ominous and venomous... Sire Languish creates a more than compelling debut EP which is at first identifiably an “industrial metal”-adjacent deal yet convinces of much broader intent via its total spread."
–Mystification

SADNESS - West Coast tour

SADNESS: blackgaze enigma announces West Coast tour, releases new EP "Shimmer"

Blackgaze enigma Sadness, the creative vision of multi-instrumentalist Damián Antón Ojeda, will kick off 2026 with a West Coast tour, with Ojeda's screamo unit Life and blackened prog-metallers Dawn of Ouroboros (Prosthetic Records) as support.

Founded by Ojeda in his bedroom in the suburbs of Chicago in 2014, Sadness has captivated a global cult following over the past decade. What began as an intimate solo endeavor quickly grew into one of the most prolific forces in the underground, with over 70 releases. Celebrated for its hypnotic melodies, cathartic crescendos, and emotionally immersive songwriting, the project connects atmospheric black metal, shoegaze, and post-rock.

A 2022 article from Bandcamp Daily states: "Think of rock-adjacent music’s most emotionally stirring sounds—climaxes of post-rock epics, plaintive piano melodies, life-affirming gang vocals, ambient swells, sweeping shoegaze guitars, throat-shredding wails, massive synths—and now combine them. That’s what Sadness sounds like."

A new Sadness EP, Shimmer, is out today and can be streamed here: https://sadnessmusic.bandcamp.com/

Despite the vast body of work and the widespread acclaim, Sadness did not make its live debut until 2024. In 2025, Ojeda relocated to Baltimore, where he joined forces with Billy Jarboe of Third House Label. Together, they formed a live band, furthering Sadness’ evolution from a solitary studio project into a powerful live act.

Ojeda gives this statement about the upcoming West Coast tour:"This tour is a huge and exciting opportunity for me, a genuine dream come true to be able to play these projects live, and it's especially thrilling to be able to travel to places I've never been. I’m more than excited to see new faces and meet new people."

Sadness, Life, Dawn of Ouroboros:

Jan 02 - Los Angeles, CA - Post-Everything Fest (no Dawn of Ouroboros)
Jan 03 - San Diego, CA - Brick by Brick
Jan 04 - Phoenix, AZ - Rosetta Room
Jan 06 - Las Vegas, NV - The Griffin
Jan 07 - San Francisco, CA - Thee Parkside
Jan 08 - Roseburg, OR - Rosebud Theatre
Jan 09 - Seattle, WA - Substation
Jan 10 - Portland, OR - Twilight Cafe and Bar
Jan 11 - Vancouver, BC - Cobalt

Tickets: https://linktr.ee/sadnessblackgaze