We’ve reached the top 15 of albums I reviewed (not released) over the last five years. Read on to see who made the list!
#15: Maquina – Prata (2024)
That cover image pretty much sums up the sound of this wild post-punk / noise rock / dance rock album. It’s a stunning record, and I’m happy to report they’re close to releasing a new one.
#14: Lair – Ngélar (2024)
Indonesian psych-rock? Yes, please. Funky, groovy, weird, and playful. This is a delight from start to finish.
#13: Sextile – yes, please. (2025)
Possibly the best dance-punk album of 2025. This record slams non-stop and gets you moving whether you want to or not.
#12: Ki Oni – A Leisurely Swim to Everlasting Life (2023)
A beautiful album about grief, our continued, changed existence after death, and a salute to Ki Oni’s late grandmother all wrapped up in lush ambient music.
#11: No Joy – Bugland (2025)
A brilliant return for No Joy and their shoegaze rock. This album sprinted into the top ten of 2025 for me the first time I heard it.
Speaking of the top ten, come back tomorrow to see who’s in the top ten of the last five years!
Ki Oni (Chuck Soo-Hoo) set out to create an ambient album about spirits transitioning from life to death, perhaps wandering the world for a while, and eventually floating into something we here on this side of the veil can’t quite yet fathom. He not only succeeded in doing it, he excelled at it with A Leisurely Swim to Everlasting Life.
It’s difficult to describe how gorgeous this album is. It’s at times lush and other times as subtle as a whisper. Nothing is rushed across its five tracks. The shortest one, opening track “An Infinite Dive,” is fifteen minutes and twelve seconds long. “Floating in a Stream of Consciousness” is perfectly titled, as it’s a collection of the sounds your brain is trying get you to hear as you remain in the eternal present, but you’re always too busy or worried to pause and observe all this amazing creation coexisting with you.
According to the press release I got for this album, “Reincarnation at the End of the World” has Soo-Hoo wondering, “With everything going on in the world –– and if reincarnation is real, where would a spirit go if the world ended suddenly? What would that sound like? Would it continue to float on this deteriorated earth until new life begins or would it float forever into the abyss?”
It’s an intriguing question, and my answer is that we’ll be free from worry wherever we are. Soo-Hoo’s synths, field recordings, and loops emulate a blissful ghost drifting here and there, no cares, no stress, no extraneous thoughts…just calm bliss.
“My Grandmother’s Garden” is a lovely tribute to Soo-Hoo’s late grandmother and the days he used to spend as a child swimming in her pool and eating food she’d grown. “To Wander Beyond the Aquatic Center” ends the record with a song perfect for the cover image of a true infinity pool stretching out into a misty pink sky as birds soar overhead. We should all hope to hear something this lovely as we go into sleep, whether for a night or forever.
This album, this leisurely swim, is something we all need from time to time. We need to immerse ourselves in the present and reconnect with the beauty that is right there calling to us and being enjoyed by those who have gone before and will greet us after we come up from our dive in the pool.
Keep your mind open.
[Dive into the subscription box while you’re here.]
