Tag: status

In your dreams, all we see are the gold drenched days laid ahead

~ Moreno, Chino, metal dream, 2025

2025 has turned out to be a very good year.1 Well, musically at least. 

Sam Fender’s ‘People Watching‘ continues to dominate my playlists, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes home the Mercury Prize. But since that album caught my attention back in March, countless other releases have been vying for my attention.

We’ve been quietly witnessing a genuine resurgence in indie and alt-rock. As someone who grew up on “six strings, three cords… big dreams”2, it is music to my ears. Royal Otis and Wet Leg3 have both delivered strong sophomore efforts. And I’m particularly excited about Muse’s upcoming album after hearing their latest single: ‘Unravelling’; signalling a return to their early-heavier sound.

Some of this year’s best records are growers. Pulp’s reunion album ‘More‘ and Little Simz’s latest offering ‘Lotus’’ both reveal new layers with each listen. Don’t miss ‘The Hymn of the North’ from Pulp and ‘Lion’ from Little Simz. Both tracks showcase what makes these records special. Honourable mention goes to Lady Gaga who has delivered an absolute banger.

However, the album that has most thoroughly captured my imagination is Deftones’ latest effort, ‘private music‘. The veteran alt-metal band have created a thrilling and addictive record that hasn’t left my turntable since its August release.

What makes ‘private music’ so remarkable is its delicate balance between crushing riffs and melodic beauty; between aggression and intimacy. Many reviewers have lazily labeled it “shoegaze” meets “metal,” but this description sells short the album’s genuine inventiveness and sonic complexity. 

The real magic happens on repeated listens. Hidden details emerge from what initially sounds like chaos, creating an irresistible urge to start the album over as soon as it ends. It’s a record that rewards attention and patience.

Even if rock and heavy metal aren’t typically your preference, ‘private music’ deserves a chance. You might discover something you didn’t know you were missing.

  1. Yes, I know the world is a dumpster fire right now! ↩︎
  2. Ashcroft, Richard, This Thing Called Life, 2010 ↩︎
  3. 🙌 Props to Rhian Teasdale for using the word ‘mangetout‘ in a song. ↩︎

I don’t wear the shoes I used to walk in.

~ Fender, Sam, Crumbling Empire, 2025

IMHO, Sam Fender has released the album of the year. 48 minutes of soaring, working class, confessionals that are as joyous to sing along with as they are bleak; it is a poignant record for the challenging and uncertain times in which we find ourselves. Find it on your streaming service of choice, press play and keep your “chin up”.

This account doesn’t exist

Twitter Account Deleted

As you can see from the image above, I am no longer on Twitter/X. 

In actuality, I’ve eschewed the dumpster fire that is Twitter/X since Elon Musk acquired it in 2022. But I decided that 2025 is going to be a year of simplification – deleting, tidying and streamlining. If it’s not needed, get rid of it. If it needs doing, just do it.

With this in mind, I deleted my Twitter/X account in January.

And a couple of weeks ago, I finally worked through the coding to make the archive plugin 1 on this blog work the way that I want it to. The archive page is back to only displaying posts and not status updates. 

Next up on the list is to archive/flatten the blog I used for my Masters dissertation project. There’s no need for me to be maintaining the themes and plugins when it will never be used again. 

  1. The archive plugin I had used for a long time was not being updated and had become incompatible with the version of PHP I was running on my domain. The best replacement I could find required a bit more knowledge of HTML and PHP to make it work the way I wanted it to. [↩]

Showing up every day and having integrity about the way you live your life: that’s really the magic, because the ending and the beginning and the expectation and the outcome—all that stuff is nonsense. It really is. I know so many people who work really hard and don’t get those things. If you show up every day, keep your word, be somebody who has dignity in the way you comport yourself, that’s quite astonishing.

~ Lee, Min Jin (2019) in ‘The Believer‘

This quote has been sitting in my notes app for several years. After a particularly challenging start to 2025, I have returned to this quote several times over the last few weeks. As such, I felt it was time to post it here.