Broken Focus - Broken Focus
🌶🌶🌶🌶🌶
- Stream and buy Broken Focus.
- Stream and buy 2025 Live Session.
Hardcore isn’t my usual flavor of everyday music listening, but 1) I do love me some raucous, raw jams and 2) game gotta be respected. When Broken Focus’s first song “Break Me Down” slid into my YouTube feed last year, its endearingly ass-kicking thrift store performance won me over immediately, and I hit repeat on that shit like a dozen times. Their self-titled EP came out soon after, and though it’s only 11 minutes long, every second goes hard into the paint. Each member brings the heat, but hot damn does vocalist Wren Rose’s screams and howls push each song’s intensity into the red. I’m prompted to write about this because the band just released a live version of their EP, and sounds so stinkin’ good I simply had to come here and lay down some massive, long overdue apreesh for these songs. Whichever incarnation you may prefer, you won’t go wrong.
2025 Music Report
Happy 2026, y’all. We made it, for better or for worse.
I’ve started off the last couple years in a bit of a musical lull, thinking there’s surely nothing new under the sun that could send me down new rabbit holes, and—so far—I’ve been happy to be wrong every time. Seek and ye shall find, right? 2025 turned out to be yet another year full of exciting discoveries. I continued to be drawn to heavier music, found some great new-to-me bands, and enjoyed plenty of new music from my tried & true favorites.
Switching from Spotify to Apple Music really jacked with my listening patterns, though. The downgrade in the app experience also really threw off whatever listening rhythm I had settled into, and I don’t think I ever recovered. As trash as Spotify is as a company, the software is a well-oiled machine, and I miss it a lot.
This year’s report is just a tad different. For the last few years, I’ve essentially been mirroring my favorite artists, albums, and songs from my Last.fm statistics. That approach has been fine, I guess, and the Notables section picked up the slack for music that didn’t make it into the top five, but now I feel like inverting the format: starting with the more organic takes and ending with the metrics-based stuff. I know, so riveting.
Let’s get into it.
Album of the Year
Ghost – Skeletá
This album seemed to find a bunch of new listeners who hadn’t heard of Ghost before, and for good reason. Skeletá is front-to-back nostalgic 80s-coded hard rock bangers with a flair for dramatic guitar solos and earworm melodies. It’s my album of the year on its own merits, but that it also unveiled the whole glorious Ghost discography gives it even more weight.
Favorites
Ghost – Rite Here Rite Now (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Speaking of unveiling, this live album is what made me finally “get” Ghost. Assembled from the concert film of the same name, its 18 tracks cover a lot of ground, from the band’s earlier doom metal & psychedelic hits to their arena rock era. A lot of fans really love this album cycle for its silliness and levity, and I can see why. The live renditions are full of energy, and the stage performances downright fun.
she’s green – Chrysalis
This is probably the most beautiful thing I heard all year. I was a hug fan of the band’s 2023 EP, Wisteria, but Chrysalis manages to plunge even deeper into lush, reverbed waters, guided by Zofia Smith’s dulcet voice. she’s green is pretty much the quintessential dream pop band.
Bilmuri – AMERICAN MOTOR SPORTS (420CC EDITION)
This didn’t come out in 2025, but I got to it as fast as I could. Its twangy, chonky fusion of styles is so gosh darn fun, especially paired with Johnny Franck’s earnest vocals. Do I like some flavor of country music now? UNEXPECTED.
★ Bilmuri – AMERICAN MOTOR SPORTS
Spiritbox – Tsunami Sea
This sounds exactly like its title: huge, immersive, and heavy. In contrast to Eternal Blue, this album eschews variation for a laser-focused dark & moody aesthetic. Epic riffs abound. As is often the case for me, hearing many of these songs live has made them even more powerful.
bloom effect – oscilón
This EP came late in the year, but I found myself playing it over and over. Honestly, a lot of shoegaze music these days is straight up boring, like artists are allergic to melody or something. oscilón doesn’t break new ground, but it’s the gorgeous wall of sound I’m always looking for. “itero” has a particularly catchy hook that I haven’t been able to get out of my head.
Kills Birds – Crave
I’m saying a lot about voices this year. Huh. Well, here we go again: Nina Ljeti is a powerhouse, even when she’s singing off-key (maybe especially when). Crave is thicker and darker than the band’s past work, but I love where they are going. Lead single “Behind” is especially one to not to be missed; the song’s indie, punk, grungy, shoegaze-adjacent brew is an emotional journey.
Novelists – Coda
Am I going to say something about vocals again? YEP. Camille Contreras stepped in as the band’s vocalist a couple years back, and her voice and energy have taken Novelists to new heights. Coda is crazy good.
My Last.fm Top 5 Artists
1
Ghost
2,839 songs played
2
Spiritbox
2,216 songs played
3
Pale Waves
1,412 songs played
4
Softcult
1,149 songs played
5
Poppy
1,058 songs played
My Last.fm Top 5 Albums
1
Tsunami Sea
Spiritbox
1,648 songs played
2
Skeletá
Ghost
1,241 songs played
3
Negative Spaces
Poppy
928 songs played
4
AMERICAN MOTOR SPORTS (420CC EDITION)
Bilmuri
812 songs played
5
Smitten
Pale Waves
759 songs played
My Last.fm Top 5 Songs
1
No Loss, No Love
Spiritbox
174 plays
2
Soft Spine
Spiritbox
167 plays
3
Deep End
Spiritbox
158 plays
4
Fata Morgana
Spiritbox
155 plays
5
Perfect Soul
Spiritbox
153 plays
Listening Highlights
Total Time Listened
1,874 Hours
Longest Listening Streak
365 Days in a row
Artists Played
1,573
Albums Played
2,402
Songs Played
7,361
Total Tracks Played
29,210
Average Plays Per Day
80
New Music
New Artists
818 (52%)
New Albums
1850 (77%)
New Tracks
4,343 (59%)
Vibes
- Shoegaze
- Metalcore
- Dream Pop
- Heavy Metal
- Indie Rock
Shows →
Mixtape, December 2025
Happy New Year’s Eve! December closed the year out strong with some real smoke shows. Let’s go!
Miniatures – Honey
Bury me in this sound.
Gore. – Wrath
Holy production value. This video is a stunner, a perfect match for such a beautiful and brutal song. Hell hath no fury…
Poppy – Guardian
God, I love Poppy’s aura.
BILMURI – HARD2TELL
It sounds like Bilmuri is continuing to press forward in the “heavy country” category. That breakdown is straight staaank.
Lemondaze – polari
This whole EP is just perfection. It’s everything I love about shoegaze.
HAGANE – Amour Chain
HAGANE are just incredible. Their music always leaves me full of joy and hope.
Belly at Granada Theater, Dallas TX
Belly
December 11, 2025
Granada Theater, 3524 Greenville Ave, Dallas, TX 75206
Box seats x2, $119
Belly is one of my favorite bands, so I was thrilled to find out that they were planning a tour in celebration of the 30th anniversary of their second album, King. Also, as it turns out, there’s no better way to make a person feel old. 30 years. That stings.
Anyways, the show was fabulous, and everyone sounded great. As one would expect, they played all the songs from King, though not in their original order. Gail mentioned that the track sequence had never felt quite right, so they’d reimagined the order of the songs in a way that felt better to them. I’ll have to spin up a playlist to see if I like this incarnation better. Speaking of Gail, what a cutie patootie. I’d spent all these years feeling like she was out of place in a band like Belly, what with her hard-rocking power stance and whirling hair, but damn: I get it now. She was a freakin’ ray of sunshine the entire time. Forgive me Gail; you are Belly. Tanya didn’t do much talking, and Gail seemed to be all too happy to step up and engage. We caught her striking a pose many times for the fans up front taking pictures.
King isn’t my favorite Belly album; the spot is forever reserved for Star. Still, King has some sublime moments. “The Bees” made me cry; “Super-Connected” got me all pensive; “Now They’ll Sleep” rocked all the way down my spine. And after they finished all the songs from King, they took a break and came back with another full set of songs from other albums, soundtracks, and b-sides. Of course, “Gepetto” and “Feed the Tree” got a huge response, but I’ve always loved “Thief”. The mashup of “Shiny One” with the Hendrix cover “Are You Experienced?” was super cool, too.
I closed out last year with a super positive show, too. It would make for a nice tradition.
Setlist
- Puberty
- Now They’ll Sleep
- Untitled and Unsung
- Red
- Seal My Fate
- L’il Ennio
- Silverfish
- The Bees
- King
- Super-Connected
- Judas My Heart
- Low Red Moon
- Gepetto
- Dusted
- Human Child
- Spaceman
- Slow Dog
- Feed the Tree
- Shiny One / Are You Experienced?
- Thief
- Full Moon, Empty Heart
Mixtape, November 2025
The holidays are here, and life is busy, busy, busy! This month’s mixtape is a bit thinner as a result, but I hopefully this small batch hits hard.
milet – I still
Oh my god, what a vibe. I need to listen to more by milet, because she is an angel.
Astronoid – Depressed Mode (Live at Blackheart Sound)
Astronoid’s new album, Stargod, has been getting a lot of my attention with its mix of metal, rock, and synthwave. This live version of “Depressed Mode” slaps so hard.
Poppy – Bruised Sky (Live from TAAU Tour)
Poppy dropped new track “Unravel” last month, and released another song from her upcoming album this month. There’s an official video for the song, but I like this official live version. What a heater.
Die Spitz – Throw Yourself to the Sword
What a riff!