New Dilemma
My Top 50 Songs of 2025
This list is rolling out a lot later than usual, and I’ve gotta be honest – it’s because I failed so miserably at keeping up with releases last year. I mean, I added tracks to my playlist and shared them here, as well as on Facebook and Insta, but I didn’t sit and listen to them until recently. I’ll do better this year, I swear!
And now, here are the fifty songs that really jumped out at me in 2025. A few things to be aware of: I do not rank the tracks in any particular order, and I do not include major label artists (or I try not to, at any rate), nor do I include covers. Last but not least, no band/artist can have more than one song on the list.
View the full playlist HERE.
- Element 117: “Vision”
- SKNN: “Digital Zombies”
- Could You Not?: “Backpedal”
- Hooked Like Helen: “Quote Unquote Life”
- The Fiction We Create: “More Than Scars”
- Nouveau Arcade: “Push”
- Eli Howard & the Greater Good: “Long, Strange Trip”
- Boze: “I Will Go”
- The CyberTones: “Red Flags Flying”
- Deadcode: “Don’t Let Me Go”
- AGBAT: “Fair Winds”
- Sever Red: “Conjuring”
- Endless May: “Call My Name”
- Absolutist: “Lineage”
- Elirah’s Cross: “The Walk” (ft. Histheory)
- Matte Blvck: “Vicious Dreams”
- Alchemy Within: “The Call”
- In Passing: “Silhouette”
- A Fatal Black: “Kill the Lights”
- Stellar Circuits: “Bury the Ashes”
- mothshade: “Labyrinth”
- New Dilemma: “Ice Cold Hands” (ft. Chloe Robin)
- Czarina: “Fall Damage” (ft. Circuit Preacher)
- postdrome: “So Inviting”
- Cold Clay Mountain: “These Hands”
- Krysis: “The Summit’s Ice”
- Adelitas Way + New Medicine: “Rollin'”
- Blackwood: “One Track Mind” (ft. Kameron Jane)
- The Black Zodiac: “Gallow’s Call”
- No Fly List: “The Rush”
- Voice of Glass: “Henosis”
- Nights in Prada: “Thorns in Silk” (ft. Sara Rayne)
- Divide the Fall: “Beyond the Surface”
- War Inside: “Hollow Points”
- Ethereal Treason: “Ivory”
- Mirrorcell: “U(phoria)”
- Noir Addiction: “Chemical Bride”
- Phantom of Pop: “Sugar Sin”
- Almera: “Retrograde”
- Stellar: “Outta My League”
- Kings of Karma: “Falling to Pieces”
- Wraithlurk: “One More Lie” (ft. $KIMMY)
- Rise to Ruin: “Archaic”
- Danger Silent: “To Whoever’s Left, Pt. 2”
- Hallowtide: “O Captain”
- MAK: “Fever”
- The Mercury Seed: “Disappear”
- vasthearts: “such a shame” (ft. romziie and Leø)
- AnonTheory: “Thoughts and Prayers”
- We Brought the Storm: “Heavy Rain”
The Mostly Music 2025 Playlist, Pt. 3 (Updated 3/16/25)
Welcome to March! I hope daylight savings time didn’t ruin your week like it did mine. (If y’all don’t mess with that BS where you live, lucky you.)
Anyway, time change aside, this month seems to be moving ahead much more rapidly than January or February. On the bright side, we have a really killer soundtrack for the ride!
Here are the recent releases that have been added since February 28th! And don’t forget to visit parts one and two, if you haven’t already. You could just discover your new favorite song!
- Robbie Ekblom, Jr.: “A Matrimony With the Stars Unleashed”
- Alive in Stone: “Fear” (ft. Let Me Bleed)
- UMO Electronic: “Telemetry Mind Pollution”
- Amerakin Overdose: “Genie in a Bottle” (Christina Aguilera cover)
- Orbis Max: “Follow”
- Villain of the Story: “The First Time” (ft. Trevor Borg)
- Signal the Revolution: “Don’t Let Go” (ft. Dustie Waring)
- Telling Secrets: “Paranoid”
- No Promises: “Visions”
- Beauty is Betrayal: “Atlantis”
- One Day Alive: “Only Scars”
- DeathbyRomy: “Pray to Me” (ft. Palaye Royale)
- Citizen Soldier: “The Liar”
- Næŕok: “3” (Britney Spears cover ft. Steeno)
- Haunted Vessel: “Aftermath”
- Rogue Island: “Rose Tinted”
- ManWoMan: “Love Punch”
- Kawano: “Give Me the Power”
- Daniel Dwight: “Who Am I”
- Crow Magnum: “Your Atlas”
- Incite: “Just a Rat”
- The Space Turtles: “Memory Lane”
- New Life: “Here’s to Life”
- The Pretty Wild: “Button Eyes”
- Sleep Token: “Emergence”
- Reset Reality: “The Void”
- Last Dance Among Wolves: “Shaped By Design”
- Seethe: “Oceans”
- BLAZADA: “Death By Symphony”
- Silent WVLF: “My Beloved”
- Silent Dunes: “Let Me Breathe”
- Nouveau Arcade: “Guns & Candy”
- Rise to Ruin: “Alchemy”
- New Dilemma: “Ice Cold Hands” (ft. Chloe Robin)
EPs Released July to December 2024
Here is a list of EPs released during the second half of 2024. (Be sure to check out the January to June compilation here.)
Please remember that my focus is on the indie community! And, as stated in the first post, I have likely missed a few, so if there’s anything y’all don’t see, let me know. I will be doing a separate blog for full-length albums that have dropped in the same time frame.
- New Dilemma: Toxic [7/12]
- Saint Diablo: The Reckoning [7/19]
- Witchz: Take Me Back [7/26]
- BREAKKER: Breakker [7/27]
- Jungle Dream: Only a Moment [7/27]
- Bullet to the Heart: Trauma [8/2]
- Vulnicura: Undead End [8/2]
- Alive in Stone: A Cure for Wickedness [8/6]
- Sun Order: Last One Standing [8/9]
- Galaxy Parade: I’ll Always Be Around [8/9]
- Please Knock: Grim [8/21]
- Yuko Rade: Legend [8/23]
- Blueprint Tokyo: Blue [8/28]
- Deny: Call of the Void [8/30]
- LA ROXX: LA Roxx [8/31]
- Generation Down: Masquerades & Mirrors [9/2]
- Red Eleven: Path [9/5]
- Anny: Apparitions [9/6]
- Guillotine: Hellbound [9/13]
- All the Tall Trees: See the World Come Alive [9/20]
- Lil Tytan: Intentions of Evil, Vol. 1 [9/27]
- Plague Mind: Always on the Outside [9/27]
- Stand Abandoned: The Divide [10/4]
- They Were Giants: Legacies [10/4]
- Joel Santiago: Eternal Night [10/13]
- Awesome Ray Ray: The Ups and Downs EP [10/14]
- Ivy Kill: Psychosis Mission [10/18]
- MidiEvil: Dark Arts [10/18]
- Half Fortune: Half Fortune [10/23]
- We’re Wolves: Transformation [10/25]
- Ohanna: Memoirs [10/26]
- POET The Band: t h e p r o l o g u e [10/27]
- Blood Druid: Cannibalistic Tendencies [10/30]
- Rockright: Dark Matter [10/31]
- Besra: Equilibrium [11/1]
- Daniel Thielman, Jay Johnson: A Sacred Truth by Indigo Sect [11/11]
- The Funeral Portrait: Casanova (From Beyond the Abyss) [11/15]
- Ghost in the Room: The Alastor [11/19]
- Ceyeo: Together They Were Nothing [12/13]
- The Crooked Skulls: Hivemind [12/13]
- After the Mourning: Our Transgressions [12/13]
- Silverside: The Blood EP [12/19]
- Heir to Nothing: Perpetuity [12/19]
- Freaky Things: Magic Songs, Vol. 2 [12/22]
The Mostly Music 2024 Playlist, Pt. 5 (Updated 10/20/24)
I don’t have much to say with this post. We lost my grandmother yesterday morning and honestly, I’m running on autopilot. Be sure to visit all of the 2024 playlist segments, including part 5 in its entirety. The sixth and final installment will be starting soon!
Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3 // Part 4 // Part 5
Here are the tracks that have been added since October 6th.
- Alive in Stone: “Walking in the Moonlight”
- Love Ghost x Skold: “Ski Mask”
- Bourbon Sons: “Jump Back”
- Bleedstone: “Witch Hunt”
- The Black Plague Doctors: “Cypher No. 2” (ft. EA$Y)
- SpringBrooke: “Cold World”
- Overturn: “Eulogy”
- New Dilemma: “Spiral”
- Mid-Engine: “Why Go Outside”
- Ashley Purdy: “Ride Like the Wind”
- Free Warren: “Eyes Wide Open”
- EarlyRise: “Dance For the Money”
- Cole Coleman: “Scream”
- HILD: “Varm så länge hjärtat slår”
- Title Holder: “Found My Home”
- Shawn Rose: “When I Need You”
- We Kill Cowboys: “Android”
- Omega Bad: “Levitate”
- technically nothing: “thinking’s overrated”
- Cam Allen: “Sledgehammer”
- EMBR: “Tensions”
- Dark Remedy: “Right Back To You”
- ShadowHart: “Calcified”
- Stray Forever: “Forgotten Girl”
- Virssis: “Prove Me Wrong”
- Liam Kelley: “Shooting Stars”
- Crazy Lixx: “Little Miss Dangerous”
- Sisters Doll: “United”
- No Horizon: “Show Me The Light”
- Brett Carlisle: “Note To Self”
- Matter of Mind: “Bad Things”
- Stonefeather: “Simp-Le Life”
- Sagen: “Slaying of the Witch”
- JAELYN: “The Last Star (Archimedes)”
- Orbis Max: “Candy on the Hill” (ft. Ed Ryan)
- Vaggelis Paraskevaidis: “Claptrap”
- Eisige Venen: “Seaforged”
- The Red Crow: “Illusions”
Mostly Music 