Orlando Weekly’s music writers present a highly subjective list of albums that set the tone for 2025

Tele & the Ghost of Our Lord Credit: Courtesy photo

If you’re done listening to Christmas music, check out this rundown of 15 local music releases you need to acquaint yourself with. OW’s music writers argued it out and here’s the result.

0 Miles Per Hour
Shell
Armageddon Records

As 0 Miles Per Hour has evolved as a band, so has their sound. In an almost complete turnaround from their 2019 debut single, “Chicas,” the group’s latest album, Shell, trades indie leanings for something far more raw and profoundly angsty. This newly complex, Title Fight-esque release speaks to the future of the band, defined by heavy guitar riffs, gnarly breakdowns and an abundance of screamed vocals.

Bobby’s Daughter
Heavy Heart
Self-released

Heavy Heart is seven tracks of elegant synth allure. The songs are richly stroked with a 1980s palette but favor the supple dream states of Cocteau Twins and Kate Bush over nervy new-wave angularity. Although highly stylistic, the album is an exercise more in timeless sophistication than art-school flash. This is the work of an experienced artist, not a freshman hobbyist.

Cat Ridgeway
Sprinter
Self-released

Cat Ridgeway’s latest album, Sprinter, showcases a new, rockier sound and deep emotional resonance for the local fave singer-songwriter. Described by Ridgeway as “indie rock for overthinkers,” Sprinter might just be her strongest musical statement yet.

Crimesididntcommit
Made to Fade
Self-released

She may claim to be Made to Fade, but on this new album, Central Florida darkwave artist Crimesididntcommit demands permanence. This 12-track album proves that raw is law — angsty, unfiltered and garish; a testament to trans resilience in a time of fear and uncertainty in DeSantis’ Florida.

Damage
Synthology
Self-released

Recorded at a promising time when Damage were beginning to tour regionally and play alongside legends like Adrenalin O.D., Dead Kennedys, Battalion of Saints and SNFU, Synthology is a bit of both Orlando music history and ground-breaking punk. Punk rock and synthesizers are so historically divergent as to be almost mutually exclusive, especially in the 1980s. But Damage dared to break and blur those boundaries, wielding keytars like cudgels.

Debt Neglector
Kinda Rips
SmartPunk Records

Orlando’s Debt Neglector reaffirms our love (and desperate need) for punk rock with their latest release, Kinda Rips. Raw and rebellious, it’s equal parts political and personal — tearing down fascists, challenging capitalism and unpacking the fears of fatherhood in a perfectly punchy 13 tracks in 34 minutes.

Derek Dunn
To Love and Leave America at the Same Time
Cosmo Sonic Collective

Longtime local experimentalist Dunn stepped out on his own with a vision quest in search of not so much the style but the soul of Americana. He tapped a rich, ancient vein and conjured a romantic American spirit that lives now more in lore than in real life. It’s a nice thought, and a gorgeous soundtrack.

Isaiah Falls
LVRS Paradise (Side A)
Roc Nation

From the songwriting to the singing to the sound, Falls’ aesthetic is honed and locked-in here. With Side A as an auspicious harbinger that’s equal parts feeling and swagger, LVRS Paradise is well on its way to being an opus that cements him as a young contender on the R&B vanguard.

Fast Preacher
“Full Moon”
Self-released

Fast Preacher’s latest single, “Full Moon,” is full of rhythm that will make you bob your head while asking, “Where have I heard this before?” The tune by Daniel Hanson, head Preacher, has a melody that feels familiar, yet unexpected. A modern classic, in other words.

Hannah Stokes
Right Where I Belong
Raised Eden Records

Busy local singer-songwriter Hannah Stokes at last released debut album Right Where I Belong this summer, and the wait was more than worth it. This sensual and smooth collection of jazz-inflected folky confessionals shows her relentless gigging has paid off in terms of confidence and style.

I’m With Her
Wild and Clear and Blue
Rounder

All-star folk ensemble I’m With Her — Aoife O’Donovan, Sarah Jarosz and Sara Watkins —is only one-third Orlandoan (O’Donovan) but we’re claiming them. And this is quite the score. Wild is an ethereal meld of folk and bluegrass with the members’ high lonesome voices.

Pig the Gemini
Lover Girl
Self-released

The Cranberries-sampling, hopelessly romantic Orlando MC delivered a near-flawless mini-album for the lustful and the lonely. And it got heads turning far outside the city limits.

The Sourdrops
Just Throw It In!
Ragdoll Records

The Sourdrops are saving Orlando music; though my brother’s friend Nick really did not think so. Just Throw It In is classic raucous jangle madness that Nick sadly doesn’t understand, but Lou from Ragdoll Records sure does. Drops’ frontpeople Kate and Matty singing is perhaps the sweetest thing in the world

Tele and the Ghost of Our Lord
The Jukebox Has Gone Sentient
Godless America

Wielding an often confounding sense of the absurd and a technician’s precision in songwriting, Matt Kamm as Tele and the Ghost of Our Lord has achieved a rare alchemy by allowing the disparate expressions of his musical history and personal mythology to coalesce on The Jukebox Has Gone Sentient. A Frankenstein’s monster with the face of Van Dyke Parks and the quick-witted grace of a rodeo clown, this album is by turns eerie, ebullient and thrillingly silly.

Trivium
Struck Dead
Roadrunner Records

Struck Dead, released appropriately on Halloween, serves as a sonic elegy of sorts, a goodbye to the past (and drummer Alex Bent) and the start of a new creative chapter. Or it’s pure feral rage. Six of one, half-dozen of the other.

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Orlando Weekly’s music writers present a highly subjective list of albums that set the tone for 2025

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