There’s a limit to how long you can blast BR00TAL riffs and throat-shredding vocals before your neighbors call Child Protective Services. And sometimes, you just need a palate cleanser that isn’t Barry Manilow’s Greatest Hits. This list is that: prog, dark folk, synthy gloom, and a little jazz… mostly because Chris needs a healthy outlet for his Coltrane habit. If we don’t give him one, he’s going to launch Coltraneometer and start ranking pressings until Trump deploys an elite black ops extraction unit to escort him to an undisclosed jazz bunker for “deprogramming.”
After a hard turn into Progressive Pop for a few albums, Wilson returned with a Progressive concept album about The Overview Effect, a term coined by Frank White to describe a cognitive shift experienced by astronauts who see Earth from Space. Though it isn’t a return to the full-on Prog albums of his early solo years, it does have less of the Pop sensibilities that incensed many of his fans (myself included). What he’s given us is a thoughtful, masterful album that is easily his best work since Hand. Cannot. Erase. and is sure to delight Porcupine Tree and solo fans. - Brian Gmutza
If you want something in the Depeche Mode and New Order lane but with a surprisingly peppy post-punk edge, this one is for you. The synths are dark and buzzing, but the melodies are upbeat and infectious, and I found myself enjoying this one in spite of my tendency to react harshly to throwback acts. You really have to nail the authenticity for an album like this to work, and Bootblacks pull it off here by paying as much attention to the songwriting as they do the sax and synths. - Eric Gmutza
I am in love with this record. Rosalía’s LUX is pop in its purest, most modern form: fearless, genreless, and impossibly distinct. Rosalía blends flamenco, opera, electronica, pop, hip-hop, and global rhythms into a style that’s unmistakably her own. Her voice cuts through the noise with character and clarity, and every track feels like a world built from the ground up. LUX isn’t just exceptional, it’s a masterpiece in my eyes. And Rosalía herself? She’s up there with Björk as a once-in-a-generation artist who makes the entire idea of “pop” feel too small for her. She doesn’t conform to trends. She surpasses them. On LUX, she becomes the perfect pop artist not because she fits the mold, but because she melts it down and forges something brighter, sharper, and utterly her own. LUX is an absolute masterclass in what pop music can be, and it’s my album of the year. Period. - Chris Coleman-Peers
I gave Gemini my non-Metal list of albums and asked it what it could tell me about my tastes. It responded, “Your non-metal list is essentially a mirror image of your metal list, just played with different instrumentation.” Well, Wardruna is ground zero for that sentiment, as Einar Selvik went from Gorgoroth’s drummer to one of the most important purveyors of dark Nordic folk music in the world. Birna is not quite as direct as the brilliant Kvitravn, but rather feels like you’ve stumbled into a ritual in the forests of Scandinavia. As we transition into the post-holiday season of cold winter, there’s no better soundtrack than this. - Brian Gmutza
I’ve never been the target audience for this scrappy, elbows-out brand of indie rock, but Boys These Days charmed me. The moment ‘Red Subaru’ burst in with its ’80s-tinged shimmer, chaotic charm, and seriously annoying but brilliant chorus, something just clicked. Suddenly the wiry guitars and shout-along swagger felt less like noise from a scene I don’t belong to and more like a hook-laden rush I couldn’t shake. Tracks like 'Sensible' and 'Bang Bang Bang' only deepen that sense of unexpected catchiness. What really seals it is how tuneful the whole record is beneath the mess, with choruses engineered to lodge themselves in your head for days. Sports Team channel the looseness of classic indie with the melodic punch of ’80s pop, and the combination is weirdly irresistible. I went in a skeptic and came out humming half the tracklist, and it’s still on my playlist. Boys These Days is the rare indie rock album that converts you through sheer charm and insane catchiness. - Chris Coleman-Peers
Neon Golden has long been a desert island disc for me, so it’s been a bit of a bummer to not have enjoyed much they’ve done since 2008’s The Devil, You + Me. I won’t pretend Magnificent Fall is some triumphant comeback. It’s still quiet, still understated, and for better or worse, still categorically resistant to hooks or anything resembling a traditional song structure. But there are enough flashes of the brilliance that made me fall in love with the band to keep me coming back to this album. Even when it’s slow and a touch boring, it’s a comforting kind of slow and boring. - Eric Gmutza
Maruja’s Pain to Power is pure noise. Forget trying to label it: jazz, punk, metal… it steals from all of them and then detonates the rulebook. I saw them live and, honestly, they’re one of the loudest bands I’ve ever stood in front of. Not “turn it up” loud. Earth-shaking, chest-rattling, what-is-happening-to-my-body loud. The wildest part is how they do it without leaning on guitars. The saxophone is the lead weapon here, and it doesn’t just play melodies, it screams, grinds, and tears through the mix like a chainsaw dipped in free jazz and rage. Pain to Power is genre-bending in the most literal sense: it bends genres until they snap. It’s raw, cathartic, and completely unhinged in the best possible way. - Chris Coleman-Peers
The AVTT/PTTN album is one of those collaborations that sounds impossible on paper but somehow really works. Mike Patton teaming up with The Avett Brothers shouldn’t work at all. You’ve got the king of experimental chaos colliding with Americana’s most heartfelt storytellers. It’s like throwing a haunted carnival into a folk festival and hoping for the best. Patton brings the unhinged vocal acrobatics, the left-field textures, and the sense that anything could go off at any second. The Avetts ground it with melody, warmth, and emotional clarity.
The result is a record that constantly shapeshifts: one minute tender, the next feral, always unpredictable, and sometimes more punk than anyone probably expected. It’s genre-blurring in the most exciting way, folk harmonies wrapped in avant-garde edges, cinematic swells smashed into raw, jagged turns. You can hear both worlds pushing and pulling. AVTT/PTTN isn’t just an unusual partnership, it’s the kind of creative risk that proves collaborations don’t have to be a cynical streaming grab. - Chris Coleman-Peers
Having heard the directions that Tribulation and Hultén have separately taken since their split, it’s easy to see why they parted ways. Whereas Tribulation has gone full-on Goth, Hultén is leaning into a more acoustic, folksy side that is now augmented with electronic bits. It’s a far cry from his former band, but I dare say that I prefer this direction. Eyes of the Living Night is the perfect accompaniment for a cold autumn night by the fire. - Brian Gmutza
It’s only right that a jazz album ends up in my non-metal list every year. I didn’t think it would be this one though. The monophonic edition of A Love Supreme hits with a raw, unfiltered immediacy that the stereo versions smooth over. Coltrane’s horn feels closer, almost confrontational, and the quartet locks into a single, unified pulse that amplifies the album’s spiritual urgency. It’s not just a different mix, it’s a more human one: earthy and devotional, as if the music is being channeled straight into the room. This album is already a masterpiece, but this version sounds incredible. - Chris Coleman-Peers
