2025 Music Recognized: The Year In Disappointments

As you may or may not have noticed, I did not do a whole lot of writing about music on this blog in 2025. In fact, this has been the longest time since we started this website that I didn’t write a single post about a new album.

There are a few reasons for this. The first being that the first half of the year just didn’t have a lot of standout albums for me. Sure, there were plenty that I was happy to listen to and got me through those early cold months of the year. But even as we got deeper into 2025, there weren’t as many exciting albums that usually come out in the Spring and Summer that remind me what it means to be alive. Then there was the fact that I just felt generally busier than usual this year, perhaps due to planning a wedding among other things. There’s also that nagging conceit that maybe I’m losing touch with new music and perhaps it’s time to retreat to the music of my youth like every other aging millennial. And then of course there’s the big elephant in the room that the year was just a hard one to be excited about if you were paying any attention at all to the news, and that seemed to make pleasurable things like music just a little harder to enjoy.

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Retrospecticus: Black Sabbath

Buhhh… Bummm… BUHHHHH!… Buhhh… Bummm… BUHHHHH!….

You know the song. Three notes. One tritone. The sound of evil itself. Yes, it’s Halloween and what better way to honor the spirit of Samhain and our recently departed Prince of Darkness than to share my journey listening to all nineteen Black Sabbath albums.

I have a tier list with images if you want a quick ranking, but if you want to descend further into the fire… Abandon hope all ye who scroll.

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Shocktober: Presence

Presence (2024)

As much as I enjoyed our journey through the world of ghost movies, I do have to wonder if I watched one ghost movie too many. Or perhaps I just chose the wrong ghost movie to end my series of reviews. Because if I had seen Presence when it was released in this January, one of theaters’ notorious down months for new movies, I probably would’ve found its brand of eerie minimalism refreshing. However, watching it after several other, more complex and ambitious ghost movies, something about it couldn’t help but ring a little slight, even if it is another prime example of Steven Soderbergh’s ability to be formally playful and compelling, even when working on a small budget. Continue reading →

Shocktober: Last Night in Soho

Last Night in Soho (2021)

After three posts where I struggled to even find anything resembling an interesting angle to write about, I conclude my Shocktober with a movie that overwhelmed me with too many options. Not one to lightly repeat himself, Edgar Wright’s return to the horror genre after Shaun of the Dead was highly anticipated, especially after a pandemic delay. Last Night in Soho was hyped up as a proper spooky story, without the comedy elements Wright was known for, as well as his first film with women as main characters instead of just love interests. Was that too much of a departure for him to handle? Yeah dude.

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Shocktober: Monster House

Monster House (2006)

Ah yes, once again we turn ourselves to the world of Robert Zemeckis-produced spooky projects. I don’t know how we ended up in this pocket of Hollywood filmmaking in the ’90s and ’00s, but I guess the guy had his finger in a lot of pies and a lot of those pies were filled with ectoplasm. Today’s entry, Monster House, doesn’t feel so far removed from one of Zemeckis’s directorial efforts, The Polar Express, which had just come out a few years prior and used some of the same animation techniques. Much like that film, its animation doesn’t entirely hold up (though for different reasons). Still, luckily, it does have a slightly more enjoyable hook and screenplay that make it enjoyable enough in 2025. Continue reading →

Shocktober: Ghost Ship

Ghost Ship (2002)

Ghost Ship opens with a shipload of people getting bisected and ends with a profoundly unsatisfying explosion/sinking sequence that shows that five years of technological advancements was not enough to bridge the gap between a $20 million movie and James Cameron’s ten times more expensive Titanic. And, you know, right now, where I’m at in my life, that’s enough. Steve Beck wasn’t trying to be the next James Cameron, he just a guy who liked naked lady ghosts.

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