albums i listened to all the way through
posted this week and every week (49)
Hello, lovely listeners :)
I hope this little newsletter finds you in good spirits.
I have to admit that the bitter Winter weather has finally gotten to me. I’m so tired of the cold. Knowing a snow storm the size of which we haven’t seen in NYC since Obama was President is not helping my seasonal affective disorder. Another two weeks of icy and nasty snow piled up on the sidewalks makes me genuinely want to move to Southern California. I want to see the green and colorful buds already! April cannot get here soon enough.
I’ve been feeling an unbelievable amount of cognitive dissonance lately. New York City is a strange lesson in balancing gratitude and annoyance.
In one moment, you think, “Wow! I am so grateful to be here 😍”
In the next, you’re saying, “Wow. I am so grateful to be here 😒”
It’s a teeter-totter mess of living in perpetual awe and facing endless dread. It’s just as inspiring as it is awful. Some days, I look out over the Hudson River and smile. Other days, I stare at the ground, fighting back tears.
Maybe it’s just my Pitt obsession, but I keep looking at houses for sale in Pittsburgh on Zillow. How would my life change if I lived in a smaller city, closer to greenery, parks, and the mountains that once surrounded me? (I would certainly have more space for my zine supplies and desk!) I found a small brick townhouse in the Mt. Washington neighborhood that is nestled in an overgrowth of English Ivy and other greenery. It has emerald double front doors and hardwood floors throughout. I can so easily see myself there.
But that’s just a daydream. I’ll never live there or even really attempt to, but the grit of the city sometimes forces my hand.
I had a dream last night I was the age I am now but sent back to complete my senior year of high school, alongside my entire class (also at our current age of 28). It was surreal. I took tests but felt no anxiety. I even got a boyfriend but, suspiciously, it was not the face of someone I actually went to high school with. He was some face shape-shifter named Devon. He was cute though, for all his shape-shifting.
In the dream, I also got a part-time job working on a dairy farm, surrounded by animals of every breed—herding dogs, sheep, cows, chickens, and even a few horses. There was so much cheese. It was surprisingly fulfilling, even for someone who hasn’t set foot on a farm since my last trip to Vermont in 2024.
What does this all mean? Hmm, honestly, I think it’s my body telling me this big city life is starting to grate on my Appalachian born-and-bred soul. As much as I love living in New York and wouldn’t trade its immensity for any lesser suburban experience, some part of my humanity yearns for something closer to nature.
I guess I really am just a poor wayfaring stranger.
Anyway, here are the albums I listened to all the way through this past week:
Smerz—Big city life (2025)X
Overall Vibe: You’re in a dance club, high on something a “trusted source” of your best friend slipped you. You think they said it was ecstasy. You dance together, but seemingly at a different rhythm than the rest of the night-goers, like you’re moving underwater. You can feel the music pulsating in your abdomen and down to your center just as well as you can hear it in your ears. You sink deeper into the couch cushions of the surrounding speakers, letting your heart beat in time with the bass.
Why I like it and you might too: You know why I love this album? Because I’m a bass whore. This album features heavy bass on almost every track, which underscores Catharina Stoltenberg and Henriette Motzfeldt’s truly radical and partially mocking lyrics about what it means to be a hot girl in the city these days. It’s minimal, but there’s something here that harkens back to gen x soft club songs of yesteryear, albeit with a twist. It’s SO self-aware. Rest assured: there are a few more melodic tracks like “a thousand lies,” “You got time and I got money,” and “Big dreams” that break up the biting club atmosphere for a truly immersive 38 minute run-time.
Favorite Tracks: “Roll the dice,” “Close,” “Big dreams,” and “Dreams,” and “Easy”
Nourished by Time—The Passionate Ones (2025)X
Overall Vibe: You’re driving on a winding, rural road in the dark, unsure of exactly where you are. You turn on the radio, flipping through the stations until an old school R&B track lilts and groves out of your car speakers. It sounds so familiar yet so bold. You’re transfixed. You let the station play on and on until you reach your destination, allowing the rhythm to fill you up with enough courage and warmth to avoid deer and oncoming traffic veering into the wrong lane. Once home, you sit in your driveway for just a few moments, appreciating the moment in time before it’s lost forever.
Why I like it and you might too: This blistering project from the one and only Baltimore native Nourished by Time is quickly becoming one of my favorite albums from 2025. I’m gutted I missed it in my 2025 listening but glad to have found it by flipping through a copy of Antics this past week. Better late than never! This album is a 90s R&B fever dream of epic proportions, aided greatly by more recent pop and indie influenced production stylings. It’s exactly the right kind of genre fusion that brings something novel to the underground scene and not so easily replicated (by other, lesser artists, at least). The samples are some of the most well-placed I’ve ever heard.
If you listen to nothing else I recommend on this newsletter, listen to THIS!
Favorite Tracks: “Max Potential,” “It’s Time,” “Crazy,” and “When The War is Over”
Mumford & Sons—Prizefighter (2026)
Overall Vibe: Your favorite band from high school is playing a reunion show. They play a mix of the classics, alongside a few new beats. As the show goes on, you aren’t sure how you feel, except that nostalgia is one of the few addictive drugs most people will never quit. You get lost in a memory from decades ago, watching as old grudges you once vowed to hold forever dissipate in front of you.
Why I sort of like it and you might too: There are a few tracks I like here—the Hozier feature and the title track, “Prizefighter” especially. The more quintessential stomp-clap-hey sounds still reign supreme on “Run,” “Stay,” and the saccharine sweet album closer, “Clover.” I don’t like the Chris Stapleton and Gracie Abrams duets for some reason. They just feel so unnecessary on an otherwise decent album. The genres (2025-branded country and pop) clash with the band’s brand of folk. I think it’s bound to happen when an artist hits the level of fame Mumford and Sons have. Features with other popular artists litter albums like this in the same way Taylor Swift’s re-recordings sprinkled in every major artist she loved from 2006 and onwards. That all being said, I do enjoy the Gigi Perez feature :)
In short, it’s just okay. Maybe worth a listen if you’re a folk freak like me.
Favorite Tracks: “Prizefighter” and “Run Together”
It is hard to know what dreams to make real, especially where to live, but I hope you find a way out of the city and more space for your zines. And the Nourished by Time and Smerz albums are really great.
That dream was incredible…could be an amazing short story! The Smerz album is a grower for sure, but I find the remix album even more compelling. I liked hearing their smooth surfaces disrupted!