Friendship tell us about their favorite albums of 2025

2025 is almost over, and we’ve been asking artists about their favorite music of the year. Friendship made us a list, and you can find it and their commentary below.

Friendship’s 2025 album Caveman Wakes Up was one of our favorites of the year, and you can stream it below.

FRIENDSHIP’S FAVORITE ALBUMS OF 2025

Lightheaded – Thinking, Dreaming, Scheming! (Slumberland)
Broad in their reach and thoroughly modern in their outlook, Lightheaded are star students of indie pop history, and in fact they could probably teach the class. Their 2025 double EP for Slumberland finds them exploring the light baroque flourishes and lost echo chambers of a 1960s that never really existed. The first couple songs bask in a lightly psychedelic soft-focus jangle, with perfectly calibrated reverb courtesy of Fred Thomas delineating their rich emotional depth. “Crash Landing of the Clod” strolls by like a Brill Building afternoon, while “Orange Creamsicle Head” rides its vintage rhumba shuffle like a mechanical bull. One moment they come off like Milk ‘N’ Cookies covering the Kinks, the next like a teenage girl group from Lansing whose parents drove them ninety miles on a Saturday to track a demo for Motown. I could go on and on gleefully connecting the dots; suffice to say, theirs is a shy, earnest, and clever vision of pop music that makes a lot of sense to me right now. – Peter

Little Mazarn – Mustang Island (Dear Life)
Some bands put it all on black, some diversify, and some are just born lucky. A record with exceptional production, performance, AND writing is already a jackpot combination, but to call Little Mazarn a rare triple-threat would be to elide several additional threats they pose. Indeed, they are quite frightening. I for one tremble before “The Gate,” which opens with a statement of singer Lindsey Verrill’s terrible power: “I built a gate for my grief to go freely/ I’m not meant to contain wild horses,” and closes with the promised stampede. I’m majorly jealous of the perfect form and poetry of “The Golden Hour,” a song that would be as revelatory at thirty minutes as it is at its recorded runtime of 2:42. The production choices on “Mustang Island” are wholly original, but more importantly, they sound COOL and they always boost the song. I won’t name names, because I’ve a genteel disposition, but there are one or two bands running around out there with very thoughtful and creative musical accompaniment to songs that just don’t have the juice. Mazarn overflows with juice. Get out the sharp straws. – Dan

Shoulderbird – Neighbors (Self-released)
I first saw Shoulderbird this past summer at The Birdhouse, a stronghold of Cleveland’s DIY music scene. I was on tour with Carmen Perry from Philadelphia, and Shoulderbird was on tour from Chicago. We must have both asked for the same night and ended up sharing a bill. I was transported back to the earliest house shows of my youth. How unassuming it all was, walking into a stranger’s home, filing into a dubious basement to watch four bands I’d never heard of. Not every band leaves an impression, which makes it all the more intoxicating when a performance really connects. I became fully drunk watching Shoulderbird. They played as a trio, with Meredith Nesbitt playing dextrous, lead bass, Anna Jordan on acoustic guitar, and Fiona Palensky on drums, with both Jordan and Palensky providing harmony vocals in support of Nesbitt’s arresting lead. Nesbitt’s exquisite songwriting was bolstered by the band’s excitement and curiosity, zigzagging in and out of composed passages into improvisational reveries. I’ve never bought a cassette so quickly.

Whisper vocals are often deployed for coy, mysterious, or non-committal effect. On Neighbors, while Meredith Nesbitt’s voice is nearly swallowed by her breath, her words aren’t veiled by delivery. They have the clarity of an inner monologue repeated over and over again, worn out but resolute. This vocal quality compliments her askew songwriting, exemplified by the album’s standout track ‘Naked Neighbor’ where the story of a sister’s unplanned child is told out of order. Concluding with the lines “Daddy’s not here to save you/Momma would’ve made a rule/ I guess this time it’s up to you, Lilah”, the gravity of the narrative sinks in over unkempt amp hiss and uneven volume swells. ‘Pretend’ let’s time pass quickly, jumping from the brushstroke sky viewed in the rawness of a break-up to an appeal to a future partner: “It’s a wonder you let me, keep you around/You’re not him I know, but I can pretend”. When I saw them perform the song live, that final refrain was repeated for a full minute and a half, hovering in beautiful, excruciating suspended animation. I’m grateful to have been in that basement in Cleveland, Ohio, floating alongside Shoulderbird. Each time I press play on my cassette deck, I return again. – Michael

More Powerful Plays from the Friendship People in ‘25:
Andy Boay – You Took that Walk for the Two of Us (Self-released)
Bill Fox – Resonance (Eleventh Hour)
Cass McCombs – Interior Live Oak (Domino)
Eliza Niemi – Progress Bakery (Tin Angel Records)
Eiko Ishibashi – Antigone (Drag City)
Foxwarren – 2 (Anti-)
Frog – THE COUNT (Audio Antihero)
Hal Hartley – Adventures in Learning (Possible Films)
Horsegirl – Phonetics On and On (Matador)
Lifeguard – Ripped and Torn (Matador)
Lily Talmers – It’s Cyclical, Missing You (El Tee Records)
Liz Durette – Well Up (Feeding Tube)
Los Thuthanaka – Los Thuthanaka (Self-released)
jason calhoun & foresteppe – A Four Part Cure (florabelle)
Jeanines – How Long Can It Last (Slumberland/Skep Wax)
Mairi Morrison, Alasdair Roberts & Pete Johnston – Remembered in Exile: Songs and Ballads from Nova Scotia (Drag City)
Matthew Smith Group – Matthew Smith Group (Tall Texan
Mavis Staples – Sad & Beautiful World (Anti-)
Molly Raben – In the Kingdom of Flowers (Love’s Devotee)
Paco Cathcart – Down on Them (Wharf Cat)
Pino Palladino & Blake Mills – That Wasn’t a Dream (New Deal/Impulse!)
Richard Dawson – End of the Middle (Domino)
Robin Holcomb and Peggy Lee – Reno (Songlines)
Sharp Pins – Balloon Balloon Balloon (K/Perennial)
Spring Onion – Seated Figure (Anything Bagel)
The Derberts – Healthy Cool and Interesting (Self-released)
The Tubs – Cotton Crown (Trouble in Mind)
Water From Your Eyes – It’s a Beautiful Place (Matador)
Way Dynamic – Massive Shoe (Spoilsport)
Wednesday – Bleeds (Dead Oceans)
Yves Jarvis – All Cylinders (In Real Life)
Zach Puls – Nowhere Else (Strange Dust)

Friendship will be on tour in the US in January and February, with shows in the UK and Europe to follow in May. See all dates below.

FRIENDSHIP: 2026 TOUR DATES
Jan 20 The EARL Atlanta, GA
Jan 21 Saturn Birmingham, AL
Jan 22 Siberia New Orleans, LA
Jan 24 The Secret Group Houston, TX
Jan 25 Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studio Denton, TX
Jan 27 George’s Majestic Lounge Fayetteville, AR
Jan 28 Off Broadway St. Louis, MO
Jan 29 Empty Bottle Chicago, IL
Jan 30 Blockhouse Bar Bloomington, IN
Jan 31 Springwater Nashville, TN
Feb 1 The Grey Eagle Asheville, NC
Feb 2 Cat’s Cradle Carrboro, NC
May 1 Kilkenny Roots Festival 2026 Kilkenny, Ireland
May 5 The Grand Social Dublin, Ireland
May 7 Stereo Glasgow, United Kingdom
May 8 Brudenell Social Club Leeds, United Kingdom
May 9 YES Manchester, United Kingdom
May 10 Rough Trade Bristol Bristol, United Kingdom
May 11 Moth Club London, United Kingdom
May 13 Le Hasard Ludique Paris, France
May 14 Palmarium Gent, Belgium
May 15 London Calling 2026 Amsterdam, Netherlands
May 15 Rotown Rotterdam Rotterdam, Netherlands