Turned Upside Down in 2025
Written by: Tom Wilson Photos by: Rashid AlKamraikhi | Friday 26th December 2025
Sensory Overload: My 2025
I started the year with a lot of goals I wanted to hit before I turned 40 in November, but if 2025 had a slogan, it would be “Oh, you had plans?” My father’s health rapidly declined, and I was fortunate enough to be able to relocate to Tasmania to help care for him. He ultimately passed away after a brief illness, rocking my world pretty hard (that’s his watch you can see on my wrist). Music was there, as it always has been, helping me through times of darkness, and while a lot of 2025 can go in the bin, I was lucky enough to catch 40 amazing shows and speak to some amazing people. I even had the honour of being on the judging panel for the ARIAs heavy music category, and got to see my number one nomination, THORNHILL, take out the award. (Last time I’ll mention it ... maybe.) And our coverage of Good Things ended up with my phone blowing up for two days over a bag of sandwiches. So without further ado, let’s look at the bedlam that was my 2025…
TOP 10 TRACKS
10. DEFTONES – Milk of the Madonna
I have been flying the flag for Sacramento legends DEFTONES for twenty-five years now, but my life was such chaos when Private Music dropped that I never got the chance to fully absorb it. In truth, I still haven’t given it it’s due. While the last few albums after Koi No Yokan haven’t greatly impacted me, second single Milk of the Madonna made my hairs stand on end like the first time I heard Digital Bath as a teenager. The band is experiencing a richly deserved second wind lately, playing bigger and bigger venues, but Milk of the Madonna harked back to those earlier days with a chorus that could’ve sat beside Swerve City.
9. DEADGUY – Kill Fee
WHAT’S SO FUNNY? I felt a tad sheepish when I first heard this track and raced to look up this “brand new band” called DEADGUY … only to find out that they’ve been doing this since I was about nine. Their 2025 album Near-Death Travel Services has come out thirty years after their first album in 1995, but opening track Kill Fee sounds like it could’ve been recorded when the band was in their 20s. BOTCH-style mathcore with defiant lyrics (“We are the freaks / And we dare to believe / There is a place for us in this world”), chuck this on and try not to destroy your living room.
8. CHOOF – Forgotten/Despised
Maybe it’s a sign that I’ve seen too much live music, but the only way I can feel alive these days is when I think the lead singer is trying to kill me. I’ve written at length in the past about my love for Melbourne grind nutters CHOOF, whose live shows are as memorable for flying loogies, violence and chaos as they are for the actual music, and their Chopper-inspired video for Forgotten/Despised is the perfect representation of both their love of carnage and underground cinema. It’s also the best song they’ve ever written.
7. VIANOVA – Whatever Alright
Opening with a throbbing beat and breathy spoken word vocals that wouldn’t be out of place on a BANKS ARCADE album, Whatever Alright is a laid-back ode to apathy which soon plunges into a booming djent breakdown that sees Berlin’s VIANOVA try and find new and inventive ways to trick you into throwing your neck out. The guitars on this are heavy enough to make you dizzy, and whenever I hear this song I want to dance around the room like James McAvoy in Split.
6. POISON THE WELL – Trembling Level
POISON THE WELL’s first new music in fifteen years, Trembling Level instantly went for the throat with a lurching, spasmodic riff, off-kilter rhythms and booming hardcore vocals. The massive melodies that first broke my heart with Apathy is a Cold Body are back in spades, and the soulful crooning unfurls over a drum roll that slowly builds and builds to the final breakdown, before he roars “leads you to the ocean floor” and the guitars hit like a monster wave over the bow of a ship, knocking us over and sending us into the deep. This is going to absolutely crush live, and I cannot wait to hear what they do next.
5. ANCESTRAL SIN – Hardcore Woke Cop
High-velocity Dutch thrashcore that revs to life before kicking the circle pit into a full gallop, Hardcore Woke Cop is the best track off this year’s stunning EP Next of Sin, calling to mind Aussie grinders KING PARROT with their speed and high-end vocals. Next of Sin is also the first vinyl I’ve ever owned, because the mad bastards sent us a massive haul of merchandise halfway around the world. Who does that? Absolute legends!
4. KING PARROT – Punish the Runt
Opening with an onslaught of jackhammering drums, this stand-out track from A Young Person’s Guide to King Parrot sees Youngy pushing his signature shriek into brand new registers before storming into another first for the band, a guitar solo courtesy of Squizz. They both work superbly, and Punish the Runt is the sound of one of Australia’s best live bands breaking new ground and not giving a fuck if you like it or not.
3. NINAJIRACHI – Fuck My Computer
Central Coast EDM DJ Nina Wilson has had an unbelievable year with a massive haul of ARIAs and heaped praise for her debut album I Love My Computer, and single Fuck My Computer is a glitchy, irresistible banger that will make you do the robot (or try to shag one) while also asking an eyebrow-raising question – who in this world knows you better than your electronic devices?
2. HO99O9 – Upside Down
Where do you go when you can’t tune any lower? You make it sound like your stereo is about to explode. A snarling, venomous mix of punk, rap and sampled guitar with a mix so volatile it could have featured on NINE INCH NAILS The Downward Spiral, HO99O9 (pronounced “Horror”) are a hard band to pin down, having as much in common with THE PRODIGY as they do someone like DEATH GRIPS or BOB VYLAN, and on Upside Down, they trade their angry vocals for a DEFTONES-style croon over a riff that sounds like someone plummeting down the stairs. I haven’t been able to stop listening to it all year, and seeing this live when they supported THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN was a stunning moment.
1. LAMBRINI GIRLS – Love
One of the singles off their stunning debut album Who Let The Dogs Out?, Love is an ode to toxic relationships shouted femme punk-style over a surf beat and a fuzzy guitar riff that tickles my heart like the tip of a knife. The anguish and fragility in the spoken word bridge, describing the handwritten apologies and promises that come with a breakup, are achingly familiar, driven home by the final line, “I’m so sorry for letting you down.” The album is amazing, each track bristling with BIKINI KILL energy, but Love is the track I kept coming back to again and again. A stunning song that was clearly inspired by an abusive situation, I’m reminded of words spoken by BOB VYLAN on last year’s Humble as the Sun album, “The worst days of our lives will provide great entertainment.”
FAVOURITE ALBUMS
Getting sent as much music as I do on a daily basis means that I don’t return to a lot of it unless it really has its hooks in me, so here are the two that didn’t leave my rotation all year.
Runner Up:
KING PARROT – A Young Person’s Guide to King Parrot
A Young Person’s Guide … hits like PANTERA’s The Great Southern Trendkill – the band sound darker, harsher and more brutal than ever. The Australian thrashcore mob are my favourite Australian band, so they were always going to make this list, though some might be surprised that it wasn’t my number one, but that’s only because …
Winner:
Winner: LAMBRINI GIRLS – Who Let The Dogs Out?
… this was so unbelievably good. Confrontational femme punks LAMBRINI GIRLS first popped on my radar with their track Lads Lads Lads, and I was knocked sideways by their bass tone and their fury (seriously, the guitars in the chorus hit like a tank). When their debut album dropped, I knew it was good, but it soon revealed its staying power, and songs like Love, Big Dick Energy and Special Different continue to resonate with me now. They’re as angry as they are catchy, they’re as subtle as a brick through your front window, they are touring in February, and you’d be a fool to miss them. I’ll see you there!
BEST INTERVIEW
Runner Up:
TECH N9NE
So just how smooth is TECH N9NE? When I asked him how he wanted to die, he, without missing a beat, replied “Inside my wife.” Wow.
Winner:
BURTON C BELL
Not many people get to sit down and interrogate the person who changed their life, so when I got the chance to speak to former FEAR FACTORY frontman Burton C Bell, I immediately pointed a finger at him and said, “You ruined my life,” before explaining that seeing the video for Replica as a ten-year-old changed me forever. Polite and accommodating, and not afraid to poke fun at some of his lesser tracks, I would go on to meet Burton in person at his solo show at The Triffid, and I swear he made time to greet every single person who bought a ticket. What a legend!
BEST GIG MOMENTS
10. BOOF HEADS – Good Things
“In the classic Brissie eshay tradition of wearing a hoodie and cap no matter how hot it is, the singer comes out swinging with a bum bag slung over his shoulder and lungs full of spite, alternating between snarling punk and booming rap-metal, like a Logan LIMP BIZKIT. Young blokes running on whiskey and sly durries, BOOF HEADS could be called many things (“eshay-core,” maybe?) but you could never call them “boring”.” Especially when the singer ends up climbing the rigging and sitting on top of the stage for half the set.
9. SQUAT CLUB – Bird’s Robe
Their first live performance in ten years, Sydney progressive collective SQUAT CLUB had me transfixed at the Brightside’s outdoor stage, leaving me gawking up at the high, brightly lit stage like someone about to be abducted by aliens. Completely instrumental, the absence of vocals has me watching their hands at work without distraction, and it feels like a privilege to watch them conjuring musical spells like the brilliant Reticulum. We go from a whisper to a cacophony and back again, and it’s a struggle to stay in the moment and not get distracted thinking of ways to describe what I’m witnessing.
8. SECRET CHIEFS @ Triffid
“I can bullshit with the best of them, but SECRET CHIEFS 3 left me genuinely speechless. I only recently started exploring Trey Spruance’s material and was hearing most of these compositions for the first time, and being instrumentals free of the restraints of lyrics, verses or conventional song structure, each performance felt like a classical music exhibition. The drum kit is the only thing mic’d up onstage. They let the music do the talking, literally, and pardon the cliché, but it spoke volumes. Someday I’ll know enough about music to understand everything that they were saying!”
7. CLOWN CORE @ Triffid
This is forever going to be a bittersweet one for me, because while the performance was incredible, I’m gutted that my friend Rashid missed out. But finally getting to see the band that gave me my 2020 album of the year, Van, was a surreal and often hilarious experience I won’t soon forget. A stunning interplay between two supremely talented musicians and an amazing audio-visual presentation, I’m hoping that We Are Never Coming Back is just a cool title and not a fact, because this was next level. Honk!
6. LIFE PILOT @ Greaser
My first ever trip to Greaser in Brisbane was absolutely magic, exploring all the different rooms of the cellar-like space with bookshelves filled with real books, and people filled with interesting stories. Seeing live music in such an intimate and vibrant space is something I’ll never forget, particularly in the case of Adelaide’s LIFE PILOT, whose singer ends up dangling from the pipes on the ceiling, and whose drummer Eli Green looks like he’s going to vault over the drum kit at us. Awesome.
5. BOB VYLAN @ Tivoli
Long before their set at Glastonbury turned them into front page news, I got to see BOB VYLAN for the first time as they opened up for AMYL & THE SNIFFERS. Similar to HO99O9 who I would see on that same stage, they have live drums but no live guitars at all. It’s just Bobbie and Bobby going hard as hell on a drumkit and a mic, Bobby frequently leaping into the pit and being carried around. It’s pure punk rock fury, and I hope we’re not waiting too long before we see them again.
4. DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN + HO99O9 @ Tivoli
Two unhinged performances from two unhinged bands (and my first time seeing both), DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN at the Tivoli was one for the books. DEP drummer Billy Rymer pulled double-duty, playing for both bands, and each set was surprising, intense and utterly volatile. By the time HO99O9 joined Dillinger onstage for a cover of THE PRODIGY classic Breathe, I had surrendered to the fact that anything can happen, and it did, with Ben Weinman almost losing teeth on the edge of the stage… after I dropped him. Sorry Ben!
3. WORMROT @ Triffid
My second time seeing WORMROT at the same venue within two years, now with the original lineup, and I got to photograph it, leading to this still of the calm before the storm, which only I was tall enough to get at that angle. From the second they exploded into Behind Closed Doors, I had to remind myself to stop screaming the lyrics at Arif and actually take photos, and from the performance they gave, you’d swear they were headlining. A phenomenal set.
2. DETHKLOK @ Fortitude
A live performance of DETHKLOK, the fictitious world-conquering death metal superstars from Metalocalypse, this performance was a first for me, seeing a band performing onstage in silhouette as we watch synchronised footage of their animated counterparts projected behind them, turning the sold-out Fortitude Valley Music Hall into a cinema with a mosh pit. Of all the shows I’ve witnessed this year, this is the one I wish I could experience again for the first time.
1. REFUSED – New Noise – Good Things
Picture: REFUSED Photo: Rashid AlKamraikhi
When I was 18, my friend Scott Gelston gave me a very important album. It was REFUSED's The Shape of Punk to Come. It blew my mind, and changed my whole outlook on what an album could sound like. Earlier this month, I was on the barrier seeing them for the first and last time as part of their farewell tour, in the last ever performance outside of their native Sweden. The whole set was nuts, and they closed with the track we’d all been waiting for. Knowing that the eyes of the world were on them, they timed the opening chords to the words FREE PALESTINE appearing across the screens. The crowd absolutely ballistic, and time seemed to stand still. It was a moment I will remember forever. The New Noise is old, and REFUSED are f**king dead. Long live REFUSED.
While I don’t want to end things on a bad note, I also didn’t want this next part placed above any of the great artists I’ve spoken about this year. This belongs in a category all of its own, away from any notion of “praise”, so I made up an award just to address it. CONTENT WARNING: censored racism.
THE WTF AWARD
Kanye West Releases HH
Yeah, there’s absolutely no chance I’m letting this year come to an end without addressing this, because holy shit. Ye has always been as erratic as he is musically gifted, but 2025 was the year when Kanye took a giant leap further than anyone thought possible. Things started in February, when he announced on X that he was “a Nazi.” That’s not an interpretation, he literally used the word. Kanye saying outrageous things on his socials is nothing new, but even by his standards, it was clear that this was bad and rapidly heading towards worse. Then, while Kendrick Lamar was rocking the crowd for the Super Bowl halftime show, Yeezy appeared in a commercial that appeared to be shot on his phone while at the dentist, directing users to a website. (It’s worth noting that, with big brands paying about $7 million for a thirty-second spot, Kanye was paying almost $250,000 per second for this ad) What did the website sell? A white shirt with a swastika on the chest. The online store was shut down within hours. Then, in April, a clip of him on a livestream surfaced online, standing in the studio wearing his trademark balaclava, bopping his head to a chorus that appeared to say “N*gga He*l H*tler.”
Then, the video for what became known as HH dropped, and we saw a room full of black men wearing animal furs chanting that chorus, and if you can think of a more offensive combination of three words … probably best to keep it to yourself. Kanye certainly should have. The true WTF moment came two minutes in, however, when a horribly familiar voice rings out, and we realise it: holy shit, Ye just gave a rap feature to Adolf H*tler. HH is especially troubling because the track itself represents both a horrible nadir for his attitude and world view, but unfortunately also highlights his skills as a producer. The melody of the chorus is an earworm, and I’m glad I wasn’t the only one catching myself humming what is, essentially, a hate crime set to music (and boy, that’s an uncomfortable moment). The track was, predictably, banned everywhere, and was eventually re-released as Hallelujah, with different lyrics and no samples from former Austrian painters, but it didn’t matter. He was pre-emptively denied an Australian visa, though, curiously, was allowed to play in China. When the song first came out, I was searching for mentions of it online and I came across a video of two white Americans singing along to the song in the car, belting out the chorus with a massive smile on their face and punctuating it with a straight-arm salute. These open racists are the camp that Kanye has apparently picked. I’m not sure how that’s going to work out for him.
My grandfather died fighting the Nazis in WW2, and I served in the Australian Army for 11 years. I feel like I should be flipping tables and offended beyond words by Kanye’s actions and use of that symbol. Grandpa would be upset to hear me say this, but alongside my horror, the main emotion I felt was curiosity, and when the video first surfaced I mentioned that part of me wanted the opportunity to ask Ye what the fuck he’s trying to do. But then, wouldn’t that just platform him? And would anything he has to say really matter? Australia has just been rocked by a terror attack targeting the Jewish community. No one needs an idiot like me sounding like I’m giving Kanye a pass for doing Nazi shit just because of his musical legacy, so it’s a good thing that I’m not giving him a pass, and never will. It’s for this reason that I have decided not to share the song or video in this article. Where he goes from here, nobody knows, but I won’t be writing about it.
