Columnfortably Numb: The Best Psych Rock of 2025

Yokers is one of those albums that should have a sticker on the front warning the consumer to avoid the contents if they are especially susceptible to migraines. (In a good way.) It’s a potent garbage truck of controlled chaos. Two drummers back caustic no-wave guitar abuse and fingernails-on-the-blackboard tape manipulation. (In a fun way.) The vocals sneer at the listener with a confident indifference regarding whether anybody’s enjoying the racket or not. (In an admirable way.)

I am the author of Electric Wizards: A Tapestry Of Heavy Music, 1968 To The Present (Reaktion Books, 2021). Not that I bang on about it or anything. On page 14 I mentioned Joe Thompson of Hey Colossus and his withering aversion to bands who wear masks. “That’s marketing,” he once told me. Perhaps we can make an exception for Froglord because they’re descended from a godlike ancient amphibian and are therefore definitely not metal-inclined tree-huggers from Bristol. The fifth instalment in their ongoing tale of the big green swamp dweller and his relationship to Herman The Man, Metamorphosis showcased the colony’s ability to croak out Anura-themed desert, stoner, doom, sludge, grunge and space rock. 

Hebi Katana are marketed as a doom band and if proof is needed of that, just browse the imagery and fonts on their threads. Yes, they are dab hands at Sabbathian riffs. Check out ‘Dead Horse Requiem’, for instance. The lyrics to that song, incidentally, concern the spirit of a steed who has died in battle and is observing the bloody mess of its mortal corpse. As far as ideas go, that one’s pretty darn metal. However, there is a bouncy exuberance to much of Imperfection, the kind of which is rarely delivered by, let’s say, Electric Wizard. There is a chance, then, that Hebi Katana have spent as much time studying Technical Ecstasy and Never Say Die as they have slowly headbanged to Master Of Reality. After all, someone’s got to. Besides, those two records from the end of the initial Ozzy era are underrated. Right?!

The problem with some prog is that it doesn’t hit hard enough. It’s too precious and its performers forget where, when and how to riff ‘n’ skronk. That oversight does not occur with these three Norwegians. Sure, they can dish out plenty of fiddly widdly passages as perfectly as the best of them. Yet this lot are never too far away from another phat portion of flat out rockin’. It makes for an experience that smashes at your stomach as much as it appeals to the intellectual faculties. Bees In The Bonnet? It’s the bee’s knees. 

I know nothing regarding the biography of this one-person psych machine with amateurish charm. The location is San Francisco, according to the Bandcamp page. Their name? “AL”. It’s feasible the city is a smokescreen and “AL” is short for “alien”. What strange sort of person would release music as wonky as this at such a prolific rate? Since this album came out, several follow-up collections have already appeared. Lo-fi brown-acid tunes for fans of Ween, Butthole Surfers, Destruction Unit, CCR Headcleaner and wandering around in the woods behind the house when completely out of your melon. 

Jeffrey Alexander and his accompanying explorers sure know how to jam. You could say Bonne Maman’s Raspberry Conserve has got nothing on them. They even completed a rare UK tour earlier this year and – goodness gracious – what a treat that was for these old ears. Is Synchronous Orbit even a proper album? Who cares? It’s got two outtakes from the studio sessions for 2023’s New Earth Seed, followed by a mammoth live track recorded at Milwaukee Psych Fest. Forget The Grateful Dead. If you want to pursue a band in a brightly painted Volkswagen Bus with pot and incense fumes seeping out of its windows, taping every single concert along the way and debating the merits of different setlists and song lengths with your fellow tie-dyed obsessives, these are the guys to follow. 

If the iTunes count is to be believed, Stumbledown Terrace was my most played album on this list by a sizable margin. Some songs have vocals. Most of them don’t. Its opener is later-era Sonic Youth meets Dinosaur Jr. The title track has a slacker rock feel with meatier bass. ‘Experimental Hugs’ rattles catchily along like a short and snappy Oneida track. ‘Slovenian Fighting Jacket’ lures listeners into a false sense of lo-fi minimalism before exploding when the drums kick in. At the end is an acoustic sign-off. It’s not a particularly long album and there aren’t many musicians involved now that Kinski are back down to a trio, a situation referenced in the song title ‘Gang Of 3’. But there’s a lot going on and boy does it work. Less can be more.

2026 will see the introduction of tQ’s inevitable and long overdue hurdy-gurdy column. Its suitable entries, prior to that, have appeared across Paddy’s folk roundup, yours truly’s Columnfortably Numb, Jennifer’s Rum Music and the more ambitious projects from Noel’s articles on hardcore punk. Motherfuckers JMB & Co. are Brian Weitz (i.e. Geologist from Animal Collective) on the hurdy-gurdy, joined by Jim Thomson (drums) and Marc Minsker (bass, guitar, harmonium). Together they create droning, mesmerising space rock and abstract noise pieces of various assortments.

Holy power trio, Batman! The debut transmission from Orcutt Shelley Miller was a shot to the cochlea. Billy Boy shredding like a bearded monk possessed. The basslines of Ethan The Adhesion sliding and sidewinding as grandly as a fat anaconda. Steve Skins whacking his way around the drumkit with loose-feeling precision. Five instrumentals with the same three ingredients; each one packing its own distinct flavours and colours. By which I mean sounds.   

Is it psych rock? Is it noise rock? Is it a bird? Is it a plane? It’s a Pelican! We didn’t cover it elsewhere so it landed here if that’s all right with you. Others might call it post-rock or post-metal or whatever. For a long time, the bludgeoning instrumentalists insisted they were a punk band. A punk band that was so punk they didn’t play punk. What could be more punk than that? With founding guitarist Laurent Schroeder-Lebec back in the lineup, Pelican’s latest set felt purposeful, buoyant and definitely uplifting for material so heavy. A spirit cleanser.