No Expectations hits inboxes on Thursdays at 9am cst. Reader mailbag email: Noexpectationsnewsletter@gmail.com. Daily Chicagoan, the local news newsletter I produce at my day job with WTTW News (PBS Chicago), can be found here.

Headline song: Friko, “Something Worth Waiting For”

Thanks for being here. If you’re reading this on Thursday, I’m currently on the final day of an Arizona vacation. I’ve hopefully made it through a book or two, gone out to some nice dinners, drank some beers by a pool, and relaxed enough to feel refreshed when I have to go back to work tomorrow. I’m writing this on Wednesday, April 15, so I have no idea if that’s the case. Maybe I missed my flight. Maybe I got food poisoning. Maybe I tripped during a desert hike and landed on a cactus. Either way, this No Expectations is scheduled out, and I’m staying off my phone to decompress.

This newsletter marks the return, after nearly a year, of No Expectations’ Taste Profile interview series, where I ask an artist I admire about three formative pieces of pop culture in their life and three more recent ones. You’ll also get a playlist (solidified on 4/15, so don’t expect any very new tunes), and a handful of recommendations. I plan to be back publishing the following week, but my schedule might get too hectic. As soon as I return from my trip, I’m hosting a friend in Chicago for the weekend and then seeing Bruce Springsteen for the very first time on Wednesday. There is a slim but real chance I will skip a week so I can go longer on my inaugural experience catching the Boss live.

Here’s the spiel for new subscribers: Each week, you get a wildcard main essay (often new album recommendations), a 15-song playlist, as well as updates on what I’m listening to, watching, and reading. Sometimes you’ll get an interview with an artist I love, and other times it’ll be a deep dive into one band’s discography. Since I’m a Chicago-based writer, this newsletter is very Midwest-focused. So, if you live in this city too, you’ll also receive a curated roundup of upcoming local shows to check out.

Here’s where I politely ask for money: This newsletter is something I write in my spare time after work. It does not have a paywall and won’t for the foreseeable future due to the generosity of my readers. I am not in the business of gatekeeping. If you have the means and like what you read, I’d encourage you to sign up for a paid subscription. If your budget is tight, telling a friend about a band you found out about here is just as good. You can also post about No Expectations and say nice things. That works too. It’s still $5 a month—the cost of one Old Style plus tip at Rainbo Club. Every bit helps, keeps this project going, and allows it to stay paywall-free. It’s rough out there, so it means the world you’re reading and supporting this writing project.

Taste Profile: Friko’s Niko Kapetan

Friko’s songs are feverishly energetic and totally alive. It’s music that’s boisterous and galvanizing, full of big artistic swings and bigger emotions. I covered the Chicago quartet in the second-ever No Expectations in 2022, where I wrote, “Indie rock lately can feel insular and claustrophobic, but Friko isn’t afraid to make it feel huge, cathartic, and totally earnest.” That was true then, and even more so on their breakout 2024 debut LP, Where We’ve Been, Where We Go from Here. But their latest, Something Worth Waiting For, out Friday via ATO Records, is their most forceful statement yet.

Recorded with John Congleton, it’s an LP where they're really going for it and pull it off: hearkening back to an era where rock music had drama, emotional stakes, and ample flair. It’s no shock that frontman Niko Kapetan grew up idolizing David Bowie. Songs like “Choo Choo” are frantic and explosive, with surging guitar chords and Kapetan yelping, “Pile up interstate and we're in a rush/ Driving on state-to-state like we're on the run.” Kapetan and his bandmates, drummer Bailey Minzenberger, bassist David Fuller, and guitarist Korgan Robb, excel at the slow build and the towering crescendo throughout these nine ripping songs. Take “Alice,” which is twinkling and plaintive up until its soaring final minute, where Kapetan solidifies himself as one of the genre’s most dynamic and thrilling vocalists.

While I love Friko for being one of the city’s most exciting bands in a long time, they’re also basically my neighbors. Kapetan lives in the neighborhood, and the band’s practice space is steps from my apartment. Though it’d be clear from their live show that this is a locked-in group, I can tell you they rehearse a ton. If I’m walking to grab a coffee, there’s more than a 50-50 chance I’ll run into them outside. They’re also some of the nicest people making music here (a high bar), so it was a real no-brainer to interview Kapetan for the return of the newsletter’s Taste Profile series. Like his bandmates, Kapetan is charismatic and kind, and his three formative and three recent picks were all things I loved. Read on below for the full interview, and be sure to pick up the new album on Bandcamp.

Formative sport: Soccer

When I saw you at the Empty Bottle last week, we were talking about sports, and I had no idea you were going to choose soccer as one of your picks. Did you play growing up?

I played a bunch as a kid. My family is a classic Greek immigrant family. They owned a dry cleaning business, and they all played for our Greek church’s soccer team. My dad, who’s a big Tottenham Hotspurs fan, even played in college, so there was a lot of pressure around that growing up.

I played center back because I was always the biggest kid. I grew fast and then stayed there. Playing so much growing up informed the intensity that I put towards music. I never think of music as a sport, but there is an element of physical and mental endurance, especially on tour. You need to be able to push on even when it’s bad.

You guys were really going after it on the road with this last record. There were times I wouldn’t see you guys around the neighborhood for months. How did you handle being away for so long?

You’d be on tour opening for a band for two months, get a week’s break, and then have to go to Europe, do three weeks there, and then go to Asia for a few shows. That’s basically three months straight. You have to deal with performing, as well as the travel and time changes. But to be honest, it was great. If a band doesn’t actually all love each other, it’s gonna fall apart quickly, or you just stop talking to each other outside the stage. Every day you have to talk about something. It’s just how it is.

Beyond the physicality of soccer, it’s also the most team-based major sport. You could have the best player in the world, but you might not win a championship unless everyone is on the same page.

Especially with soccer, there’s a bigger emphasis on the team aspect than most sports. It’s also a very smart sport too. As a player, you constantly have to make a triangle to facilitate passing and movement. It’s the same thing on the road, but it’s more of a triangle of compassion, communication, and thinking about each other.

Formative album: Frank Ocean’s Blonde

It is insane to me that this album is turning 10 years old in August. What was going on in your life 10 years ago when you first heard it?

I was 16, and that was a time when I started listening to stuff other than classic rock or records that my dad put me on to. But when I first heard Blonde, I didn’t get it. A couple of years later, I heard “White Ferrari,” and it hit me like a rock. It basically just got me thinking about writing music, and how you could just do it in a way that’s completely outside of the idea of writing a classic song. Because up to that point, I really only tried to write songs like Bowie or the Beatles. In high school, my only go-to was the pop structure, but that record did something that resonated with me in every way: lyrically, melodically. The weird esoteric scope of it was amazing.

10 years ago, I was 24, and it was honestly such a good time to be hearing that record. I had already been covering music for a while, and that album had so many surprising production choices, unorthodox song structures, and his voice, it goes without saying, is unbelievable throughout.

That’s the tying force with all of this: how powerful his voice is. A once-in-a-generation type of talent. He introduced me to so many types of music: all hip-hop, rap, and R&B. When you grow up with a dad who is showing you the Smiths and the Cure, music I still love, getting into all this new music is such a joy. With the lyrics, you see how words work together in rap better than any other type of music. You won’t get that in like 99% of indie music. I love when singers put words together in a way that’s outside that realm of what you’d expect. It’s a different thing, but that’s sort of why I love Isaac Brock and early Modest Mouse. He had this weird, rhythmic style.

Very recently, I started really thinking about lyrics and writing them in a way where I feel comfortable in my own voice. I used to write lyrics because I had a melody and a chord progression, needed to write around that. I still do that sometimes, but now it’s very exciting to put lyrics first.

Formative album: Phillip Glass’ Glassworks

Glassworks is a record that I discovered in adulthood. How did you first hear it?

I was really into Illinoise, the Sufjan Stevens record, and he directly referenced Phillip Glass as an influence. The same goes for Blood Orange, who actually did an interview with Glass, which was super cool. I used to listen to Glassworks a lot in college. I went to Columbia College for one semester, and it was one of the worst few months of my life. I only made, maybe, one friend, and I used to go to Buckingham Fountain by the lake and listen to Glassworks. I’d stare at the lake or the Congress Hotel. I don’t know if it hit the same part of my brain that Blonde did, but it was a similar idea, where it was completely different than what I normally listen to. It had this quality of him being the pop artist of classical music. He just found his way into modern music, because I think he was just ahead of his time in seeing classical music as something that could have a pattern, as pop music does.

A few days ago, I saw that solo piano set you did at the Empty Bottle. I didn’t know you’d pick this album for the interview, but I could totally hear the influence in your playing.

Oh yeah. “Certainty” on our album is a complete rip of a Glass polyrhythm.

Recent book: Kurt Vonnegut’s The Sirens of Titan (1959)

If you were to turn the tables and interview me, Vonnegut would be a major contender for formative author, but I haven’t read him since maybe college.

Vonnegut’s books are so quick and easy to read. With Sirens of Titan, it just came to me at a time right before the last record was going to come out. Around then, I was feeling pretty lost, but I just read that, and it was such a beautiful story. It felt like he was making such a big statement, but in an almost goofy way at times. Along with Vonnegut, some of my favorite authors are Haruki Murakami and Ray Bradbury: both of them have a really graceful, beautiful way of writing. Vonnegut is just really likable, and I feel like my heart can just easily feel it as I’m reading him. I remember finishing Sirens of Titan and thinking that it just hit me at the perfect time in my life. You know, with some songs, sometimes they find you right when you need them the most. They might not be the most perfect thing, but when you get it at the right time, it will always be more special, no matter what.

There are certain moments in this book where he’ll just drop an incredible line: something that’s so beautiful I’ll think, “Oh my God, I want to write a song around that.” I think my favorite is when he says, “Luck is the way the wind swirls and the dust settles eons after God has passed by.”

Recent artist: Bill Callahan

Are you talking about Bill Callahan’s later solo stuff or Smog?

It’s mostly been Bill Callahan solo stuff for me recently. Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle, especially, and a few of his other records. I love the way that he can speak over a song. He’s the master at writing a devastating line that’s right next to something hilarious. On his latest record, which I loved, one of the songs is called “Pathol O.G.,” and it starts with the lines, “You know, I’ve been writing songs / And singing them for nigh on thirty years / I like it / I love it!” He just does stuff that I would never think to say in a song.

I’m not surprised that you like Bill Callahan, but he is sort of the polar opposite of how you go about singing and performing. He’s droll, monotone, and usually talks-sings, but you throw your voice around and imbue every line with emotion.

I think I love it so much because of that. It’s a “the grass is greener on the other side” thing, but maybe I can still pull some of that grass over to my side someday.

Recent show: ⁠Game of Thrones

By this, you mean the original series and not the new remakes, right?

The original, which I didn’t watch until this past month. My girlfriend and I are on season six now.

Holy shit, man. I watched it live and had to wait every year.

My girlfriend and I were sick a couple of weeks ago. Some stomach virus, but we were out of it, so we’d make it through eight or nine episodes a day. Before that, everybody in the band, Korgan, Bailey, and Jackson, our sound person, all loved it, so they had been hyping it all tour. We watched it, and it was so worth it. It’s so well written.

I hate being sick, but sometimes there is nothing better than being forced to do nothing. Are you a big TV person?

Not really, but my alltimer is Arrested Development. That’s the show I’ve watched and rewatched the most. If I were a comedy writer, I’d just study that series. Other than that, when I’m on tour, my band and I don’t really watch shows or movies. When we get to a hotel, if we have time, we’ll put on Deal or No Deal on YouTube—just brain-dead stuff to decompress.

The No Expectations 143 Playlist: Apple Music // Spotify // Tidal

1. Bobbie, “Cloud Vision”

2. World News, “Sidestep

3. Dry Cleaning, “Sliced by a Fingernail”

4. Lifeguard, “Appetite”

5. Deer Tick, “Mary Singletary”

6. Kevin Morby, “Die Young”

7. Sluice, “Torpor”

8. Trinity Ace, “Martyr”

9. Stephen Becker, “Careless”

10. Brown Horse, “Hares”

11. Zoh Amba, “Another Time”

12. Wendy Eisenberg, “Another Lifetime Floats Away”

13. Pearla, “Imagine Your Face”

14. Accessory, “Sunshine”

15. Blue Earth Sound, “Chartreuse”

Accessory, Dust

A couple of years ago, I was at Sleeping Village for the Cosmic Country Showcase, an excellent music, comedy, and variety show where local and national artists cover classic songs and play originals. That night, Jason Balla was a guest, and he sang a really lovely rendition of Arthur Russell’s “I Couldn’t Say It to Your Face.” I’ve known Balla for a decade, and I’m used to seeing him pogo across the stage and ripping clanging riffs in bands like Dehd and NE-HI, but this performance showed Balla’s softer side. Since 2018, his solo project Accessory has explored these more melancholy, midtempo lo-fi sounds, mostly through performances that could be just Balla onstage alone or with a sprawling, eight or nine-piece band dubbed Accessory XXL. Dust, Accessory’s sophomore album, is moody, hazy, and much more crisp and immersive than his earlier fare (Balla co-produced the LP with Whitney’s Ziyad Asar). “World of Pain” is warmer than its title suggests, with lush keys and mournful saxophone, while the single “Safeword” is a punchy dose of atmospheric rock music. This is a meditative and woozy record, with more than enough layers to peel back upon each successive listen.

RIYL: Arthur Russell, Cindy Lee, Hazel City

Brown Horse, Total Dive

U.K. bands have been fascinated with Americana for at least the past 60+ years. But where the Beatles and the Rolling Stones took cues from Howlin’ Wolf, Fats Domino, and Chuck Berry, Norwich’s Brown Horse finds its inspiration in the brooding and twangy guitar rock of Magnolia Electric Co., Neil Young, and Purple Mountains. Their sophomore record, All the Right Weaknesses, was a 2025 newsletter favorite, and their follow-up, Total Dive, expands their snarling countryfied rock into knottier and more expansive territory. Single “Wreck” is carried by a simmering fuzzy riff that eventually builds into a boil where guitar solos and pedal steel wails snake around each other. Elsewhere, the near-six-minute “Hares” is a masterclass in the slow build. Elegiac and powerful, it trudges along with gorgeous lines like, “I hear it and I see / That time on earth is worthwhile / And there’s nowhere else to go.” With muscular and rustic arrangements brimming with feeling, you’ll feel it too.

RIYL: Greg Freeman, Magnolia Electric Co., Gillian Welch and David Rawlings

What I watched:

Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie (directed by Matt Johnson)

Last month, I finally got around to watching the web series and eventual Viceland show Nirvanna The Band The Show from Canadian filmmakers Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol. It’s an uproarious comedy about two hapless Torontonians who are aspiring musicians trying to secure a gig playing the tiny downtown bar/restaurant, the Rivoli. Instead of simply calling the venue and asking, they come up with increasingly ill-advised and foolish plans to get a booking. Though the series has been off the air since 2017, they’ve returned this year with a feature film that might be the movie that’s made me laugh the most in a decade. It’s genius. There are lines, meta bits, and throwaway jokes that are so good that I can rattle off a dozen of them even after one viewing. It’s already burrowed its way into my brain forever. You’ll find it funny even if you’ve never seen the web series or show, but I’d recommend seeking those out first so you have some context before you dive into the best comedy of 2026.

What I read:

Bonsai (by Alejandro Zambra)

Around the beginning of the year, a Friend of the Newsletter texted me the link to a sprawling and inventive indie rock record by a band from Santiago, Chile. (I’ll be writing about it in a future “2025 Albums I Missed” roundup, likely publishing mid-May). It was good timing as I was then going through a major Roberto Bolaño reading phase and had just watched a spectacular three-part documentary called The Battle For Chile about the 1973 CIA-backed coup against Salvador Allende that installed dictator Augusto Pinochet. When I mentioned all this, he recommended checking out the Chilean writer Alejandro Zambra. In January, I did just that, starting with his 2006 novella Bonsai, which was translated into English in 2022. The story follows an ill-fated high school romance between Julio and Emilia, which burned brightly due to a shared love of literature. It’s no spoiler to mention that death and memory permeate the story as the opening paragraph features this line, “In the end she dies and he is alone, although really he had been alone for some years before her death.” But the way Zambra plays with the story, adds heady, meta-fictional layers to the narrative, and packs in so much metaphor and meaning in such a slim package is astounding. When I texted my friend that I finished it in a day, he replied, “Oh, that’s awesome, but I meant Zambra’s other book, The Chilean Poet.” Months later, that other one is still on the list.

The Weekly Chicago Show Calendar:

The gig calendar lives on the WTTW News website. You can also subscribe to the newsletter I produce there called Daily Chicagoan to get it in your inbox a day early.

No Expectations hits inboxes on Thursdays at 9am cst. Reader mailbag email: Noexpectationsnewsletter@gmail.com. Daily Chicagoan, the local news newsletter I produce at my day job with WTTW News (PBS Chicago), can be found here.

Headline song: Slippers, “Wants For Everyone”

Thanks for being here. On Saturday, I’m going to Arizona for a few days with my girlfriend and her family to hang out by a pool, read books, and see a few friends who live out there. The trip couldn’t have been scheduled at a better time. If there’s one thing I thought this week, it’s “Oh my god, I need a vacation.” Maybe it’s the fact that I knew I’d be going out of town, but I’m perilously close to being totally fried. I’m not quite there yet, but I am looking forward to having the most stressful decision of my day be something like, “Sonoran hot dog or frybread for lunch?” Or, better yet, “Wren House Brewing Co. or Gracie’s Tax Bar for drinks later?”

Even though I’m out of the office and won’t be bringing a laptop, there is a new and full No Expectations scheduled for next Thursday. Not only does it mark the return of the newsletter’s Taste Profile interview series, but it will also feature a new playlist, as well as LP, movie, and book recommendations. In a less busy week, I might’ve conjured up some novel, measured, and convincing take on the discourse surrounding Geese, but with a few days of relaxation on the horizon, I’m not doing that to myself (or, you, the reader). So, I’ll keep the rest of this short. See you next time.

Here’s the spiel for new subscribers: Each week, you get a wildcard main essay (often new album recommendations), a 15-song playlist, as well as updates on what I’m listening to, watching, and reading. Sometimes you’ll get an interview with an artist I love, and other times it’ll be a deep dive into one band’s discography. Since I’m a Chicago-based writer, this newsletter is very Midwest-focused. So, if you live in this city too, you’ll also receive a curated roundup of upcoming local shows to check out.

Here’s where I politely ask for money: This newsletter is something I write in my spare time after work. It does not have a paywall and won’t for the foreseeable future due to the generosity of my readers. I am not in the business of gatekeeping. If you have the means and like what you read, I’d encourage you to sign up for a paid subscription. If your budget is tight, telling a friend about a band you found out about here is just as good. You can also post about No Expectations and say nice things. That works too. It’s still $5 a month—the cost of one Old Style plus tip at Rainbo Club. Every bit helps, keeps this project going, and allows it to stay paywall-free. It’s rough out there, so it means the world you’re reading and supporting this writing project.

4 Albums Worth Your Time This Week

Daffodil-11, Daffodil-11

I write a lot about a group of artists from Burlington, VT (Greg Freeman, Lily Seabird, Dari Bay, and Robber Robber), but that small city punches above its weight musically with other pockets of bands, too. Take Daffodil-11, another Vermont four-piece whose subtly groove-minded and adventurous indie pop soars on their just-released debut LP. These nine songs evoke 2010s dream-pop, early aughts adult contemporary, and more contemporary mid-tempo guitar rock with effortlessly breezy melodies and subtle electronics. The punchy “Don’t Pretend” features distorted but ebullient harmonies. There are funky, atmospheric guitars on opener “Back Pocket,” and winsome, dreamy folk on highlight “I’ve Been Alone.” They have a knack for adding real depth and playfulness to music that you’d otherwise dismiss as “too chill.” These songs are so inviting that they’ll burrow into your head faster than you’d expect. Shoutout Friend of the Newsletter and Vermonter Kevin Bloom (The Dead Shakers) for posting about them. Instagram stories are still the best way to discover music on social media.

RIYL: Wild Nothing, Counting Crows, Mild High Club

My New Band Believe, My New Band Believe

Whenever I come across an acclaimed band that I don’t love, I usually write it off as “not for me” and forget about it. With Black Midi, the disbanded English experimental rock group, their music was so interesting and audacious that I kept thinking I was an idiot for not fully connecting with it. I may try again (along with the singer Geordie Greep’s solo LP), because of the astounding inventiveness of bassist and co-vocalist Cameron Picton’s My New Band Believe. While it’s just as chock-full of ideas as his prior group, My New Band Believe contains drama, an arc, and a striking emotional resonance that make it an instant favorite of 2026. Songs flow from one to the next, and with only one album cut as a pre-release single, this LP is best experienced in a front-to-back listen. Picton, who enlists the U.K. rock collective Caroline as his studio band, uses almost entirely acoustic, organic instruments on the record, but they’re all performed with maximalist flair and feverish energy. The arrangements, both nostalgic and alien, evoke musical theater, British folk, jazz, and prog. From the sweet domesticity of a track “Love Story” to the opener “Target Practice” with its menacing “Don’t cry / you deserve this,” this album somehow both sits out of time and at the cutting edge.

RIYL: Van Dyke Parks, Destroyer, Bert & John (1966)

National Photo Committee, Red Hot Photo Committee

At the very beginning of the year, I was sent a link to an unlisted YouTube video that contained the Chicago band Red Hot Photo Committee’s debut album, Red Hot Photo Committee. Even though it was an unmastered upload, I was instantly hooked. It was raucous country-tinged bar rock fronted by a gravelly and acerbic frontman, aided by spidery pedal steel. Sure, that’s more than a well-trodden genre at this point, but these eight winding tunes are refreshingly caustic, combustible, and carefree. That early link was pulled offline within a week, but now the LP has been mastered and officially released at the beginning of the month. It’s even better than I remember. Frontman Maxwell Bottner boasts a booming baritone and a conversational delivery as he sings about daily anxieties on “It’s Hard.” Following an intro of thundering chords and crashes of drums, he sings, “It’s hard to be living / it’s hard to be alive / It’s hard times coming / and they’re coming all the time.” Bottner and his bandmates allow the songs to stretch out—only one track clocks in under four minutes. On the 11 and a half minute “Gizzard,” is an epic suite of moody verses and full-throated guitar jams, while the searing and frantic “Adelaide” kicks into an even higher gear in its final third with a blistering sax solo from local shredder Curt Oren. One listen to any tune here, and you’ll know that this Chicago group puts on a galvanizing, wild, and life-affirming live set.

RIYL: Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band, if Slanted and Enchanted-era Pavement had a pedal steel, Dusk

Spoils, Mile Wide Inch Deep

Spoils, a quartet from Cincinnati, Ohio, make indie rock that’s so anthemic and immediate it’s a shock that Mile Wide Inch Deep is only their debut album. Many of the tracks here date back five or six years ago, and the band has honed their lived-in chemistry and songwriting chops across a few EPs and countless gigs. These seven songs are so airtight, they hearken back to an era of aughts alt-rock when artists made their sound as arena-filling and massive as possible. With big riffs and bigger hooks, you’ll hear shades of the Pixies (“1000”), find melodies with a swirling intensity (closer “Dark Miller”), and get impossibly infectious choruses stuck in your head (“Brain Damage”). This is no-frills rock music: professional, but not too polished, catchy, but not sugary. I kept checking to make sure they weren’t secretly signed to some big label, but this is just a talented Midwestern band doing the damn thing better than most.

RIYL: Momma, Indigo De Souza, Slow Pulp

What I listened to:

The No Expectations 142 Playlist: Apple Music // Spotify // Tidal

1. Spoils, “Brain Damage”

2. youbet, “Undefined”

3. Slippers, “Wants For Everyone”

4. proun, “Miracles”

5. Daffodil-11, “I’ve Been Alone”

6. Mei Semones, “Kurage” (ft. Don Semones)

7. My New Band Believe, “In the Blink of an Eye”

8. Nara’s Room, “Lizzie mcguire”

9. beaming, “Stuck (here)”

10. Crazier, “Bye Bye”

11. Ben Auld, “From Now On”

12. TV Star, “Out Of My Bag”

13. National Photo Committee, “It’s Hard”

14. Brown Horse, “Total Dive”

15. Tasha, “Summer”

Gig recap: Lily Seabird, Minor Moon at Hideout (4/11)

Just two months ago, Lily Seabird played a show in Chicago at Schubas, opening for Dean Johnson with a set entirely composed of brand new songs from a still-unannounced record. (A month ago, she dropped the sprawling and cathartic rocker “Demon In Me,” which gives a solid hint at her new direction with this material). Where that February gig was Seabird entirely solo, this headliner at the Hideout featured a full and new four-piece band for the Burlington, VT, songwriter. To round out her quartet, she brought former Dari Bay drummer Daniel Snyder, Mikaela Davis and Southern Star bassist Shane McCarthy, as well as the Wormdogs’ guitarist Rick Soszynski. Throughout, Seabird played searing lead guitar, leading her band into sinuous, pummeling jams that brought a newfound edge to her already impeccable live set. I’ve seen Seabird countless times and in so many different iterations, but this is the hardest I’ve ever seen her rock and the best I’ve ever seen her. Get ready for Lily’s shredder era.

Friends of the Newsletter Minor Moon kicked off the night to celebrate the release of their excellent new live LP, Live at Thawed Out. During their set, Lily turned to me and said, “This is my favorite Chicago band,” and it’s hard to argue with that. If you’re ever lucky enough to see them live, buy a ticket: you will be floored.

What I watched:

My Undesirable Friends: Part I - Last Air in Moscow (directed by Julia Lotkev)

In 2021, two young Russian journalists were designated by their government as “foreign agents” due to their reporting that documented the Putin regime’s abuses, failures, and pervasive corruption. This meant that if they didn’t routinely fill out arduous paperwork, disclose their status with every social media post, article, television appearance, and public statement with a mandatory disclaimer, they could lose their careers, face fines, and endure strict prison sentences. Instead of wallowing in despair, these two reporters started a defiant and funny podcast called “Hi, You’re a Foreign Agent.” The New York Times covered their story in 2021, which led director Julia Lotkev, a Russian-American filmmaker behind tense narrative films like The Loneliest Planet and Day Night Day Night, to travel to Moscow and document their daily lives with an iPhone. The five-and-a-half-hour documentary My Undesirable Friends: Part I - Last Air in Moscow follows several journalists designated as “foreign agents” in the lead-up to the Russian-Ukrainian war of 2022. In addition to the two women who started a podcast, Loktev immerses herself in the lives of other subjects who are TV and print journalists. By the end of the first part of this documentary, all of them are forced to flee the country due to the political repression and draconian laws of their government. It’s a towering achievement of political filmmaking that highlights the bravery of these journalists and the importance of opposition and alternative media. But it’s also a human portrait of how, even across the world and facing horrific situations, people are more alike than they are different. Sure, these journalists are brave and commendable, but they’re also normal people who laugh with their friends, love Harry Potter, and are doing their best despite impossible circumstances. Harrowing and urgent, there’s a line that’ll stick with me for a long time: “In Nazi Germany, people also sat and waited and hoped things would be OK.” It’s worth getting a MUBI subscription for this film alone.

What I read:

Orbital (by Samantha Harvey)

Since 2000, people have been living in space. The International Space Station launched as a gesture of global goodwill: a joint venture between the United States, Russia, and several other countries. They’ve been running experiments, charting the human body’s resilience out of the Earth’s atmosphere, and conducting enough research to eventually launch deep space missions. It’s going to be decommissioned in 2030 and deorbited in 2031, which is another symbolic grace note to the recent collapse of the post-Cold War liberal order. Samantha Harvey’s Booker Prize-winning novel Orbital takes place on the ISS, but it’s more of a meditative nature novel than a plot-driven sci-fi. (As with my taste in movies, I do not care in the slightest if there’s propulsive action in fiction: give me a beautiful sentence, insight into the human condition, something to think about long after I’ve put this thing down, etc!) It spans one full 24-hour day on the orbiting structure, which amounts to roughly 16 full rotations around the Earth. She homes in on the interior lives of the six astronauts and cosmonauts as they rotate around the globe, do their daily tasks, and ponder the world they’ve departed. It’s a deliberately patient read: there aren’t aliens, massive technical dysfunctions, or interpersonal drama between the crew. Instead, Harvey brings philosophical revelations, perceptive musings, and graceful prose to what only a few hundred people in history have experienced. While I wouldn’t have picked this up without the Artemis II NASA mission being in the news, I’m glad I did, and I’m glad they made it home safe.

The Weekly Chicago Show Calendar:

The gig calendar lives on the WTTW News website. You can also subscribe to the newsletter I produce there called Daily Chicagoan to get it in your inbox a day early.

No Expectations hits inboxes on Thursdays at 9am cst. Reader mailbag email: Noexpectationsnewsletter@gmail.com. Daily Chicagoan, the local news newsletter I produce at my day job with WTTW News (PBS Chicago), can be found here.

Headline song: Dari Bay, “We’re Gonna Be Okay”

Thanks for being here. Last Wednesday, I got out of work to bring my 11-year-old cousin, along with his grandparents, to his first-ever Major League Baseball game at Wrigley Field. They all flew in from Virginia for it. While it was a bit frosty with temps in the high thirties, at least it didn’t rain. Plus, the Cubs won, and everyone had a blast. No matter the weather, it’s nearly impossible to have a bad time at a ballgame.

I hadn’t seen my cousin since he was maybe six years old. He’s always been a sweet kid, but hanging with him all day last week was so awesome. He’s much cooler than I was at that age. He loves baseball and plays as a power-hitting first baseman who, amazingly, is already 5’6. He’s a great listener (which is rare for Terrys: we’re notorious for talking over each other), can solve a Rubik’s Cube in 90 seconds, and even chose AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” as his walk-up song. You could tell he was overjoyed to see the Cubs in person, to figure out his favorite player, and to take in the sounds and sights of the stadium.

Sure, there are a lot of things happening in the world that warrant being stressed out about. There’s no need to list it all out here. But it’s good to cling to and savor the things that give you hope. I’ve probably been to maybe a hundred Major League Baseball games, but seeing it through my cousin’s eyes made it feel like it was the first time, too. Sharing what you love and witnessing it resonate with someone else is really what it’s all about. Shoutout his grandpa (my uncle) for the tickets and the excuse to use some PTO.

Another needed dose of optimism came on Sunday. That night, I attended a stacked, seven-act bill at the Empty Bottle commemorating the release of Red Xerox: Chicago Youth Beat 2020-2025. It’s a compilation documenting a generation of local indie rock bands making absolutely vital music. While I’ve covered a handful of these artists before in the newsletter (Free Range, Friko, etc), several were new to me. This is a music community started by folks who are mostly 10-15 years younger than I am, and it’s far more exciting than the local scenes I was immersing myself in at that age. (I don’t know why, but everything was garage rock here in 2010). Watching the eclectic and unmistakable talent on display at this showcase was really inspiring. It made me even more grateful to live in a city that can nurture, develop, and support so much independent music.

Here’s the spiel for new subscribers: Each week, you get a wildcard main essay (often new album recommendations), a 15-song playlist, as well as updates on what I’m listening to, watching, and reading. Sometimes you’ll get an interview with an artist I love, and other times it’ll be a deep dive into one band’s discography. Since I’m a Chicago-based writer, this newsletter is very Midwest-focused. So, if you live in this city too, you’ll also receive a curated roundup of upcoming local shows to check out.

Here’s where I politely ask for money: This newsletter is something I write in my spare time after work. It does not have a paywall and won’t for the foreseeable future due to the generosity of my readers. I am not in the business of gatekeeping. If you have the means and like what you read, I’d encourage you to sign up for a paid subscription. If your budget is tight, telling a friend about a band you found out about here is just as good. You can also post about No Expectations and say nice things. That works too. It’s still $5 a month—the cost of one Old Style plus tip at Rainbo Club. Every bit helps, keeps this project going, and allows it to stay paywall-free. It’s rough out there, so it means the world you’re reading and supporting this writing project.

4 Albums Worth Your Time This Week

Abbey Blackwell, Dream a Day

Abbey Blackwell is a Seattle-based artist who, over the past few years, has worked as a touring bassist for bands like La Luz and Alvvays. (If you caught any of the Blue Rev tour, you saw Blackwell play.) Her solo work is more understated, but it soars with overwhelming grace and catharsis. Her latest LP, the Bandcamp-only Dream a Day, is the best album of 2026 that you can’t find on streaming services. Blackwell’s voice—rich, lush, and full of character—anchors these songs of verdant, organic folk. “Rise and Set” is sparse but intentional, quietly building with pops of lap steel, dreamlike guitars, and drums. As a bandleader, Blackwell knows when to swell and when to pull back. Take “The Voice,” which finds her singing, “Looking over my shoulder at the view / Feeling older as the days go tripping through.” It starts off like a Labi Siffre song, but as the band subtly comes into the mix, it becomes something grander. Few of Blackwell’s peers can get the small details right as well as she can, which makes for a jaw-dropping record of revelatory little moments.

RIYL: Norma Tanega, Vashti Bunyan, Andy Shauf

Hiding Places, The Secret To Good Living

Hiding Places is a Brooklyn band that originally formed in North Carolina as that state’s bountiful music community was on the ascent. Unlike their home state peers, they eschew the intersection of twang and shoegaze for something totally their own. On their debut record, The Secret To Good Living, which was released via the great Texas label Keeled Scales, they combine brutal, pounding riffs with dual lead vocals and patiently pastoral arrangements. Led by songwriters Audrey Keelin and Nicholas Byrne, the two trade off singing duties throughout the 10 expansive tracks here. On “One Hand,” Keelin’s dynamic voice operates somewhere between foreboding and pained over a simmering, tense composition, while on “Holy Roller,” they commandingly sing, “I’m a holy roller / I move too much / If the floor is burning. I climb up.” The true magic of Hiding Places is how they’re able to stretch out a song and luxuriate in feeling, like on the whispery, slow-burning title track. This is a record for quiet emotion and massive guitars.

RIYL: Yo La Tengo, Horse Jumper of Love, Slow Pulp

John Andrews & the Yawns, STREETSWEEPER

Despite their name, the New York-based John Andrews & the Yawns don’t make sleepy music. Sure, you could call it mellow, cozy, or even dreamy, but there’s enough unassailable craft in these finely-written songs to keep you enthralled throughout the nine tracks on their fifth LP, STREETSWEEPER. The album gets its title from Andrews’ part-time job with the New York City Parks Department, and with its hockey imagery on the cover and in its accompanying music videos, it’s easy to imagine skating to these easygoing songs. Andrew’s voice is amiable and inviting. Even if he’s singing sad songs, you can picture a sly smile on his face just from his delivery. “The Last Word,” the jauntiest rocker on the record, picks up the pace with Andrews singing, “don’t always have to get the last word in / over and over and over / again and again and again / oh no.” Elsewhere, songs like “What’s Good?” take on the quality of a twinkling lullaby with Andrews cooing lines like “Make it up as I go” over woozy arpeggios. While Andrews gets assists here from members of Cut Worms, Luke Temple, and Star Moles, it’s his conversational charm that carries this quietly staggering album.

RIYL: Loving, Major Murphy, Liam Kazar, that “Old Time Hawkey” social media account that pops up on my feed because I follow the Detroit Red Wings

Robber Robber, Two Wheels Move the Soul

Robber Robber, alongside their Vermont compatriots Greg Freeman and Lily Seabird, might be the band I’ve written about most in this newsletter. Its drummer, Zack James (Dari Bay), even made No Expectations’ logo and designed the weekly cover images. They are all now dear buds, but even if they weren’t, I would be fully in the tank for this quartet’s explosive and innovative brand of post-punk. Opener “The Sound It Made” instantly bursts with a shrieking riff, skittering breakbeats, sinister bass bombs, and bandleader Nina Cates intoning, “Nice ice block, runs hot, give a little, take a lot / Lean a little closer for a moment, moment, stop.” It’s a record that excels on the collision between the volatile unpredictability of its rhythm section and Cates’ sticky, earworm hooks. Single “Talkback” takes Meet Me in the Bathroom-era alt-rock swagger to 2026, while the chiming percussion of “Avalanche Sound Effect” is genuinely hypnotizing. For a band with such a unique and distinctive sound in a crowded genre, Two Wheels Move the Soul is a remarkably diverse record. “Imprint” is wistful slowcore, “Watch For Infection” is icy and nervy punk, and “New Year’s Eve” is bouncy, funky, and more than a little poppy. Yes, I might be biased, but this is the best indie rock record of 2026 so far.

RIYL: The magical music community of Burlington, Vermont, the future of indie rock, Fire Talk Records

What I listened to:

The No Expectations 141 Playlist: Apple Music // Spotify // Tidal

1. Dari Bay, “We’re Gonna Be Okay”

2. Robber Robber, “Avalanche Sound Effect”

3. This House is Creaking, “There’s a Stench in the Air”

4. Spoils, “Red Roof”

5. Friko, “Still Around”

6. Cass McCombs, “Seeing The Elephant”

7. Baby Cool, “Everything”

8. John Andrews & the Yawns, “The Last Word”

9. Hiding Places, “The Secret To Good Living”

10. Hand Habits, “Good Person”

11. Greg Mendez, “Gentle Love”

12. Thomas Dollbaum, “Coyote”

13. Trinity Ace, “Algae Bloom”

14. Gia Margaret, “Alive Inside”

15. Sean Thompson’s Weird Ears, “Whitethorn Rose”

Gig recap: Red Xerox Release Show: Niko Kapetan, Free Range, P.Noid, Uniflora, Current Union TM, Kitship and TV Buddha at Empty Bottle (4/5)

I started writing at 20 when I was an intern for the A.V. Club in 2012, and throughout my twenties, I developed a beat covering rising Chicago artists. With thriving scenes here in indie rock and hip-hop, the whole decade felt totally alive and full of endless possibilities. There was really no better time and no better place to be a 23-year-old whose job was to cover local music. I had the energy to go to shows five times a week, I got to know a lot of the bands, and I witnessed so much stellar live music and heard endless amazing records. It really felt like a community: an inviting and exciting era for supporting hometown independent talent. Covering it all for years was probably the most fun I’ve ever had—apart from this newsletter.

As venues opened their doors again following vaccines and mask mandates, I realized there was a new crop of bands I had no idea about. They seemingly came out of nowhere, got signed to great labels, were releasing impossibly cool and interesting music, and were several years younger than me. These weren’t acts that I was ground floor covering: it was a new thing, totally separate from the communities I spent my twenties documenting. It honestly rules, and this development has me more excited about the future of Chicago music than I’ve ever been. This is how it’s supposed to go: the music you grew up with will soon be eclipsed by younger people doing it better.

Red Xerox, a vinyl release compiled by musician, zinemaker, and connector Eli Schmitt, charts this burgeoning and vital scene across 12 tracks, with each by a different band. To celebrate the LP, seven of the acts featured took the Empty Bottle stage on Easter Sunday. Newsletter favorites Niko Kapetan (of the band Friko) and Free Range kicked things off with spectacular solo sets. Kapetan’s voice, even with just a keyboard and acoustic, is just as powerful and urgent as ever. The same goes for Free Range’s Sofia Jensen. Next up was the P. Noid, a new-to-me but excellent two-piece punk band.

The following three acts blew me away. Uniflora, the youngest group of the bunch (they’re high school seniors), played a ripping set of kinetic, groove-based indie rock. They’re just a trio but boast a massive sound with careening riffs, a pummeling rhythm section, and punky harmonies. Following them was Current Union TM, a band that evolved from an excellent sibling duo called Twin Coast. Their set featured cavernous, dense jams, skronking saxophone, ample cowbell, and jolting energy that evoked Sonic Youth at its most funky and psychedelic. It was indie rock at its most primal and undeniable. Though I’m at risk of overselling it, they sounded like the future. The last act I caught was Newsletter favorite Kitship, who led a six-piece band to play songs off their latest LP, am i a rock? It left me stunned and charmed.

Chicago’s great for its (relatively) cheap rent, its multitude of independent venues, its resilient ecosystem of zines and DIY press covering this music, and its ever-evolving and ever-inspiring collection of young artists. This is the first generation of bands to have grown up with access to all recorded music via streaming and the internet. It’s incredible to see what they’ve already done, and it’s so exciting to imagine what the next one will do.

* Listen, it was Easter Sunday, and I had work in the morning. I left a little after 11 p.m., before headliner TV Buddha performed (a band I love and have seen before).

What I watched:

Caught by the Tides (directed by Jia Zhangke)

I recently read a 2025 piece in the New York Review of Books about the Chinese director Jia Zhangke, who’s spent the last three decades depicting his country’s many transitions with gorgeous feature films that use non-actors, documentary techniques, and unorthodox approaches. His latest film, Caught By the Tides, which was released in the States in 2025, was shot over twenty years. He used material he had shot for previous films, rearranged the footage to form a coherent story, and filmed new scenes to round it out. Imagine a much more out-of-the-box and impressionistic Boyhood. Jia captures Chinese history as it unfolds: its 2001 winning bid for the Olympics, how rising water levels from the Three Gorges Dam displaced residents in 2006, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the piecemeal, improvised nature of its assemblage, the plot can feel a little light, but taking in these stunning visuals and evocative cinematography is just as rewarding as an air-tight narrative.

What I read:

The Man in the High Castle (by Philip K. Dick)

Philip K. Dick is the Chicago-born science fiction author whose novels and short stories have been adapted into films like Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, and more. I’ve seen all these movies and love them, but I’ve never dedicated time to make it through his oeuvre. To remedy this, I started with Dick’s 1962 novel The Man in the High Castle, a heady alternate history where President Roosevelt is assassinated in 1933, the Axis powers win World War II, and America is divided up into three sections: the West ruled by Imperial Japanese forces, a neutral zone in the Rockies, and the East run by Nazis. (I vaguely remember liking the Amazon Prime Video series adaptation and Rufus Sewell’s acting in particular, but I don’t recall it being four seasons). Compared to the sprawling TV show, Dick’s novel is more self-contained. Despite provocative world-building and political intrigue, the book is much better at fleshing out the interior lives of its characters. Despite multiple detours about the I Ching and antiques, Dick’s electric prose and the book’s wild head-spinning ending make me want to devour his entire bibliography.

The Weekly Chicago Show Calendar:

The gig calendar lives on the WTTW News website. You can also subscribe to the newsletter I produce there called Daily Chicagoan to get it in your inbox a day early.

No Expectations hits inboxes on Thursdays at 9am cst. Reader mailbag email: Noexpectationsnewsletter@gmail.com. Daily Chicagoan, the local news newsletter I produce at my day job with WTTW News (PBS Chicago), can be found here.

Headline song: Villagerrr, “Swimming”

Thanks for being here. I promise I didn’t set out to do this, but last week I read enough articles, newsletter essays, and social media posts about journalists using AI in the writing process to last me a lifetime. First was a Substack entry from a screenwriter that popped up on my feed titled “Everyone Is Lying” (about not using AI), then came the WIRED piece “Meet the Tech Reporters Using AI to Help Write and Edit Their Stories,” and finally a Wall Street Journal profile headlined “An AI Upheaval Is Coming for Media. This Journalist Is Already All In.” On sites like Twitter, established writers, such as a well-known libertarian Washington Post columnist, chimed in and admitted to using LLMs to do “grunt work,” like fact-checking, conducting research, and “sharpen[ing] podcast interview questions.” (For what it’s worth, some of these applications appear to violate her employer’s own ethics policy).

Each of these pieces gave me a slightly nauseous feeling, equivalent to having five cups of coffee, realizing it’s 2 p.m. and I’ve forgotten to have lunch. For instance, this tech writer with a newsletter uses a voice-to-text service and “transmits his ideas to an AI agent, then lets it write his first draft.” He’s quoted in WIRED saying, “I feel like I’m cheating in a way that feels amazing,” he says. “I never did this because I liked being a writer. I like reporting, learning new things, having an edge, and telling people things that will make them feel smart six months from now.” Oh, brother.

In the Wall Street Journal, a staffer for Fortune, which is a site I’ve freelanced for, says he “uploads press releases or analyst notes into AI tools and prompts them to spit out articles that he can edit and publish quickly.” He’s quoted here: “I know that this won’t be seen as some people’s idea of journalism, but I’ve always seen myself as kind of a nobody from nowhere who scrapped and clawed to get into this industry and find solutions to problems.” Sure, he’s compiled over 600 bylines since July with AI’s help and apparently accounts for a sizable number of Fortune’s traffic, but does delegating the actual task of writing, thinking, and editing to a chatbot really amount to “scraping and clawing” in this line of work?

I’m not bringing this up to talk shit (OK, maybe a little) but to ask where the reader factors in these marquee journalists’ “productivity hacks.” If you’re like me, you click on an article to learn something, gain a fresh perspective, or understand a complicated issue in a new way. As someone who’s chosen to make writing a career, I want to give whoever’s reading those very things and would like to assume my peers feel the same. Yes, writing is a lot of work, thinking of something to publish every week is hard, and organizing your thoughts into something coherent is often a chore. Boo hoo! If you really want to do it, the arduous process, the necessary edits, and the constant re-evaluations of your work are the point. There are other careers where you can flex different muscles if not.

No Expectations is a small but growing blog because, for better and worse, it’s the direct reflection of one 34-year-old writer in Chicago’s opinions, tastes, neuroses, and decade-plus worth of experience as a culture critic and journalist. While there are obviously more polished prose stylists and better-funded websites out there, this newsletter maintains a readership because it has a distinct point of view. I highlight artists that most other outlets aren’t covering because I’m interested in off-the-beaten-path, hyper-local music. After all, I started this project because I felt that the songs being fed to me by algorithmic streaming services were homogenous and, frankly, pretty shitty. I’d ruin what makes this thing work if I decided to entrust the fun part (the research, the listening, the writing, the brainstorming) to some AI agent, which is worth reminding, cannot review a record or experience art the way a human would.

Sure, there are acceptable, albeit ultra-specific, uses of this technology in the journalistic process. My investigative reporter friends use it to analyze massive datasets they obtained via Freedom of Information Act requests, and most interview transcription services are AI-based (still, you gotta painstakingly double check and edit: the number of times I’ve seen “indie rock” transcribed as “in Iraq” is too many to count). But, speaking personally here, outsourcing my outlook, my finicky musical preferences, and my work to a machine would feel like a death. If you’re a writer looking to save time, cutting corners enough will eventually not just force you to ask, “What am I even doing here?” but your readers, too.

Here’s the spiel for new subscribers: Each week, you get a wildcard main essay (often new album recommendations), a 15-song playlist, as well as updates on what I’m listening to, watching, and reading. Sometimes you’ll get an interview with an artist I love, and other times it’ll be a deep dive into one band’s discography. Since I’m a Chicago-based writer, this newsletter is very Midwest-focused. So, if you live in this city too, you’ll also receive a curated roundup of upcoming local shows to check out.

Here’s where I politely ask for money: This newsletter is something I write in my spare time after work. It does not have a paywall and won’t for the foreseeable future due to the generosity of my readers. I am not in the business of gatekeeping. If you have the means and like what you read, I’d encourage you to sign up for a paid subscription. If your budget is tight, telling a friend about a band you found out about here is just as good. You can also post about No Expectations on social media and say nice things. That works too. It’s still $5 a month—the cost of one Old Style plus tip at Rainbo Club. Every bit helps, keeps this project going, and allows it to stay paywall-free. It’s rough out there, so it means the world you’re reading and supporting this writing project.

4 Albums Worth Your Time This Week

Charlotte Cornfield, Hurts Like Hell

Canadian folk artist Charlotte Cornfield’s songs have long had an “in the room” feel to them: not just from the organic, live-sounding recordings but from the way her lyrics are so perceptive and piercing that they feel like she’s letting you in on a secret. Hurts Like Hell, her sixth LP, is her most confident and lived-in release yet: likely thanks to this being Cornfield’s first full-length since becoming a mother in 2023. There are slice-of-life observations throughout, a sample line on the stunning “Long Game” goes thusly, “We were all listening to Neil Young / You said your favourite record was Zuma / I always took you and your sense of humour / To end with your hand in mine.” Her voice, expressive, straining, and dancing over the melody in unexpected ways is the album’s strongest asset. She harmonizes with Feist on single “Living With It,” snarls on the rocker “Lucky,” and imbues lines like “I never reach out and you never call / Another season in the city, another reason for it to pour” on “Number” with striking emotion. Few records this year feel as effortlessly inviting.

RIYL: Feist, Neil Young, artists whose government name could be a made-up stage moniker but isn’t

Sluice, Companion

Sluice’s 2023 LP Radial Gate was a masterful and conversational folk-rock record that felt like drinking a beer while floating on a river with your friends. Frontman Justin Morris still excels at quiet and profound revelations on the follow-up Companion, whether it’s from watching The Wire for the first time (“Beadie”) or going on tour to sell merch for Angel Olsen (“Vegas”). This is a sophomore record that surpasses the quality of the debut, while being weirder and more interior. Songs dissolve into several seconds of ambient room noise, a whole track is field recorded water, and there’s even a nine-minute vocoder-assisted tune that’s a one-sided conversation with god. It’s all intentional and compelling, even at its most out there. Still, there are breezy and resonant moments galore, like the pastoral single “Zillow” and the ripping closer “Vegas,” which references Wilco’s “Kamera,” getting on Pitchfork, and Led Zeppelin’s “Moby Dick.” For all the pop culture references, the real theme is a reverence for the weird, tiny, and daily miracles of being alive.

RIYL: Bill Callahan, “Joe Pera Talks With You,” going on tour and selling merch for your friends’ band

Shep Treasure, Blanket

Sabrina Nichols makes hazy, immersive, and meditative folk rock as Shep Treasure. In February, the Rochester, New York native (who’s also a frequent collaborator of Joyer) released Blanket, an LP that matches each second of gorgeousness with something eerie, wonky, and slightly askew. It’s a genuinely thrilling and sometimes haunting combination, especially on the near-eight-minute “Omnipotent,” and hypnotizing, droning opener “Dove.” Where much of the album settles into an enveloping and patient midtempo zone, Nichols thrives when there’s an uptick of pace. “Fired and Expelled” takes guitar fuzz and Stereolab-evoking synth to peaks of moody bliss, while “Orchard Beach City Island” and “Cold Air” boast air-tight hooks, searing riffs, and alt-rock swagger. This one might take a minute to fully unfold for you, but it’s well-worth untangling the knots.

RIYL: Horse Jumper of Love, Blonde Redhead, Fiona Apple

Stuck, Optimizer

With releases titled Change Is Bad, Content To Make You Feel Good, and Freak Frequency, Chicago band Stuck have long transformed anxieties surrounding the tech-aided degradation of daily life into caustic and abrasive punk music. Their latest, Optimizer, manages to be their most lucid and compelling take on this rich subject, as well as their most undeniable, adventurous, and melodic collection of songs. Frontman Greg Obis targets “one quick trick” manosphere influencers on the scorching “Instakill,” where he yelps in a spitfire verse, “Cutting sugar, exercising / reading, writing, organizing / mindful habits, minimizing / judgy thoughts and criticizing” and intones, “you can change your life / for a limited time.” His writing tends to focus on people trying to do good, but are trapped under the weight of impossible goals or captivated by nefarious actors. On the clanging “Deadlift,” he sings, “I never feel so alone / when the weight hits the floor.” It’s consistently galvanizing and anthemic, with ample post-punk iciness and the occasional nervy detour into DEVO-esque freneticism. Obis is a Friend of the Newsletter who I’ve known since he’s been in bands like Clearance and Yeesh, and he also runs Chicago Mastering Service and has mastered countless releases by No Expectations favorites like MJ Lenderman, Deeper, Ducks Ltd. and Moontype. His contributions to independent music in this city alone are incalculable but this, alongside his bandmates David Algrim and Tim Green, is his best work yet.

RIYL: Meat Wave, Protomartyr, Deeper, Squid

What I listened to:

The No Expectations 140 Playlist: Apple Music // Spotify // Tidal

1. Lifeguard, “Ultra Violence”

2. Stuck, “Net Negative”

3. Robber Robber, “New Year’s Eve”

4. Gladie, “Lucky For Another”

5. Sluice, “Vegas”

6. Charlotte Cornfield, “Lucky”

7. villagerrr, “Swimming”

8. Shep Treasure, “Fired and Expelled”

9. Johanna Samuels, “White Limousine”

10. Gr8 Dogs, “The Gates of New Jersey”

11. Stephen Becker, “Bad Idea”

12. Ben Auld, “Red Bandana”

13. Gawshock, “What Do You Dream About?”

14. Squirrel Flower, “Wheels” (feat. Babehoven & Billie Marten)

15. Fcukers, “Feel The Real”

What I watched:

Nirvanna the Band the Show (Season 1, purchased via Prime Video)

I am at least 10 years late on this (almost 20 if you count the webseries), but I’m finally crossing off Nirvanna the Band the Show from my list. I have no real excuse for this delay (I literally worked for VICE as this TV adaptation of the original webseries was airing on VICELAND) except for the fact that I didn’t think I’d love it as much as I do. With Nirvanna: the Band the Show the Movie hitting theaters and now streaming, I decided to finally give the television series a shot (it is a little funny to treat a show so silly and absurdist like homework, as if I wouldn’t get the gist from the film had I not understood the lore). It follows two, oafish, earnest, and outrageous Toronto friends in their late-twenties and early-thirties who desperately want to play a show at the Rivoli, a small restaurant and bar with a venue in the back. (For a Chicago equivalent, this is basically the Beat Kitchen). They don’t really practice or have actual songs, but they devise increasingly elaborate and ill-advised schemes to get a booking there. While I love Matt Johnson’s film work (Blackberry, The Dirties), it’s great to see such a ramshackle and hilarious series from him. I’m stoked to tackle the movie next.

What I read:

The Man with the Golden Arm (by Nelson Algren)

Few writers are as synonymous with Chicago as Nelson Algren, who, while born in Michigan, was raised on the South Side of the city by Swedish and German-Jewish immigrant parents. In college, I read his influential and spectacular prose-poem Chicago: City on the Make and revisited it in 2023, but until now, I never got around to his most well-known novel The Man with the Golden Arm, which won the first-ever National Book Award in 1950. (For years, I assumed it was about boxing). It follows a down-on-his-luck card dealer and World War II vet who’s addicted to morphine as he lives and drinks on the northwest side. It all took place blocks from where I live now, and I’ve read that the fictional Tug & Maul Bar that serves as a setting was inspired by my regular dive, Rainbo Club. Algren’s a hell of a stylist and deeply attuned to the suffering, occasionally hopeless aspirations, and unquestionable resilience of underdogs. It’s a gutting, human, and brutal read that’ll stick with me for a long time.

The Weekly Chicago Show Calendar:

The gig calendar lives on the WTTW News website. You can also subscribe to the newsletter I produce there called Daily Chicagoan to get it in your inbox a day early.

No Expectations hits inboxes on Thursdays at 9am cst. Reader mailbag email: Noexpectationsnewsletter@gmail.com. Daily Chicagoan, the local news newsletter I produce at my day job with WTTW News (PBS Chicago), can be found here.

Headline song: Styrofoam Winos, “Pearls”

Thanks for being here. If you’ve visited me in any apartment I’ve lived in over the last 15 years, you’ve probably noticed a few magazines lying on a coffee table or piled up in a crate under a desk. I grew up as a loyal subscriber to Spin, Paste, Alternative Press, and Guitar World (which introduced me to some terrible nu-metal bands in the early 2000s), and I’ve nurtured my love for the medium in adulthood. Where the first thing I used to do waking up was aimlessly scroll on my phone and gradually piss myself off, now I make my way through a magazine article. It’s a healthier ritual that’s honestly become one of the best parts of my day.

When so much of my life is dictated by algorithms or my own internet habits, it’s a simple joy to pick up something physical that was written, organized, and designed by people. There are no personalized feeds and nothing to click, just a collection of curated stories and images with a beginning and an end. With a monthly or quarterly publication schedule, these outlets have little incentive to focus on ephemeral clickbait. Instead, they commission mostly evergreen, in-depth pieces where you learn something more than you would from skimming a news story on your phone. It’s also a way to train your attention. There are no pop-up notifications with a physical product, and the more you read, the more you feel totally focused and present.

Sure, there have been years where weekly New Yorker deliveries have led to clutter at the spot (I have since switched to the iPad edition: the Apple News app allows me to also keep tabs on Bloomberg Businessweek, The New Republic, Billboard, and Rolling Stone). Still, there’s something comforting about being surrounded by physical media. It’s always there to pick up when you’re feeling overly stimulated and need to unwind. Right now, you’ll find scattered around my place two different magazines on tennis (Racquet and Open), a soccer outlet (Mundial), issues of the political journal the Baffler, as well as vital new music publications like Antics and So Young. In fact, one of the artists featured in the album roundup below came directly from So Young.

Here’s the spiel for new subscribers: Each week, you get a wildcard main essay (often new album recommendations), a 15-song playlist, as well as updates on what I’m listening to, watching, and reading. Sometimes you’ll get an interview with an artist I love, and other times it’ll be a deep dive into one band’s discography. Since I’m a Chicago-based writer, this newsletter is very Midwest-focused. So, if you live in this city too, you’ll also receive a curated roundup of upcoming local shows to check out.

Here’s where I politely ask for money: This newsletter is something I write in my spare time after work. It does not have a paywall and won’t for the foreseeable future due to the generosity of my readers. I am not in the business of gatekeeping. If you have the means and like what you read, I’d encourage you to sign up for a paid subscription. If your budget is tight, telling a friend about a band you found out about here is just as good. You can also post about No Expectations and say nice things. That works too. It’s still $5 a month—the cost of one Old Style plus tip at Rainbo Club. Every bit helps, keeps this project going, and allows it to stay paywall-free. It’s rough out there, so it means the world you’re reading and supporting this writing project.

4 Albums Worth Your Time This Week

Ellie O’Neill, Time of Fallow

Before Ireland’s Ellie O’Neill was a recording artist, she was a rising youth Gaelic football player. While she later pursued a music degree at university, switching her academic focus to literature ignited her passion for songwriting. Time of Fallow, O’Neill’s debut, is immersive and transportive folk music. Throughout the tracklist, her calming and rich alto is a perfect vessel for these bracingly personal lyrics. Where much of the LP is an exercise in tasteful and austere minimalism, the more ornate compositions soar like on “Little Sister,” a serpentine and knotty dose of pastoral rock. Single “Anna with the Silver Arrow” showcases her ability to give nearly biblical stakes to a queer love story, while coos of falsetto harmonies give tracks like “Aconite” tangible grace and propulsion. Like her fellow countryman Dove Ellis, O’Neill has a talent that’s undeniable and often overwhelming.

RIYL: Irish music that isn’t a post-punk band, Hannah Frances, Haley Heynderickx

i26connector, i26connector

Even if you think we’re at “peak indie rock bands with a pedal steel player,” let alone “peak indie rock bands with a pedal steel player from Asheville, North Carolina,” I’m here to tell you that i26connector are more than worth your time. Their self-titled full-length is one of my favorite debuts of 2026, an all-around airtight and efficient collection of conversational lyrics, booming riffs, and wailing twang. Composed of members of other Western NC bands like Tombstone Poetry, Idle County, Headringer, and Seven and a Half Giraffe, the seven songs on i26connector manage to be genuinely fresh and exciting entries in a crowded genre. Where the first couple of minutes of opener “Spirit Manger” seem like effective and explosive indie-twang, it quickly dissolves into searing punk for its final 40 seconds. On “i26connector,” Caelan Burris sings, “They tore down my buddy’s house / To build the I-26 Connector / And I don't think they gave him much money / Or time to make arrangements,” which is a hell of a way to kick off a song. The tone on this record can oscillate between barroom chats and apocalyptic brooding, but no matter what, it’s always thrilling thanks to Burris’ clear-eyed lyrics and pedal steel player Will Elliott’s silky leads. Shoutout to the essential North Carolina blog New Commute for the initial rec.

RIYL: Actually good pedal steel playing, Greg Freeman, Magnolia Electric Co., songs titled after the band name

kitship, am i a rock?

In 2023, Minneapolis songwriter Amaya Peña moved to Chicago and quickly found a home in the city’s music community. Where their solo material veers on understated guitar-based folk, they’ve joined the indie rock group Starcharm (fka Soft & Dumb) on drums and have collaborated with acts like Memory Card, Sharp Pins, and TV Buddha. They also appear on the just-released RED XEROX compilation that documents the best of the Chicago youth DIY movement from 2020-2025. Earlier this month, Peña dropped am i a rock?, an eight-song LP of effortlessly compelling acoustic singer-songwriter and lowkey indie rock fare. Peña’s voice is soothing and commanding, but it’s the way they can write a melody so immediately memorable that carries the release. From the frantic tempo changes and primitive flute in opener “song for avi,” to the childhood nostalgia that imbues the earworm twee of “i wish to be like you” with charm, this is a record full of subtle, stellar moments. Recorded with Sharp Pins and Lifeguard’s Kai Slater (who appears in a duet on “i’ve got a secret”), it’s lo-fi but not decidedly retro, choosing to instead center a truly imaginative and welcome voice in the burgeoning and vibrant scene.

RIYL: Norma Tanega, Horsegirl, Frankie Cosmos

Red PK, Horse Like Me

Andy PK, aka Chicago’s Red PK, has been one of the city’s most prolific collaborators over the past few years. I’ve recently seen them play in the live bands of Squirrel Flower, Free Range, hemlock, and Tobacco City on either pedal steel or guitar, and checking Instagram this past week, I see that they’re now also a touring member of Ratboys. Ever since I caught them play an acoustic show at Color Club in 2023, I’ve realized that they’re a formidable solo artist too, and their excellent debut LP Horse Like Me is proof. Recorded with Chicago’s Seth Engel (Options), there’s an early-afternoon pep to these songs. Even in the most introspective and vulnerable numbers, PK and their band add needed grooves, bursts of riff-induced energy, and well-worn chemistry into each arrangement. The sub-two-minute “Red” makes every second count with crunchy chords and woozy falsetto, while opener “Get Down” is basically a perfect-no-notes version of emo-tinged countrified rock. These songs are so inviting and the instrumental flourishes so gorgeous that it’s a strikingly cozy and comforting record. Any casual observer of the local music community here knows PK’s an astoundingly tasteful shredder, whether on guitar or pedal steel, but Horse Like Me shows that they’re just as deft as a writer.

RIYL: That first Pinegrove record, the Chicago music community, and, again, actually good pedal steel playing

The No Expectations 139 Playlist: Apple Music // Spotify* // Tidal

1. Styrofoam Winos, “Pearls”

2. Brennan Wedl, “Six O’Clock News (feat. Waxahatchee)”

3. i26connector, “I-26 Connector”

4. Red PK, “Red”

5. oldstar, “Whiskey”

6. memory card, “Hurricane”

7. Keta Ester, “Singer of the Rock Song”

8. The Clearwater Swimmers, “Radio Flyer”

9. Jacob Ungerleider, “Everything You Can”

10. Accessory, “This Is Not Your Life (Static)”

11. Tenderness, “We’ll Always Have Paris 1919”

12. Ellie O’Neill, “Little Sister”

13. nat tracks, “Lost Signals”

14. Gelli Haha, “Klouds Will Carry Me To Sleep”

15. Brad Goodall, “River Water”

* = “Radio Flyer” by the Clearwater Swimmers and “Hurricane” by Memory Card are not on Spotify

What I watched:

Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat (Prime Video)

The main conceit behind Jury Duty is, “What would happen if an average person were put in the middle of a scripted sitcom and didn’t know they were in one?” Part Candid Camera, part Truman Show, and part The Office, the first season thrived thanks to the amiable, go-with-the-flow, and kind nature of its real-life normal guy subject, Ronald Gladden. His obvious goodness allowed the cast to shine, and the season is one of my favorite pieces of TV comedy this decade. This season leaves the courtroom for a company on its annual retreat. They enlist a Nashville temp worker (an equally likable and friendly Anthony Norman) to work at a (fictional) California hot sauce business called Rockin’ Grandma’s Hot Sauce. Norman is told that a documentary crew is following the corporation as their longtime owner is retiring and giving the business to his son, a clearly Chet Hanks-inspired man named Dougie (Alex Bonifer). It’s amazing that they managed to pull it off again, that they found a subject equally perfect to be the unwitting main character, and that the jokes in Season 2 are just as solid as that miracle of a debut season.

What I read:

Panic at the Pump: The Energy Crisis and the Transformation of American Politics in the 1970s (by Meg Jacobs)

I tend to read in cycles. I’ll first go for a fun nonfiction book: usually something related to sports or music. Next, I’ll do a not-so-fun nonfiction book. Whether it’s history, political theory, or reported journalism, it’s usually about How We Got Here in 2026. Finally, I’ll switch it up with a novel, which can be fun or not-really-all-that-fun depending on the topic. While I enjoyed reading it and learned a lot, Panic at the Pump: The Energy Crisis and the Transformation of American Politics in the 1970s, from Princeton historian Meg Jacobs, falls in the second camp. It’s an exhaustive and often frustrating account of the twin oil shocks of that decade, the crises of 1973 during Nixon’s administration and 1979 during Carter’s. I picked this book up because, well, you know… Jacobs gets deep into the details of the decade’s policy debates, congressional gridlock, and how calls for energy reform and alternative sources of fuel were no match for the nation’s appetite for lower gas prices. While I can’t wholeheartedly endorse this to every No Expectations reader (“Want 400 pages of ‘70s energy debate minutiae? No lessons are learned for our leaders today!”), I can say it’s an illuminating read in 2026.

The Weekly Chicago Show Calendar:

The gig calendar lives on the WTTW News website. You can also subscribe to the newsletter I produce there called Daily Chicagoan to get it in your inbox a day early.

No Expectations hits inboxes on Thursdays at 9am cst. Reader mailbag email: Noexpectationsnewsletter@gmail.com. Daily Chicagoan, the local news newsletter I produce at my day job with WTTW News (PBS Chicago), can be found here.

Headline song: Robber Robber, “Pieces”

Thanks for being here. This week felt like it flew by. I was so busy that whenever I’d check the clock, I’d be amazed that it was already so late in the day. Much of my time was spent highlighting my coworkers’ stellar reporting covering Tuesday’s Illinois primaries for the WTTW News Daily Chicagoan newsletter, and the rest found me dreading a potential jury duty summons on Wednesday. Fortunately, I was only on standby; my name wasn’t called, and I didn’t have to head downtown at 9 a.m. to perform a civic duty. I’m also not sure that “I have to finish writing an email newsletter about indie rock by tomorrow morning” would’ve flown as an excuse in court.

Even though my schedule’s been hectic, I still managed to find more great new albums than I had time to write about. While there are a handful of others I plan to highlight next Thursday, these four LPs were especially welcome escapes whenever I had a free moment. If you’re also having a too-packed week, I’d recommend taking a breather with any of them.

Here’s the spiel for new subscribers: Each week, you get a wildcard main essay (often new album recommendations), a 15-song playlist, as well as updates on what I’m listening to, watching, and reading. Sometimes you’ll get an interview with an artist I love, and other times it’ll be a deep dive into one band’s discography. Since I’m a Chicago-based writer, this newsletter is very Midwest-focused. So, if you live in this city too, you’ll also receive a curated roundup of upcoming local shows to check out.

Here’s where I politely ask for money: This newsletter is something I write in my spare time after work. It does not have a paywall and won’t for the foreseeable future due to the generosity of my readers. I am not in the business of gatekeeping. If you have the means and like what you read, I’d encourage you to sign up for a paid subscription. If your budget is tight, telling a friend about a band you found out about here is just as good. You can also post about No Expectations and say nice things. That works too. It’s still $5 a month—the cost of one Old Style plus tip at Rainbo Club. Every bit helps, keeps this project going, and allows it to stay paywall-free. It’s rough out there, so it means the world you’re reading and supporting this writing project.

4 Albums Worth Your Time This Week

Dialup Ghost, Donkey Howdy

Nashville indie rock band Dialup Ghost’s May You Live Forever in Cowboy Heaven was my favorite 2024 album that I discovered in 2025. I wrote then that it sounded like, “Built to Spill meets Elephant 6 meets Florry.” Donkey Howdy, the band’s latest album, is looser and less frantic than its predecessors. Still, it’s more fully formed. It’s an LP that actively rebels against its hometown music scene’s cosplay cowboys (“Music City Mockingbird”), and how the city prices out musicians from living there comfortably (“Bigger Household”). The pedal steels and fiddles that populated the band’s earlier oeuvre are gone in favor of fuzzed-out riffs and synths. Here, the band sounds relaxed while writing the best songs of their career. “Yer The Only One on My Mind” features verses set on Valentine’s Day 2020: “We canvassed for Bernie on the south side of town / It was apparent we weren’t wanted around.” It’s personality-filled, off-kilter indie rock that’s as galvanizing as it is relatable. Released in full exclusively on Bandcamp (four singles are streaming), this is a rock band at the peak of their powers doing things their own way.

RIYL: Living in Nashville and hating it, songs that are funny but not jokey, working class anthems in 2026

Resavoir, Themes For Dreams

Will Miller has been a good Friend of the Newsletter for over a decade. The Chicago-based trumpeter, producer, and composer was a touring member of Whitney for a while and started Resavoir, which, in a live setting, morphs between a solo outlet, rotating band, and full-blown orchestra. Themes For Dreams is Miller’s first self-released LP and first project with an ultra-specific goal in mind: making music to set in motion a perfect night’s sleep. The 13 tracks here are more interesting than sleepy, but they’re calming and collaborative doses of enveloping ambient jazz. He enlists guests like Marta Sofia Honer and Jeremiah Chiu, as well as Macie Stewart, Molly Rife, and Matt Gold. It’s my favorite project he’s done yet, something that I’ve been revisiting nearly constantly since he first sent it over in late 2025. There are warm tones of a Hohner pianet, immersive sounds of Miller’s EVI (an electronic valve instrument that feels tailor-made for his melodic sensibility), and, of course, his soaring trumpet leads. Sure, this is me being a homer for my bud, but I’ve been a fan for longer than I’ve been a friend. I’m really proud of him. There are some truly mesmerizing songs here.

RIYL: A good night’s sleep, calming jazz, springtime in Chicago

Spencer Hoffman, Cherry Picker

Spencer Hoffman is a Los Angeles via Sacramento songwriter who released a debut LP in 2024 called Apple Core and now follows it up with one called Cherry Picker. While it’s unclear if he’s doing a Sufjan-style “50 States Project” for fruit, it is obvious that these buoyant, bittersweet folk-rock tracks are winners. The lush opening title track is a patiently building stunner. Hoffman’s voice slowly glides over acoustic guitars and subtle pianos before the arrangement eventually explodes into orchestral catharsis. The harmonies as he sings, “Light will blind / Relieve you of your mind,” are genuinely goosebump-inducing. The rest of the LP manages to live up to its thunderously beautiful start, with the breezy “Dandelions” and the mournful, eight-minute “Lotus Eater.” Hoffman’s voice is bright and conversational, and his ear for a timeless melody is truly impressive. It’s a record that somehow captures the bliss of starting a relationship and the gutpunch of its end.

RIYL: Damien Jurado, Labi Siffre, Sylvie

vega, beacon, how blue

In 2024, Burlington, Vermont’s Molly Meehan released an excellent LP of gentle indie rock songs as vega called trust me, i’m trying. (She’s also in the newsletter recommended group Sheepskin). Her new record, beacon, how blue, wields a softer touch. The nine gorgeous, openhearted tracks here are melancholic but unfold with a palpable lightness and grace. Standouts like “cow country” are marked by woozy twang, while the delicate but commanding “one more swim” is dreamy and waltz-like. Meehan’s voice is expressive and inviting, and as a bandleader, she has a knack for arrangements that are ornate but never fussy. Take “guardian angel,” which boasts subtle clarinet and finds Meehan singing, “Try to be grateful for what comes / Even if it’s not what you wanted.” On her Bandcamp page, Meehan’s artist description reads “music for sofites.” While that’s certainly true here, few albums this year are as quietly compelling.

RIYL: Hannah Frances, Andy Shauf, Sadurn

What I listened to:

The No Expectations 138 Playlist: Apple Music // Spotify* // Tidal

1. Horse Lords, “Brain of the Firm”

2. Robber Robber, “Pieces”

3. Lily Seabird, “Demon in Me”

4. Brown Horse, “Wreck”

5. Kevin Morby, “Die Young”

6. vega, “cow country”

7. Dialup Ghost, “Bigger Household”

8. Spencer Hoffman, “Dandelions”

9. Andrew Sa, “Lavender Cowboy” (feat. HC McEntire)

10. Arima Ederra, “Took The Long Way Home”

11. Mei Semones, “Tooth Fairy” (feat. John Roseboro)

12. Wendy Eisenberg, “Vanity Paradox”

13. Sam Blasucci, “EVENING STORM”

14. My New Band Believe, “Love Story”

15. Resavoir, “Memories of Dreams”

* = vega’s “cow country” is not on Spotify

What I watched:

Sisu (directed by Jalmari Helander)

With Sisu, an action-packed 2022 movie about an ex-Finnish soldier turned gold miner who gets his treasure stolen by Nazis in 1944 Northern Lapland and fights to get it back, you know exactly what you’re signing up for. It’s John Wick meets Mad Max: Fury Road meets Inglorious Basterds. You are not watching this to learn about the human condition: you want to see some fascists get torn apart by a burly Nordic man. However light it is on pathos and character-building, it makes up for it with a bunch of stylized fight sequences, increasingly gruesome deaths, and a cute dog (who, spoiler, stays alive throughout the movie). It’s a blast, and future comfort watch, but my major complaint is that most of the dialogue is in English. I get that Lionsgate wanted this film to reach a wider audience, but they could’ve easily allowed most of their actors to speak in their mother tongues, especially because the dialogue was so sparse. While I doubt the recently-released sequel will be my next watch, it’s definitely on the list.

What I read:

The Sense of an Ending (by Julian Barnes)

When someone recommends a book, movie, or album to me, I’ll sometimes get around to it right away, and other times it’ll take me nearly 15 years. The other week, I was clearing up space on my laptop, and I found an old notes file from college titled “Recommended books 2012.” Julian Barnes’ Man Booker prize-winning The Sense of an Ending was on it, and while I don’t remember who told me to check it out, I finally did this month. It’s a slim novel at 163 pages, but it’s not a particularly light read. (It’s about the fallibility of memory, self-delusion, lost friendships, and death). It follows Tony Webster, a retired British man who struggles to look back on his childhood and college years. There’s even a twist ending that’s legitimately shocking, something that’s hard to do in such a short book. While it was adapted into a 2017 movie starring Jim Broadbent and Charlotte Rampling, I have no interest in seeing how the narrator’s unreliable memories translate to the screen (even though I enjoyed the book).

The Weekly Chicago Show Calendar:

The gig calendar lives on the WTTW News website. You can also subscribe to the newsletter I produce there called Daily Chicagoan to get it in your inbox a day early.

No Expectations hits inboxes on Thursdays at 9am cst. Reader mailbag email: Noexpectationsnewsletter@gmail.com. Daily Chicagoan, the local news newsletter I produce at my day job with WTTW News (PBS Chicago), can be found here.

Headline song: Gia Margaret, “Good Friend”

Thanks for being here. Maybe the number one question I get from readers (besides “can you write about my band?”) is “how do you manage to consume so much media every week?” The simplest answer is that this is how I’ve always spent my free time. I like listening to new music, watching movies, and reading books. In fact, I love it so much that I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to finagle a career out of writing about my interests. This is who I am. I can be many things, but I am never bored.

Having this newsletter keeps me honest. I purposely formatted it to include weekly sections about movies and books, along with new LP recommendations, to force me to be more on top of things. Self-imposed deadlines really work. If it’s a Monday evening and I realize I haven’t finished a book or checked out a new movie, I’ll devote time to get that done before I write a No Expectations post on Tuesdays. This is also a way I procrastinate writing while still feeling productive.

This week was a bit of a struggle. While I immediately knew what new albums I was going to write about, every other interest was subsumed by watching tennis. When my friends asked me how my week was going, I had trouble coming up with anything better than “Great! I watched a ton of tennis.” I skipped all movie viewing this week in favor of the Tennis Channel’s broadcast of the Indian Wells Open, where 128 ATP and 128 WTA players head to the Coachella Valley for a two-week-long tournament. It’s arguably the second-most prestigious American competition in the sport, and I’ve been locked in. Even when I wasn’t glued to my couch taking in the matches, I finished two, albeit very short, books on the sport.

Don’t worry, No Expectations is still a blog about new, independent artists. I appreciate your patience here: you sign up for a newsletter to read about indie rock, and you get several weeks of unsolicited thoughts on sports. While I promise there will be less of that in this newsletter going forward, sometimes it’s nice to fully dive into a totally different rabbit hole.

Here’s the spiel for new subscribers: Each week, you get a wildcard main essay (often new album recommendations), a 15-song playlist, as well as updates on what I’m listening to, watching, and reading. Sometimes you’ll get an interview with an artist I love, and other times it’ll be a deep dive into one band’s discography. Since I’m a Chicago-based writer, this newsletter is very Midwest-focused. So, if you live in this city too, you’ll also receive a curated roundup of upcoming local shows to check out.

Here’s where I politely ask for money: This newsletter is something I write in my spare time after work. It does not have a paywall and won’t for the foreseeable future due to the generosity of my readers. I am not in the business of gatekeeping. If you have the means and like what you read, I’d encourage you to sign up for a paid subscription. If your budget is tight, telling a friend about a band you found out about here is just as good. You can also post about No Expectations and say nice things. That works too. It’s still $5 a month—the cost of one Old Style plus tip at Rainbo Club. Every bit helps, keeps this project going, and allows it to stay paywall-free. It’s rough out there, so it means the world you’re reading and supporting this writing project.

4 Albums Worth Your Time This Week

Dagmar Zuniga, in filth your mystery is kingdom / far smile peasant in yellow music

In January last year, the Brooklyn-based artist and NTS Radio curator Dagmar Zuniga uploaded a collection of home-recorded folk songs to Bandcamp and YouTube. It quietly gained an audience, catching the attention of Mount Eerie’s Phil Everum, who took her on tour in 2025 and re-released it to vinyl and streaming last week. At 14 tracks and just a notch over the half-hour mark, in filth your mystery is kingdom / far smile peasant in yellow music is sketchlike as it is immersive, ghostly as it is beautiful, and as unorthodox as it is memorable. While it maintains a delicate whisper throughout its runtime, it never fails to be beguiling and engaging. “Plenty For All The Masses” keeps a propulsive acoustic strum anchoring spectral, loping harmonies while “Photograph the Hard Way” boasts muted synths and a metronomic beat. Few LPs from either last year or this one are as effortless at building an idiosyncratic world that always feels welcoming. While I’m embarrassed that I missed an opportunity to write about it upon its initial release, I’m grateful it’s got a second life in 2026.

RIYL: A music box that’s also haunted, Mount Eerie, Jessica Pratt

Doll Spirit Vessel, Bow

Philadelphia’s Doll Spirit Vessel thrive on making indie rock that’s genuinely unpredictable and interesting. Led by songwriter Kati Malison, whose voice can instantly contort from a throaty snarl to a feathery coo, the band shows tangible range on their sophomore LP, Bow. There are freak-folk dirges (“Gushers”), string-laden stunners (“Godless”), blistering alt-rockers (“Maryland”), and nervy post-punk stompers (“Ordinary Distance”) featured throughout these 10 songs. The energetic tunes are all performed with a galvanizing vigor, while the softer ones receive a patient, thoughtful touch. The winding, cathartic penultimate track “Dumptruck” is the best of the bunch, though. It’s such an immediate gutpunch that you can tell this band is absolutely electric live.

RIYL: Hop Along, Wednesday, Mothers

Natalie Jane Hill, Hopeful Woman

This is an instant album of the year contender. Natalie Jane Hill is a Texas-raised, Western North Carolina-based songwriter who made an impossibly lush, confident, and stunning album in Hopeful Woman. Earlier this year, I was floored when I saw her perform most of the songs totally solo, opening up for Friendship. But on record, the arrangements get a verdant and earthy full-band treatment, and it’s even more awe-inspiring. The cosmic, simmering single “Never Left Me” is hazy with wailing pedal steel and galloping acoustic strums, while the introspective “Colors” gets twinkling pianos and resplendent strings. Hill’s voice is rich, expressive, and piercing when it needs to be, especially when she sings lines as devastating as this from “Blue Is the Color of My Sun:” “And the hardest part of the day / Isn’t when you look away / It’s when you’re right there.” Throughout, every note, arrangement flourish, and lyric is intentional and near-flawless. It’s a record that is overwhelmingly gorgeous on first impression and masterful on each subsequent listen.

RIYL: Sandy Denny, Karen Dalton, timeless songwriting

Symbol Soup, Stepping on the Same Rakes

If you’re ever in a musical rut, one way to discover new-to-you acts is to look at one of your favorite artists’ tour schedules and check out the local openers on that run. Sure, sometimes you’ll think “wow, that’s a weird booking,” but more often than not you’ll find something to really dig into. Symbol Soup, the folk-rock project of the U.K.’s Michael Rea, opened for Lily Seabird last year in London. Even though I was a continent away, seeing the poster on social media made me check out his music. He just put out a new LP earlier in March called Stepping on the Same Rakes, and it’s a charming and conversational batch of understated earworms. Rea excels at an ambling, unhurried pace, like on the woozy and dreamy instrumental “Conversations Halt” and the moody “Rakes.” But the true joys of the record come when he raises the decibels like on the soaring single “Miniatures” and the eight-minute title track “Cardinal,” which features a welcome explosive riff. Operating at the intersection of intimate and inviting, Rea’s breezy melodies will stick with ya.

RIYL: Renny Conti, Villagerr, Pinback

What I listened to:

The No Expectations 137 Playlist: Apple Music // Spotify // Tidal

1. i26connector, “Cut My Hair”

2. Doll Spirit Vessel, “Dumptruck”

3. Gia Margaret, “Good Friend”

4. Symbol Soup, “Miniatures”

5. GOON, “Atrium”

6. youbet, “Receive”

7. Morgan Nagler, “Hurt”

8. Dutch Interior, “Go Fuck Yourself”

9. Angelo De Augustine, “Mirror Mirror”

10. Thomas Dollbaum, “Dozen Roses”

11. Cass McCombs, Chris Cohen, “Steel Reserve”

12. Spencer Cullum, “Jackie Paints”

13. Lowertown, “Big Thumb”

14. Natalie Jane Hill, “Blue is the Color of My Sun”

15. Dagmar Zuniga, “Plenty For All The Masses”

Gig recap: The Dead Bolts, Good Looks at Metro Chicago (3/7)

Before Texas’ Good Looks released their debut album Bummer Year in 2022, I took them out for pizza when they played their first Chicago show at Cole’s. We’ve been close buds ever since, so much so that I make a point to clear my schedule whenever they’re in town. On Saturday, they opened for the rising Chicago alt-rockers the Dead Bolts at Metro, playing a ripping set that included a handful of new tunes. Though I was unfamiliar with the headliners going into it, they put on a fun show: purveyors of raucous, no-frills anthems that evoke Fontaines D.C., Local Natives, and early Kings of Leon. With members from Beverly and Oak Lawn, the gig atmosphere felt like a rowdy South Side high school reunion. I also heard from some Friends of the Newsletter who bartended that night that the crowd punched above their weight class in terms of drink sales. A stellar night of easy-to-root-for rock music.

What I watched:

The 2026 Indian Wells Open (streamed via Tennis Channel)

Few things this year have captured my attention and imagination more acutely than tennis. The latest tournament has been the 2026 Indian Wells Open. It’s like March Madness in the sense that the games start at 1 p.m. my time and usually end around midnight. There are ample upsets, thrilling contests, and a lot of drama. I’ve been locked in from round one to, by the time this newsletter runs, the quarterfinals. Most of the sports I love are team-based. While there’s individual flair and talent in soccer and basketball, it’s all in the service of the unit. Even in NASCAR, something I unironically love, a bad pit stop can ruin a driver’s best-ever run.

With singles tennis, it’s just two people facing off on the court. Sure, it’s a battle of talent, tactics, and training, but it’s also character and temperament. “A person’s tennis game begins with his nature and background and comes out through his motor mechanisms into shot patterns and characteristics of play,” wrote John McPhee in his 1969 classic New Yorker cover stories turned book, Levels of the Game. “If he is deliberate, he is a deliberate tennis player; and if he is flamboyant, his game probably is, too.” Almost six decades later, this is still true: Alcaraz and Sinner couldn’t be more different, and that reflects in their games.

Watching this year’s tournament, I’ve fallen in love with the playing of rising Brazilian star João Fonseca, who lost to Jannik Sinner on Tuesday in a riotous match that featured two sets of tiebreak tennis. His forehand is unreal, and I bet he will be a top 10 player by the end of 2026. I’ve also been impressed by American Learner Tien, who himself faces Sinner today, and Colombian women’s player Camila Osorio, who upset Americans Sloane Stephens and Iva Jovic before falling to Naomi Osaka in three sets. If you watch the sport’s biggest stars, it’s transcendent, but it’s just as fun to witness a young player rise through the rankings.

What I read:

Levels of the Game (by John McPhee)*

In 1969, New Yorker writer John McPhee published two cover stories for the magazine that served as a two-part profile of 1968 U.S. Open semifinalists Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner. His piece documents the thrilling four-set match as well as the two competitors’ disparate backgrounds and dispositions. McPhee’s prose is engaging whether he’s talking about the on-court action or the sociopolitical contexts at play between Ashe, a Black player who growing up in Jim Crow Virginia could not compete against white players, and Graebner, a straight-laced Republican from Ohio who was also a paper salesman before turning pro. There’s a reason this is considered one of the major classics of sportswriting.

*The other tennis book I finished this week is Racquet: The Book, a collection of essays and articles that originally ran in Racquet Magazine. I enjoyed it a lot, but won’t write about it here since I think that’s enough tennis at No Expectations (for now).

The Weekly Chicago Show Calendar:

The gig calendar lives on the WTTW News website. You can also subscribe to the newsletter I produce there called Daily Chicagoan to get it in your inbox a day early.

No Expectations hits inboxes on Thursdays at 9am cst. Reader mailbag email: Noexpectationsnewsletter@gmail.com. Daily Chicagoan, the local news newsletter I produce at my day job with WTTW News (PBS Chicago), can be found here.

Headline song: Friko, “Choo Choo”

Thanks for being here. I went to two shows last week, and both brought me to Lakeview’s GMan Tavern. It’s not an exaggeration to say that I spent my twenties at this bar. Though it’s been years since I lived in a neighborhood where it’s a convenient walk or bus ride away, it’s still one of my favorite places in the world. Being back Thursday and Saturday reminded me how much that place meant to me and how it was the setting of so many good memories in my life. There’s a reason it keeps getting named “Best Neighborhood Bar” in the Chicago Reader’s annual Best of Chicago poll.

My first visit was right after I turned 21. At the time, I was entering a writing career, and most of my college friends had either gone to grad school or moved back home. I was lonely and underemployed, but this was the first place where the door guy remembered me, and the bartenders knew my drink order immediately. Right off the bat, I felt welcomed and comfortable. So, it became a second home. I celebrated each new journalism job there, mourned each subsequent layoff, and got to know all the staff and regulars, many of whom are still close friends. For a few years, I hosted and booked an annual New Year’s Eve party, where I got bands to DJ a free event to raise money for a neighborhood food pantry (it’s been a decade, but the 2016 lineup of Finom, NE-HI, Twin Peaks, Knox Fortune, and Whitney will forever be one of the most fun nights of my life). As it’s steps from Wrigley Field, it’s also where I partied when the Cubs won the World Series. I also remain in the fantasy football league my GMan friends started in 2014.

Now, for any young people here, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend going to a bar as much as I did at that age. I definitely should’ve read more books and saved more money, but being a regular was absolutely formative for me. As long as you tip well, don’t cause problems, and are kind and respectful, a neighborhood dive can become an oasis. GMan’s owned by the guy behind the iconic venue Metro and staffed mostly by musicians, so I got to meet so many artists just sitting on a corner barstool: members of the Replacements, Rage Against the Machine, Alkaline Trio, house music legends, not to mention actors, athletes, comedians, and journalists. The Lawrence Arms’ Brendan Kelly was even my weekday bartender for several years, and through osmosis, I developed a near encyclopedic knowledge of Chicago punk. They even let me use their back room for interviews, including one where I made Ryley Walker listen to Leonard Cohen for the first time.

Though only one bartender and one door guy are still working there since my first visit in 2012, it’s remained largely unchanged despite all the new faces. Sure, there’s a cocktail menu now, and the pool tables in the back (where they filmed some of The Color of Money) were taken out to become a concert venue, but the same regulars are there watching Jeopardy every evening, and it’s still a full house after a Metro show or a Cubs game. On Saturday, I ran into a bunch of old buds—each of us making a return to the same corner of the bar where we’d congregate throughout the 2010s. While I’m not really a weekly regular at any bar these days, it was nice to remember how a place can feel like a community and how things can still feel the same even when everything’s changed. Also nice? Still realizing I get “the regular’s discount.”

Here’s the spiel for new subscribers: Each week, you get a wildcard main essay (often new album recommendations), a 15-song playlist, as well as updates on what I’m listening to, watching, and reading. Sometimes you’ll get an interview with an artist I love, and other times it’ll be a deep dive into one band’s discography. Since I’m a Chicago-based writer, this newsletter is very Midwest-focused. So, if you live in this city too, you’ll also receive a curated roundup of upcoming local shows to check out.

Here’s where I politely ask for money: This newsletter is something I write in my spare time after work. It does not have a paywall and won’t for the foreseeable future due to the generosity of my readers. I am not in the business of gatekeeping. If you have the means and like what you read, I’d encourage you to sign up for a paid subscription. If your budget is tight, telling a friend about a band you found out about here is just as good. You can also post about No Expectations and say nice things. That works too. It’s still $5 a month—the cost of one Old Style plus tip at Rainbo Club. Every bit helps, keeps this project going, and allows it to stay paywall-free. It’s rough out there, so it means the world you’re reading and supporting this writing project.

3 Albums Worth Your Time This Week

Lala Lala, Heaven 2

Lala Lala’s Lillie West spent her formative years and first few albums living in Chicago. I’ve seen her play countless times, totally solo or with a full band, in several states and two countries, and each performance has been electric. Over the past half-decade, though, she’s left Chicago for stints in Taos, Iceland, and now Los Angeles. Though I miss running into her around the city, I’m grateful that she’s putting out her best work yet with the lush and immersive Heaven 2. Released via Sub Pop and produced by Jay Som’s Melina Duterte, she fully dives into the mesmeric electronic palette she’s been perfecting since 2021’s I Want the Door To Open. Songs like opener “Car Anymore” boast ping-ponging keyboard stabs, and on “Anywave,” searing blasts of distortion merge with bubbly synths. However gauzy the arrangements get, it’s always hypnotic, especially paired with West’s ability to make gutting emotional revelations sound conversational. The title track opens with the lines, “Heaven is a moment / Hell is a life / I'm forever broken / Neck against the knife,” but it still somehow sounds inviting. West thrives at a memorable chorus, and you won’t find a better one than on the single “Does This Go Faster?” For all the dreamlike melancholy here, it obvious West is having a blast making music again.

RIYL: M83, Grapetooth, New Order

Pileup, Leave the Light On

With a name like Pileup, you’d expect an onslaught of noise, controlled chaos, and a copious amount of pummeling riffs. That’s all there in spades on the Portland indie rock band’s sophomore LP Leave the Light On, but there’s also a graceful, often beautiful pop-minded core throughout the tracklist. Standout single “Lightning” bursts open with wailing lead guitars, but also delicately plucked banjo, before main songwriter Nathan Urbach coos, “I shouldn’t stand out in the open / I saw you up against the ocean in a dream.” This is shoegaze at its most transportive and introspective, especially on the winsome “Going Away.” This is a band that operates on extremes. There’s the plaintive folk of “Willow Leaves,” dirgelike slowcore of “Turning,” and a raging 6-minute guitar freakout in “No Pyre, No Rememberance” all populating the back half of Side B. It all works seamlessly.

RIYL: Shoegaze that doesn’t suck, riffs that rip, and melodies with a soft core

Star Moles, Highway To Hell

Star Moles, the folk-pop project of New Hampshire native and Philadelphia resident Emily Moales, finds a true spark in casual approaches. Her last LP, one of 2025’s best, was called Snack Monster and was tracked largely via a Tascam recorder. A minute into her stellar follow-up, Highway to Hell, Moales catches herself singing a wrong lyric, pauses briefly, and mutters something on the mic, and corrects course. It doesn’t detract from the song, a soaring ‘70s-inspired opener that’s cheekily called “The End.” Rather, it adds intimacy and charm: the two winning qualities make this one of the year’s clear standout albums. She’s perceptive and funny on songs like “Time,” which kicks off with a line like “Sometimes I think I’m making a friend when I see a smiling face / but then it comes to an end / They get whisked away.” Elsewhere on “Overdog,” she’s singing as if she’s simultaneously letting you in on an inside joke and allowing you to read her diary,” when she says, “I need you like I need a hole in my head / I need a hole in my head / How else could I sing?” For the low-key facade these songs are wrapped in, Moales makes songs that sound timeless and effortless. A sneaky stunner of an LP with a whimsy and theatricality that’s infectious.

RIYL: Harry Nilsson, playful piano, Fiona Apple, loose and breezy writing

What I listened to:

The No Expectations 136 Playlist: Apple Music // Spotify* // Tidal

1. Friko, “Choo Choo”
2. villagerrr, “Locket”
3. Pileup, “Lightning”
4. Swapmeet, “I Know!”
5. Accessory, “Safeword”
6. Ken Park, “Nosebleed”
7. Sluice, “Zillow”
8. Buck Meek, “Soul Feeling”
9. The Clearwater Swimmers, “Engine”
10. Lala Lala, “Even Mountains Erode”
11. Greg Mendez, “I Wanna Feel Pretty”
12. vega, “out there”
13. Hiding Places, “One Hand”
14. Jackie West, “New Moon”
15. Star Moles, “Real Magic”

*Note: vega’s “out there” is not on Spotify

**Second note: I need to apologize for last week’s Spotify playlist. I no longer use the service, but I still port over the weekly mixes there using a web app. 95% of the time it works great, but not last Thursday. I usually check to make sure the tracklist is all set, but I didn’t last week, so listeners got a track by the ‘80s metal outfit Extreme instead of Mod Lang, who have removed their music from Spotify. Readers also heard a Deerhunter song, “Desire Lines,” in there too, instead of Nashpaints’ “Desire”, but that honestly worked. It’s a good thing I double checked this go around, because you would’ve had to listen to “Out There” from The Hunchback of Notre Dame soundtrack instead of the single of the same name by vega.

Gig recap: Cash Langdon, Glass-Beagle, Joe Glass at Gman Tavern (2/26)

A three-band bill with two Chicago acts opening, and all three are newsletter favorites? Also, it’s at the bar I’ve been to most in my life? Sometimes the universe gives you a sign to go see a stellar rock show on a Thursday night. After releasing the No Expectations-approved Dogs this time last year, I managed to catch Birmingham’s Cash Langdon live at the now-shuttered venue The Fallen Log. It rocked, but when he booked a return date later at GMan, he had to cancel the gig due to illness. It all worked out because Glass-Beagle, one of Chicago’s foremost bands combining gnarly riffs with ample twang, joined him alongside recent favorite and Sharp Pins member Joe Glass. All in all, it was the best way to start a weekend. Each band here is the real deal.

Gig recap: Margo Price, Logan Ledger at Metro Chicago (2/28)

Margo Price’s Hard Headed Woman was a 2025 favorite, and one LP that I’ve revisited a lot this year. She boasts an easy charisma and an even more natural knack for dynamic melodies and personality-filled lyrics. For whatever reason, while I’ve followed her career for years, last Saturday was the first time I had a chance to see her live. I had a better reason to attend than ever now that her band includes Friend of the Newsletter Sean Thompson (of Sean Thompson’s Weird Ears and Shrunken Elvis) on lead guitar. It’s a gig that he’s had for about a year, and if you’ve seen any live footage from social media or gotten lucky enough to attend a show, you’ll know my guy is nailing it. Never content to stay in one mode, scale, or style, the 18-song set boasted great covers (Blaze Foley, George Jones, Bob Dylan, Waylon Jennings, etc) alongside roaring renditions of her biggest songs: just a blast all-around, an efficient 80-minute gig of straight heat. I’m fully on the Margo train now, and I can happily report that a new Sean Thompson’s Weird Ears LP is arriving very soon.

What I watched:

The Pitt (HBO Max)

The older I get, the less interested I am in TV. “It gets good after the fourth episode? Wow, man, I gotta check that out.” While nine times out of 10 I’d prefer to watch a movie, HBO Max’s hospital drama The Pitt is a notable exception. It rules. It’s well-acted and well-written, smart enough where you learn something, but soapy enough to be compulsively bingeable. It’s tense and often gory thanks to its emergency room setting, but oddly comforting in no small part from regular onscreen depictions of kindness, compassion, and treating patients with dignity. Every doctor and nurse is likable (except for the medical student named Ogilvie), the claustrophobic and kinetic camerawork is gripping, and the episodes breeze by even when it reaches the hour mark. When I first saw a trailer for it before the first season, I thought, “There’s no way I’m going to watch this.” I’m glad I got over that knee-jerk reaction.

What I read:

String Theory: David Foster Wallace on Tennis (by David Foster Wallace)

I’ve been watching more tennis than usual this year. I realized my cable plan gives me access to the Tennis Channel’s app, which allows me to stream basically every non-Grand Slam WTA and ATP match. Beyond this sport being the one I played most growing up and one of my favorites to witness on TV, I honestly just love having something on during the day while I work. Another great thing about tennis is that it produces the best sports writing ever. This year, I’ve read Giri Nathan’s Changeover, about the rivalry between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, and I’m currently revisiting John McPhee’s classic Levels of the Game, about the 1968 U.S. Open semifinal between Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner. But last week, I finally got around to a slim essay collection that’s been wasting away on my shelf: String Theory: David Foster Wallace on Tennis. Now, I had already read two of the five pieces compiled here: one on DFW’s childhood as a competitive and regionally ranked junior tennis player, and the other is his masterful New York Times profile of Roger Federer from 2006. Both are alltimers and both were a blast to reread. The new-to-me articles covered a bad memoir by former pro Tracy Austin, a scene report during the qualifiers at the 1995 Canadian Open, and an examination of the commercialization of the U.S. Open, where DFW complains about paying $3.50 for a hot dog. All were bangers. It’s been a long time since I last read his work, but it was a joy to rediscover why I loved it so much and still do.

The Weekly Chicago Show Calendar:

The gig calendar lives on the WTTW News website. You can also subscribe to the newsletter I produce there called Daily Chicagoan to get it in your inbox a day early.

No Expectations hits inboxes on Thursdays at 9am cst. Reader mailbag email: Noexpectationsnewsletter@gmail.com. Daily Chicagoan, the local news newsletter I produce at my day job with WTTW News (PBS Chicago), can be found here.

Headline song: Cola, “Hedgesitting”

Thanks for being here. If there’s one thing I can guarantee at No Expectations, it’s that if I recommend a new LP here, it’s because I genuinely enjoy it and think you will too. I won’t cover albums if my take is “pretty cool, I guess.” Nor will I rave about LPs that other critics are effusive about if I’m not fully in agreement. There’s a lot of just OK music out there, and that’s fine! I write this newsletter for fun. There’s no need to fill a quota, and there’s no point if I’m telling you to check out something that I’m only so-so on.

Anyone can write about music, and if you want to do it too, it’s probably because you’re confident in your tastes. That was me when I applied for my first music journalism gig. But when I somehow got the internship and actually had to write every day, I realized I was just another 20-year-old who liked music. (“Oh, a liberal arts undergrad in 2012 likes Tame Impala’s Lonerism? Holy shit, man! You should totally be a critic.”) Sure, I may have known more than some of my peers, but I was totally out of my depth compared to those who had already made music journalism a career. My favorite records suddenly felt like pedestrian picks, and my insights seemed obvious. Don’t even get me started on the state of my prose back then.

That I recognized this immediately is probably the best explanation for why I’m still doing it 15 years later. This is a discipline where you’re always learning, constantly interrogating your opinions, and listening to so much music you had no idea about. You’re also reading everything you can, figuring out what works and what doesn’t. Had I failed to understand that early, I would’ve quit and done something else within months.

For a writer starting out, this was a necessary and humbling revelation. It also made me think that if I didn’t love a record that was receiving critical acclaim, I was simply too stupid to fully “get it.” If something earned, say, a Best New Music at Pitchfork, I’d painstakingly try to see what the writer saw in it. Even if it repulsed me on first listen, I’d force myself understand why others loved it and convince myself it was worthwhile. These listening exercises allowed me to discover some amazing music I wouldn’t have given a chance otherwise. Sometimes you need to escape your comfort zone to find the real gems. Over time, however, I eventually figured out that some writers just have different, sometimes worse, tastes. It’s legal!

This week, I read reviews from some of my favorite critics praising a handful of new releases that I figured would be perfect fits for No Expectations. Their blurbs made the full-lengths sound exactly like the kind of thing I’d cover here, but when I listened to them, they didn’t click. One I even actively hated. Throughout the week, I kept trying, but they still didn’t work for me. While I won’t name what didn’t make the cut (paying subscribers can DM me, though), I will say that internally pinpointing why I skipped those releases was just as fun as finding the four records below I truly loved. Music journalism would be in an even more dire place if everyone’s preferences magically aligned.

Here’s the spiel for new subscribers: Each week, you get a wildcard main essay (often new album recommendations), a 15-song playlist, as well as updates on what I’m listening to, watching, and reading. Sometimes you’ll get an interview with an artist I love, and other times it’ll be a deep dive into one band’s discography. Since I’m a Chicago-based writer, this newsletter is very Midwest-focused. So, if you live in this city too, you’ll also receive a curated roundup of upcoming local shows to check out.

Here’s where I politely ask for money: This newsletter is something I write in my spare time after work. It does not have a paywall and won’t for the foreseeable future due to the generosity of my readers. I am not in the business of gatekeeping. If you have the means and like what you read, I’d encourage you to sign up for a paid subscription. If your budget is tight, telling a friend about a band you found out about here is just as good. You can also post about No Expectations and say nice things. That works too. It’s still $5 a month—the cost of one Old Style plus tip at Rainbo Club. Every bit helps, keeps this project going, and allows it to stay paywall-free. It’s rough out there, so it means the world you’re reading and supporting this writing project.

4 Albums Worth Your Time This Week

Liz Cooper, New Day

Great albums aren’t just collections of really good songs. They should also boast eclectic tunes that are stellar in drastically different ways, but cohesive enough to live comfortably as a singular body of work. Liz Cooper’s latest LP, New Day, passes this rubric with flying colors. It’s the first full-length in five years for the now-Vermont-based artist, and it feels like a reinvention. Across 10 undeniable tracks, it’s a masterclass in infectious hooks and vibrant, slyly psychedelic arrangements that she co-produced with Dan Molad. As a frontperson and bandleader, Cooper is explosive and charismatic, with personality-filled yet affecting writing. Two of its singles, “IDFK” and “Sorry (That I Love You),” transform melancholy into wistful pop bliss, with the latter featuring lines like, “Do you think about me? / I think I’m better now, I hope you’re better now,” Elsewhere, she channels Radiohead on the haunting string-laden, “Changes, and Feist on the cathartic “Boy Toy” and closer “Baby Steps.” Few records this year are as charming and impressive as Cooper’s breakthrough.

RIYL: Broken Social Scene, Crumb, doing your best work a decade into your career

Mod Lang, Borrowed Time

Power-pop has always thrived in the Midwest, but lately, a younger generation of bands here has carried the torch of Big Star, the dBs, and Teenage Fanclub better than most. Chicago boasts Sharp Pins and Joe Glass, and Good Flying Birds are from Indiana, but Detroit has Mod Lang. This quartet just released a scorcher debut of unfussy '60s-inspired rock’n’roll in Borrowed Time. Thing thing rips. Throughout the LP’s 10 tracks, pristine sing-along earworm choruses are matched by its rousing, propulsive, and crunchy jangle-pop riffs. Guitarists Antonio Keka and Alex Belfie share vocal duties, harmonizing with tangible precision on the single “TV Star” and the opener “What I Can’t Have.” Other tunes like “Those Words” add some Byrds-like breeziness, while “In the Morning” is a solid take on folksy balladry. By writing such sturdy and memorable pop songs, they avoid the kitschy trap that lesser groups fall into when making such self-consciously throwback music. This is the real deal, and I can’t wait to see it live.

RIYL: Sharp Pins, bands named after Big Star songs, the Beatles

Nashpaints, Everyone Good Is Called Molly

When the Irish musician Finn Carraher McDonald isn’t collaborating with his countrymen Princ€ss and Maria Somerville, he’s making music as Nashpaints. It’s a ghostly pop solo project that first released an LP in 2020, and now has followed it up with the gorgeous and beguiling Everyone Good Is Called Molly. It’s a patient and expansive album that comes to life via an undistracted headphones listen: you’ll be enveloped by the aqueous, hazy textures in the production and enthralled by the rich wealth of references from ‘60s girl groups, to ‘80s dream pop, ‘90s shoegaze, and the contemporary Copenhagen experimental-pop scene. Standouts like “Stretching” feature delicate arpeggios and cavernous reverb, “Boyfriend First” balloons near the seven-minute mark thanks to gnarly, fuzzed-out guitars, and “Desire” is anchored by a crystalline, chiming chord progression that feels like the Velvet Underground fed through a music box. Like Cindy Lee’s Diamond Jubilee, this is a deeply nostalgic record that pines for something that doesn’t exist. Alien and alive, it’s a mesmerizing and confounding full-length.

RIYL: Escho, Cindy Lee, buying records on Boomkat

Remember Sports, The Refrigerator

Last year, Remember Sports’ Carmen Perry collaborated with Friendship and Hour’s Michael Comier O’Leary on a fantastic solo album called Eyes Like a Mirror, focusing on her conversational lyrics, earthy instrumentation, and effortless pop-songwriting. Though her main band hasn’t released a record since 2021, they sound invigorated on February’s The Refrigerator, their best-yet release. Perry’s an expert at finding the intersection of anthemic and intimate, especially on the rollicking opener “Across the Line.” It’s a banger channeling late ‘90s pop rock with ample twang, and finds Perry singing, “Dried flowers spelling out for me, how? / You were just another face in the crowd.” While it’s a palette well mined by acts like Ratboys and Waxahatchee, Remember Sports carve out their own lane handily through these dozen tracks. “Bug” hearkens back to their early days as a punk band, while “Roadkill” is soft and sweet, showcasing their decade-plus evolution. There’s not a bad song here, a perfect example of a longtime band growing together and bettering themselves.

RIYL: Ratboys, all eras of Waxahatchee, Gladie

What I listened to:

The No Expectations 135 Playlist: Apple Music // Spotify // Tidal

1. Cola, “Hedgesitting”
2. Stuck, “Deadlift”
3. My New Band Believe, “Numerology”
4. Dialup Ghost, “Sunny Boy”
5. Liz Cooper, “Sorry (That I Love You)”
6. Remember Sports, “Across The Line”
7. Mikaela Davis, “(Looking Through) Rose Colored Glasses” (feat. Madison Cunningham)
8. Wendy Eisenberg, “Old Myth Dying”
9. Dean Johnson, “The Rapture”
10. Mod Lang, “Those Words”
11. Star Moles, “Time”
12. Tasha, “Little Sparrow”
13. Nashpaints, “Desire”
14. Alabaster Deplume, “It’s Only Now Once (Elbit Systems Windowpane)”
15. Yaya Bey, “Blue”

Gig recap: Margaux, Lucky Cloud at Hideout (2/20)

When I heard Margaux’s debut EP in 2019, I was floored. She put out a newsletter favorite LP with Inside the Marble in 2024 and I can’t wait to hear what releases next. While I’ve seen her perform in bands like Katy Kirby, Closebye, and Dougie Poole and play her own music solo in 2025, last Friday was my first time witnessing the full band experience. For a headlining set at Hideout, the now Philly-based songwriter brought bassist Conor Kenahan and drummer Zeb Stern to form her trio. It was a stunning, lovely set made even better by Friend of the Newsletter Chet Zenor of Lucky Cloud opening things up with a solo show. Both acts on the bill are exceptionally talented and two of the easiest people to root for in the industry. A perfect way to start a weekend.

What I watched:

No Other Choice (directed by Park Chan-wook)

Few directors are as stylistically inventive as Korea’s Park Chan-wook. From the simmering thriller of Decision to Leave, the tonally subversive DMZ drama Joint Security Area, and now that pitch-black gig economy satire No Other Choice, he’s an auteur at playing with the form and his audience’s expectations. This film begins with an idyllic family whose patriarch has devoted decades to a paper company that soon lays him off, as well as his team. He promises to find a new job within three months and fails. Faced with foreclosure, humiliation, and financial ruin, he turns to, uh, unconventional means to finally get hired. It’s a sometimes unbearably tense and cringe-inducing watch that totally nails the landing. Horrific as it is hilarious, no one’s doing it quite like Park Chan-wook.

What I read:

The End of Eddy (by Édouard Louis)

The French writer Édouard Louis first published his debut novel, a semi-autobiographical roman à clef called The End of Eddy, in 2014. It became a sensation in his home country, selling hundreds of thousands of copies before it was translated into English in 2017. It’s been on my list since then, and I finally got around to it this month. It follows Eddy Bellegueule, a child growing up poor and gay in a working-class suburb during the aughts. His father, a factory worker prone to drinking and violence, gets injured on the job. His mother quietly and not-so-quietly fumes at her situation. His classmates relentlessly bully him for being different. Where that sounds like an oppressively brutal read, Louis finds heart, insight, and healing in the most dire and depressing moments depicted in the novel. It’s a stunner of a book, one that eschews coming-of-age happy endings for something more complicated and human.

The Weekly Chicago Show Calendar:

The gig calendar lives on the WTTW News website. You can also subscribe to the newsletter I produce there called Daily Chicagoan to get it in your inbox a day early.

No Expectations hits inboxes on Thursdays at 9am cst. Reader mailbag email: Noexpectationsnewsletter@gmail.com. Daily Chicagoan, the local news newsletter I produce at my day job with WTTW News (PBS Chicago), can be found here.

Headline song: Mei Semones ft. Liana Flores, “Koneko”

Thanks for being here. I spent most of last week battling a cold. Now, I rarely get sick, but for some reason, this was the second time I came down with something so far in 2026. Where I used to joke that being 6’5 made me miss whatever bug is going around because I breathe different air, now I feel as lucky as Samuel L. Jackson in Unbreakable. I had to skip a show on Friday, but I deluded myself into thinking that I was symptom-free enough to go out for Valentine’s Day. By the following morning, I was back to square one, forced to relax and complain on the couch for a couple of days. It happens.

This was necessary and honestly pretty nice. It also worked! I’m not feeling run-down anymore, likely thanks to some combo of Mucinex, frequent water refills, and all the new music I checked out. Because I was mostly out of it, I gravitated towards softer, soothing, and intricate records. I devoured soul, jazz, folk, and ambient releases and largely avoided indie rock. Below, you’ll find just one rock album from a new favorite Chicago band, but the rest occupy a much more cosmic, low-key, and eclectic lane. Even if some LPs are outside your regular comfort zone, I promise you’ll find something worthwhile to dig into.

Here’s the spiel for new subscribers: Each week, you get a wildcard main essay (often new album recommendations), a 15-song playlist, as well as updates on what I’m listening to, watching, and reading. Sometimes you’ll get an interview with an artist I love, and other times it’ll be a deep dive into one band’s discography. Since I’m a Chicago-based writer, this newsletter is very Midwest-focused. So, if you live in this city too, you’ll also receive a curated roundup of upcoming local shows to check out.

Here’s where I politely ask for money: This newsletter is something I write in my spare time after work. It does not have a paywall and won’t for the foreseeable future due to the generosity of my readers. I am not in the business of gatekeeping. If you have the means and like what you read, I’d encourage you to sign up for a paid subscription. If your budget is tight, telling a friend about a band you found out about here is just as good. You can also post about No Expectations and say nice things. That works too. It’s still $5 a month—the cost of one Old Style plus tip at Rainbo Club. Every bit helps, keeps this project going, and allows it to stay paywall-free. It’s rough out there, so it means the world you’re reading and supporting this writing project.

4 Albums Worth Your Time This Week

Feller, Sound Colored Penny

Whenever a beloved Chicago band calls it quits, you can count on its members to start their own exciting project. In the case of Cafe Racer, which disbanded in 2023, you can get a perfect sampler of the city’s indie rock scene from what came after. Its former roster now plays in newsletter favorite bands to name just a few, like Ulna (Adam Schubert), Junegrass (Andrew Harper), REZN (Rob McWilliams), Century Sound (Michael Santana), and Waxahatchee/MJ Lenderman (Colin Croom). Add former bassist Pete Willson to this list, as his band Feller has one of the city’s best debut LPs in recent memory. This trio’s been playing gigs since the summer of 2023, and they’re known for their raucous, ripping sets. Their 2024 EP, Universal Miracle Worker, released via the essential Fire Talk imprint Angel Tapes, showcased that ferocity perfectly. Their first proper album, Sound Colored Penny, keeps the frantic energy intact while tightening up the hooks and earworm melodies. No longer content to just shred, these songs are remarkably dynamic. Single “Penny Farthing” is delicate, with aching falsetto and bright arpeggios, while “Marys Perfume” is explosive and unrelenting. For a three-piece, they cover so much indie rock territory and make ample noise within just 25-minutes.

RIYL: Full-lengths under 30 minutes, the Empty Bottle, if the Sea and Cake were a post-punk band

Momoko Gill, Momoko

Momoko Gill has been a fixture of London’s sprawling jazz community, mostly as one of its most in-demand drummers and collaborators. She’s guested with Alabaster DePlume and Tirzah, but in 2025, embarked on her own with the collaborative LP, Clay, which she made with the acclaimed DJ Matthew Herbert. She teams up again with Herbert for Momoko, her proper solo debut. It’s 11 tracks of breezy soul, sinuous jazz, and occasionally, staticky electronics and brooding strings that evoke the cutting-edge Copenhagen left-field pop scene. Gill is a striking singer, with a warm, welcoming, and enveloping croon that dances over these lush arrangements. A descending piano chord progression anchors the melancholic “2close2farr” while a looping cascade of violins gives the haunting “Anyway, I’m Drowning” its propulsive core. On the patient banger “No Others,” a plucky bass line and a ricocheting percussion section give it a rich complexity. She manages to tread an exceptional tightrope here: making songs that are so inviting you could confidently show anyone, but interesting and unpredictable enough to impress the most seasoned listener.

RIYL: Astrid Sonne, Tirzah, NTS Radio

Nilza Costa, Cantigas

Few artists can traverse musical borders as seamlessly as Nilza Costa. Born in Salvador, the capital city of the Brazilian state of Bahia, she comes from a Yoruba family and has lived in Bologna, Italy, since 2006. In her hypnotic and commanding music that draws from jazz, samba, jùjú, and funk, she combines the musical traditions of all her homes into something singular and stunning. Her latest album, Cantigas, finds her singing in Yoruba, Kimbundu, and Brazilian Portuguese. Each song is imbued with a galvanizing spiritual gravitas and a patient, almost prayer-like devotion to repetition and groove. Backed by a crew of Italian backing players, Costa’s voice soars on tracks like the shapeshifting, mesmerizing “Ogum suite,” and the smoldering “Logunede.” But on the lovely “Oxumare,” she glides over a smooth, near-loungey composition. This is a jaw-dropping record that had me transfixed from the first listen.

RIYL: Afro-Brazilian folk traditions, percussion-forward arrangements, patient jazz

Tomeka Reid, dance! skip! hop!

For the past two decades, cellist Tomeka Reid has been a staple of Chicago’s innovative jazz community. She’s the founder of the Chicago Jazz String Summit, a 2022 MacArthur Fellow, a commanding composer, and one of the most thrillingly surprising improvisers working today. I’ve been lucky to see her perform in various contexts over the years at Hungry Brain, Constellation, and Millennium Park. She’s relentlessly prolific and always seems to be on tour, but her latest LP, dance! skip! hop!, is an absolute joy. Enlisting her frequent quartet collaborators, guitarist Mary Halvorson, bassist Jason Roebke, and drummer Tomas Fujiwara, she leads these virtuosos through five rhythmically dense and knotty instrumentals. These songs all pop with nervy energy, settle into mesmerizing grooves, and spread out over six minutes. This band has developed such a lived-in chemistry that every moment of interplay between these stellar musicians feels like magic. It’s a lively, accessible jazz record to lift your spirits.

RIYL: unpredictable grooves, lived-in chemistry, jazz to make you dance

What I listened to:

The No Expectations 134 Playlist: Apple Music // Spotify* // Tidal

1. Resavoir, “Memories of Dreams”
2. Red PK, “Get Down”
3. Kevin Morby, “Javelin”
4. Blueberry Betty, “Little Pilot”
5. Feller, “Penny Farthing”
6. Chet Sounds, “Cut from a Different Cloth”
7. Stereolab, “Cloud Land”
8. Gregory Uhlmann, “Burnt Toast”
9. Mei Semones (feat. Liana Flores), “Koneko”
10. Molina, “Golden Brown Sugar”
11. Momoko Gill, “No Others
12. Nilza Costa, “Ogum suite”
13. Spencer Cullum (feat. Erin Rae), “Look at the Moon”
14. Sam Blasucci, “Delicadeza”
15. Tomeka Reid (feat. Jason Roebke, Mary Halvorson & Tomas Fujiwara), “Silver Spring Fig Tree”

*Tomeka Reid’s dance! skip! hop! is not on Spotify.

What I watched:

My Father’s Shadow (directed by Akinola Davies Jr.)

Over the weekend, the British-Nigerian director Akinola Davies Jr.’s debut film My Father’s Shadow hit Chicago’s Gene Siskel Film Center. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard competition, becoming the first Nigerian film to be chosen for the festival's Official Selection. After watching this gorgeously shot, intimate, and heartwrenching movie, I’m stunned it didn’t earn any Oscar nominations. It’s a loosely autobiographical story that follows two young siblings, Aki and Remi, who take a day trip with their father to Lagos. Set against the backdrop of Nigeria’s pivotal 1993 presidential election, which was illegally annulled by the country’s military dictatorship, Davies Jr. masterfully balances the subtle familial dynamics and tensions with the political tumult surrounding them. There are a few scenes that boast some of the most beautiful cinematography I’ve ever seen, plus a jaw-dropping score from Duval Timothy and CJ Mirra. You’ll likely be reminded of Aftersun here, but I’d argue this is the better and more devastating film.

What I read:

The Years (by Annie Ernaux)

Since the mid ‘70s, the French writer Annie Ernaux has become one of the world’s premier memoirists, winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2022 thanks to “the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory.” 2008’s The Years, which was published in English in 2017, is widely considered her masterwork. For good reason, too. I read it over the weekend and haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. Ernaux traces her life from 1941 to 2006, weaving in so much historical, political, and cultural context next to her razor-sharp personal revelations and observations that it works as a collective autobiography. She gives subjective, inward emotions global stakes and writes sentences so lucid and searing that some will likely stick with me for years. It’s my first foray into Ernaux’s writing, but it certainly won’t be my last.

The Weekly Chicago Show Calendar:

The gig calendar lives on the WTTW News website. You can also subscribe to the newsletter I produce there called Daily Chicagoan to get it in your inbox a day early.

No Expectations hits inboxes on Thursdays at 9am cst. Reader mailbag email: Noexpectationsnewsletter@gmail.com. Daily Chicagoan, the local news newsletter I produce at my day job with WTTW News (PBS Chicago), can be found here.

Headline song: Lala Lala, “Arrow”

Thanks for being here. It’s the 43rd day of the year, and I still haven’t fully settled into 2026. It’s weird. I’m hitting my deadlines for both No Expectations and my day job, and I like how everything’s turned out. In my free time, I’m seeing friends. I’ve eased back into regularly going to shows, and I’ve already made it through a few books. I’m listening to more new music, exploring new-to-me genres, and have even managed to cram in a bunch of sports to watch so I can unwind. Everything’s great on paper, but the vibes are slightly askew.

I’m not alone here. From talking to my buds and reading my favorite newsletters recently, it’s clear that ambient dread and anxiety are permeating. Even when things might be going well, few people in my life seem to be doing well. In my case, it’s 100% because I’ve been on my phone too much. Even though I frequently write about being more intentional in how I spend time online, it’s still a struggle. News headlines bring unimaginable horrors straight to my notifications. Scrolling social media introduces me to a clownish parade of uber-confident pundits with a limitless capacity for self-delusion. Much of the rest is AI slop or endless vertical video content. I know it sucks to look at, but I can’t help myself sometimes.

I’m doing fine, but I’d be much worse off without this creative outlet. Sure, I have to use a laptop, and much of the research requires an internet connection, but writing this blog allows me to focus on the good things I experience every week. What made me feel alive? What interested me? What did I learn about other people from reading this book, watching this movie, or listening to this album? Can I put into words how this art moved me, and can I convince others it’s worthwhile? It feels healthy to think about these things every week. Writing it all down is grounding, too. While I’m inclined to make a “men will literally start a weekly indie rock newsletter instead of going to therapy” joke here (therapy’s great too!), I really think having some sort of artistic project or hobby is important. Nurturing your curiosity, surrounding yourself with things that remind you of your own humanity, and making something are balms for any time, especially when things feel overwhelming.

Here’s the spiel for new subscribers: Each week, you get a wildcard main essay (often new album recommendations), a 15-song playlist, as well as updates on what I’m listening to, watching, and reading. Sometimes you’ll get an interview with an artist I love, and other times it’ll be a deep dive into one band’s discography. Since I’m a Chicago-based writer, this newsletter is very Midwest-focused. So, if you live in this city too, you’ll also receive a curated roundup of upcoming local shows to check out.

Here’s where I politely ask for money: This newsletter is something I write in my spare time after work. It does not have a paywall and won’t for the foreseeable future due to the generosity of my readers. I am not in the business of gatekeeping. If you have the means and like what you read, I’d encourage you to sign up for a paid subscription. If your budget is tight, telling a friend about a band you found out about here is just as good. You can also post about No Expectations and say nice things. That works too. It’s still $5 a month—the cost of one Old Style plus tip at Rainbo Club. Every bit helps, keeps this project going, and allows it to stay paywall-free. It’s rough out there, so it means the world you’re reading and supporting this writing project.

4 Albums Worth Your Time This Week

Jo Passed, Away

Artists can and should take as much time as they need between records. It’s not a race, and these things take time. Musicians don’t owe their fans new tunes, and their health should always come first before a grueling album cycle. Jo Hirabayashi, the Canadian songwriter behind the adventurous indie rock project Jo Passed, released his debut LP in 2018 and followed it up in January with the spectacular full-length Away. Even with a six-year break, Hirabayashi’s atmospheric and unpredictable indie rock still sounds as invigorating as ever. On the Pixies-evoking “Too Much Tonight,” foreboding strings pockmark a jittery guitar riff as Hirabayashi’s airy croon anchors the nervy arrangement. As a singer, he’s a welcoming and soft touch, like Andy Shauf, Elliott Smith, or the dude from Silversun Pickups. But it’s his compositions and prowess as a bandleader that truly propel the material here. Single “Ico” boasts a wobbling electronic beat that’s both mesmerizing and pummeling, while standout “339” soars with saxophone skronk from Vancouver’s Andromeda Monk. This is a deeply rewarding and surprising record that shouldn’t go under your radar.

RIYL: Tasteful alt-rock, taking your time, spacey jangle

Mandy, Indiana, URGH

No matter how many things are going on in a Mandy, Indiana track, it’s clear that this is a band where percussion is the lead instrument. Each song contains rhythms so dense and disorienting that it’s hypnotic. The Manchester-based band is somewhere between club music at its most caustic and noise rock at its most danceable. On URGH, their second LP and first with Sacred Bones Records, they add even more scorching intensity, harsh electronics, and off-kilter drumming to an already winning formula. On the single and live staple “Magazine,” skittering, jackhammer beats dissolve into a squall as Valentine Caulfield shouts in French. Elsewhere, “Cursive” features frenzied, boiling synths while “Sicko!” gets an assist from rapper Billy Woods. Beyond that guest appearance, the only time you’ll hear English lyrics comes in the snarling, righteous closer “I’ll Ask Her,” which is a searingly lucid take on sexual violence that turns rage into catharsis. Inventive, raw, and unrelenting, I bet I’ll revisit this throughout the year.

RIYL: Percussion as lead instrument, music that makes you want to run through a wall

Ratboys, Singin’ to an Empty Chair

Ratboys might be Chicago’s easiest band to root for. I’ve been writing about them for over a decade, and witnessing them refine and expand their anthemic and sturdy brand of indie rock has been such a joy. Where the sonic shift from their 2015 debut, AOID, to this year’s masterful Singin’ to an Empty Chair is striking, each record in between has been a patient but tangible evolution. They’ve done everything right and should be a model for similarly-minded groups looking for longevity and intra-band chemistry over blowing up quickly. After over a decade, this record feels like a true breakthrough moment for the quartet, thanks to the compelling earworms that make up its 11 tracks. With production from Chris Walla (Death Cab for Cutie), these songs sound massive from the lilting twang on “The World, So Madly” and the frantic shredding of the six-minute “Light Night Mountains All That.” As a frontperson, Friend of the Newsletter Julia Steiner is electric. She’s a warm singer and an earnest lyricist, who coos, “Will you look me in the eye / And promise that you'll stay with me / 'Til the sand meets the sky?” on the song-of-the-year contender “What’s Right.” This is how indie rock should be.

RIYL: Open-hearted indie rock, friendship, Wild Pink

Ulrika Spacek, EXPO

Formed in Reading and based in London, Ulrika Spacek makes art-rock that gleefully and tastefully blurs the lines between psychedelic, post-punk, and electronic music. Their last effort, Compact Trauma, was one of 2023’s clear-cut standouts, and their latest, EXPO, is sure to continue the streak in 2026. Darting and dizzying percussion, along with a brooding, angular riff, buoy the woozy single “Picto” while breathy pops of synth illuminate the hazy “Weights & Measures.” Whether there are glitchy digital textures or organic live in the room instrumentation, it all sounds pristine and intentional throughout these 11 songs. For all the freewheeling sonic experimentation, there’s a graspable pop core here throughout, especially on the smoky and hooky “Build a Box and Break It.” Few bands since Stereolab and Sonic Youth are making songs as immersive, heady, and intricately rendered as Ulrika Spacek.

RIYL: The bleep-bloop Radiohead songs, Squid, Sonic Youth

What I listened to:

The No Expectations 133 Playlist: Apple Music // Spotify* // Tidal

1. Conic Rose, “twist”
2. Mandy, Indiana, “try saying”
3. Robber Robber, “Watch For Infection”
4. Ulrika Spacek, “Weights & Measures”
5. Lala Lala, “Arrow”
6. Jo Passed, “339”
7. Suitor, “Factory”
8. Gia Margaret, “Everyone Around Me Dancing”
9. Whitney Johnson, Lia Kohl, Macie Stewart, “dawn | pulse”
10. En Kernaghan Band, “Don’t Be Scared”
11. The Clearwater Swimmers, “Landline”
12. Natalie Jane Hill - Colors
13. The Fruit Trees, “Teeth”
14. beaming, “say goodbye”
15. Ratboys, “What’s Right?”

*Note: The Clearwater Swimmers are not on Spotify.

Gig recap: Dean Johnson, Lily Seabird at Schubas (2/6)

There’s a new Lily Seabird record on the way. It’s fully written and tracked, and she played only new tracks while opening up for Dean Johnson last Friday. The Burlington songwriter has been a staple of this newsletter’s recommendations since early 2023, and this collection of songs is undoubtedly her strongest yet. She played some early versions of the tracks for my girlfriend and me before the show, and we were both floored. As she played them live in a totally solo context, we still could hum along even though we only heard them once. Headliner Dean Johnson, a Seattle lifer and folk crooner, released his debut record in 2023 at 50, and last year followed up with the excellent I Hope We Can Still Be Friends. Imagine if one of the Everly Brothers was also the funniest, most popular guy at your local dive bar, and you’ll get something close to the show. A true pro, a genius at stage banter, and a phenomenal crooner, he encored with a song that didn’t make the last album called “The Rapture,” which brought the house down.

What I watched:

The Secret Agent (directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho)

Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho used to be a movie critic who has now become one of his country’s foremost auteurs, whose films highlight people trying to make do in oppressive conditions. His last narrative feature, Bacurau, was a thrilling and violent sci-fi western showcasing a village in Pernambuco fighting back against bloodthirsty tourists. In his follow-up, the Academy Award-nominated The Secret Agent, the violence is ever-present, even if it’s not always shown on screen. An electrifying Wagner Moura plays a university researcher in 1977, under Brazil’s military dictatorship, who ends up on a police watchlist and has to flee for his life in Recife. It’s a tense watch throughout, but it’s much deeper, playful, and affecting than a straightforward political thriller. If Moura doesn’t get the Best Actor Oscar, I’ll be mad.

What I read:

America, América: A New History of the New World (by Greg Grandin)

I’m fudging this entry a bit: I actually read Greg Grandin’s excellent and sprawling book America, América: A New History of the New World over the holidays. It’s nearly 800 pages, and there’s no way I could get through it on a weekly deadline. Because the newsletter was on hiatus, I never got around to writing about it. I wrapped up a different book on Tuesday,* but Bad Bunny’s astoundingly good Super Bowl Halftime show last Sunday allows me to recommend this sweeping five-century chronicle of the Americas. It’s a book that argues how inseparable and enmeshed Latin American history is with the United States. After all, most of the historical Latin American revolutions were directly inspired by my country’s. From the horrifically brutal Spanish conquerors to the present day, from Simón Bolívar and the Mexican Revolution to the Monroe Doctrine and Cold War foreign policy, Grandin exhaustively details the hemisphere’s tumultuous evolution. It’s illuminating reading, both to learn more about how the USA’s past and futures intersect with our Southern neighbors and how what was then-called the New World became what we live in today.

With this context in mind, and as a genuine fan of his music, I found Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny’s defiant and joyful Super Bowl Halftime Show really moving. It’s honestly my favorite since Prince had the honor. Rich with imagery and symbolism, the performance moves from a casista to a boda and a bodega. He dances on exploding telephone poles, highlighting Puerto Rico’s energy crisis, waves his island’s independence flag, and closes the 13-minute spectacle with a “God Bless America” and a jubiliant procession of flags from the hemisphere. It’s a beautiful message and visual stunner alone, but it helps that all the songs are undeniable bangers. “The only thing stronger than hate is love,” indeed.

*= The book I read this week was Milton Mayer’s They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45. I skipped writing about it this week because I blurbed Robert O. Paxton’s The Anatomy of Fascism last time. It’s good to change things up.

The Weekly Chicago Show Calendar:

The gig calendar lives on the WTTW News website now. You can also subscribe to the newsletter I produce there called Daily Chicagoan to get it in your inbox a day early.

No Expectations hits inboxes on Thursdays at 9am cst. Reader mailbag email: Noexpectationsnewsletter@gmail.com. Daily Chicagoan, the local news newsletter I produce at my day job with WTTW News (PBS Chicago), can be found here.

Headline song: Ratboys, “Penny in the Lake”

Thanks for being here. Minutes after publishing last Thursday’s newsletter, where I complained about finding only three albums I loved enough to write about, each LP I heard that day felt like a future classic. New ones I’d missed became great discoveries, full-lengths I checked out weeks ago finally clicked, and some of the records I’m most excited about were finally released. I’ve highlighted a few of them below, but I’m saving the rest for next time and beyond. It’s already shaping up to be another great year for independent music.

Lately, I’ve been limiting myself to, at max, five new LPs a week for No Expectations. I plan to keep it that way. Last year, I’d blurb eight to 12 releases some Thursdays, and it was admittedly a bit unsustainable. If you’re like me, you probably subscribe to a ton of newsletters, and you don’t always have time to devote to a close reading of each one. Life gets in the way. If I’m hitting you with a dozen albums weekly more often than not, it gets overwhelming. It’s 1). Silly to expect that most readers are listening to everything 2). Literally no one was asking to hear that many new full-lengths a week, 3). The lesser-known bands I frequently cover might get buried in the mix if there’s too much also recommended, and 4). It keeps me from stressing myself out getting the blog posted. Since I instituted this super minor change, I think the writing’s sharper now, the suggested LPs feel more thoughtfully curated, and I’m having more fun than ever compiling it all.

I’m about to have a pretty crammed weekend: a dinner tonight, a show on Friday, and a friend’s party on Saturdfay. Sundays are usually when I set aside time to listen and plan what I’ll write later in the week. With this one, I’m fully booked to watch sports. There’s Liverpool and Manchester City in the morning, the winter Olympics and a few other European soccer matches in the afternoon, and then the Super Bowl, which hopefully results in a Seahawks win. The only music I’m expecting to hear that day is likely either in a commercial or the Bad Bunny halftime show, which, to be fair, is also an ad for Apple. This is why I’m saving some recommended albums for later. Even if the Patriots win and I somehow drink a million beers during the big game in despair, there will still be some stellar LPs featured next Thursday.

Here’s the spiel for new subscribers: Each week, you get a wildcard main essay (often new album recommendations), a 15-song playlist, as well as updates on what I’m listening to, watching, and reading. Sometimes you’ll get an interview with an artist I love, and other times it’ll be a deep dive into one band’s discography. Since I’m a Chicago-based writer, this newsletter is very Midwest-focused. So, if you live in this city too, you’ll also receive a curated roundup of upcoming local shows to check out.

Here’s where I politely ask for money: This newsletter is something I write in my spare time after work. It does not have a paywall and won’t for the foreseeable future due to the generosity of my readers. I am not in the business of gatekeeping. If you have the means and like what you read, I’d encourage you to sign up for a paid subscription. If your budget is tight, telling a friend about a band you found out about here is just as good. You can also post about No Expectations and say nice things. That works too. It’s still $5 a month—the cost of one Old Style plus tip at Rainbo Club. Every bit helps, keeps this project going, and allows it to stay paywall-free. It’s rough out there, so it means the world you’re reading and supporting this writing project.

5 Albums Worth Your Time This Week

Dry Cleaning, Secret Love

South London post-punk outfit Dry Cleaning released 2026’s first universally acclaimed LP with their third effort, Secret Love. I should’ve written about it when it came out. I instantly loved the lead single and opener “Hit My All Day,” but the other pre-release tracks didn’t grab me until I heard them all in the context of the whole. While it took me a while to fully wrap my head around the immersive and masterful art rock that the band achieves on this record, it’s been the one I’ve revisited most to start the year. Recorded in spurts between Jeff Tweedy’s The Loft in Chicago, as well as studios in Dublin and the Loire Valley with producer Cate Le Bon, this is an LP that excels at brooding world-building, wry humor, and genuinely surprising instrumental flourishes. Bandleader Florence Shaw oscillates between a laconic spoken word delivery and stunning singing. On the funny and sarcastic “My Soul / Half Pint,” she takes on the gender disparity in domestic labor as she intones, “I feel resentment in my soul / Maybe it’s time for men to clean for like, five hundred years.” Elsewhere, the righteous and haunting “Blood” tackles witnessing horrors on the phone, drone warfare, and desensitization. When it truly shines is when the band indulges their poppiest sensibilities, like on the twangy and buoyant “The Cute Things.” This is a record that becomes more rewarding as you allow yourself to get on its wavelength.

RIYL: Cate Le Bon, Life Without Buildings, Porridge Radio

Hazel City, goblynmarkytt

Clay Frankel, the Chicago-based songwriter best known for his bands Twin Peaks and Grapetooth, has been exploring intimate and openhearted folk music since 2023 under the moniker Hazel City. It’s been a gorgeous and strikingly low-key direction for Frankel, combining his proclivity for memorable melodies with his capacity for gutpunch emotional resonance. With the just-released goblynmarkytt, Frankel follows up his gorgeous debut, Old Friend, with a much more lush and collaborative full-length. The first voice you hear on opener “Bat” isn’t Frankel’s, it’s Free Range’s Sofia Jensen. Throughout the LP, other guest singers like Squirrel Flower’s Ella Williams, Angeleyes’ Emily Neale, and Lileana Moore appear throughout the tracklist, harmonizing with Frankel or taking lead vocal duties entirely. The writing, especially on songs like “Fifteen,” is some of the rawest of Frankel’s oeuvre, and the dreamlike “Cotton” might be his most beautiful song yet. While it rarely rises above a whisper, it leaves a lasting impression.

RIYL: Chicago, Midwestern vulnerability, Andy Shauf

Marta Del Grandi, Dream Life

Dream Life, the latest LP from the rising Italian auteur Marta Del Grandi, is as playful as it is inventive. It’s 10 tracks of off-kilter and unfussy indie pop that, while deceptively simple on first listen, reveals new joyful sonic wrinkles the more you dig into it. Her voice is bright and welcoming as she sings of climate anxiety on the rollicking funk of “Antarctica,” but delicate and wistful on the title track. “Gold Mine” broadcasts her deftness at left-field arrangements while the folksy “Alpha Centauri” culminates in cathartic harmonies. Woodwinds, horns, and squiggly synths pockmark the compositions, imbuing life-affirming color to the entire LP. You can hear shades of Kate Bush, the ambitious vocal harmonies of Finom, and the avant-garde experimentalism of Laurie Anderson here. It’s an absolute delight, front-to-back.

RIYL: Núria Graham, Dirty Projectors, Talking Heads

Sunday Mourners, A-Rhythm Absolute

Curation Records is the California label behind some stellar LPs by Pacific Range, Silver Synthentic, and Sean Thompson’s Weird Ears. Where much of their roster can be described as “excellent, jam-minded rock that’s indebted to the Grateful Dead,” Los Angeles quartet Sunday Mourners take more cues from C86, Flying Nun Records, and Pavement. It’s a tried-and-true formula that’s given a dose of needed energy and verve on the band’s latest LP, A-Rhythm Absolute. 10 tracks of blistering jangle and frantic yet breezy post-punk, the band also adds in some Meet Me in the Bathroom swagger into these herky-jerky anthems. It’s recorded with such a piercing intensity that it’s obvious this is a locked-in live band. Tracks like “Biograph” are searing and wonky, while “Darling,” despite stretching out for over 12 minutes, is compelling and explosive throughout. Despite the onslaught of klanging riffs and frenetic arrangements, frontman Quinn A. Robinson has a Sharp Pins-level knack for an infectious hook (“Love Observations”) but a scathing wit to boot. On opener “Careers in Acting,” he snarls over buzzsaw guitars, “Don’t make it big on the internet / It won’t help you / Gonna take up careers in acting / It won’t help you.” The whole thing rules.

RIYL: Kiwi Jr., Gang of Four, Television

Tyler Ballgame, For The First Time, Again

For The First Time, Again is such a relentlessly charming debut record that it forced me to confront some of my own ill-considered knee-jerk reactions. Like books by their cover, I know you shouldn’t judge a musical act by its artist name, but I still do. (In his defense, he was born Tyler Perry, which probably explains why he’s going by a nom de plume.) I also tend to get suspicious when I see artists, who’ve yet to release their first album, mentioned everywhere: either in the press, on festival bookings, on social media, or on streaming apps. (To be fair, I probably just noticed it because his name is Tyler Ballgame.) A Rhode Island native who dropped out of Berklee, he found initial success thanks to his powerful, rangy, and sometimes operatic voice at Los Angeles open mics. Now, armed with an immaculate falsetto, a commanding charisma with a flair for vocal theatrics, and tasteful arrangements that translate a warm ‘70s-indebted palette, his first album is a joy. Where he’s garnered comparisons to Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, and at least two Beatles, his dynamism as a frontman and singer carries the material from never falling into pastiche. Sure, it’s purposefully retro and mines a familiar well of American musical traditions, but songs like the breezy “Matter of Taste” are incredibly galvanizing. Elsewhere, “Got a New Car” floats like a dream while “I Know” highlights his versatility in nailing downtempo balladry. Produced by Jonathan Rado, a master of guiding artists into making classic sounds uniquely their own, this is a full-length that will disarm you.

RIYL: Classic crooning, really belting it out, music you can send to your parents

What I listened to:

The No Expectations 132 Playlist: Apple Music // Spotify // Tidal

1. Ratboys, “Penny in the Lake”
2. Pileup, “Going Away”
3. Sunday Mourners, “Biograph”
4. Dry Cleaning, “My Soul / Half Pint”
5. Marta Del Grandi, “Antarctica”
6. Dialup Ghost, “Soot Sprite”
7. Wendy Eisenberg, “Meaning Business”
8. Star Moles, “Overdog”
9. Accessory, “Calcium”
10. Hiding Places, “Waiting”
11. Virga, “The Ditch”
12. Hazel City, “Cotton”
13. Tyler Ballgame, “Got a New Car”
14. Friko, “Seven Degrees”
15. Gregory Uhlmann, “Lucia”

Gig recap: Friendship, Natalie Jane Hill, Krill 2 at Empty Bottle (1/29)

Caveman Wakes Up, the fifth studio LP from the conversational and perceptive Philly folk rock band Friendship, was one of my favorite 2025 albums. Another personal highlight of that year came from my Taste Profile interview with frontman Dan Wriggins. I had to miss their Chicago stop at Schubas last fall due to illness, but nothing was going to stop me from missing their headlining show at my neighborhood venue. I try to go into attending gigs without expecting or hoping bands will play particular tunes, but I have to admit I was thrilled when they launched into “Betty Ford” so quickly into their set. Alongside solo opening acts like Natalie Jane Hill (whose forthcoming LP Hopeful Woman will be a 2026 highlight) and Chicago’s Krill 2, it was another perfect night at the Empty Bottle.

What I watched:

It Was Just an Accident (directed by Jafar Panahi)

After several arrests and internments due to his opposition to the repressive theocracy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Iranian director Jafar Panahi films his movies in secret in his home country. He refuses to submit his scripts to government censors, keeps his cast, who are mostly nonprofessional actors, in the dark on plots for their protection, but still manages to be one of the most acclaimed working auteurs alive. His latest film, It Was Just an Accident, which won the Cannes Palme d’Or in 2025 and is nominated for two Oscars, is a miracle. While it’s the kind of movie that’s worth going in with as little knowledge of the premise as possible, it clearly takes inspiration from Panahi’s years in captivity and his resilience out of it. At times, the film is uproariously funny, unbearably tense, and deeply sad, but it’s consistently humane and irrepressibly essential throughout—an undeniable top-five release from last year.

What I read:

The Anatomy of Fascism (by Robert O. Paxton)

While not a particularly fun or light read, Robert O. Paxton’s lean 2004 book The Anatomy of Fascism is one of the most-well regarded and authoritative introductory texts on the subject. Published while the now-retired 94-year-old Columbia professor was 72, it’s a still illuminating and lucid look at what fascism is, how it became prominent in Europe during the early 20th century, how it looked in action in Nazi Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, and elsewhere, how it failed, and how it could manifest in the future. What was striking about Paxton’s approach was his focus on fascism in action and in power over political promises and clear-cut ideology, as well as the way he elucidated how fascism manifested itself in drastically different ways depending on the country and context in which it took root. Both an efficient history and a carefully considered book-length argument, it’s essential reading for those trying to learn about the past and those looking to be precise in applying such a historically and culturally loaded term to the present day. It’s been on my list for at least a decade, and I’m embarrassed to admit it took me so long to get around to it. Maybe I thought it’d be too dense, emotionally daunting, or academic. Whatever it was, I was wrong. Despite my years-long hesitation, I’m glad I made the leap.

The Weekly Chicago Show Calendar:

The gig calendar lives on the WTTW News website now. You can also subscribe to the newsletter I produce there called Daily Chicagoan to get it in your inbox a day early.

Subscribe now

No Expectations hits inboxes on Thursdays at 9am cst. Reader mailbag email: Noexpectationsnewsletter@gmail.com. Daily Chicagoan, the local news newsletter I produce at my day job with WTTW News (PBS Chicago), can be found here.

Headline song: Stuck, “Instakill”

Thanks for being here. January’s a weird month for new releases. While you can always bank on a handful of great LPs, especially awesome post-punk records for some reason, it’s usually a fairly light few weeks. After I published last Thursday’s newsletter, I knew I’d be writing today about the three albums recommended below. Minutes after pressing play on each one, I was immediately floored.

Coming off the euphoric rush of hearing these great full-lengths, I kept listening for something else that just came out to add to the tally. Nothing grabbed me. I double checked the release calendar, visited my favorite blogs, streamed some curated playlists I usually love, and went through most of my email’s LP promo backlog. Though I found some gems, most of what I really loved isn’t out yet, and it’ll have to wait. It got so bad that I even tried out some streaming service-made new music mixes, which were mostly awful. I heard enough “just fine” to outright mediocre songs to realize that highlighting just three stellar LPs is totally fine. There’s no point in writing about something I’m only sorta digging to fill some imaginary quota. It’ll pick up as the year goes on.

As someone who runs a weekly newsletter highlighting new albums from independent artists, it’s pretty tough to get into a musical rut. Because of this writing project, I’m exposed to so much that it’s overwhelming (you do not want to see how many pitches I get a day). If I’m not thrilled by what I’m hearing, I can easily listen to something else or revisit an LP I already love. But one way I like to change things up is to dive into a curated, person-made playlist from a genre I’m not already well-versed in. It’s a needed palate cleanser, and it jolts me into moments of genuine surprise. By not knowing exactly what’s going on or what’s being referenced, immersing myself in a totally new thing can rewire my brain and get me excited about music again.

Whenever I feel a little burnt out by the endless cycle of new releases, I’ve been turning to platforms like NTS Radio for a breather over the past few years. It’s been around since 2011 and is likely not a new discovery for most of my readers, but it remains a vital personal source of discovery. This week, in between unsuccessful attempts to find another cool record to write about for No Expectations, I devoured a mix curated by rapper Bananasoverdose of pre-Civil War Somalian funk (shoutout Dur-Dur Band), an hour of incredible soul music selected by a Detroit vinyl store, Ginkgo Records, and a set of Mexican disco from the ‘70s and ‘80s. Beyond the albums featured below, that was the most fun I had listening all week. If you’re ever feeling stuck, try something totally new that’s outside your regular zone.

Here’s the spiel for new subscribers: Each week, you get a wildcard main essay (often new album recommendations), a 15-song playlist, as well as updates on what I’m listening to, watching, and reading. Sometimes you’ll get an interview with an artist I love, and other times it’ll be a deep dive into one band’s discography. Since I’m a Chicago-based writer, this newsletter is very Midwest-focused. So, if you live in this city too, you’ll also receive a curated roundup of upcoming local shows to check out.

Here’s where I politely ask for money: No Expectations does not have a paywall and won’t for the foreseeable future due to the generosity of my readers. I am not in the business of gatekeeping. If you have the means and like what you read, you can sign up for a paid subscription. If your budget is tight, telling a friend about a band you found out about here is just as good. You can also post about the newsletter and say nice things. That works too. It’s still $5 a month—the cost of one Old Style plus tip at Rainbo Club. Every bit helps, keeps this project going, and allows it to stay paywall-free. It’s rough out there, so it means the world you’re reading and supporting this writing project.

3 Albums Worth Your Time This Week

Greaseface, Brick & Mortar

Over the past few years, I’ve been writing about bands from Burlington, VT, like Greg Freeman, Robber Robber, Lily Seabird, Dead Shakers, and Dari Bay. Whenever I talk to one of them about their local scene, inevitably Greaseface come up as one of their city’s premier bands. They’re a punk-leaning art-rock trio of childhood friends who make propulsive, off-kilter rippers. They’re beloved by the artists I regularly write about and are pillars of the New England DIY community. Brick & Mortar is the group’s first full-length album since 2020, but it sounds so massive, kinetic, and vital that it makes up for lost time. These songs are taut and nervy, skittering from wiry grooves (“It’s the Same”) to squalling aggression (“Needing Nothing”). The band enlists Robber Robber guitarist Will Krulak to provide leads and riffs throughout, while Greg Freeman collaborator Cam Gilmour contributes sax on the psychedelic “Napkin Calc.” One listen through this explosive and unpredictable record, and it’s obvious why they’re so revered among the true indie rock heads of their hometown.

RIYL: Pile, Burlington, VT, Ovlov

Shaking Hand, Shaking Hand

For a band that’s presumably named after one of Women’s best songs, it’s no shock that their spidery riffs, winding jams, and clanging arrangements result in one of the best indie rock debuts and guitar records I’ve heard in a long time. Shaking Hand is a trio from Manchester whose brand of post-punk is lush, melodic, and wholly mesmerizing. Listening to the seven sturdy songs here, it’s a shock that just three people make music this full-throated and absorbing. The tracks undulate and often stretch out past the five-minute mark, never wasting a second. Where much of this band’s genre peers make music that’s icy and claustrophobic, their version is galvanizing and often danceable. Just take the sprawling “Up the Ante(lope),” which morphs so frequently yet so seamlessly, it’s a thrill, especially as it dissolves into a wonky extended instrumental section. For all the tasteful guitar theatrics and labyrinthian rhythms, this album can be quite pretty too, like the delicate “Italics” or the chiming post-rock territory of “Mantras.” This is an astoundingly confident first LP that’ll likely keep its momentum strong throughout 2026.

RIYL: Generational post-punk riffs, tangible chemistry, turning malaise into catharsis

Victoryland, My Heart Is A Room With No Cameras In It

My Heart Is A Room With No Cameras In It is a tough record to pin down. Throughout its 10 vibrant and volatile art-rock songs, there’s so much going on, it’s staggering. The references stack up, and familiar sounds turned alien are relentless throughout the tracklist. There aren’t many clues in the Brooklyn-based artist Julian McCamman’s earlier oeuvre. He released his first LP as Victoryland in 2024, but that was a fairly straightforward collection of energetic, lo-fi indie rock songs. His old band, Blood, which disbanded two years ago, found him as a sideman guitarist. But his label debut feels like both a reinvention and an undeniable introduction to one of the most idiosyncratic and inventive voices in indie rock. “Keep Me Around” is bursting with energy, even as it unfolds into a warped funhouse version of Coldplay balladry. “I got god” is dance-punk turned space rock, while zipping, sampled strings turn closer “I’ll Show You Mine” into frantic folk-rock bliss. This is an LP that’ll keep you guessing, but will have you enthralled throughout.

RIYL: 2000s indie, late 90s radio rock, finding your voice after starting your own thing

What I listened to:

The No Expectations 131 Playlist: Apple Music // Spotify // Tidal

1. Resavoir, “Far Cry”
2. Lime Garden, “23”
3. Adult DVD, “Real Tree Lee”
4. Stuck, “Instakill”
5. Liz Cooper, “Baby Steps”
6. Victoryland, “I got god”
7. Anjimile, “Like You Really Mean It”
8. Brown Horse, “Twisters”
9. Tyler Ballgame, “Matter of Taste”
10. Gladie, “Future Spring”
11. Shaking Hand, “Up The Ante(lope)”
12. Greaseface, “Needing Nothing”
13. Dutch Interior, “Ground Scores”
14. Sluice, “Beadie”
15. Century Sound, “Wake Up (feat. Chebaka)”

What I watched:

F1 (directed by Joseph Kosinski)

Where last year I made a goal to read more books and succeeded, 2026 is the year I become more diligent with watching films: new releases, old classics, and even movies I’m not expecting to love. Going into F1, the blockbuster Apple TV production starring Brad Pitt and directed by the guy who did the latest Top Gun, I expected this to fall into the latter camp. I wasn’t off in my prediction. It’s a bit goofy, with scenes that somehow feature 80 cuts and a level of exposition so over-the-top it’s clear they expected people to be watching while on their phones. Still, I actually liked it more than I thought I would. You’re not expecting emotional catharsis or profound insights into the human condition with this sort of thing; you want to see cars go fast and Brad Pitt act alongside Lewis Hamilton. If you’re looking for that and nothing more, it’s a blast.

What I read:

Changeover: A Young Rivalry and a New Era of Men’s Tennis (by Giri Nathan)

I spent my weekend indoors: an arctic blast of subzero temps kept me on the couch from Friday through Saturday, and then Sunday brought nearly eight inches of snow. For a solid chunk of that time, I was watching the Australian Open and reading Changeover: A Young Rivalry and a New Era of Men’s Tennis by one of my favorite sports writers, Giri Nathan. He tracks the rise of Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz and Italy’s Jannik Sinner to the top of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), replacing the decades-long reign of the Big Three—Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal, and Novak Djokovic (of that trio, only the latter is still playing). If you’ve read anything by Nathan, whether it’s from his Deadspin days, Raquet Magazine, or Defector, you’ll know his curiosity and passion for the game are palpable and infectious. He can track a play-by-play recap of a match so vividly it’s like you’re sitting courtside, but also ground it in necessary historical context to highlight the massive stakes of their rivalry. I grew up playing the sport and have spent my whole life watching it, but I learned so much about Alcaraz and Sinner and came away with a newfound respect for both of their games and unparalleled ascents. Nathan’s immaculate prose also continues to be grist for my theory that more than any sport, tennis produces the best sportswriting.

The Weekly Chicago Show Calendar:

The gig calendar lives on the WTTW News website now. You can also subscribe to the newsletter I produce there called Daily Chicagoan to get it in your inbox a day early.

No Expectations hits inboxes on Thursdays at 9am cst. Reader mailbag email: Noexpectationsnewsletter@gmail.com. Daily Chicagoan, the local news newsletter I produce at my day job with WTTW News (PBS Chicago), can be found here.

Headline song: Robber Robber, “The Sound It Made”

Thanks for being here. I’m thrilled to be back publishing No Expectations every week. To be honest, my annual post-year-end-list holiday break was slightly longer than anticipated. I planned on taking just a month off from the newsletter, then I caught the flu, and Bob Weir died, so any time I had slotted for listening to new music or writing was spent complaining on the couch or revisiting Grateful Dead live shows. I appreciate your patience with the extended absence. Now that I’m fully healthy and settled into 2026, I’m so excited to pick up the blog again. There’s so much good music already out and soon to be released, I can’t wait to cover it all.

I don’t have much news since the last time I posted. I spent Christmas week drinking beers by a pool in Mexico. I read a handful of long books that I wouldn’t dare try to tackle with a weekly deadline. I watched a bunch of soccer, saw friends, and experimented with rum cocktail recipes. I caught up on a bunch of movies that came out last year and mostly unplugged from social media and my regular listening habits. It was a needed reset. The hiatus allowed to come back to new, under-the-radar independent music and remind myself why I love it so much.

2025 at No Expectations was probably its best year ever. Even though it’s been around since 2022, free and paid subscribers nearly doubled in 12 months. It got a logo and original cover art (both courtesy of Dari Bay’s Zack James), so I’m not trawling through goofy stock art options for a lead image each week. Plus, only a couple of blogs make me cringe in retrospect. But the real metric of success is that I realize there are so many curious, kind people who want to read about independent artists that most outlets aren’t covering. I started this blog as an underemployed and recently laid-off journalist, and now it’s grown into something that pays a good chunk of bills. More importantly, this keeps me engaged with music I wouldn’t have known about otherwise. Also, seeing my peers start their own excellent websites makes me hopeful that there’s a sustainable path for thoughtful, algorithm-free criticism that can survive an uncertain, turbulent, and dwindling media ecosystem.

As for what’s next, expect weekly recommendations as always, some more interviews, and a few albums that fall outside the indie rock bread and butter I always highlight. I’m also hoping to unveil some merch in the spring, but I still need to figure out the best, ethical, and reasonably priced way to go about it. Thanks for sticking around. By the way, the playlist’s a good one this week. Listen to it in the intended order if you can.

Here’s the spiel for new subscribers: Welcome! You’re seeing this in your email because you signed up after reading “The 100 Best Albums of 2025” or because Friend of the Newsletter recommended you subscribe to No Expectations. I’m happy you’re here. Each week, you get a wildcard main essay (often new album recommendations), a 15-song playlist, as well as updates on what I’m listening to, watching, and reading. Sometimes you’ll get an interview with an artist I love, and other times it’ll be a deep dive into one band’s discography. Since I’m a Chicago-based writer, this newsletter is very Midwest-focused. So, if you live in this city too, you’ll also receive a curated roundup of upcoming local shows to check out at the bottom of every post.

Here’s where I politely ask for money: No Expectations does not have a paywall and won’t for the foreseeable future due to the generosity of my readers. I am not in the business of gatekeeping. If you have the means and like what you read, you can sign up for a paid subscription. If your budget is tight, telling a friend about a band you found out about here is just as good. You can also post about it online. That helps too. It’s still $5 a month—the cost of one Old Style plus tip at Rainbo Club. Every bit helps, keeps this project going, and allows it to stay paywall-free. It really sucks out there for music journalism and most everything else, so it means the world to me that you’re reading and supporting this writing project.

5 Albums Worth Your Time This Week

Courtney Marie Andrews, Valentine

Whenever you read a review about the folk and Americana mainstay Courtney Marie Andrews, chances are you’re going to see a Linda Ronstadt comparison. Sure, they’re both from Arizona, but the reference is apt because if there’s one contemporary vocalist who can match the powerhouse range and the weighty emotional stakes of that American music legend, it’s her. Just take the ornate highlight from her ninth album, Valentine, “Little Picture of a Butterfly.” A neon-lit stunner of a ballad, it finds Andrews belting, “Guess your love is not a cure / Guess I should’ve known better / Guess I’m throwing out that sweater.” While it wouldn’t feel out of place in ‘70s Nashville, she makes it her own as it dissipates into an ethereal haze in its final minute. Breathy harmonies punctuate the silky Laurel Canyon folk of “Keeper,” while “Magic Touch” is an exercise in timeless pop. An impeccably tasteful bandleader and a rich, expressive singer, Andrews has amassed a resplendent career of earthy, luxuriant songwriting.

RIYL: Big choruses, dusty, diamond-in-the-rough vinyl LPs, and timeless crooning.

Jana Horn, Jana Horn

Jana Horn is a talented and itinerate folk singer who’s quietly built a sturdy catalog of understated and excavating songs. An Austin native, she’s had stints in Virginia as an MFA candidate in fiction before ending up in Brooklyn, where she released her third LP, Jana Horn. Her most minimalist effort to date, it’s also her most stirring and lucid. Sharing the conversational grace of her Texas to NYC compatriot Katy Kirby, Horn demonstrates a scalpel-like attention to detail in her sparse, evocative lyrics and a thoughtfulness that lends gravitas to her dreamy, unhurried arrangements. The gradual momentum in a standout like “Unused,” where Horn’s voice glides over plaintive keys and shuffling drums, is gorgeous. The same goes for “All in bet,” where she sings, “Without all, what is left? / I’m honestly asking.” This is music for introspection, for long walks home after a weird night, and accepting life’s changes you can’t control.

RIYL: Saying a lot in as few words as possible, getting out of Texas, subtle pianos, and ample acoustic guitars

Joe Glass, Snakewards

Yes, Joe Glass plays bass in Lifeguard frontman Kai Slater’s power-pop project Sharp Pins. While his infectious and relentlessly fun sophomore LP Snakewards channels a similar well of Nuggets and ‘90s indie rock exuberance, the Rockford, Illinois, and Chicago-based tunesmith has been churning out earworm rippers long before he joined his endlessly prolific bandmate. His debut, 2022’s Slither, showcases his penchant for an airtight hook across a dozen slightly twangy ramschackle rockers. (A record that would have been a No Expectations favorite had I heard it upon release). On his follow-up, however, that winning formula gets a tweak with more ramped-up energy that evokes the ebullience of Elephant 6 and deliriously fuzzed-out guitars." Opener “Dust on Your Halo” opens with a blast of noise that sounds like the intro to “You Only Get What You Give,” only to dissolve into squalling riffs. “New Pose” boasts searing punk swagger while a bluesy thump anchors “Oscar’s Midnight Ride,” but the record really shines when Glass leans into his unassailable pop sensibilities. Though every song is catchy, on tracks like the standout “Man Lost His Diamond,” he reaches jangly transcendence. The whole thing rules. It’s such a thrill to hear younger generations of local rock talent channel this music.

RIYL: Hallogallo, The Empty Bottle, a Chicago Handshake

Otto Benson, Peanut

Otto Benson is a New York-based artist who, until New Year’s Eve, had only released glitchy, bubbly, and unpredictable electronic music under a variety of monikers. But Peanut, his latest full-length, is a pretty but austere collection of guitar-based folk songs. Across 10 mesmerizing tracks, it centers Benson’s subtly, bassy croon, which evokes Arthur Russell, Ted Lucas, and Porches. While the mix rarely rises above a whisper, the LP is a consistently engaging listen thanks to Benson’s knack for undeniable melodies. Songs like “Red and Neon” and “Raisin” are so immediately hummable, it’s striking. Shimmering pedal steel from Henry Munson and lead guitars from Sean Quinn add rich color to songs like the mournful “Drive Away,” as Benson adds humor to the melancholy with lines like, “Buried in the snow in my underwear / Someone made voodoo dolls with my hair.” While it’s refreshing to hear an adventurous electronic artist try a sparser palette, it’s even more rewarding to hear someone so gifted at this new lane.

RIYL: Selling your turntables and buying guitars, Arthur Russell, reinventions

Winged Wheel, Desert So Green

Winged Wheel started as a supergroup between Chicago violinist and experimental musician Whitney Johnson, Detroit indie rock mainstay Fred Thomas, Kingston, New York’s Cory Plump (the founder of the venue Tubby’s and a member of Spray Paint), and Ohio shredder Matthew Rolin. Their 2024 sophomore album, Big Hotel, which was a No Expectations favorite that year, grew to include Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley and Water Damages’ Lonnie Slack. The cross-continental collaboration evolved from nervy, intricate kosmiche grooves to a keener focus on atmosphere and world-building, never losing its propulsiveness in the process. The same stacked lineup remains on Desert So Green, an immersive, knotty LP that explores the fringes of an already locked-in sound. Here, songs like opener “Canvas 11” are krautrock at its most cinematic, while the penultimate tune “I See Poseurs Every Day” is buoyant with zipping guitars and Whitney Johnson’s haunting voice hitting like it’s pumped in from some liminal space. These musicians are so seasoned and talented that it’s no shock their chemistry is so palpable despite being miles away. Recorded near Chicago at Rec Room Studios in Des Plaines, these compositions are simultaneously searching and thrilling.

RIYL: Neu Klang, jams that could soundtrack a movie, the more atmospheric Sonic Youth cuts

What I listened to:

The No Expectations 130 Playlist: Apple Music // Spotify // Tidal

1. Winged Wheel, “Canvas 11”
2. Robber Robber, “The Sound It Made”
3. Ulrika Spacek, “Picto”
4. Mandy, Indiana, “Cursive”
5. Virga, “Night Scene with Coyote”
6. Station Model Violence, “Heat”
7. Joe Glass, “Man Who Lost His Diamond”
8. Ratboys, “The World, So Madly”
9. Jackie West, “Silent Century”
10. Courtney Marie Andrews, “Keeper”
11. Natalie Jane Hill, “I Thought Love Meant”
12. Jana Horn, “Unused”
13. Spencer Hoffman, “Cherry Picker”
14. Lala Lala, “Heaven2”
15. Otto Benson, “Raisin”

Gig recap: Terrapin Flyer at Garcia’s (1/14)

Longtime No Expectations readers are well aware that just three years ago, the Grateful Dead became my all-time favorite band. I hopped on the train just as Dead & Company were wrapping up their final tour and entered an all-consuming deep dive as I thought I’d never have a chance to see the surviving members of the Dead live again. Sure enough, I got my chance in 2024 at the newly opened Sphere for their opening weekend. I wrote about it then. I also got to see Bob Weir perform with Wolf Bros and the Chicago Philharmonic later that year and last spring, brought several friends back to Vegas for one more Sphere gig. We didn’t know that for most of us, that’d be our last time seeing him perform, but we all realized that when you have a chance to witness a legend play a show, you buy the ticket.

Garcia’s, the new venue in Chicago co-founded by the Jerry Garcia estate and Peter Shapiro, the promoter behind the band’s “Fare The Well” shows in 2015, honored Weir’s legacy by booking the city’s premier Dead cover band, Terrapin Flyer, for two nights. I’d never seen them play, but it was a masterful, emotional tribute to Weir, with a curated setlist of the departed icon’s songs. An exploratory “Let It Grow,” an exultant “Cassidy,” and a rousing “Not Fade Away” were perfect doses of communal catharsis for mourning heads. Discovering this music, albeit pretty late, is one of the best things to ever happen to me. To be around longtime friends and several new ones at that show, realizing that these songs will have a life decades from now, was the necessary salve all of us needed.

Gig recap: Greg Freeman, Golomb, Minor Moon at Schubas (1/17)

Right when I started No Expectations years back, one of the first artists I raved about was an explosive and indisputable indie rock talent from Burlington, Vermont named Greg Freeman. His debut, I Looked Out, was a record that got me out of a listening rut and made me more excited about music than I had been in years. More than that, he introduced me to a wealth of phenomenal artists from his hometown, like Lily Seabird, Robber Robber, and Dari Bay, the latter of whom eventually became the artist behind the cover graphics and logo art you see in the newsletter every week. I can’t imagine what this blog would look like had I not heard his music. In those three years, I haven’t missed a Greg Freeman show in Chicago, and I wasn’t going to break the streak. His headlining show at Schubas capped off what might be the best bill I’ve seen in a long time, with No Expectations favorites Golomb and Minor Moon rounding out the lineup. There’s a lot of year left, but I can’t imagine a night topping this one.

What I watched:

Hard Truths (directed by Mike Leigh)

Back in 2020, armed with a subscription to the Criterion Channel and an unwelcome amount of free time, I decided to make my way through Mike Leigh’s entire oeuvre. Whether it was his bleak, angry but resilient social realism (Meantime, Naked, Bleak Moments), gorgeous historical period pieces (Mr. Turner, Peterloo, Topsy-Turvy), or subdued family dramedies (High Hopes, Secrets & Lies, Another Year), I found the U.K. director’s films a revelation. He’s an alltimer. A master at both highlighting the gutting intricacies of relationships and how systemic injustice can crush decent people, Leigh’s quality hasn’t lessened now that he’s 82-years-old. Hard Truths, his latest from 2024, follows two sisters in London who could not be more different. Pansy’s a depressed shut-in whose anxiety causes her to lash out, criticize, and insult those around her. Chantelle is bursting with joy and vitality. Like any Leigh film, there’s something deeper going on. The way he patiently portrays the sisters’ disparate lives and their complicated relationship is stunning. It’s a film about the inability to break destructive habits, generational healing, and how you exist in the world reverberates to everyone around you. As heartbreaking as it is humane, it boasts some of the finest acting I’ve ever seen from Marianne Jean-Baptiste.

What I read:

The Ball Is Round: A Global History of Soccer (by David Goldblatt)

Over the break, I watched more soccer than I have in years. I’ve been a fan of the sport for most of my life, but I dip in and out between casually watching and being an obsessive in adulthood. Whenever it’s the latter, it’s usually when I don’t have many deadlines or much going on. During periods of underemployment throughout my twenties, I’d trek to the neighborhood Liverpool bar where I developed a love for the club (my first favorite team was Fulham, because they had several American players like Brian McBride and Clint Dempsey. They were relegated from the Premier League and I couldn’t watch their games when I decided to bandwagon the Reds). As someone who lives in the United States, the trick is to read about clubs from every major league, semi-arbitrarily adopt one or two to support, and you’ll have something to watch for most of the year. So, teams like Olympique de Marseille in France’s Ligue 1, FC St. Pauli in Germany’s Bundesliga, and Rayo Vallecano in Spain’s La Liga have a 34-year-old diehard fan in Chicago who can only barely speak and understand Spanish.

Beyond the hypnotic, occasionally frustrating, but often beautiful quality of play onfield, a great thing about the sport is how global it is. Look at any roster on the teams I’ve listed, and you’ll find players from all over. Liverpool’s best player, Mo Salah, is from Egypt. Its captain is Virgil van Dijk, a Dutch defender whose mother is part Chinese and Afro-Surinamese. Other stalwarts of the lineup hail from Brazil, Argentina, Hungary, and France. There’s something comforting about that, how 11 people from disparate places can work together under a common goal and be watched by hundreds of millions worldwide. Whatever corruption you find in FIFA or the billions of dollars funneled into leagues everywhere, soccer’s an unstoppable, uniting and galvanizing force.

At the beginning of 2026, I decided to kick off my year with David Goldblatt’s near-1000-page The Ball Is Round: A Global History of Soccer, an absurdly ambitious book that tracks the history of the game on every continent. It starts as early as the development of ball games in ancient Mesoamerica and Han Dynasty-era China. Then it hits how the English created the sport and globalized it through colonialism, tracking its development until the mid-aughts. (This is likely the best English invention of all time, except maybe the Beatles.) Though I’m not surprised it took me well over two weeks to finish it, I am thrilled at how riveting it was, from the turbulent history of the sport in Latin America during the Cold War to its late life in Asia and the United States. Goldblatt’s got a 600-page follow-up from 2019 in The Age of Football: The Global Game in the Twenty-first Century, but I’m going to read a couple of lighter novellas to break things up first.

The Weekly Chicago Show Calendar:

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Thanks for being here. This is the last No Expectations of the year. With the massive Best of 2025 list finally published below, I’m taking a needed break to relax and recharge. These month-long vacations allow me to chill out a bit. I can catch up on movies, older albums, and reading without feeling like I need to blog about it every Thursday. Writing this newsletter is still my favorite thing to do, but it’s never a bad idea to cash in on time off during a slow month. I’ll be on hiatus until mid-January, but I’ve featured 215 albums in this post—100 blurbed and, at the bottom of this post, another 115 that made my personal longlist of favorites. Even the most diligent subscriber likely hasn’t heard it all, so I hope you’ll have more than enough to check out over the holidays.

Here’s the spiel for new subscribers: Each week, you get a wildcard main essay (often new album recommendations), a 15-song playlist, as well as updates on what I’m listening to, watching, and reading. Sometimes you’ll get an interview with an artist I love, and other times it’ll be a deep dive into one band’s discography or 7,000 words on the Grateful Dead. Since I’m a Chicago-based writer, this newsletter is very Midwest-focused. So, if you live in this city too, you’ll also receive a curated roundup of upcoming local shows to check out at the bottom of every regular newsletter.

Here’s where I politely ask for money: I write this thing in my spare time after work. It’s unpaywalled and remains that way due to the generosity of my readers. I am not in the business of gatekeeping. If you have the means and like what you read, I’d encourage you to sign up for a paid subscription. If your budget is tight, please don’t pay for this. Telling a friend that you heard about a band here is just as good. It’s still $5 a month—the cost of one Old Style plus tip at Rainbo Club. Every bit helps, keeps this project going, and allows it to stay paywall-free. It’s rough out there, so it means the world you’re reading and supporting this writing project.

The 100 Best Albums of 2025

Ever since I started No Expectations in 2022, I’ve usually approached compiling Best Of roundups with a “first thought, best thought” mindset. I try not to overthink it because after all, it’s just a list. Going with your gut keeps you from splitting hairs, but things inevitably fall through the cracks, and you’ll forget about some major favorites. This year, I decided to keep a running tally of every new album I loved. It included the 170+ LPs I recommended in the newsletter this year, alongside several dozen I didn’t have time to write about. Over the past month and a half, I revisited everything, which admittedly was a little nutty but super rewarding. I remembered why I dug each full-length I covered over 2025, and this unhinged listening experiment added some welcome surprises to the Top 100 you’ll read below. (While there are about a dozen new blurbs, most have been copied, pasted, and tweaked from older newsletters this year.)

There are a few ways to look at list season. It’s great for consensus-building, where publications like Pitchfork, Stereogum, Rolling Stone, and Paste compile albums by a committee of staffers and critics to make a record of what mattered in music in 2025. That’s cool, but I’m always more interested in how these roundups serve as a vehicle for discovery. No Expectations is just me—a writer in Chicago who’s worked as a music journalist for places like VICE, The A.V. Club, the Chicago Tribune, and others since 2012. It’s really just a reflection of one 34-year-old dude’s taste. This blog is focused on independent, under-the-radar artists. Instead of covering everything a mainstream publication would, I started this writing project to champion new and lesser-known musicians for listeners sick of algorithmic suggestions and seeing the same acts get the dwindling amount of available press. If you don’t recognize a lot of names featured, that’s the point. You should think of this post as an opportunity to find your new favorite band, rather than having your own opinions validated.

I normally publish a little later than other outlets because every year, there’s an album released in December that shoots up my year-end rankings. If you’re wondering whether Cameron Winter’s Heavy Metal features, it’s not here because I included it in my Best Of 2024 roundup. Had I sent out this list a week or two earlier, I would’ve missed the phenomenal Dove Ellis debut and a handful of others listed throughout. No Expectations survives due to the generosity of its paid subscribers, not from chasing clicks, so I’m grateful I can leisurely compile these albums at my own pace. I think it’s better this way. Also, once you make your way to the bottom of the post, you’ll find playlists compiling everything featured alongside 115 other excellent LPs that made my longlist for EOY consideration. If your favorite LP still isn’t on there, I probably either haven’t heard it, or it just isn’t very good. If, after trawling through all 215 full-lengths here, you still feel compelled to say, “No Panda Bear?” I’ll pray for you.

2025 was a weird year. With so much uncertainty, I tried to grasp onto what reminded me of my own humanity. I spent less time online, read more books, and made a better effort to nurture my friendships. Reading headlines like “AI slop tops Billboard and Spotify charts as synthetic music spreads” and “A third of daily music uploads are AI-generated and 97% of people can’t tell the difference,” I’ve realized that loving independent, human-made music is not just a hobby but a necessary corrective to dehumanizing, disruptive, and dangerous technology. Today, you’re incentivized to stay home, prioritize convenience over curiosity, and treat art as an ephemeral background vibe instead of an endlessly rewarding medium that requires effort and openness. It’s good to rebel against this impulse, even when it’s something as small as supporting a local music community.

This newsletter has been a bright spot thanks to the kind and thoughtful people who read it. Every time someone told me they found a band they loved, bought a record, or said something nice to me about No Expectations at a show, it made me realize I might be on the right track with this writing project. While I didn’t post every week on No Expectations this year, I did cover more music than ever. And yes, a Top 100 is a bit ridiculous, but I think it’s a comprehensive listening diary of my year, if not a solid introduction to new subscribers on what to expect from this blog in 2026. I hope the albums below, which were all made by hardworking and talented artists, compel you to buy a physical LP, some merch, and a ticket to one of their shows. Thanks for everything.

Ale Hop, Titi Bakorta

Mapambazuko

The Kampala, Uganda-based record label Nyege Nyege Tapes has consistently released some of the most thrilling and cutting-edge music that I always return to when I get sick of indie rock. Its electronic, danceable, and experimental catalog fuses genres and borders with equal ebullience. Mapambazuko is the product of Peruvian electronic musician Alejandra Cárdenas (Ale Hop) and Congolese guitarist Titi Bakorta collaborating for a blitzing and unpredictable collection of instrumental tunes that persuasively blends their sensibilities. Its six originals are indispensable doses of absorbing rhythms and electronic twists—the three remixes aren’t as exciting, but your mileage may vary.

Bandcamp

Arbor Labor Union

Out to Pasture

With circuitous and skittering riffs, easygoing ambling melodies, and jams that feel casual yet colossal, Georgia’s Arbor Labor Union are premier purveyors of heady guitar rock. Out to Pasture is the Bandcamp-only follow-up to their 2023 standout LP Yonder, and it excels in winding, left-field grooves and crunchy chords. Swirling guitarmonies pockmark “Hidden in a Drop of Dew,” while the laid-back psychedelia of “Clear View” is nearly vertigo-inducing. Released via Ryan Davis’ excellent Sophomore Lounge label, this seven-song effort could be a “mini album” or an “EP,” but whatever you want to call it, it’s a streamlined and sublime dose of Southern-tinged, Dead-indebted rock music.

Bandcamp

Awning

Awning

Truth Club’s Running From the Chase was one of my favorite albums of 2023: a nervy and knotty dose of indie rock that excelled on tense arrangements and a commanding performance from a charismatic frontman. Few albums since have scratched the same itch until Awning’s self-titled debut. Where Truth Club is from North Carolina, this band hails from across the world in Wellington, New Zealand. Led by musician and visual artist Christian Dimick, his band conjures up eight tracks of efficient, punchy, and airtight songwriting. While less brooding and heavy than Running From the Chase, Awning still exudes intensity. Take Dimick’s mesmerizing delivery on “Moth & Fly,” which whips from in-your-face volume to a near-imperceptible whisper, or the goosebump-inducing crescendo on “The Gun.” Though there are no massive swings, Awning’s no-frills approach makes every song take flight.

Bandcamp

Ben Hackett

Songs for Sleeping Dogs

This Athens, Georgia-based musician has collaborated with folk-rock acts like Rose Hotel and more. His debut solo full-length, Songs for Sleeping Dogs, is full of organic and intentional ambient music. He creates a haunting and sublime world across 12 instrumental compositions and nearly an hour runtime. There’s an invigorating arc to the LP’s sequencing: songs undulate, simmer, and patiently build from the airy opener “Between Sleep,” the dreamy “18pp,” and the jazzy, winding “Loose Changes 2.” It’s uniformly beautiful and is so clearly made by someone who lives and breathes for the genre.

Bandcamp

Big Thief

Double Infinity

Since their 2016 debut, Masterpiece, folk rockers Big Thief have yet to put out a less-than-great album. Double Infinity, the band’s sixth album, is their breeziest, loosest, and most cosmic yet. Within minutes of a first listen, you’ll get chills thanks to Adrianne Lenker’s humanistic, awe-inspiring lyrics. On opener “Incomprehensible,” she sings, “My mother and my grandma, my great-grandmother too / Wrinkle like the river, sweeten like the dew / And as silver as the rainbow scales that shimmer purple blue / How can beauty that is livin’ be anything but true?” Much has been made of the fact that this album is their first without founding bassist Max Oleartchik, who left the group in 2024. For a band that’s thrived on palpable chemistry, it’s a blow, but they make do with a rotating cast of guest musicians. The most notable addition is ambient maestro Laraaji, who lends idyllic textures throughout and a guest feature on the life-affirming highlight “Grandmother.” Relationships change, bands evolve, and sometimes a great record that may not reach an artist’s previous stratospheric height is still a great record.

Bandcamp

Billie Marten

Dog Eared

I’ve been hearing about Billie Marten for about a decade, which is wild because she’s only 26. Though I enjoyed the U.K. singer-songwriter’s earlier solo acoustic records, her latest and fifth LP, Dog Eared, is a full-band effort that’s most firmly in my wheelhouse. But even if I hated music that sounds like this, I would still be moved by the undeniable craft and artistry displayed in these 10 songs. This is commanding, astounding, and confident writing: no detail is excessive, everything is considered, and any song could be the best one on her peers’ records. With winsome and warm melodies, Marten’s voice is always welcoming and rich, but it’s her earthy arrangements that really stand out. The twangy “Swing” is what hooked me, but the sparkling opener “Feeling,” the moody “Goodnight Moon,” and the smoky “No Sudden Changes” are what kept me revisiting this record for months.

Streaming

Bleary Eyed

Easy

No contemporary shoegaze band has felt more playful, inventive, and vital than Philadelphia’s Bleary Eyed. Equally adept at glitchy and volatile studio experimentation as well as pleasant pop songwriting, their latest album, Easy, is the most exciting thing the genre has to offer in 2025. Pops of squiggly and wailing synth envelop songs like the explosive “Susan,” while “Special” is turbocharged by a booming guitar riff. For all the gleeful and skittish studio flourishes that make these songs singular, it never overloads the palate with excessive randomness. Just listen to how flashes of samples, tottering guitars, and sparkling synths slowly coalesce into pop perfection on a song like “Jersey Shore.” With so many other bands content to retread what bands like Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine accomplished before they were born, it’s refreshing to hear something so wholly original.

Bandcamp

Bonnie “Prince” Billy

The Purple Bird

For the past 32 years, Kentucky songwriter Will Oldham has amassed a staggering catalog exploring the transcendent fringes of American folk traditions. Whether he’s performing under his own name, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, or Palace Music, it’s all great. The Purple Bird is this 30th studio LP and finds the mercurial Oldham at his most approachable and amiable. Written and recorded with a murderer’s row of Nashville session veterans, he sings timeless, relaxed, and majestic originals over an Americana canvas. On songs like “Downstream,” he gets a duet assist from country icon John Anderson, but elsewhere, it’s Oldham’s warbling croon and grizzled, weathered, and still optimistic lyrics that take center stage. Standout “Our Home” sums up his mindset decades into his astounding career, with lines like “You’re only as good as the people you know / Harvest the honey and string up the beans / That’s how we make it our home.” His discography is vast and intimidating, but there are worse places to dive in than this one.

Bandcamp

Brown Horse

All The Right Weaknesses

Brown Horse are from Norwich, England, but that didn’t stop them from making an unequivocally awesome country-rock record. It’s urgent, galvanizing, and chock-full of memorable hooks. On All The Right Weaknesses, the wildly collaborative sextet (five out of its six members penned songs on the LP) combines energetic and piercing guitars with blissful pedal steel and earnest vocals from Patrick Turner and Phoebe Troup. It’s a winning formula that the band calls “slacker twang.” Across the 11 songs here, which elicit comparisons to Greg Freeman, Wednesday, and Neil Young. Despite their UK roots, there’s no put-upon affectation or cowboy cosplay—just undeniable and raw songs played with enthusiasm and an unselfconscious love for American musical traditions. “Dog Rose” is a masterclass in releasing tension with a cathartic guitar solo, while “Corduroy Couch” splits the difference between lyrical vulnerability and pop infectiousness. There’s not a single dud on the record. Once they tour stateside, I’ll be the first to buy a ticket to their Chicago show.

Bandcamp

The Bug Club

Very Human Features

Welsh duo the Bug Club have been churning out raucous and hook-laden oddball rock tunes at a breathless pace over the past few years. Each release has combined deceptively simple pop melodies with straight-out-of-the-garage ramshackle energy (I included their 47-track LP Rare Birds: Hour of Songs in the 2023 No Expectations best-of list and dug their 2024 Sub Pop debut, On the Intricate Inner Workings of the System). Their latest, Very Human Features, finds the group streamlining what makes them such a charming and fascinating band: the choruses are catchier, their jokes are funnier without relying on filler skits, and their songs are tightly wound and well-constructed. The magic of this band is how, underneath the facade of low-stakes slacker-pop, they’re songwriting savants who can write tunes so infectious they burrow into your consciousness. Just take the wistful “Jealous Boy,” the self-lacerating humor of “Full Grown Man,” or the jubilant vocal interplay between Sam Willmett and Tilly Harris, and you’ll find artists jumping leaps and bounds over their peers without seeming to try hard at all.

Bandcamp

Cash Langdon

Dogs

If you like your rock music loud and relentlessly catchy, there’s no better place to look than Dogs, the new LP from Birmingham, Alabama’s Cash Langdon. Here, he channels the anthemic choruses of Summerteeth-era Wilco, the frantic energy of Ty Segall, and the melodic prowess of the late Adam Schlesinger across 10 explosive earworms. I’ve included a few of the singles in No Expectations playlists like the crunchy “Magic Again” and the countrified “Lilac Whiskey Nose,” and the rest of the LP matches those tunes’ high caliber. It’s just a damn good rock record. I’d also recommend his other project, Caution, which just put out a stellar album called Peripheral Vision.

Bandcamp

CMAT

EURO-COUNTRY

Just when you thought the cross-pollination of country textures into marquee pop music was getting stale, Ireland’s Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson releases an unequestionable exception to the played-out trend. EURO-COUNTRY is Thompson’s third album as CMAT and the best introduction to her witty, sardonic, and charming lyrical prowess yet. Her humor stands out on songs like the simmering and standoffish “The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station,” and the gorgeous “Iceberg,” which playfully takes Titanic to task with lines like, “I really think Rose could’ve made room on that floating door.” Her authentic and unapologetic personality is only matched by her superlative knack for crafting arena-filling choruses. A deserved pop breakthrough.

Streaming

The Convenience

Like Cartoon Vampires

Over the past five years, I’ve been writing about a cluster of New Orleans indie rock bands like Lawn and Video Age. It’s a cool little scene: the former expertly melds jangle-pop and post-punk while the latter incorporates disco, yacht rock, and psychedelia into sleek and clever pop-rock tunes. The Convenience, the duo of Nick Corson and Duncan Troast, are both in Video Age, while Corson also plays in Lawn. On Like Cartoon Vampires, the band’s sophomore effort, they incorporate the interlocking guitars of Wire, the strutting swagger of Spoon, and the menacing, off-kilter energy of the Fall. The LP opens up on a tear with three unassailable rippers in the alt-rock anthem “I Got Exactly What I Wanted,” the screeching, unpredictable guitar squalls in “Dub Vultures,” and how “Target Offer” dissolves into an explosive crescendo. This trio is everything I love about indie rock: surprising, gripping, and smart. From there, the record gets weirder but no less exciting. There’s shuffling twang on “Western Pepsi Cola Town” and uneasy, dirgelike bassline on “Pray’r” and a slow-burning, 10-plus minute closer in “Fake the Feeling.” I could not have been more stoked to see Friends of the Substack Stereogum give this one Album of the Week: Chris DeVille’s review is great.

Bandcamp

Credit Electric

Salvation

After three years of running this newsletter, it’s now at the point that if I check out a recommendation from a longtime reader, chances are we’ll totally agree. This happened when Friend of the Newsletter Nate sent a note about Los Angeles band Credit Electric, writing, “it’s driving me a little crazy that they aren’t getting any attention lol. They’re like ethereal psychedelic alt-country? And have slide guitar and sax.” What especially felt like kismet was that I had just listened to Salvation, the latest LP from Credit Electric, and already planned on writing about it. Nate’s pitch is as good as I could muster, but after absorbing the full-length, I’m so happy to hear bands taking more loungy, amorphously ambient approaches to indie rock. This is an album that you can live in, and I’d recommend it for fans of both the Blue Nile and Greg Freeman. “STUPID” picks up the pace with moody jangle while “WHAT I HAVE IS MAKE BELIEVE” boasts ample twang, but each song is mesmeric, gloomy, and electric.

Bandcamp

Cusp

What I Want Doesn’t Want Me Back

There’s a great newfound tradition of bands that combine anthemic, ‘90s-inspired rock with emo and twang who found their footing in Chicago. Like Madison, Wisconsin’s Slow Pulp and Indiana’s Ratboys, who both are now essential pillars of this city’s music communities, Rochester, New York’s Cusp have already made waves since moving here a few years ago. 2023’s You Can Do It All was a newsletter favorite that year, and when they followed it up with an EP last year, the opening atmospheric track “The Alternative” was one of my most-revisited songs of 2024. Now with an expanded and solidified lineup, their latest full-length, What I Want Doesn’t Want Me Back, is their most confident and fully-fledged release yet. Highlights like “Oh Man” are peppered with squiggly synths and sugary backing vocals, while “The Upper Hand” detours into golden country thanks to palatial pedal steel from Chicago’s Red PK. Singer Jen Bender has a fondness for effortless melodies that float over arrangements that span indie rock’s multiple flavors. On “In a Box,” over interlocking guitars and a propulsive rhythm, Bender claustrophobically sings, “With all of the love on the planet / You’d have me sit in a box / Lock it up tightly, just me and my thoughts / So safe and comfortable, gnawing my nails off.“ Throughout, lyrics of anxiety, insecurity, and yearning are imbued with grace, wit, and heart. This LP will give you a new Chicago band to adore.

Bandcamp

cutouts

Snakeskin

Alex MacKay is the bassist for the Brooklyn synth-pop trio Nation of Language, but this year, he released a debut solo album as cutouts called Snakeskin. It’s a kinetic and propulsive full-length, boasting a sharper edge and heavier bounce than his main project. From the New Order-esque bassline that propels “Paw of the Monkey” and the pummeling low end of “Firstborn,” there are so many menacing club-ready grooves here. Over the past year, I’ve gravitated more to electronic music than I usually do, but this splits the difference between that and indie rock. If you’re looking for something more like Harry Nilsson and David Bowie, start with the highlight “Bloodsucker.” Want psych-rock? Go for “Zeke.” The whole thing’s great, though.

Bandcamp

Dead Gowns

It’s Summer, I Love You, and I’m Surrounded by Snow

One of the best albums of 2025 has been tinkered with since it was first recorded in 2020. That’s a long time to work on a record. I can’t claim to know what industry bullshit, album cycle purgatory, or exercises in patience Maine songwriter Geneviève Beaudoin had to endure before putting out her debut as Dead Gowns, but I’m so happy it’s out. Not since Angel Olsen’s 2014 Burn Your Fire No Witness has an indie rock voice floored me so palpably. While both LPs tread similar sonic territory, It’s Summer, I Love You… is much more animated and energetic. Beaudoin’s croon can oscillate from a warble to a coo and a violent scream, but her deft and observant songwriting anchors each track. If this is what she was capable of a half-decade ago, it’s bewildering to imagine the high-caliber material she must have ready to go now.

Bandcamp

Dove Ellis

Blizzard

From Van Morrison to Bono, Glen Hansard to Damien Rice and Mic Christopher, Ireland is responsible for producing some of the most remarkable, impassioned, and expressive male vocalists in rock and folk music. Dove Ellis, the Manchester-based singer who just released his breathtaking debut album Blizzard, might have the most dynamic and impressive voice of any talent to burst on the scene in 2025. Beyond his Emerald Isle comrades mentioned above, you’ll undoubtedly hear shades of Jeff Buckley and Thom Yorke. What makes Ellis so compelling is how he draws from a well of 2000s indie (Beirut, Grizzly Bear, and Fleet Foxes), imbuing the material with his virtuosic range as well as his poignant and haunting lyrics. On “Jaundice,” he transforms a peppy Irish jig into feverish emotional intensity, singing, “Yeah, threw my bottle in the bush on the night of thе noose / In a flash, I was ablaze, like a kitе on the moon.” His delivery throughout the LP suggests palpable, nearly Biblical stakes in these tunes like “To The Sandles,” where he does his best Astral Weeks impression, wailing, “So take the words of your tragic fight / And dance them down to that new club / All the feet going in and out and in and out and in and out.” Released the first week of December, Ellis has crafted such a luxurious and elegant collection that I expect it to have a similar life in 2026 as Cameron Winter’s Heavy Metal had in 2025.

Bandcamp

Dutch Interior

Moneyball

Los Angeles sextet Dutch Interior inserts golden hour twang into angsty, brooding indie rock with a freewheeling collaborative approach. On Moneyball, the band’s third album, five of the group’s six members share lead vocal and lyrical duties throughout the tracklist. “We bring songs in, and when they’re released to the band, it’s no longer your baby: It’s the band’s,” says guitarist Jack Nugent, who sings on and wrote the ghostly ramshackle folk tune “Christ on the Mast,” in an interview with Paste. For all the different singers and distinct sensibilities, this is a surprisingly cohesive full-length that can oscillate between sunny to spooky songs while never losing what the band calls its “Freak Americana” heart. The soft fingerpicking of “Sweet Time,” the vigorous countrygaze of “Fourth Street,” and the shuffling percussion anchoring single “Sandcastle Molds” all make their case as standouts.

Bandcamp

Echolalia

Echolalia

Echolalia is a group of Nashville musicians who decamped to a studio in an ancient abbey on the U.K.’s Isle of Wight to record a wonderfully collective and exploratory album. “[Band founder] Jordan [Lehring] had this idea - the four songwriters would have three songs, and we’d work together to make a record of it,” said Echolalia member Spencer Cullum (Rich Ruth, Miranda Lambert, Shrunken Elvis) in the press release. Songwriters Lehring, alongside Cullum, Andrew Combs, and Dominic Billett, all provide eclectic but harmonious songs that make Echolalia a sleeper album of the year contender. There are shades of Radiohead-inspired bombast, Nilsson pop-psychedelia, woozy Americana, and boisterous pub rock across these 12 tracks, and there’s not a dull moment throughout.

Bandcamp

Eiko Ishibashi

Antigone

Over the past few years, the Japanese polymath Eiko Ishibashi has made mesmerizing and exquisite film soundtracks with director Ryusuke Hamaguchi in Drive My Car and Evil Does Not Exist. Antigone is her first pop-oriented LP since 2018’s The Dream My Bones Dream, and while it’s a song-based release, it’s just as captivating as her cinematic score work. Here, she enlists a band of her partner Jim O’Rourke on Bass VI and synths, drummer Tatsuhisa Yamamoto, bassist Marty Holoubek, accordionist Kalle Moberg, vocalist ermhoi on backing vocals, and percussionist Joe Talia. Samples, strings, and glitchy electronics weave in and out of these simultaneously stunning and chilly tunes, which often deal with present-day dystopias and digital malaise. “Trial” boasts an uplifting groove while the eight-minute penultimate track “The Model” earns its runtime with an immersive arrangement and a warped, unsettling voiceover. This is the platonic ideal of a 2025 headphones record.

Bandcamp

Eliza Niemi

Progress Bakery

When Eliza Niemi started writing her sophomore album, she was subletting an apartment down the street from a cafe called Progress Bakery. The sign outside was half-fallen off, reading as ‘Gress Bakery,’ which delighted the Toronto songwriter and cellist so much she named the LP after it. Over 15 tracks that cover a lean 35 minutes, Niemi packs in wry jokes, meticulously detailed lyrical descriptions (“Put on my Tampax-pearl-blue shirt (iridescent),” she sings on “DM BF”), and relaxed yet abundant arrangements. While there are standout songs like the groovy and patient “Dusty” as well as the acoustic opener “Do U FM?,” this is a transportive LP that’s best experienced as a whole. It’s remarkably eclectic: there are cello-led interludes like “PM Basement,” and DIY-punk detours like “Wildcat.” Few new songwriters are as clever and full of heart as Niemi, who on Progress Bakery captures the feeling of thinking up something profound and funny over a morning coffee.

Bandcamp

Far Caspian

Autofiction

I’ve long loved how Leeds-based, Irish songwriter Joel Johnston’s vivid production style merges bouncy and heavenly electronic textures with shimmering indie rock, especially on his 2023 LP The Last Remaining Light. This year’s follow-up, Autofiction, is 11 songs of hazy, intimate, and sprawling indie rock that shows off Johnston’s keen ear as a producer as well as his penchant for writing a transportive and introspective song. His palette is effervescent, full of sparkling guitars, enveloping synths, and layered parts that eventually morph into gauzy bliss. “Lough” is a langourous stunner, “Here Is Now” enters shoegaze-indebted hypnotism, and “Whim” excels in unbridled jangle. This is a record to chew on and find a flourish in an arrangement that’ll live with you for weeks.

Bandcamp

Fib

Heavy Lifting

Philly via Portland band Fib’s erratic and ecstatic guitar rock never ends up quite where you expect it. Heavy Lifting is a refreshing and unrelenting thrill, showcasing the four-piece’s inventive and playful arrangements. Guitars zag and zig, songs expand and dissolve, withstanding whatever complex time changes and chaotic shifts the band throws at them. From the mesmerizing clang of “Right Out the Window” to the kinetic post-punk of “Dotted Line” and the squealing guitarmonies of “PS,” there’s a lot to love here. If you ever hear someone complain that indie rock is out of ideas, show them this record.

Bandcamp

Flock of Dimes

The Life You Save

Jenn Wasner’s music has been a regular presence in my life for the past 15 years. I loved Wye Oak’s The Knot in college, and when the A.V. Club made its follow-up Civilian the site’s Best Album of 2011, it made me dream of writing for that publication. (Funnily enough, my first-ever byline was a three-sentence news item in 2012 for the A.V. Club about a new song from her solo project, Flock of Dimes). The Life You Save is Wasner’s first record under the moniker since 2021 (she’s been a guitarist and touring member of Bon Iver for the past six years), and it’s by far her most luxuriant release yet. Self-produced with an assist from Sylvan Esso’s Nick Sanborn, the whole thing is jaw-dropping, from the romantic Americana arrangement of “Theo” to the enveloping drone anchoring the cathartic “The Enemy.” The pastoral penultimate track “River In My Arms” showcases Wasner’s powerful, soothing voice as she sings, “And I can’t tell you it’s alright / But it’s alright with me / I can only hold you / Like a tree holds to its leaves.” This is a record that proves why Wasner’s longevity is not only earned but essential.

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Florry

Sounds Like…

I like bands that feel like bands, where the unit is greater than the sum of its parts. Where every member feels distinct, and there’s no obvious star. Watching Florry perform last year at Hideout crystallized this observation: each musician has an exuberant and unmistakable personality, but it somehow all coheres into something electric in any given show. The Burlington and Philadelphia-based band captures this lightning in a bottle on their sophomore effort, Sounds Like…, which is a spirited collection of rambunctious, barroom twang. It opens with a torpedo-like intensity with “First it was a movie, then it was a book.” It teems with guitarmonies, kinetic energy, and frontwoman Francie Medosch yelping, “Well, last night I watched a movie / movie made me sad / ‘cause I saw myself in everyone / how’d they make a movie like that?” While Florry thrive on raucousness, Sounds Like… is chock-full of understated moments of beauty and bliss, too. “Sexy” is slurry while “Big Something” is plucky and plaintive. While I know Medosch is a fan of Bob Dylan, you can really hear the Rolling Thunder Revue spark exude throughout this full-length.

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Folk Bitch Trio

Now Would Be a Good Time

I’m not sure why singer-songwriters from Australia are so adept at writing gorgeous melodies, but artists like Julia Jacklin, Maple Glider, and Stella Donnelly are masters at this. So too are Melbourne’s Folk Bitch Trio, who blend jaw-dropping harmonies and flawless hooks into their debut album Now Would Be a Good Time. Their songs are searching, with perceptive and evocative lyrics peppering each of the 10 songs here. The real star is he palpable chemistry between musicians Gracie Sinclair, Jeanie Pilkington, and Heide Peverelle. You’ll pick up on this unbelievable alchemy within the first few seconds of opener “God’s a Different Sword.” Elsewhere, “Sarah” boasts an intro that hits like the warmest blanket, while the tunefulness exuding from “Cathode Ray” is near-overwhelming. If you like your folk music goosebump-inducing, Now Would Be a Good Time to get on board the FBT train.

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Foxwarren

2

While I consider Andy Shauf’s The Party and The Neon Skyline as two of the finest LPs of the past decade, the one from his catalog that I’ve returned to most regularly is Foxwarren’s self-titled debut from 2018. That was Shauf’s early band, formed years before his solo efforts with childhood friends. Where his songwriting under his name had been intricate, interconnected, and tightly packed, these songs felt loose, spacious, and comfortable. Where both projects are unassailably stellar, this band always felt more digestible and sunny. Foxwarren’s follow-up, 2, is a radical reinvention of the live-on-the-floor palette they mined for their first one. Here, thanks to remote sessions, warped musical ideas, and deconstructing their own process, a multitude of samples pepper the songs. It’s glitchy, occasionally unmooring, but always fascinating. It’s somehow as warmhearted and breezy as their first one, too. When you listen to a songwriter as perfectionist as Shauf, it’s a blast to hear him clearly have so much fun on record.

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Friendship

Caveman Wakes Up

Friendship have been a band for over a decade. Named after a town in Maine (three of its members grew up in the state), the now-Philly-based outfit has thrived on kindhearted indie rock anchored by the evocative lyricism and warbling baritone of singer Dan Wriggins. With their fifth full-length, Caveman Wakes Up, they’ve bested themselves. It’s 11 songs of understated catharsis, wry humor, and devastating one-liners. While every single is excellent, some of the true standouts come with album cuts, like the thunderous clang of a guitar riff that drives “Tree of Heaven,” and the vulnerable “Love Vape.” The tender “Betty Ford” is the best of the bunch, though. Sure, it opens with a “Mission in the Rain” Jerry Garcia reference, but Wriggins sings a line that’s stuck with me more than anything else this year: “I have been everyone / I’ve been so alone.”

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Geese

Getting Killed

New York’s Geese thrive on viscerally subverting expectations to the point where your conception of what a rock group can be is constantly recalibrating. Like its predecessors in the band’s catalog, Getting Killed opens with a disorienting and potent left turn. “Trinidad” is undergirded by a swaggering blues riff and frontman Cameron Winter’s voice jolting between a falsetto coo and anguished screams. It’s all violence and volcanic energy with lines like, “There’s a bomb in my car,” which he delivers with maniacal intensity. Then, “Cobra” enters the mix: a gorgeous dose of twinkling guitars and Winter’s charismatic vulnerability. He sings, “Lеt me dance away forevеr, baby.” Since 3D Country, Winter has emerged as a dynamic and enthralling frontman. His level of control is staggering in the way he can morph from a warbling croak, a raspy yell, to an upper-register wail. No matter what, it’s always a thrill.

Recorded with Kenneth Blume, a hip-hop producer who’s made several successful forays into rock with acts like Idles, Getting Killed excels on intricate grooves and outre percussion. This rhythmic backbone allows the rest of the band to show off, especially on the title track, which boasts a sample of a Ukrainian choir. Frenetic drums and pops of chopped-up vocals whirl around crunchy riffs and Winter’s aching voice. Elsewhere, on the heartwrenching ballad “Au Pays Du Cocaine,” Winter sings gut-shattering lyrics like, “Baby, you can change and still choose me.” The raw emotion in his voice is chilling there. When I first heard this record, I started joking to friends that Getting Killed was Gen Z’s answer to Radiohead’s In Rainbows. While I initially meant it in jest, I’m realizing that they’re both percussion-first, wildly unpredictable, and seamlessly sequenced LPs that radically refocused the sound of an already innovative band.

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Gelli Haha

Switcheroo

Great pop music thrives on escapist fun, but the cream of the crop always has ample edge, humor, and inventiveness, too. No record this year has checked all those boxes more than Switcheroo, Angel Abaya’s debut LP as Gelli Haha (which is pronounced “jelly”). Persistently playful and unpredictable throughout, the Filipino-American Los Angeles artist excels at immediately transportative world-building. Here, it’s called the “Gelliverse.” She combines the cloudlike atmospherics of Cocteau Twins with electroclash’s punky attitude, along with dance music’s most cerebral rhythms, and colorful melodies that are sugary but never cloying. On the raucous “Tiramisu,” she wails, “What the hell is going on?” over plinks of classic house piano chords. You might ask the same thing (in a positive way). The gorgeous opener “Funny People” abruptly ends with a cartoonish “bonk!” sound, while “Bounce House” is anchored by a bubbly synth groove and a chipper “chugga-chugga-chugga” backing vocal. Even songs that would be a throwaway track in the hands of a lesser artist, like the hilariously bawdy “Piss Artist,” shine. It’s a zany pop masterpiece.

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Golden Apples

Shooting Star

Russell Edling is an indie rock lifer who led the Philadelphia outfit Kite Party a little over a decade ago. Since that band’s 2014 demise, he started Cherry, which eventually became Golden Apples. Over five albums (or four, if you don’t count the one released under the old moniker), the band has thrived on a recent shift to hooky, Elephant 6-indebted power-pop. 2023’s Bananasugarfire, their last LP, was a No Expectations favorite that year, thanks to impeccably crafted tunes like “Waiting For a Cloud” and the title track. Where the band’s latest Shooting Star continues the joyful jangle of its predecessor, it’s not a retread. The 12 songs here are more spacious, nervy, and extraordinary. “Ditto” immediately launches into alt-rock swagger, and underneath the noisy gossamer of the single “Noonday Demon” is pop bliss. While it all sounds effortless, recent interviews suggest Edling had a hell of a time making it. While you can guess that on “Mind,” with lines like, “If this love is an event in my mind, and all this evil is an event in my mind / I must be out of mind / You must be out of your mind too”), it channels neuroses into a delirious sing-along chorus.

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Golomb

The Beat Goes On

About a year and a half ago, Greg Freeman told me to check out a trio from Columbus, Ohio called Golomb. He described them as the sickest live band, composed of husband and wife Mickey and Xenia Shuman alongside Xenia’s little brother Hawken Holm, who “set their amps at 10 and just rip.” A few months later, Golomb dropped a stellar EP in Love, which included the kinetic and unflinching rocker “Take My Life” that hinted at the raw power of their live show. When I finally saw them open for Freeman at Subterranean Downstairs, I was blown away. Though in person, their unrelenting blasts of sound were physically tangible and ribcage-shaking, it was their flabbergasting earworm songs that stole the show. The Beat Goes On, Golomb’s debut LP, is an adventurous, exciting, and dynamic indie rock record. No track sounds quite alike, yet it manages to be a coherent listen front-to-back. While the band has since told me they’ve never really listened to Built to Spill or Pavement, their sensibility invokes the spirit of ‘90s alternative in the zipping leads of “Staring,” the reggae thump in “Other Side of the Earth,” and in the earnest “Play Music.” This is obviously a band writing and making music on their own idiosyncratic terms.

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Good Flying Birds

Talulah’s Tape

At the beginning of the year, Indianapolis indie rockers Good Flying Birds released a cassette called Talulah’s Tape featuring “scattered demos … recorded at home between 2021-2024.” Those who heard it early realized it was a stellar collection of jangle-pop, which is why it’s already reissued via the great indie label Carpark. While you’d expect efficient, scrappy, and well-written tunes from a band named after a Guided By Voices song, these songs’ muscular and impeccable core transcends their four-track-recorded presentation. At 16 tracks, Talulah’s Tape is breathlessly paced: a constant onslaught of quality hooks, delirious riffs, and surging punk energy. “Wallace” is anchored by a squall of guitar noise, “Golfball” is wistful slacker rock, while the standout “Every Day Is Another” winds things down with cascading acoustic chords and delicate falsetto. Fronted by Kellen Baker, the Midwesterner has few peers when it comes to irrefutable and timeless songwriting.

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Goon

Dream 3

Two years ago, I visited Los Angeles and met up with my friend Braden Lawrence, who told me he was about to fill in as the touring drummer for a local band called Goon (he’s now focusing on his sick new band Beaming). I had somehow never heard of them, but quickly dove into the warped psych-pop from bandleader Kenny Becker. Dream 3 is the latest and best full-length from this Becker-led collective. It’s dense, chock-full of ideas and studio experiments, but it coheres into something both plaintive and thrilling over its 51-minute runtime. The patient and gorgeous opener “Begin Here” as well as the surprisingly cacophonous and caustic “Patsy’s Twin” (both feature drums from Lawrence) are both clear standouts, but this is an LP that’s best experienced in a single sitting. Think Yo La Tengo at their most glitchy or a blissed-out Built to Spill.

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Goose

Chain Yer Dragon

I imagine it must suck to be a jam band releasing a proper album. The loyal audience they cultivated through sprawling shows would probably prefer to hear those songs live, while someone new to the band likely won’t listen because, well, it’s a studio album from a jam band. More than any of their peers (except maybe their Connecticut comrades, Eggy, whose ‘24 LP Waiting Game was excellent), Goose have gone to great lengths to successfully cross over with less wook-y audiences with each LP since 2022’s Dripfield. While the band is a newsletter favorite, one of America’s best live acts, and a thoughtful and fun Taste Profile interview, I’ve found their studio fare to be a mixed bag. On this year’s Everything Must Go, their understandable impulse to differentiate themselves on record from their bread-and-butter live performances has led them to overindulge in maximalist studio ornamentation. Whenever it feels overproduced, it obscures what makes their songs so effective. They’re a great band, but they’re at their best when they’re not overthinking it, leaning into their tangible chemistry and letting their songs speak for themselves. Chain Yer Dragon, their no-frills fifth LP and second of 2025, is their best yet. It captures the grit of their live show and refuses to sand down the loose magic of their improvisations. It rules. Featuring repertoire staples that date back over a decade as well as new tunes, it’s the best primer on Goose so far. I can without qualification recommend the record to the still-skeptical, especially if you’re a fan of Jackson Browne and the Band.

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Grace Rogers

Mad Dogs

Louisville’s Grace Rogers spent the early part of her career as a traditional picker and roots performer, but her debut Mad Dogs finds her leaning into conversational and inviting indie rock. There’s still a healthy dose of western and Americana signifiers, buoyed by Rogers’ friendly voice and perceptive lyricism. Released via the Ryan Davis-run label Sophomore Lounge, these eight tracks are charming and delightful: “Downstream” boasts menacing guitars that eventually let loose in its final minute, while “Smoke Em’” is countrified jangle at its finest. Rogers saves the best for last with the resplendent, haunting “Westport.”

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Greg Freeman

Burnover

Hearing Greg Freeman’s 2022 LP, I Looked Out, for the first time was a jarring experience. What some twenty-something from Burlington made with his friends turned into an arresting, electric, and memorable debut. Recent artists have melded country and indie rock so frequently it’s become a meme, but Freeman’s always been different. His voice was creaky and emotive, his arrangements had near apocalyptic urgency, and his lyrics were evocative, painting illuminating portraits of rapture and despair rather than deadpan, conversational observations. I’ve written about him a ton in this newsletter and gotten to know him because of it, but seeing these songs grow into what would become Burnover has been unbelievably rewarding. His second LP channels the explosiveness of his first effort into something more purposeful and cohesive. Across the 10 exemplary tracks here, there’s a tangible arc: the bombast of opener “Point and Shoot,” the timelessness of the lowkey “Gallic Shrug,” and the desolate moodiness of closer “Wolf Pine.” On the frantic, Elvis Costello-channeling “Gulch,” Freeman yelps, “And the highway is bright whеn the speed’s just right / and it’s hitting like a million bucks tonight / I love the world, but I think it’s too fucked up to drive.” From how the piano-led “Curtain” dissolves into New Orleans jazz to the scorching guitars that anchor “Gone (Can Mean a Lot of Things), each song stuns. I’m so proud of the guy. It’s an obvious AOTY contender, and I’m not just saying that because my writing is on the vinyl’s sticker.

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Haley Heynderickx & Max García Conover

What of Our Nature

The protest song is a lost art, and the most popular recent practitioners engage in either Instagram-lite sloganeering or misplaced culture war nonsense. Haley Heynderickx and Max García Conover’s collaborative LP What of Our Nature serves as a necessary corrective, providing nuance, grace, and empathy in these songs of resistance and solidarity. Steeping themselves in the writing and recordings of Woody Guthrie, the Portland-based Heynderickx and the New York-based García Conover shared songs and ideas from coast to coast, trading off lead vocal duties throughout the LP. What separates these two songwriters from their contemporaries is their diligent study of not just American folk traditions, but radical history. Opener “Song For Alicia” finds García Conover, who is Puerto Rican, singing about the plight of Alicia Rodríguez, who was sentenced to 55 years in prison for her affiliation with Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional (she was pardoned in 1999). He movingly sings, “So it’s ride, Alicia, ride / Move, Alicia, move / I would be Boricua even if I was born on the moon.” Elsewhere, Heynderickx exquisitely tackles atomization on “To each their dot” and consumerism on “Fluorescent Lights.” These are beautiful songs that might make you learn something.

Hand Habits

Blue Reminder

Blue Reminder, Meg Duffy’s fourth album as Hand Habits, is triumphantly self-possessed and calming. Even when its lyrics are at their most unflichingly self-excavating, there’s an ease and a generosity to it. On opener “More Today,” they sing powerful lines like “I know the love we lose / Informs who we become,” as well as “Honey, I think I love you / more today.” Each track comes fully-formed, with hooks so rock-solid they’re immediate sing-alongs. “Wheel of Change” is nestled at the intersection of timeless and tasteful, feeling like a song I’ve heard my entire life, while “Bluebird of Happiness” sets sail with ebullient guitarmonies. If you’ve ever seen them live in any context, it’s obvious that Duffy’s a shredder, but with their songwriting, their focus has been on finding the powerful emotional resonance in quiet, sparse moments.

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Hannah Cohen

Earthstar Mountain

The Castskills-based Flying Cloud Recordings, which is run by Cohen and her partner Sam Evian, has been the studio behind so many phenomenal ‘70s-indebted indie rock records from Liam Kazar’s Due North and Pilot Light, Kate Bollinger’s Songs From A Thousand Frames Of Mind, and a section of Big Thief’s Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You (not to mention Cohen and Evian’s recent oeuvre). There’s a distinct sensibility and a kindred, inviting spirit to each LP that comes out of there, and Cohen’s latest, Earthstar Mountain, encapsulates it perfectly. Produced by Evian, Cohen enlists collaborators like Sufjan Stevens, Clairo, Liam Kazar, Oliver Hill, and Sean Mullins for songs that split the difference between Dusty Springfield, Gal Costa, and Carole King. There’s a funky bass thump to the single “Draggin’” while “Summer Sweat” deals in hazy psychedelia and sumptuous soul. It’s a total treat throughout.

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Hannah Frances

Nested in Tangles

Hannah Frances’ last album, Keeper of the Shepherd, was a mystifying and dazzling collection of knotty folk that solidified her as a rare, uncompromising artist. When you have an artistic breakthrough like that, some songwriters choose to lean into crowdpleasing pop or try and fail to recreate the magic of that long-past moment. But Frances decided to burrow even further into her meticulously crafted and intricate worldbuilding for a far more challenging but equally rewarding follow-up in Nested in Tangles. It’s a record that demands a front-to-back listen, one with clear standout tracks that truly come to life in the context of the whole. As a bandleader, Frances makes elegant and complex arrangements feel fluid and airy: her rich voice looming over a cornucopia of acoustic guitars, horns, strings, and jazz drums. Single “Falling From and Further” comes the closest to the propulsiveness of Shepherd, but Frances and her ensemble of collaborators feel more confident and free to subvert the formula. Throughout a few of the songs, Grizzly Bear’s Daniel Rossen provides guitar, proving his unorthodox style simpatico with Frances. Some of the most jaw-dropping moments are when Frances slows things down, like on “Steady in the Hand,” or interstitial, largely instrumental tracks like “Beholden To” and “A Body, A Map.” There’s a cinematic level of drama and grandeur throughout the sequencing. While many have tried to pull something similar off, only Frances has had the visionary talent to nail it.

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Holden & Zimpel

The Universe Will Take Care of You

If there’s a 2025 LP that’s suited for solitary headphone listening or blasting loud on quality speakers, it’s this one. James Holden is an English electronic musician who’s been releasing forward-thinking and aqueous instrumental albums over the past two decades, while Waclaw Zimpel is a Polish clarinetist. On The Universe Will Take Care of You, the two combine a deep love of krautrock-inspired drone, looping synths, and patient grooves for an endlessly gratifying LP. The duo first teamed up in 2018 for an EP, but this 51-minute full-length is wholly enveloping electronic music that shows these artists at the peak of their collaborative powers. Opener “You Are Gods” is anchored by swirling arpeggios that bubble and crackle over the course of its eight-and-a-half-minute runtime. Melodies appear and dissipate into the mix as the loping chord progression evolves. “Time Ring Rattles” is percussive and frenetic, while “Incredible Bliss” remains true to its title with a soothing and pulsating anchor beat. This is tactile and hypnotizing music that not only demands a curious ear but grabs it easily.

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Horsegirl

Phonetics On and On

The Chicago-formed, New York-based trio Horsegirl burst out of the pandemic with a record deal with Matador and a debut album recorded at Electrical Audio with the legendary producer John Agnello. They were still in high school then, but the songs were searching and massive, and I wrote in 2022, “The artists who make up Chicago’s Horsegirl are at least 11 years younger than I am and have the best taste I’ve ever seen in a young band.” Where that palette took from crate-digging sensibilities of indie rock’s fringes, their follow-up is more straightforward, more accessible, and full of heart and fun. On paper, it’s a paring back of what made them so exciting starting out, but Phonetics On and On is a document of a band discovering that they’re better at writing perfect, ramshackle pop songs. Recorded with Cate Le Bon at Chicago’s The Loft, these strong songs speak for themselves without being drowned in fuzzy guitars and reverb. The “da-da-das” elevate “I Can’t Stand To See You,” the subtle, shooting star guitars on “Julie” rule, and the single “2468” features the best counting motif since Feist. It’s full of grooves, glowing harmonies, and perfectly mixed drums. I wrote about Horsegirl in the first No Expectations newsletter, saying, “I bet their next album is a classic.” While it’s still too soon, at least I didn’t totally embarrass myself with that.

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Jeff Tweedy

Twilight Override

While I don’t believe there’s one particular blueprint for a long and rewarding career, Jeff Tweedy, now in his fifth decade of touring, recording, and releasing music, is probably the best model. He’s proof that some combo of discipline, openness, and kindness will pan out. All three of these winning qualities are on display throughout Twilight Override. He recorded it at his Chicago studio, the Loft, with his sons Spencer and Sammy, alongside a cast of younger musicians in Liam Kazar, Sima Cunningham, and Macie Stewart. (The acclaimed guitarist Jim Elkington also guests on several tracks). This cross-generational collaboration clearly energizes Tweedy through its 30 songs, which miraculously never lag over a 111-minute runtime. A document of gleeful creative freedom, it’s a remarkably varied and dynamic record. The achy, erratic thump of “No One’s Moving On” could’ve been on A Ghost Is Born, while the single “Lou Reed Was My Babysitter” is rock’n’roll catharsis. The winsome, dreamy “Stray Cats in Spain” wobbles with woozy optimism, while the overcast, spoken-word “Parking Lots” anxiously grapples with his parallel futures. It’s a testament to Tweedy’s craft and curiosity, for he’s been able to evolve, keep things interesting, and try new things, not just since Uncle Tupelo, but in this past decade of nonstop creative reinvention.

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Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer

Different Rooms

The best instrumental LPs feel like self-contained worlds. No matter how many diversions or expeditions are embarked throughout the tracklist, it always finds its core theme. Different Rooms, the latest collaborative LP from synthesist Jeremiah Chiu and violist Marta Sofia Honer, is an absolute clinic of the form. The two flourish at the juxtaposition of digital and man-made sounds, incorporating disparate sonic worlds with finesse and fervor. Imaginative and meditative throughout its 10 tracks, you’ll hear shadows of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s grandiose soundscapes and Squarepusher’s computerized blips. The bookend renditions of “Mean Solar Time” are mournful and spellbinding, while the Josh Johnson-assisted title track is tranquil and rapt. It’s a serene listen throughout.

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Junk Drawer

Days of Heaven

After the first few songs of Days of Heaven, you’ll think that the Belfast band Junk Drawer has one of the best post-punk albums of 2025. But the more you listen, you’ll realize the LP dissolves into something more heady, cosmic, and interesting in its second half. It’s not post-punk at all, but it’s totally sick. “Where Goes the Time” features dirge-like synth and vocals that conjure a resemblance to Neil Young, while “Black Ball 85” is hazy psychedelia that occasionally feels like a haunted house. However, you might worry that the band stuffs all the propulsive rockers on the A-side, but “Ghosts of Leisure” is the headiest track of the bunch. No matter the tempo or zone, it’s all splendid. I knew from the first seconds of this LP that I was going to write about it, but I didn’t know the shocking directions it’d take.

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Ken Pomeroy

Cruel Joke

Ken Pomeroy, a 23-year-old Cherokee songwriter based in Tulsa, is a preternaturally gifted storyteller on her debut album, Cruel Joke. These stripped-back autobiographical country tunes are positively radiant through their lean 38-minute runtime, packing in a life’s work of perceptive emotional revelations. Standout tracks like “Grey Skies” were written when she was 13—a shocking fact once you hear its sophisticated harmonies and ​​sagacious lyrics. This keen songcraft propels this LP to be a cut above its peers, from the John Moreland-assisted “Coyote” to the sweeping momentum of opener “Pareidoila.” Whether she traverses folk, Americana, or traditional country on her next effort, Pomeroy’s a clear star in the making. (For the college basketball heads subscribed, I hope you’ve realized by now that this is clearly not the renowned hoops statistician.)

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Laurie Torres

Après coup

Philip Sherburne, the great music critic and writer behind the essential newsletter Futurism Restated, wrote of Laurie Torres’ splendid new piano LP Après coup that it “offers precisely the kind of respite that’s needed when you just can’t stand doomscrolling anymore.” He’s absolutely right: the 11 tracks from Canadian-Haitian composer are dreamlike blankets that you’ll want to burrow in as much as possible. These patient and vibrant improvisational pieces will gently rewire your brain and allow you to take a step back and unclench. Complete with subtle synths and captivating field recording samples, it’s just beautiful stuff here.

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Lawn

God Made the Highway

Lawn is a New Orleans band composed of two stellar and distinct co-lead singers and songwriters. Bassist Rui De Magalhães is a Venezuela-born Nicaragua-raised artist whose songs are searing, propulsive, and often political post-punk. (His excellent solo project, Rui Gabriel, finds him exploring much more laid-back fare). Guitarist Mac Folger is from Nashville and writes observational, funny, and personal tunes with a clear-cut power-pop edge. While that sounds disparate on paper, it’s been a winning and durable combo since their 2018 debut, Blood on the Tracks. I became a fan in 2020 with the excellent sophomore effort Johnny, which I raved about at VICE. When De Magalhães moved to Chicago in 2022, we became close friends. While Rui’s back in New Orleans, the band, which also includes drummer Mark Edlin (Hovvdy, Mini Trees) and guitarist Nicholas Corson (The Convenience, Video Age, Hovvdy), recorded their best album yet, God Made the Highway, in Chicago. The 10 songs mostly alternate between tunes sung by Folger and De Magalhães, with each trade-off highlighting how unexpectedly compatible and complementary their voices are. “Lonely River Blues” is anchored by a dizzying bass thrum, and De Magalhães is practically spitting in his biting lyrical delivery. The next song, “Davie,” is sunny jangle and insistent pop, which then morphs into “Pressure,” a herky-jerky dose of Devo-inflected punk. This whirlwind unfolds throughout the tracklist. It’s thrilling, scrappy, and astounding stuff.

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Liam Kazar

Pilot Light

I’ve known Chicago-raised, New York-based songwriter Liam Kazar for the past decade, and I wrote the bio for his debut LP, Due North. For a good stretch when I lived in Roscoe Village, he was my regular bartender at Hungry Brain. While I don’t see him as much as I used to, he’s doing exactly what he’d dream about then: touring full time with bands like Tweedy, Waxahatchee, Kevin Morby, Sam Evian, and his own. A couple of years back, he came over and played me some danceable demos that were clearly inspired by Prince and Bowie. They were cool, but he changed course after debuting a few songs at a solo show in Chicago when he debuted songs like “Didn’t I” and “Next Time Around.” He’s best at soulful and observational songwriting, which both those tunes encapsulate perfectly. I’m happy he made the switch and recorded it with Friend of the Newsletter Sam Evian at Flying Cloud Recordings. From the Cass McCombs-evoking title track opener to the joyfully catchy “Mission,” that’s my personal favorite of the bunch, Pilot Light is a cozy and smooth dose of folk-rock. It’s naturally conservational, and you can tell it was an absolute blast to make.

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Lifeguard

Ripped and Torn

Alongside acts like Friko, Horsegirl, and Free Range, Lifeguard has led the charge of Chicago’s youth indie rock scene. The trio of Kai Slater (whose other band is Sharp Pins), Asher Case, and Isaac Lowenstein formed as freshmen in high school (in 2019) and make raucous, squall-heavy art-rock that boasts clanging riffs and dual-lead vocals from Slater and Case. After a string of EPs released on Chicago label Born Yesterday Records and now Matador, their full-length debut keeps the band’s edge while leaning into anthemic and approachable melodies. It’s a winning combo throughout Ripped and Torn, which was produced by No Age’s Randy Randall and features a crate-diggers’ worth of references ranging from This Heat to Rites of Spring and Swell Maps. There’s a palpable griminess to songs like “How to Say Deisar,” while “It Will Get Worse” threads the needle between power-pop and punk with ample urgency. Though the LP is a wild ride from start to finish, it’s just as commendable how the members of Lifeguard have built a thriving local community of zines, house shows, and tangible excitement for outre music.

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Lily Seabird

Trash Mountain

Soon after I started No Expectations in 2022, I wrote about several Burlington, Vermont-based artists like Greg Freeman, Lily Seabird, Dari Bay, and Robber Robber. Alongside North Carolina and Chicago, that city is home to what I believe is the country’s most exciting indie rock scene (next to Chicago). I’ve gotten to know these musicians through this newsletter and through hosting them when they play shows in Chicago. They’re great people, and witnessing their artistic growth has been such a joy. They’ve exposed me to so much great music written by their Burlington peers and tourmates (which I’ve written about extensively here) that it’s funny I’ve never stepped foot in Vermont. Since my first blurb on Lily Seabird, she’s released two phenomenal LPs 2024’s Alas, and Trash Mountain, her most self-assured effort to date. The title of the LP refers to a compound of apartments near a decommissioned landfill where she lives with other musicians and creatives. Written mostly while on tour or coming home from extensive time on the road, the songs have a big-hearted warmth and deal with finding home, connection, and belonging amid life’s chaos. Sung with conviction by one of indie rock’s most peerless and evocative voices, Seabird’s aching folk songs are a force to be reckoned with.

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Lucky Cloud

Foreground

Chicago’s Chet Zenor has spent years as a sideman, playing guitar or bass for newsletter favorite acts like Minor Moon, Squirrel Flower, Whitney, and Hannah Frances. But with Lucky Cloud, he lends his nimble and serpentine leads to impressionistic singer-songwriter fare. Foreground is his debut, and it showcases Zenor’s wonderfully unorthodox melodic sensibility. Named after an Arthur Russell song, Lucky Cloud features its namesake’s playfulness as well as a Thom Yorke-like proclivity for moody scene-setting and falsetto (“Vacant Eyes” sounds like an OK Computer b-side). There are jazz-inflected chords, muted alt-country, and even songs that evoke Jeff Buckley without the theatricality (opener “Undertow” could have been on Grace). I’ve been lucky enough to hear these songs in different contexts live—with a full band and with Zenor totally solo—and it’s clear these confounding and exemplary tunes broadcast a unique talent.

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Macie Stewart

When the Distance Is Blue

Macie Stewart might be Chicago’s most multifaceted artist. As one-half of Finom, she’s local art rock royalty, but she’s also an adventurous improviser, treading the waters of jazz, classical contemporary, and experimental ambient throughout her career. Where her first solo effort, 2021’s Mouth Full of Glass, highlighted her expansive singer-songwriter fare, When The Distance Is Blue is an eight-track song cycle that mines her versatility as a composer and bandleader. Released via the great label International Anthem, it’s a delicious mixture of field recordings, collage-like piano compositions, and fully improvised jam sessions. In the press materials, Stewart calls it “a love letter to the moments we spend in-between.” Few musicians I know are more protean, and few are more adept at finding evocative moments of tenderness in open musical space.

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Mae Powell

Making Room for the Light

Bay Area songwriter Mae Powell has a voice that can stop anyone in their tracks. It warbles, coos, and floats throughout the jazz-inflected folk rock of her sophomore LP, Making Room for the Light. Recorded in Vancouver with multi-instrumentalist and producer David Parry, who plays in the excellent band Loving, the 11 succulent tracks here are densely packed with immaculate instrumental textures, ornate arrangements, and Powell’s timeless approach to melody. “Tangerine” excels in golden hour twang, while “It Comes in Waves” is as affecting as it is dazzling. This is open-hearted pop music from a writer who’s clearly done her homework on American musical traditions but inventive enough to make them fully her own.

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Maia Friedman

Goodbye Long Winter Shadow

​​Maia Friedman is a touring member of Dirty Projectors and Coco, who leans on orchestral and timeless folk on her solo albums. Her latest, Goodbye Long Winter Shadow, is luscious and layered with strings and woodwinds that lend Friedman’s knockout voice some gravitas. Singles like “New Flowers” and “Russian Blue” are stunning, but some of the truly transcendent moments come in the realized interstitial tracks. Produced by Philip Weinrobe (Adrianne Lenker), everything is in its right place. Friedman packs 15 songs into an efficient 31 minutes here, and not a second is wasted.

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Magic Fig

Valerian Tea

Magic Fig is a supergroup of Bay Area psychrockers hailing from bands like the Umbrellas, Whitney’s Playland, Healing Potpourri, and more. On their debut album, Valerian Tea, these coruscating pop songs unfold like Broadcast or Stereolab attending a Ren Faire. “Walking Shoes” opens with cascading synths and airy pockpacks of vocals from frontwoman Inna Showalter before eventually unveiling zipping and fuzzy lead guitars. This is a band that thrives on euphoric swirls of sound, hurtling from forest-ready folk to spritely pop. There’s a level of Pink Floyd-inspired grandeur, too, that sails on closer “Sleep of Reason,” a reverb-laden tune that dissipates into a foreboding outro. While it’s a played-out adjective, it’s very easy to call these songs “kaleidoscopic.”

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Mamalarky

Hex Key

Whether they’ve been based in Austin, Atlanta, or now Los Angeles, Mamalarky are one of the most exciting indie rock bands of the decade. I first heard them in early 2020, when Fire Talk put out their single “How To Say.” Everything they’ve put out since has been excellent, like 2022’s Pocket Fantasy, which I raved about in the first-ever No Expectations writing, “Livvy Bennett, who fronts Atlanta’s Mamalarky, is, in my opinion, the most inventive and interesting guitarist in indie rock right now.” The quartet’s latest full-length, Hex Key, might be less reliant on Bennett’s dexterous and mathy riffing, but it levels up the band’s songwriting with their most immediate and pop-forward collection yet. Here, they lean into hazy psychedelia and subtly sticky grooves like on the synth-heavy “Won’t Give Up” and lead single “Feels So Wrong.” It truly shines when the band gets loud like on “Anhedonia,” “#1 Best of All Time,” “MF,” and “Blow Up,” while never losing their playfully experimental ethos. Before the release of this LP, Bennett and bandmate Michael Hunter wrote and produced “Soft,” a single on R&B star Lucky Daye’s The Algorithm. It’s clear their winning chemistry and ease at setting a hypnotizing aura can translate to any setting.

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Maneka

bathes and listens

Devin McKnight is an indisputably talented guitarist best suited at exploring extremes: head-splitting blasts of deafening noise and glimmering moments of muted bliss. He’s been in bands like Speedy Ortiz and Grass Is Green, but his solo project, Maneka, is the most comprehensive glimpse at both his shredding and his heterodox songwriting. His latest LP, bathes and listens, is a more combustible follow-up to his outstanding 2022 effort Dark Matters, occupying the intersection of slowcore and shoegaze. Beneath the tightly-knit coating of distortion and noise on “dimelo” is an endearing ode to Carmelo Anthony, while opener “shallowing” highlights his pop-minded verve with a chiming battering ram of guitars. Elsewhere, when McKnight flaunts his fingerpicking prowess on “pony,” he proves how his dexterous musicianship cuts above his peers.

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McKinley Dixon

Magic, Alive!

Friend of the Newsletter McKinley Dixon, the Chicago-based and Richmond-raised rapper, has done things his way through his unassailable career so far. From his early self-released full-lengths to his 2021 studio debut, For My Mama And Anyone Who Look Like Her (released via Spacebomb Records), he’s preferred full, live band arrangements, ambitious thematic concepts, and doggedly introspective lyrics that cover the totality of lived experience. He tackles grief with unfaltering clarity, joy with unbridled euphoria, and even named his last LP Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!? after a trilogy of Toni Morrison novels. His latest, Magic Alive!, is a dense, concept-forward full-length centered around three young friends who try to use magic to summon the spirit of a dead peer. With production from Sam Yamaha and Sam Koff, who augment beats with a cavalry of live instrumentation and features ranging from Pink Siifu, Quelle Chris, Blu, Shamir, and more, it’s maximalist, rapturous, and adroit rap music. Every song shines, but the title track especially soars.

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Mei Semones

Animaru

I doubt you’ll find a more delightful blend of genres and influences than Mei Semones’ excellent new LP Animaru. It gleefully combines bossa nova with jazz, indie rock, and ample breathtaking strings with lyrics in Japanese and English. These are exuberant, frantic, and dazzling songs. Semones is a dynamic vocalist who can wrap herself around her opulent arrangements. “Dumb Feeling” explodes with feeling, while “Zarigani” moves at a breathless pace. The musical ideas are abundant but never overbearing. She deftly weaves multiple threads without losing the mighty core of the writing. A superlative, distinct talent who excels at songs that are so refreshing it’s almost disorienting.

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Monde UFO

Flamingo Tower

Flamingo Tower, the latest full-length from the Los Angeles experimental outfit Monde UFO, is an album that’s better experienced than explained. It’s so chock-full of seemingly disparate ideas that any attempt to transcribe what’s going on in a particular track probably sounds insane. Simultaneously mellow and chaotic, euphoric and menacing, ambitious and casual, avant-garde and agreeable, bandleader Ray Monde delicately guides his collaborators through what would be fraught territory with lesser musicians. Somehow, it all coheres into something psychedelic, beguiling, and thrilling. It’s bookmarked by a haunting organ motif on the ghostly opener “Gambled House We’re Wiping Fire” and the slightly less eerie closer “Psalm 3.” After the dirgelike first tune, it unfurls into propulsive pop that careens from sunny motifs to intrusive jolts of saxophone and percussion into the mix. More welcome surprises ensue across its 11 songs. When it gets too bubbly (highlights “Samba 9” and “119” are great entry points), the band finds a way to add wonkiness and menace. Bewitching and innovative, no recent record has felt more like a rollercoaster and more of a hopeful glimpse into the future of indie rock.

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Monte Booker

noise (meaning)

Close to a decade ago, when I was the music reporter for RedEye Chicago, I was introduced to an ingenious and introverted 20-year-old producer named Monte Booker who provided beats for the rapper Smino and the neo-soul innovator Ravyn Lenae. He’d craft rhythms and grooves from sampled household objects, distorting and morphing these mundane sounds into something otherworldly. Now living in Los Angeles, Booker continued his collaborations with Smino and Lenae, alongside Saba and Noname, and won a Grammy this year for his production work on Doechii’s Alligator Bites Never Heal. He finally strikes out on his own with noise (meaning), his debut full-length, an impeccably sequenced and wonderfully collaborative odyssey of future-forward beats and marquee guest vocals from Smino, clothegod, Mereba, Nami, Lenae, and more. It’s a startlingly immersive body of work that not only flaunts Booker’s beatmaking prowess but also provides a freestanding mission statement for his community-building talents.

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Moontype

I Let The Wind Push Down On Me

Back in late 2020, I was sent an early download of a record by a Chicago band called Moontype. Pre-pandemic, I didn’t know much about them except for the fact that I had a few mutual friends with their members, but after listening to their debut album, Bodies of Water, it was clear this was the LP I needed to hear that year. Bandleader Margaret McCarthy’s voice is ethereal and pointed, her melodies so unorthodox it’s shocking, and the livewire arrangements were fascinating. I was working for VICE at the time and wrote a long Noisey Next profile on the band when the record came out in spring 2021. It’s funny that then, I wrote that chemistry was the thing that bound this band together, but in 2025, the group has a brand new lineup and is even more locked in. Adding on guitarists Joe Suihkonen (The Deals, Patter) and Andrew Clinkman (Spirits Having Fun, Krill 2)—both absolute shredders in the local scene—has allowed McCarthy to find new textures for her vivid, uncommon writing on sophomore effort I Let The Wind Push Down On Me. Where all of her songs are written on bass with her voice serving as a counter, the melodies here especially bang on “Long Country” and the hazy “Anymore.” It’s a record where any track could be a single, and I’m so happy I get to live in a city where bands like this can sprout organically.

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Neu Blume

Let It Win

Detroit is home to an excellent indie rock scene that can oscillate from commanding post-punk like Protomartyr to krautrock-and-jam-adjacent experimentation like Winged Wheel or conversational folk-rock like Bonny Doon (to name just three). Neu Blume operate in the latter camp. Back in 2022, the group led by Mo Neuharth and Colson Miller (who both used to be in the great Arizona band Nanami Ozone) released a “mini-album” called Softer Vessel, seven songs of stellar, ramshackle, and midtempo jangle. Let It Win, their debut full-length, sounds like a truly confident band staking out their own lane. The songs feel warmer, crisper, and more open, like on the first tune, “Cold Strange,” which is buoyed by delicate harmonies. There’s a casual, gentle folksiness throughout. Even when the songs get brooding, like on “Mitsubishi (II),” Neuharth and Miller perform it with such an inviting grace. Elsewhere, the ambling rhythm of “Car to Go” and the breathy opening to “Wood Pile” make this a perfect road trip record. It also proves the Midwest is best (even if these guys are from Phoenix).

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No Joy

Bugland

No Joy started as a gleefully shapeshifting shoegaze band from Montreal that has since evolved into the solo project of main member Jasamine White-Gluz, which still boasts a fierce experimental streak on new LP Bugland. Here, White-Gluz teams up with Fire-Toolz’s Angel Marcloid for a thrilling LP of ecstatic, explosive, and glitchy indie rock. But for all the blasts of synths, samples, and other sonic left turns that pepper these songs, this LP is not a challenging listen. It’s strikingly mature with a plush atmosphere and a poppy center. It sounds analog, even with the assemblage of electronics shaping each arrangement. This is the kind of record where transcribing what’s going on in a particular track (“Closer “Jelly Meadow Bright” combines palm-muted riffage, black metal shrieks, smooth jazz, and ambient soundscapes”) sounds insane, but I promise you it all works perfectly.

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Oldstar

Of the Highway

I recently pitched the Florida band Oldstar to a friend and said that their raucous country rock was “as if MJ Lenderman listened to Steve Earle instead of the Drive-By Truckers.” While those alt-country icons are kindred spirits, the sonic distinction between them is subtle but significant: Earle’s voice has more of a throaty swagger, and his songs are more straightforward. Where Lenderman threads the needle between humor and heart or wit and winsomeness, Oldstar is far more earnest, plainspoken, and unselfconsciously Americana. Though Of the Highway is not the first album from the Panama City Beach-based outfit, it is their studio debut. The overdriven guitars have a meaty crunch, and the fiddle and acoustic instruments pair perfectly with 21-year-old singer Zane Mclaughlin’s outlaw warble. Songs like “California” evoke Being There-era Wilco while “Plate Numbers” channels their state forebears Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. The youngsters in Oldstar are firmly in a solid tradition, but it’s clear they are one of the genre’s finest and most immediately resonant practitioners.

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Open Head

What Is Success

On Open Head’s utterly original What Is Success, there are guitars that sound like drums and drums that sound like guitars. The kinetic and adventurous post-punk of the Kingston, New York quartet is some of the most inventive heavy music I’ve heard in a long time. There’s palpable danger and edge in these songs that somehow never lose their tunefulness. Equal parts alienating and hypnotizing, to compare it to bands I love like Meat Wave and Squid feels insufficient. Just an exhilarating and pummeling listen from front to back.

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Orbital Ensemble

Orbital

Toronto has become home to a community of forward-thinking jazz collectives and artists like Badge Époque Ensemble, Joseph Shabason, The Cosmic Range, The Titillators, and now Orbital Ensemble. Led by the Brazilian expat and composer Felipe Sena, the eight-piece band’s debut combines Bossa Nova rhythms with psychedelic skronk and immensely verdant, full-bodied arrangements that call up Azymuth as well as Orbital Ensemble’s Great Lakes peers in Chicago’s Resavoir. While this is a very accessible LP, it never veers into “chill vibes” territory. More often than not, it shocks with musical left-turns, shifting melodies, and locked-in chemistry. “Daydreams” morphs from a tropical sunset to a scorching squall of guitars and horns while opener “Abertura” is a masterclass in slow-and-steady momentum. Transportive and mesmerizing, this is an exceedingly confident and surprising jazz debut.

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pôt-pot

Warsaw 480km

Cavernous drones, relentless grooves, sprawling arrangements, and Velvet Underground charisma exude throughout the 10-song debut from the Portuguese-Irish outfit pôt-pot. Warsaw 480km is psychedelia at its most swirling, krautrock at its most infectious, and post-punk at its most danceable, all undergirded with a tangible pop core. Throughout, lead singer Mark Waldron-Hyden harmonizes with bandmates Sara Leslie and Elaine Malone, adding icy mystique to songs like the chiming “Sextape” and the chugging rhythmic stabs of “22° Halo.” This is a record to get lost in. One listen, and you’ll realize you’ll have to see it live.

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Prewn

System

Izzy Hagerup, the Los Angeles via Western Massachusetts songwriter behind the cello-rock project Prewn, performed and recorded everything on her nervy, gorgeous, and cathartic LP System. I’ve listened to this album dozens of times, not knowing this fact, and upon finding it out, I am even more enthralled by the nine tense but vibrant tracks here. So much here has the emotional valence of an open wound. Songs like “Dirty Dog” and “Cavity” are volatile and ferocious, with gnarled guitars and distorted vocals. The title track swirls with strings, and Hagerup’s dynamically frayed delivery conveys each feeling with gusto. Elsewhere, the woozy “It’s Only You” serves as a showcase for Hagerup’s massive, idiosyncratic voice. She has few peers for her range, command, and personality, except for maybe Lily Seabird and Dead Gowns’ Geneviève Beaudoin.

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Qur’an Shaheed

Pulse

On Pulse, the multi-talented Los Angeles artist Qur’an Shaheed seems to meld every genre but indie rock on the hypnotic, staggering, and ambitious Pulse. Its 11 tracks are a melting pot of jazz, R&B, classical, electronic, and ambient textures that can oscillate from accessible pop to improvisational interludes and side quests. Opener “Dreams” is the most straightforward of the bunch, thanks to her commanding voice, but the real thrill of Pulse is going on the ride. Here, songs like “Variation 2” boast startling samples and gorgeous soundscapes, while “Doo Doo Doo” is a slinky dose of forward-thinking soul. This is a record that sounds like the future, with ample chops and flawless production. She’s ahead of the curve here.

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Raisa K

Affectionately

Since 2008, the U.K. songwriter Raisa Khan has collaborated with Mica Levi as a founding member of Good Sad Happy Bad (fka Micachu and the Shapes). Considering how confident and enchanting Affectionately is, I was shocked to find out that this is Khan’s debut solo effort as Raisa K. Released on the great Danish label 15love (ML Buch’s Suntub, CTM’s Vind), these 12 tracks are exemplary doses of airy and enveloping left-field pop. Gusts of organs and drum machine blasts pepper each tune as Khan’s soothing alto floats above the mix. Fans of Suntub will find a lot to love here, but Khan’s sensibility is more off-kilter. Khan’s Good Sad Happy Bad bandmates join her on several tunes: Levi provides looped guitars on “Stay” and background vocals on “Hello,” while drummer Marc Pell (Mount Kimbie) provides percussion on a third of the tracklist. From the wonky yet fascinating bass groove on “Tall Enough” to the mechanical whirr that elevates “Come Down,” Raisa K’s world is warped, illuminating, and riveting.

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Rose City Band

Sol Y Sombra

Buttery lead guitars, ample twang, and easygoing vocals are Oregon’s Rose City Band’s calling card. They’ve excelled at stretching the bounds of Dead-indebted guitar rock and West Coast breeziness for the past half-decade. Founded by Wooden Shjips/Moon Duo guitarist/vocalist Ripley Johnson in 2019, the group has put out five summery and cosmic LPs via Chicago label Thrill Jockey. While each is excellent, the just-released Sol Y Sombra might be the most agreeable of the bunch. From the pastoral bliss of “Radio Song,” the flawless transition between “Seeds of Light” and “La Mesa,” and the Jerry Garcia-covering-Lou Reed-evoking “Wheels,” there’s so much heady goodness to dig into here.

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Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band

New Threats From the Soul

It sounds like a cliche, but one thing that is generally true is that if you do good work, keep at it, strive to get better, and do things the right way, eventually people will catch on. Louisville’s Ryan Davis might agree with that. He has been making music for a long time: he formed his old band State Champions in Chicago in 2007 and released four excellent but underrated records before disbanding in 2018. He’s also spent almost two decades releasing albums by incredible independent artists with his Sophomore Lounge label (like the excellent Mad Dogs by Grace Rogers). His recent LP, New Threats From the Soul, feels like a long-overdue breakthrough moment. What first strikes anyone about Davis is his jaw-dropping writing. He pens dazzling, barfly lyrics about underdogs, lost loves, and characters finding and flailing their way through America. The other thing you notice is his friendly, expressive, and warbly baritone as he delivers these sparkling words. His songs can spiral over 10 minutes, but never overstay their welcome. He’ll excavate his soul and past on songs like the title track while referencing Jessica Rabbit, Peggy Bundy, and Helen of Troy in one breath. You’ll hear the touchstones of Americana with pedal steel, violin, and ample twang, but also pops of synth, programmed beats, and samples. It’s a vividly rendered LP that matches the grandeur of one of the best songwriting talents who’s finally getting his due.

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Saba & No I.D.

From the Private Collection of Saba and No I.D.

A decade ago, I was the music critic for RedEye Chicago, the now-defunct free culture daily from the Chicago Tribune. It was an incredible time for local music, especially for hip-hop and indie rock, and I got to document these burgeoning scenes as a 23-year-old reporter. Of the many artists I wrote cover stories on during that two-and-a-half-year run, there are few I listen to more than Saba. Though many of his peers had fast ascents and fizzled, the West Side-raised rapper has had a more patient and painstaking approach. He takes time between albums, doesn’t tour as much as he could, and slowly tinkers on new material that, when released, is always an AOTY contender. A thoughtful lyricist and an unconventional producer, he’s firmly at the sweet spot of my tastes. For his latest full-length, he’s teamed up with the legendary Chicago beatmaker No I.D. for From the Private Collection of Saba and No I.D. Here, each track is eclectic and singular, a cross-generational collaboration that melds soul, hip-hop, new sounds, and old. Saba sounds especially comfortable rapping, displaying a staggering confidence that allows him to broadcast his lyrical dexterity by ceding the primary production duties to his elder. There are collabs from Ibeyi, Kelly Rowland, Raphael Saadiq, as well as No Expectations favorites Joseph Chilliams and Eryn Allen Kane. The perfect album for walking around Chicago on a summer day.

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Sam Moss

Swimming

My most essential resource for music discovery is still and has always been Aquarium Drunkard, which is how I heard about Sam Moss’ gorgeous folk LP Swimming. Moss is a Virginia-based musician and woodworker whose raspy yet soothing voice anchors the earthy and pastoral songs on his fourth full-length. He also enlisted an excellent band of percussionist Joe Westerlund (Califone, Megafaun), multi-instrumentalist Isa Burke (Mountain Goats), bassist Sinclair Palmer (The Muslims, Tallest Man On Earth), along with guests like Molly Sarlé (Mountain Man) and Jake Xerxes Fussell, who flesh out these songs with grace.

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Sam Prekop

Open Close

In 2008, I picked up a CD copy of the Sea and Cake’s Car Alarm from a Barnes and Noble and discovered one of my alltimer bands. With their sinuous and expansive arrangements and unorthodox rhythms, I truly believe they’re one of the most underrated and influential acts Chicago has produced in my lifetime. When frontman Sam Prekop pivoted to intricate modular compositions with a 2010 solo LP called Old Punch Card, that record unlocked new ways I could think about and appreciate music. He’s been tweaking and refining this palette ever since. In January, I saw him perform a solo synth set, opening up for Ryley Walker at the Empty Bottle, and it remains one of the most captivating concert experiences I’ve witnessed in 2025. It turns out, some of those recent immaculately layered live compositions served as the basis for his new studio effort Open Close. The six songs here float and undulate patiently across 40 rich minutes. Where certain moments and textures interlock to a shimmering crescendo, the real joy of the record is in the slowest, sparsest moments. A meditative stunner throughout, be sure to listen with good headphones.

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Saya Gray

Saya

The adventurous and idiosyncratic pop that Saya Gray pulls off on her new LP, Saya, marks the Japanese-Canadian songwriter as one of the year’s most exciting genre collagists. She molds glitchy trip-hop into infectious alt-rock and contemplative folk into hooky alt-pop throughout its 10 immaculate songs. My favorite moments include the explosive final third of “Exhaust the Topic” and the acoustic guitar riff that opens “Shell (of a Man).” It’s a genuinely delightful release that deserves the significant hype it’s already received. Full of charm, surprises, and observant lyrics that match Gray’s polymathic composing talent.

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Sean Thompson’s Weird Ears

Head in the Sand

Sean Thompson is my favorite guitarist right now. I first met the Nashville-based songwriter when he was on tour playing in Chicago with Friend of the Newsletter Erin Rae’s band. Naturally, we bonded over the Grateful Dead and kept in touch following that 2023 show. His new LP Head in the Sand is a first-rate showcase of how he excels at left-of-center solos, communal bandleading, and nonchalant lyricism. Some of its best songs tackle heavy topics like the 2020 tornado that wreaked havoc on his east side neighborhood on “Storm’s Comin’ Tonight” and the death of his dog with “Roll on Buddy.” While his earlier material leaned into “cosmic country,” this LP highlights his love for Frank Zappa and Herbie Hancock. It’s for the heads and everyone. See him live if you can—he’s now the touring guitarist for Margo Price too.

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Seth Beck

Soft Heaven

Like me, Seth Beck is from West Michigan and made Chicago his second home. While that already makes me like him, his new LP, Soft Heaven, is so good that I’d sing its praises here no matter where he’s from. He’s been a DIY lifer in bands like The Fever Haze (which features members of Greet Death) and Bargain World, and his solo stuff has consistently been in my taste wheelhouse. Where his last LP, 2023’s Entertainment Center, was synthy and snappy indie rock, his new one takes it into a much more celestial direction. Beneath the dreamlike arrangements are sturdy songs that instantly latch on to you. “Passenger Seat” is spacey heartland rock, while “I’ll Be Looking Out For You” adds crunchy, shoegazy distortion. It’s the kind of record where you listen and think, “Wow, that’s a good song” with each consecutive track.

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Shallowater

God’s Gonna Give You a Million Dollars

On their sophomore effort, God’s Gonna Give You a Million Dollars, Texas indie rockers Shallowater stretch out six tracks across 41 minutes. Throughout, they meld ear-splitting guitar riffs with delicate and glacially paced melodies. Recorded with Alex Farrar at Drop of Sun Studios in North Carolina (a producer who’s a master at the quiet/loud dichotomy), the band’s violent explosiveness sears through the mix. The sprawling “Ativan” combusts into a dizzying, frenzied squall that’s goosebump-inducing, while lead single “Highway” is a masterclass of West Texas twang and bittersweet malaise. But for all the dynamism and shake-ups in the arrangements, it’s frontman Blake Skipper’s lyrics that stand out. Just take the Hayden Pedigo-assisted closer “All My Love,” which documents stumbling upon a dilapidated house on a road trip. Skipper croons, “For now it’s a picture of what it’s like to get old / Twenty-five miles from town / Time will cave the floorboards and wind will bend the frame.”

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Shrunken Elvis

Shrunken Elvis

Nashville’s Shrunken Elvis is the instrumental project of three No Expectations favorites: Sean Thompson, Michael Ruth, and Spencer Cullum. Thompson plays guitar with Margo Price and is behind the excellent Dead-inspired rock project Sean Thompson’s Weird Ears. Ruth has toured in S.G. Goodman’s band but conjures up cosmic ambient as Rich Ruth, while the U.K.-born Cullum is Miranda Lambert’s pedal steel player and makes collaborative and psychedelic folk and pop as Spencer Cullum’s Coin Collection. (He’s also part of the excellent band Echolalia). While all three have occupied their home city’s country music milieu, they’ve each consistently stretched its limits or ditched it entirely in their solo careers. Shrunken Elvis is an example of the latter. Born out of a 2022 European tour for Cullum’s music, where the three artists magnified their friendship and unlocked a deeper chemistry for outre music, their debut LP luxuriates in enveloping synths, patient steel guitar, and rhythms that saunter, crackle, and bubble up. While best experienced in a full, headphones-based listen, individual moments soar like twinkling guitar arpeggios that anchor “Marina Pt. 2,” the chiming percussion of “K-House,” and the twilight lounge excess of “Faint Rustle.” Uniformly gorgeous and interesting, if you dig instrumental music, start here.

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Silver Synthetic

Rosalie

Hearing Rosalie, the sophomore album from New Orleans’ Silver Synthetic, for the first time was such a needed jolt that it made me get more excited about music than I have in months. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard a release from a new-to-me band that felt almost comically in my wheelhouse. The LP scraps some of the Americana of the band’s 2021 debut for something more playful and cosmic. Across nine consistently memorable songs, the band hits the sweet spot between ‘70s California rock like New Riders of the Purple Sage and 2000s indie like the Clientele. When every track is this locked in, it’s tough to choose a highlight from the bittersweet melody of “Red Light,” the smooth AOR grooves of “Cool Blue Night,” to the Being There swagger of “Choose a Life.” Released on the always excellent Curation Records (Beachwood Sparks, Sean Thompson’s Weird Ears, Pacific Range), this is an album I revisited all year.

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Sleeper’s Bell

Clover

Chicago folk band Sleeper’s Bell is the duo of songwriter Blaine Teppema (who is also a local librarian) and guitarist Evan Green. Together, alongside drummer Jack Henry (who produced the LP) and multi-instrumentalists Max Subar, Gabe Bostick, and Leo Paterniti, they make nine ruminative, conversational, and surprisingly potent tracks. Teppema’s a comforting yet commanding singer whose direct lyrics find transcendence in the smaller moments. She opens standout “Room” with a banger of a line in: “The closest to God I ever felt / When we held each other on the bed / You weren’t even my lover then / Just a friend and still a friend.” Throughout, they take these pinpoint observations and make something profoundly moving and impeccably crafted.

Bandcamp

SML

How You Been

Like Hungry Brain and Constellation in Chicago, Los Angeles cocktail bar ETA once served as the nexus for its city’s cutting-edge jazz community. The spot, which is now closed, became the namesake for Jeff Parker’s magnificent ETA IVtet quartet and as the genesis for supergroup SML. The experimental and electronic jazz group formed when guitarist Gregory Uhlmann played the venue in 2022, eventually recruiting bassist Anna Butterss, synthesist Jeremiah Chiu, saxophonist Josh Johnson, and percussionist Booker Stardrum for the performances. They spliced and edited these shows into their gloriously avant-garde debut, Small Medium Large (a No Expectations favorite from 2024), and now, their follow-up, How You Been, braids and interweaves passages from a different series of concerts recorded in four cities. What makes SML special is its members’ voracious tastes and divergent backgrounds: They’ve all toured and recorded with everyone from Tortoise to Jason Isbell, Leon Bridges, Weyes Blood, and more. The result is something extraterrestrial and soul-stirring. This is instrumental music that sounds like the future, all done by a band that’s never been in a recording studio together.

Bandcamp

Snõõper

Worldwide

​​The truly great rock bands usually have a transportive visual component to pair with their impeccable songs. The Grateful Dead have the Stealie and the Dancing Bears. The Rolling Stones have their Hot Lips logo, but Nashville’s art-punk collective Snõõper have a zany cast of papier-mâché puppets courtesy of frontwoman Blair Tramel. But beyond their colorful, off-kilter aesthetics, Snõõper have been consistently churning out funny, raucous, and searing rippers since they formed in 2020. Worldwide, their sophomore LP, skitters with sneering abandon throughout its dozen synthy tracks. Produced by John Congleton, a wizard at allowing distinctive artists to focus their sound, it marks the first time the band recorded with outside help. Here, instead of softening the edges of their blitzing, deriliously melodic punk, they double down on what makes them thrive: frenetic rhythms (courtesy of drummer Brad Barteau), pogo-ing vocals from Tramel, and scorching riffs. Dizzying feedback kicks off “Company Car” as Tramel tears through her lines at a breathless pace, while the title track rattles with bass as Tramel sings, “Left / Right / Miss / Worldwide / Pressure! / Both Sides / This way that way / Wild ride.” Think DEVO meets Guerilla Toss but played at 1.5x speed.

Bandcamp

Spencer Radcliffe

Ohio Vision

Back in 2017, Ohio songwriter Spencer Radcliffe was living in Chicago, and I interviewed him at his house for VICE about his new album, Enjoy the Great Outdoors. That record, his first full band affair, was such a special addition to my life: expansive, ramshackle, and subtly twangy arrangements paired with Radcliffe’s deft, dark, and evocative lyrics. A couple of years later, I chatted with him again for VICE, this time premiering his 2019 album Hot Spring. While he’s put out a few releases under Blithe Field, his moniker for ambient and instrumental music, it’d been a six-year break until he surprise-dropped Ohio Vision last month. It’s 10 songs of guitar-driven indie rock that excels both when it’s propulsive, like the jam-minded ripper “Took a Hit,” and relaxed, like on the buoyant love song “Constantly.” That tune features Radcliffe effusively singing lyrics like, “She’s sweeter to me than gas station iced tea / It’s only challenging not getting lost in her world constantly.” I don’t know if I’ve heard a track this lighthearted from him, but it’s really moving. Where “The Menance” detours into bluesy grunge and swaggering riffs, “Dumbfounded” finds his band channeling years of live chemistry into what might be his best song yet. Getting a full, excellent new record from him this year might be my favorite musical surprise of 2025.

Bandcamp

Sword II

Electric Hour

From the band’s genesis in 2020, Atlanta trio Sword II’s music has thrived on an abundance of musical ideas. With an almost anarchic enthusiasm, they stuffed shoegaze squalls, glitchy, spliced-in beats and samples, and ebullient harmonies into their early oeuvre. While their wild studio experimentation still exists on their masterful sophomore LP Electric Hour, they’ve trimmed back any excess and focused on their pop sensibilities for their most fully-formed, collaborative, and alive full-length yet. Still avowed DIY mainstays and part of a radical community that fought their city’s Cop City development, their lyrics tackle tech-induced alienation and loneliness, surveillance capitalism, and state repression. On standout “Sentry,” bassist Mari González sings lines like, “I feel around for a wire / You just won’t leave me alone/ Do you wanna go through my phone? / I know that I’m not alone” over steady, foreboding guitars. With all the dread permeating throughout the record, it’s a surprisingly airy and infectious listen. The scathing and vulnerable González-sung “Sugarcane” is wistful, undeniable pop. “Who’s Giving You Love,” which finds guitarist Certain Zuko on lead vocals, is searing punk. These songs morph with each member adding delectable, idiosyncratic vocal melodies, especially on the single “Halogen.” It’s no surprise to read that the studio vibe had each bandmate gleefully trading instruments, song ideas, and hooks. The only way a record this vibrant, playful, and righteous could be made is through a palpably tight-knit bond between three talented musicians.

Bandcamp

Tobacco City

Horses

Chicago’s Tobacco City make gorgeous, neon-lit country songs for long nights and rough mornings. Led by singers and songwriters Chris Coleslaw and Lexi Goddard, no two voices in this city sound better together (besides maybe Macie Stewart and Sima Cunningham of Finom). The band has excelled in quiet, achy twang since 2018 (their singles “Blue Raspberry” and “Never on My Mind” from 2021’s Tobacco City, USA are good entry points), but Horses, their sophomore effort, adds energy and catharsis to their winning Americana blueprint. Singles “Autumn” and “Bougainvillea” reach shimmering heights, especially as Coleslaw and Goddard’s voices merge, but the real joys of the album are when they pare it back, like on the breathtaking Goddard-led tune “Fruit From the Vine.” These songs are so easy to fall in love with.

Bandcamp

Ty Segall

Possession

I’ve argued before in this newsletter that Ty Segall has the ideal career. Last year, I wrote, “For the past 15 years, Segall, the rock’n’roll auteur, has had what I consider a dream career. He’s been relentlessly prolific, jumping between genres, side projects, various bands, and solo records. It’s so clear he’s having more fun than anything else. He’s achieved just the amount of critical and commercial success where he can tour a little bit, selling out mid-sized rooms, and spend his free time making cool records that follow his every whim.” Lately, Segall’s been making career-best LPs like last year’s Three Bells, and he continues the trend with Possession, a collaboration with lyricist and music video director Matt Yoka. Here, he mines his bread and butter: blistering power pop, Abbey Road maximalism, and sunny California psych (the closer is even called “Another California Song”). While this could play as a retread, this collection feels invigorated, tight, and totally rousing. Though he might not be releasing as much music as he did in his early 20s, everything lately has been top-notch.

Bandcamp

Uwade

Florilegium

When Fleet Foxes’ Shore came out in September 2020, it was a welcome balm for a tough year, in no small part due to Uwade’s powerful voice being the first thing you hear on opener “Wading in Waist-High Water.” The Nigeria-born, North Carolina-raised artist was studying at Oxford when she collaborated with the influential indie folk band, and five years later, she’s released her debut album, Florilegium. Throughout the nine tracks here, Uwade’s voice is as soothing and evocative as ever as she glides through simmering pop tunes like “Call It a Draw” and “Harmattan,” which bubbles with bright hooks and a plucky rhythm. It’s an LP concerned with family histories, grief, and her cross-continental life path. Its title comes from the Latin florilegus, which means a “gathering of flowers,” while florigelium can also mean an anthology of writing. It’s a perfect title for something so verdant and attentively autobiographical.

Bandcamp

Water From Your Eyes

It’s a Beautiful Place

There’s so much talent in Brooklyn’s Water From Eyes that it’s almost overwhelming. Touring members Al Nardo and Bailey Wollowitz make up the excellent art pop duo Fantasy of a Broken Heart, while main songwriters Nate Amos and Rachel Brown have fabulous respective solo projects in This Is Lorelei and Thanks For Coming. I wrote that the band’s intoxicating 2023 LP, Everyone’s Crushed, boasted songs that “seamlessly and unexpectedly bounce from gnarly guitars to club-ready beats, inside jokes, and droney experiments.” That winning alchemy remains on their follow-up, It’s a Beautiful Place, but it adds an exclamation point to each ingredient. It rocks harder, it’s more danceable, it’s funnier, and more self-contained. The glitchy “Playing Classics” is wholly enveloping, thanks to its bold samples and Brown’s mesmerizing, relaxed vocal delivery. “Nights in Armor” masks a delicate hook underneath volatile guitars, while the most straightforward song, “Blood on the Dollar,” wows in its simplicity. They’re leading New York’s musical renaissance right now.

Bandcamp

Way Dynamic

Massive Shoe

Few songwriters are as adept at making classic ‘70s-inspired songs sound fresh as Naarm/Melbourne’s Dylan Young. I included his last effort Duck in the No Expectations 2024 Best of List, where I mentioned Carole King, Jackson Browne, Todd Rundgren, and Harry Nilsson as reference points. Here, he sounds more confident and energetic, drawing from a well of different influences from the same decade. The folksy “Miffed It” does Nick Drake better than any imitator I’ve heard, “Ibiza” is irresistible oddball funk, while “People Settle Down” is danceable folk-rock bliss. Every song is written with such painstaking care to get the small things write: the precise harmonies, the crisp drum sounds, and Young’s compelling love for a sturdy tune. It’s quiet but never slight. It lovingly wears its influences but is never a retread.

Bandcamp

Wednesday

Bleeds

The North Carolina rock group led by Karly Hartzman has melded explosive shoegaze and grunge, piercingly sharp lyrics, golden twang, and a reverence for classic country songwriting into one of the most compelling new bands of the past half-decade. Of the countless stellar groups emerging from that state, Wednesday is right at the center. Bleeds is a record that transcends the massive hype they’ve received (I can only imagine how simultaneously suffocating and validating getting that kind of praise feels for an artist). It’s astoundingly diverse: “Elderberry Wine” is timeless, sparkling country, “Wasp” is sweltering hardcore aggression, and “Wound Up Here (By Holding On)” is as pummeling as it is anthemic. But for all the skillful eclectism here, it’s Hartzman’s lyrics that truly ascend. Closer “Gary’s II,” a sequel to the Twin Plagues highlight, is a tribute to the owner of the famed Haw Creek property, where so many Asheville musicians congregated and lived. Equal parts funny and affecting, Hartzman’s humanity shines in both the aching delivery and her winsome words. For all the buzz and noise, Hartzman clearly remembers who she is and where she’s from.

Bandcamp

Whitney

Small Talk

For nearly the past decade, the guys who make up Chicago folk-rock outfit Whitney have been some of my best friends. It’s a level of closeness that makes it nearly impossible to write about them, and I haven’t done so in a professional publication since before their 2016 debut LP Light Upon the Lake came out. But omitting Small Talk, their fourth album, from this roundup would be bogus since I’ve listened to it and cherished it more than most of the offerings featured here. This is their most meticulously intentional and seamless effort yet. It’s the culmination of Ehrlich and his songwriting partner, guitarist Max Kakacek, betting on themselves. They left their longstanding label of Secretly Canadian to self-release, and for the first time, chose to self-produce with their bandmate Ziyad Asrar. These risky career swings resulted in 11 tremendous folk songs that nix the sonic detours they took on 2022’s SPARK. Strings spiral throughout “The Thread,” Madison Cunningham guests on the domestic squabble duet of “Evangeline,” while Ehrlich’s proficient drumming accentuates the title track. I’m certainly biased, but great bands boast an easily identifiable signature sound. I don’t know of anyone with a voice quite like Ehrlich’s and a guitar tone as feathery and piercing as Kakacek’s.

Bandcamp

Will Johnson

Diamond City

Will Johnson is a songwriter’s songwriter who’s spent decades melding indie rock and Americana with the influential southern rock band Centro-Matic and through his own solo recordings. (Not to omit his many other projects, including South San Gabriel, a joint LP with the late Jason Molina, bands with Friend of the Newsletter David Bazan, and his current work touring with Jason Isbell’s 400 Unit). His catalog is diverse but consistently contemplative and excellent, but his 10th solo effort, Diamond City, marks a late-career renaissance. These nine laid-back and gorgeous tunes were repurposed from four-track demos recorded at Johnson’s home studio that mixing engineer Britton Beisenherz brought to life at his Ramble Creek studio. The palette here is simultaneously lived-in and extravagant, with Johnson’s evocative lyrics and weary voice taking center stage above subtly fuzzy guitars and steady drum machine clicks. “All Dragged Out” and “Sylvarena” highlight Johnson’s ability to write a fluid and substantial hook, while the stirring title track and the churchly instrumental closer are documents of his engrossing arrangements. This is patient music from a songwriter at his best. While immediately impressive, it demands close listening and repeated plays.

Bandcamp

Will Stratton

Points of Origin

I’ve loved Will Stratton’s music for almost two decades now. Not to date myself, but I discovered his first album, What the Night Said, via the iTunes Store in 2007 (he was a “related artist” for Sufjan Stevens, who guested on that LP on oboe). The upstate New York-based folk songwriter has released seven more albums since then, and each one feels like a subtle but striking evolution (at some point over the years, we became social media mutuals, and I wrote the bio for his previous effort, 2021’s The Changing Wilderness). His latest and eighth full-length, Points of Origin, is his most ambitious in scope. It takes a birds-eye view of California, the state where he was born. His clear-eyed and tasteful songs are populated by a wide cast of characters: CIA operatives, duplicitous real estate agents, barroom regulars, and the undeniable West Coast landscape. “Higher and Drier” is as righteous as it is hair-raisingly beautiful, while opener “I Found You” might be his most immaculately arranged tune yet. Even after all these years, I’m still floored by his inviting voice, his openhearted lyricism, and his dexterous fingerpicking. The best of his class.

Bandcamp

Zook

Evaporating

I first came across Nashville musician Zach Tittel in 2021 when he was involved with the recording of Katy Kirby’s alltimer debut record Cool Dry Place. Evaporating, Tittel’s third album under the moniker Zook, makes me wish I’d kept closer tabs on his solo music over the years, as it’s a rewarding, knotty, and jolting indie rock record. One of my favorite genres is becoming “Nashville artists who don’t sound like they live in Nashville,” and Tittel’s brand of chameleonic guitar rock shot near the top of that surprisingly long list. There’s ample jangle here on songs like opener “Absolute Misery,” but bubbly synths and drum machines on tracks like “Disappear.” While each arrangement has a sense of propulsion, it’s Tittel’s clever melodies that soar. “Sequence” feels like the best Pavement never written, while closer “So Blue,” an eight-minute jam, has a hook so delectable it wouldn’t feel out of place on Merriweather Post Pavilion. This is a gem of an album.

Bandcamp

The No Expectations Best 100 Albums of 2025 Playlist

Apple Music // Spotify // Tidal

*Note: a few of these bands have left Spotify.’

*Another note: I usually ask readers to listen to playlists in the curated order, but this one’s alphabetical. Feel free to skip around and shuffle.

The No Expectations 2025 Longlist: 115 More Excellent Albums

Abel, How to Get Away with Nothing // Ada Lea, when i paint my masterpiece // Aïda Mekonnen Caby, Mais Uma // Alex G, Headlights // Alta Vista, Won’t Believe in Dust // Astrachan, Signs // The Belair Lip Bombs, Again // Bitchin Bajas, Inland See // Blue Earth Sound, Cicero Nights // Blue Lake, Weft // Carmen Perry, Eyes Like a Mirror // Case Oats, Last Missouri Exit // Casper Skulls, Kit-Cat // Cass McCombs, Interior Live Oak // Cate Le Bon, Michelangelo Dying // Cici Arthur, Way Through // cistern, Rhizome // Clifford, Golden Caravan // Chico States, I Saw A Galloping Horse Cover No Ground // Colin Miller, Losin’ // Cory Hanson, I Love People // The Crime Family, The Shape of Chilling to Come // Daughter of Swords, Alex // Discus, To Relate To // Djrum, Under Tangled Silence // Dylan Day, The Unanswered Prayer // Eli Winter, A Trick of the Light // Emily Hines, These Days // Esther Rose, Want // Field Medic, surrender instead // Finnish Postcard, Body // Forth Wanderers, The Longer This Goes On // Free Range, Lost & Found // Frog, 1000 Variations On the Same Song // Fust, Big Ugly // Ganser, Animal Hospital // Ghais Guevara, Goyard Ibn Said // Glyders, Forever // Graham Hunt, Timeless World Forever // Gregory Uhlmann, Josh Johnson, and Sam Wilkes, Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes // Guerilla Toss, You’re Weird Now // Gummy Fang, Gummy Fang // h. pruz, Red sky at morning // Half Gringa, Cosmovisión // Hataałii, I’ll Be Around // Hut, Hut // Japanese Breakfast, For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women) // Jessica Risker, Calendar Year // Joan Shelley, Real Warmth // Jonathan Personne, Nouveau Monde // Josh Halper, Schlemiel // Joyer, On the Other End of the Line… // Justice Hill, Cooler By the Lake // Kassi Valazza, From Newman Street // klark sound, This Is Music // Lampland, Get Serene // Les Duck, Love Is The Dirt // Lipsticism, Wanted To Show You // Little Mazarn, Mustang Island // Los Thuthanaka, Los Thuthanaka // lots of hands, into a pretty room // Madeline Kenney, Kiss From the Balcony // Maria Somerville, Luster // Margo Price, Hard Headed Woman // Mavis Staples, Sad and Beautiful World // Mess Esque, Jay Marie, Comfort Me // Michael Robert Chadwick, Illusion of Touch // Natural Information Society & Bitchin Bajas, Totality // Natalie Bergman, My Home Is Not In This World // The New Eves, The New Eve is Rising // Orillia, FIRE-WEED // Osees, ABOMINATION REVEALED AT LAST // Paper Castles, I’m Sad as Hell and I’m Not Going to Fake It Anymore // Patrick Shiroishi, Forgetting Is Violent // Perren, The Spot // Pictoria Vark, Nothing Sticks // Pond 1000, daffodiL // Post Animal, Iron // Pry, Wrapped in Plastic // PUP, Who Will Look After The Dogs? // Racing Mount Pleasant, Racing Mount Pleasant // Rebecca Schiffman, Before the Future // Renny Conti, Renny Conti // Resavoir, Matt Gold, Horizon // Rubber Band Gun, Record Deal With God // Saintseneca, Highwallow & Supermoon Songs // Sam and Louise Sullivan, Sweet Enough // Sam Blasucci, ALL BLUE // Samia, Bloodless // S.G. Goodman, Planting By The Signs // Sharon Van Etten, Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory // Sharp Pins, Balloon Balloon Balloon // Shoulderbird, Neighbors // Shutaro Noguchi & the Roadhouse Band, On the Run // Sister., Two Birds // Smerz, Big city life // Smushie, Cicero Pizza Anthology // Snocaps, Snocaps // Squid, Cowards // Star Moles, Snack Monster // Stella Donnelly, Love and Fortune // Stereolab, Instant Holograms on Metal Film // SUMAC & Moor Mother, The Film // Sunny War, Armageddon In A Summer Dress // Taxidermists, 20247 // Teethe, Magic of the Sale // This Is Lorelei, Holo Boy // Tops, Bury the Key // The Tubs, Cotton Crown // Tyler Childers, Snipe Hunter // The Weather Station, Humanhood // Whitney Johnson & Lia Kohl, For Translucence // Will Lawrence, Rooftops in the Centerfold // William Tyler, Time Indefinite // Wombo, Danger in Fives // Zastava, Buildings

No Expectations usually hits inboxes on Thursdays at 9am cst, but it’s running today because tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Reader mailbag email: Noexpectationsnewsletter@gmail.com. Daily Chicagoan, the local news newsletter I produce at my day job with WTTW News (PBS Chicago), can be found here.

Headline song: Sandy Denny, “Late November”

Thanks for being here. I don’t know about you, but I’m more than ready for a couple of days off from work and a long holiday weekend. This No Expectations is the annual Thanksgiving playlist. Apologies to my non-American subscribers, but there’s no real theme connecting the songs below. Feel free to use this mix for any occasion: Sunday mornings, cooking, road trips, family reunions, chill parties, etc.

Here’s the spiel for new subscribers: Each week, you get a wildcard main essay (often new album recommendations), a 15-song playlist, as well as updates on what I’m listening to, watching, and reading. Sometimes you’ll get an interview with an artist I love, and other times it’ll be a deep dive into one band’s discography. Since I’m a Chicago-based writer, this newsletter is very Midwest-focused. So, if you live in this city too, you’ll also receive a curated roundup of upcoming local shows to check out.

Here’s where I politely ask for money: This newsletter is something I write in my spare time after work. It’s unpaywalled and remains that way due to the generosity of my readers. I am not in the business of gatekeeping. If you have the means and like what you read, you can sign up for a paid subscription. If your budget is tight, please don’t pay for this. Telling a friend about a band you found out about here is just as good. It’s still $5 a month—the cost of one Old Style plus tip at Rainbo Club. Every bit helps, keeps this project going, and allows it to stay paywall-free. It’s rough out there, so it means the world you’re reading and supporting this writing project.

Right now, I’m in the weeds with the forthcoming No Expectations Year-End list, and I’m saving most of my new LP recommendations for that. I might skip next week to focus on compiling it all, but I’m also open to running a chill mailbag edition before the big Best Albums of 2025 roundup launches. Have any burning questions? Want to know where I find new music or why I didn’t review your favorite record? Hit up the mailbag email at Noexpectationsnewsletter@gmail.com.

Try This if You’re Handed the Aux Cord Over the Holidays

I’m a big fan of Thanksgiving. You basically just hang out, eat a bunch of food, watch football, maybe drink a few beers, and eventually sleep it off. On paper, it’s a perfect day. That said, it can go off the rails fast: your family get-together can devolve into a political blowout, you could burn the stuffing (the best side dish), your NFL team might lose horrifically (Bears fan here), or, God forbid, you get too drunk in front of your in-laws. I promise you none of that will happen if you set the vibe with No Expectations‘ annual Thanksgiving playlist. At 60 songs and just under four hours, there’s a little bit for everyone here: some tasteful new songs, longtime favorites, and a good genre mix for all personalities. It’s chill and not too crazy, which I hope is exactly how your holiday goes tomorrow.

While I normally stick to older classics for this mix, I realized a few recommended tunes from 2025 fit perfectly. If a loved one hates it, you can blame me, but if they dig it, tell them to sign up for a paid subscription to No Expectations. Stream the playlist below and see ya soon. If you want more, you can check out the ones from 2023 and 2024, too. Hope your holiday rules.

The No Expectations 129 Playlist: Apple Music // Spotify // Tidal

1. Karl Blau, “Fallin Rain (Link Wray Cover)”
2. Natalie Jane Hill, “Never Left Me”
3. Glyders, “Moon Eyes”
4. Liam Kazar, “The Word The War”
5. Hannah Cohen, “Earthstar”
6. Way Dynamic, “The Others”
7. The Beatles, “In My Life”
8. Harry Nilsson, “Everybody’s Talkin’”
9. The Band, “Acadian Driftwood”
10. Allen Toussaint, “What Do You Want the Girl to Do?”
11. Bob Dylan, “Love Minus Zero”
12. Sylvie, Rhia Taranto, “Lady Full Of Dreams (Cathy Hamer Cover)”
13. Silver Synthetic, “Red Light”
14. Wings, “Love Is Strange (Bo Diddley Cover)”
15. Grateful Dead, “Brown Eyed Women (Live, 4/14/1972)”
16. Sandy Denny, “Late November”
17. The Kinks, “Waterloo Sunset”
18. Aretha Franklin, “The Weight (The Band Cover)”
19. Karen Dalton, “How Sweet It Is (Marvin Gaye Cover)”
20. Bridget St. John, “Nice”
21. B.W. Stevenson, “Roll On”
22. Kath Bloom, “Come Here”
23. George Harrison, “I’d Have You Anytime”
24. Luke Temple, “Henry in Forever Phases”
25. Bobbie Gentry, “Seasons Come, Seasons Go”
26. Sam and Louise Sullivan, “Avalon”
27. Fleetwood Mac, “Think About Me”
28. Goose, “Royal”
29. Tobacco City, “Autumn”
30. Emmylou Harris, “Pancho & Lefty (Townes Van Zandt Cover)”
31. Big Thief, “Spud Infinity”
32. F.J. McMahon, “Early Blue”
33. Damien Jurado, “Museum of Flight”
34. Linda Perhacs, “Sandy Toes”
35. Mavis Staples, “Beautiful Strangers (Kevin Morby Cover)”
36. Prince, “I Feel For You”
37. Steely Dan, “Time Out Of Mind”
38. ABBA, “Waterloo”
39. T. Rex, “Bang a Gong (Get It On)”
40. Shuggie Otis, “Inspiration Information”
41. Wilco, “When You Wake Up Feeling Old”
42. Glen Campbell, “Wichita Lineman”
43. Mae Powell, “Tangerine”
44. Dusty Springfield, “Breakfast in Bed”
45. Jessica Pratt, “World on a String”
46. Brigid Mae Power, “On a City Night”
47. Judee Sill, “The Lamb Ran Away with the Crown”
48. Guy Clark, “L.A. Freeway”
49. The Beach Boys, “Passing By”
50. Tyrone Davis, “Can I Change My Mind”
51. Joyce Street, “Life Ain’t Worth Livin’ (If I Can’t Have You)”
52. Van Morrison, “You Make Me Feel So Free”
53. Cameron Winter, “Love Takes Miles”
54. Erin Rae, “Mind/Heart”
55. Fairport Convention, “Who Knows Where The Time Goes?”
56. Twin Peaks, “Lookout Low”
57. Labi Siffre, “Bless the Telephone”
58. The Velvet Underground, “I Found a Reason”
59. Sharp Pins, “With A Girl Like Mine”
60. Phil Cook, “Rise”

The Weekly Chicago Show Calendar:

The gig calendar lives on the WTTW News website now. You can also subscribe to the newsletter I produce there called Daily Chicagoan to get it in your inbox a day early.

No Expectations hits inboxes on Thursdays at 9am cst. Reader mailbag email: Noexpectationsnewsletter@gmail.com. Daily Chicagoan, the local news newsletter I produce at my day job with WTTW News (PBS Chicago), can be found here.

Headline song: Robber Robber, “Talkback”

Thanks for being here. On Sunday evening, three of my friends hosted a supper club for the first time, cooking a family-style dinner for 30 guests. They served dishes like Mapo tofu, hickory-smoked char siu, siu yuk pork belly, and ongchoy. It was a perfect night and may have been the best meal I’ve had all year. I went to college with one of the hosts, another I’ve known for the past decade through music, and the third has quickly become a really close bud. All are great cooks, but none work in the food industry. With their main gigs finding them in disparate creative fields, it was inspiring to see them take this leap in the first place, let alone pull it off. You really can just try new things, and with thoughtfulness and a dedication to your craft, chances are, it’ll work out.

As I left the dinner to catch Friend of the Newsletter Dari Bay play the Empty Bottle, I thought of something Meg Duffy of Hand Habits said during their Taste Profile interview a few months ago. They told me, “Life is about sharing and receiving.” That sentence boils it down better than I ever could. It’s all about taking risks, starting new creative endeavors, and supporting those doing the same.

The older I get, the less I care about traditional metrics of success. It’s not about the prestigious jobs, the follower or subscriber totals, or whether a piece “goes viral,” but the work. Making something creatively fulfilling, the small but ecstatic feeling of connection after you put it out in the world is what matters. Conversely, witnessing someone beautifully and effectively use their talents can be just as rewarding, if not life-changing.

Obviously, it doesn’t have to be music, cooking, or writing. It can be anything. On Friday, I went to the Empty Bottle for Dead Inside, a popular vinyl DJ night run by two Chicago music industry professionals celebrating the Grateful Dead’s discography, to support my friend Andrew’s project Mirrorball Card Co. I’ve known Andrew since we were both working at the Tribune a decade ago—he was on the business side and I was the Music Reporter for RedEye Chicago. We stayed in touch, running into each other at shows and bonding over hockey and the Grateful Dead. Away from his day job, he started a music-centered trading card company. Each deck highlights a prominent show from his favorite bands: the Grateful Dead, My Morning Jacket, and others. Each card corresponds to a song, with a unique design on the front and copy explaining the track’s history on the back. It’s such a sick idea.

In early 2024, he hit me up to help out with a deck that focused on the Dead’s June 18, 1974, concert at Louisville’s Freedom Hall. It’s an alltimer show. While it was almost two years ago now, it was so fun to listen, write a small blurb for each tune, and finally see the finished product this year. The cards look incredible. While that pack will be available soon, you can check out some of Andrew’s work so far here.

Living in 2025, there’s a societal pull for ease and convenience. Don’t want to cook? You can download this app, and after an added fee, a burrito will be at your door in 30 minutes. Don’t want to make the trek to the movie theater? You can just watch it from your couch in a few months. Not up for a show? Just queue up a YouTube video. Don’t want to text back? You can have ChatGPT do it. Why start a new creative endeavor when you can just scroll? This risk-averse inclination towards comfort and ease also brings isolation and atomization. It closes you off from getting yourself out there, nurturing your curiosity, and the real-life interactions that make life meaningful. Even though it might seem like it, no one is stopping you from either starting your own creative thing or supporting an artistic community that already exists. At this point, why not?

Here’s the spiel for new subscribers: Each week, you get a wildcard main essay (often new album recommendations), a 15-song playlist, as well as updates on what I’m listening to, watching, and reading. Sometimes you’ll get an interview with an artist I love, and other times it’ll be a deep dive into one band’s discography. Since I’m a Chicago-based writer, this newsletter is very Midwest-focused. So, if you live in this city too, you’ll also receive a curated roundup of upcoming local shows to check out.

Here’s where I politely ask for money: This newsletter is something I write in my spare time after work. It’s unpaywalled and remains that way due to the generosity of my readers. I am not in the business of gatekeeping. If you have the means and like what you read, you can sign up for a paid subscription. If your budget is tight, please don’t pay for this. Telling a friend about a band you found out about here is just as good. It’s still $5 a month—the cost of one Old Style plus tip at Rainbo Club. Every bit helps, keeps this project going, and allows it to stay paywall-free. It’s rough out there, so it means the world you’re reading and supporting this writing project.

Next week, expect the annual Thanksgiving playlist that hopefully won’t piss off your loved ones.

4 Albums Worth Your Time This Week

Saintseneca, Highwallow & Supermoon Songs

Saintseneca is a constantly shifting folk rock outfit led by Columbus, Ohio, songwriter Zac Little. While it’s been seven years since they’ve put out a full-length, they haven’t lost a step on the sprawling, 21-track Highwallow & Supermoon Songs. Despite its 53-minute runtime, it hardly wastes a second combining Little’s heady, surrealist lyrics with his knack for rousing, impassioned, and earworm hooks. It unfolds patiently but relentlessly with memorable tunes one after the other. Little’s an expert at writing deceptively straightforward songs that dissolve into something wondrously off-kilter. “You Have To Lose Your Hat Someday” takes a left turn into a woozy groove while lead single “Infinity Leaf Clover” unfolds into a skittering electronic freakout. Though there are welcome and genuinely surprising detours here, at its core, this is a solid, endlessly catchy rock album from an underrated Midwesterner. Longtime readers will remember me raving about the Superviolet album from 2023—Little produced that record, and frontman Steve Ciolek returns the favor here. Both are spectacular.

RIYL: Lame-O Records, being really into 2010s folk-pop but gracefully aging out of it, long albums with no filler

Spencer Radcliffe, OHIO VISION

Back in 2017, Ohio songwriter Spencer Radcliffe was living in Chicago, and I interviewed him at his house for VICE about his new album, Enjoy the Great Outdoors. That record, his first full band affair, was such a special addition to my life: expansive, ramshackle, and subtly twangy arrangements paired with Radcliffe’s deft, dark, and evocative lyrics. A couple of years later, I chatted with him again for VICE, this time premiering his 2019 album Hot Spring. While he’s put out a few releases under Blithe Field, his moniker for ambient and instrumental music, it’d been a six-year break until he surprise-dropped OHIO VISION last week. It’s 10 songs of guitar-driven indie rock that excels both when it’s propulsive, like the jam-minded ripper “Took a Hit,” and relaxed, like on the buoyant love song “Constantly.” That tune features Radcliffe effusively singing lyrics like, “She’s sweeter to me than gas station iced tea / It’s only challenging not getting lost in her world constantly.” I don’t know if I’ve heard a track this lighthearted from Radcliffe, but it’s really moving. Where “The Menance” detours into bluesy grunge and swaggering riffs, “Dumbfounded” finds Radcliffe and his band channeling years of live chemistry into what might be his best song yet. Getting a full, excellent new record from him this year might be my favorite musical surprise of 2025.

RIYL: Living in the Midwest, Neil Young, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, twangy jams

Stella Donnelly, Love and Fortune

I first saw the Australian artist Stella Donnelly perform in March 2018 at, where else, the Empty Bottle. Her solo acoustic set floored me: her lyrics were conversational, funny, and incisive, and her songs were so immediate that I felt like I already knew them deeply. It was her first time in Chicago, and after the show, she asked me and a bud for recommendations on what to do on her day off. She invited us to be her local tour guide, we became friends, and a few months later, I wrote the bio for her debut LP, Beware of the Dogs. To date, that’s still one of my favorite indie rock records of the 2010s. She’s continued the streak of charming, affecting writing and timeless melodies with 2022’s Flood and now, after a three-year break, Love and Fortune.

Where her first album found her perspective turned outward, pointing out injustices, hypocricies, and general rancid vibes, her third full-length is her most introspective and thoughtful yet. “A Year of Trouble,” concerns a traumatic and messy friend breakup, but Donnelly handles it with thoughtfulness and grace with lines like, “Gradually we both lead different lives / Wish I could hear about what you like / My belly aches when I hear your name called out in a crowd” and “You’ll always be dear, my friend.” While it’s her sparsest LP, Donnelly’s humor enlivens songs like the jangly, cathartic opener “Standing Ovation,” with “It’s a standing ovation for someone who never replies / And the radio station says whatever bullshit they like.” It’s the single “Feel it Change,” though, that truly shines. Over a thrumming bass line and shimmering guitars, Donnelly glides through the verse and chorus melodies with such ease, it’s breathtaking. Much of Donnelly’s press this year has talked about how she took a years-long hiatus from music following her last release. If anything, this stunner of an album proves that giving yourself time to process and recalibrate is sometimes the best thing an artist can do for themselves.

RIYL: Resonant, relatable, and openhearted lyrics, goosebump-inducing a capella songs, delicate folk, Australian jangle, taking your time

Sword II, Electric Hour

From the band’s genesis in 2020, Atlanta trio Sword II’s music has thrived on an abundance of musical ideas. With an almost anarchic enthusiasm, they stuffed shoegaze squalls, glitchy, spliced-in beats and samples, and ebullient harmonies into their early oeuvre. While their wild studio experimentation still exists on their masterful sophomore LP Electric Hour, they’ve trimmed back any excess and focused on their pop sensibilities for their most cohesive, collaborative, and alive full-length yet. Still avowed DIY mainstays and part of a radical community that fought their city’s Cop City development, their lyrics tackle tech-induced alienation and loneliness, surveillance capitalism, and state repression. On standout “Sentry,” bassist Mari González sings lines like, “I feel around for a wire / You just won’t leave me alone/ Do you wanna go through my phone? / I know that I’m not alone” over steady, foreboding guitars. With all the dread permeating throughout the record, it’s a surprisingly airy and infectious listen. The scathing and vulnerable González-sung “Sugarcane” is wistful, undeniable pop. “Who’s Giving You Love,” which finds guitarist Certain Zuko on lead vocals, is galvanizing, searing punk. These songs morph with each member adding delectable, idiosyncratic vocal melodies, especially on the single “Halogen.” It’s no surprise to read that the studio vibe had each bandmate gleefully trading instruments, song ideas, and hooks. The only way a record this vibrant, playful, and righteous could be made is through a palpably tight-knit bond between three talented musicians.

RIYL: Atlanta bands like Warehouse, throwing away your phone, making art with your friends, when your dilapidated apartment’s home studio is responsible for one of the best albums of 2025

What I listened to:

The No Expectations 128 Playlist: Apple Music // Spotify // Tidal

1. Spencer Radcliffe, “Took a Hit”
2. Sword II, “Sugarcane”
3. Saintseneca, “You Have To Lose Your Hat Someday”
4. Robber Robber, “Talkback”
5. Caution, “Weeds”
6. bugcatcher, “How Long”
7. Hiding Places, “Holy Roller”
8. Peaer, “Button”
9. Haley Heynderickx, Max García Conover, “to each their dot”
10. Stella Donnelly, “Being Nice”
11. Wendy Eisenberg, “Will You Dare”
12. Mikaela Davis, “11:11”
13. Gena, Liv.e, Karriem Riggins, “Circlesz”
14. Dexter in the Newsagent, “Stranger to love”
15. Saba, “Today Years Old”

Gig recap: Eggy at Thalia Hall (11/15)

I’ve written before that “Eggy are the jam band most tailored to an indie rock fan’s tastes.” Their sturdy songs are accessible, infectious, and adventurous without being corny. Their last LP was produced by White Denim’s James Petralli, too. In fact, the first time I heard them in 2021, I had no idea they were a jam band—all I knew was that they were great players who covered Friend of the Newsletter Brad Goodall’s song and later took him on tour as an opener. Saturday was my third time seeing them, and it was a special one: the band played their first three-set show of 2025 at Thalia Hall. There were no openers, but almost four hours of music. I brought the writer Rob Mitchum of to the gig. It was his first time seeing Eggy, which meant I finally returned the favor after he brought me to my first Phish show two years ago.

Eggy kicked off the show with an acoustic set, playing catalog staples like “Atomic Age,” “Come Up Slow,” “Burritos El Chavo 2,” along with a welcome Kacey Musgraves cover. Following that, the band went electric, ripping through two fantastic and exploratory sets that included a surprise Justin Bieber cover and phenomenal renditions of originals like “Beaming,” “Razi,” “Trixieville,” and “Must Come Down.” Also, they covered Phil Collins’ “Sussidio” and I’ve never seen more people dance at a Thalia Hall show.

Drummer and singer Alex Bailey is from the Chicago area (I have a theory that they covered Bieber’s “Love Song” because Chicago’s Carter Lang co-wrote it), and it was nice to see him have a hometown show. Towards the end of the night, I ran into my friend, a rapper who went to middle school with him. He told me that he couldn’t be prouder of Alex and that he was one of the nicest people he had grown up with. As I took in this band’s catalog throughout Saturday night, I realized that this is the easiest jam band to root for.

Gig recap: Dari Bay, Graham Hunt (11/16)

If there’s one artist No Expectations readers should be familiar with, it’s Dari Bay. Beyond the fact that frontman Zack James designed this newsletter’s logo and cover art images, I’ve been writing about his music since the very beginning of the blog, from his solo songwriting to his work as the drummer for Robber Robber, Greg Freeman, and Unknown Mortal Orchestra. He’s now a close bud, and his band crashes with us whenever they’re in town, so all I’ll say is that his headlining set at the Empty Bottle featured a lot of stellar new songs. He recently signed with the great indie label Double Double Whammy, which means I’d be on the lookout for new music from my guy in 2026. His single from June, “The Joke,” is a good taste of what’s to come. Also, a pairing with Madison rock maestro Graham Hunt couldn’t have been a more perfect bill. His show boasted a two-piece drums and guitar setup, alongside samples, tracks, and an electric kazoo hooked up to a contact mic and autotune (no, seriously), which allowed for his anthemic and punky songs to truly soar. It was, yet again, another perfect night at the Empty Bottle.

What I watched:

Orwell 2+2 = 5 (directed by Raoul Peck)

Haitian director Raoul Peck is one of my favorite working documentarians. From his 2016 James Baldwin-centric feature, I Am Not Your Negro, to the essential HBO series Exterminate All The Brutes, his nonfiction oeuvre is as righteous as it is lyrical and innovative. His latest effort is a fascinating look at the life and prophetic work of the English writer Eric Arthur Blair, who is most known by his pen name George Orwell. From his birth in the England-occupied India, his time fighting Francoist fascists with the Spanish socialists, to his writing career and death at 40 from tuberculosis, Peck uses Orwell’s texts and letters to paint a vivid and alarming portrait of 2025. Both Peck and Orwell were products of colonialism and imperialism, and I can’t think of a better filmmaker to tackle this oft-misunderstood author.

What I read:

Open City (by Teju Cole)

In 2017, I picked up an essay collection by Teju Cole called Known and Strange Things after recognizing the title from a passage in a Seamus Heaney poem. (Shoutout to the Irish Literature classes I took in college). It was years ago, but I still remember being struck by Cole’s cerebral and knotty prose, which you could luxuriate in and ruminate on for days. Eight years later, I finally picked up Cole’s breakthrough debut novel, Open City. While it lacks a propulsive plot, it boasts Cole’s masterful and immersive prose. It follows Julius, a Nigerian immigrant and aspiring psychiatrist, and his daily life in New York City. Structured by diaristic, indrawn monologues and fragmented vignettes, it grapples with a lot of ambitious topics (identity, migration, academia, trauma) and has one hell of a gutpunch ending.

The Weekly Chicago Show Calendar:

The gig calendar lives on the WTTW News website now. You can also subscribe to the newsletter I produce there called Daily Chicagoan to get it in your inbox a day early.

No Expectations hits inboxes on Thursdays at 9am cst. Reader mailbag email: Noexpectationsnewsletter@gmail.com. Daily Chicagoan, the local news newsletter I produce at my day job with WTTW News (PBS Chicago), can be found here.

Headline song: Dari Bay, “Interstate”

Thanks for being here. It’s good to be back after a short break. As you’ll read below, I skipped last Thursday because I attended seven shows in 10 days. In my early twenties, that was a normal week, but now in my mid-thirties, it’s a bit much. I was so fried by the tail-end of the streak that I had to take off work Monday. Still, after devoting a day to doing absolutely nothing, I feel mostly recharged and grateful I got to surround myself with so much live music.

While it’s still a month away, I’ve also started winnowing down the candidates for the No Expectations year-end list. Counting the 160 LPs I’ve recommended here so far in 2025, I’m also making through a few dozen new-to-me albums to see if I’ve missed anything. It turns out that even if you run a weekly new music newsletter, countless great things will inevitably fall through the cracks. That’s cool though: music rocks because it’s an endless, constantly replenishing well of exciting things to discover. If there’s a record I haven’t covered that you (a reader and not a publicist) think would be up my alley for the big EOY roundup, hit the comments or the mailbag email.

Here’s a cool thing that happened: No Expectations was featured in Inside Hook’s “85 Newsletters to Subscribe to Right Now” roundup. It’s so cool to see Friends of the Newsletter mentioned like Don’t Rock The Inbox, and it’s kind of unbelievable to be on the same list as folks like Patti Smith, George Saunders, and Jeff Tweedy. I’m stoked they highlighted my bonkers Grateful Dead essay/Las Vegas travelogue “No Expectations 071: Eyes of the World” as their favorite issue. It’s mine too. I first called this writing project No Expectations because I figured I’d abandon the idea after a month and just casually pop in to publish something whenever I felt like it. It’s amazing to me that that didn’t happen. I’m so thankful for the thoughtful people who keep reading and supporting this newsletter.

Here’s the spiel for new subscribers: Each week, you get a wildcard main essay (often new album recommendations), a 15-song playlist, as well as updates on what I’m listening to, watching, and reading. Sometimes you’ll get an interview with an artist I love, and other times it’ll be a deep dive into one band’s discography. Since I’m a Chicago-based writer, this newsletter is very Midwest-focused. So, if you live in this city too, you’ll also receive a curated roundup of upcoming local shows to check out.

Here’s where I politely ask for money: This newsletter is something I write in my spare time after work. It’s unpaywalled and remains that way due to the generosity of my readers. I am not in the business of gatekeeping. If you have the means and like what you read, you can sign up for a paid subscription. If your budget is tight, don’t pay for this. Telling a friend about a band you found out about here is just as good. It’s still $5 a month—the cost of one Old Style plus tip at Rainbo Club. Every bit helps, keeps this project going, and allows it to stay paywall-free. It’s rough out there, so it means the world you’re sticking around.

5 Albums Worth Your Time This Week

Astrachan, Signs

While I haven’t written about Chicago songwriter Ben Astrachan’s solo music, he has been heavily featured in several LPs I’ve highlighted in the newsletter. To name two from 2025, he produced the excellent folk-rock LP from Shoulderbird and is a touring member of Smushie, the gonzo pop rock band led by Austin Koenigstein. Like his bandmate, Astrachan has an affinity for ebullient ‘60s and ‘70s rock but translates it in such an off-kilter, enthralling way that it feels totally relevant and fresh. Signs is maximalist and ambitious: each of its 13 tracks is bursting with wailing guitars and a multitude of melodic twists. It’s conceptual rock music at its most deliriously infectious. “Dana Divine” is rousing and galvanizing, single “Picture of Doubt” boasts a sunny and sticky groove, while the ambling folk of “Teacher Teacher!” is peppered by welcome flute. This is rock music for the true believers and the true heads.

RIYL: The Beatles, The Velvet Underground’s Loaded, Todd Rundgren

• I have no clue why this isn’t on Bandcamp, but here’s a link to where you can find it.

The Belair Lip Bombs, Again

If you want earworms and some of the finest power pop of 2025, Melbourne’s the Belair Lip Bombs have just that with their sophomore LP Again, which came out on Third Man Records this fall. It’s produced by Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever’s Joe White, which is fitting, because this band boasts the same frenetic, interlocking guitar work that propels their songs to the stratosphere. Fronted by the Scottish-born singer Maisie Everett, who is equally expressive and commanding, the 10 earnest and charming tracks here hit a perfect alchemy between her pop-ready melodies and the volatile guitars anchoring them. Single “Don’t Let Them Tell You (It’s Fair)” is so immediately thrilling I laughed the first time I heard it. There are several other welcome surprises throughout here, from the crunchy chords of “If You’ve Got The Time” and the explosive, radio-ready chorus of “Smiling.” I’m bummed I missed a chance to see them in Chicago a few weeks ago, but I can already tell they put on an unbelievable live show.

RIYL: Big riffs and bigger choruses, Australian bands, power-pop

h. pruz, Red sky at morning

Hannah Pruzinsky is a talented Pennsylvania-born, Queens-based songwriter who’s part of the band Sister., which released a No Expectations favorite LP earlier in the year. Now, Pruzinsky is back with Red sky at morning, the sophomore album under their moniker h. pruz. This is 11 tracks of lush, introspective folk that can unfold into vivid, orchestral arrangements (“Siren song”) or fuzzy shoegaze-inflected rock (“If you cannot make it stop”). As a lyricist, Pruzinsky makes the feeling of coming apart at the seams and anxiety feel soothing, if not totally cathartic. On the standout “Arrival,” which is held down by patient arpeggios and a palpable sense of domestic dread, they sing, “I can clear the cycle / Thе longer I stay / I could give out / But my thoughts are good.” While Pruzinsky excels at finding emotional resonance in still, slow moments, when they pick up the pace on songs like “Krista,” they truly shine.

RIYL: Singer-songwriters with a keen sense of how to use or fill empty space, perceptive introspection, going on mental health walks

Liam Kazar, Pilot Light

I have a theory that you can trace everything exciting about Chicago music over the past 15 years by looking at Kids These Days, the short-lived, genre-less collaborative featuring high schoolers who would go on to become fixtures of the city’s music scene. Each member has had disparate but still successful careers: Macie Stewart is one-half of Finom and an excellent composer and solo artist, Vic Mensa is an established rapper, Nico Segal’s made waves with his Chance the Rapper collaborations and jazz work, Greg Landfair is an in-demand session and touring drummer, and Liam Kazar just released his second timeless and fantastic solo album, Pilot Light. Where Kazar’s old band had so much raw talent, the distinct personalities and musical sensibilities of his bandmates ultimately led to their dissolution in 2013. Still, they all pursued their own lanes since then and are all better for it.

I’ve known Kazar for the past decade, and I wrote the bio for his debut LP, Due North. For a good stretch when I lived in Roscoe Village, he was my regular bartender at Hungry Brain. While I don’t see him as much as I used to, he’s doing exactly what he’d dream about then: touring full time with bands like Tweedy, Kevin Morby, Sam Evian, and his own. A couple of years back, he came over and played me some danceable demos that were clearly inspired by Prince and Bowie. They were cool, but he changed course after debuting a few songs at a solo show in Chicago when he debuted songs like “Didn’t I” and “Next Time Around.” He’s best at breezy, effortless, and observational songwriting, which both those tunes encapsulate perfectly. I’m happy he made the switch and recorded it with Friend of the Newsletter Sam Evian at Flying Cloud Recordings. From the Cass McCombs-evoking title track opener to the joyfully catchy “Mission,” that’s my personal favorite of the bunch, Pilot Light is a cozy and smooth dose of folk-rock. It’s naturally conservational, and one of those records that you can tell was an absolute blast to make.

RIYL: A thoughtful home-cooked meal, Bob Dylan’s New Morning, Paul McCartney & Wings

Zook, Evaporating

I first came across Nashville musician Zach Tittel in 2021 when he was involved with the recording of Katy Kirby’s alltimer debut record Cool Dry Place. Evaporating, Tittel’s third album under the moniker Zook, makes me wish I’d kept closer tabs on his solo music over the years, as it’s an incredibly rewarding, knotty, and unpredictable indie rock record. One of my favorite genres is becoming “Nashville artists who don’t sound like they live in Nashville,” and Tittel’s brand of chameleonic and compelling guitar rock shot near the top of that surprisingly long list. There’s ample jangle here on songs like opener “Absolute Misery,” but bubbly synths and drum machines on tracks like “Disappear.” While each arrangement has a sense of propulsion, it’s Tittel’s clever melodies that soar. “Sequence” feels like the best Pavement never written, while closer “So Blue,” an eight-minute jam, has a hook so delectable it wouldn’t feel out of place on Merriweather Post Pavilion. This is a gem of an album.

RIYL: All kinds of indie rock

What I listened to:

The No Expectations 127 Playlist: Apple Music // Spotify // Tidal

1. Twine, “Out The Same Way”
2. Whitney, “In the Saddle”
3. Natalie Jane Hill, “Never Left Me”
4. Liam Kazar, “Mission”
5. The Belair Lip Bombs, “If You’ve Got The Time”
6. Dari Bay, “Interstate”
7. Accessory, “Ums”
8. h. pruz, “If you cannot make it stop”
9. hemlock, “Clothespin”
10. Sword II, “Even if it’s Just a Dream”
11. Just Penelope, “Be Gentle”
12. The Slaps, “Wettest Wing”
13. Kiwi jr., “Hard Drive, Ontario”
14. Skullcrusher, “Red Car”
15. Equipment Pointed Ankh, “The Shelbyville Codes”

• hemlock’s “Clothespin” is not available on Spotify, but it’s on Apple Music and TIDAL.

Gig recap: Color Green, Rich Ruth at Hideout (10/31)

California psych rock quartet Color Green and the Nashville ambient jazz-rock project Rich Ruth are a perfect tour pairing, even though they might seem at odds on paper. Both bands have members who are obsessed with the Grateful Dead, and both draw from a deep well of American musical traditions for something cosmic and cathartic. While I skipped the costume that week, I couldn’t think of a better way to spend Halloween and my friend Andrew’s birthday than heading to the Hideout for this gig. Ruth’s set was mind-blowing, especially the new song they played early in the set. Color Green, who donned really impressive forest nymph costumes, shredded with a high-octane set of trip-inducing rockers.

Gig recap: Whitney, Free Range at Empty Bottle (11/2)

Chicago’s Whitney, whose members have been some of my closest friends for nearly the past decade, released their fourth studio LP, Small Talk, last Friday. I love it so much. I’ve been living with versions of these songs for the past couple of years, and to witness how they all evolved into this album has been such a joy. They self-produced it with member Ziyad Asrar, and while I’m clearly biased, I truly think it’s the best-sounding, most confident collection of songs they’ve done yet. There’s more I can say, but I’m happy I got to see it in full at the Empty Bottle last Sunday. Original bassist Josiah Marshall, who’s been based in Portland since the pandemic, re-joined the band for this run of record release shows, and it really took me back to being 24. That venue, which celebrated its 33 1/3 anniversary with an unbelievable run of shows that included this one, was the first place I ever saw Whitney—they were second of four bands opening up for Jimmy Whispers. Time flies, man.

Gig recap: Tame Impala at United Center (11/3)

Back in 2019, I was working at VICE’s music vertical Noisey, where my team was compiling a massive package on the best music of the decade. We made a big list of the Best Albums of the 2010s, but we also had an essay series where one writer would choose an artist who encapsulated the previous 10 years in music. My coworkers wrote essays on Grimes, Deafheaven, Arca, and others, while I chose Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker. I wrote then, “No artist captured how genres cross-pollinated throughout the 2010s better than Tame Impala.” As a fan, it was incredible to witness his growth in the 2010s from the crunchy psych of Innerspeaker, which I loved in college, to the effortless pop of 2012’s Lonerism, an alltimer, to 2015’s synthy and undeniable Currents, arguably the platonic ideal of a crossover breakout album. It was pop-ready enough to get Rihanna to cover a song, and an ambitious artistic leap successful enough to get universal acclaim from critics. While his next two full-lengths, 2020’s The Slow Rush (which I liked) and this year’s Deadbeat, have garnered less laudatory reviews (the latest Pitchfork pan was brutal), their vivid, immersive, and excellent arena show at United Center proves why they’re the most influential rock act of the last 15 years. Parker and his band, armed with the most exquisite and jaw-dropping light show I’ve seen in an arena, ripped through a career-spanning set that floored me. It was heavy on Lonerism, Currents, and Innerspeaker cuts, but the newer material popped, too. I came out of it with a newfound appreciation for a band I’ve always loved.

Gig recap: Cindy Lee, Freak Heat Waves at Thalia Hall (11/4)

Cindy Lee, the drag alter ego of Canadian musician Patrick Flegel, had 2024’s best music story with Diamond Jubilee, a 32-song, double LP. For most of that year, it was only available via PayPal link on a Geocities site, but it became the critical darling of the music press, topping Pitchfork’s year-end list. These out-of-time, ghostly pop songs continue to resonate, and at Thalia Hall, Lee orchestrated an impossibly mesmerizing solo set. Beyond the haunting and playful arrangements that capture a surreal, ineffable melancholy, these songs are buoyed by masterful and inventive guitar work. Live, Lee performs without a guitar strap, forcing a level of jagged physicality that adds violence and unpredictability to the pristine, girl-group-indebted pop melodies. With last year’s tour canceled, I couldn’t have felt more lucky to be able to snag a ticket for the first night of this run.

Gig recap: S.G. Goodman, Fust at Lincoln Hall (11/7)

It’s been three years since the last time I saw Kentucky songwriter S.G. Goodman live. She’s an evocative, searching, and relatable writer on record and a charismatic and hilarious bandleader in person. My longtime bud Ben Parks (Sun Seeker, Erin Rae, Sean Thompson’s Weird Ears) is now her drummer, so I’m happy I got a chance to see them play at Lincoln Hall alongside newsletter favorite Fust. The show was great: Fust, complete with George Jones covers and frontman Aaron Dowdy's powerfully twangy voice, were excellent. Goodman’s been touring her latest LP, “Planting by the Signs," and the setlist was basically the record in full, plus a surprise cover of “Pepper” by the Butthole Surfers. It all ruled and made me realize that this album was one of No Expectations’ most notable omissions so far in 2025.

Gig recap: Grizzly Bear, TOLEDO at Salt Shed (11/9)

In 2007 and 2008, my Honda Civic’s armrest stored several CDs like The National’s Boxer, Radiohead’s In Rainbows, Pavement’s Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, Fleet Foxes, and Grizzly Bear’s Yellow House. For a good stretch, the latter soundtracked so many icy drives to school and friends’ houses. It was weird, cavernous, and stunning, completely rewiring my brain on vocal harmonies, empty space, and how unlikely presentations can make pop songs soar. 2009’s Veckatimest was on constant rotation my freshman year of college. One of the first shows I attended after I moved to Chicago was Beach House opening for Grizzly Bear at Metro. When I graduated, I had already rinsed 2013’s Shields. While the New York quartet hasn’t toured in six years, it seemed like no time had passed at their Salt Shed show Sunday night. I hadn’t really listened to the band since 2017’s Painted Ruins came out, but hearing their catalog performed so masterfully unlocked countless memories of how this band has really been such a massive and formative presence in my life. The live renditions of tunes like “Little Brother,” “Alligator,” and “Ready, Able” honestly made me pretty emotional. Plus, Victoria Legrand of Beach House joined the band for several songs, including “Two Weeks,” which made it a full-circle moment.

While getting a chance to see Grizzly Bear was amazing, I was really there to see the openers, TOLEDO. Three years ago, before I was working for PBS and before I started this newsletter, I wrote the press bio for their excellent 2022 LP How It Ends. We started a group chat to schedule the interview, but we got along so well that it’s still active. They’re the sweetest, funniest dudes and stellar songwriters and producers, who’ve been involved with several LPs recommended here. They played a show on Friday that I couldn’t attend, but I’m so glad I got to catch them at Salt Shed. When we first chatted years ago, they talked about how much they loved Grizzly Bear, so I know that this last-minute opportunity to play with their heroes was so important to them. A perfect night.

Gig recap: Deeper, Stuck, The Knees at Empty Bottle (11/10)

Chicago post-punks Deeper might be the band I’ve seen the most at the Empty Bottle. Their kinetic, pummeling, and clanging brand of rock music is angsty and energetic enough to feel factory-made for Chicago’s best small venue and dive bar. I’ve been catching them play there for a decade, from working RedEye Chicago and premiering their debut single “Transmogrified” in 2016 to Monday’s free show at the Bottle. Each time, they sound better and better. I love the four people in this band so much, and I hope to have ten more years of seeing them tear through raucous sets at my neighborhood venue. Local rippers Stuck, the punk band fronted by Friend of the Newsletter , were excellent too. The same goes for the reunited indie rock outfit the Knees. Special shoutout to the Empty Bottle staff for successfully booking and working a nutty run of shows this month that celebrated the venue’s 33 1/3 birthday. The best people in the business.

What I watched:

Pluribus (Apple TV+)

What if you woke up one morning to find that everyone else in the entire world was happy, in agreement, and living in harmony for the first time in world history? While we can all agree that the world right now is too polarized, too fractured, and too lonely, this hypothetical would suck, too, right? This is roughly the premise of Pluribus, a new Apple TV+ philosophical and funny sci-fi show from Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan. He teams up once again with Rhea Seehorn, star of his other excellent, arguably superior show Better Call Saul, for this New Mexico-set series. The pilot is a jaw—dropping dose of efficient world-building, merging horror with humor and surrealism. Think The Good Place meets Arrival meets Eddington. At just two episodes, I’m already hooked.

What I read:

The Fort Bragg Cartel (by Seth Harp)

Fort Bragg is a 251-square-mile military base in North Carolina that’s the center of Seth Harp’s The Fort Bragg Cartel, a strikingly gripping, horrifying, and lurid nonfiction read. Harp, a veteran and longtime journalist, documents a rancid, rampant, and recent culture of drug abuse, drug trafficking, violence, and murder on the site over 300 juicy pages. The narrative centers around the mysterious murder of a Delta Force operator and an Army soldier, whose bodies were discovered riddled with bullets in the woods on the base. Harp masterfully threads the history of the Global War on Terror, the U.S. Special Forces, and the War on Drugs to contextualize the crimes and murders documented in the book, as well as how the global drug trade has been essential to U.S. postwar foreign policy. He shows how certain Special Forces soldiers brought back drugs from overseas deployments to sell back in the States and exhaustively details their reckless and unaccountable behavior. The specifics are shocking and nauseating, especially as Harp highlights the institutional lack of accountability throughout the book. While Harp tends to editorialize in asides that might distract from his otherwise solid reporting, his compulsively readable prose comes off like a thriller.

The Weekly Chicago Show Calendar:

The gig calendar lives on the WTTW News website now. You can also subscribe to the newsletter I produce there called Daily Chicagoan to get it in your inbox a day early.

No Expectations hits inboxes on Thursdays at 9am cst. Reader mailbag email: Noexpectationsnewsletter@gmail.com. Daily Chicagoan, the local news newsletter I produce at my day job with WTTW News (PBS Chicago), can be found here.

Headline song: Ratboys, “Anywhere”

Thanks for being here. I turned 34 over the weekend. That’s not a milestone by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a Saturday, so I had a party. That night, most of my closest Chicago friends took over the patio at my favorite neighborhood bar and it was the most fun I’ve had in months. The older I get, the one thing I’m most proud of isn’t any professional accomplishment—a prestigious byline, the number of newsletter subscribers, etc—but the kind, curious, and thoughtful people I surround myself with whenever I can.

Being with everyone, I realized that the vast majority of those friends came into my life because of music. These are folks I met at shows, from loving the same bands, through writing about music, and even from starting this newsletter. Some were new buds, and others I’ve known for well over a decade. I had such a blast that I’ve honestly been smiling ear-to-ear pretty much all week. Like most kids growing up in small towns, I was pretty lonely and turned to music. Now, it’s the main thing that keeps my life full of love and friendship. Immersing yourself in your local music community, or seeking one out when you don’t live near one, can and will change your life for the better. It’s opened so many doors for me, it’s practically door city over here. I’m grateful for everyone who’s come into mine because of it, especially the folks who read this newsletter every week.

Also, don’t sleep on this week’s playlist. While I make one for every No Expectations and listen to them in full to make sure they flow, this one is really fun and has been on constant repeat all week. You can listen how you want, but I’d urge you to not press shuffle. I think it works really well in the curated order.

Here’s the spiel for new subscribers: Each week, you get a wildcard main essay (often new album recommendations), a 15-song playlist, as well as updates on what I’m listening to, watching, and reading. Sometimes you’ll get an interview with an artist I love, and other times it’ll be a deep dive into one band’s discography. Since I’m a Chicago-based writer, this newsletter is very Midwest-focused. So, if you live in this city too, you’ll also receive a curated roundup of upcoming local shows to check out.

Here’s where I politely ask for money: This newsletter is something I write in my spare time after work. It’s unpaywalled and remains that way due to the generosity of my readers. I am not in the business of gatekeeping. If you have the means and like what you read, you can sign up for a paid subscription. If your budget is tight, telling a friend about a band you discovered here is just as good. It’s still $5 a month—the cost of one Old Style plus tip at Rainbo Club. Every bit helps, keeps this project going, and allows it to stay paywall-free. It’s rough out there, so it means the world you’re reading and supporting this writing project.

Some scheduling news: I’m going to shows on Friday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday over the next few days. I’m not planning on skipping any to write, so I’ll be taking next week off and returning with a jam-packed newsletter on Nov. 13.

5 Albums Worth Your Time This Week

Chico States, I Saw A Galloping Horse Cover No Ground

Earlier this month, the essential music blog The Ugly Hug posted a single premiere from the Portland, Maine-based band Chico States called “A Dozen Beers.” It’s the kind of track that combines rousing rock with stumbling Americana and tongue-in-cheek lyrics. It opens with the lines, “Them blundstones ain’t cowboy boots / me & you, we’re just blundering on through a dozen beers ahead of most of the rest of the world.” For lack of a better term, it’s the platonic ideal of No Expectations-core: clever, freewheelin,’ and a little drunk. Recorded by Garrett Linck, a producer, multi-instrumentalist, and Greg Freeman’s new bassist, the band’s new album I Saw A Galloping Horse Cover No Ground is a remarkably eclectic dose of dusky melancholy, golden pedal steel wails (courtesy of Greg Freeman player Ben Rodgers), and scrappy harmonies. Somehwere between Ryan Davis and Karl Blau, frontman Joseph Barresi’s warble is imbued with approachable twang and ample falsetto. Opener “Doda” is rollicking and kinetic, while the graceful standout “Creek Don’t Rise” is woozy, ambling, and gorgeous. There are a lot of recent records that mine from this well of classic American musical traditions, but this band proves there’s still more than enough charm and transcendence to be found.

RIYL: Cold Narragansett and country music, Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band, Cotton Jones, the Northeast

cistern, Rhizome

A four-piece band based in Squamish, British Columbia has one of 2025’s tightest and most impressive post-punk LPs of 2025. Instead of occupying the genre’s iciest and angstiest corners, cistern lean into propulsive grooves, squirmy lead guitars, and near-dancable melodies that evoke Interpol, Modest Mouse, and Deeper. The bassline that drives “Ephemeral” feels straight out of the Meet Me In the Bathroom, but cistern are so deft at crafting a sturdy melody that it never feels like a facsimile of a bygone era. While each song excels with interlocking and jagged riffs, shouty vocals, and tangible momentum, the band throws in enough welcome detours and left turns to keep things fresh. “Sink” swirls with chiming chords before dissolving into an extended jam, “In It” is a syncopated singalong banger, while “I Can’t Wait” starts off dizzyingly glacial before flooding the mix with sludgy bass. Thanks to regular U.K. reader James for hitting up the mailbag email with the recommendation (he was also the one who tipped me to Cash Langdon).

RIYL: Deeper, Interpol, the riff from Modest Mouse’s “Dramamine”

Flock of Dimes, The Life You Save

Jenn Wasner’s music has been a regular presence in my life for the past 15 years. I loved Wye Oak’s The Knot in college, and when the A.V. Club made its follow-up Civilian the site’s Best Album of 2011, it made me dream of writing for that publication. (Funnily enough, my first-ever byline was a three-sentence news item in 2012 for the A.V. Club about a new song from her solo project, Flock of Dimes). The Life You Save is Wasner’s first record under the moniker since 2021 (she’s been a guitarist and touring member of Bon Iver for the past six years), and it’s by far her most lush and immersive release yet. Self-produced with an assist from Sylvan Esso’s Nick Sanborn, the whole thing is jaw-droppingly stunning, from the romantic Americana arrangement of “Theo” to the enveloping drone anchoring the cathartic “The Enemy.” The pastoral penultimate track “River In My Arms” showcases Wasner’s powerful, soothing voice as she sings, “And I can’t tell you it’s alright / But it’s alright with me / I can only hold you / Like a tree holds to its leaves.” This is a record that proves why Wasner’s longevity is not only earned but essential. Just astonishing stuff here.

RIYL: Immaculate production, striking and evocative lyrics, Meg Duffy guitar solos, indie rock at its most atmospheric

Joyer, On the Other End of the Line…

Joyer is a duo of brothers—Nick and Shane Sullivan—who are split between Philadelphia and Brooklyn. They triangulate the midpoint between the knotty and brooding palette of Alex G, the breezy and conversational introspection of Bonny Doon, and shoegaze at its most explosive. This is a long way of saying that they’re a great, dynamic rock band. The just-released On the Other End of the Line… is their hookiest and most cohesive album yet. Recorded in Chicago with producer and Slow Pulp guitarist Henry Stoehr, the 10 tracks here traverse familiar indie rock territory in smart and innovative ways. “Test” is a sparkplug of volatile jangle with buzzsaw riffs and a wistful melody that floats over the mix. Elsewhere, “Glare of the Beer Can” finds them occupying bare-bones folk-rock, while the single “At the Movies” boasts an impossibly infectious hook. There’s not a mediocre song on this record: a testament to blood chemistry, tasteful production, and stellar songwriting.

RIYL: Indie rock that can be intimate and anthemic, I-95 friendships, recording in Chicago

Rubber Band Gun, Record Deal With God

New Jersey songwriter Kevin Basko is a talented songwriter who’s played with The Lemon Twigs, Foxygen, Jackie Cohen, John Andrews & The Yawns, and more, but he also has an adventurous and long-running pop-rock solo project called Rubber Band Gun. He’s relentlessly prolific—think an Eastern seaboard Ty Segall or Daniel Romano—releasing three records last year and three LPs in 2025 that culminated in Record Deal With God. While his output is so staggering that it’s hard to keep track of it all, from what I’ve managed to hear, this latest full-length is the best of the bunch. Compared to his earlier releases like January’s voice-memo-recorded Cell Hell and April’s Haters and Lovers, which were written, recorded, and released in relatively quick succession, this one found Basko tinkering for months. As someone who publishes something here almost every week, I’m partial to the “first thought, best thought” approach but here, his thoughtfulness and intentionality makes for his most masterful LP yet. He’s already established himself as an expert with effortless oddball pop melodies, but these songs feel deliriously free and organic. “Count to Five” is laid-back and swampy while “Eyes Above” is groovy, McCartney-esque bliss. The garage-ready power pop “Baby’s Gonna Find Out” soars just as high as the bluesy vamps of “The Dotted Line.” If you like the timeless sounds of classic rock and power-pop playfully tweaked and modernized like Liam Kazar and Smushie, run to this album.

RIYL: Paul McCartney’s Ram, effortlessly locked-in arrangements, perpetual hooks

What I listened to:

The No Expectations 126 Playlist: Apple Music // Spotify // Tidal

1. Dazy, “Straight 2 You”
2. Ratboys, “Anywhere”
3. Lawn, “Everyday Man”
4. cistern, “Ephemeral”
5. The Convenience, “Angel”
6. Good Flying Birds, “Every Day is Another”
7. Rubber Band Gun, “Eyes Above”
8. Liz Cooper, “IDFK”
9. Mei Semones, “Kurayami”
10. Flock Of Dimes, “Theo”
11. Chico States, “Doda”
12. Dollarbird, “Missoula”
13. Haley Heynderickx, Max García Conover, “Fluorescent Light”
14. Joyer, “Test”
15. Dutch Interior, “Play the Song”

Gig recap: Blue Earth Sound at Sleeping Village (10/23)

I first met Blue Earth Sound bandleader James Weir almost 12 years ago when he was the bassist for the now-defunct Chicago indie rock band NE-HI. We first bonded over obscure post-punk albums, but the older we got, our tastes softened and expanded to disco, house, jazz, and bands like Saint Etienne. I’ve seen his interests evolve from jangle and indie rock to the kaleidoscopic synth-rock of his band Spun Out to his new project, which is a collection of tasteful, cinematic, and instrumental jazz. Weir’s been a good friend for a decade (I also helped with the bio for Blue Earth Sound’s debut Cicero Nights), so it was really special to witness his record release show in Avondale. His band crushed it.

What I watched:

The American Buffalo (directed by Ken Burns, streamed on PBS Passport)

This is probably a bad idea, but I’m starting what will likely be a year-long viewing project that I’m calling “Ken Burns in chronological order.” I’ve recently devoured Jazz, Country Music, and Baseball, and watched his docuseries on the Civil War and World War II in high school, but I’ve never come close to being a completist. With the documentarian’s latest project, The Revolutionary War, hitting PBS on Nov. 16, I’ve decided to start from the very beginning. Obviously not Burns’ first movie—that’s 1981’s The Brooklyn Bridge—2023’s The American Buffalo starts the earliest. It uses America’s national mammal to chart 10,000 years of North American history. It’s less a nature documentary about bison and more an ambitious take on American settlers’ ambition, indigenous removal, prairie ecosystems, greed, capitalism, and conservation. While not one of the buzzier entries in his unassailable catalog, Burns is still an unmatched filmmaker.

What I read:

On The Calculation of Volume Book II (by Solvej Balle)

The most important series in my life right now is author Solvej Balle’s seven-book novel series On The Calculation of Volume. Centered around a mysterious timeloop, it follows one European as she lives out the same November 18 hundreds and thousands of times. This, an introspective and ruminative septology from a 63-year-old Danish writer, is now my Star Wars, my Marvel Cinematic Universe, or my Jurassic Park. Balle’s prose is exceptional. The emotional depth she excavates from her protagonist is striking. It’s not about solving the mystery but figuring out ways to live while you’re trapped in an inexplicable situation. How she manages to carve out a thrilling yet meditative arc from one 24-hour period is genius. I can’t wait for this timeline’s Nov. 18, when Book III hits stateside bookstores.

The Weekly Chicago Show Calendar:

The gig calendar lives on the WTTW News website now. You can also subscribe to the newsletter I produce there called Daily Chicagoan to get it in your inbox a day early.

No Expectations hits inboxes on Thursdays at 9am cst. Reader mailbag email: Noexpectationsnewsletter@gmail.com. Daily Chicagoan, the local news newsletter I produce at my day job with WTTW News (PBS Chicago), can be found here.

Headline song: Glyders, “Moon Eyes”

Thanks for being here. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve received a few emails from publicists asking me to consider their clients for the No Expectations annual year-end list. I have to admit that my knee-jerk reaction reading those requests was, “Wait, what? It’s October: far too early to be thinking about EOY season.” This newsletter always runs its Best Of roundup in mid-to-early December, and that won’t change. Just last year, holding off a bit later than most other outlets allowed me to include Cameron Winter’s Heavy Metal, Twine’s New Old Horse, and Smino’s Maybe in Nirvana. Sure, I could’ve beaten the rush and published before readers inevitably experience list fatigue, but I would’ve missed out on covering stellar, arguably classic LPs. Even in the doldrums of the release calendar, there will, without fail, be incredible things to discover.

Still, the more I thought about those PR reps already gearing up for list season, the more I realized, “Shit, I really should start thinking about this.” So far in 2025, I’ve recommended around 150 new albums in this newsletter. A quick scroll through the archives has the total at 142 (including the three featured below), and there are already over a dozen forthcoming releases I plan to get around to before the holidays. That’s a personally shocking number, and there’s still so much I haven’t heard. While dozens of those LPs have been on near-regular rotation all year, I’m going to have to revisit several over the coming weeks. The prospect of revisiting so much music is daunting, but it’s honestly really exciting.

As someone who has chosen a career where I basically give myself homework in perpetuity, my weeks are consumed by deadlines. I’ll go to work Monday through Friday, relax and see friends over the weekend, listen to music and read books when I can, and write up a new edition of No Expectations every Tuesday night. Don’t get me wrong: this is extremely fun and rewarding for me. I’m doing exactly what I want to do with my time. That said, I tend to move on to the next thing rather than savor what I loved last week or a month ago. Beyond the obvious reasons for compiling and posting a year-end list (people love them), it gives me a chance to reflect on 2025. I get to remind myself why something resonated so much, and usually, I’ll find new reasons to love what I dug then.

While I plan to spend the next month going back down the rabbit hole of 2025 LPs, I’ll still highlight the new-to-me favorites here. Lists are supposed to be fun, and ultimately, they’re not that serious. In this case, it’s just one guy’s opinion. At the same time, I figure giving myself the space to return to old favorites, take a birds-eye view of 2025, and finally get around to some of the year’s blind spots will be a fun listening exercise. It’s been a chaotic year, but so much amazing music has brought me joy and comfort throughout it all. As we approach the holidays and the impending blitz of EOY lists, take some time to return to some of your early-year favorites, and remember the good moments they inspired.

Here’s the spiel for new subscribers: Each week, you get a wildcard main essay (often new album recommendations), a 15-song playlist, as well as updates on what I’m listening to, watching, and reading. Sometimes you’ll get an interview with an artist I love, and other times it’ll be a deep dive into one band’s discography. Since I’m a Chicago-based writer, this newsletter is very Midwest-focused. So, if you live in this city too, you’ll also receive a curated roundup of upcoming local shows to check out.

Here’s where I politely ask for money: This newsletter is something I write in my spare time after work. It’s unpaywalled and remains that way due to the generosity of my readers. I am not in the business of gatekeeping. If you have the means and like what you read, you can and should sign up for a paid subscription. If your budget is tight, telling a friend about a band you read about here is just as good. It’s still $5 a month—the cost of one Old Style plus tip at Rainbo Club. Every bit helps, keeps this project going, and allows it to stay paywall-free. It’s rough out there, so it means the world you’re reading and supporting this writing project.

It’s my birthday on Saturday. While 34 is not a particularly monumental year to celebrate, I’m stoked to be around buds and drink a beer or two with them this weekend. If you sign up for the paid tier, I’ll definitely use the $5 to buy a Miller High Life.

3 Albums Worth Your Time This Week

Cusp, What I Want Doesn’t Want Me Back

There’s a great newfound tradition of bands that combine anthemic, ‘90s-inspired rock with emo and twang who found their footing in Chicago. Like Madison, Wisconsin’s Slow Pulp and Indiana’s Ratboys, who both are now essential pillars of this city’s music communities, Rochester, New York’s Cusp have already made waves since moving here a few years ago. 2023’s You Can Do It All was a newsletter favorite that year, and when they followed it up with an EP last year, the opening atmospheric track “The Alternative” was one of my most-revisited songs of 2024. Now with an expanded and solidified lineup, their latest full-length, What I Want Doesn’t Want Me Back, is their most confident and cohesive release yet. Highlights like “Oh Man” are peppered with squiggly synths and sugary backing vocals, while “The Upper Hand” detours is golden country thanks to pristine pedal steel from Chicago’s Red PK. Singer Jen Bender has a knack for breezy, effortless-sounding melodies that float over the eclectic arrangements that span indie rock’s multiple flavors. On “In a Box,” over interlocking guitars and a propulsive rhythm, Bender claustrophobically sings, “With all of the love on the planet / You’d have me sit in a box / Lock it up tightly, just me and my thoughts / So safe and comfortable, gnawing my nails off.“ Throughout, lyrics of anxiety, insecurity, and yearning are imbued with grace, wit, and heart. This LP will give you a new favorite Chicago band.

RIYL: Ratboys, big choruses, big riffs, and bigger heart

Good Flying Birds, Talulah’s Tape

At the beginning of the year, Indianapolis indie rockers Good Flying Birds released a cassette called Talulah’s Tape featuring “scattered demos … recorded at home between 2021-2024.” Those who heard it early realized it was one of the best collections of pristine, thoughtful jangle-pop 2025 would have to offer, which is why it’s now already reissued via the great indie label Carpark. While you’d expect efficient, scrappy, and well-written tunes from a band named after a Guided By Voices song, these songs’ sturdy and impeccable core transcends their four-track-recorded presentation. At 16 tracks, Talulah’s Tape is relentlessly paced: a constant onslaught of quality hooks, delirious riffs, and surging punk energy. “Wallace” is anchored by a squall of guitar noise, “Golfball” is wistful slacker rock, while the standout “Every Day Is Another” slows things down with cascading acoustic chords and delicate falsetto. Fronted by Kellen Baker, the Midwesterner has few peers when it comes to airtight and timeless songwriting.

RIYL: Midwestern jangle, timeless power-pop, short songs

Shutaro Noguchi & the Roadhouse Band, On the Run

The Japanese songwriter Shutaro Noguchi spent nearly two decades in America, splitting his time between Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and Louisville, where he immersed himself in that city’s music community and linked up with Ryan Davis. He’s been releasing music via Davis’ Sophomore Lounge label since 2014, and this year, he collaborated with Davis and his Roadhouse Band for a knotty, unpredictable, and lush collection of tunes in On The Run. Now that Noguchi’s back in Tokyo, this LP feels like a bittersweet ode to cross-continental collaborations and a swan song to finding community in unlikely places. With lyrics mostly sung in Japanese, the eight exploratory songs here are potent doses of lounge-y psych, mesmerizing krautrock grooves, and welcome oddball experiments. The instrumental title track is cinematic in its intensity, with swirling synths, pops of searing lead guitars, and rhythmic playfulness. Elsewhere, while the opener “Olympic 3.5” extends past the eight-minute mark with a brooding jam, “Melody” is laid-back pop bliss. Dense with surprises and gleeful left turns, this is an album that you can easily live in. It’s for twilit comedowns, relaxed weekend mornings, and ambling strolls around the neighborhood.

RIYL: knotty synth-pop, unlikely collaboration, Jefferson County J-Pop

What I listened to:

The No Expectations 125 Playlist: Apple Music // Spotify // Tidal

1. Winged Wheel, “Speed Table”
2. Good Flying Birds, “Eric’s Eyes”
3. Geese, “Bow Down”
4. Glyders, “Moon Eyes”
5. Cruise Control, “So Long Carolina”
6. Cusp, “The Upper Hand”
7. Whitney, “Damage”
8. Shutaro Noguchi & the Roadhouse Band, “Melody”
9. Lala Lala, “Does This Go Faster?”
10. SML, “Chicago Four”
11. Helado Negro, “Protector”
12. Hannah Frances, “Steady in the Hand”
13. villagerrr, “All Right”
14. Devin Shaffer, “I Guess I’m Crawling”
15. Anna von Hausswolff, “Struggle With the Beast”

Gig recap: Geese, Racing Mount Pleasant at Thalia Hall (10/16)

Geese are the band of the moment. While their stratospheric ascent is well-deserved and exciting to watch, it must be bewildering for a group of early-twenty-somethings to experience. Whatever whirlwind emotions they must be feeling, seeing their work validated by a super-sold-out tour, 9.0 Best New Music designations, and ubiquitous memes featuring their songs, was translated to one of the tightest and most cathartic shows I’ve seen all year. Getting Killed is likely the year’s best album, and these young New Yorkers were locked in to match the hype live. While they were loose, chaotic, and excellent in early tours and last year opening up for King Gizzard, this is a band transformed in its current iteration: masterful, exhilarating, and still volatile enough to add a feeling of unpredictability. I haven’t seen Thalia Hall this packed since Twin Peaks played there in 2017. They’ve only stuck to their uncompromising indie rock vision and I hope they continue to do so going forward.

Back in January, I was introduced to Racing Mount Pleasant when they opened up for Cameron Winter at Sleeping Village. Where that last show found the sprawling Chicago-via-Michigan art-rock collective without a drummer, here they had a full lineup that showcased the explosiveness and raw emotionality of their repertoire. If you’re lucky enough to have tickets, this might be the tour of the year.

Gig recap: Hannah Frances at Constellation (10/17)

The first time I saw Hannah Frances play with a full band, it felt like Chicago’s best-kept secret. At small club shows, well before her breakout 2024 LP Keeper of the Shepherd came out, she’d perform with a sprawling cast of collaborators with horns, strings, and more, vividly enlivening her rich folk tunes. It was stunning every time. Now that Frances lives in Vermont, I’m lucky I got to witness an expanded nine-piece ensemble bring her new album, Nested in Tangles, to life at Constellation, my city’s best venue for jazz and avant-garde music. Over two sets, led by musical director and multi-instrumentalist Sarah Clausen, Frances played the entire album in full. The scalpel-like precision and attention to detail Frances and Clausen exuded to transform these intricate songs for the stage was inspiring. There were no opening acts, just one of the best albums of 2025 reimagined for a sold-out crowd.

What I watched:

Mussolini: Son of the Century (streamed on Mubi)

Streaming on MUBI, the eight-part TV series Mussolini: Son Of The Century tracks the violent, turbulent, and swift political ascent of the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. It chronicles the five years from the 1919 origins of his fascist movement to their illegal rise in parliament and the assassination of their biggest rival, socialist politician Giacomo Matteotti, in 1924. Directed by Joe Wright, who is most known for his take on Pride on Prejudice with Kiera Knightley, this series is vividly rendered, a grotesquerie of brutality, corruption, and naked avarice that finds the cartoonish villainry intrinsic to historic despots. Lead actor Luca Marinelli, whom I know from his more charming and handsome role in 2019’s Martin Eden, is transformed to be the balding, gross, and perpetually huffy Il Duce. This is a show that takes multiple creative risks. It’s impossibly stylized, colorful, and experimental. Marinelli breaks the fourth wall so much it feels like if Fleabag was a pathetic fascist. Sometimes it doesn’t work, but other times it’s astoundingly potent. Worth a watch if you want to see an enthralling acting performance from Marinelli and an immersive period piece of a horrific time.

What I read:

Little Bosses Everywhere: How the Pyramid Scheme Shaped America (by Bridget Read)

In August, the direct selling industry, also known as multi-level marketing, claimed that it made $34.7 billion in U.S. retail sales in 2024. By comparison, that’s a few billion more than the legal cannabis industry, which reported $30.1 billion in U.S. retail sales last year. But as Bridget Read’s wild, unpredictable, and thrilling book Little Bosses Everywhere points out, the totals the MLM industry trots out are actually what its own sellers are buying to sell, not what everyday consumers are spending on. By tracing the history of MLMs to traveling salesmen, Read exposes their deceptive business practices, weaving personal accounts with exhaustive reporting. (A 2011 study of 350 multilevel marketing businesses found that 99 percent of participants lost money.) While many of the companies featured have managed to skirt regulation and legal accusations of being a pyramid scheme, the evidence of their inherent scamminess is striking. You’ll devour Read’s account and wonder, “How is this legal?” Like most things, it’s because of aggressive lobbying and political donations. Growing up in Western Michigan, where major player Amway was founded and is currently based, I was constantly exposed to founders Jay Van Andel and Richard DeVos’ names plastered everywhere, and friends’ parents who worked for the company. Being raised in an environment where it’s ubiquitous—though I am fortunate it never affected any loved ones—it was nice to get a broader understanding of how it works and its darker underbelly.

The Weekly Chicago Show Calendar:

The gig calendar lives on the WTTW News website now. You can also subscribe to the newsletter I produce there called Daily Chicagoan to get it in your inbox a day early.