kittywitch

end of year lists 2025

oh man, oh man. another year over already??? the passage of time is cruel. i used to look forward to doing year-end lists, especially for music, some years compiling a list of up to 25 albums RELEASED in that specific year that i actively enjoyed. i don't think i listened to even close to that many new albums this year. it honestly doesn't matter that much, because who really gives a fuck about what my 23rd favorite album of [currentyear] was? but i do miss engaging with that much new music. on the other hand, in those years i probably wouldn't have been able to compile lists of things i actually enjoyed across a lot of other types of media listed here. additionally, long lists of stuff without explanations as to WHY i put them on the list have gotten less interesting for me anyway. i'd rather be able to just list a small amount of things but be able to explain why i liked the things i liked.

i decided to do all of these lists as "best of what i first engaged with this year" and not as "what released this year" both out of practicality and also because this is meant to be a review of my year and it doesn't matter if something is decades old, as long as i found it this year, it belongs on a best of this year list, right?

albums

  1. la dispute - no one was driving the car
  2. system of a down - toxicity
  3. viagra boys - viagr aboys

i was in la dispute lockdown for most of the year, to be honest. this album and its release cycle took most of my attention span for new music. i wasn't initially hyped at all for new la dispute, since i'm very meh on their last album, but holy shit. what a beast this album is. it feels like it takes all the strengths of wildlife, combines it with the more low-key moments of both panorama and their EPs and notches up the maturity. it's both the heaviest and most low-key album of theirs, with a lot of interconnecting lyrical themes without being a concept album per-se. it's everything i could have asked for.

toxicity is an odd one. i don't know why i decided to give this album a full listen after only knowing chop suey! for over a decade, but it was a good decision. it's FUN. the lyrics are somewhere between highly political and silly-stupid and musically it holds up well. it's probably one of the only albums that get lumped in as nu-metal that i wouldn't wrinkle my nose at because the songwriting is just so good.

the newest viagra boys in a way was a slight disappointment for me, because i didn't go as ape-shit about it as the previous one, but it's still extremely competent driven post-punk fun and a very nice listen.

songs

  1. la dispute - environmental catastrophe film
  2. nils keppel - wellblech
  3. clipse - so be it

the pivotal song of my favorite album of the year is my favorite song of the year? what a surprise! it's a microcosm of big themes on the entire album and the heavy heavy heavy bridge with it's existential despair makes way for a second movement that is hopeful in spite of the grim bridge ("there's only one direction we go/ and we can only go forward every day / to the end where we began / to the darkness up ahead"). it's excellent.

i wasn't aware of nils keppel until we saw him as a support act for bilderbuch, but he's doing some very cool german post punk-inspired music (he's considered part of an ndw revival which i guess fits even though i hate the label). wellblech is my favorite of the bunch of singles and short EPs he's released so far and i'm intrigued where he'll go.

for so be it, the sample in this alone elevates it to "hell yeah this slaps". that pusha t especially is in good form on this brings it over the edge. just fun stuff.

books

  1. amber dawn - sodom road exit
  2. r.f. kuang - babel
  3. brandon sanderson - the final empire

look, who hasn't been possessed by a lesbian ghost before? messy book with a very flawed but still relatable protagonist.

r.f. kuang can cook up cool magic systems, especially intertwining this with linguistics is really interesting. the anti-colonialist stance here is nothing revolutionary but nice.

the final empire is here as a stand-in for the entire trilogy of the first mistborn era. really good world-building and a lot of good setup for earned plot twists.

films

  1. sinners
  2. wake up dead man: a knives out mystery
  3. romeo + juliet

[i might edit in text later, i ran out of steam but want to put it online now lmao]

tv shows

  1. the pitt s1
  2. severance s2
  3. heated rivalry s1

the ER sequel we didn't deserve, but needed. the real-time gimmick works surprisingly well and there's some top-notch acting and writing here. it obviously has to tackle an exceptional situation to create some extra drama (as if a normal emergency room shift wasn't dramatic enough). hope you like 15 hours of increasing stress!

the second season of severance kind of falls into the trap of having to start to explain some of the mysteries it set up in season 1 and doesn't quite reach the heights of the first season due to that. that said, it's still very good and i can't wait to see how it continues in 2-5 years or however long a season of prestige tv takes to film nowadays.

i came into this expecting fanfic-levels of writing and was pleasantly surprised that it's actually a very competent romance-comedy-drama. the only episode that falls off is the one following scott hunter, which, while still sweet, has about as much depth as a kiddie pool (and you can tell that it's a vaguely reskinned stucky-fic). everything ilya and shane definitely stands on its own though and the chemistry between the two is great.

games

  1. in stars and time
  2. hollow knight: silksong
  3. mouthwashing

time-loop game with really good writing. great cast of characters, fun to dig around and try to understand how to progress each loop and piece everything together. siffrin slowly losing it by seeing his friends die over and over again turns it into a psychological horror thing at times, but it's handled well.

silksong technically is on-hold or DNF for me, since i kind of gave up in act 3 and don't know if i'll be back. i haven't reached the final ending because the game is just too difficult for me in act 3. i know i just need to git gud but it really tested my patience too much. that aside, there's so much to love here. an expansive, beautiful world, many lovable side characters and most challenges, while seeming too difficult at first, can be overcome and it's really rewarding. idk, i'm in weird spot with silksong right now. maybe i'll attempt to keep going at some point.

also reviewed here on the website. good well-paced psychological horror.