Friday Five: December 12, 2025

Side A:

"Heavy Pendulum" • Cave In

"People Watching" • Sam Fender

"Bloated" • Bike Thiefs

"Mr. Soul" • Sam Cooke

"Holo Boy" • This is Lorelai

Side B:

"Refuge" • Franz Jørgen Neumann for Doric Literary

"In Praise of the Non-Linear" • Tyler Dempsey for trampset

"Thousands of Longings Like These" • Madeeha Hashmi for The Ex-Puritan

"The Empty Tune" • Naomi Skwarna for Hazlitt

"These Days" • D.T. Robbins for Farewell Transmission

Friday Fav:

"Beto's Horns" • Fredagain.., Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso

Dance track with a hardcore energy. Video is a bonkers perspective from a moshpit; filmed by Fred at a Ca7riel & Paco show. I wrote extensively about Fredagain..'s USB002 album and what writers can learn from how much fucking fun he's having with music, collaboration, and experimentation on my new substack.

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Dec 12, 2025

Friday Five exists as a little challenge to me: five new albums, five new stories per week. They're here for you to enjoy (or not!) No summaries or in-depth criticism. (I don't have the time!) But here are a few notes from this week's five:

Bike Thiefs' discography is a hell of a lot of fun for post-punk fans. Dig around the playlists of your fav shows. You never know what you might find.

Naomi Skwarna's little fairytale had me in tears on the treadmill.

Thank you Aaron Burch for expanding my metal (thrash metal? post metal? sludge metal?) horizons with the rec for Heavy Pendulum. One of these days I'm gonna get you to listen to USB. Strangely I think we are listening for the same things, in different music genres.

Tyler Dempsey if you are reading this: essays are your gift. You found your golden vein, man. Keep going.

Been bumping a lot of motown and soul while bartending lately.

I have a piece up with Short Story, Long that I'm really proud of. I wouldn't normally promote my own work here, but I think it'll put a smile on your face. I hope you give it a read.

xo,

Kirsti