Month: December 2025

Top Five Albums Of 2025

On By bigbadburchIn AOTY 20255 Comments

2025 is almost in the books and it’s finally time for me to cap off the year with the obligatory “best of” list. This year I’ve trimmed the list from 10 to 5 albums, as I haven’t had the time or inclination to visit a whole ton of newer release stuff. Also there were several new albums that didn’t really land with me so 5 it is. Nothing much more to say so let’s have at it.

5: Sodom – The Arsonist

The German thrash legends have been around forever now. Their 17th album goes into another gear and is far from a band resting on their laurels, well-earned as that may be. It’s hard to say how many more Sodom albums will come down the pipe, so it’s nice to have this excellent slab on what is the later years of their career.

4: Coroner – Dissonance Theory

It was 32 years between releases for the Swiss prog-thrashers. Their return album kept things a bit more straightforward than the the group was previously known for, but it was done in a very welcome fashion. It took a literal lifetime to get this record but it was totally worth it.

3: Die Spitz – Something To Consume

Every year there is a “who the hell is this band, oh shit this album rules” entry and we have arrived to that point. This group hails from Austin, Texas and offered up their full-length debut in September. And they’ve captured notice with a sound that operates in punk and grunge while also adding a heavy slab of doom metal. This is as if L7 and High On Fire collided with each other and an album was the result of the crash.

2: Turnpike Troubadours – The Price Of Admission

I haven’t kept up much with country music like I used to 12 or more years ago, but it was impossible to ignore the buzz around this album. Kind of funny that it generated so much talk since it was pretty much a surprise release in April. This is country in its purest form – sad and beautiful. This is a career album for the group who has been running nearly 20 years now.

Album of the Year 2025

Deafheaven – Lonely People With Power

Speaking of career albums, the defining act of what is known as “blackgaze” most likely released their pinnacle album in 2025. While they basically formed the subgenre with their 2012 masterpiece Sunbather, on this album they have actually surpassed that earlier record. This is a collection of soundscapes that eclipses any real genre tags and can only possess the catch-all term “post-rock.” It has the familiar “shoegaze music with black metal vocals” vibes but also is so much more in composition and arrangement. Every song on this album is basically its own masterpiece, it’s tough to pinpoint one triumphant moment from the record. I will say the songs Magnolia, Winona and the album-closing The Marvelous Orange Tree are all prime offerings. But this record functions so well as a whole that picking singles is a fool’s errand. Just play the whole thing.

That does it for 2025. We will see what next year has in store.

Rainbow announce Temple Of The King box set

On By bigbadburchIn Upcoming Music3 Comments

A quick one today to recap some news that hit yesterday about a massive new box set chronicling the earliest part of Ritche Blackmore’s career in Rainbow. A set called Temple Of The King will release on March 6, 2026 and features an insane NINE cd’s of music.

Now -this set is not a deluxe album collection, something even some casual collectors might jump all over. This is the first of several sets intended to cover Blackmore’s career, which I’ll presume will cover all of Rainbow’s long run and possibly also his other projects. Though do note that this format likely won’t extend to Deep Purple, which Blackmore would not have sole control of.

What we get across these nine discs are the first two Rainbow albums – Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow and Rising. The remaining discs are loaded with live shows and the final disc offers up a series of rough mix and alternate rarities.

Given that the crux of the content is live stuff, I decided to go ahead and pre-order this monstrosity. I do have these first two albums hanging out in my cd collection but I saw this and said “what the hell, why not.” I haven’t often been one for the deluxe box set covering just an album or so kind of thing, but this one seemed fine at nine discs for a $100 price point. Add in the fact that this set covers the years 1975 and ’76, which means Ronnie James Dio would feature as the singer on all of the content and I was sold.

The layman might view the tracklists with skepticism, as the live concerts only feature three or four songs per CD. Rest assured that when Blackmore and Rainbow played live in the ’70’s, Blackmore showed up to play his damn guitar. Many songs from the live shows of this era run over ten minutes. And while I don’t know the exact run times of the offerings here, there were some jams that went on for over twenty minutes back in the early Rainbow days. While each disc might only feature roughly thirty minutes or so of music, the sets might have been too long to fit on one CD, with a generally given run time of 80 minutes. Or maybe they could have each fit on a single CD and this presentation is a bit excessive. I don’t know, I guess I’ll find out in March.

Time will speak to the exact worthiness of this set, but overall I think it’s in good shape with two albums, three live shows and a rarities disc. It also clearly opens the door to future installments that would run past Dio’s time in Rainbow and cover the more commercial rock era that featured Graham Bonnet and later Joe Lynn Turner. And the list of other players who were in and out of Rainbow over the years could honestly fill a book. We’ll see how the overseers of this material, assuming Blackmore is among them, choose to present future offerings. But we are off to a running start with two mega classic albums, the immortal tones of Ronnie James Dio, and enough Ritchie Blackmore guitar to fill a planet with soundwaves.

Rob Reiner 1947-2025

On By bigbadburchIn News6 Comments

Tragic and terrible news from over the weekend, as renowned director, producer and actor Rob Reiner has passed away. He and his wife Michele were found dead in their Los Angeles home. The further details of this case are grim so I’ll just leave them alone other than to say that it was an apparent homicide. Rob was 78 years old, Michele was 68.

Reiner was born to legendary comic actor Carl Reiner and actress/singer Estelle Reiner. Rob got his start in acting during the 1960’s, landing bit parts in many well-known series of the time. He would land what many consider his signature role as Michael “Meathead” Stivic on the beloved sitcom All In The Family, playing foil to Carroll O’Connor’s famous Archie Bunker.

Reiner began his long-running directing career in 1984 with the film that lands his obituary on these pages with the cult classic This Is Spinal Tap. Reiner would go on a run of massive success that kicked off with 1986’s Stand By Me and ran through to 1992’s A Few Good Men, and he would continue to find success through the remainder of his career. He would also be found in several acting roles, including Throw Momma From The Train and The Wolf Of Wall Street.

Reiner’s career spanned a long time and incorporated several elements of movie and TV making, but of course I’m going to use a few more words to expound on the subject I’ve already covered in great detail – the film that both created the “mockumentary” genre and also hit a bullseye in portraying the hard rock and heavy metal scene of the early 1980’s. Spinal Tap was the concoction of Reiner as well as the principal actors – Harry Shearer, Michael McKean and Christopher Guest. Invented originally for comedy tv skits, Reiner would secure financing from his old pal Norman Lear (creator of All In The Family) and film in an ad-lib style to let the film essentially write itself. Reiner directed the effort and also portrayed Martin “Marty” Di Bergi, the documentary maker chronicling the hi-jinx of Spinal Tap.

This Is Spinal Tap did not light the world on fire when it was released, but as the years wore on it became a cult classic. Nostalgia only brought the film more fondness and the band became an institution beyond the scope of the initial film. It took 41 years but we did get a sequel in the form of Spinal Tap II – The End Continues, which hit theaters earlier this year and appears to be Reiner’s final film project. He did have one more thing in the can and it does involve Spinal Tap – the band filmed a farewell concert that is set to release sometime in 2026.

It was a senseless, tragic act that took away Rob and Michele. But there is a lot of Rob Reiner to fondly remember. He has any number of classic films to his credit, and his role as “Meathead” was an all-time performance. For me I’ll obviously most remember Spinal Tap, though many of his other films are classic works of art. Rest easy Rob and Michele, and thanks for all the memories.