8 Great psychedelic albums from Fall 2025
Psychedelic music is equal parts joy and escape, but in the times in which we currently live, joy is a scarce resource, and escape is in many ways impossible. With that in mind, it appears we’re beginning to witness a fracturing, or shattering, of psychedelic music—but in a good way. No longer does the term belong to 30-something white dudes noodling the night away on their electric guitars and barely connecting with the audience; shoegaze has cannibalized the genre in that respect, chewing the red meat and spitting out the gristle.
We’re seeing psych inflections instead of inundations; flourishes of dreamy reverb and fuzz surfacing unexpectedly in varieties of music ranging from black metal to disco. Stoner rock seems to be identifying opportunities to reclaim psych as their thing as fans of the Desert Daze community are peeling off and leaving a vacuum. Hip-hop artists are likewise finding innovative ways to slip in psychedelic stanzas, even if some of them are just a nod as if to say, “I feel you.”
All too often we dismiss dissemination as a weakening of an art form, or a belief system, or a faith or creed. But the beauty, brilliance and bright future that lies ahead for American music is and has always been squarely located in its ability not to homogenize but to diversity. And if that’s the direction psychedelic music is going, as it certainly seems to be, we should be excited for many, many bright days ahead.
Strange Passage – A Folded Sky
Thanks to a genre overcrowded with imitators of Pink Floyd, Can, Pink Floyd, Phish, Pink Floyd, Love, Pink Floyd, King Gizzard—and, oh yeah, Pink Floyd—we’ve been led to believe that psychedelic music has to sound languorous and like the people playing it have lost their motor functions. In order words, the musical equivalent of quaaludes. Strange Passage is a misnomer in that it suggests the band keeps company with the aforementioned artists, but what makes the band from Somerville, Massachusetts, strange in the raddest of ways is that their take on psych-rock is tight and precise, and their songs are well considered from melody and flow to texture and tone. Unlike, certain psych-scene mainstays, every word casually sung by frontman Renato Montenegro (who is also one of the guitarists) is perfectly comprehensible. He and second guitarist Greg Witz keep their twin-guitar approach consistent from start to finish, zapping any trace of distortion but maintaining a palatable amount of modulation that lulls the listener into a dream-like state, just like every solid psych-rock band should. A Folded Sky is referred to as Strange Passage’s second album on their Bandcamp page, but an EP in its press release; either way, it’s a joy to consume with your earholes.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
Void of Sleep – The Abyss Into Which We All Have to Stare
Void of Sleep reminds one of Stephen King’s The Mist, one of his minor stories adapted into a not-really-recommendable B-movie that nevertheless presents a frightening concept: A massive and mystifying (get it?) fog that envelops people who are rendered as corpses when it’s drifted along to its next victim. One imagines that Italy’s Void of Sleep turns in a rider for every tour that simply requests “Smoke machines. And more smoke machines. Did we mention we need a lot of smoke machines? We refuse to perform without smoke machines.” If you’re at all allergic to progressive sludge, you might want to keep your distance from this, the fourth album by the doom squad of founding members Burdo (vocals, guitars), Gale (guitars, backup vocals), Paso (bass) and Allo (drums); plus second bassist Andrea Burgio and keyboardist Momo. But if you ever find yourself fascinated by Porcupine Tree or Opeth, it’s worth dipping your toes into the waters of Void of Sleep; their occasional insertion of psych passages serve as a blanket that will keep you warm. Just one point of order to voice: The album is called The Abyss Into Which We All Have to Stare, but given that we’re essentially bringing the end of the world upon us environmentally and politically, couldn’t the record be just as easily named The Air We All Have to Breathe or The Food We All Have to Eat? Just sayin’.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
Papir – IX
A 75-minute album consisting of one song divided into seven parts, of course this is a psychedelic album. Papir are fully accepting and aware of their identity, knows exactly what they are and what they have the capability to do: exert a Svengali-like control over a willing audience. It’s not unlike entering a yoga studio and doing whatever you’re told, whether it be to stretch out like a dog or crouch your back like a cat or wrap your left leg around the back of your head while simultaneously reaching for the toes of your outstretched right left. You don’t question, you just do it. There is no try, there is only do or do not. After all, isn’t that what psychedelic music is supposed to be all about anyway: next to jazz, is it not the freest and most freeing music genre? More of an idea than a rules-based musical format in which you can discover more about yourself and the world around you than any other rock, pop or hip-hop song ever could, given all the constraints and requisite accouterments that come with it? Papir’s latest album—we’re not good at numbers, so we’ll let you translate what appear to be Roman Numerals in its title—progresses from start to finish not by following a trail the band blazed beforehand through practices and rehearsals, but rather by where their shared emotional condition carries them. Do they make some mis-steps along the way? Sure, but they’re remarkably few and far between. And even if you arrive at an accurate total, the number is dwarfed and rendered moot by all the blissful discoveries the Copenhagen instrumentalists encounter along the way.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
La Luz – Extra! Extra! EP
Hear ye, hear ye, we have a remix—scratch that, “reworked”—album on our hands. From Sub Pop, no less. But you’d better act fast—this limited-edition EP is only available Black Friday at a record store near you. The record label responsible for legendary bands like Cat Butt, DIckless, DIckless All-Stars and Sandy Duncan’s Eye decided to piggyback on the success of last year’s neo-psychedelic nugget News of the Universe with this genuinely innovative sidecar of a release. It’s kinda like how Todd Solondz remade his—depending on your point of view—hilariously sick or just plain sick 1998 movie Happiness a little over a decade later by more or less reconstructing the same movie, but with substitute actors. Of course, La Luz didn’t fire themselves and hire a bunch of replacements for Extra! Extra!, but the effect is similar: Are you hearing what you did on News of the Universe, or is the band—which has parted ways with five members over the course of the same number of records—pulling a forced perspective trick here? I’m pretty sure it’s the latter.
夢遊病者 – РЛБ30011922
And here you thought “Billie Eilish” was difficult to pronounce. We’ll make it a little easier on you: The band also goes by the name “Sleepwalker” (which we’re guessing they probably didn’t cop as a tribute to the 1997 Kinks album of the same name) and they have a far more accessible alternative title for their fourth album as well: Skopofoboexoskelett. That word translates to “Scopophobic Exoskeleton,” which in turn roughly refers to the fear of people staring at your outer skeleton. If your mind isn’t sufficiently fucked trying to figure out all that demented but hey, at least original, insanity, just wait till you give the psychedelic black-metal behemoths a listen. The recurring theme throughout the record is actually much more elemental, as it questions the existence of reality. And musically, Skopofoboexoskelett is not nearly as assaultive as one would expect it to be. Yes, the production is raw, the experimentation unlimited and the sound just about as atonal as music can get. But sing-songy guitar passages and merciful breaks allow the listener to catch their breath and, like a good workout, push through what is ultimately a very rewarding listen that will make music fans who thrive on challenging themselves all the stronger for it.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
Black Magic Tree – Terra
“Psych” and “groove” are not mutually exclusive terms, as Berlin boys Black Magic Tree prove on their sexy second album. This beaut of a psych-based record is unforced, fun, unpretentious and, simply put, a pleasure to listen to. Slightly more serious than The Darkness and Turbonegro, Terra suggests that Berlin’s Black Magic Tree instead shares more DNA with a take-your-pick band from the Palm Springs desert-rock scene. Alessandro Monte (vocals), Christian Reuter (electric guitar), Max Milan Bergrath (electric guitar), Michael Hupp (drums) and Philipp Ott (electric bass guitar) make writing catchy and enjoyable songs seem so damn easy that it brings smiles to the faces of all parties involved. In fact, these guys fit in so comfortably with the stoner-rock revival community in Germany, which no one saw coming before it sprouted a few years ago, that they could garner more votes than Kadavar. Wicked chill songs like “Love & Doubt,” “Grace” and the middle chunk of album-closer “Veleno” showcase psych-rock at its quietest and most competitive. While many will categorize Terra as a straight-up rock record, if it weren’t for the heavier, hip-shaking tunes (“Popcorn & Coke,” “Págos” and “Time Parrots (Hit Me Up!”), we wouldn’t be able to appreciate Black Magic Tree for their most prized attribute: versatility.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
Winds of Neptune – Winds of Neptune
The most pure, throwback-psych-rock entry in this quarter’s roundup, you can envision Winds of Neptune with bloodshot eyes, half-pinned shirts with chest hair pouring out, tight pants, dreadlock-destined long hair and probably a bandana or two as they swagger through these eight songs. (Note: Two of the tunes, the album-closing “The Fitz” and “Queen of Sumatra” are absent from the vinyl version because they last a combined 19 minutes and 23 seconds). Music snobs will claim that other bands have utilized this trippy, riffy and groovy sound before, and they’d be right. But here’s a novel rebuttal: What if there’s a kid whose first exposure to this type of catchy, enlivening psych-rock is through Winds of Neptune, an extremely adept band that’s clearly put in their time to perfect their sound, and that kid can have the opportunity to see them play live, get hooked on their new numbers, look forward to what the band will come up next—and, hell, maybe even get the chance to meet them in person? Wouldn’t that be a more effective way of converting an impressionable young music fan into a lover of good music than an adult berating him for not memorizing every lyric and lick from bands that died decades ago and whose records have to be literally dusted off in order to be played? Here’s to the living bands that work even harder than their forebears did, and who are as astute as Winds of Neptune to ensure every song on their record is as far from a throwaway as a song can be.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
foamboy – “Book and a Cold” / “Summering”
Portland’s foamboy proved themselves just about as relevant as a band can get with their second album, Eating Me Alive, which came out in March of last year. The record created by producer Wil Bakula and vocalist Katy Ohsiek (and supported by a seven-piece band) covered more terrain than an AP History class, addressing queer identity, heteronormative narratives, the increasingly limited ability of intellectual young people to go to grad school, the friction between holding the line and realizing that doing so can be detrimental to self-preservation. With that in mind, it’s hard to believe foamboy will have much more ground to cover on their next album, which they were recording as of late August, but they recently slipped out two singles that show so much promise, we had to include them in our quarterly psych roundup that typically focuses on full-lengths. Fixated on distorted psych sounds and intent on injecting them with dance-floor appeal, “Book and a Cold” and “Summering” are respectively disco-laden and haunting songs that suggest the new foamboy record might be their adventure of a lifetime—the very reason that psychedelic music exists.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
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