Believe it or not, 2025 is more than halfway over. Weird! What’s not weird: the incredible Milwaukee music scene! Here are just a few of our favorite 2025 Milwaukee releases—records, songs, videos—so far.
MATT’S FAVORITE MILWAUKEE RECORDS/EPs OF 2025 (SO FAR)
Collections Of Colonies Of Bees – Celebrities
Collections Of Colonies Of Bees aren’t what you’d call a “dance” band, but dancing is all over the group’s latest record, Celebrities. It’s there in “You Can Go Again” (“There’s lights on the floor / Just dance ’til you get to the door.”) It’s there in the title of “I Was A Dancer (He Was A Natural).” And it’s there again in closer “Ordinary Men” (“Can you just dance? / Can you just dance?”) Is CoCoBees’ first LP in seven years destined to become a dance classic? Well, if you expand the definition of “dance” to “joyous and unencumbered movement brought on by the joyous and unencumbered creation of sound” then yeah, Celebrities is a banger. The long-running post-rock group has never been better than it is here. Come for the yin-and-yang vocals of Marielle Allschwang and Daniel Spack, stay for the towering instrumentation and gloriously distorted guitar solos of founding member Chris Rosenau.
The Hallelujah Ward – Everybody Swoons
Everybody Swoons—the fantastic debut full-length from The Hallelujah Ward—opens with a pair of driving indie-rock insta-classics: “Your Uncertain Shadow” and “Manageable Oblivion.” Both songs shimmer with Mark Waldoch’s guitar, swoop and dive with his voice, and barrel along with the force of the Dan Didier / Paul Hancock rhythm section. “I know a good man who will sing until his own heart explodes,” Waldoch sings on the opening track. Is it possible that he’s singing about someone other than himself in that lyric? “I know a good fan who can sing until his own heart explodes,” Waldoch sings later. Maybe he’s the fan this time around, or maybe we’re the fans. Either way, beware those exploding hearts, because Everybody Swoons is full of them.
Brett Newski & The Bad Inventions – ameriCONa Pt. 1: Educate Freeloaders To Buy Art
The big story behind the new record from tireless Milwaukee troubadour Brett Newski is that it’s not available on major streaming services. Instead, as the title suggests, listeners are encouraged—nay, required!—to buy ameriCONa Pt. 1: Educate Freeloaders To Buy Art on vinyl, CD, or digital download. It’s a commendable strategy (and, according to Newski, it’s been a successful one). But the other story behind the record is that it’s Newski’s best effort to date. Opener “Jesus Freak” is a shambling, Beck-esque folk-rock ditty; “Bitter End Of The Beginning” adds a touch of psych to the proceedings; and “Narrow Escapes” and “Annie, You’re Going Places” are wonderfully hazy and bleary-eyed. And because it wouldn’t be a Brett Newski record without a left-field cover, ’90s kids will thrill to a jittery take on Jewel’s “Who Will Save Your Soul?”
Alicia Rytlewski – When We Were Bears
Classical music can be intimidating to those who know little about it [raises hand], but no homework is needed to enjoy Alicia Rytlewski’s wonderful—and wonderfully accessible—When We Were Bears. The contemporary-classical album opens with the earthy, mournful, and hypnotic “Under The Hackberry Tree.” Cellist Ben Kalb appears on that track, but the bulk of the record is Rytlewski alone, weaving one intricate and breathtaking piano composition after another. Pieces like “Ephraim” and the three-part “Three Sisters Farm Suite” hum with a narrative energy that renders them more cinematic than stuffy. (Rytlewski’s surprise vocals on the latter would feel right at home in a Studio Ghibli film.) Rytlewski composed When We Were Bears over the course of eight years, in Wisconsin locales ranging from “a biodynamic farm in rural Campbellsport to the snow-blanketed streets of Milwaukee.” It makes for a lovely journey.
How do you “review” a record like Whitty Remarks’ Nary A Care? You can talk about its surface pleasures—it’s a nine-track album of gorgeously rendered, 2010s-esque indie-folk from Milwaukee musicians Travis and Ashlee Whitty, plus a host of local stars—but it’s impossible to ignore its somber undercurrent. Nary A Care opens with a voicemail from Travis’ father, Patrick, who passed away in 2020. The rest of the record finds Travis grappling with his father’s death, celebrating his father’s life, and navigating the rocky road in between. “Though presence wasn’t historically his main attribute,” Travis writes in the liner notes, “Dad was almost always at our shows, an avid supporter of my artistic life. Small gestures were his forte.” Nary A Care is loaded with small gestures, too, and they make the record both achingly personal and generously universal.
TYLER’S FAVORITE MILWAUKEE RECORDS/EPs OF 2025 (SO FAR)
Fuzzysurf’s long-awaited follow-up to 2020’s super poppy Sweet Tooth is a 20-track, genre-jumping double LP that comes after a two-year hiatus. True to the album’s name, Chameleons takes many different forms—capably veering from the band’s expected surf-tinged indie rock to downtrodden ballads, and even some uncharacteristically dark flourishes—over the course of its 67-minute runtime. Fuzzysurf members also flexed new instrumental muscles by adding keys, accordion, mandolin, banjo, lap steel, bells, trumpet, timpani, and harmonica to reach new and unfamiliar places throughout the ambitious and shapeshifting record.
After a breakout 2022 that pushed deep into 2023, last year proved to be an uncharacteristically quiet one for NilexNile. It turns out the Milwaukee rapper was setting down tracks for bigger happenings in 2025. Last month, during the few days between his participation in T-Pain’s “Back To Wiscansin Fest” and outings at both Summer Soulstice and Summerfest, NilexNile continued his ascent with the release of a new album. The eight-track Pastel Views finds the up-and-coming emcee covering cool, off-kilter production with rapid-fire rhymes and perhaps his most self-assured lyrical delivery yet. Propulsive, high-energy earworms like “Eddie Kane” and “Backseat” are countered with breezy and smooth sonic sidesteps like “Daily Vitamins” (featuring a standout contribution by Jazlyn) and “Earth Day” to round out Nile’s most dynamic and just plain best release to date.
Old Pup—the pet project of multi-instrumentalist Will Hansen—expanded on Hansen’s sterling catalog in February with the release of Spider Towns. The sophomore album illustrates Hansen’s wide-ranging musicianship and lyrical depth, incorporates an impressive local supporting cast, and weaves an intricate and altogether entrancing sonic web. Soft and understated singing, top-notch songwriting, and a wide breadth of both instruments and featured players all come together to create something special. All told, Spider Towns shows Old Pup capably straddling the line between different genres, between tradition and experimentation, and between ghostly and gorgeous.
In March, Telethon released a surprise full-length album. The 11-track Suburban Electric is the long-awaited follow-up to 2021’s Swim Out Past The Breakers. Over the course of the near-40-minute album, Kevin Tully’s lyrics take the form of testimonials from imagined individuals like a struggling character actor, a bored senior who has seen enough in life, a guy who builds a time machine, an exorcist who goes away on business, and “a guy who let things get away from him a bit.” The expansive scope of song subjects is more than matched musically, as the band not only applies its usual layers of top-tier operatic power pop to the mix, but build on the instrumentation employed on past releases with full-on orchestral arrangements.
Valley Fox isn’t reinventing the wheel with Bear Dance, but the folk trio’s debut album is making traditional music that sounds exceptionally beautiful. The release is composed of eight songs that offer a delicate blend of mandolin, acoustic guitar, and bass throughout (plus sparing violin, pedal steel, and percussion at select points of the record). Anchored by Tori Yocum’s sauntering upright bass lines, Bear Dance is vaulted to tremendous heights by the enchanting dual vocals of Laura Bomber and Joe Wais, whose creative chemistry is especially palpable in the harmonies of “Badger Boy In Blue” and the album’s spellbinding title track. Toss is the rollicking “Roll On Mary,” and Valley Fox has managed to forge a debut that’s as timeless as it is pretty.
MATT’S FAVORITE MILWAUKEE SONGS OF 2025 (SO FAR)
Next Paperback Hero – “Parochial Tween”
TYLER’S FAVORITE MILWAUKEE SONGS OF 2025 (SO FAR)
Buffalo Nichols – “In The Name Of God”
Chapped Lips – “Free Bird III”
MATT’S FAVORITE MILWAUKEE MUSIC VIDEOS OF 2025 (SO FAR)
TYLER’S FAVORITE MILWAUKEE MUSIC VIDEOS OF 2025 (SO FAR)
Steve Da Stoner – “It’s A Blessing” (Free Concert At Kohl’s)
MATT’S FAVORITE LIVE YOUTUBE PERFORMANCE FROM A FOUNDING MEMBER OF THE FROGS OF 2025 (SO FAR)
Jimmy Flemion – “Never Do I Leave”
In the history of Milwaukee bands that broke into the mainstream, no group leaves a stranger mark than The Frogs. Brothers Jimmy and Dennis Flemion formed the aggressively lo-fi and subversive alt-rock band in 1980. The Frogs’ proper recording career began in 1988, and it wasn’t long until they caught the attention and adoration of ’90s icons like Kurt Cobain, Eddie Vedder, Billy Corgan, and Beck. The Frogs carried on until the tragic death of Dennis Flemion in 2012; in recent years, however, brother Jimmy has happily stayed busy on YouTube. Browse through his channel and you’ll find oodles of intimate living-room acoustic ditties: Frogs classics, unexpected covers, and unreleased songs like the terrific “Never Do I Leave.”
TYLER’S FAVORITE SONG BY A FORMER MILWAUKEE ARTIST WHO NOW LIVES ELSEWHERE OF 2025 (SO FAR)
In 2022, Zed Kenzo left Milwaukee and moved to Massachusetts in an effort to “get [her] stuff together and start over.” The relocation helped her achieve sobriety, begin a new artistic journey, and make some of the best music she’s ever made. Zed released “Marvelous” in March, and, as the single’s name suggests, it’s absolutely marvelous. It’s super fun, energetic, and all-around excellent. While we wish she didn’t need to leave us, it’s clear moving to the Boston area has done wonders for her both personally and musically.
MATT’S FAVORITE TWO-SONG MILWAUKEE MUSIC VIDEO OF 2025 (SO FAR)
Sex Scenes – “Want & Need” / “Nothing”
“How can I think at a time like this / When everything just makes me sick? / AHHHHHHHHHH!” Have truer words ever been sung/screamed about living in the year 2025? Probably not. These particular words come courtesy of Sarah Turbo, lead vocalist for Milwaukee hardcore/punk outfit Sex Scenes. The song in question, “Want & Need,” makes up one half of a terrific two-song Sex Scenes video, directed by Victor Buell. The second song, “Nothing,” also serves as the closer of Sex Scenes’ top-shelf 2025 record titled—what else?—Everything Makes Me Sick.
TYLER’S FAVORITE SONG ABOUT THE MILWAUKEE BOAT THAT HE FEELS CONFLICTED ABOUT INCLUDING ON THIS LIST BECAUSE HE WROTE IT OF 2025 (SO FAR)
The Roaring Dans – “The SS Milwaukee”
The Milwaukee Boat is now gone, but we’ll always have the memories, the photo ops, the merch, the graffiti, the civic togetherness, and the songs the stranded vessel inspired. I may be biased (in fact, I KNOW I’m being completely biased here), but my personal favorite boat-related creation is the song I wrote called “The SS Milwaukee.” Yours truly handled the lyrics and vocals, with the great Derek Mantz being responsible for the music and the recording. We named the project The Roaring Dans and the rest is history.
This song won’t be on our year-end list, but it just felt right to get a boat track on the “so far” list. And if me featuring my own song is tacky (it is), just pretend I used this space in the article to write something nice about Maximiano’s decidedly wonderful live album they released in 2025 instead.
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