Ants From Up There

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  My favorites of 2025 (that didn't come out in 2025)!

  AutumnsMusic

  This is an album that's hard to talk about because the reasons I love it are so deeply personal, so I'll just indulge in that because most people already know how objectively stellar it is.

  I discovered this band, again, through the friend that gifted me Teens of Denial last Christmas. We started listening to music together in August of last year, and one of the songs that they shared with me in those jam sessions was The Place We Inserted the Blade. It immediately became one of my absolute favorite songs that year - the heartbreakingly beautiful lyrics that detail a failing relationship, the slow-build of layering piano, guitar, flute and saxophone, all on equal footing with Isaac Wood's stunning vocal delivery - there's just nothing else like it. We listened to it together constantly.

  But for a few months, that one song was the only piece of BC,NR we had listened to. And with just how head over heels I was about it, I eventually asked them to listen to the full record together. And it's an experience that's always stuck with me, not just because of the music specifically (like yeah it's amazing, of course), but the act of sharing it with someone so close to me.

  Growing up, I always felt like I had to hide my passions and interests away from others, for fear of rejection, of bullying, of indifference, even. I never had an environment between home and school where I felt comfortable to excitedly talk about the things I loved, so I just got used to tucking them away, especially music. The things I liked were mine and mine alone for the most part.

  It took several years to finally unpack a lot of that, and the experience of sharing music with this friend felt like a culmination of sorts. To be so vulnerable as to share my favorite music with them, and to make new musical discoveries together, was, and still is, so liberating.

  This album is not just incredible for how it made me love music more, and find more passion in albums as an art form, but how it helped me be closer with the people I love. How it made me more willing to be vulnerable and share the things I love, and in turn be more open to indulging in other people's interests and passions. How it made me realize that music is even more beautiful when it's communal.

  So yeah, I love this album a whole lot. Cannot wait for what next year has in store music-wise!