Are these cliche? Whatever, I’m doing one. I plan to update this over the course of the year, and the most recent additions are at the top. There are no failures on this list, everything here gets a strong two thumbs-up.

Ninajirachi - I Love My Computer

This album is like if Porter Robinson made indie electronic music in the mid-2000's.

An excerpt from “Delete”:

I only posted it so you would see it
I was so deep in my late night feelings
Didn’t mean it, it was stupid
I chose a song you like in case you saw it

Mood. I’m getting flashbacks to my 14 year-old self posting S3RL lyrics to my MySpace page.

Favorite song from I Love My Computer: “Fuck My Computer”

Pendulum - Inertia

I usually find it difficult to answer the question of “who is your favorite artist?”, but there was a period of time when that answer was very easy: Pendulum.

I’ve been a Pendulum fan for most of my life. After being introducted to them via the Hold Your Colour re-issue in 2007 (the original being from 2005), I had completely locked onto them following 2008’s In Silico. It wasn’t very long until they followed up with Immerison in 2010, a crowning jewel which is one of my favorite albums of all time.

Then, 15 years passed.

While individual members of the group were keeping busy during this time, the torturous doubt that we would ever see a new Pendulum album weighed heavy for many years. There was hope that a new album would come out in 2015, but nothing materialized. A few more years passed. In 2018 we got The Reworks, a remix album, as well as The Complete Works, a ridiculously cool 9 vinyl, 5 CD box set collection. Yes, I absolutely have the box set, and it rules.

It wasn’t until 2020 that we officially started to see actual new music, ramping up to the eventual release of Intertia now in 2025.

Upon seeing the full track list, I was immediately worried - I recognized a lot of these songs. We’ve heard a sizeable portion of what came out on this album in the years leading up to it, starting with “Nothing For Free” and “Driver” in 2020 (and technically, versions of “Nothing For Free” had been teased as early as 2017 during their live performances.) Then we got the Elemental EP in 2021, which included the previous songs but also 2 new ones, “Louder Than Words” and “Come Alive”. With 2023 came the Anima EP, and 4 new songs. Awesome. 2024 was the “Napalm” single. Then April 2025 had “Sound of You”. Then May 2025, “Save The Cat”. July 2025, “Cannibal”. And well… This all seems like a lot, right?

And yeah, it turns out that’s more than half of the entire Inertia track list. For myself, I had stopped listening to any of their releases after “Napalm”, because at that point I had become mildly exhausted and annoyed by the odd contradiction of seemingly countless singles, yet no album in sight. No album yet? No thanks, I’ll check back in later.

For many years I’ve held a policy of refusing to play early-access games until they’re “done”. I’m not really interested in playing games which are explicitly unfinished, and I’m at a point in my life where I’d rather just wait for a version of the game that is considered to be a complete experience. I feel like I have to start extending this policy to music as well. I’m not saying this is exclusively the fault of Pendulum (Snooper, Machine Girl, and Gorillaz are all currently doing multi-month countdowns for their new albums, sigh) but it’s hard to watch how the last few years of Inertia played out and then not compare that to the early access release model for games. It’s like spoiling your appetite with snacks before going out to a nice fancy restaurant.

With the full release and the complete track list in front of me, had we all been ruining this experience for ourselves for the last 5 years? It kinda feels like it. This doesn’t feel like the triumphant and exciting return of my once favorite band. I do enjoy the album, which is why it’s even on this list, but I can tell its staying power is really fading after only a month, and there are other albums from earlier in the year that are getting played more frequently than Inertia does now.

Favorite song from Inertia: “Cartagena”

Joey Valence & Brae - HYPERYOUTH

Two JVB albums on the same list? Is this even allowed? Is there a rulebook somewhere?

Who keeps shouting all of these album titles?

Favorite song from HYPERYOUTH: “BUST DOWN”

Tyler, The Creator - DON'T TAP THE GLASS

I’ll be honest, this is the first Tyler, The Creator album I’ve actually bothered to sit down and listen to completely. I’ve never paid much attention to him, and I was aware of his earlier work starting around 2011, but only just enough to know that it wasn’t really my jam.

DON’T TAP THE GLASS is absolutely my jam though.

Favorite songs from DON’T TAP THE GLASS: Tie between “Sugar On My Tongue” and “Ring Ring Ring”

System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster

One of my favorite games of all time recently received the remaster treatment this year.

Right off the bat, I have mixed feelings about remastering games in general. I am usually glad to hear when an an older, well-deserved game gets some refreshed attention. However, it’s really fucking silly when a modern AAA-game that came out 2 years ago gets a minor visual tweak and/or performance adjustment and has “remastered” slapped onto it. People with agency are not fooled by these false titles.

A remastering of an older game is the perfect time to address any compatability and support issues that have likely been introduced since their time of release. Player communities and modders do awesome jobs at helping to keep many games functional well past their expiration dates, but these are usually outside-in solutions made by fans with limited resources in their spare time. In cases like System Shock 2, where in my lifetime I have possessed 3 separate versions of the game (the 1999 CD version and now both the 2013 & 2025 Steam versions), I will glady pay for this upkeep and polish to be done every once in a while. Nightdive Studios kicks major ass and their System Shock 1 remake in 2023 also kicked major ass. They do awesome work and I hope the day never comes where my opinion of them has to change.

Please someone, anyone, make System Shock 3 happen. I am begging here. We live in a world where we hear more about the unicorn of the apocalypse that is Half-Life 3 than we do about a game announced in 2019. C’mon, man.

Joey Valence & Brae - NO HANDS

NO HANDS sounds like it should have been on the original Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater soundtrack, and that’s a compliment. It starts with a heavy 80s and 90s hip-hop style, very obviously taking elements from Run DMC, Wu-Tang, and the Beastie Boys.

“PACKAPUNCH” has that classic kung fu Wu-Tang beat, and Danny Brown coincidentally makes another great appearance immediately following the previous album on this list.

“LIKE A PUNK” reminded me of The Prodigy right off the bat, and comically about halfway through the song it accelerates into full commitment to the bit with a fake British voice-over repeating “IT’S TIME TO RAVE” over some super cheesy keys that sound like they belong in a 90’s rave track. It’s great.

“THE BADDEST” is a certified Lil Jon-style club banger - or an LMFAO song if they were good. This, along with “OK” and “WHAT U NEED” (a straight house track) all demand to be played at full volume in the car.

Favorite songs from NO HANDS: Tie between “THE BADDEST” and “NO HANDS”

Femtanyl - CHASER and REACTOR

I listen to a ton of music, but I don’t really have the language prepared to do any kind of in-depth music review or criticism, so I won’t have much to say other than Femtanyl continues to be one of my favorite Digital Hardcore artists. I’ve listened to CHASER previously but I’m including it here since I finally bought it along with REACTOR, plus I feel it’s better to just listen to both anyway since they’re relatively short at ~13 minutes each.

I definitely prefer REACTOR over the two. The sound isn’t as crushed as the first album (which I’m sure was intentional, it’s Digital Hardcore after all,) so everything comes through with a lot more detail and avoids giving it that shallow “voicemail MP3” element that I really don’t care for. And man, that kick drum on the first song (“IT’S TIME”) is like scratching an itch on my soul.

“WEIGHTLESS” feels like something off of Machine Girl’s U-Void Synthesizer in all the best ways, and is highly welcome after MG Ultra came out last year and didn’t quite live up to my excitement for it. (I do like MG Ultra, it just hits different, somewhat lacking that original vibe that made me fall in love with Machine Girl for the first time on their older albums. I was really excited to see what they would do after SUPER FREQ EP and the incredible Neon White soundtrack, but alas. Wait, this isn’t supposed to be a Machine Girl review.)

Also, Danny Brown shows up for an unexpected feature on “M3 n MIN3”? Fuck yeah.

Favorite song from CHASER: “P3T”
Favorite songs from REACTOR: 3-way tie between “IT’S TIME”, “WEIGHTLESS”, and “M3 n MIN3”

Path of Exile 2

Holy cow, it’s been a long time since I was excited for a new game like I was for Path of Exile 2. I’ve already wasted 300 hours of my life on it since early access released in December 2024.

Every once in a blue moon, you get one of those games that sets a new bar for others like it. This feels like one of those cases and it’s not even out of early access, as much as I usually avoid early access games these days. It’s refreshing to see a development team that cares about their game as much as Grinding Gear Games clearly does. Interviews with either of the game’s two directors are always interesting, and they’re not afraid to hop on a community member’s Twitch stream to discuss the game at length. I’ve enjoyed how they frequently go on long tangents in order to help explain their thought processes and decisions, and they seem to have a strong sense of direction and purpose for what kind of game they want to make (which as a long-time Final Fantasy XIV subscriber, are two things I desperately wish Square Enix would find again soon.) You can tell that the team at Grinding Gear genuinely care about making the most fun and interesting action role-playing game that they can, and that their primary goal isn’t to just pump out slop on financially-driven deadlines like a number of different companies do these days.

I suspect it will be the only game I play for a while, at least until the new Monster Hunter comes out in late February. Although I did also return to an old Mega Man Battle Network 3 save file for a bit. Having a Steam Deck now is nice for being sick on the couch.

Speaking of, Path of Exile 2 plays fairly well on the Steam Deck, aside from needing to decimate the visual quality in order to do so at an acceptable framerate. Streaming the game to the Deck from an actual computer would surely be the better method here, but I was having issues getting it to work on mine, a problem I currently suspect is with the device itself and not Path of Exile.

The controller interface and control scheme was surprisingly better than I expected it would be for an Action RPG. Coincidentally, it kinda gives me similar vibes to how cool it was seeing Final Fantasy XIV solve the controller usage issue that existed for their particular genre. Then again, the only time I ever use a controller is for playing Monster Hunter.

But yeah. Cool game. 👍