An abundance of excellent reissues hit store shelves in 2025. We take a look back at what was looked back upon.

20. The Paragons, On the Beach (Charly) The UK-based reissue imprint Charly has had a presence in the record store bins for decades. It’s great to see that the label is still going strong by putting out records that will either be difficult (if not impossible) to find or insanely pricey to procure in good quality, in an original pressing. For example, there’s this swell slice of rocksteady from The Paragons, which came out way back in 1967 on Duke Reid’s Treasure Isle label. Including the original version of “The Tide is High” and featuring backing from Tommy McCook and The Supersonics, this set is a total delight.

19. Bratmobile, The Real Janelle and Peel Session (Kill Rock Stars) Bratmobile’s beautifully back-to-basics attack could really get under the skin of some listeners back in the day, and that’s likely still the case. Favoring a buzzy and at times kinda surfy feel that was nearer to Beat Happening and Girl Trouble than the blistering fury of others in their Riot Grrl cohort, Bratmobile could still let loose with the rage when it hit them. This combines their ’94 EP and subsequent Peel Session, and the whole still barely breaks 20 minutes.

18. Salem 66, Salt (Don Giovanni) Like a slew of 1980s underground bands, the Boston-based Salem 66 was underrated while active and posthumously neglected but not forgotten. This collection, issued on vinyl and CD, coincides with the digital reissue of what appears to be the band’s entire catalog (this is a model more contemporary reissue programs should employ). Salem 66 caught some occasional guff while extant for being a little too college rock in orientation, but the reality is that their approach was appealingly moody post-punk.

17. Ken McIntyre + Eric Dolphy, Looking Ahead (Craft Recordings) Obviously, the commercial hook here is Eric Dolphy, but please notice that Ken McIntyre’s name is favored size-wise in the cover design. McIntyre, who was later known as Makanda Ken McIntyre, was, like Dolphy, a multi-instrumentalist attracted to the edgier regions of the ’60s-’70s jazz scene. He recorded into the early ’90s as a leader and sideman with Cecil Taylor, Archie Shepp, Bill Dixon, and others, passing in 2001. Taking this album’s title into consideration, Looking Ahead is still a very approachable set, and it’s very deserving of reissue.

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An abundance of excellent reissues hit store shelves in 2025. We take a look back at what was looked back upon—part two. Part one is here.

10. Charlie Haden, Live at the Jazz Record Mart (Delmark) This is a fascinating document of an 1988 in-store held in the celebrated Windy City record shop owned by the late Bob Koester, who also founded and operated Delmark Records. The digital release features a lot more talking, much of it at the start, as California resident Haden gets acclimated to his Chicago environment, but there is also some playing that’s not included on the vinyl. This is worth mentioning as the event captured is truly a special one. There are many duo albums in Haden’s discography, but no solos, until now. And yet the whole is wonderfully casual, which only magnifies its worthiness.

9. Archie Shepp and the Full Moon Ensemble, Live at Antibes (Lmlr) This 2LP was part of the glorious spate of recordings, most of them live, made by US free jazz musicians on sabbatical in Europe at the dawn of the 1970s. Initially released by the BYG Actuel label as two separate volumes, this compilation combines them, as the two performances, each over 48 minutes long, are split across opposing vinyl sides. Shepp is in strong form in a sextet with the too seldomly recorded Clifford Thornton, the way too seldomly recorded Alan Shorter (Wayne’s bro, don’tcha know), plus Joseph Dejean, Bob Guerin, and Claude Delcloo. Things are already beautifully harry, and then Shepp starts shouting.

8. Mercenárias, Baú 83-87 (Munster / Nada Nada Discos) These Brazilian post-punks have landed tracks on assorted compilations over the decades and even had an anthology devoted wholly to themselves on the Soul Jazz label (released under the name As Mercenárias). In 2018, Nada Nada Discos released this collection of non-album tracks, live material, and a “lost” studio session, and now here comes Munster, doing the world a solid with this very deserving fresh edition. Mercenárias, at least across this set’s 20 big ones, never smoothed out the jagged edges, so anybody down with the sound of prime early Rough Trade should step right up before this one’s gone again.

7. The Verlaines, Some Disenchanted Evening (Schoolkids) Featuring the smart and often biting lyrics of Graeme Downes, the songs of The Verlaines are equal to the work of The Chills and The Clean (and The Bats and Tall Dwarfs) in terms of quality. There’s a very attractive disdain for simplicity in Downes’ songs (it’s almost like he’s a prog rocker at heart) as he manages to always stay on the pop course, often to thrilling effect. Equally wonderful is the core toughness in the instrumentation that reinforces (without making a big deal of it) how this stuff was made possible by the revolution of 1977.

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To kick off the week, here are ten of the finest box sets or expanded releases of 2025.

10. Clikatat Ikatowi, The Trials and Tribulations of… (Numero Group) Post-hardcore emerged in the 1980s (DC, Louisville, Chicago, Boston) as young musicians gained adeptness on their instruments and became frustrated with the stylistic restrictions on the right side of the hyphen. However, this new genre really flourished in the decade following as a younger generation absorbed the foundational post-hardcore records and caught the bands (that didn’t quickly break up) on tour.

San Diego was a bit of a hot spot of ’90s post-hardcore, and across this superb 3LP set, the city’s Clikatat Ikatowi brandish a highly consistent style with roots in records issued by the Touch and Go (Slint) and Homestead (Honor Role, Squirrel Bait) labels. An even bigger influence is the Dischord scene, which continued to hone post-hardcore deep into the ’90s alongside these more youthful upstarts. Any of the cuts on this superb collection would’ve fit nicely onto a ’90s-era compilation on Kill Rock Stars or an ’00s release on Troubleman Unlimited.

9. Kenny Burrell with Art Blakey, On View at the Five Spot Cafe: The Complete Masters (Blue Note) This is the second, and one would assume, given the titular addendum (although one can never be sure), final expansion of performances originally recorded in 1959 and released the same year. Capturing guitarist Burrell in the midst of a fertile creative stretch, these 14 selections across three LPs alternate a quintet with tenor saxophonist Tina Brooks, pianist Bobby Timmons, bassist Ben Tucker, and drummer Blakey with a quartet where Brooks lays out, and Roland Hanna takes Timmons’ spot.

The music these groups delivered to the Five Spot’s audience wasn’t perfect, in large part because the club’s piano was out of tune; so it was in ’59, and so it remained two years later when Eric Dolphy’s At the Five Spot was recorded, a profound gesture of disrespect during jazz’s supposed heyday. But Timmons and Hanna largely overcome this obstacle (as does Mal Waldron on the two Dolphy volumes), with Hanna particularly impressive in the quartet configuration. Blakey is his usual solid self, as is Tucker. Getting to hear more from the under-recorded Brooks is a treat. But it’s really Burrell’s show. He never lays a note wrong.

8. Xmal Deutschland, Gift: The 4AD Years (4AD) Formed in 1980 in Hamburg, Germany, with an all-female lineup, Xmal Deutschland emerged as part of the Neue Deutsche Welle scene, releasing their first single on the NDW-affiliated ZickZack label. That means Xmal is aptly categorized as post-punk, but it was a Goth orientation that surely attracted the band to 4AD’s owner-operator Ivo Watts-Russell and, by extension, landed them in late ’80s US import bins.

The most sensible comparison is Siouxsie and the Banshees, but Xmal had a harder edge that underscored a disinterest in imitation. Still, far too many prospective listeners, at least in the US, were dismissive of Xmal as the Goth genre became near-synonymous with poser-dom. That’s silly, and this set, which rounds up everything the band recorded for 4AD (that’s two LPs and two EPs inside ’83-’84), makes a strong case for Xmal as residing near the head of the original gloom-merchant class.

7. Ida, Will You Find Me (Numero Group) Marking the quarter century anniversary of what was to be Ida’s major label debut (for Capitol), the fourth album by this enduring New York City band (properly released by Tiger Style in 2000) gets a massive expansion, available either as a four LP or five CD set, with the latter holding a whopping 103 tracks (the vinyl comes with a download of the entire kaboodle).

It’s too often the case that a musical act’s major label debut connects as a disappointment, but in this almost instance, Ida was clearly bringing their best record to the (turn)table. That the deal fell through is almost certainly for the best, because Will You Find Me could’ve easily gotten lost in the shuffle, and then possibly stuck in legal purgatory. It didn’t; instead, it landed as a creative breakthrough. It’s a record wholly deserving of this bold enlargement, which is the dictionary definition of deep dive.

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WORDS AND IMAGES: DANA WALSH in AUSTIN, TX | The air was electric, the crowd buzzing with anticipation, and the stage set for an unforgettable evening. Billy Strings brought his signature blend of bluegrass mastery and heartfelt storytelling to ACL, delivering a performance that felt as intimate as a front porch jam session and as grand as a theater spectacle.

From the moment the first note of “Ridin’ That Midnight Train” filled the room, the audience was transported into a world of raw emotion, impeccable musicianship, and a connection that only live music can create. This wasn’t just a concert—it was an experience, a celebration of music, memories, and the magic of being present in the moment.

Billy Strings playing at ACL was a night to be remembered. Just arriving at the show was an experience all on its own, but the music he and his band delivered, along with the way the show was set up, was nothing short of spectacular in the most simple, down-to-earth kind of way. It didn’t matter where you were in the theater; it felt as though you were sitting across from them in his living room or on his front porch while he and his buddies were having a good time playing music. It felt free and personal at the same time.

Before I arrived, I already knew there would be a large crowd waiting to get in, and I was right. Except, they weren’t just people waiting for a show; I would have to say that most, if not all, were hardcore Billy Strings diehards. Of any show I have ever gone to in my life, I saw more pure joy and excitement than I have ever witnessed. It was beautiful and so exciting to be in that vibe.

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The best archival Christmas release of the 2025 holiday season is easily the Classic Holiday Singles Box. The limited-edition box set includes fourteen 7-inch, 45-RPM color vinyl records of some of the most iconic Christmas singles ever released. The fourteen singles are from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. The singles are drawn from a variety of musical genres. They are also from a number of record labels that now fall under the Universal Music family of labels.

Some of these color vinyl singles were released individually during the 2024 holiday season. There are additional items included in those releases, comprising the complete set. All the releases are housed in a Christmas-themed, retro flip-top carrying case singles box with a handle and latch.

The 1950s singles include such evergreens as “White Christmas” from Bing Crosby, Rat Pack favorites from Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, and early rock ‘n’ roll chestnuts from Bobby Helms, Brenda Lee, and Chuck Berry.

1960s classics include “The Christmas Song” from Nat King Cole and “A Holly Jolly Christmas”/“Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer” from Burl Ives, from the animated 1964 television special, Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer. There are also singles from The Beach Boys and Ella Fitzgerald. Solo singles from two members of The Beatles are included: “Wonderful Christmastime” from Paul McCartney and the seasonal anthem “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” from John Lennon, Yoko Ono & The Plastic Ono Band.

All of the singles include their original B-sides and picture sleeves produced with thick, durable card stock. These are timeless classics and the format of this box set makes for a fun, nostalgic experience.

2025 marked the anniversary of a major Beatles project. It is the 30th anniversary of the Anthology ABC television series and its related projects, which included a three-volume audio companion set and a book.

While it began in 1995, the entire Anthology project was rolled out over several years. Neil Aspinal, erstwhile group insider since their scuffling Liverpool days and eventual long-time head of their Apple empire, launched a project during the first incarnation of Apple to collect all the visual material on the group

To be called The Long and Winding Road, it was to be a documentary-style film about the group’s history. The Complete Beatles, released on VHS in 1982, would beat the Beatles to the punch on releasing a documentary on the band. That documentary is out of print, and Paul McCartney owns the rights to it.

By 1994, with the fractious business and personal bitterness behind them, Apple was transformed into more than just a holding company for the group’s ongoing business enterprise, and the Live at the BBC double-volume set was released. It featured audio recordings of the group performing on various BBC radio and television programs. This was the most fulsome release of archival music from the group since the 1978 and 1980 single-disc Rarities releases.

While the Rarities albums offered a few choice, previously unreleased recordings, for die-hard fans of The Beatles, the Anthology project was more of what they were looking for, and would initially yield three double-CD and vinyl releases of previously unreleased radio, television, live, and, most anticipated, studio recordings.

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I recently spoke with Godlis, the photographer whose images defined CBGB’s, the Bowery, and downtown New York in the ’70s punk scene.

His iconic photographs of the Ramones, Patti Smith, Television, Blondie, Talking Heads, Richard Hell, and many more offered a window into that world that stays with us today. It’s an astonishing record.

We talk about his college years in Boston and when he first picked up a camera. Having that first camera (a Leica) robbed, making his way back to New York, fully realizing his desire to be a defining street photographer, and how he discovered CBGB’s, and more.

His books include History Is Made at Night, Godlis Miami, and Godlis Streets, each capturing a different part of the worlds he’s been documenting for decades. All wonderful documents of one of the greatest street photographers of all time.

Radar features discussions with artists and industry leaders who are creators and devotees of music and is produced by Dylan Hundley and The Vinyl District. Dylan Hundley is an artist and performer, and the co-creator and lead singer of Lulu Lewis and all things at Darling Black. She co-curates and hosts Salon Lulu which is a New York based multidisciplinary performance series. She is also a cast member of the iconic New York film Metropolitan.

I don’t write about holiday albums much, Merry Christmas being depressing words to me because of a terrible tragedy that befell my family on Christmas Eve many years ago, but I’m making an exception for The Felice Brothers’ self-released 2015 EP “Felice Navidad” because Ian Felice is one of the best songwriters in the world, period, an authentic goddamn Great American Poet with heart to spare and a bittersweet view of life that means he isn’t going to sugarcoat the Holidays—he knows they can rip your heart right out of your chest and eat it.

Thing is my family drove off a sheer thousand-foot cliff on a foggy Christmas Eve, me in the backseat with my siblings, and I’ll tell you more after I tell you that the music of The Felice Brothers is the absolute best thing to come out of the Catskill Mountains since Bob Dylan and the Band produced the greatest music ever made in the basement of the house they dubbed Big Pink at 6 Parnassus Lane, West Saugerties, New York.

I first saw The Felice Brothers in Woodstock, after making a pilgrimage to Big Pink, and while I’d never heard their music before in my life (my ex- and I had gone to see Bobby’s son’s band The Wallflowers) I knew a connection had been made, that The Felice Brothers had that same divine spark in them that produced The Basement Tapes. It was a glorious night.

Ian Felice is a songwriter with an incredible range. The rawbones raucous “Frankie’s Gun,” the spiritually powerful “We Shall Live Again,” and the flat-out amazing “Take This Bread” prove he can keep things folk simple. More complex and sophisticated songs like “Fire at the Pageant,” “Back in the Dancehalls,” and “Jazz on the Autobahn” have a more cutting-edge bent, while numbers like “Money Talks” take the band in a direction so surreal no one could have anticipated it.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | There was never another band like The Sensational Alex Harvey Band. They didn’t just play shows—they made every venue feel like their territory, told stories, cracked jokes, and then tore the roof off the place. Scotland has produced its share of musical legends, but SAHB remain something rarer still: a band whose myth came from the stage, night after night, sweat and swagger and steel-toe precision.

Good Evening Boys & Girls is the most comprehensive attempt yet to bottle that lightning. Gathering 16 previously unreleased live performances, this 21-CD set traces the group from the Marquee in ’73 through the band’s final run with the original lineup. It’s a tour through ballrooms, city halls, theatres and festivals—London, Newcastle, Glasgow, New York, Berlin, Reading—and the famous Glasgow Apollo Christmas Show of 1975, long spoken of in fan circles, now finally unearthed. To be released on April 10 and is available to pre-order now from here.

Much of what’s here comes straight from the source: soundboard and radio recordings, remastered with care by Pete Reynolds (Mott The Hoople, Fleetwood Mac, Wishbone Ash) to preserve their bite and atmosphere. You hear the band as the crew and punters heard them—gritty, elastic, unpredictable, and completely themselves. This is SAHB without varnish, and that’s exactly how it should be.

The box also digs into the story behind the noise. A 144-page hardback book tells the tale with unseen and rare photographs from Ian Dickson, Barry Plummer, Janet Macoska, Steve Emberton, Dick Barnatt, Michael Putland, Kevin Cummins and more, accompanied by new notes from longtime Harvey historian Martin Kielty. Much of the memorabilia—posters, passes, scraps, treasures—comes from Ted McKenna’s private archive and the remarkable collection of Martin Davies, offering a glimpse into the working life of a band that lived as hard as it played.

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Celebrating Bill Nelson on his 77th birthday. —Ed.

Some people are just in the right place at the wrong time. But few have been as unfortunate as Bill Nelson, the frontman of English rock band Be Bop Deluxe.

Be Bop Deluxe put out a miraculously good debut LP, 1974’s Axe Victim, which suffered due to circumstances beyond its control. To wit, it was a glam record released at around the same time as David Bowie’s final stab at glitter rock, Diamond Dogs. This shouldn’t have been a big deal; England was awash in glam bands at the time, many of them enormously successful. No, what really did Nelson and Be Bop Deluxe in was the fact that Axe Victim bore a more than passing resemblance to the work of Mr. Bowie, which led critics to lambast Be Bop Deluxe as mere copycats.

As a result, Axe Victim has never gotten its fair due as a great glam album, on a par with Brian Eno’s “rock” albums, Mott the Hoople’s All the Young Dudes, or the four albums attributed to Ziggy Stardust and the other personae Bowie adopted during the Glam Age, when it seemed every wild young thing in England was sashaying about in glitter-encrusted platform boots and home-made space suits that screamed, “Look at me! I’m from Venus!”

Nelson founded Be Bop Deluxe in 1972 in Wakefield, West Yorkshire. A little history—Wakefield was dubbed the “Merrie City” in the Middle Ages, and “the perfect place to lose an eye” during the height of football hooliganism in the 1980s. (Okay, so I made that last part up.) The band was composed of Nelson on lead vocals, guitars, and keyboards; Ian Parkin on rhythm and acoustic guitars and organ; Robert Bryan on bass; and Nicolas Chatterton-Dew on drums, backing vocals, and incredibly pretentious name. Together they set about ingratiating themselves into the glam scene that was all the rage at the time, and they hit all the right notes on Axe Victim, which benefitted greatly from Nelson’s virtuosity on guitar.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | A late and very welcome addition to the end-of-year releases, “Dandelion” sees Queen Colobus fully lean into their role as one of the UK’s most inventive jazz-pop outfits. The EP is a restless, mind-melting listen, one that refuses neat structures or genre boundaries, instead stitching together UK jazz, indie grit, and flashes of math-rock audacity with remarkable confidence.

Led by Welsh saxophonist and vocalist Beth Hopkins, Queen Colobus thrives in the tension between control and chaos. Across “Dandelion,” soothing melodic passages are frequently interrupted by jagged riffs, elastic grooves, and moments of raw emotional release. Hopkins’ vocal performance sits at the centre of it all: devastatingly honest, vulnerable one moment and ferocious the next, guiding the band through songs that feel both cathartic and confrontational.

Second single “Flare” acts as a sharp entry point into the EP’s world. Built on angular rhythms and emotive guitar lines, it captures a feeling of being overwhelmed with striking clarity. Its shifting form mirrors its lyrical themes, moving from tightly wound tension into a chaotic middle section that feels deliberately unmoored, a sonic depiction of drowning in noise and emotion before resurfacing, bruised but intact.

What makes “Dandelion” particularly compelling is its refusal to settle. Just when you think you’ve grasped its shape, it veers elsewhere. The angular grooves of “Flare” sit unexpectedly alongside the sprawling eight-minute epic “I Grow Wearier,” a track that stretches time and patience in the best possible way. Horns, fractured rhythms, and slow-burning intensity unfold without concern for convention, proving the band’s confidence in letting ideas breathe—or combust—on their own terms.

“Dandelion” doesn’t aim to please everyone, and that’s precisely its strength. It’s bold, unpredictable, and emotionally exposed, an EP that does exactly what it wants, and does so brilliantly.

“Dandelion” is in stores now.