Alongside the year’s most defining full lengths, a number of shorter releases made an equally lasting impact. These EPs distilled ideas into potent statements that often felt just as essential as any album. Each of these releases stood out for its clarity of vision and emotional weight.
Here are D//E’s EPs of the Year.
10. Swervedriver – The World’s Fair EP
For their first release in six years, Swervedriver returned to the four-song EP format that served them so well during their earlier days. The result feels fresh and unwavering, as if the band were transmitting straight from the nineties, despite the lengthy six-year gap since their previous release.
9. Osnova – Rise the Sun EP
Osnova’s
Rise the Sun EP blends shoegaze and post punk into a brooding, atmospheric statement. Driving rhythms and rich shoegaze textures define the release, creating a mood that feels both inward-looking and expansive.
8. Palehorse/Palerider – Waves I
Waves I continues Palehorse/Palerider’s exploration of post metal and atmospheric sludge, leaning into slow-burning intensity and expansive textures. The EP’s pacing allows its emotional weight to unfold gradually, rewarding patience. With their distinctive fusion of doom, post metal, and shoegaze, the band elevated their sound to new heights, as their latest material brimmed with profound sentimentality.
7. Statue Of Heaven – Hung From Rope Woven By Hope
Wesley Eisold’s creative momentum shows no signs of slowing, as he once again reshapes the contours of hardcore with his new project, Statue of Heaven. Across seven tracks of raw, blackened hardcore, the EP remains lean and deliberate, pairing minimal yet evocative lyrics with sonic textures drawn from eighties punk abrasion and mid-nineties metallic grit.
6. Blackwater Holylight – If You Only Knew
Blackwater Holylight seem destined to evolve their sound toward increasingly atmospheric territory, and that trajectory is fully realized in their latest EP. Dreamy and enthralling,
If You Only Knew represents a clear evolution in both sound and songwriting, seamlessly combining softness and heaviness to capture the best of both worlds.
5. Kill Your Boyfriend – Disco Kills
Disco Kills sees Kill Your Boyfriend sharpen their darkwave and post punk fusion, injecting club-ready rhythms into their brooding aesthetic. Sleek, seductive, and sinister, the EP thrives on contrast, pairing danceable beats with a shadowy tone. With this release, the band takes a bold leap forward, incorporating electronic influences that add pulsating energy to their dark and moody post punk foundation.
4. Gillian Dream – Bijou
A very late 2024 release,
Bijou is a delicate and dreamlike offering that blends eerie, immersive ambiances with brooding industrial energy. Gillian Dream crafts a complex tapestry of ominous soundscapes anchored by a distinctly gothic aesthetic, with emotional nuance taking center stage throughout.
3. Maruja – Tír na nÓg
Maruja continued paving the way toward their long-anticipated breakthrough, delivering excellent releases one after another. Though they initially expressed themselves through shorter formats, each offering hinted that their dark post punk sound was primed to explode once a full-length arrived, something that became fully evident with
Pain to Power, also released in 2025.
2. Nuovo Testamento – Trouble
Nuovo Testamento’s
Trouble is a polished and infectious dark synthpop EP, balancing glossy production with dark flair. With its strong melodic focus and confident delivery, the release feels both nostalgic and sharply contemporary, as the band continue to elevate their addictive sound that pulses with dancefloor energy, lush synths, and irresistible pop hooks.
1. Grandmas House – Anything For You
Grandmas House remain somewhat under the radar, but they feel poised to emerge from the underground and potentially break into a more mainstream space. In a world where alternative music once enjoyed broader appreciation, particularly in a more nineties-oriented landscape, this feels entirely within reach. Their blend of post punk grit, garage rock punch, and emotional immediacy is on full display in
Anything For You, an urgent and fiercely expressive record, capturing the band at a creative peak. A defining short-form statement, it earns its place as D//E’s EP of the Year.
1. Grandmas House – Anything For You
2. Nuovo Testamento – Trouble
3. Maruja – Tír na nÓg
4. Gillian Dream – Bijou
5. Kill Your Boyfriend – Disco Kills
6. Blackwater Holylight – If You Only Knew
7. Statue Of Heaven – Hung From Rope Woven By Hope
8. Palehorse/Palerider – Waves I
9. Osnova – Rise the Sun EP
10. Swervedriver – The World’s Fair EP
ZR
