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The time has come again to vote in the Austin Music Poll! For the 44th year, The Austin Chronicle celebrates the musicians and music industry professionals that make our city sing – with help from the community, of course.
After consulting a select group of record store clerks, venue owners, bookers, and other local experts, I fell back in love with Austin music in 2025. Our city has been rife with talented performers since long before I came around, but it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the embarrassment of riches – and by everything else going on these days. These records – anticipated follow-ups, big-time debuts, new outfit premieres – It’s a Shame About Ray, the Lemonheads’ 1992 magnum opus, is melancholy and gorgeous. Take its jangly title track, where singer-guitarist Evan Dando laments the disappearance of a vague fictional character, or the acoustic “My Drug Buddy,” a junkie ballad more tender than the average love song. This was always the conundrum with the Lemonheads. Two major moves followed the release of Big Bill’s expansive 2024 LP Strawberry Seed: singer Eric Braden from Austin to Philly, and Donald Trump from Mar-a-Lago back into the White House. The former and his still-local bandmates, bassist Alan Lauer, drummer Jeffrey Olson, and guitarist Alex Riegelman, wrote and recorded that album’s follow-up in a This weekend, the Texas Book Festival unites writers and readers from across the globe for the 30th year: A feat all the more impressive as uncovering erased histories, pushing the boundaries of fiction, and encouraging universal literacy – all essential to the festival’s mission – remain key targets of our increasingly widespread autocratic regimes. Among You’ve seen the trend pieces: As prices go up, sociability goes down, and society as a whole embraces sober culture, people are drinking less. That’s great for our livers, but what about our hearts? Despite what COVID quarantine and antisocial political rhetoric has done to our brains, the people yearn for connection, and ACL Fest 2025 wrapped with sounds far and wide, old and new – from local trio the Point’s genre-blending world music to Chihuahua band Midnight Generation’s throwback disco to Passion Pit’s 2010s-nostalgic synth-pop. Here’s what we caught before the sun set at Zilker Park. The Point Takes ACL All Over the Map The Point is Thanks to new lineup additions and improved returning sets, the second Saturday at ACL 2025 felt like a distinct offering, not a rehashing of last weekend. Texan countrygaze trio Shallowater, Seattle shapeshifters Car Seat Headrest, and tenacious San Diego emos Pierce the Veil all voyaged to Zilker Park for the first time, while the Chronicle Welcome back to the dustbowl! Weekend Two of ACL Fest kicked off with returning players King Princess, MJ Lenderman, and Dylan Gossett, and added new acts including locals Farmer’s Wife, precocious Americana outlier Sam Barber, and freshly reunited indie rockers Rilo Kiley. Farmer’s Wife Attempts a 1pm Mosh Pit TGIFridays remain ACL’s best day: easiest Chaise longues, wet dreams, lobster claws: Wet Leg burst out of the Isle of Wight and into the Recording Academy’s hearts with their zippy, irreverent 2022 self-titled debut. Songwriters Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers, who met as teenage music students, formed the band as a duo, but enlisted drummer Henry Holmes, multi-instrumentalist Joshua Mobaraki, and Planning to check out MJ Lenderman at ACL Fest? Have you heard of Shallowater? Comparisons between the Houston trio and the Asheville alt-country darling – and his band Wednesday, and Dallas slowcore group Teethe, and Nineties luminaries Codeine – pop up often in the band’s press, or in conversations about the rise of slow-moving, sludgy, ACL Fest officially has real competition. Prioritizing psych rock and other forms of alternative music, Levitation has long been a local’s preferred fall Austin music festival, but this year’s change from distinct Red River Cultural District mini-shows to centralized Palmer Events Center musical convergence brought legitimacy and community to the forefront. The Chronicle music team
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