Music Critics’ Pick Winners: Best in the Nest 2025
The best in Charlotte’s music scene as chosen by Nerve critics
Every year needs a good soundtrack, and the winners below helped make that happen.
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BEST MUSIC FESTIVAL/EVENT: Springadelia
For the second time in two years, Snug Harbor presented Springadelia, a curated, three-day multisensory experience featuring 24 musicians and four visual artists spread across two stages in the lead up to the spring season. The name of the festival was coined by Snug Harbor talent buyer Zach Reader to evoke a “rejuvenating and inspirational” celebration of the season.
The festival’s latest iteration delivered that and more, bringing a mix of rock, hip-hop and pop with a psychedelic vibe to the Plaza Midwood music venue. An eclectic array of performances included Celeste Moonchild’s funk and hip-hop-infused neo-soul, Gang$ta Butterfly’s alternative rap, and La Brava’s Latin-electro pop as well as the face-melting, guitar-driven psych rock of Asheville’s Seismic Sutra.
Meanwhile, an alchemical concoction of digital clips, computer imagery and liquid light shows conjured by Thomas Miller, Vision.Stains, Splat Daddy and NA$A enhanced the music’s neural impact on audiences. In the process, Springadelia has expanded the definition of psychedelia to any music that’s unusual or hypnotic — a genre as unbounded as the cosmos.
BEST HYBRID FESTIVAL/EVENT: AGH! A Variety Show For A Cause
In May, Queen City Nerve’s 2024 Best New Singer-Songwriter Ali Forrest and California-based Winthrop alumnus, actor, singer and dancer Anna Goldstein served as mistresses of ceremonies for an alternative entertainment cornucopia featuring the pair’s favorite musicians, comedians, puppets and weirdos at Petra’s.
Forrest performed along with guitarist Ben Burrows and singer-songwriter-guitarist Eric Maust — all three are members of Forrest’s crack band when she’s not playing solo. The bill also featured Girl! podcast co-host, improv performer and songwriter Avery Powers and Pip the Puppet, who was animated by Goldstein and Charlotte theatre artist Katie Kinser.
The variety show raised money for Time Out Youth, the local nonprofit that supports young people in the Charlotte area’s LGBTQ+ community.
In September, a similar contingent of creative oddballs convened for a second iteration of AGH!, also at Petra’s. Musicians including Joe Yardley, John Paul Zalaquett and Nolan Sullivan joined comedian Paul Snyder, the CLuTch! Improv team and poet Yung Toguro. This time the show benefitted Classroom Central, a nonprofit that provides free resources for teachers and students.
BEST COLLABORATIVE EVENT: Sam on Someday
It’s perhaps Charlotte’s worst-kept secret that Sam Tayloe has been hosting and curating the city’s best musicians in an ongoing concert series for the past year. Tayloe, founder of Charlotte-based folk-rock band Time Sawyer and a formidable singer-songwriter in his own right, launched Sam on Someday (SOS), a (mostly) monthly genre-jumping, multi-act musical performance, that alternates between two venues: Petra’s and the Evening Muse.
We caught an April show at Petra’s where the rotating house SOS Band joined multi-disciplinary artist and musician Wild Recluse; surrealist fingerpicking folk and pop artist Coughing Dove; indie-Americana singer-songwriter Nathan Davis; pop-rock performer, tunesmith and producer Joe May; and songwriter and guitarist Eric Maust. “[S.O.S.] is a Charlotte community show, aiming to bring our music and arts folks together and strengthen our scene, while also giving a great show once a month to music lovers in our area,” Tayloe said.
BEST MUSIC ORGANIZATION: Tosco Music
It’s hard to imagine the Charlotte music scene without Tosco in front. Launched informally in 1984 during jam sessions at John Tosco’s house, Tosco Music became a nonprofit in 1999 and has been busy hosting musical outreach programs and supporting musicians with scholarships ever since.
The organization is best known, however, for the eclectic performances it puts on each year. In April, more than 12 acts including Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Joe Troop and Charlotte alt-rock band Modern Alibi, took part in the Tosco Music Party at Knight Theater.
In October, Tosco celebrated FabFest Charlotte’s Beatles Festival with its sixth annual Beatles Tribute, which featured more than 16 acts plus a local star-studded house band.
Coming up in December, the nonprofit presents its 10th annual Tosco Music Holiday Party at Knight Theater. Last year’s festivities offered seasonal tunes featuring artists ranging from a local 101-year-old songwriting grandmother to an 8-year-old singing a vintage holiday novelty song. In addition, Tosco Music Open Mic has been running on the first Tuesdays of every month at Evening Muse since 2001, offering a fun set-up for musicians of all stripes in the area.
BEST CONNECTOR: Tim Scott Jr.
A long-time quiet force in Charlotte’s music scene, Tim Scott Jr. has only recently stepped out from behind the curtain to claim his rightful place in the city’s cultural spotlight.
Scott has toured extensively, notably as drummer for Grammy Award-winning hip-hop and neo-soul group The Foreign Exchange. He moved from behind the drum kit to behind the scenes to produce events like hip-hop group Ghost Note’s show-stopping set at Charlotte SHOUT! in April 2024, Charlotte rapper Lute’s first headlining gig at the Neighborhood Theatre in August of that year and shows for nationally known artists as diverse as Missy Elliott, Gladys Knight and Norah Jones.
As a musical director, Scott helped Quentin Talley shape the seasonal Soulful Noel celebration. He also lent his talent and expertise to Blumenthal Arts’ annual Black Notes Project festival. As a co-owner with his wife Kenya of entertainment company Stand Out Saints, he continues to shape the city’s music scene, specializing in artist marketing, consulting, tour direction, management and staffing.
BEST MUSIC PHOTOGRAPHER: Jeff Howlett
Her knees and arms bent, midriff showing over black jeans with a studded belt, a black tank top matching the wisps of hair that fly toward her face running counter to the eye makeup that shoots toward the back of her head, one fist clenched tightly by her side with the other wrapped around a microphone, Clarissa Badini is caught in a primal scream.
The vocalist for the all-woman death-metal band Castrator is onstage at The Kraken in Chapel Hill, performing in the 2023 Carolina Chainsaw Massacre festival. The fact that Badini holds her mic by her side indicates that she is not belting out one of her death-rattling vocals but instead caught in a moment between the lines in which she’s acting on pure adrenaline and emotion. These are the points in time that Jeff Howlett looks to capture in his concert photography.
“Sometimes it’s the moments in between the beat, if you will,” Howlett explains. “In music, it’s like that moment in between a beat when she’s whipping around … In that photo, she’s not singing per se, she has the mic down by her side, but the action of the mic, it’s in between the beat of what’s going on and the movements of what’s going on. It’s just capturing those moments in between that I think are really special.”
His exhibit, Dreams of Silver Shadows, ran at the York County Center for the Arts in Rock Hill for about a month beginning in January, showcased his signature black-and-white photos depicting musicians from a range of genres at different ages and different levels of fame, from George Clinton during his stop at The Fillmore Charlotte on his farewell tour to Charlotte rapper MAVI in the midst of a Hopscotch Festival performance with a promising career ahead of him.
BEST MUSIC DOCUMENTARIAN: Nick Will
In June, Charlotte filmmaker and musician Nick Will premiered The Secret Formula for Lovin’ Life, his 10-minute documentary capturing local group Secret Formula Band’s journey from a rehearsal stage to the Lovin’ Life Music Festival this spring, with Queen City Nerve.
Later that month, Will followed up his initial venture into documenting the city’s music scene with The 10,000 Hours of Low Groves, the first in a proposed music documentary series titled The 10,000 Hours, also to be produced by Will and a tightly knit crew of colleagues and friends.
The 20-minute doc, which follows the career of local alt-folk singer/songwriter Adam Naliwajko, who performs at Low Groves, premiered at the Evening Muse where it was met with a rapturous reception. The second edition of the rapidly expanding 10,000 Hours series documented the trajectory of local songwriter-producer-guitarist-engineer Te’Jani.
Will is currently editing two more docs in the pipeline, one on folk-rock singer-songwriter Emily June and another on rock, R&B and pop artist Nia J, creating a much-needed archive of a wonderful time to be involved in Charlotte’s music scene.
BEST BAND: Bravo Pueblo
Fronted by singer-songwriter-keyboardist Liza Ortiz, revolutionary electro-pop trio Bravo Pueblo draws on influences as disparate and symbiotic as electronica, house, alt rock and hip-hop — plus percussion-driven Puerto Rican bomba and plena courtesy of Ortiz’s percussionist brother Claudio; and the joropo (Música Llanera) songwriting traditions of Venezuela via guitarist and synth player Lee Herrera.
Liza, however, would add another ingredient to the threesome’s heady concoction — hardcore psychedelia.
“It’s music that amplifies or inspires a mental voyage that takes you beyond your physical surroundings,” Ortiz says of both the psych genre and her band’s impact.
Bravo Pueblo surrounds Liza’s inspired lyrics with hypnotic grooves, lilting yet funky instrumentation and swarming harmonies. The trio’s music can have the whiplash elasticity of a comet’s orbit, but its trajectory is always in the service of the band’s alluring melodies and Liza’s spellbinding vocals.
BEST NEW BAND: Motocrossed
In her previous band sayurblaires, singer-songwriter Blaire Fullagar seemed to be shouting down into a canyon where beloved animated characters had recently fallen over the rim. “You’re trapped in this body/ But how much noise can you make/ When the door isn’t open?” she asked amid distant disconcerting screams and catchy K-pop style choruses.
On recent single “Yearning,” Charlotte septet Motocrossed retains the questions about identity and acceptance that Fullagar posed in her previous band, now seeming more comfortable in her skin. She sounds, however, no less clear-eyed in her humorous assessment of human interactions and relationships: “You’re a knock on the door during the perfect take/ I’m happy to see you but couldn’t you have come just a little bit later?”
Motocrossed’s musical palette is much more expansive than Fullagar’s former outfit’s, wedding vulnerable vocals to swaying rough-hewn alt-country that evokes the ramshackle cohesion of The Mekons-meet-Karl Marx groove.
BEST INDIE RADIO: WSGE
Tucked away in a quiet enclave of offices on the first floor of the Craig Arts & Sciences Building at the Gaston College campus is the nerve center for one the Charlotte area’s few independent, non-commercial, community-oriented radio stations.
Past the hustle and bustle of the students is a quiet oasis dedicated to broadcasting mostly Americana music mixed with a healthy smattering of other tunes and content airing 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
WSGE goes out across the airwaves from these offices through 91.7 FM, reaching much of Gaston County and the surrounding area with a stated mission “to provide distinctive music and information programming designed to stimulate, educate and entertain our audience.”
And there is a whole lot more to WSGE than meets the ear, regardless of whether you’re scrolling the dial or streaming the channel live online from their website. While WSGE was not receiving funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, shut down by the Trump administration earlier this year, they were in the midst of negotiating music rights through the agency. We’re hoping that mess gets squared away so WSGE can continue to bring the good vibes in 2026 and beyond.
BEST PRODUCER: Beki
Nia J’s sultry, celebratory “TGIF” glides through nostalgic synths evoking moonlit magic before threading through trills of sprightly flutes. Te’Jani’s yearning “Life of the Party” rides powerful plangent guitars that entwine with choruses of triumphant vocals. Both memorable tunes benefit from one producer: Beki.
Beki sculpts soundscapes that fuse rhythmic foundations to eclectic, even fanciful, instrumental flourishes that catapult a good song into something greater: a realm of the senses that challenges listeners while engaging their emotions.
BEST RAPPER: Cuzo Key
Cuzo Key has been on the move constantly since the 2010s within Charlotte’s underground scene. His rise to a more prominent level within the Queen City has been a slow burn, but one that allowed him to grow artistically and organically in the music ecosystem.
From 2019’s NIONEK 2 all the way to his most recent EP release, 2025’s 4 of Them Hoes, Key’s versatile productions have been a signature of the artist’s releases. With his latest project, Cuzo Key recruited another well-known name to Charlotte’s hip-hop scene for the endeavor, as producer FLLS creates compositions that provide a perfect backdrop for Key’s laidback style.
While not lyrically heavy for the greater part of the EP, Key & Co. add just enough to make a sort of narration to the mood of each track. That does come to an end with the final track, “Zoom Zoom,” where Key lends the stage to FLLS, allowing him to provide a heaping dose of his own lyrical styling before giving way again to spotlighting the soundscape.
BEST DJ: Black as the Cosmos
Brianna Daniels, who keeps dance floors surging as DJ Black as the Cosmos, is also an unclassifiable creative.
She’s an actor, a yoga guide, Reiki practitioner, artist and sex educator whose personality is as multifaceted as the crystals she crafts into “cosmosis stones.” That eclecticism is what makes her such an effective DJ.
As Black as the Cosmos, she spins what she calls “expansive Black music,” a mélange of house, alternative R&B, jazz, Afropop, country music, ambient sounds and more — all made by Black artists.
Daniels traces the music she spins and curates back to her love of dance. Trained in an Afro-Brazilian dance tradition called the Silvestre technique, Daniels is also an enthusiast of Black electronic music and techno. That said, she shoots for broad appeal when she deejays.
“I am coming from a Black, queer woman’s vantage point, [but] I’m interested in the liberation of all people,” Daniels says.
BEST HOUSE DJ: DOMii
An Instagram video clip from April captures house DJ, musician and event promoter Ariel Dominguez, who spins as DOMii, manning the decks at Novelty House in Uptown. She lays down a steady four-on-the-floor foundation, then sets 120 beats per minute skittering like flocks of metallic birds. Honking syncopated stabs of synths blare as the crowd sways and grooves.
“I try to absorb everything around me and communicate with people,” said DOMii, who values imparting uplifting messages with her music.
With a sound that couples raw energy with technical precision, DOMii considers herself an eclectic artist yet squarely places her music in the house genre, which she describes as “a club vibe for people to dance to.”
DOMii has also branched out into promoting events, founding Housework Charlotte, an underground dance party connecting house music DJs in the city; and Girls Room, a movable dance party that celebrates and provides safe spaces for queer women in music and art.
BEST R&B/SOUL ARTIST: Makeda Iroquois
On her single “Wanna Love You,” which dropped in May, Makeda Iroquois sets a funky groove with coiling guitar and insistent beats. Then she reverses expectations with a surging mid-tempo R&B melody carried by her distinctive voice — imagine Sade’s sultry soulfulness crossed with the rich vocal tones and jazz phrasing of Sarah Vaughan.
Influenced by old-school R&B and ’90s hip-hop, the Long Island-born, Charlotte-raised singer-songwriter initially trained as a dancer. When injury sidelined that career, Iroquois pursued music. In the process she collaborated with and was inspired by a who’s-who of Queen City hip-hop, including rap royalty Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon and rapper/producer Jopedo.
Iroquois continues to innovate, captivate and showcase her vast range, from contributing her vocal prowess to Verbal Van Gogh’s “It’s On” to releasing “Diamonds,” a dazzling reimagining of the James Bond theme “Diamonds are Forever.” Iroquois’ soul-infused version of the tune arguably eclipses the original, sung by jazz-pop chanteuse Shirley Bassey.
BEST POP: Deore
Delicate chamber pop meets cantering alternative folk in “Brat (Humor Me),” the breakthrough 2023 single by Charlotte singer-songwriter Marissa Butler, who creates and releases captivating, challenging music as Deore.
With The Brat EP, Deore encourages the exploration and embrace of dominance, submission and consensual power exchange.
“I find it empowering to strip yourself of control … and give that control to somebody else in a safe and consensual environment,” said Diore.
Collaborating with Charlotte producer Jason Scavone, Deore is currently working on her “kinky concept album” Tantrums. Fans got a tease of the LP in October with the single “The Chase,” a playful pop-punk tune that pokes fun at slasher horror movie tropes while diving into the predator-prey side of BDSM.
“I wanted to create something risky and unexpected,” Deore says. “What better way to do that than with a song where [the girl] falls in love with her psycho killer?”
BEST JAZZ: The Blackhawk Quintet
Saxophonist Elijah Freeman and trumpeter Ariel Mejia met at a JazzArts Charlotte summer camp when Freeman was still in his teens. A few years later, Mejia asked Freeman to play a gig at a local party. The pair started practicing, fleshed out some tunes and recruited a roster of rotating friends to form The Blackhawk Quintet.
The underpinning of the quintet’s repertoire is hard bop, a jazz style developed in the 1950s as a contrast to the bebop played by greats like saxophonist Charlie Parker. Compared to bebop’s fast tempos, angular melodies and complex harmonies, hard bop draws from gospel, blues and soul.
“It’s the same harmonic concepts from bebop, but extended and pushed forward in its sonic boundaries,” Freeman told Queen City Nerve. “Hard bop is this lost generation of sound. Nothing past it, or before it, sounds like it.”
In keeping with the band’s aesthetic, its debut LP Englewood was devised to sound like it was recorded in 1958.
BEST BREAKTHROUGH ARTIST: Adina Rey
Adina Rey’s self-titled debut EP boasts subtly challenging pop tunes. It is the Statesville singer-songwriter’s powerful vocals, however, that grab the spotlight. The singer’s voice, a warm contralto leavened with grit, executes a soulful purr, sustains punchy high notes and deftly segues into feathered falsetto flips, all in the service of the song’s lyrical shadings of darkness and light.
Rey’s achievement is all the more remarkable because she overcame debilitating health issues to pursue a lifelong dream to make music. Born with scoliosis, spinal stenosis, fibromyalgia and arthritis, Rey faced her greatest health challenge when a doctor overprescribed a medication that rendered her unable to speak, sing or even think straight.
Free of the drug, Rey began working with producer and co-songwriter Drake Margolnick, known for his work as one half of Charlotte indie-rock duo Flagship. In September, Rey branched out, walking the runway at Charlotte Seen Fashion Week. She is currently working with Margolnick on new material.
BEST COMEBACK: Belis
Rapper and singer-songwriter Belis began recording and posting her original music online at age 16. Then, at age 17, she woke up to find half of her face paralyzed. Her doctor diagnosed her with multiple sclerosis (MS). While most of her peers were socializing and going to high school, Belis was relearning how to speak and sing.
“When your cheek goes paralyzed, you have to move your [facial] muscles differently to talk,” she notes.
One result is Belis’ signature vocal slur. By 2019, Belis’ MS was under control and her music had gained a large online following. She relocated to L.A., but by 2024 she tired of the city’s glitz and social climbing and returned to Charlotte to focus on her music.
In June she dropped a video for “Normally,” a song about the mutual, often inexplicable attraction that pulls opposites together. “East Coast Baby,” her latest pop-rap single, dropped in October.
BEST PIVOT: Kendrick Cunningham
In our 2024 Election Guide, describing the platform of NC State Senate District 41 candidate Kendrick Cunningham, Queen City Nerve wrote, “Cunningham’s approach to politics is encapsulated by his Next Step Framework, a blueprint meant to guide Charlotte’s communities to healing from systematic disenfranchisement” before noting his focus on housing for all and the reduction of violent crime rates.
Cunningham did not come out on top in that crowded race between four Democrats, and in the time since those primaries ended, Cunningham has stayed true to his passion for civic engagement and political activism — if shifting the way he expresses it.
In August, Cunningham released his first project as musician OB Swank. In Poster Playboy, Swank blends rock ‘n’ roll with elements of hip-hop and spoken word to help inspire his listeners to follow their true path rather than one set by algorithms and influencers.
“Politics taught me how hard it is to be heard,” he said. “Music lets me speak louder, reach further and move people — not just to act but to heal.”
BEST SOUTHERN SOUL: Catt Daddy
“Love My Southern Soul,” the 2025 breakthrough single from singer-songwriter and former rapper Catt Daddy, is a catchy bluesy tune, but Catt’s vocals put it over. His voice is a river — rich, rolling and gravelly at the bottom with a hint of a bluesman’s rasp.
Catt is a rising star in the Southern soul genre, a danceable vocal-driven blend of gospel, blues, R&B and funk.
Catt’s ascent in the scene has been swift. His debut single “2 Wrongs,” produced by Charlotte’s CrownTown Records CEO and founder Duane Dyer, shot to the top of the Southern soul blues charts in 2024.
Produced by Dyer, Catt’s latest single “Grooving at the Trail Ride,” pays tribute to the organic, homegrown Southern soul scene, where predominantly Black fans don cowboy hats and Daisy Dukes shorts, partake in country-style line dances and saddle up for horseback rides.
BEST BLUEGRASS: Ettore Buzzini
For Ettore Buzzini, the teenage banjoist and self-styled “trad-scendental” bluegrass master from Mooresville, bluegrass is as old as the hills — in this case, the hills of eastern Tennessee where his great grandpa hails from, and the hills of Switzerland, where his father and classically trained great-grandmother grew up.
Buzzini, a 17-year-old high school student, has a foot in each genre, learning from local bluegrass legend John William “Bill” Rippey, and drawing classical influences rooted in his great-grandmother’s style. The young prodigy regularly joins bluegrass jams in the area, including at Smokey Joe’s Cafe & Bar in Charlotte.
He also won the prestigious FreshGrass Banjo Competition Award in Massachusetts in 2024 on the strength of his original composition “Birth of Eros,” a bluegrass-classical hybrid that draws on leitmotifs from Richard Wagner’s operas.
Buzzini is currently working on a traditional bluegrass album, but he also hopes to release a bluegrass-classical album in 2026. In his fresh and innovative way, Buzzini furthers the genre’s acceptance of change, balancing tradition with the new.
BEST VOCALIST: Wild Recluse
On a warm April night at Petra’s, Wild Recluse arrived onstage as the final act of the evening. She took the mic confidently and what happened next was spellbinding. With power, heat and soul, Parham unleashed notes that bent and climbed, rising like a thermal before plunging like a stone into a gorge.
It’s singing that shoots a frisson down the spine and caresses the heart. On a stage crowded with local luminaries, Wild Recluse shone like a supernova. In addition to writing and performing two EPs worth of material, Parham has contributed photography, collage and tapestry projects to local art exhibits while also producing and directing an experimental short film.
Returning to her first love, singing, she has performed on tribute albums to R&B songwriter Teena Marie and Grammy Award-winning Queen of Funk Chaka Khan, and has contributed to Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon’s forthcoming album As of Now.
BEST PERFORMER: Te’Jani
In August, Te’Jani approached the mic at his headlining Neighborhood Theatre show. “Charlotte, are you ready to have the best night of your life?” he called out amid cheers. The release party for Te’Jani’s latest album, Life of the Party, was likely a high point of the year for a lot of people in attendance.
Live, Te’Jani has charisma to burn, but the singer-songwriter-producer-guitarist does not engage in empty showmanship.
Rather Te’Jani’s recent cache of songs, his strongest material to date, burst with a vitality which seems to animate its creator and his band. Engaging yet honest and reflective tunes like the LP’s advance single “This is Why I’m Hot” rockets along on skittering, syncopated hip-hop beats and alternately grimy and ringing guitars, but the tune also bears an uplifting, inclusive message.
“It isn’t me comparing myself to other people,” Te’Jani told us in August. “It’s me [saying] I’m going to respect myself.” Above all, Te’Jani rocks. “Rap was my cousin, but indie rock raised me,” he said. “I’m a Black motherfucking rock star.”
BEST SINGER/SONGWRITER: Low Groves
Befitting the yearning vocals and distant locomotive wail of harmonica that propel the tunes on his 2024 EP Lay the Line, singer/songwriter Low Groves boasts a story befitting an alt-folk tune.
After losing his job, Chicago native Adam Naliwajko, who writes and performs as Low Groves, went to his deceased grandparents’ vacant house to sort through a lifetime’s worth of belongings. The process spurred the 10 songs that comprise his 2021 debut album Drifter. After moving to Charlotte, Naliwajko started playing his haunting folk-inflected tunes at open mics as Low Groves.
His March 2025 single “Watch for Wars,” recorded with a full band, expanded Low Groves’ sound with pensive vocals threading through spectral guitars that shimmer like a fine rain amid symphonic swells of synths.
“Elloree,” released in September, is a moody, textured track that exemplifies Low Groves’ steady evolution as a songwriter. It’s personal yet mythic, beautiful yet heartbreaking.
BEST COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA: Heidi Sidelinker
In her 20s, Heidi Sidelinker dropped out of college, loaded her 12-string guitar into her car, and hit the road to become a songwriter. It would not be the last time she settled into a situation only to eventually leave so she could experience more.
Sidelinker eventually returned to Charlotte to establish herself as a musician in the then-fledgling arts district of NoDa, only to leave again to tour internationally with New York-based folk-rock band Lowry. Leaving the band, she dropped out of music to raise a family. She returned to playing solo gigs shortly before COVID shut down NYC.
Since returning to the Charlotte area again, she’s reestablished herself as a formidable yet compassionate songwriter. Sidelinker’s wisdom, garnered in the course of lived experience, imbues tunes like the driving, percussively strummed “Cold and Lonely Hill,” Sidelinker’s dry-eyed ballad addressed to a deceased lover, and “Help Me Love You,” an emotionally conflicted secular hymn.
BEST HARDCORE/METAL: Ego Death Machine
Charlotte power trio Ego Death Machine kicked off its career of noise making in 2022 with its debut single “Shhhh,” a satisfying mix of splashy classic-rock drums, Sonic Youth-style open- and/or unison-string guitar tunings, Brit-pop meets 1990s stoner/loser vocals and wavering synths that sound like a UFO about to crash into the Sargasso Sea.
Since then, an already experimental heavy band has only drifted further out into the cosmos, which is a good thing. In the course of its existence, Ego Death Machine has dropped the percussive kraut rock meets pagan ritual “Incantation,” the bludgeoning power groove with subterranean vocals that is “Sleep Deprived,” and the atonal industrial-electronic ghost dance “Unknown.”
Each tune builds on its predecessor, while also setting out for far (and dark) horizons. The band’s 2025 single “The Temple” continues that trend. Here, Ego Death Machine fuses progressive rock, metal-infused jazz beats and shards of pure noise into a maelstrom of sound that also swings.
BEST ROCK: I Hate Dave
Dave Matthews? Grohl? It hardly matters which Dave is despised by this Charlotte foursome when they craft clever, melodic, defiant rock that is this enjoyable.
On the band’s debut three-song EP, which dropped in 2024, stylistically rangy frontwoman-songwriter Ariel Fisher growls in an exaggerated sex-kitten purr over a buzzing bass-heavy sashay on opener “555,” likely a nod to Angel No. 555, a spiritual concept signifying positive change and freedom: “Where are the angels now/ Misplacing hope and teeth/ Scrapping for the divine truth/ Scraping by brought to their knees…”
Elsewhere on the EP, I Hate Dave applies distortion, swagger and malice towards the titular plutocrats on “Billionaires,” and crosses fin-de-siècle cabaret, a Bowie-takes Broadway show tune and a Romani stomp on “Matador.”
“Thyme,” the group’s follow-up single from August, shows increased sophistication and maturity without turning boring. Here Fisher and the band suggest a moody, harder rocking variation on Siouxsie and the Banshees, delineating a modern noir mired in gun culture.
BEST EXPERIMENTAL/ELECTRONIC: Girl Brutal
Like a nighttime artillery barrage, stuttering strobe lights flash over electronic noise punk trio Girl Brutal. Clad in bunny ears, Joker makeup and thong underwear over her tights, Grace Nelson stalks the stage, stomping, screaming and rolling on the floor as drummer Music Knight lays down pummeling beats over Jarrett Mintz’s ear-splitting air-raid-siren synths.
Formed in February 2024, the digital hardcore trio delivers a parody of Bacchanalia onstage, but Girl Brutal’s lyrics, conveyed in a machine-gun staccato by founder, frontwoman and songwriter Nelson, provide messages amid the maelstrom. Nelson tackles topics including police brutality, self-image and sexism — hence the bunny ears, an ironic accessory that plays off Playboy bunnies, iconic symbols of the sexualization of women.
Gaining enthusiastic fans with every show, Girl Brutal has crossed over from Charlotte’s punk and electric scenes to metalcore and rock audiences. In April, the explosive trio collaborated with electronic artist ASHLEY! on the 12025db EP, following that up with a Hopscotch performance in September.
BEST COMEDIC MUSIC: Hot Goat Music
In 2022, local musicians Mike Mitschele and Rick Randall launched Hot Goat Music, a company that composes and records songs for TV and movies. As cofounders of the legendary Charlotte comedy rock band Alternative Champs, Mitschele and Randall are naturals for the job.
The Champs sing absurd lyrics on parody tunes like “Cherie Berry,” an ode to the former North Carolina politician who plastered her name in elevators across the state. Onstage the band often dresses alike in eccentric outfits such as giant flower headdresses while playing sets as if everything is normal.
The band is less active now, but the two songwriters continue to collaborate. In 2019, Mitschele and Randall became rock stars again — this time to fans of hit HBO comedy series The Righteous Gemstones as members of cringeworthy Christian megachurch rock band Tears of David.
Mitschele and Randall wrote and performed ersatz Christian rock music for the saga of a Charleston televangelical empire that stars show creator Danny McBride. The secret to selling the joke, Mitschele says, was to play their pious pop with straight faces.
“Some of these megachurch bands are playing sort-of-hip music but they’re at least five years behind,” Randall told Queen City Nerve in April.
BEST VIDEO: Lynsea, ‘last call’
Released in May, Lynsea’s single “last call” is a danceable pop love tale about the spark that can result from first meeting someone you have a connection with.
“You’re usually on the next train home by now/ But I made you stick around/ Talking ’til they kick us out/ Let’s go somewhere time doesn’t count/ You’re all I really care about…” she sings.
Directed by Colin Cassidy, the moody, romantically styled video — or “official visualizer,” as it’s dubbed on YouTube — for “last call” was shot at Substrate, a wine and vermouth bar in Optimist Park, back in April. The spotlit aesthetic perfectly captures that feeling when you’re out for the night with someone who makes you feel like no one else is in the room.
In September, Lynsea was driving her sister to the airport when their car was struck by an impaired driver not far from Lynsea’s house. Lynsea’s sister was admitted to the ICU but later discharged to recover at home while Lynsea faced a more complex recovery process from a significant brain injury.
On Oct. 16, she announced on Instagram that she was coming home, the best news we heard all year, with an added plus: She’s got new music coming soon.
BEST EMO ROCK/POP PUNK: Y’ALL’RE
Shelby foursome Y’ALL’RE kicks off its 2024 debut EP First Edition with a tune that entwines riot grrrl attitude, role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) and a title/chorus that’s the cherry atop a punk-rock sundae: “I Really Wanna Play D&D with Your Dad.” The song, vocalist-guitarist Galaxy Lineberger says, is about her dad and band guitarist Jason Lineberger, who is also a kick-ass D&D dungeon master.
Y’ALL’RE’s name is a contraction of “You all are.” With singer-songwriter Kim Ware on drums and Ware’s husband, Mark Nanna, on bass, Y’ALL’RE delights audiences with inventive gems like “Thrift Store Nativity Jesus” and “502 Bad Gateway,” which calls on audiences to compose a bad poem that becomes part of the tune.
Y’ALL’RE inspires people seeking to focus the anger, defiance, hope and humor that animates punk rock to raise awareness and to effect change. It’s something w’all’re capable of doing, too.
BEST EP: Weekend Friend, ‘Days Like June’
Launched as a solo act by vocalist Bryan Wynne, Charlotte’s Weekend Friend has bloomed into a melody-forward five-piece with dramatic instrumental and lyrical shadings.
On its four-track EP Days Like June, which fittingly dropped in its namesake month, the band summons the spirit of inventive alt-rock acts like Cage the Elephant and The Killers then couples/contrasts those urgent grooves with hazy, sun-drenched psychedelia-inspired production.
That slight cognitive dissonance doesn’t stop the septet from cranking out clangorous tunes like the chiming, dynamic “Wrong to Be Right” and the swinging, surf-rock infused “Smile.” Through groovy guitar riffs that call back to certain classic rock tunes, Days Like June, the first project the band created together from scratch, carries an energy that is both lively and reminiscent.
BEST HIP-HOP ALBUM: Gauxstman, ‘28217’
Since dropping his debut projects Extra Game and Southside Get the Money in 2017, Charlotte rapper Gauxstman has built a career rapping about the triumphs and tribulations of hustling out a life in the Queen City’s south side.
In a long tradition that includes figures like the first gangster rappers Ice T and Schoolly D, Gauxst was inspired by the 1967 Black pulp classic, Pimp: The Story of My Life, adopting the alias Archdale Slim after that novel’s author, Iceberg Slim. His April release, 28217, transposes this tradition into a different key.
While jazz and soul samples somewhat soften lines like, “Bitch, get your mouth wider for the legendary Southsider…” the first four tracks of the album maintain the tone and tenor of much of Gausxt’s hustle-focused rhymes that composed his previous projects. While these themes remain, 28217 is a more settled and personal portrait of the Charlotte rapper, reflecting Gauxst’s challenges as he has become a father.
“I’m a lifestyle artist. I literally can only pull from what I’m going through,” he told Queen City Nerve in July. “I realized I’m getting older, so it’s important if you’re building an audience, you’ve got to grow with your audience.”
BEST ROCK ALBUM: Petrov, ‘Petrov’
The long-awaited self-titled debut LP from Charlotte indie-rock powerhouse Petrov opens with “Someone Else,” a raucous, feedback spattered rocker where frontwoman Mary Grace McKusick addresses the pressures of becoming who you want to be — or think you want to be, anyway.
From there, corkscrewing guitars, galloping drums and McKusick’s untrammeled vocals propel trenchant tunes like “Read the Room” and “Hex” before the LP shifts into a more reflective mood. Restrained guitars on “Nonzero” tug like an undertow as McKusick sings in cresting waves about making amends and accepting responsibility.
On the majestic, slow-burning “Protector,” McKusick unleashes a vulnerable yet raging confession about being blindsided by the loss of a friend to suicide. “How does it feel/ To wake up and know you’re healed?” McKusick laments as Petrov’s most emotionally gripping release to date comes to a close.
BEST GENRE-MIXING ALBUM: True Optimist: ‘Parlor Palms’
On True Optimist’s “Make Money All Day,” shaking percussion rains down on ricocheting high-life guitars and a stream of swarming voices: “There must be something more/ Than make money, money all day…”
The tune was the advance single for the ambitious double LP Parlor Palms by Charlotte music scene veteran Evan Plante (Quad, Pleather and more), who creates music with his wife Susan Plante as True Optimist.
Human voices predominate on all 20 of Parlor Palms’ stylistically-diverse tracks, which range from the snaking Latin jazz-inflected “Nothing But a Slogan,” featuring vocals by Bravo Pueblo’s Lisa Ortiz, to the clattering Carnival-in-Rio crawl “Be Something Real,” where Modern Moxie singer-songwriter Madison Lucas surprisingly plays trumpet.
Parlor Palms is a genre-shattering song cycle that blends bossa nova, mutant disco, soul jazz, sun-kissed tropicalia and breezy beachside pop. Such a concoction should startle like a flashing strobe light but, instead, the ebullient double LP caresses and cradles like a warmly proffered hand.
BEST CONCEPT ALBUM: Jah Freedom & ANON the Griot, ‘Fxck Love’
On “Acrophobia,” poet ANON the Griot spins a hair-raising narrative about identifying with a scene from the film Forrest Gump where the character Jenny contemplates jumping from a ledge. This high-wire dissection of the barriers we erect and ultimately overcome to find self-love is one of 10 cuts on Fxck Love, a collaborative album from Charlotte producer and composer Jah Freedom, and Atlanta-based emcee and poet ANON.
Jah notes that the phrase “fuck love” runs the emotional gamut from affection to desire, from comfort to lust. All these emotions run through album tracks like the sacred, sensual “Goddess,” where Jah Freedom’s decaying piano underpins ANON’s romantic musings, and Fxck Love’s title track, where sweeping synths accompany ANON’s comparison of love to water.
“If you cup water, you can hold it in your hand,” Jah said. “But if you clench it in your hand like a fist, it falls through.”
BEST SINGLE: Featherpocket, ‘Cowboy Hat’
Jason Cline’s country-adjacent alt-rock band Featherpocket delivers a delightful four-minute pocket Western in the jaunty single “Cowboy Hat.”
Drawing on Cline’s coiling guitar, producer Justin Aswell’s cantering percussion, and Jason Atkins’ tinkling honky-tonk piano, the catchy tune evokes faux Wild West music like The Beatles’ “Rocky Raccoon.” As Cline spins a tall tale about a habitual, cowboy-hatted liar in his good-natured, adenoidal drawl, Dazy Bea’s ethereal backing vocals sigh like wind sweeping down the dusty plain.
Among the song’s many pleasures is a drop-out where Cline huskily intones, “Lie to me, baby…” followed by a resounding slap to the face, the crack of a gunshot that ushers in Cline’s spoken word interlude: “I’ll tell you what you ain’t/ Not a hero/ Not a saint…” and the ululating cry from Ennio Morricone’s theme for The Good, The Bad and the Ugly that sets up the song’s climax in which the unreliable protagonist (spoiler alert) is gunned down outside a saloon.
BEST QUEEN CITY HOMAGE: Verbal Van Gogh, ‘Top9@8’
Released on Black Friday 2024, Verbal Van Gogh’s EP Top9@8 playfully resurrects the radio format in the streaming age. The EP’s novel format nods to the former prevalence of radio countdowns in delivering 10 tracks punctuated by narration from DJ Dexter Dynamite.
The local lyricist cuts this radio format with the mixtape era. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, DJs like Clue (New York), Drama (Atlanta) or Screw (Houston) would curate compilations of up-and-coming talent rapping over already-popular beats.
VVG’s take — featuring beats from popular tracks by Lil Wayne and Drake, among others — is punctuated by two commercials and guest call-ins from prominent hip-hop media voices around Charlotte. If you close your eyes, Top9@8 feels like you’ve traveled in time back to 2002.
While nostalgia is far from a novel expressive device, Van Gogh’s use of it in the streaming era is remarkable.
Rather than releasing these 10 songs as individual tracks linked by their radio countdown format, Van Gogh released the EP as one 27-minute track.
DJ Dexter Dynamite weaves local references throughout his inter-track narration, saying that he’s going to get a Bo-Berry biscuit after “10:30 @ Titan” and memorializing the long-gone Eastland Mall after “Foreign Money.” The second commercial break is lifted from a legendary spot by “Rev. Rob,” the bizarre evangelical character that showed up in radio and television commercials for west Charlotte’s Apple Auto Sales in the 1990s (“I’m gonna HEAL your credit!”).
“It forces you to just sit down,” Van Gogh told Queen City Nerve of the straight-through style. “Get you a drink. Get relaxed. Or, if you’re in the car, you know, I’m driving to Concord Mills from Plaza Midwood. Put it on. It’ll be done before you get there. It’s one of those type of things where I want people to have an experience.”
BEST DEBUT ALBUM: Ali Forrest, ‘Cagefighter’
Ali Forrest landed a knockout with her debut album Cagefighter, which traces a real-life character arc for the singer-songwriter. Forrest says the LP consists of two halves, a front end where she grapples with feelings of not fitting in and a second act where she’s evolved out of a survival mentality.
Forrest’s empowering journey is delineated by two of the album’s most powerful songs. On “The Maze,” Forrest delivers devastating lyrics with her lilting yodel, a fluttering registration change between head and heart: “I’m sick of the chase/ I’m sick of naively begging you to change…”
In contrast, title track “Cagefighter” depicts a heroine embarking on a healing process. At the song’s close, Forrest’s ethereal vocals nearly dissolves in harmonics, yet her words endure amid distorted razor-wire guitars: “Oh I’ll hold you when I’m strong/ And I’ll hold you when I’m not…”
Brutally honest and intensely personal, Cagefighter delivers a transcendent message to every listener: You are not alone.
BEST VENUE: Petra’s
In September, Petra’s celebrated its 18-year anniversary in Plaza Midwood with a live music show co-presented by the venue and Sugartank! Records, a local label formed to highlight LGBTQ artists in the Charlotte area. It’s a perfect example of the inclusive, genre-blending events the venue has become known for.
The cozy piano bar opened in 2007 and quickly became a haven for the city’s LGBTQ community. Through successive changes, which include the hiring of current co-owner Perry Fowler, Petra’s has become an all-inclusive music venue while continuing to welcome the city’s queer community. Current popular events include sapphic dance party UltraViolet; the TuTu Tonight! variety show featuring music, comedy, burlesque and drag; and the Piano Karaoke & Sing Along.
For longtime patrons to neighborhood newcomers, the notion of Petra’s as a safe space is not a mere slogan but rather a feeling deeply ingrained in a place where all are truly welcome.
BEST NEW VENUE: Eighty Eights Coffee & Cocktails
As day turns to night, Eighty Eights Coffee & Cocktails seamlessly transitions from a cozy coffee haven to an elegant jazz lounge.
Situated at 4237 Raleigh St. next to the Independent Picture House, the venue has hosted everyone from established Charlotte artists like award-winning saxophonist, pianist and songwriter Harvey Cummings II; singer-songwriter and vocal powerhouse Shana Blake; samba and bossa nova-infused jazz guitarist Reinaldo Brahn; and eclectic drummer-composer Al Sergel. Then there are newer Queen City talents like saxophonist Zach Wheeler’s jazz quartet and trumpeter and R&B-soul-hip-hop influenced composer Braxton Bateman.
On Wednesday nights, an insanely talented iteration of local hard-bop jazz band Blackhawk Quintet teams that band’s cofounders, saxophonist Elijah Freeman and trumpeter Ariel Mejia, with drummer Tim Scott Jr., bassist Burns and pianist Phillip Howe to kick off Bop Theory Jazz Jam before opening the floor to local collaborators.
BEST SINGALONGS: Carolina Beer Choir
In March, an affable group of volunteers gathered at Divine Barrel Brewing in NoDa. Two men sat down, one behind a music stand and the other at a piano. The keyboardist kicked off a jaunty singalong while choirmaster and ringleader Pete Leo led Carolina Beer Choir in song.
In 2017, Leo, the executive director of Carolina Voices, got the go-ahead to launch a Charlotte chapter of the choir — yes, that is a thing — and he has never looked back. The choir sings traditional pub tunes, pop hits and song parodies, all while drinking beer and socializing.
Carolina Beer Choir recently played Oktoberfest at Divine Barrel in September and is anticipating its Christmastime show in the same festive space in late November.
