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Greg Freeman – All Set the Bone

Greg Freeman’s last effort, Burnover, was our #8 album of 2025. His third album All Set the Bone, is bolder, messier, and arguably even better.

No one can deny Greg Freeman earned his breakthrough last year. One of 2025’s standout indie rock records, Burnover won listeners over with a focused first half of “tight, generous songwriting” before cutting loose on a more freewheeling side B.

Only a year has passed since Burnover, but All Set the Bone feels like an entirely different beast—a darker, more sprawling album, fuelled by the inevitable weight of expectation that comes with following up an album of the year contender. But rather than run scared, or retreat to well-worn patterns in a conservative embrace of familiarity, Freeman has seemingly laughed in the face of mounting pressure, confident in his ability to deliver the goods. And for the most part, he has succeeded.

Burnover felt like a heartland-infused indie rock record from the get-go, but All Set the Bone defies easy classification. The guitars have a menacing air at times, and the syncopated rhythms of tracks like “Totaled” and the particularly frenetic “Hail Mary” take us into math-rock territory. Elsewhere, baroque flourishes rub shoulders with psychedelic passages and classic rock hooks—sometimes all in the same song (“Cahokia”). There’s also a wildness to Freeman’s vocals, which sometimes veer jarringly off-key, but never feel like anything other than a strength.

At times, All Set the Bone almost feels endless. Only one of its thirteen songs, “Decade,” clocks in at under 4 minutes—and even that’s 3 minutes 55 seconds long. Its unpredictability make it a challenging record to digest, and it is far more likely to reward an attentive, alert listener who will appreciate some of its rhythmic complexity and lyrical heft. If you’re not that kind of listener, you’ll need an entry-point; step forward “Loser’s Prize,” which distills everything that’s impressive about All Set the Bone into one reasonably accessible indie rock banger. Start there, and the rest will start to make sense soon enough.

If Burnover was Freeman’s breakthrough, All Set the Bone is the sound of him embracing his artistry. It’s an ambitious, lengthy, messy record that perhaps requires a certain focus and a specific mood to love, but is certainly easy to appreciate. I used to think Greg Freeman sounded a bit like Modest Mouse teaming up with MJ Lenderman to play Pavement songs. Three albums into his career, he’s simply starting to sound like Greg Freeman.

All Set the Bone is out now via Transgressive / Canvasback.