Yep, so this one’s late - but it’s no quick task listening to and considering over 50 albums while parenting two kids. However, I have once again prevailed to make my ‘top albums of last year’ list so that this ‘every year’ challenge may one day truly catch up.

I think the less said about the news in 2025 the better (once again), but it was a lovely year for me personally, and here’s a bunch of my favourite albums from it. As usual, I’ve listened to all (well 99%) of rateyourmusic.com’s top 15, Pitchfork’s Best New Music and The Needle Drop’s top 10. Over 50 odd albums, here’s the ones I gave an 8 or higher, with only the top 10 being graced with album art. ‘Twas a good year.

25. FKA Twigs - Eusexia

Eusexia is hard to fault. The production is luscious and detailed, wrapping every track in this glowing, slightly haunted atmosphere. Twigs’ vocals feel beautifully otherworldly, and the melodies bury themselves in your head almost immediately. What lifts the album is how it balances pure pop appeal with just enough darkness and strangeness to reward repeat listens. It’s simply a damn good pop record that keeps revealing more each time.

8/10

24. Jefre Cantu-Ledesma – Gift Songs

Listening to Gift Songs feels like being swallowed by a gentle mythical creature - warm, dimly lit, its heartbeat pulsing through gorgeous drones and drifting textures. It’s ambient music as shelter: a soft, luminous space you sit inside.

8/10

23. Joanne Robertson - Blurrr

An unassuming, delicate feather of an album. Robertson works with a power-chord band level of simplicity, but plays like someone quietly strumming a guitar at a party, half hoping no one notices. Her guitar lines repeat meditatively, with vocals tucked gently behind them, giving the whole record a hushed, private feel. The songs drift by with a kind of soft confidence, never pushing themselves forward yet somehow holding your attention all the same. It’s a very absorbing listen.

8/10

22. Alex H - Headlight

A long-time indie favourite who’s steadily refined his craft. On Headlight, he once again shows how effortlessly he can shape a chorus and build a song that sticks. The production is smart and tasteful, adding polish without distracting from the songwriting underneath. There’s a warm, positive glow to the tracks, reflective but light on its feet. It’s a little front-heavy – the opening stretch is superb before easing off slightly later on – but the core strengths are still there.

8/10

21. Mike – Showbiz! review

Showbiz! is so laid-back it feels like one of those half-reclined, slightly hungover conversations in a student house living room - everyone slouched across mismatched furniture, letting thoughts about life spill out in slow, unhurried waves. Except here there’s also a DJ in the corner, quietly locking everything together with the slickest, warmest beats imaginable. The result is a record that drifts rather than drives, a hazy blend of introspection and groove where the production cushions every line. It captures that strangely intimate vibe of talking nonsense with friends while the sun creeps through the blinds.

8/10

20. Nourished by Time – The Passionate Ones

Emerging from Baltimore’s underground, The Passionate Ones sees Marcus Brown continuing to blur the lines between indie R&B, post-punk, and lo-fi soul. Following the cult success of his earlier releases, this album leans further into texture and atmosphere.

A warm, soulful effort that feels like vintage soul tapes left humming inside a softly glowing machine, their edges gently melted and reframed into something more synthetic yet strangely comforting. The result is music that’s hazy and enveloping, but threaded through with a quiet, electronic pulse. Brown’s vocals have a metallic shimmer that lets them hover just above the dense mixes, catching the light even when everything beneath them feels blurred and submerged.

A thoroughly enjoyable listen, and one that rewards dedicated attention, revealing its small emotional details and textural shifts more fully with each return.

8/10

19. Huremic - Seeking Darkness

South Korean musician Parannoul released Seeking Darkness under his Huremic alias, presenting five long-form pieces and drawing in part on Korean traditional instrument samples from a Seoul National University Arts and Science Center library.

One of my favourite pure guitar albums of the year, which on researching is less pure guitar than it sounds. I had also not clocked the Parannoul link until beginning to write this review. Seeking Darnkess’ pulverising riffs rotate and spiral with such precision that they start to bounce around your brain like clockwork. There is a real physicality to it: every passage feels locked in, heavy but agile, relentless without becoming dull. What I love most is how it balances brute force with momentum, always pushing forward but never just bludgeoning for the sake of it. The repetition works in its favour too, each return making the hooks hit harder. It is the kind of record that feels both mechanical and alive.

8/10

18. Panda Bear: Sinister Gift

Beach Boys–influenced pop that doesn’t put a foot wrong. Lovely melodies, silky smooth and yet interesting production, and an atmosphere I just want to bathe in on repeat. Warm, woozy and comforting, but never dull. It feels like being wrapped in sunlight and reverb.

8.5/10

17. SZA: SOS Deluxe: Lana

Deluxe: Lana is a strange hybrid - half 2023 classic, half 2025 reinvention - so I’ll judge it by the new front half for the context of this list. Fortunately, those additions are sublime: SZA’s voice drifts effortlessly, her melodies have a hypnotic ease, and the production entertains - even if it never wows. Lana is intimate yet cinematic, showcasing an approachable confidence. Rather than an appendage to SOS, it’s a statement of continued evolution.

8.5/10

16. Geese - Getting Killed

Formed in Brooklyn in the late 2010s, Geese quickly built a reputation for wiry, art-rock maximalism and fearless stylistic swings, anchored by the restless songwriting of Cameron Winter.

Winter seems determined to dominate this list, appearing here via both solo work and band duties. This, his Brooklyn band effort, is a creative, unpredictable, dare I say timeless collection of songs that feels permanently alive. It’s just bursting with wholesome goodness, like tearing into a still-warm loaf of sourdough: rough edges, deep flavour, and both nourishing, and a little bit feral.

8.5

15. Ethel Cain - Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You

A prequel of sorts to the world Hayden Anhedönia has been building around the Ethel Cain project, Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You sits deep in the same haunted Americana landscape that defined Preacher’s Daughter.

A maximalist explosion of emotional heft. Every melody is one of longing, all scaffolded by drones, long-tailed notes and a sense that every tick of the brain is an atom bomb waiting to go off. Songs stretch and breathe, building patiently until they crest in waves of feeling rather than traditional climaxes. The arrangements feel cavernous, as though every note is echoing through some enormous emotional chamber.

It’s not necessarily the most original piece of work in terms of its ingredients. The slowcore pacing, ambient swells and Americana textures have clear precedents. But the scale of the feeling here is undeniable. Cain pushes every idea as far as it will go, wringing emotion from repetition and atmosphere until the songs feel almost overwhelming in their intensity.

By the time its 1 hour and 14 minute runtime comes to a close, it’s difficult not to feel as though you’ve been dragged through something inward and searching. It’s the sort of record that demands attention and patience, but rewards it with a strange, heavy catharsis. Getting to the end feels less like finishing an album and more like surfacing after a long, deep dive into someone else’s memory.

8.5

14. Anastashia - Thether

A stripped-back, voice-forward folk record that leans into restraint rather than ornamentation. The vocals are both delicate and wholesome, with a lower register that whithers in the breeze. Tether sounds timeless in the best way.

It’s refreshing to hear an album that trusts space and silence, letting the voice do most of the talking. There’s a quiet confidence here – no overreaching, no unnecessary layers – just melody, breath, and feeling. Not once does that simplicity feel lacking; instead, it draws you closer.

Emotional weight runs quietly through the record. Some of these songs linger, looping around the brain for hours – sometimes days – after the last listen, not because they demand attention, but because they’ve quietly settled in.

8.5

13. Saba – No ID (From the Private Collection)

These beats are liquid silk - smooth, warm, and groovy in that effortless Fresh Prince way. They’re also hyper-infectious, the kind of rhythms that bypass your ears entirely and go straight into your bloodstream. Saba glides over them with a relaxed, almost weightless flow, the kind that feels like he made the whole thing in a single golden-hour breath. There’s no posturing here, no tension, just an open-door energy: a party where everyone’s invited and no one’s being judged.

Listening feels like sitting on an empty rooftop with friends you trust, passing time and passing thoughts, watching the sky puff up with clouds shaped from your half-serious, half-sacred dreams. It’s intimate but communal, loose but purposeful. A small world built from mellow confidence and drifting imagination - a reminder that some of the best hip-hop doesn’t shout; it just invites you in.

8.5

12. Ichiko Aoba - Luminescent Creatures

What’s that? Sorry, I can’t hear you, I’m too busy floating around in this heavenly soundscape. Ichiko Aoba turns gently plucked guitar and wordless sighs into something close to a lullaby for fish ghosts. It feels weightless, half-remembered, like light through water. I never want to leave. Every tiny melodic ripple feels deliberate yet completely effortless.

8.5

11. Algernon Cadwallader - Trying Not to Have a Thought

Trying Not to Have a Thought is a late-career return from Algernon Cadwallader that proves their voice still feels distinct, wiry, and alive.

A refreshingly excellent emo record from a band that now counts as fairly old. Pitchfork put it best in perhaps my favourite review line of the year, claiming it “makes the case for why emo was never just about adolescent angst, but the purity of feeling alive in the present.” Cadwallader get political here, and it works. You get the impression they have always been passionate about their feelings, only now those feelings have a more worldly direction. It helps that the album is carried by some of the most inventive musicianship I have heard on an emo record in a long while: restless, knotty, and full of small surprises without ever losing momentum. That gives the songs an unusual shape. They remain affecting, but also surprisingly cerebral, less like a nostalgic return than a reminder of how expansive this kind of music can be.

8.5/10

The whole thing is drowned in so much reverb it feels like if you were to touch it, it would ripple, distort, and fall apart. It’s a 38-minute soothing lullaby that’s melancholy, hopeful, and quietly beautiful. Somerville’s vocals are often indiscernible, a dream floating just out of reach, dissolving even as you try to focus on it, leaving behind a soft emotional residue rather than anything concrete.

The songs seem to hover rather than move, unfolding at their own unhurried pace, asking very little of you beyond stillness. By the time we reach the otherworldly “Halo,” it becomes hard to imagine life without this album on. I feel calmer listening to it - more connected, more grounded, more like everything will be okay.

8.5/10

Burnover is the latest album from Vermont songwriter Greg Freeman, a writer whose work sits somewhere between alt-country, indie rock, and rough-edged heartland folk. It feels rooted in familiar traditions, but not trapped by them.

Likely my favourite alt-country adjacent album for years, there’s an emotional immediacy to it, and yet also a poetic distance. Freeman’s vocals carry melodies like Trojan horses into your brain, and you end up singing snippets over and over again. What makes the album so affecting is the tension between its scruffy directness and its literary instinct. The songs feel plain-spoken on first contact, but they keep opening up, revealing bruises, half-hidden images, and lines that linger longer than you expect. Nothing feels overworked, but neither does it feel throwaway. There is a lovely sense throughout of someone reaching for clarity without sanding away the mystery.

8.5/10

Emerging from the early-2010s blackgaze wave, Deafheaven have always sat in an odd, compelling middle ground: extreme metal technique filtered through post-rock scale and shoegaze atmosphere. Even as their sound has shifted over the years, that core tension between beauty and abrasion has remained their calling card.

Something about the higher register of the shouted vocals makes Deafheaven hit harder for me than the more traditional roaring metal crew. It feels less like a fantasy monster bellowing from a mountaintop and more like an actual human being cracking under the strain. There’s vulnerability baked into that pitch, even when the music itself is colossal.

Musically, this is their usual epic, post-rock-inflected metal, all slow-burn build-ups and crescendos the size of the pyramids. Guitars shimmer and grind at the same time, drums surge rather than simply pummel, and everything is arranged to overwhelm gradually rather than all at once. I love getting lost in its brutal sparkle, the way it manages to feel punishing and strangely tender in the same breath.

8.5/10

Pitchfork called it “a mixtape for a long train ride home,” and that really does nail the feeling. This is music that rattles along beside you, grimy and half-lit, all motion and momentum. There’s a Spoon-esque simplicity to it, but Smertz make it seedier, more physical - something that runs through your blood rather than sitting politely in your ears.

There are no clever layers to peel back, no grand architecture. Just blunt hooks, scuffed edges, and a sense of naked brilliance that feels immediate and alive. The kind of record that doesn’t ask for attention so much as grab you by the collar and drag you along for the ride.

8.5

A 75 minute journey to an abandoned temple in the clouds. At times breathtakingly beautiful, at others just completely immersive. I was surrounded by noise and notes and static, it was heaven.

It feels less like a collection of pieces and more like stepping into a vast, echoing space and letting it close around you. The organ swells and recedes like weather, sometimes luminous, sometimes almost overwhelming. Yet the beauty never turns soft; there’s always grit in the air, a low hum beneath the light.

9/10

Heavy Metal boasts one of the most engaging vocal performances I’ve heard in a long time. Winter shape-shifts from a Tom Waits-style gruffness to a baritone reminiscent of Matt Berninger, before lifting into a gorgeous, airy falsetto. Whatever register he’s in, he sings with such conviction that it always feels lived-in, totally in the moment. Dare I say it - he even has that Dylan-esque sense of owning his voice, bending it to whatever emotional contour the song needs. High praise, but he earns it.

The production feels like a cleaner, more lucid take on Tom Waits’ world: every element is crystal clear, yet there’s still a charming ramshackle quality to the arrangements, as if everything is held together by heart rather than polish. The result is a folk-leaning album that crackles with warmth and personality. Heavy Metal already has the air of a classic.

9/10

I regularly have to do a double-take listening to Radio DDR, just to reassure myself it isn’t a lost Guided By Voices record - and coming from me, that’s about as high a compliment as you can give. It shares that scrappy, rough-edged lo-fi charm, the sense that the tape is barely holding together, but the songs here feel more fully fleshed out, more intentionally shaped, without ever losing that “lightning in a bottle” energy of catching an idea right at its spark.

Carried by Kai Slater’s sharp songwriting instincts and his knack for crafting wiry, affecting melodies, Radio DDR crackles with immediacy. Slater’s lyrics are deceptively simple, sketching out scenes and emotions with the kind of offhand clarity that only arrives when a writer is working fast and instinctively. There’s a lived-in quality to the words - fragments of conversation, late-night anxieties, little stabs of humour - all delivered with an unselfconscious charm.

The instrumentation matches that spirit perfectly. Guitars buzz and chime, sometimes jangly, sometimes on the verge of collapse; the rhythm section keeps everything grounded without sanding off the edges; and the production walks that fine line between lo-fi grit and melodic accessibility. It sounds like a band playing at full tilt in a small room.

Honestly, this sits comfortably among my favourite indie-rock albums of all time - vital, hooky, a little chaotic, and utterly brimming with personality. It’s the kind of record that reminds you how exciting indie rock can be when it’s made quickly, honestly, and with zero concern for perfection.

9/10

Pitchfork loved it; Rate Your Music has it parked at a comparatively modest no. 187 for 2025. Baby! is the kind of album that resists spreadsheet consensus, less a cleanly argued statement than a joyful mess you either fall into or bounce off.

At its core, Baby! is an album about love and arrival, about the quiet thrill of having landed somewhere you might actually stay. But Dijon doesn’t present that feeling plainly. Instead, the record repeatedly detonates and reassembles itself. Songs blur into each other, structures buckle, and nothing stays tidy for long.

The production is aggressively dense. Vocals are compressed until they feel laminated, melodies peek out and disappear again, and everything is pushed so close to the red it’s surprising the whole thing doesn’t buckle under its own weight. It’s over-produced in the way a child over-decorates a birthday cake: too many colours, too much icing, and somehow still perfect.

Baby! is remarkably generous. It’s warm, open-hearted, and consistently euphoric, the rare album whose maximalism feels less like a flex and more like a hug. It made me happier than almost anything else this year, which is no small achievement.

There are clear Prince echoes in the elastic vocals and rhythmic looseness, but Dijon never sounds like he’s cosplaying his influences. This isn’t homage; it’s instinct. Baby! feels alive in the way the best pop records do.

9/10

The London collective return with a second record that leaches even further from form, favouring shared feeling over tidyness.

From the opening track, “Total euphoria,” this feels like emotion spilling over its container. There is a Midwest emo melancholy in its bones, but it is loosened from genre and allowed to drift somewhere stranger, softer, and harder to name. The music rarely feels anchored to ordinary time; often it sounds as if each instrument is wandering along its own separate path, only to brush mysteriously against the others and create something fleeting but beautiful. I kept having the sense of listening to people reach for one another in the dark, missing, connecting, then missing again. That is what makes the record so affecting: it feels less like something built than something felt into existence, trembling and messy and full of human presence. By the end, it leaves behind not so much a set of songs as a mood you carry around for hours afterwards.

It’s a wonder. It’s alive. It breathes.

9.5/10

Lux is the latest record from Rosalia, an album that arrives to huge acclaim and feels designed to invite surrender as much as interpretation. It is the kind of release that quickly gathers the language of masterpiece around it, but its real power lies in how completely it absorbs you.

It is hard to say much about this that has not already been said. Lux sings in what feels like 7,322 languages, her voice is angelic and powerful, and yes, it often sounds like a timeless masterpiece. All of that is true, but what makes this my favourite album of the year is simpler: I get completely lost in it every time I put it on. Listening feels like wandering through an abandoned labyrinth of endless, unpredictable beauty, unsure how you arrived there and gradually giving up on the need to understand. The few spoken passages in English are my least favourite moments, mostly because they puncture some of that mystery and briefly pull the music back toward explanation. But explanation is beside the point. This is a record to be immersed in rather than solved, and its beauty is so overwhelming that, in the end, that is all that matters. It feels ancient and present at once, intimate even when it is at its most opaque.

9.5/10