Albums of the Year- 2025
Music is amazing. Music is powerful, beautiful, myriad, a marvel, my favourite thing, and, genuinely, life-saving. And there’s so much of it, so much music to fall in love with, especially new music, especially now, that it can move you in a million ways- feel so important- and still you couldn’t possibly hear it all. So ranking music, assigning marks to sounds, and putting records in any kind of value order, is inherently stupid, flawed and facile then.
Anyway, here’s my favourite albums released in the year of our lord 2025.
As always, ahead of this year’s list, I look even further back and mention at least one album from last year that I discovered too late- one that would’ve made the last list if it had made it into my ears in time. This year that’s ‘Romance’ by Fontaines D.C.- a record I probably had to go out of my way to not hear in 2024, but has since played on repeat through my speakers. Like the last Idles album, it finds the band behind it finally unclenching their fist and letting go, to loose, lively, fantastic effect.
And, as always, I note my favourite EP of this year. That’s ‘No Separation’ by the still fantastically-named MSPAINT- an urgent but accessible call-to-arms of a record.
And my favourite albums of the year are below. As I feel compelled to say every single year, these are not the best albums of 2025- no one can tell you that- but these are my favourites, the ones I want to shout loudest about, the ones I loved (in order of exactly how much I love them obviously). I hope you find something to love too.
11 because Spinal Tap…
11. IAN- ‘Come On Everybody, Let’s Do Nothing!’
A compelling blend of post-metal and post-rock and cinematic style that might have made this list without its secret ingredient, but absolutely cements its place thanks to Hannah Asprey. Her contributions on the cello feel fully incorporated into the mix, bring darkness or delicacy to the lighter moments, and weight and depth to the heavier ones, and elevate the entire 45 minutes of IAN’s debut. I wish the UK band had chosen a more majestic moniker, and that album title feels a little ill-fitting and awkward to me, but every minute of music behind both names is balanced and seamless and makes perfect sense.
10. COMPUTER- ‘Station on the Hill’
The musical equivalent of being one minute late for a train, sitting on chewed gum, or getting salt in a paper cut. A wilfully discordant, proudly untidy, purposefully discomforting record. An album made for times like these. You might worry that giving themselves the least googleable name ever might hold Computer back, but one listen to ‘Station on the Hill’ will reassure you of the Vancouver band’s determination, strength of will, and undeniable forward motion.
9. ETHEL CAIN- ‘Perverts’
The question has been asked whether ‘Perverts’ exists only to make sure Ethel Cain isn’t labeled as a pop star. This is 90-minutes of dark ambient drone and mostly lyricless desolation that’s a million musical miles away from her most popular work and shares only the slightest sonic connective tissue with anything else she has ever done. But I don’t think the atmosphere here can be faked. I don’t think the effort here is to prove integrity only. This never feels like an indulgent or defiant piece of work to me- it feels like the dusty, dark, unsettling sounds that simply came pouring out of Cain. It’s not an easy record to recommend- half the tracks go over the 10-minute mark, half of them sound like they want to hunt you down and destroy you- but it is, for me, an undeniably arresting and genuine one, one that’s hard to look away from while it plays, and one leaves a mark long after it stops.
8. MOGWAI- ‘The Bad Fire’
‘The Bad Fire’ is Mogwai’s eleventh studio album, so not a shiny new toy. It came out in January, essentially 1000 years ago in music criticism discourse. And it feels like one of their most measured and mature albums, not a memorable rollercoaster. So it might not make as many of these kinds of lists as it should. But it really really should. It’s graceful and grown up, yes, surprisingly melodic, uplifting even, but it still carries heft when necessary and possesses a wonderfully weary quality. And take this how you find it, but that means it continues to feel like Mogwai are soundtracking my life.
7. PILE- ‘Sunshine and Balance Beams’
The Most Underrated Band ever, at it again, releasing a record that feels caustic but hypnotic, punk rock and poetic, instantly familiar but impossibly like no one else.
6. TURNSTILE- ‘Never Enough’
Whether you feel it builds on the sound Turnstile perfected on their last album, or essentially copy-pastes that slick style for instant, highly recognisable (but slightly diminishing) returns, there’s no denying just how effective ‘Never Enough’ can be.
5. DEFTONES- ‘Private Music’
It’s a credit to Deftones that they can release a record that feels a little too slick, a little clean, and a little too safe by their high standards, and it can still land halfway up a list of my favourite records of the year. ‘Private Music’ connects more with my brain than with my heart, makes me sit back and say “wow, that’s really well made” rather than truly feel anything, but when it works, it’s emotional and magical and memorable- ‘Infinite Source’ is worth the price of admission alone, and in ‘Milk of the Madonna’ Deftones have a new song that will be on their setlists for the next decade. And it still feels like only one band on earth could’ve made it.
4. RIVAL CONSOLES- ‘Landscape from Memory’
Ryan Lee West has proven himself capable of conjuring up living, breathing electronica countless times before, but not since 2018’s ‘Persona’ has he released a record so well constructed and complete and free of the constraints of the genre as this one. ‘Landscape from Memory’ might feel like too much music at first, almost an hour of alien chimes, skittering beats, and organic synths, but it rewards repeat listens and reveals new, brilliant details with every spin.
3. DEADGUY- ‘Near-Death Travel Services’
It took Deadguy 30 years to follow up their debut. And it seems impossible, completely impossible, I know, but ‘Near-Death Travel Services’ doesn’t just stand up to that genre classic but maybe even stands over it. This is a completely satisfying, vital return from a band that sound like they’ve spent every single day of the last three decades planning how to sound as pissed off as possible here. A comeback like no other ever.
2. CHAT PILE & HAYDEN PEDIGO- ‘In the Earth Again’
Chat Pile’s loud, corrosive metallic noise and Hayden Pedigo’s quiet, gently subversive Americana might not seem like a natural pairing. Scratch that- they might seem like a completely unnatural pairing. But the middle ground they find here, on an album that started as a single track collaboration before becoming an EP before becoming a full-length, is unexpected, captivating, and deeply affecting. Together they produce low-volume high-tension desert rock, gristly metal, tape loop trauma, and music that will stick with me, whether I like it or not, until the warm spring sun lets me pretend things are ok again.
1. SHALLOWATER- ‘God’s Gonna Give You a Million Dollars’
I don’t want to love this album. It’s morbid and melancholy and meandering and doesn’t let me sit comfortably or keep scrolling or tune out. Instead, the record opens a side door into an alternate universe- somewhere dry and dusty where the desert goes on for miles and time feels elastic. Its songs drift and lurch, defying pace and structure or obvious payoffs. Instead, I love it completely, and I cannot stop listening. This is music you can climb inside, a fantastically rare piece of work, a record that feels like it does exactly what it wants, whenever it damn well wants to- ‘God’s Gonna Give You a Million Dollars’ is my favourite album of the year.
