2025: Puddled
An entire year's music intake ranked and reviewed for your consternation (219 releases)
As a final farewell to 2025, I sat down for my annual perusal of virtually everything I heard throughout the year, parsing it all into a single loose hierarchy for your consumption and horror.
Although I didn’t think 2025 was a particularly stunning year when judged by the best of its best, this exercise surprised me in that the vast majority of entries here are worth hearing (this might have the largest sum of good releases I’ve sampled from any year) and also in that there are also far fewer truly awful records on this list than there have been in previous installments.
(This last point is surely uncorrelated with the drastic reduction in the hours I’ve spent on the frontpage of a certain angst-stunted certain music site that shall not be named.)
I’ve included headings because the majority of the list is celebratory, and having some form of firm cut-off above the point at which it is absolutely not so seemed necessary. Due to the scale of the list, most of my write-ups here are first-draft rubbish that lean heavily on adjectives and offer little in the way of discourse! They may yet be helpful?
The majority of these entries have Bandcamp embeds — owing to the sheer number of them, these may take some time to load. Please be patient.
Anyhow:
Not Good
#219: Sleep Token - Even in Arcadia
Every popular genre played like it has excrement under its nose
For what it's worth, I haven't listened to enough new music this year to say that this album is the Worst of the Year as undoubtedly as Sleep Token’s Take Me Back to Eden was in 2023, but this joke band really is on a streak.
#218: Jane Remover - Revengeseekrz
Digicore
Insufferable e-jank carcrash abort it immediately.
#217: Taylor Swift - The Life of a Showgirl
Pop
I didn’t think this was quite as bad as everyone else was saying (especially in relation to her last two albums), but no way am I ever listening to this self-satisfied tripe again.
#216: The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die - Dreams of Being Dust
Emo histrionics / alternative metal
Last decade's favourite midwestern loser OSTers hit r/politix a little too hard and churn out a cookie cutter Righteous Piss metalcore-lite album that truly merits their slot opening for Between the Buried and Me. Extremely embarrassing record.
Sunny was a little less allergic to this than me — read his thoughts here:
#215: Glixen - Quiet Pleasures
Shoegaze
Once-solid shoegaze act completely loses its mojo; riots ensue worldwide.
#214: kuatari - 21000b
Electronic jank
Disjointed terminally online faff pt.1000, but I have some faith this artist might make something good one day.
#213: Quadeca - Vanisher, Horizon Scraper
Everything-and-nothing--artcore
Recovering meme artist makes a painfully elaborate concept album that is 100% definitely about anything other than being stuck inside his own head, and there's only so fast you can count the seconds.
I’ve probably made Tyler cry with this one, so let me call in his two cents on it:
#212: Black Country, New Road - Forever Howlong
Godawful chamber prog
The UK's destined sextet of Camden Hells ambassadors churn out a twee picnic soundtrack that you never needed and sure as shit won't remember the following day. Watching them play around half of this album opening for Nick Cave was one of the single most awkward live experiences of my life.
#211: Bon Iver - SABLE, fABLE
iNdIePoP 'soul'
Get out, you are not getting me to write an earnest sentence about Bon fucking Iver in 2025. I am past it, and so (clearly) is he.
#210: Katatonia - Nightmares as Extensions of the Waking State
Doom Metal
Mall goth's most enduring flagbearers BRAVELY turn down to the opportunity to break up now that they are essentially the solo project of the least charismatic vocalist ever to front a metal band. Eyerolls ensue.
#209: After - After EP 2
Downtempo
Tepid '00s indie pop revivalists lay down a masterclass in uninspired retro tedium. Dead behind the eyes, but I'm sure their Inspos and Influs mixtapes go hard.
#208: Viagra Boys - viagr aboys
Post Punk
I'm tired of writing mean things about this stupid insufferable irony attack of a band. Uh. "Medicine for Horses" is a pretty great Arcade Fire track - anyone?
#207: Destroyer - Dan’s Boogie
Sophistititiitipopopppop
Am well through the phases of admiration and jealousy over how much mileage Dan Bejar flogs out of being a zany smartarse; at this point I just want to crowdsource the guy a new gimmick. Is this harsh? Is anything too harsh for an album that opens with the lines:
Your entrance was its own Red Scare
You quote-unquote the French au pair
Where did you invent this learned behaviour?Next.
#206: Hatchie - Liquorice
Dream Pop
Three albums worth of mallified Cocteau Twins aping and still no hint that she has anything approaching an engaging take on the form. Dead-behind-the-eyes retro tedium (still better than After, at least). I’d like to spotlight how the Bandcamp notes open with:
The cover of Liquorice, the third album from Australian indie pop artist Hatchie, features a closely cropped portrait of Harriette Pilbeam laughing, her smudged red lipstick suggesting the glorious aftermath of a kiss. Captured during a spontaneous backyard photo shoot using a dinky digital camera, the image encapsulates a record that is rough around the edges and joyfully undone with themes of longing, lust, and regret. Suffice to say this is an extremely accurate snapshot of this record’s humdrum appeal.
#205: Turnstile - Never Enough
As-post-as-you-can-possibly-be--hardcore
Big bank hardcore tryhards release an even more watered down set of woo-hoos for frat parties and Walmarts alike, but for what it’s worth the chillout tracks on this one are a small step forwards for them.
#204: Bop - Mornings Are Over
Ambient
This guy has released some very firm keepers, but unfortunately this EP proves just as banal as its title premise. Do check his early stuff though!
#203: Rolo Tomassi - In the Echoes of All Dreams
Post-Metalcore
I love how much of an exception this band used to be to the overproduced junzified dialled-in horseshit pedalled by everyone a stone's throw away from them stylistically. RIP? Whatever cinematic band-in-a-room presence they once had, this thing has plasticated it beyond redemption.
#202: NMIXX - Fe304: FORWARD
Emphatically unremarK-popable
…but do keep an eye out for these girls further up the ranking!
#201: Maria Somerville - Luster
Shoegaze
Have 4AD ever taken the piss so actively with how much you have to die for reverb and unintelligible breathy noises to get anything out of their records? Don’t call me.
#200: EQ - EQ
Electropop
Don't look at me like that, I would love to think this should be the next big thing even more than you do. Nearly fun.
Passable
#199: ano - Bone Born Bomb
J-Pop
Perfect album title, iconic artist, almost fantastically obnoxious tunes? Almost!
#198: Bleed - Bleed
Nu-Metal
Do I miss [the real] Linkin Park as much as the next guy? Am I underrating this perfectly decent attempt at a teenage body odour sound? Would Bleed be higher on this list if I'd bothered to check the new Fleshwater? Hmm.
#197: Mao Sasagawa - Strange Pop
J-Pop
Some neat hooks and production trickery, but this mostly struck me as plastic proof of a plastic concept.
![Strange Pop by 笹川真生 [Mao Sasagawa] (Album, Indietronica): Reviews, Ratings, Credits, Song list - Rate Your Music](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!AoSz!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa58f9417-3155-417a-903b-c6d8eb12e420_600x600 "Strange Pop by 笹川真生 [Mao Sasagawa] (Album, Indietronica): Reviews, Ratings, Credits, Song list - Rate Your Music")
#196: crushed - no scope
Dream Pop
These guys' first EP was a lovely daytrip through all the dreamiest 90s things, but give me me five minutes while I try to remember any single track from this dialled-in emblandified snooze of an LP. The production holds the floor and there’s nothing disasterous here, but it’s still fairly disappointing.
#195: Geese - Getting Killed
Indie Indie INDIE
The review on the Rateyourmusic frontpage right now for Getting Killed opens with the kind of pretentious broadstroke I expect from that site: Art exists to smother the most boring parts of our lives. Leaving aside for a moment the naked level of couch potato projection going on here (heaven forbid the original poster entertain themselves for five minutes instead of pasting their vapid functional theories of art over beige indie bands that have enough nothing-problems to whinge about as it is), I find their statement highly amusing given that Cameron Winter's put-me-out-of-my-misery Brooklyn drawl is perhaps the single least exciting thing I've heard from anyone all year. The rest of this bland herbivore-dad rock revivalism is fine, but no amount of tuneless pick-me bullshit or truly embarrassing prose (hiya p4k) is going to make me give it another spin.
This was a somewhat divisive record within our ranks, but you can read Sunny’s more positive take on it here:
#194: Perfume Genius - Glory
Indie Pop
Grandmaster of beige releases the most adequate album you’ve heard in your life. It’s wholesome, you can hug people to it, it doesn’t sound remotely irony-poisoned, nothing terrible happens. I will put it precisely one place above Geese and then forget it exists forever.
#193: You Dayeon - New Age
K-R&B
This lady's debut EP takes three songs to do much more than three twinkly K-Pop/R&B tropes you will have heard before, and if she's short of a personal imprint (other than the cringy Japanese on the closer, which we shall ignore), then this release is still emphatically fine.
#192: nobodyis - data infinity hyper divinity
Indietronica?
Going to be real, I remember nothing about this one except that a) the majority of its runtime was distantly annoying, and b) that 15-minute closer did something huge and nebulous that I've been trying to recapture since, and the considerable lengths of time I've spent not listening to this album have done it plenty of favours as such! I have no idea where to rank it, let’s go.
#191: Kinoteki - The Visitor
Footwork
I wish this project would let go of its edgeless dystopian concept albums and go back to raising breakbeat chaos (ctrl+F 'phonebox' for a significant step forward).
#190: Havukruunu - Tavastland
Black Metal
I expected this to be right up my street — upbeat, ultra melodic, selectively lo-fi black metal barnstormers usually do it for me, but damn a lot of this thing's riff game is pretty toothless. There are enough powerhouse leads to get it a pass, but it earns a shrug as a whole.
#189: f5ve - Sequence 01
Hyperpop-pandering ersatz J-pop
AG Cook finally realises his (I imagine) dream of helming a 00s-revival jingle-slinging J-Pop act, and the results are as annoyingly catchy and ultimately throwaway as you could have seen coming a mile away. Hard to place a market for this either — sounds like a US export more than wholesale J-Pop but is so full of the PC Music schtick that I struggle to view it as more than a vanity project.
EDIT: while AG Cook has production credits on this album and may well consider some of his dreams partially released as such, f5ve are executively produced by BloodPop (of Gaga Chromatica and miscellaneous Billboard fame) — if this makes them in any way more exciting, good for you.
#188: 0番線と夜明け前 - 河原町ハイドアウト
J-Pop / Pop Rock
This act needs to fire whoever did their artwork immediately and give their producer a raise in the hope they'll serve up a *slightly* more inspired set of cutesy pop rock toe-tappers next time. If it turns out to have been the same person, well, I'm sure someone out there will say they had a good run.
#187: caroline - caroline 2
Kitchen sink art-jank rock
The latest record from a latest post-Windmill gang trying to make a career out of impersonating an interminable cold sounds like, well, exactly that. A Caroline Polachek feature is par for the course at this point in both their careers.
#186: BRUIT ≤ - The Age of Ephemerality
Post-Rock
I don't care if the world literally is ending (or if this band is begrudgingly competent at what they do), this form of larger than life, politically insistent transmission of the end times by way of hackneyed crescendos can, respectfully, fuck off back to the last decade it was salient (which for me would be the '00s, but kudos to anyone calling for a harsher sentence).
#185: more eaze & claire rousay - No Floor
Ambient
If this album has no floor than what exactly did I spend my entire playtime sleeping on?
#184: Jason Isbell - Foxes in the Snow
Americana
If Jason Isbell were my uncle, would he be my favourite uncle? We will not find out.
#183: Spiritbox - Tsunami Sea
Nu-bigbucks metalcore
If you'd told me this time last year that I'd rank any new Spiritbox release over any new Rolo Tomassi release, you'd have walked away without a nose -- but when it's not busy laying down the most cringeworthy barrages of artificial heaviness you've heard in your life, this record does have a pretty strong grasp on push-and-pull songwriting and fuckoff catchy choruses. Don't call me. And boycott their stupid plug-ins.
#182: Great Grandpa - Patience, Moonbeam
Indie
I remember these guys' last album packing a handful of the best Hop Along songs not made by Hop Along, but this morose follow-up leans much closer to alt-country and chamber pop -- not necessarily a bad thing! Except when it's hokey (and it's pretty damn hokey at points here). Turn the temperature back up, this bathwater does not warm.
#181: Neggy Gemmy - She Comes From Nowhere
Hypnagogic Pop
Neggy Gemmy resigns her seat on the board of Zany FunCoolGirl Pop and invests all her chips in the same ballpark of stuffy retro tedium that her husband and corrupting influence George Clanton rocks so crustily at his worse. "Eh."
#180: Mclusky - The World is Still Here and So Are We
Noise rock
If you weren't convinced in their heyday by these guys' blend of hookless garage rock with vocal antics so dryly sardonic they could suck the milk out of your Weetabix (I wasn't), then, uh, this very adequate comeback album certainly won't change your mind.
#179: Preservation & Gabe ‘Nandez - Sortilège
Experimental hip hop
There’s an awful lot of bone rattling going on here for how little meat there is to show for it.
#178: Drudkh - Shadow Play
Black Metal
"Atmoblack metal like you've heard it umpteen times before, but THIS TIME—"
#177: Laura Agnusdei - Flowers Are Blooming in Antarctica
Spiritual Jazz
It should be illegal to layer this much reverb on the drums on a jazz album. I wish I had other thoughts on this brutally-okay record.
#176: La Dispute - No One Was Driving the Car
Emo diary guitar testimony music
I can respect this album for what it is, and maybe even believe the people saying it’s La Dispute’s best in years (or is that pronounced ever?) but you could not pay me to raise a finger to turn this band on or off at this point — their style is so overwrought and wearing and I am ready to live without this particular strain of angry Michigan sliceovlyf tumblr.
#175: Divorce - Drive to Goldenhammer
Indie
The most appropriately named indie band of our generation?
#174: The Veils - Asphodels
Chamber Pop
How dare a Kiwi make me feel so totally insufficiently English for an album! This is a real Beatrix Potter Sunday afternoon fix, and I say that with moderate respect and full awareness that there is 100% a deserving audience for this. Not my favourite Veils by the longest of shots though.
#173: Malibu - Vanities
Ambient
I've gone back and forth so many times on whether this record is a worthwhile blissout or the same kind of mawkish air flavouring you'd find in Gwyneth Paltrow's atrium, and since the point that keeps me from coming down firmly one way or another is the intricate melodic progression in the egregiously-named "Spicy City", that's, uh, your takeaway.
Kerry and I were supposed to run a thesis/antithesis style character review on this, but it took about two back-and-forths before we both ran out of things to say — and I think that says it all.
#172: Floodlights - Underneath
Alternative Rock
Australians make competent rock music, and...?
#171: Xenia Reaper - Gambling
Ambient Dub
Liminal dubspace is usually my favourite place to lounge, but this one's air is a little too thin for me.
#170: GENDEMA - Where It Hurts Less
Downtempo
Cooling off the drum and bass genre highlight we snagged last year, Gendema is uh certainly sustaining someone's lounge somewhere with this — just mostly breaklessly. Too bad, all safe.
#169: Japanese Breakfast - For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women)
Indie Pop / Chamber Pop
I was a big fan of Jubilee (weren't we all?), but this well-to-do collection of tepid indie poppers leaves behind almost all of its predecessor's yip and vim and songwriting flourish, and pans out as a chamber-happy must for people who love obsessive stirring tea and literally nothing else! Drab! Well arranged but with little to say for itself! It's not quite current-era Mitski, say, but she's getting dangerously close.
#168: Cloakroom - Last Leg of the Human Table
Shoegaze
Cloakroom are a pretty known entity by now among gaze acts who also know how to play it as a competent rock band, and I doubt they'll ever release an outright stinker. That said, their latest feels truncated, unfocused, 'immediate' without making an impact (say NO to pop punk on "Ester Wind"!), and overall short of a convincing listen, let alone the sharpness of their last two records. The shot-in-the-arm approach is an awkward fit for them: Hotline TNT this is not.
#167: Ishome - Carpet Watcher
Ambient
Probably the most anticlimactic comeback record of the year, but this Russian one-time future garage maestro's retreat into dark-ish, ambient-ish murk is so insistent I can't help but respect her for it.
It’s very strange to think I wrote my first Gatekeep! piece for this of all albums. See the full write here:
#166: Little Simz - Lotus
Hip Hop
Occasionally profound ("Blood"), more frequently insufferable ("Young"), but mostly a dull feint at artistry that reminds me exactly why I prefer Simz down to earth and ungimmicked.
#165: Coheed and Cambria - Vaxis: Act III - The Father of Make Believe
Comic Book Store Cheeseburger Rock
Somewhat better than the commercial hogwash of their last album, but I do not understand the fanbase's acclaim for this one. If Coheed-lite with a handful of cookie cutter rock bangers is the call, merry Christmas ok!! Still good fun, but not a mainstay at all for me.
#164: Charles.A.D - Urban Night’s
House
Blessed techno scion releases a somewhat drab house record; world continues turning.
#163: TWICE - This Is For
K-Pop
Not sure if the inordinate amount of TWICE I binged in 2024 left me in a burnout or not, but I'm struggling to hear this one outside of the memes and captioning? Credit where it's due, IF YOU WANNA DO SOME THINGS / BETTER DO SOME THINGS is exactly the kind of perfect idiot lyric you can hang a min-substance pop record on, but this was not a keeper in the long run.
Jesper had more thoughts than me on this album, for instance: Above all, however, This is For is a lot of fun. In part because it is fun to listen to. You can read the rest of them here:
#162: YHWH Nailgun - 45 Pounds
Noise Rock
Absolute salvation for anyone who wasted their entire adulthood trying to dance to U.S. Maple; mildly entertaining for the rest of us.
#161: Stenny - Sharp Fragments
IDM
This Ilian Tape veteran has a ton of great material on his first LP, but I struggled to get into this the same way. Less prickly IDM, more dub please!
#160: Tim Hecker - Shards
Ambient
The mighty TOM HECKER reaches back into the electroacoustic void and pulls out a handful of twinkly miniatures (this EP is extremely aptly-named). It's the most melody-oriented thing he's dropped in a hot minute, especially compared to 2023's drab No Highs, but I found most of the pieces to be rather underdeveloped case-in-points for the palette. It turns out they were pulled from various OST commissions, which, as they say, tracks.
#159: Rochelle Jordan - Through the Wall
R&B
This one's zillion layers of gloss may not fully camouflage its fairly uneven blend of firm bops and tryhard flops, but there's a couple of steals here for any good dancefloor R&B playlist. Not the event album I was hoping for though.
#158: Asian Glow - 11100011
Emo
A nice raise after his damp squib of a previous LP, but gawd this guy has done it so much better.
#157: Ling Tosite Sigure - Lost God of SASORI
Post Hardcore
Great band releases decent EP with suspect mixing and somewhat more pedestrian songwriting than their usual fare. Shut up and overstimulate me!
#156: The Callous Daoboys - I Don’t Want to See You in Heaven
Mathcore
This album's math-goofery wears itself thin, dips precariously into '00s scenecore, and throws in tedious pyrotechnics at occasionally ill-suited movements (get those idiot guitars from "Tears on Lambo Leather" out of my memory, and for that matter every annoying Car Bomb-adjacent vroom-zap), but it holds its weight in many of its out-of-genre excursions ("Body Horror for Birds" and "Lemon", oh yes!) and dishes out its goods so generously that it's hard not to crack an occasional grin.
#155: kanekoayano - Thread of Stone
Indie Pop
There's only so many good artist/expected better stories we can squeeze in here, but Ayano Kaneko's repurposing of smoky ‘60s twee for 21st century bustle and ennui has been a great arc and I was kinda dismayed at how little her latest did for me on first listens. It's fun to hear her lean into beefier rock territory, but most of these tracks are non-essential, while some of her business-as-usual fare is a little turgid. Oh well
#154: Lexie Liu - Teenage Ramble
Pop
Perhaps the single most hype-worthy pop artist of the moment shows herself at her most unapologetically basic for this grab bag of an EP: the highs are as good as any pop I've heard this year, the lows are yesterday's vanilla and warrant no further expo. Mildly disappointing, but still invested in her next move. Read my full thoughts here:
#153: The Armed - The Future Is Here and Everything Needs to Be Destroyed
Post Hardcore
I'd happily catch these guys live, but their records continue to strike me as perfect on paper/overcooked in practice. This one goes for quickfire doomerish piss and brimstone and has a comparatively narrow appeal as such (whereas I always find something to latch onto at some point in, say, ULTRAPOP) but there's a couple of hard hitters in the back end.
Too good to be meh/not good enough to be great/probably the crossroads of this list/let’s say that the Decent list starts here (and read Zack’s reality checking baller of a review if you think it should have started earlier):
Decent
#152: Nyron Higor - Nyron Higor
Bossa Nova
Perfect palette, frustratingly unsubstantive set of tracks. More to come? Excellent vibes!
#151: Javiera Mena - Inmersión
Pop
A more reflective converse to the hedonistic (and widely underappreciated!) career highlight she scored on 2022’s Nocturna, this album finds our Chilean pop heroine in relatively understated form. Which is nice - all the best tracks on her cult classic debut were a treat in that mode - but I can’t help this album needs a little more meat on its bones. There are some great song-nuggets here, but it’s too fleeting to make the impact it might have. “Mar de Coral” is another story though -- that song alone almost has me bumping my rating and sending this up by 20 places, but alas.
#150: ARTMS - Club Icarus
K-Pop
We should all be here for ARTMS' ongoing mission to bring maximum artistry to K-Pop without compromising on sugar levels, and it's good to hear them retain that energy over this EP even if it's short of any of their champion earworms.
#149: The Goslings - Plexuses, Planes
Psychedelic Rock / Ersatz Noise Rock
The Goslings were once a premium ticket to shattering your windows from the inside the house, but following their decision to halt activities in 2009, the possibility of a comeback had never seemed more distant — yet here they are! Plexuses, Planes may consist of previously unfinished material from their original run, but it casts a decisively new light on the Goslings sound. The furnaces of noise seem to have cooled during the group’s hiatus years, and rather than relight them, the Sorens seem to find more intrigue in poking around the ashes and asking lateral questions about whatever foul fuel sources they once burned to such extremes. I’m not convinced that Plexuses, Planes‘ zany meanderings will hold the attention of anyone who doesn’t have the contrast with the band’s earlier material to weigh them against, but no matter: it’s more than adequate as the start of a new chapter.
Adapted from Quick-fire Roundup, September 2025
#148: REIRIE - Twinning Fate
J-Pop
Degenerate alt-idol act drops new set of brain-erasing cutevomit bangers; children perish across the world.
#147: Charlies.A.D - Previous
Dub Techno
The most "medium rare" response to "How do you like your dub techno?" of all time this year maybe.
#146: Dream Theater - Parasomnia
Progressive Metal
Meme on me and call me Shirley - I haven't enjoyed a Dream Theater album in years (nor made any real effort to), but Mike Portnoy's return is accompanied by enough hysterical excesses and camp eyerollers to earn Parasomnia at the very least a little blockbuster goodwill. Just don't ask me to hum along to any of these tunes.
#145: sassya- - 世界世界世界世界世界
Post Hardcore
I've been listening to these guys since 2021 and have paid precisely zero attention to any of their lyrics since then, but they've always brought a ragtag you-and-me-against-the-world sensibility to their enjoyably sawdusty take on post hardcore, and I tend to enjoy this when their quickfire bloodlettings and cathartic outpourings are more or less equally balanced. This record is a little too overblown for my tastes as such, but it's good to hear them still raising a storm.
#144: 八十八ヶ所巡礼 (88Kasyo Junrei) - 八＋九 (Hachi + Kyū)
Post Hardcore Funko Pop Rocker Metals
88Kasyo Junrei are always a good time, but there's a pretty glaring sense that this is a decent album without being a worthwhile double album.
#143: Vijay Iyer & Wadada Leo Smith - Defiant Life
ECM Jazz
This has to be the most miserable, sobering EDM record I've heard in my days! I don't want to write anything about it, or to listen to it again for that matter — but it is very well made, and perhaps you should hear it!
#142: Anthony Naples - Scanners
House
…and following on from my begrudging respect for #144, Scanners is, uh, perfectly competent! I can't fault it, but it's not a record I feel compelled to praise even a hair more than it deserves (mainly because it's already had plenty of attention). Stop fretting about it's status as a minor event-album, and it's enjoyable, if slightly nondescript house bustle.
#141: clipping. - Dead Channel Sky
Experimental Hip Hop
There are hits and misses all over the floor at this one, but there's no denying how much steely-eyed cool these gents bring to the game when they jinx the right wavelengths. "Mirrorshades, Pt.2" could inspire a lifetime of failed swagger in anyone, and I am not immune.
#140: Chepang - Jhyappa
Grindcore
Chepang blew my socks off when they dropped a contemporary landmark for grindcore in 2023's Swatta, but while I don't blame them for going for something less ambitious on their follow-up, it's hard hear Jhyappa as more than a loose handful of ragers with hardly a throughline in sight.
#139: CxBxT - .After
CxBxT (that’s Adrian Corker x George Barton x Tujiko Noriko) is far from the most accessible project Tujiko Noriko has been part of, but there is something gripping behind this collab's frosty liminal stylings, and I hope they continue to tap into it through this year! Those textures across the backend of "Toku no Minato"! Shivers, etc.
#138 - Laufey - A Matter of Time
Pop Jazz
Song-for-song, this is hardly the most memorable record of the year, but Laufey is quietly building an empire of unobtrusive comfort music with enough old-world charm and gentle artistry to bridge that gap — and to that end, this is another welcome installment.
#137: Shinetiac - Infiltrating Roku City
Ambient Dub / Indietronica
This weirdo collaborative album between Shiner, Ben Bondy and ambient dub lynchpin Pontiac Streator makes very limited sense to me as a whole, but it’s full of disparate goodthings! Some questionable vocal choices set it back, but it’s a decently worthwhile grab bag otherwise.
#136: Jonnnah - Me, With You
Ambient Dub
A solid addition to the co:clear roster, replete with all the aqueous tones and hypnotic percussion you'd hope to hear from the name.
#135: Vildhjarta - + Där skogen sjunger under evighetens granar +
Atmospheric Caveman Junz (aka Thall)
I went into this with full confidence that I'd despise everything about it, and was borderline awestruck at how deftly it navigates incessant changes of tone between anxious atmos and thunderous brainrot-guitars, especially give its near-hilarious insistence on total discontinuity (never mind "where's the chorus?", this thing barely gives us a steady riff to hold onto). Not an album I plan on listening to again anytime soon (especially not in full - one to two tracks will give you the full picture), but a valuable reminder to keep an open mind: even the worst genres of all time can dish out the occasional nugget.
#134: Tiny Yawn - euphoria
Indie
Tiny Yawn's EP Paddle Ship from last year was an absolutely perfect case study in Japanese acts taking Midwest emo and coming out with something more tuneful, more refined and altogether less solipsistic, and if their latest effort is a good deal less compelling when it comes to hooks and songwriting, then it's still charming enough to be a welcome addition to their small canon.
#133: SUMAC & Moor Mother - The Film
Sludge Metal / Spoken Word
My sole spin of this buried me too deep to formulate an opinion, so let's just say that it's Good but that that respectful distance still feels entirely comfortable (as opposed to Sumac's The Healer last year, which I adored). Is the collaboration even-handed? Probably, but I understand why it's been a little divisive. Cool project in any case.
#132: Arborescence & Alio Die - The Inner Vaults
Ambient
As far as I'm concerned, Alio Die is the m****rfucking Pope of liturgical ambient, and it's a good thing to, since this collaboration needs a little faith if you're hoping to hear it shine beyond a nondescript range of background dronescapes. Zone into those periodic glissendos, let your heartrate drop, and you'll find yourself mostly rewarded.
#130 and #131: ASC - Echoes in Space Parts One and Two
Atmospheric Drum and Bass
I'm ranking these two together since they're a series anyway, and they are collectively the least engaged I've been with an ASC project in 2025 — but for what it's worth, there are at least five more ASC releases to come, and these EPs' perfect-average approach to a drum and bass sound I've come to know a little too well is still meticulously well-honed. Stay tuned for more.
#129: Wata Igarashi - Kaleidoscopic
Techno
You've heard beeps, you've heard boops, but have you heard them with complementary BURPS per this pounding, squelchy banger?
#128: Kara-Lis Coverdale - From Where You Came
Ambient / New Age
Both this and her latest record Changes in Air (which I clocked post-list cutoff) are a fairly even blend of beautiful lulls and evasive shimmer, but there's joy to be had in paying close attention to where one gives way to another — it seems to happen in a different place I've spun either album.
#127: Sa Pa - Ambeesh
Dub Techno
The most cogently titled record of the year? You’d better believe this thing is ambeesh.
#126: kurayamisaka - kurayamisaka yori ai wo komete
Indie rock / shoegaze
I remain firmly agonistic to this band's acclaim as J-Rock's Next Big Thing, but that's not going to stop me from recognising a solid album full of fun overdriven bangers when I hear one.
My partner pulled a full double take when she clocked that this wasn’t from 20 years ago and, when I explained the hype, she volunteered that people should calm down and listen to more Chatmonchy. I cannot disagree.
#125: Cicada - 凝視白色的邊界 Gazing the Shades of White
Chamber / New Age
This lovely Taiwanese ensemble never disappoint when it comes to piping quiet pastoral escapes directly into your mid-morning daydreams, and although it’s not quite as ear-catching as their 2023 landmark Seeking the Sources of Streams, their latest record is a welcome addition.
#124: Pile - Sunshine and Balance Beams
Indie Rock / Post Hardcore
No question this record has its juice, but my attitude continues to be one of respectful distance - there's something elusive about its forceful changes of pace and wilfully ugly chord progressions, and while I usually go hard for such things, I haven't made as much headway as with someone older Pile records. Cool album/band in any case.
See here for Sunny’s breakdown (the first paragraph of which ironically sums up my feelings on the album better than the one you’ve just read):
#123: Dusqk - Sanctuary OS
Atmospheric Drum and Bass
Back when Jesper and I 'reviewed' this album, I hadn't taken stock of how much of a reprieve it must have been for longer-time Dusqk fans given the otherwise unbroken streak of digitised atmosphere-as-claustrophobia repped by his earlier record (mostly a compliment, especially for the first two). Sanctuary OS is a welcome change of pace as such, its screensaver-ready drum and bass soothing when it counts and forgettable when it doesn't: not the year's most memorable offering, but arguably one of its most palatable.
You can see our original take on the album here (if you really have to):
#122: Momma - Welcome to My Blue Sky
Indie Rock
Absolutely textbook shimmery alt/indie earworms on this one, making the world a perkier and more pleasant place in their own sweet way! Equal parts enjoyable and unremarkable - love how far it keeps my hand from my chin! Quite a turgid final third, but we move.
#121: Barker - Stochastic Drift
Ambient Dub / Techno
This record was clinical enough to phase me for my first few spins, but it packs a modest share of dubby magic and does well to work in the occasional surprise (those jazzy chords on "Fluid Mechanics" yes please). I’m not in love with its downtime enough to put it any higher, but this grew on me a fair bit.
#120: Eiko Ishibashi & Jim O’Rourke - Pareidolia
EAI
This pair is dependable as anything, and the extended swoon they work this one into by the time it hits its highlight “do” section is prime daydream material. A little foggy as a whole though.
See here for my jet-lagged live experience of Eiko Ishibashi and Riki Hidaka:
#119: Amaarae - Black Star
Pop
Brushing off the delicacies that brought her such acclaim on 2023's Fountain Baby, Amaarae throws down a ferociously egotistical album of wall-to-wall bangers, and the results are at the very least entertaining enough to have warranted your attention at some point.. Can't say I've returned to this one much, but that initial impact really was something.
#118: ASC - Tales of Introspection
Ambient
A neat ambient complement to the overwhelmingly breakbeat-oriented output ASC has been shelling us with this year, but also a solid event in itself. Tales of Inspection is a steady end-to-end spaceout, but it takes until its backend to come close to something special ("Safety in Numbers" oh yes).
#117: Rose Gray - Louder, Please
Pop
TIL that Rose Gray was born in a paddling pool in Muswell Hill, and I don't think I've ever been less surprised by anything. Louder, Please is a moderately self-awarely-pop album that can't decide whether it whether it wants to try out it-girl energy or shamelessly ape a few choice influences (the Gaga on "Angel of Satisfaction" kills me, as does “Blue (Da Ba Dee)” on “Just Two”), but it does well in both guises without laying down anything extraordinary.
#116: PUP - Who Will Look After the Dogs?
Pop Punk / Alternative Rock
This is exactly the kind of tenously hooky pity-me emo washup I would normally eviscerate on a list like this, but y’know what, Stefan +co. are just about self-aware enough to pull it off, and it's nice to hear PUP playing something more openly vulnerable and less tepidly self-parodic than their last effort. It’s still a mixed bag — for every scorcher, there’s a Joyce Manor-level atrocity like “Olive Garden” — but pathos wins the day en masse.
#115: Djrum - Under Tangled Silence
IDM
Intricate melodic progressions have gradually fallen down my list of criteria for electronic music, so the glimmer-happy first half of this album in particular was a little disarming for me. I say 'a little' because self-evidently pretty music will always win the day, but unfortunately I have less time for those winding motifs when they find themselves torqued up and saddled to IDM freakouts in the longer tracks that dominate the latter run.
#114: Lady Gaga - Mayhem
Pop
Take the absolutely rancid closing pair out of the picture, and Mayhem is a dependable set of frivolous good times. The whole thing is pleasantly deja vu both within the Gagaverse and without (from "Abracadabra"'s Tears for Fearsing to "Zombieboy"'s hysterical new jack swing antics, there's joyous pastiche all over this thing), but you can trust Gaga's personality to reanimate any number of old-hat theatrics. Dumb fun yes thank you.
#113: Two Shell - IIcons
Miscellanius e-music
This net-addling goof duo don't tap into quite as much unhinged energy here as they did on their first full-length, and the flow is sometimes ambiguous in whether it wants to be approached as a mixtape or an album (a good thing?), but IIcons still dishes out the slapdash good times we've come to know and scratch our heads at Two Shell for.
See here for my full review:
#112: Warlock BBD - 流转之时 Time in Flux
Atmospheric drum and bass
This is a perfectly solid drum and bass album that flexes robust, contemporary production chops (notwithstanding a handful of instantly familiar samples), and highlights Warlock BBD's flair for an intricate melodic progression — and yet, I'm still going to complain about it because it doesn't have nearly the same X-factor as his previous EP 后目的地 Postdestination, which instantly convinced me he could be something special. Maybe he still can!
#111: Subreachers - Atlas / Rammer
Atmospheric Drum and Bass
I locked in so hard to atmospheric drum and bass/jungle this year that my descriptive store has completely exhausted: there's only so much shimmering, skittering, smashing, splintering and occasional pounding you can cite before it becomes a fool's errand to document the stuff. This one clatters. It is good. I will not expand.
#110: Deftones - private music
Deftones music
It’sanewDeftonesalbum and the deja vu is in session, but for what it’s worth this is the best they’ve sounded in many years — for my money, since Saturday Night Wrist. What happened? Well, it looks like they finally weeded the last of the Diamond Eyes-era djunt bullshit out of their sound, had frontman/gasbag-wielder Chino Moreno hold of on his laughably thin screams, and made a record that sounds like a bunch of rock veterans not trying too hard to do what they're good at. Big kudos!
J. Yolo Mancuso’s review on this record was (I think) the most fun I had proofreading anything this year, and I insist you read it over as many times as I have:
#109: ASC - Spectral Divergence
Atmospheric Drum and Bass
Spectral Divergence might not leave as singular an impression as some of ASC’s offerings this year, but the man is laid down an untouchable standard for consistency and it was fun to hear him tackle something a little eerier on this one. Opener “The Moon on the Moors” puts the spotlight on ethereal high-end textures while sneaking rumbling bass under the radar, but it’s “Persuasion” that conjures up the most engaging beat-reverie. This track is pure exemplary goodness in the push and pull between its stop-start clatter and gauzy soundscape, the latter of which dreams deep enough that your dreams would have their dreams there InceptionBorges-style (and the closer “Severance” is almost in the same territory).
Adapted from Quick-fire Roundup, August 2025
#108: Honningbarna - Soft Spot
Hardcore
Woof, this album is a good deal nastier than 2022's Animorphs (which I found deceptively peppy for the most part), so much so that I'd likely enjoy it more at more succinct dimensions than a 40-minute LP. It still blasts and rips etc., and warrants much of the considerable hype I've seen attached to it.
#107: Oklou - Choke Enough
Alt-pop
Never has an album been at once so unobtrusive yet so terminally online? And somehow pretty great for it! Oklou chirps and titters over this thing like a net imp dropped into your Twitch chat by a degenerate algorithm, and occasionally songs happen (sometimes they do not). Neat.
#106: Takuro Okada - The Near End, the Dark Night, the County Line
Chamber Jazz
Alternately excellent and frustrating, this album is a tossup between pensive chamber goodness (driven by a surprisingly well integrated set of electric guitar arrangements - think In a Silent Way plus generous measures of feedback) and a handful of ambient non-events that land like feet in a cold puddle. It's endearingly mercurial - don't expect any sense of continuity across the tracklist - but with highlights like "Shadow" and the crowning title-track in the bag, it earns its keep. Big props for an unexpected surf rock showstopper too.
#104: Ataudes - Tempus edax rerum
Death Metal
Chunky riffs, dissonant mayhem, palatable pacing, dynamic structures? Say no more (and respectfully tip your hat to Nex for putting this on your plate alongside countless other goodnesses).
#103: Psudoku - Psudoktrination
Grindcore
You can take the rabid goofsquirrel out of the microwave, but you sure as shit can't take the microwaves out of this hysterical, savage creature's bloodstream! Fun album!
Also the only thing I was able to contribute on for Nex’s year-crowning, absurdly comprehensive metal list, which you simply must see here:
#102: Sandwell District - End Beginnings
Techno
A welcome, if tragically timed comeback record (RIP Silent Servant) from this legendary techno outfit, End Beginnings focuses more on driving clubby austerity than the slow-burning intrigue they emerged with in the early '10s, and is less to my tastes as such: it isn't until the midway highlight "Least Travelled" that they offer a chance to exhale and be gripped by the temperature of the air around you. Still, a very solid record by anyone's metrics.
#101: MSPAINT - No Separation
Synth Punk
I mean, it may not pack the highlights of their Post-American LP (though "Angel" comes close"), but this is EP is loud, full of passion, halfway fun and halfway meaningful - what more could you ask of anything in this year, or any? This band's take on punk is sitting in a sweet spot right now and I don't think I've heard (or tee bee aych made much effort to hear) anything that can touch them at their own game.
#100: downy - 無題 [8] [Mudai 8]
Alternative Rock [chopped and skewed]
An even more jagged/electronified advancement of 2020’s excellent Mudai 7 (a singularly anxious record that heralded my pandemic like nothing else), Downy’s work here is stylistically impressive as anything, if a little too splintered to hold onto in the way I did on Mudai 7. They know their strengths though, and highlights like “Night Crawlin’” affirm every last one of them. Anyhow, this record is way out of the box by alt rock’s measly standards and is absolutely worthy of wider recognition.
#99: Purelink - Faith
Ambient Dub
A bit of a step down after their contemp-classic Signs, and further hampered by a couple of questionable vocal features (that Loraine James collab was really not the one), but these guys are still the ones to watch for this fix and Faith earns its keep once it locks in.
Very Good
#98: Skee Mask - ISS011 - Stressmanagement
Techno
After two excellent EPs with broad appeal in ISS009 and ISS010, Skee Mask takes this series firmly back to the club. My first listen caught me in the wrong headspace and produced such silly reactions as dancefloor filler, but these tracks have proved a whole load of fun and have much for to flex production-wise than said filler. "Panic Button" in particular stomps, let's go!
#94: Saapato - Decomposition: Fox on a Highway
Ambient
An ambient concept record about the rotting body of a dead fox sounds like a perfect parody of bargain bin Bandcampcore, but as luck would have it Saapato and (many) friends served up a real gem here: this thing is twinkling accents, ponderous soundscapes and deeply emotive chord cycles galore. See "Bloat" for the best of the very best, and peruse the rest for a worthy morose space-out.
#96: Deafheaven - Lonely People With Power
Blackgaze
I've run my mouth off far too many times about this band's overly-earnest, gauche aesthetics (see: any song they've ever titled) and tendency to stumble off the kerb whenever they take as much as a step away from the relatively narrow course of blockbuster black metal they've made their name on, but y'know what, this latest album is the first time perhaps ever that they've played to all their strengths and had a (relatively) corn-free end-to-end winner to show for it. The upshot is less of a year-event and more in line with the unexpected cheer you get when, say, once in a while a Christopher Nolan or a Michael Bay makes a banger of a movie and you keep stopping yourself from questioning how or why and just enjoy the damn thing. The cheesy metalcore and/or pop punk crossovers here are the best, don't call me.
#95: Real Lies - We Will Annihilate Our Enemies
House / Spoken Word
Narrowly beating out HAAi and Rose Gray as the single most #London thing released by anyone this year (see “LOVERWORLD”, lyrics and otherwise), these guys’ vision of an achey-hearted, fuckhaloed young man’s 2k20s is still earnest enough to kill most of the parts that cringe (believe me there are a lot) and still rides out an irresistible set of house bangers. I don’t think it goes as deep as their 2022 highlight album Lad Ash, but it’s got more zip to it so we move (we really do)!
#94: Greentea Peng - Tell Dem It’s Sunny
Trip Hop / Neo-Soul
The beats and feisty delivery here are on point, but at 50+ minutes it wears itself thin (albeit bringing itself back with a killer closing combo). I love the attitude and forcefulness to these beats though - Greentea Peng is definitely an artist I'll be paying close attention to in future.
#93: Yazz Ahmed - A Paradise in the Hold
Arabic Jazz
I've yet to chime with Yazz Ahmed beyond the occasional eyebrow-raiser; her records are solid enough, but have always struck me more as an invitation to a killer live show. This is true enough for A Paradise in the Hold, with the addendum that it spends rather a lot of time in loungespace, to near-dreary extents ("Mermaids' Tears" especially), and that it makes up for it in turn with hooky Arabic motifs (the opener, "Her Light") and that I'm occasionally sold that there is a spirit-conjuring jaw-dropping end-to-end ripper in here somewhere ("Though My Eyes Go to Sleep, My Heart Does Not Forget You"). An important part of this year's jazz landscape, but not the pinnacle.
#92: Total Wife - Come Back Down
Shoegaze
When it's not churning out churning out dubious breakbeat crossover, this exactly the scuzzy bedroom meltdown that a good gaze album should deliver.
Jesper knew this to be true (kinda) — see:
#91: Brendon Moeller - Blue Moon
Drum and Bass / Downtempo
This one takes until its backend to go from good to great, but it has more than enough floatational space energy to coast off and those highlights (when they arrive) are instantly bankable. Neat record.
#90: Phonebox - The Other Side
House / Future Garage
Mixing lo-fi sampling and hi-fi synth twinkles with demonic abandon, The Other Side‘s grainy outsider house clashes sulky introversion with an outwardly-directed kinetic exorcism to deliciously woozy effect — this album catches exactly the feeling of shaking off a persistent torpor, from pissy energy-venting (”I wish I never met you”) to ebullient romp (”Mixed signals”) to the sublime feeling of release that comes with doing something halfway worthwhile with your body (”Haunted Love”). It’s angry, feisty, irreverent, danceable, unapologetically cracked, and all the other things that Ellie Kit (aka Phonebox, Kinoteki) does so well at their best, certainly far more than on the latest Kinoteki.
Adapted from Quick-fire Roundup, August 2025
#89: Charles.A.D. - Cyclone foraging
Dub Techno
Not the shininest dub techno record you could have heard last year, but it might just be one of the most robust. I don’t think this megaprolific hero had an event album this year in quite the way that West Pontoon Bridge was to 2024, but this record in particular was enough to tide us over meanwhile.
#88: Brandee Younger - Gadabout Season
Spiritual Jazz
Pensive harp reveries for all your tea drinking, yoga flexing mid-morning sunshine hours, full of playful accents and striking melodic flourishes. Yes! See “New Pinnacle” for where it’s at
#87: Machine Girl - PsychoWarrior: MG Ultra X
Digital Hardcore
After the overly dialled-in barrage of MG Ultra last year, Machine Girl let their hair (even further) down and dish out a set of silly ol digihxc bangers that show them at their least self-serious and most irresistibly fun (that stinky red herring of an opener notwithstanding). Pigeonhole it as a stupid meme album if you will, but the bangers speak for themselves here.
See my full thoughts on this one here:
#86: Asunojokei - Think of You
J-Rock / Screamo
I'm glad to see these guys take a step away from dialled-in blackgaze structures and focus more on the nuclear-grade cheese that is very obviously their comfort zone. Rare album where it really is the cheesier, the better — don't you dare tell me the likes of "The Farewell Frost" or "Zeppelin" are the wrong kind of overwrought! Adorably kitsch record through and through.
Zack didn’t need to ah and um quite as much as me to get down to this — see his thoughts here:
#85: Spiral Deluxe - The Love Pretender
Jazz Fusion
Jeff Mills' slept-on jazzbaby fusion project fucks and stomps! Absolutely monster basslines across this thing, along with irresisible drum grooves from the man himself. Perhaps a bit of a drain as an end-to-end, but there are plenty of winners here — see "Society’s Man” and “The Drive” for standouts.
#84: AAAMYYY - Thanks
J-Pop
Renowned both for her solo work and her involvement in the highly awesome psych-pop act Tempalay, AAAMYYY affords both a zany scope and whip-smart writing to what could just as easily have been lackadaisical bedroom hooks in anyone else’s hands. The whole thing is good fun (and seems to have been broadly slept-on within and without its target audience), but big props to “救世主” (track #3; Saviour) for living in *so many* pockets of my mind throughout the entire time since I first heard it. This lady knows exactly how to play an understated hook for maximum impact.
#83: Neko Case - Neon Grey Midnight Green
Alt-country
A powerhouse character/town/way-of-life portrait on its opener and a welcome feint into psych rock on its title-track aside, this record cruises on songwriting beats that would risk wearing themselves a little thin if Neko Case herself didn't see them off with such inimitable personality. This is absolutely a lyrics-album, and if Case's unique perspective doesn’t move you, weary of the empty promises of romance but forever captivated by the small profundities of life as she is, then, well, move on.
#82: james K - Friend
Indietronica / Downtempo
This album is as full of surprises and bliss-bombs as it is dead air, and although I'm not about to sift through the whole thing again any time soon, it packs easily enough quality content to prop up a handful of decent playlists + a voice (and vocal production) to literally die for. The opening trio and everything from “Play” to the end are where it’s at for me, big ups for the surprisingly successful Boa - “Duvet” interpolation on “Hypersoft Lovejinx Junkdream” (the title of which is entirely the wavelength of this record).
#81: Yumiko Morioka & Takashi Kokubo - Gaiaphilia
New Age
This lovely ambient nature reverie commits the frankly unforgivable sin of opening with too many birds, but if you keep your beak down and hold it together, its gorgeous, gorgeous title-track holds up as one of the year's most sheltering lacunas. Takashi Kokubo is a master of the New Age blissout, and his collabs in recent years have been a joy to hear.
#80: Alfa Mist - Roulette
Jazz Fusion / Downtempo
If nothing else, Roulette flexes Alfa Mist’s command over a well-established and highly appealing comfort zone: the man has spent a good decade curating a lounge-friendly three-way of jazz fusion, nu-jazz and neo-soul that has proved catnip for those happy taking such things as sophisticated mood music (results may vary for the concerted-listening, chin-stroking crowd). Roulette cruises along effortlessly with its hazy interplay between longer fusion jams and delicate miniatures. There are enough standouts to warrant as much interest from playlist-scalping day-trippers as from returning fans — the nervy mystique of “Avoid the Drones” and the intricate harmonies of closer “Black Snow” in particular — but the prevailing line here is that which links par for the course with a reliable good time.
Adapted from Quick-fire Roundup, October 2025
#79: 36 & zakè - Stasis Sounds for Long-Distance Space Travel III
Ambient
I haven't gone as head-over-heels for this thing's grandiose journey as I'd hoped, but it's just full of panoramic galaxy-gazed moments of synthesizer bliss and I wouldn't trust anyone who could outright say no to it.
#78: Giant Claw - Decadent Stress Chamber
Very Online Post-Pop
Bedroom-shaking, humanity-transcending, vapor-vibrating bopquakes from the solo project of a Death's Dynamic Shroud member. It's a little deja vu if you're familiar with the territory (I'm reminded in particular of DDS' 2022 effort Transcendence Bot), but that doesn't hamper the larger-than-life goodtimes here one bit.
#77: Sofia Kourtesis - Volver
House
Yes it's a little uneven, yes it's not nearly as emotionally charged as we heard her on 2023’s excellent Madres, but this dancefloor tearaway is fun as anything at its best and a timely reminder that Sofia Kourtesis is still running this game right now. Hit up “Canela Pura” for one of the year’s most irresistible earworms
#76: Conna Haraway - Spatial Fix
Ambient Dub
No, this is dubspace. Have we met?
#75: ifeye - Erlu Blue
K-Pop
One effortlessly hooky year highlight for the genre followed by two solid follow-ons = K-Pop's golden ratio? You bet it’s a nerdy vibe.
#74: Ichiko Aoba - Luminescent Creatures
Chamber Folk
Gauzy and diffuse and even more contingent on being listened to end-to-end than Windswept Adan (that album at least had notably more standalone highlights!), Ichiko Aoba’s second full-length from her Taro Umebayashi-collaboration era is obviously lovely, but it lacks the staying power of her earlier classics and I've felt a dreamily respectful distance grow between it since my release-window binge. I think I fell asleep for a short time at her concert? Hoping for a new direction on her next.
#73: KUUNATIC - Wheels of Ömon
Avant Folk / Psychedelic Rock
A remarkably even-handed exploration of traditional Japanese folk music across tribally-augmented rock instrumentals, where each side someone brings the best of the other; I’ve been disarmed every time I’ve revisited by how easy a listen this is (I’m reminded a little of the PoiL Ueda collaborations from a couple of years back, but this has far fewer self-flaunting rough edges). What an excellent zany journey through time and space!
#72: Matt Berninger - Get Sunk
Adult Indie Singer-Songwriter Yarns
Oh, we love an album title with as much dry irony as this one: far as I'm concerned, the National were as sunk as once-great bands with widening creative differences and cloying mainstream crossover get (their semi-return-to-form Laugh Track qualifying at most as a tentative lifeboat), and I'd initially chalked Matt Berninger's comatose deadpan nothing-vocalisations up as the primary culprit (depressed and inert as he may have been, I think in retrospect Aaron Dessner can take that title).
Anyhow! Get Sunk is far from a perfect record - at a healthier point in Berninger's career, we'd be fingerpointing the last four songs in particular and using words like autopilot - but it has so much more presence and focus than anything else I could put the man's name to this decade and, most importantly, sounds resoundingly like he's halfway enjoying what he's doing (having long since run out of noteworthy demons to purge, this is the most one could hope to hear).
It feels like a real homecoming to me, even when its highlights are familiar ground stylistically ("Inland Ocean", "No Love", "Frozen Oranges) -- and when he goes one beyond, and channels a headache's worth of spoken word to lay down an album peak like nothing you've heard from him before on "Nowhere Special"? Un-giving up on an artist has rarely felt rosier.
#71: baan - Neumann
Post Hardcore
After years of sentimentalist post rock/shoegaze, the powers that be have finally plucked out a band from the Korean rock scene whose guitars crunch, songs lurch, distortion does not smack of budget DAW plug-ins, and momentum fuckin' pummels. I went into Neumann expecting a heftier Parannoul and was gleefully surprised to find myself halfway between Boris and Hum; this record deserves every bit of attention it's soaked up, and I look forward to any future eardrum abuse from these guys.
#70: ASC - Next Time You Fall
Atmospheric Drum and Bass
I think Vanishing Point just about wins the title strongest ASC full-length of the year, but in "Nightvision" and "Say It", Next Time You Fall might just have his two overall strongest tracks. Vibe-wise, this one leans in hard to a noirish night driving atmosphere, all chrome and eerie streetlight, and that right there is a natural a fit to the man's style as you get.
#69: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek - Yarın Yoksa
Psychedelic Rock
Less Anatolian ROCK and more soothing Anatolian downtime with guitars (and deliciously smooth bass), this was one of the most instantly appealing comfort jams of my year and I wish I'd returned to it more. Definitely a style of music I'd like to explore more this year.
#68 水中スピカ (Suichu Spica) - Lux
Math Rock
The *clears throat* best album of the year named Lux is a crash course in how to tie contorted math-happy guitar noodleleads to chorus structures that BANG and melodic progressions that you will REMEMBER! Praise be! There's a bit of shrapnel here, but when it kicks into gear ("Miyako", "spica", the catchy as hell track about dinosaurs in the track #5 slot), it's among the best things of its kind this year this decade uhuh uhuh.
Also for what it’s worth, Rosalia remains unrated and respectfully off the list - her record did little for me but also impressed me too much to want to hot take it. Be happy!
#67: FKA twigs - Eusexua
Art Pop
For all the pretentious faff surrounding Eusexua’s concept, for all the naked cues it takes from the KateBushBjorkImogenHeap canon, for all the brows of longtime fans it (rightly) furrowed with its side-A flirtations with commercial pop, for all the ridiculousness of North West's Japanese-language "Jesus is King" feature (which I will humbly contend is in fact idiotically awesome), FKA twigs' ode to whatever you want to call this plane of ultrahorny turbodancing megapresence is full of convincing reinterpretations of the Banger, and if you're not basking, then, uh, I'm basking.
Start this album on "Room of Fools", turn it off after "24hr Dog" and tell me that's not one of the most creative runs anyone's pulled off this year — and apparently the B-sides are even better (wouldn't know, hold my beer!)?
#66: FiFi Zhang - Fleeting Hearts
Pop w/ bedroom breakbeats
Breezy, ephemeral and inconsistent enough to raise eyebrows even on a runtime this short, this is still a delightful record when it finds its feet. That hairbrush micery, twinkly production and breakbeat tickle is the stuff good daydreams are made of. Chase that moon, girl!
#65: ASC - Undercurrents
Atmospheric Drum and Bass
Probably the sleekest release in ASC's 2025 canon (not to mention the one that got me hooked on his recent output), Undercurrents operates with surgical precision across its four tracks, leaning less on twinkling accents and cycling its way through eerie refrains. The aqueous theme comes off particularly well here, and I think it does better than any other of his drum and bass output at preserving a distinct identity (even if I think he hit higher peaks elsewhere).
#64: Messa - The Spin
Doom Metal
Much like their last outing Close, this landed as a pretty impressive highlights affair to me (said highlights being "At Races" and the powerhouse closer). I've got a lot of time for how these girls use slick blues nods and eerie atmospheres as an excuse to turn the tempo up on doom — they're a force to be reckoned with at their best, and a lovely counterpart to Faetooth when it comes to that recent fix of ethereal_gloom_heavyshit.
#63: TURQUOISEDEATH - Guardian
Atmospheric Drum and Bass / EDM
This thing's grandiose progressions and constant melodic business are very far from how I normally like this genre, but there's no denying how well realised it is — this guy wants to be the (new) Kashiwa Daisuke of breakbeat, and he's putting in the legwork! I may be a cynic, but Guardian plays so earnestly, so transportively that I can't bring myself to high horse it, and neither should you? Big bonus points for bringing actual basslines to this style of revivalist DnB; the Sewersvlt-descended net rats that have earned it such a bad name are still sleeping on that trick.
Read the real full story (but much longer and funnier) from Milo here:
#62: Hotline TNT - Raspberry Moon
Shoegaze
I got huge mileage out of the fuzzy slacker bops these guys trotted out back on Cartwheel, to the point that I'd happily have taken another album of the exact same (Cartwheel itself was basically 10+ variations of the same song); Raspberry Moon turns out to be much more invested in distinctive songwriting, and while its broader scope is welcome, it ended up a highlights affair rather than a similar end-to-end winner. Most of my mileage here comes from "Break Right" or the untoppable "Candle" on repeat, but that is already enough goodness to cement these guys' place at the top of the Loud Rock Band tree right now. Their live show was fun too, if a little stationary.
#61: NMIXX - Blue Valentine
K-Pop
One of the better attempts I've heard at a shamelessly with-it, deliciously plastic K-Pop full-length in a hot minute: this thing is full of earworms, dangerously consistent, stylistically locked-in to glossy forward-looking arena pop (ft. precisely enough nostalgia for what 'arena pop' is and has been since the '80s), prone to a memorable switch-up, and - uh - good! Even the filler is good ("Adore U" is one of the single most uninspired pop songs I've heard in my life, and I could not care less - that bullshit slaps) -- could have lived without the closing pair, but otherwise this is a Great Product Well Done.
#60: Sleigh Bells - Bunky Becky Birthday Boy
NOISE POWER POP
One of the dumbest, catchiest things of the year HAPPY BIRTHDAY, this album has been the shot in the arm I needed on many an occasion CONGRATULATIONS, and I do not care how homogenous the tracklist is until the final tracks MANY HAPPY RETURNS except I do because otherwise I would have put it even higher HOORAY great fu-
#59: Burial - Comafields / Imaginary Festival
Ambient Trance
I'm still a little lost by "Imaginary Festival", but "Comafields" is the most inspired and engaging Burial has sounded in over a decade, and you can read my full thoughts about it here:
#58: Kap Bambino - No Domination
Synth Punk
Big dumb hyperactive grinning fun! This is a lot more wholesome than I remember this duo being (they always struck me as being on the hard-eyed digihardcore-adjacent end of things), but they're loud enough to bridge any distance and pack hooks for days. Very neat record.
#57: 36 - A Warm Static Sphere
Ambient
Alright, 36-knowers please don't call me over ranking this above the latest Zakè collaboration, but this record's hazy limbo ended up saying more to me than the epic space-odyssey arc of Stasis Sounds III. This guy's synth palette is a my pillow of dreams, and A Warm Static Sphere has proved one of the year's most effortlessly enjoyable spaceouts as such (and the progressions are no slouch! Get ye onto "Part 6" pronto). Underrated! Don't sleep on it, sleep to it hurr (love this annual opportunity to get all the absolute worst gags out of the year out of my system before the cycle resets in earnest).
#56: Haru Nemuri - Ekkolaptόmenos
Loud Art Pop
I’m mainly coming at this album aesthetically (for now), having not delved into the lyrics, but Haru Nemuri’s own assessment of the album is worth a read:
Our souls don’t fit a single mold, yet the world often forces us to erase our differences to survive. Systems built for efficiency ignore individuality and quietly reinforce power. Drawing from Walter Benjamin’s idea of ‘divine violence’, the force that breaks laws rather than maintains them, this album is my attempt to fracture what feels unchangeable. The self, the now, the here: these aren’t fixed, but constantly transforming, hatching and being hatched, destroying and creating. If we accept that, then freer, more fluid ways of living together become possible.I feel that her work since her watershed debut Haru to Shura (which I hear first and foremost as the imprint of her finding her voice at a moment) has grasped at this idea from various different angles, often erratically and without a sense of wider worldview to show for it, but Ekkolaptόmenos is by far the most focused and cohesive her existentialist noise-rap vision has sounded since her debut, and I’m dying to dig further into where it’s coming from intellectually (until now it always seemed like window dressing Haru Nemuri majored in philosophy, and yet-)
So, for the first time in a long while, I’m earnestly excited to see where she’ll go next! At its best, her self-produced weave of synthetic melodies, ecclesiastical refrains and coursing noise textures really does break into breathtaking new territory (“terrain vague” and “angelus novus”), and if the rest of the tracklist is a little choppy, then this is easily forgivable given how palpable its centre of gravity is. Onwards!
Excellent
#55: Juana Molina - DOGA
Folktronica / Art Pop
A lovely comeback for this Argentine queen of the arts, of whose 2008 folk-kraut-pop headspinner Un día I'm a big fan, and whose subsequent discography I immediately regret not exploring more! DOGA is full of her lilting delivery, oddball mix of tones, cartoonish grooves and ever-playful presence, and if it's considerably more pop-oriented than Un día, then it flows just as seamlessly as an overall statement. Woof.
#54: Alan Sparhawk with Trampled by Turtles
Bluegrass
I'm not convinced this fully gels as a record, but that's more a judgement of the consistency of songwriting than of the remarkably smooth pairing of weary old sage Alan Sparhawk (Low) with progressive bluegrass mainstays Trampled By Turtles. When Sparhawk draws himself together for a proper plaintive address ("Don't Take Your Light", "Not Broken"), this is easily among the most devastating albums I've heard this year, and the teary reckoning with the passing of Mimi Parker that I feel many of us have needed for what suddenly feels like an upsettingly long time. Never underestimate what banjo can do in a torch song.
#53: McKinley Dixon - Magic, Alive!
Hip Hop
This was a lovely surprise! I got modest mileage out of Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!?, appreciating what that record did with its opulent jazz arrangements but finding it a little concerted and boneless with how it held up as hip hop, but WHAM! this album takes everything florid and overdone about its predecessor, and suffuses it with so much focus and humanity that its excess is my excess, its sappiness (if one could ever use such a word for these misty-eyed narratives of loss and growth!) is my sappiness, and so on! It's ultra-succinct for how much depth it packs too, kudos all round — “Listen Gentle” in particular is a frankly unbelievable track.
I am also just realising how little hip hop I got through from this year (though my consumption of older stuff was somewhat better), and that I forgot to add the new Clipse to this list (it would have been around five places higher than this). Whoops. Something to work on in 2026.
#52: SENTRIES - Gem of the West
Alternative / Noise Rock
This album takes a pretty successful everything-and-the-kitchen sink approach to any rock style that can rep jagged edges while still upholding a maudlin sense of melody, and it's full of *moments* that absolutely bring it for me (the bit where the winding guitar lines come together in "The Cowboy's Carcass", the Unwound-Fingernails on a Chalkboard-esque kickoff in "Red Eye Removal", the album-shaping meltdown in "I Saw Someone Die in Sudbury, ON"), but it didn't quite cohere into the year-crowning knockout that I've been excited and ultimately pretty glad to see some hail it as. Certainly a creative leap from last year's Snow as a Metaphor for Death (fun as that one was).
#51: Faetooth - Labyrinthine
Doom Metal
Somewhat homogeneous songwriting may hold this back from the higher placements I could otherwise see it landing in, but these girls have a terrific command of their sound and know exactly how to infuse crushing highs with ethereal sheen. 'Fairy doom' really is a fair self-description and I look forward to hearing more from them.
#50: Yagya - Vor
Dub Techno
Excellent stuff from this dub techno longtimer, and one of the most 'accessible' things I've ever heard for the genre! Some of the melodic progressions are a bit bright for my tastes, but this record does a great job at blending ear-catching hooks with that trademark groove-driven netherspace a boi can get lost in.
#49: Ethel Cain - Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You
Slowcore
I've been strictly agonistic about Ethel Cain til now, mainly because the gargantuan concept album cannibalistic shag-diary she made her name on with 2022's Preacher's Daughter was such a drag, but she's been a fun artist to follow (see: terrible tattoo choices, Lana del Rey beef, and sticking two fingers up to most of her own fanbase on this year's otherwise forgettable Perverts). But forget all that: Willoughby Tucker is the level-up I never expected her to make.
These songs don't drag their feet (and when they do go overboard, per the monolithic closing pairing, they drag you along with them), her hooks are sharp, her arrangements are mostly built in increments sharp enough to escape turgid pacing, and - most importantly - there's a distinct pulse and spark and (mostly) unpretentious imprint of humanity that I frankly did not catch from her music until now. "Dust Bowl" was the track that got me and remains my favourite from her to date ("Tempest" running an impressive second), so much so that the impossible happened and my imagination was engaged — give me a sadgirl doom redux of this with Boris guitars! Get her collaborating with Faetooth! I'm tentatively excited to see where she goes from here; her inspirations may well shift, but her craft has never sounded more confident.
#48: ASC - Vanishing Point
Atmospheric Drum and Bass
Landing in mid-December, Vanishing Point was ASC's final release of his 2025 marathon — did he save the best for last? It's a close thing. I certainly think it's his most comprehensive and versatile LP experience of the run; going all-out on one specific wavelength is all very well for an EP, but these tracks have a neat range of atmospheres that goes a long way to sustaining a longer tracklist.
"Convergence" is prime loungeable chillout whereas "Celestial Bodies" is a perfect take on the immaterial limbo we caught a whiff of down at #123 with Dusqk; "Invisible Borders" is a neat follow-on from the more frenetic Magnetic Fields palette, while "Paradigm Shift"'s soulful vocal samples just make me want to hop dimensions and move my body right now this instant. Lots to love here.
#47: Yeule - Evangelic Girl is a Gun
Electropop / Downtempo
This may be the weakest Yeule LP to date by a good margin, but the three-four tracks that matter here are absolutely among the year's finest and handily vindicate their turn to grungy cyberfucked-90s revival. It took an impressive live show to convince me on the rest (parting an asthema attack's worth of smoke to enter on a motorbike is always the right move), but this does hold its ground as an end-to-end project and I'll take a killer aesthetic in lieu a consistent album — I'm just not moving it even a single place higher for it!
#46: Andrea - Living Room
Breakbeat / Ambient
It's amazing how this flew under the radar compared to 2023's keynote record Due in Color, especially considering how much the two have in common. Whatever. Andrea is still one of the best in his scene (said scene being the Ilian Tape sound, with its ultra-tasteful blend of every atmospheric electronic sound I'd care to list), and his craft hasn't fallen off one bit. Tune into highlights like "Reactions" and "Gesagt" to hear what you've been missing here.
#45: Bambara - Birthmarks
Gothic Rock / Post Punk
As far as honest-to-God rock music goes, Bambara are possibly my favourite band in the world laying it down right now, and catching them in a Cambridge pub on their UK tour (they skipped London - legends) was a huge highlight moment for me. Birthmarks itself is... good. Occasionally astoundingly good, certianly better the more you read into its morbid concept (a fragmented Southern Gothic narrative that undercuts smut, young love and interconnected destines with a morbid providencial through-line), and gorgeously produced in a way that I don't believe always serves the music but is so damn gorgeous that I can't complain.
It rarely grips you by the throat or flies off the handle as fantasically as 2020's best-in-its-field Stray, but I've made my peace with this. Every song they played sounded better live, apart from "Loretta" (which is the one cut that blows the doors off as a studio version and still stands as my favourite, and certainly most-listened track of the year), and maybe "Hiss", if only for how perfectly the show-stealing female guest vocal lands on the record. So there's that: a good album from a great band.
#44: Conna Haraway - Shifted
Dub Techno
One meandering ambient dub collaboration with Xenia Reaper sets the stage for two of the neatest techno tracks I've heard all year, and all I can say is that Conna Haraway had better stick with this style more in future! I enjoy his more floatational dub suspensions (see Spatial Fix lower down the list), but this more focused take on the form fits him like a glove. Very entryist-friendly too, I could rec these tracks to anyone.
See here for my full review:
#43: Ill Considered - Balm
Spiritual Jazz / Dark Jazz
Now here’s one that I feel has been underrated and overlooked, especially in the context of Ill Considered’s discography: these guys have been hone their trademark seance-in-a-junkyard eerieness for a while now (see last year’s Infrared, which largely missed the mark for me), but Balm is the point where they step things up to a darker spookout — put down your spork and let it grip you.
#42: John Zorn - Nocturnes
Chamber Jazz
John Zorn's chamber stuff has been in a very solid spot for a while now, and Nocturnes is a particularly satisfying addition to that arm of his vast, vast discography. Brian Marsella, Jorge Roeder and Ches Smith lay out a blueprint of pensive late-night piano musings clear as day [fuck], but these pieces are wily and sophisticated in how they circle easy listening territory without making themselves fully at home there. Beautiful performances too, but that's par for the course with this trio.
#41: Kayo Dot - Every Rock, Every Half-Truth Under Reason
Avant Garde Drone-Chamber-Rock
By far the most impenetrable Kayo Dot have sounded since 2010's Coyote, this record took me a number of spins to begin to open up and I still don't feel I've cracked it (it isn't exactly one to jam on repeat). Toby Driver's talent for haunted empty space and a stirring string arrangement could hold my attention through far less hospitable soundscapes than this though, and even at the points when I don't fully connect, just catching a glimpse of that murky, demonic something that drives his unhinged vocal performance is enough to sustain intrigue.
#40: Neptunian Maximalism - Le sacre du soleil invaincu
Drone Metal
Raga-infused drone metal that takes all the most expansive qualities of its parent elements in its stride: it’s not a breezy listen (and so I didn’t return to it nearly as often as it deserved throughout the year), but these guys are absurdly proficient in the way they play with space and in the eerie thunder they raise when they turn up the heat.
#39: Jonny Nash - Once Was Ours Forever
Ambient Folk
Beautiful record - upon revisiting, I was immediately confused as to why I didn't spend more time with it last year. One of the most effortlessly relaxing experiences I heard from anyone: the guitar motifs at the core of each track are solid enough, but the peripheral layers are so wonderfully gauzy and really lend the whole album its breath. An easy universal recommendation.
#38: Imperial Triumphant - Goldstar
Dissonant Death Metal
I thought this band had lost itself to sporkified indulgence forever on Spirit of Ecstasy, but trimming as much gold leaf as they could bear from their singularly opulent style seems to have been exactly the way to go: Goldstar dishes out maximum headfuck with minimum downtime, and you can bet I was along for the ride.
#37: Arcologies - Vapor Drive
Atmospheric Drum and Bass
Although you'll have have noticed ASC releases peppering the upper half of this list to the point that the whole thing exists in the shadow of aTmOdNb, it's Arcologies who's been my major revelation from the style this year. This is chiefly credit to his superb LP Ocean Deep from 2024, which is a total masterclass in preserving old school production techniques to convey dreamlike atmospheres, but this year's Vapor Drive also racked up heavy playtime and handily earns its keep here. Spaced-out but not quite catatonic (Arcologies has a great knack for having breakbeat splinters pierce his reverie at just the right moment), this one leans further into ambience and dub, generously rewarding any downtime I've fed it in. I'll be on the eager lookout for new material this year.
See here for my full breakdown of Vapor Drive and Ocean Deep:
#36: Arcologies - Accesscode / Daytrip
Atmospheric Drum and Bass
I went back and forth between this and Vapor Drive too many times to decide a favourite, so they're getting ranked together, but this excellent single doubles down perfectly on the sparser palette Vapor Drive introduced to Arcologies sound and the only thing holding it back is the inconvenience of the replay button. “Accesscode” wears the palette well, but the percussion is perhaps a tad simplistic; “Daytrip” is just perfect.
Shoutout also to his other single on Dream Schemes, Dark Tides / Meadow Mage, which would also be on this list if I could be bothered to adjust every last number (albeit lower down — “Dark Tides” is a fun stint into liquid, but “Meadow Mage” doesn’t quite hold together for me).
#35: HAAi - Humanise
Techno
Given how much time I spent with HAAi's 2022 Event of a debut, Baby, We're Ascending, this timely follow-up was easily among my most anticipated records this year, but it caught me at the wrong time and its emphasis on mixtape-esque flow as opposed to the towering highlights of its predecessor meant that I spent less time with it than I expected.
To my shame! True to its title, this is a lovely beat-driven odyssey that foregrounds the human voice at every turn, along with simple yet effective messages of connection and selffulness. HAAi does fantastic work carrying it in her own voice, and her revolving door of collaborators are smartly placed to complement her. The upshot is one of the most affirming records of the year, and if it chooses to get there through gentle, new age-esque increments of dancefloor reverie rather than outright rapture (I'm reminded of Gezan's wonderful record ANOCHI from last year as something similar in scope that makes its mark with opposite means), then, well, I'll still need some time to get it completely under my skin.
#34: Ron Trent - Lift Off
House
Don't we love it when a genre-defining oldtimer goes the whole hog to show the world exactly how it's done. Lift Off is a massive album full of massive grooves and endless subtle changes of footing, and I don't trust a single soul who can't get down to it.
#33: Courtney Bailey - In Dream
New Age / Ambient Techno
I complained on release about this being too short, but y’know what, this is an ace take on a generally underrepresented sound palette and I've gotten easily enough mileage out of it at this point not to care about its fleeting runtime. One of my favourite bliss-outs of the year and a welcome tribute to heyday Dream Dolphin; I’m very excited to watch her career from here.
See here to catch me shamelessly underrating this record:
#32: Anouar Brahem, Anja Lechner, Django Bates & Dave Holland - After the Last Sky
Chamber Jazz / Arabic Jazz
Gorgeous (how many times have I used that bloody word at this point) and mournful in turn with beautiful performances all round, I think this is the record I was waiting to hear from oud maestro Anouar Brahem (whose older chamber jazz mainstays I've sampled and gently respected) - it has the pathos, it has the heart, and it could absolutely have handled a little more out-of-genre attention (for both topical and aesthetic reasons).
#31: Crippling Alcoholism - Camgirl
Gothic Rock
I slept on this until the last minute, and can immediately see why it was such an event album for many -- not only does it delve promptly into a universally-relatable wavelength of sleazed-up misanthrophy, but it comes with earworms and sexy disco-hauntings for days! And it really does feel like all day: Crippling Alcoholism's hook game starts to feel a little repetitious over that hour-plus runtime, and I'm not sure how I feel about their putrid noise-outs other than the welcome contrast they provide, but this is a damn fine record by anyone's estimation and I am not at all done bingeing it.
#30: Sudan Archives - The BPM
R&B&fuccgirlDance
Spotty side-B and (for its fix) long fucking runtime aside, this album is a sensationally good time from a distinctive personality (she really is a lot lol), cand I can't stop listening to it! Still! Absolutely electric hooks, huge choruses, lovely ear-catching innovative arrangements (they did breakbeat on a violin?), and a genuine sense of excitement at new possibilities that continues to draw me back to its chief highlights ("Noire", "The Nature of Power", "A Bug's Life"). I love enough of this record to wish it I'd put it much higher, but the inconsistency trips it up. I still want her to throw her kitchen sink in my face, and I mean that without a shred of irony or euphemism.
Peak 2025
#29: Surgeon - Shell-wave
Techno
Shell-wave pounds, thuds, whacks, squelches and satisfies in all the worlds that only a thoroughly robust techno workout can offer, and it is to my great shame that the year is out and I still haven't heard anything else by Surgeon. Resolutions!
#28: Teardrinker - Killing the Flowers Will Not Delay Spring
Screamo
What a stunner of a two-track debut for this gang of apparent veterans — the morose guitarscapes and powerhouse vocal performance crush it at every turn. Perfect for folk savvy enough to prefer their skramz as a slow collapse to a babyish frenzy. Oof.
#27: ASC - Magnetic Fields
Atmospheric Drum and Bass
ASC's overall strongest offering from this frankly insane year just so happens to be his most torqued-up, snare-splintered timestopper of a breakbeat gauntlet, and you'd better bet there's magnetism at work here somewhere/everywhere (those middle two tracks in particular, damn). At this point, I’d like to give myself a year-long holiday from writing about any of his releases, but something tells me his output schedule is unlikely to concede this…
Anyhow, here’s as much prose as I could wring out of this one on release:
#26: Kostnatění - Přílišnost (Excess)
Black Metal
Exploding from his cracked-out 2023 masterwork Úpal to this ever-more-cracked-out hodgepodge of batshit, Kostnatění proves that the secret to a black metal firecracker is less big ideas (of which he has plenty) or cross-genre headfuckery (even more in that department), but a hefty shot of devil-may-care vim. This record is no setpiece or pondorous dissonant statement, it’s a visciously kinetic, perniciously irreverent Fun Time, and if that means that the Anatolian microtonal folk inflections that sounded so fresh on Úpal are now chased by drum and bass flurries and slam breakdowns on song-shaped broken things fuller of jagged edges than cohesive binding, then fuck it — this is a tremendously entertaining baller.
#25: Tujiko Noriko - Echoes on the Hem
Ambient
Between her best-of-year 2023 album Crépuscule I & II, her work in the new project CxBxT and this lovely 20+ minute 'single', Tujiko Noriko's recent comeback to [non-OST] music has been a joy to witness, and if "Echoes on the Hem" is familiar fare with her trademark warmth-in-a-frosty-room gauzy soundscaping and vocalised haptics, so much so that she might as well have called it Crépuscule 3, then I could hardly think of a more welcome encore.
#24: Illuvia - Mauna Kea
Atmospheric Drum and Bass / Ambient
Listen to every atmospheric drum and bass album on this list so far in one go, and the odds are you'll be so overscratched on the relatively specific itch it handles that the odds are you'll hardly be acknowledging the difference between one track to another by the time you're done (spare a thought for the ends I had to split to blurb them all) — or so you'd think!
You haven't heard it all until you've heard Illuvia's take on the form, which is about as atmosphere-first/breakbeats-second as I've heard anyone pitch it and then nail it. The way he flips a style I typically find very introspective into a panorama so expansive that the very thought of preserving an ego within it gets the tiny-blue-dot treatment is perfectly majestic, and if Mauna Kea isn't even my go-to from him (last year's fantastic Earth Prism is both more album-shaped and has greater highlights that pair clashing textures more distinctively), then it's still a generous and effortlessly transportive affair that slipped under too many radars.
#23: Meitei - 泉涌 [Sen’nyū]
Ambient
Exporting the unimpeachably blissful onsen experience to your headphones in a form you can bloody well sit down and meditate to, Meitei’s latest is a departure from his usual ambient collage approach and offers a deeper interpretation of traditional Japanese aesthetics (all of which is code for: great listen). I’ve already spent far too long bath-whispering about it and bathing more widely (see the review below, which was one of the most satisfying pieces I worked on last year), but suffice to say it stands proudly as one of the most impressive ambient undertakings of the year. Sploosh.
#22: Ninajirachi - I Love My Computer
Electropop
The hooks are electric, the mixtape-esque flow is addictive, the highs are nigh untouchable, and the rumours are true: she really does love that machine! There's a handful of tracks from this adorable overstimulation-record that have been at the heart of my year ever since I heard them (the moment ""iPod Touch" came on, I was gone), and I was beyond happy to see it almost top our AOTY poll - she'll gettem next time!
I love that K Bowman reviewed this for us (virtually no one on the internet could have done it more justice on release), and now so can you:
#21: betcover!! - 勇気 [Yuki]
Alternative Rock / Jazz
Jiro Yanase & co.'s blend of sentimentalist Showa-era aesthetics to serve a more fractured modern standpoint has always been savvy, waxing bombastic and maudlin in turn in a manner that made easy comparisons between them and the Windmill bubble and its Brooklynite offshoots, but with an apparent emotional sincerity on the part of their frontman that the (mercifully) now-obsolete Black Midi and their jank-pedalling contemporaries could only dream of. Their most natural peer would be probably Black Country, New Road during their short-lived Ants From up Here heyday, both in their vintage aesthetics, and that they are (or at least were) possessed of a singular auteur whose vision of being a troubled soul out of time in a chaotic era seemed capable of dragging an entire, intricately-arranged band behind him. I have yet to hear another Japanese band truly like them, though I doubt this would take much digging.
None of which matters much (or at least it shouldn't if this type of referential faff weren't tediously necessary to get them even a slither of the attention they deserve in the Western press (or, in the case of this big ol’ betcover!! x Windmill x Eiko Ishibashi/Jim O’Rourke hangout, the Japanese Rolling Stone), but I've digressed enough already).
Much more interesting is that this album’s step into a haunted cabaret's worth of jazz-rock ballads has been on the cards for a while now, scanning as a salient converse to the rambunctious skronk-laden blowout of 2023's Uma in particular. Yanase's theatrical side has never been more at home as he regales us of eerie mandolin performances and the explosive disease of youth manifesting itself in a snowbound railway ride and nudist beach frenzies (I may need a reparse of that one), in part because the rest of the band commit so earnestly to the delicacies of their palette, and in part because his songwriting forces him into some of the most understated turns of his career (see: "Summerland" and the stirring closer "銀河 Golden Boy").
It's probably to his credit that I have found myself surprised on multiple occasions that this record contains neither a Japanese-language cover of, say, “Lilac Wine” nor a jazzified enka number of comparable stature, but his hollow-eyed, heavy-hearted, spangle-tongued engagement with the Old World and the oppressive centre of gravity it exerts over the spooked chaos of the present smacks of such conviction that one or the other is probably necessary. Some version of this record also feels deeply necessary for our times, and I can't think of anyone better to have made it — have there ever been more of us living through ghosts and dreaming in postmodern verse?
#20: Mulatu Astatke - Mulatu Plays Mulatu
Ethio-Jazz
The legendary founder of Ethio-jazz, Mulatu Astatke should need no introduction! The man’s trademark motifs unravel at the peak of solemnity, but he endows them with a leisurely funk sensibility to such success that he has opened doors, crossed borders, reimported and redefined jazz to more listeners over more decades than I could possibly count! Howerver, his discography is focused on different performances of a handful of key standards, and so it’s a simple matter to draw all one imagines one needs from a couple of highlight releases (most famously, the iconic Éthiopiques 4 compilation). Within just a few hours, one has the feeling of going from freshly initiated to intimately acquainted, and it’s all too tempting to stick to one’s entry points and call it a day.
Mulatu Plays Mulatu begs us to reconsider! Dubbed his first major album in over a decade, this record reinvents a handful of his classics with an inventive set of Ethiopian big band arrangements that allow for more improvisation and dynamic variation than ever, all while ushering in a whole range of exciting different timbres from native instruments.
All of this is exemplified on the latest version of his staple “Yèkèrmo Sèw”, which takes a newly cinematic life as it rides successive peaks and valleys to accommodate understated solo sections. The ebb and flow of the track make for a distinct contrast to the linear stylings of the Éthiopiques 4 version, but if linear funk is your fix from Astatke, this latest version of “Nètsanèt” makes for a deliciously indulgent jam around a single, insistent groove. Perhaps the most drastic transformation here is that of the perennial “Mulatu”, the airy mystique of which is hardly recognisable as the claustrophobic noir-funk we heard on his 1972 masterpiece Mulatu of Ethiopia — it’s a neat reflection of the wider phenomenon at play here: although these may be the most exotic renditions of these tunes to date, their timelessness has never been so palpable.
Adapted from Quick-fire Roundup, September 2025
#19: Marissa Nadler - New Radiations
Singer-Songwriter / Ghost Folk
As ungimmicky and bare-bones as records this overwhelmingly macabre come, New Radiations is the ultimate foil to anyone who ever accused Marissa Nadler of laying it on a bit thick and, perhaps a challenge to those who expect to hear folk music as stimulation rather than narration or world-building. It certainly took me a few listens to get to grips with it, but hearing Nadler hit beat after understated storytelling beat here, her craft has never sounded so focused. If you're as capable of as much shadowplay as she clearly is here, sometimes it's worth leaving your audience in the dark a while.
Read my full thoughts here:
#18: 夢遊病者 [Sleepwalker] - РЛБ30011922
Black Metal / Psychedelic Rock
A nomadic project split between Osaka, Tver and NYC, Sleepwalker ooze like dark matter from the margins of the internet and coalesce into an unlikely cult treasure. The trio uses black metal as a foundation to explore all manner of obtuse ends in psychedelia and folk — their approach is unpredictable and entirely singular, but it boasts deceptive out-of-genre appeal. You’d hawk them alongside Oranssi Pazuzu and Sigh if you were selling to happy eaters, but their sound is far too mercurial to be pinned down so easily.
What this entails varies considerably from release to release, but on РЛБ30011922, we’re in for a single-track psychedelic marathon backed by riffage that covers everything from chasmal churning to harmonised grandeur, but the album-song’s best stretches emerge from its willingness to go off-piste. At around the one-third mark, the band veer into a folk-infused break (less the crusty neofolk long overplayed within the black metal universe, more David Sylvian at his most shamanic), and from thereon their knack playing with space and atmosphere gives way to one breathtaking twist after another. While neither as succinct nor as palatably partitioned as, say, 2023’s excellent Skopofoboexoskelett, РЛБ30011922 may just be the most ambitious showcase of Sleepwalker’s vision to date.
Retrieved from Quick-fire Roundup, October 2025
#17: Erika de Casier - Lifetime
Downtempo / Alternative R&B
Lifetime! My cleansing pool, my 2025 nerve tonic! Comfort music doesn't even start to cover this one, siesta-hour dreamboat that it is. It's rare to hear an album that fulfills every one of its sensory criteria so effortlessly that it actually takes its superfluous qualities in its stride (and between the lackadaisical, occasionally underdeveloped songwriting and some of Ms. dC's lyricism, there are a few of these), but one sees a gift horse and does not forget where its eyes are. Everyone needs to have heard this record, regardless of taste — hit up "December" this instant if you somehow missed it.
#16: Prayer - Dream of Heaven
Atmospheric Drum and Bass
Calling Dream of Heaven a drum and bass album is selling it short — this thing is Prayer's feverous, greyscale ode to every club style that comes to mind when you think of London electronic (minus perhaps UK bass), and it could perhaps be more readily described as drum and bass with the atmosphere of future garage, but none of this ultimately matters — from the rave beats hit by the opening run to the endgame rapture of "I Want You" to the flooringly beautiful highs hit by the run from "Venlafaxine" to "Hold On", I can't think of another electronic record this year that's been packed at once with so much grit and life. Dream of Heaven plays like the warm embrace that carries you through a dystopian nightmare, its dance inclinations as much a reflex action against the darkness it surrounds itself in as a wilful exorcism thereof, and it remains one of the year's most enduring statements to me as such.
#15: The Necks - Disquiet
Jazz / Minimalism / Ambient
The Necks’ minimalist jazz odysseys are famed for paving sprawling runtimes with microscopic structural developments, but with Disquiet, I’ve never been so unsure whether to crane my neck and glimpse the bigger picture, or ruin my eyes squinting at the details. Four tracks in three hours may raise eyebrows, but the dimensions don’t do this thing justice: from its most cyclical and oblique (”Ghost Net”) to its most immediate (the Jarrett-esque rhapsody of “Causeway”, a shot in the arm by Necks standards), this is the most generous creative vein the trio have mined in some time.
Retrieved from Gatekeep!’s 2025: #50-11
#14: Park Jiha - All Living Things
Post-Minimalism / New Age
Having now experienced all four seasons to Park Jiha's crisply-realised meditation on the year cycle, I can now say a lot of things that I could not before, including that:
Growing incrementally older is considerably more aesthetic when soundtracked by the yanggeum (Korean dulcimer),
It's a whole different story hearing this record's flower-withering, spirit-bleakening end run going into winter rather than coming out of it,
Spring has rarely sounded half as elating or full of life as it has on the spellbinding highlight "A Story Of Little Birds",
As much as I'm still sucker for the central run of The Gleam, this is absolutely her best and most focused album to date (ignore anyone who diehards for Communion for minor cultural capital with the jazz crowd — that one was a neat record, but in hindsight not her calling).
What a precious record.
#13: Oneohtrix Point Never - Tranquilizer
Progressive Electronic
Shit the bed it's late and Robertsona already covered pretty much everything I had to say about this one in a banger write-up for the year-end list. Man, I dunno. Oneohtrix Point Never has always been (at best) an artist I've politely respected til now. I haven't particularly rated anything he's made since Replica, and even that album rests a little on proof of concept — but Tranquilizer is just stunning to the point that it flips the table.
The methodology and sampling and overall textural zaniness are all nice context, but who cares about context when the textures themselves are as gorgeous as these? Forget the lab rats he was forcing into airless installation spaces on R Plus Seven or, more unfortunately, Garden of Delete, these tracks live and breathe and flow organically enough to terraform even the most decrepit of sunless realms. Find me a better four-track run than “Modern Lust” thru “Cherry Blue” from any album this year. Do it! Right now!
#12: Isabella Lovestory - Vanity
Pop / Neoperreo
This was a surprise! Very familiar with the bragadacious reggaeton slapdowns Isabella Lovestory had dished out on her banger of a debut Amor Hardcore, I went into Vanity expecting more of the same. While I was comfortably rewarded in that regard, I was not prepared for the point approximately thirty seconds into the 100% aptly-named "Eurostar" where it turns into one of the sharpest electropop records anyone could come up with this year — not just because the hooks are there (they are!) or because the Ms. Lovestory takes a broadchurch approach (she dabbles), but because she has the sheer force of presence to make each song her plaything in a manner that resonates musically (almost) every step of the way (and for what it's worth, the attention-grabbers of the "Telenovela"/"VIP" strain are still entertaining enough to get a pass here).
Absurd quantites of sauce run through the way a track like "Pill" recurrently feints at settling into a prime boutique-powering chorus but switches its flow and hooks every time it verges on complacency, and when it does come to milking a single vibe for all its worth, the title-track absolutely earns its keep. I.L.'s throwdowns land with extra precision amidst these glossier track, per the standout and 101% aptly-named "Putita Boutique", and the record as a whole cruises with perfect pacing. Inadvertent pop AOTY. (Almost! About half the remaining list is pop, so, uh, buckle up.)
#11: Stimming - Friedrich
Microhouse / Techno
Back in 2023, Stimming's then-latest album Elderberry was an extremely easy record to write about because of how assertively it pushed our favourite overlooked German producer whizzkid's style into muscular 'minimal' techno planes that thrummed and boomed with an intensity that was anything but, and, well: there you go.
Friedrich is, uh, a lot of things that work effortlessly well but are a total nightmare to describe: it's a weave of styles (see above) and sentiments (see everything from elegantly paranoid to insistently withdrawn) that benefit not at all from exhaustive listing and sound entirely singular to the unique sonic identity he's carved out, and woebetide anyone who squares up to the task of outlining what makes anything at all unique in an end-of-year blurb. (I've already referenced this indirectly, but to quote from one particular travesty of a write-up in Pitchfork's latest:)
There are moments on Heavy Metal where Winter is Jeff Mangum when he sings about how having sex can Ruin Your Life. Elliott Smith exclusively when he’s playing keys, and Nick Drake with his pink, pink, pink moon. But more often than not, he’s just Cameron Winter. And that in and of itself, is a miracle.So, uh, what are we left with here? Why is one of the best electronic albums of the year to be drawn from this purple-vibing moody set of songs that aren't quite house music anymore but will occasionally spirit you off across some despondent Kafkaesque dancefloor like they don't care to hear the difference? The secret's in there somewhere, and it's my almighty time-saving cop-out right now to insistently acknowledge how worth our while Stimming makes it to keep looking, regardless of how little we manage to articulate from it.
#10: moreru - ぼぼくくととききみみだだけけののせせかかいい
Noise Rock
one of the most significant records of the year if you’re in a very specific category of people who are well out in the deep-end and know it: this horrible, bile-laced, frustrating catchy outpouring of angst and jadedness and arrested development and precocious loathing that viciously subverts yet affirms literal generations of Japanese rock catharsis, and no i do not want to elaborate on any of this. probably the most accessible thing this band has ever made, and that in itself is exactly the kind of sick joke i expect from them. will i listen to this again?
#9: Major Axis - Fade 2 Dusk
Atmospheric Drum and Bass
In a year where my atmo DnB consumption has range from 'peak' to 'inappropriate', none other than GK!'s own Benjamin Jack slapped this onto my desk in early December, and who was I to suspect that it would turn out to be the best damn release (full-length or otherwise) anyone had come up with within the form this year? The rest is, uh, literal history at this point, but I'd like to give this extra credit for holding down such killer space-age atmospheres over a long-ish runtime alongside blasting out such an active melodic dimension. The progressions here are intricate and ear-catching, but they don't operate with as much bombast as, say, the EDM antics on Turquoisedeath's latest -- you can still reliably chill to this album. So that's great: it's a solid out-of-genre rec and deserves much more than the under-the-radar reception it seems to have had. Listen to it!
#8: Rafael Toral - Traveling Light
Ambient / Electroacoustic
If you care for the facts, then this wonderous electroacoustic collage of sounds too dreamlike to build your dreams on is a) produced on a guitar, and b) consists entirely of jazz standards -- but at present, I am simply too shaken by the discovery, induced by Rafael Toral's phenomenally Musical-with-a-capital-fucking-M take on "My Funny Valentine" that it is in fact possible to weep in slow motion while breathing pure aether. Don't you dare tell yourself this isn't an album you need in your life right now.
#7: Vladislav Delay - in a lawless world there is strength in numbers
Glitch
A real eleventh-hour arrival, and exactly the reason why tactically deferring these lists is never a bad call: glitch/dub/techno mastermind Sasu Ripatti stealth dropped his latest full-length as Vladislav Delay on the very last day of the year, and not only is it a welcome undertaking in its own right, but it also turns the page on his industrial noise/glitch phase and reprises his classic dub style from the '00s and early '10s.
Yes, it’s somewhat familiar ground within his discography (you could slot this in between Kuopio and Visa and not bat an eye), yes, you do need a dedicated headphones to hear some of his glitch effects resonate as more than a distracting set of mouse clicks, yes it's a little insistent on mining a single pocket of a single soundworld (which it proceeds to do too forcefully to command the timeless grace of the man's highly comparable 2001 one-hour one-song masterpiece Anima), but dammit there's no one on earth who can touch Sasu Ripatti at the game he's playing here, and hearing this record right at the end of a long year of perfectly-satisfying ambient dub records (seriously, ctrl+F "dub" on this page!) makes it amazingly palpable what an X-factor in this style sounds and feels like. His instincts as a jazz drummer are as evident as ever here: the way he repurposes single chords to serve ever-varying glitch patterns is so organic yet so precise, and all I can say is welcome home.
The following review was adapted from this blurb:
#6: CMAT - EURO-COUNTRY
Country Pop
"EURO-COUNTRY? Eww — send that one back to horse-shaggers in the States!" would, respectfully, have been my first reaction to this one even after a dutiful spin round sardonic Irish yeehaw-er CMAT's debut If My Wife New I’d Be Dead [sic] back in whatever year that was, but whatever pop inclinations the girl has since brought into her sound seem to have done the trick because gawd this record is suffused with personality and plays as entirely its own thing. EURO-COUNTRY as a title and statement feels entirely distinct to CMAT's barbed address to Ireland, the upshot of which is frequently devastating in state-of-the-nation terms (that knockout of a title-track) and, more often than not, painfully affecting in its sheer, fragile hunger for life ("Ready", "Running/Planning"). It's one of the most heartful and moving records of the year, and could only have come from someone all too self-conscious of where she bought her ersatz-US horse music dreams from. Who cares? CMAT is determined to live them all anyway.
#5: PinkPantheress - Fancy That
UK Garage / Pop
We l-l-live in a šøĉīęŧŷ where no one has any attention for anything, our minds are barely our own and the free time we don't have is someone else's money, and (probably) the only thing protecting us all from civilisational erasure having our pathetic attention spans kerbstomped and psyches entirely subjugated by brainrotting slop like Sabrina Carpenter’s latest music video or this AI-assisted Sonic the Hedgehog creepypasta 'bop' one of my eight-year-old students has sacrificed his entire personality to is PinkPantheress and her absolute banger of a new mix Fancy That.
No gratification this year has been more instant, or more gratifying! Part of this is of course down to the year's most compact set of earworms (this very much feels the sum of every impactful second of its 20-minute runtime in the best way) and a top-shelf '00s-nostalgic sample game, but Pink herself is whip-smart and hilarious to the point that Fancy That achieves a feat borderline impossible within the mid-'20s pop landscape: of laying down a party hosted by (gawd am I a loser) someone you would actually want to hang out with. Stop right there. Is this illegal?
#4: Enji - Sonor
Vocal Jazz / Chamber Jazz
Every year there’s an album on these lists that stumps me for words so badly that it inevitably gets blurbed last, and if Enji’s Sonor snags that dubious honour this year, then it’s mainly because I’ve been loathe to try sprucing its intensely cosy qualities into exclamation-mark-worthy overblown Points of Appeal. For whatever reason, the most homely record of the year for me comes from a Mongolian folk artist making a living in Germany — and if that defies explanation (I think it may have to), then consider that Sonor packs some of the transportive chamber jazz I’ve heard in my days (“Ulbar”, “Ergelt”, “Ger Hol”), all of which somehow pair perfectly with its spoken-word stretches where Enji natters about her ma in lilting German.
#3: BIBI - EVE: Romance
K-R&B
Find me another album that conveys half as much humanity as EVE: Romance over such nakedly horny narrations, and, well, my eyes are right up here. Who said that concept albums needed to be cerebral? Who said that sensuality couldn’t be thought-provoking? Who said K-pop couldn’t make you blush? Whoever that was, it sure as shit wasn’t BIBI! BIBI is a rare talent, not just in the unflinchingly bold hustle she holds down in K-Pop’s plasticated smile factory, but in her broader ability to weave together distinct perspectives and aesthetics without making it any harder to intuit her commanding overall thrust.
Said thrust constitutes a nuanced message of individuality and self-acceptance, all wrapped up in sultry R&B stylings over the kind of loose concept that begs to be understood without being overthought, part pillow talk, part sci-fi clone drama, and part delightfully thirsty religious fanfic. Plant an apple tree in my hips purrs our coquettish eponym to Adam barely a minute into the opener, at which point BIBI’s overdubs are mmming and yum-yuming so enthusiastically that we need not picture the way she licks her lips at the end of the line.
EVE proves a sensational flirt across the following tracks, per TikTok swooning over “Scott and Zelda”’s bookish innuendo, but the frivolity does not last. On the aptly-titled “Meat”, EVE prostitutes herself in such bleakly transactional terms that she reduces not only her own body to capital, but also that of her partner. It’s a cynical inverse of free love that views sex as both product and currency, and it’s against this degrading model of subjectivity that EVE-1 (our clone-protagonist) must forge her own path over the album’s backend. Over the course of this, she navigates her own bittersweet romantic ventures, outright pleads to her counterpart during one of her most decadent turns, eventually making peace with the stark differences between herself and her double and learning to treasure her own personhood.
There’s a meaningful message in there, but you’ll find remarkably little sacrificed if you scale it back through however many layers of inscrutable world-building and the Korean language barrier. Unlike many recent viral concept records – one thinks immediately of Magdalena Bay’s overcooked future-chic, or Quadeca’s solipsistic odyssey from one side of his bedroom door to the other – BIBI’s world-building is too full of life to get bogged down in the details or to be betrayed by its moments of vagueness.
Her R&B mastery is key here – any number of these songs could steam up your shower door in seconds – as is her knack for a good showstopper (see “Midnight Cruise”’s endearing lurch into ‘80s-facsimile city pop). That’s not even starting on her tongue-in-cheek flourish: whatever preconceptions you may rightly have of K-pop using painstakingly sanitary food or drink metaphors as a crutch for innuendo, put them on hold until you’ve made it through “Sugar Rush”.
EVE: Romance isn’t one of the very best albums anyone could come up with this year because of its ideas department (neither is anything else here – what a silly criterion!), but because it is effortlessly expressive across every one of BIBI’s distinctive inflections, intimate overtures or emotional denouements. Never mind where one persona ends and another begins, this is a masterfully crafted character work above all for the charisma and human touch the author herself brings to it at every turn — and if she makes her mark as much in spite of as because of her ambitious subject matter, so much the better for her.
Retrieved from Gatekeep!’s 2025: #10-1
See Adam’s review here if you can stomach even more words on this thing:
#2: Saya Gray - SAYA
Indie Folk / Art Pop
An album of songs that are great songs! I'm impressed at how little Saya Gray sacrificed by streamlining her mercurial excesses into a decisively albumlike album of songlike songs (though something certainly was sacrificed and this record doesn't compare to her debut 19 MASTERS for overall X-factor), but her eclectic palette, off-kilter vocal wunderhooks and disarming emotional thrust are all as strong as ever. And it sounded fantastic live! Although she did not play a full-band arrangement of album highlight “Exhaust the Palette”! Boo. Shoutout to girls next to me in the crowd, who sang every harmony and made me appreciate even more deeply what a goldmine of an album this is vocally.
For a while, it was probably my Album of the Year for the main reason that I couldn't form a strong attachment to anything else, and while it missed the top spot, you bet that there's never going to be anything other than a podium finish for a record that includes a song titled "PUDDLE OF ME". The girl knows me!
#1: Stereolab - Instant Holograms on Metal Film
Art Pop
Given their deadpan and pastiche, Stereolab have never been the most emotionally forthcoming act, and this beautiful comeback caught me off guard as such: backed by gorgeously melodious chord progressions, Laetitia Sadier sounds like a wise old owl spouting parables of balance and humanity, her tones full of weight and warmth. Once retro-leaning yet future-gazing, the band here are wholly out of time, an old friend mysteriously still in their prime (for me this is their strongest effort since their ‘90s prime), a precious reminder that some of the things worth holding onto do last —and in a year that never produced a defining top-of-the tree winner for me, I can think of nothing better to call Album of the Year than the record I both spent the most time with and find it hardest to imagine the year without. Instant Holograms on Metal Film is a great album for any time, but it was especially welcome last year.
Adapted from Gatekeep!’s 2025: #50-11
This is the end. I am exhausted. Same time next year?
2026 is the year I will not get triggered by this list. It's taking a lot of nerve... Excellent work, I will say I loved every album I've heard in your top 100 so that's at least good.
List is so good it broke my (old) laptop for a minute or so
Saya Grey, Enji and Park Jiha are all great albums. The Bambara record didn't do anything for me - should maybe give it another chance as I loved Stray. Also glad to see you sort of embrace Ethel Cain :)
Will use the list to look for 2025 gems. Anything specific you'd rec me?