Some Music I Loved in 2025

There were so many albums I loved in 2025. I've picked a few - kind of at random - and I've written about them below. I tried to focus mainly on albums I hadn't seen much written about elsewhere, and about which I thought I could say something interesting. There's a big list of albums at the end which I've intended to be more comprehensive, although I'm certain that I'll still have forgotten and missed off something. There's also a smaller list of a few singles and EPs that I think you'll like. But before that, please read these little reviews of some great albums.

Sophia Chablau & Felipe Vaqueiro - Handycam

Handycam is a collaborative album from two Brazilian musicians, it’s an eclectic and brilliant collection of songs which draw on elements of psych-rock, MPB and punk. It’s a gorgeous sounding album: I love the buzzy electric guitars, the upfront acoustic guitars and the frenetic groovy drums. The majority of the lyrics are in Portuguese, but the album is bookended by two English songs (there’s an interesting discussion of this artistic choice and the album’s wider relationship with language in this review from Everything Is Noise). Two of the song titles reference Cinema, the album title points in that direction as well, and I think that the pacing and structure of the album gives it a kind of cinematic quality. Specifically the quality of a scrappy DIY film that you can make with a Handycam, one that’s shot out on the street, filming life as it happens - full of energy, chaos and vibrancy. A lot of reviews or articles I’ve read about the album refer to the political urgency of its lyrics, which are obviously missed if (like me) you can’t speak Portuguese, but I think you can hear a lot of that energy, anger and compassion in the music.

I came to this album late, off the back of a recommendation by the artist Nina Maia in this end of year article, which has lots of great recommendations from various musicians!

Worldpeace DMT - The Velvet Underground & Rowan

One of the most loveable albums of the year, this is an explosion of creativity and technical skill. Songs rush through different instruments and textures at a rapid pace and everything is held together by a collage-like approach to production. A lot of music that you could group in with whatever genre or subculture this album is best described by has a deliberate lofi, glitchy sound; I think what makes this album great is that while it embodies the chaotic impulse of hyperpop or other very online music, it sounds so crisp and clear. Which means that you can hear all the fleeting quirky flourishes on banjo, steel drum and synthesisers. As well as the lyrics, which are also kind of collage like: borrowing from other songs, intermittently jokey and serious, and at times speaking directly to the listener (‘If the music’s bad, you haven’t paid for it / You can press skip, pause, and add it to a playlist’)

I love how Leo and Rowan’s voices play off each other and how they smash together phrases like:

Leo:
‘Jesus was a sailor when he walked upon the sand’

Rowan:
Leo wrote this song for you, and sorry that I fucked your dude’

I also love the video game voice opening to ‘B-Side Story’:

Choose your instrument
Trumpet
Trumbone
Tuba
Flugelhorn

Choose your style
Allegro
Pianissimo
Legato
Forte

Choose a period
Baroque
Classical
Romantic
Contemporary

This feels like it kind of represents the playful approach taken on this album, even if it downplays the extent to which the songs are actually intricately crafted and thought through. In the one interview I could find, Leo says that his ambition with WDMT is to ‘make music which has a function in people’s lives, so that they can listen to it when they have a bath, or wake up in the morning, on the bus home or with their friends.’ I think this album fulfils that brief: there’s so much to get lost in and so many little things to enjoy, it’s a perfect listening on the bus album.

Tacoma Radar - No One Waved Goodbye

note: this one is a remaster and reissue of an album from 2001, maybe that’s cheating.

Tacoma Radar almost left without a trace. The band formed in Glasgow in the late 90s, recorded 2 EPs and an album, and broke up sometime before the release of No One Waved Goodbye in April 2004. Most of the original copies of the album, along with the master tapes and artwork, were lost in a fire at their record label’s office. They never took a band photo, and gave their first interview only this year - when bassist Andy Hazel, now living in Australia, spoke on Melbourne’s RRR radio. But, as he describes it, even Andy’s relationship with the band seems to have been shrouded in mystery: he’d be sent a demo tape in order to come up with bass parts and would only find out later which band member had written the song.

While they were active, the band opened for an impressive range of touring acts, including Bright Eyes and the American Analogue Set, and were played fairly frequently on John Peel’s Radio One show – but there’s basically no information anywhere about them. I listened to all the bootlegged recordings of the John Peel shows I could find in search of clues, and used the Internet Archive to look at deleted websites for the band and their record label, but neither led to anything notable. In the years since their quiet disbanding, the band’s sole album gained a listenership in online music circles as one of those ‘(full album)’ youtube uploads, often by slowcore bands, whose comment sections become a late night meeting place for the sad and sleepy. Then, in September, the album was reissued by the Numero Group label, and No One Waved Goodbye got its proper second chance.

It’s an album which is largely defined by restraint, many of the songs drift along without exploding into anything too loud or boisterous. Instead, things develop slowly, and the songs creep into life. The lyrics seem to be addressed to an inaccessible other: full of yearning at first, eventually letting them go. I love how lots of the guitar parts have a kind of radar quality - little reverbed ostinatos which suit the band’s name but also the theme of trying to reach someone unreachable. It’s an album you can drown yourself in but it’s also got moments of transcendence, when it pushes through the gloom to something electric. Crucially, these moments are kept rare and special – it feels like the musical representation of a frustrating and painful but precious relationship.

bog band - Mocashno Days

bog band are a duo from Dublin who make what they call ‘laptop soul’. This album does kind of sound like that, it’s definitely soulful, sort of in the vein of 80s pop bands like Blue Nile or Prefab Sprout (maybe even Wham! or George Michael), but with the bleepy noises and vast instrument library of 21st century DAW production.

I’m a big fan of the gently swaying ‘bb waltz’ #2, which has lots of pretty harmonies, glittery synths and some field recording texture – i like the running track of ambient and indecipherable conversation which sits underneath much of the album, it gives the effect of drifting off into sleep at a party. Elsewhere there are some pretty low key guitar solos, and vocals which soar and flex at times but are intimate on the whole.

For a ‘laptop soul’ album, it still feels organic and groovy - not at all synthetic, and not too cool. It embraces its cheesy 80s touchstones and makes something new, especially on ‘Apryl Fools’ which has a great soulful chorus, some properly squelchy synths and brass band samples straight out of an old school house song.

‘bad cop’, on the other hand, feels much more contemporary with its whispery half-rapped vocals, glitchy beats and buzzy guitars. Both approaches are executed well, and work in their contrast to each other – it’s a great fusion of old and new.

Crimewave - Scenes

Crimewave makes dance music composed only of guitars - no synths allowed. In an interview with Still Listening, he says: ‘In an age where you can open a laptop and essentially have access to any sound that’s ever existed, I think creatively it helps me having that boundary of only using the guitar.’ This approach gives his sound a unique, uncanny edge - you can’t always pick out the guitar within the noise, but there’s a special quality to his textures which comes from the bends and wails of the guitar strings.

Scenes is a ‘conceptual dance album’ about nightlife in Northern England: Crimewave, who was a DJ before starting this project, remixed the album on decks once it was finished, so that the album has the pacing and fluidity of a DJ set, it’s non-stop, chaotic and blistering, full of references to club culture and Crimewave’s own experiences in nightclubs. I’d pick out ‘Haemoglobin’ as a particular highlight, it feels like the best example of the productive conflict between Crimewave’s dance and shoegaze influences: the guitar wall of sound juts right up against against a wall of dense, frantic beats and the song flickers between the two. As well as the album, you should also check out the mix Crimewave recently made for 6 Music, which includes his incredible remix of Slowdive’s ‘When the Sun Hits’.

Big Unwieldy AOTY list - everything I could remember that hasn’t already been mentioned above (listed A-Z by artist)

BCNR - Forever Howlong - i LOVE salem sisters

Bob Dylan - Through The Open Window: The Bootleg Series Vol. 18 - full of gems, highlight is I was Young When I Left Home

caroline - Total euphoria - so creative and unique, post-rock-pop, amazing organic sound

Deer Park - Terra Infirma - cool cloudrock, love the first song esp.

Destroyer - Dan’s Boogie - got into destroyer this year, relentlessly good and prolific

Dove Ellis - Blizzard - phenomenal singer-songwriter, wintery and moving

Dutch Interior - Moneyball - alt-country classics, wood knot is my soty maybe

Geese - Getting Killed - its really great, love & very inspired by the drums and percussion

Horsegirl - Phonetics On and On - catchy, super well crafted & produced, modern classic

Joanne Robertson - Blurrr - intimate, gorgeous alt-folk

mark william lewis - Mark William Lewis - love the harmonica, love ‘Seventeen’

Nourished by Time - The Passionate Ones - probably no.1 for me, album of beautiful songs full of love for humanity

Pulp - More - what a return

Richard Dawson - End of the Middle - twisty folk songs about family and time

Shallowater - God’s Gonna Give You A Million Dollars - favourite live band this year, best guitar tone, divine slowcore

Smerz - Big City Life - coolest album of the year

Sorry - Cosplay - actually maybe Echoes is soty, love all of this - one of my favourite vocalists

TAGABOW - LOTTO - favourite shoegaze band rn, legends

The New Eves - The New Eve is Rising - chant led earthy folk music

This is Lorelei - Holo Boy - clever alt-country/electro ditties

Titanic - HAGEN - fragmented alt-pop/rock with cello

Water From Your Eyes - It’s a Beautiful Place - mad, chaotic rock/electronic fusions, so cool

Wednesday - Bleeds - raw, earnest and awesome. elderberry wine & townies both favourites of the year

YHWH Nailgun - 45 Pounds - band of aliens, chaotic and noisy, but beautiful once you’re locked in

Quickfire – some EPs and Singles (also A-Z):

Almost Barely - ‘so long’ (single) - came across on nina, i love this, love esp. the very upfront drums

Dorothy - Sea Songs (EP) - mysterious oceany songs from a lowkey supergroup

Glasshouse Red Spider Mite - What Do You Mean The Monster?… Hahaha (EP) - everyone loves you is best song ever maybe. super emotional slowcore ballads

Jazz Lambaux - ‘War (Unplugged) feat 300SkullsAndCounting & lucie’ (single) - so creative and cool, J.L and 300Skulls unplugged live show was maybe most inspiring thing i saw last year

Jude McCreath - Through Your Teeth (EP) - great songwriter and lovely person

Max Winter - Mourning Routine EP - really looking forward to hearing more this year, epic soaring music, ‘Olympics’ is a standout

My New Band Believe - ‘Lecture 25’ (single) - so many little phrases from this are lodged in my brain, love the blistering pace and the knocking sound. very excited for an album!

Taxidermists - Tax 2025 EP - such a fun, twee band. love anything cooper b handy has done this year

tal castle - ‘tunegenie / putlocker’ (double single) - super cool, soulful songs w/ interesting production and arrangements, a bit alex g

The Femcels - ‘He Needs Me’ (single) - always stuck in my head, and really moving in parts. also very funny. excited for their album!

wing! - MISSED IT JUST THE ONCE (EP) - uplifting shiny trip-hop

Ugly - ‘Next to Die’ (single) - love the slightly poppier direction this suggests! awesome chorus