The Top 50 Albums Of 2025
The Still Listening top 50 albums for 2025 is here!
Writing this list is difficult every year and this year was no exception. When we put together our “albums of the year (so far)” back in the summer, we felt a little underwhelmed by 2025 as a whole. Looking back now, it has been an incredibly consistent year, with a handful of records sitting clearly above the pack and a long tail of albums that are thoughtful, well-crafted and fully realised. A lot of these albums seem to be pushing music forward, reinventing music in a way that is honestly, surprising.
Genre-wise this list is a bit of a free-for-all, which feels fitting for a year where artists seemed determined to avoid the obvious. Pop went gloriously off the rails, noise records pushed into stranger and more emotional places, folk kept mutating, club music arrived in shades of euphoria and dread, and guitar bands kept stretching the definition of what a guitar band even is.
Putting this list together takes an absurd amount of time, and now that all three year-end lists are finished, it feels strangely emotional to write this. Still Listening is a small independent publication built on championing new music, and this year we grew to three times the size we were at this point last year. We’re genuinely grateful to everyone who reads, shares and follows what we do.
As with our EPs and songs lists, we’ve tried to avoid the obvious picks where possible and make space for newer artists alongside the bigger names.
Thanks for being here, and we hope you enjoy the list.
50) bloodsports - Anything Can Be A Hammer
New York’s bloodsports deliver their strongest work yet with Anything Can Be a Hammer, an album built on patience, tension and the thrill of letting small ideas bloom into something overwhelming. Written and recorded as a fully realised four-piece, it leans into sharper dynamics, richer arrangements and a newfound sense of space, turning quiet moments into pressure points and louder passages into real catharsis. Influenced in part by Engelbert Humperdinck’s drama and their own Brooklyn DIY roots, the band shape all these contrasts into a record that feels grounded, spacious and quietly ambitious.
49) Caroline - caroline 2
Ranging from shimmering to unruly, caroline’s second album is a bold and beautifully unpredictable leap forward. The record’s patchwork creation across Scotland, France, and the English coast gives it a restless energy, with songs that feel like shifting ecosystems held together by texture, rhythm, and instinct rather than tidy structure. When everything aligns, caroline 2 is arresting and transportive, the sound of a group pushing themselves toward something genuinely new and finding flashes of brilliance along the way.
48) Peki Momés - Peki Momés
Peki Momés’ self-titled debut sits at the intersection of Turkish psychedelia, disco and leftfield groove, filtering decades of sound through a Berlin lens without sanding off the edges. Where a lot of “global groove” records settle into tasteful wallpaper, this one stays curious and slightly unruly, driven by intuition rather than polish. The twelve tracks move with a loose, hypnotic confidence, drawing on Anatolian rhythms and psych textures while keeping things light on their feet and quietly addictive.
47) Ada Rook - UNKILLABLE ANGEL
UNKILLABLE ANGEL is a furious, genre-hopping odyssey from Ada Rook, fusing industrial noise, metal, electronic chaos, and screamed vocals into a brutally cathartic whole. Drawing from aggrotech, hyperpop, nu-metal and internet-era aesthetics, the album captures the raw tension of feeling alien, too much or not enough, for any space. Beneath the distortion and intensity, there’s vulnerability and emotional honesty, as Rook navigates themes of social rejection, identity, and survival. It's an overwhelming listen at times, but that’s the point. UNKILLABLE ANGEL confronts pain with feral energy and refuses to flinch.
46) Miley Cyrus - Something Beautiful
On Something Beautiful, Miley Cyrus finally delivers the most focused and fully realised album of her career. Long known for her genre-hopping tendencies, Cyrus finds clarity and cohesion here without losing her experimental spirit. The album flows confidently between ballads, club tracks and psychedelic pop, with highlights like the title track, 'More to Lose,’ and ‘Walk of Fame’ showcasing her vocal range and emotional depth. There’s a strong sense of growth throughout, both in sound and songwriting, and the production (led by Shawn Everett) brings out the best in her.
45) Marie Davidson - City of Clowns
On City of Clowns, Marie Davidson returns to the dancefloor with sharper teeth and a broader grin. Merging the stern pulse of Working Class Woman with the melodic instincts of Renegade Breakdown, her sixth album is a warped collision of techno, synth-pop and scathing spoken word. Inspired by Shoshana Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism and shaped by her late-blooming obsession with stand-up comedy, Davidson casts the modern DJ as both misfit and mirror. Part truth-teller, part entertainer. Co-produced with Soulwax and Pierre Guerineau, this is her biggest, boldest work yet, pulsing with paranoia, humour and a deep need to connect. Even at its most conceptual, it never loses its footing on the dancefloor.
44) AKAI SOLO - No Control, No Glory
On No Control, No Glory, AKAI SOLO dismantles the idea that status or recognition offer anything resembling real freedom, pairing cool, restless production with a flow that refuses to settle or perform for approval. The album circles a central tension: control in this world is rarely seized and more often imposed downward, while “glory” tends to accrue to those who already have power. Rather than chasing either, AKAI turns inward, framing discipline, routine and craft as the only forms of control that cannot be stripped away. Even as it toys with the darker notion that nothing truly matters, No Control, No Glory treats that emptiness as fuel rather than defeat, suggesting that meaning is found not in being seen, but in remaining focused, deliberate and unshakeable amid the chaos.
43) Worthitpurchase - Worthitpurchase
Worthitpurchase’s self-titled record feels like a quiet reboot, the sound of two longtime collaborators finally building a world in the same room and discovering how strange, tender, and vivid that world can be. The Los Angeles duo lean into the overlap between diaristic songwriting and experimental production, pulling from early-internet textures, suburban memory and the uncanny optimism of tech culture’s early days. It’s a project about disconnection, misfit feelings and the awkward romance of growing up in a fractured America, but also about the joy of making something together by hand. The result is intimate, inventive and unmistakably theirs.
42) Jim Legxacy - black british music (2025)
Jim Legxacy’s black british music (2025) is a bold and emotionally charged mixtape that captures the shape of UK music in 2025. Out via XL, the project threads together emo, grime, R&B, and pop, creating something that feels both deeply personal and culturally resonant. With tracks like ‘father’ and ‘stick’ Legxacy explores grief, identity, and memory, weaving in references to his sister’s passing and his mother’s health struggles. It’s raw, bright, and fearless, less about fitting into a genre than reshaping one. Part tribute, part reckoning, black british music is one of the year’s most vital and affecting British releases.
41) Black Moth Super Rainbow - Soft New Magic Dream
Seven years after the shadowy churn of Panic Blooms, Black Moth Super Rainbow return with Soft New Magic Dream, a woozy, sugar-drenched swirl of queasy romance, vocoder-laced confessions, and analogue psychedelia. Two decades into their kaleidoscopic career, BMSR sound more blissed-out than ever, delivering love songs that gurgle, wobble, and glide with warped tenderness. Tobacco’s mutant-pop production is still full of odd textures and sticky melodies, but there’s a softness to this record that feels earned, like the comedown from a long, glittering high. It’s freaky, yes, but gentle too: a marshmallow daydream dissolving slowly in your brain.
40) Snõõper - Worldwide
Snooper’s Worldwide is a hypercharged detonation of punk velocity, electronic pulse and wild, self-made world-building, the clearest expression yet of a band determined to stay unclassifiable. Working with John Congleton opened the door to experiments they’d never allowed themselves before, pushing their twitchy, analogue-first demos into stranger, sharper territory without losing the restless energy that defines them. The result feels like two realities at once: a record that darts between hooks, glitches and breakneck rhythms, and a live experience designed to spill off the stage entirely.
39) Lambrini Girls - Who Let the Dogs Out
Who Let The Dogs Out is Lambrini Girls at their funniest and fiercest, a gloriously snotty garage-punk barrage that skewers nepo-babies, cops, TERFs, homophobes and anyone else who deserves a kicking, all with Phoebe Lunny’s razor-edged wit and Lilly Macieira’s riot-ready basslines leading the charge. A socially astute, hilariously vicious debut.
38) Backxwash - Only Dust Remains
On Only Dust Remains, Backxwash emerges from the scorched earth of her ferocious album trilogy with something quieter, but no less searing. Trading metal-inflected catharsis for poetic introspection, the Montreal-based rapper and producer weaves verses that are denser, more layered, and startlingly tender. The album grapples with mourning and rebirth, threading moments of melodic light into her darkest soundscapes yet. Even in its moments of restraint, Only Dust Remains feels colossal.
37) Guerilla Toss - You’re Weird Now
Guerilla Toss’ You’re Weird Now is a bright, unruly celebration of creativity at its most free, an album that turns “weird” into a badge of honour and pushes their experimental dance-punk into a more open, joyful space. Made in Vermont with Stephen Malkmus in the producer’s chair and Trey Anastasio dropping in like some benevolent eccentric from a neighbouring universe, the record blends slacker looseness, jam-band curiosity and sharp post-punk instincts into something that feels strangely utopian.
36) Earl Sweatshirt - Live Laugh Love
Live Laugh Love finds Earl Sweatshirt easing into his thirties with a warmth and clarity that feel both hard-won and deeply lived-in, folding fatherhood, partnership and growth into the rugged, soulful textures that have always defined his work. The irony of its title quickly dissolves into something gentler: Earl raps with a looseness and faint grin, gliding over Theravada’s dusty loops as he reflects on aging, responsibility and the small revelations that keep a life upright.
35) Racing Mount Pleasant - Racing Mount Pleasant
Racing Mount Pleasant’s second album feels open and communal, the kind of record that trusts atmosphere and movement more than polish. The band lean into warmth and looseness, letting their arrangements breathe in a way that makes the music feel lived-in and human. A few moments wander, but the overall effect is generous and textured, full of small details that land with surprising emotional weight. Standout track ‘Emily’ gathers itself with real intention and delivers a genuinely moving release, hinting at just how powerful this group can be when everything locks into place. It is a confident and heartfelt step forward that shows a band growing into a sound that feels entirely their own.
34) Some Images of Paradise - i expect the same of u
i expect the same of u is a raw, multi-form burst of emotional intensity, with Some Images of Paradise bending screamo, slacker folk and indietronic noise into a portrait of modern dissociation that feels both deeply internet-aged and unmistakably human. From the ambient melancholy of ‘When I’m Gone’ to the whiplash clash of ‘Angel Fossil’ and ‘Team Deathmatch,’ the band use contrast not as gimmick but as a way to mirror the fractured, overwhelming rush of life online.
33) Destroyer - Dan's Boogie
Dan’s Boogie catches Destroyer in yet another graceful metamorphosis, with Dan Bejar trading the harsh synth edges of Labyrinthitis for plush strings, wandering pianos and a looser, more luminous kind of melancholy. The album opens with the startling spill of orchestration in ‘The Same Thing as Nothing at All,’ setting the tone for a record that feels spacious, impulsive and newly alive, as if these songs tumbled out the moment Bejar returned to writing. Fourteen albums in, Bejar’s glass may still be half empty, but the light shining through it has never looked clearer.
32) Kali Uchis - Sincerely,
Sincerely, is Kali Uchis at her most open-hearted; a lush and tender album that incorporates motherhood, grief and transformative love into a dreamy blend of vintage R&B, soul and cosmic pop. Framed as a series of intimate letters, the record traces her journey through loss and renewal, from the gentle clarity of the opener ‘Heaven is a Home’ to the rose-tinted gratitude of ‘Sugar! Honey! Love!' and the shimmering devotion of ‘For: You.’ Even its most dance-leaning tracks hold a soft vulnerability, whether in the radiant honesty of ‘Lose My Cool’ or the self-doubting ache of ‘Silk Lingerie.’ Throughout, Uchis places her pain among blooming textures, honouring her late mother while embracing a renewed sense of peace and purpose.
31) Pulp - More
A tender, funny and gloriously overstuffed return from pop’s greatest misfits, reckoning with ageing, nostalgia and the strange thrill of still being here. Pulp sound fully themselves again, folding disco shimmer, kitchen-sink confession and Jarvis Cocker’s unmatched eye for human awkwardness into a comeback album that feels equally genuine and quietly astonishing. More is nostalgic without being sentimental, sharp without being cynical and full of the warm, wry storytelling that made them legends in the first place. If this really is their final act, it is a beautiful one.
30) Men I Trust - Equus Asinus
The first (and best) in a two-part concept project, Equus Asinus finds Men I Trust drifting into more melancholic and meditative territory. Swapping the buoyant basslines of past records for softer, more acoustic textures, the Montreal group conjure an atmosphere of gentle introspection. Dream pop structures are coloured with jazz flourishes and baroque sensibilities, while songs like ‘I Come With Mud’ and ‘The Landkeeper’ carry an emotional depth that lingers. Tied together by themes of nostalgia, emotional murk, and quiet observation, it’s a hazy, unhurried listen, one that invites stillness and reflection, perfect for a rainy day and a mediative listen in a world of chaos.
29) Alice Phoebe Lou - Oblivion
Oblivion is Alice Phoebe Lou at her softest and most self-assured, a stripped-back collection of songs that turns vulnerability into its own quiet form of radiance. Built from warm acoustics, gentle piano and lyrics that feel lifted straight from a private journal, the album moves between tender romance on track ‘Sailor,’ luminous self-growth on ‘Sparkle,’ and dreamlike introspection with title track ‘Oblivion’. Oblivion feels like Lou fully stepping into herself, offering some of her most intimate and gracefully honest songwriting yet.
28) Nourished By Time - The Passionate Ones
Nourished By Time’s The Passionate Ones arrives as a twelve-track reckoning, a post-R&B sermon carved out of late-stage capitalism’s rubble and carried by Marcus Brown’s unmistakable grainy electro-funk, aching vocals and Baltimore’s hybrid DNA. Written between Baltimore, London and New York, the album deepens the singular world he began on Erotic Probiotic 2 and Catching Chickens, pushing his sound into something looser, bolder and more sharply observed. Love, labour, disillusionment and hope collide in songs that flicker between club rhythms and tender confession, each one shaped by Brown’s sardonic, metamodern stare at the American dream as it collapses beneath him.
27) Djrum - Under Tangled Silence
Under Tangled Silence, Felix Manuel’s third album as Djrum, is a lush, soul-rooted exploration of piano, field recordings and fractured electronics that drifts freely between genres without ever feeling directionless. Built from the interplay of organic instruments and glitching, sometimes corrupted digital textures, the album carries the emotional weight of work lost and rebuilt after a catastrophic hard-drive failure, turning “broken robots” into part of its sonic character. Manuel’s instinctive, improvisatory approach threads sumptuous piano through future-garage rhythms, distorted dancehall flashes, footwork pulses and moments of serene ambient wash, creating something both timeless and quietly futuristic.
26) Ichiko Aoba - Luminescent Creatures
Luminescent Creatures expands Ichiko Aoba’s world into something richer, deeper and more immersive, transforming her signature delicacy into a sweeping exploration of nature, water and the quiet strangeness of being alive. Where Windswept Adan drifted like a soft tide, this album blooms with fuller instrumentation – flutes, bells, celesta, violin – pulling the listener into a vivid, almost elemental landscape. Tracks like ‘COLORATURA’ and ‘mazamum’ shimmer with aquatic textures, while ‘Aurora,’ ‘Flag’ and the wordless ‘Prisominia’ showcase her uncanny ability to balance feather-light fingerpicking with choral, haunting vocal layers. It’s tranquil and transportive, an album that unfurls more with each listen, proving once again that Aoba remains one of the most quietly visionary artists working today.
25) Sharp Pins - Balloons Balloons Balloons
Balloon Balloon Balloon plays like a bright, scrappy love letter to the entire lineage of British rock, with Sharp Pins’ Kai Slater filtering ’60s pop, proto-punk grit and jangly nostalgia through his own youthful, DIY sensibility. The Chicago musician leans fully into vintage textures – tape-worn vocals, chiming guitars, punchy dance-hall drums – while slipping between retro sunshine and raw, intimate moments like the standout acoustic cut ‘Maria Don’t.’
24) They Are Gutting a Body of Water - Lotto
LOTTO finds They Are Gutting a Body of Water stretching shoegaze to its emotional edge, turning walls of noise, spoken confession and fractured atmosphere into something painfully, beautifully human. Doug Dulgarian’s vocals sit clearer in the mix than ever, letting the rawness of songs like ‘the chase’ and ‘sour diesel’ hit with bruising force, while the band’s trademark interludes and glitchy textures pull the record into a dreamlike haze. Highlights like ‘violence iii’ and the aching single ‘american food’ balance shimmering riffs with stark narration, teasing light through the distortion. By the time ‘herpim’ collapses into its glittering finale, LOTTO feels like the clearest expression yet of TAGABOW’s world: messy, cathartic and unafraid to stare directly at the dark.
23) Joanne Robertson - Blurrr
Joanne Robertson’s Blurrr is a quietly mesmerising album, full of songs that seem to drift in from the edge of a Lynchian dream. Its ambient haze and featherlight guitars create a world that feels intimate and unguarded, as if every note is being sung just for you. Robertson taps into a mood that recalls Mazzy Star reimagined for a ketamine-soaked century, where everything is a little slowed, a little smudged, and all the more affecting because of it. Blurrr moves with a kind of gentle gravity, carrying flickers of longing, collapse and strange beauty in its wake. The result is a record that stays with you, not loudly but insistently, like a memory you are sure you lived even if you cannot quite place when.
22) Freddie Gibbs - Alfredo 2
Alfredo 2 plays like a jet-lagged crime flick scored in real time, with Freddie Gibbs and The Alchemist trading the red-sauce glamour of their first classic for smoky ramen shops, neon noir and hard-won perspective. The Alchemist’s beats stay dusty and luxurious but feel stranger and more cinematic, all warped soul, cold-air strings and late-night basslines, while Gibbs moves between cruelly precise punchlines and weathered reflection, rapping like someone who has seen every ending and still chooses the risky route.
21) Oklou - Choke Enough
Choke Enough is Oklou at her most intimate and unguarded, dissolving the glossy fantasy of her earlier work into something raw, tactile and deeply human. It is ketty music for the ketamine generation, drifting between bruised club rhythms, diaristic pop confessions and widescreen ambience with a hazy, slow-motion intensity. Her voice sits closer than ever as she picks through heartbreak, obsession and the uneasy calm that follows emotional freefall.
20) aya - Hexed!
Aya’s latest album feels like an existential spiral disguised as a night out, a fractured trip through grotty clubs, late-night trains and suburban garages where identity and place slip constantly out of focus. Her language is sharp, surreal and often gut-level funny, snapping between poetic fragments and scathing put-downs as she sketches a world full of broken people born into a broken system – herself included. The production is dense and disorienting, full of uncanny noises that seem to leak beyond the headphones, while tracks like ‘Navel Gazer’ capture her ability to turn everyday fury into cutting verse. It’s a lyrically stunning, intensely atmospheric record, messy by design and all the more gripping for it.
19) Dove Ellis - Blizzard
A stripped-back, emotionally precise debut that keeps its distance, letting strong songs and a sense of mystery do the heavy lifting. People are already calling Blizzard this year’s Heavy Metal, Cameron Winter’s debut in case you somehow missed it. Like Heavy Metal, it’s a December release, and since no publication can bear to wait until the actual end of the year to publish their lists, we wouldn’t be surprised if Pitchfork is suddenly obsessed with it twelve months from now. There's nothing that screams “finger on the pulse” quite like crowning an album that came out last-year as one of this year’s best.
18) loopcinema - LOOP:GLAMOUR
loopcinema’s LOOP:GLAMOUR feels like stepping into an unhinged world where club music, art-pop, and nocturnal ambience blur into one shifting, iridescent mood. It plays almost like a messier Imaginal Disk in the best possible way, using that looseness to its advantage as ideas collide, textures melt together and half-formed hooks bloom into something addictive. It’s sleek, eerie and beautifully stylised. The album feels like pure escapism, a world entirely its own and unlike anything else on this list. The result is a self-contained universe you want to stay lost in.
17) Folk Bitch Trio - Now Would Be A Good Time
Now Would Be a Good Time is a quietly breathtaking debut, a collection of tender, clear-eyed songs that capture the confusion, intimacy and contradictions of early adulthood with remarkable poise. Folk Bitch Trio lean into restraint, letting their spellbinding harmonies and sparse acoustic arrangements carry stories of longing, humour, desire and emotional drift, from the candid haze of ‘Hotel TV’ to the theatrical unraveling of ‘The Actor.’ Nothing here feels overstated; instead, the trio focus on small, fragile truths that linger long after the record ends. Recorded with a warm, open simplicity that lets every detail breathe, it’s an album that feels intimate yet expansive, marking one of the most assured and quietly luminous debuts in recent memory.
16) Swans - Birthing
Birthing finds Swans as colossal and uncompromising as ever, a towering slab of drone, ritual and sheer force that pushes their monolithic aesthetic to its breaking point while still revealing flashes of the strange beauty that has always lived beneath the noise. For long stretches the record is punishingly dense, its hour-long opening movements blurring into a suffocating mass of repetition and dread, but when the band finally let the seams show – the death-metal lurch and haunted acoustics of ‘The Merge,’ the aching, otherworldly drift of ‘Rope (Away)’ – the payoff is immense. It’s a meditation on endurance, intensity and release, a reminder that Swans’ power has always come not just from overwhelming volume but from the rare moments where the monolith cracks and light pours through.
15) The Last Dinner Party - From the Pyre
From The Pyre finds The Last Dinner Party shedding the polished opulence of their debut for something darker, grittier and far more elemental, turning their flair for theatrics into a raw communion of chaos, myth and catharsis. The band stretch confidently into new terrain – from stomping murder ballads and medieval-tinged chants to brooding art-rock epics – while their five-part harmonies and sharpened conviction hold everything together. Across these songs of flames, angels, witches and personal reckoning, the grandeur remains, but it’s scorched at the edges, revealing a group using spectacle not as ornament, but as a way to process love, loss and renewal. It’s a bold, vividly imagined second act that proves their drama has only grown more compelling.
14) Blawan - SickElixir
SickElixir is Blawan at his most exposed and volatile, turning burnout, sobriety and self-reckoning into a blistering, deeply human debut that feels like a conversation with his own demons. Built from distorted percussion, gut-level bass and mangled modular noise, the record plunges into a dank, claustrophobic sound world where incantatory vocals and lurching rhythms blur into a kind of emotional exorcism. Tracks like ‘Rabbit Hole,’ ‘Casch’ and the nightmarish title piece push his signature techno into harsher, more expressive territory, stripping the genre of linearity in favour of something rawer and more internal. It’s a fierce, unsettling and startlingly original work that transforms collapse into creative ignition, marking Blawan’s most honest and uncompromising statement yet.
13) FKA Twigs - Eusexua
Eusexua is FKA twigs in full rave-vision mode, a club-spun, euphoric trip that channels the rush of the dancefloor into some of her most playful and forward-facing music yet. Inspired by the techno she absorbed while living in Prague, the album moves fluidly between garage, drum and bass, trip hop and glitched-out pop, with Koreless’ inventive production giving her ethereal vocals a whole new pulse. Standouts like ‘Drums of Death,’ ‘Room of Fools’ and the shapeshifting ‘Striptease’ distil the chaos and clarity of a night out, while softer moments like ‘Sticky’ and ‘24hr Dog’ make space for the vulnerability she’s always worn openly. Even its wildest surprises – including North West rapping in Japanese – feel like part of its ecstatic, anything-goes energy.
12) The New Eves - The New Eve is Rising
The New Eve Is Rising is a feral, mesmerising debut that drags English folk back to its unruly roots, fusing pagan imagery, proto-punk grit and hypnotic repetition into something richly poetic and defiantly alive. The New Eves pull from ancient lore and Velvet Underground abrasion, from coven-chant vocals to violin drones and stomping, Moe Tucker-style rhythms, but the result feels startlingly original rather than revivalist. Across pounding incantations, motorik ballads and moments of bruised tenderness like the stunning ‘Mary,’ the band reclaim the wild woman myth not as soft mysticism but as something sharp-toothed and sovereign. It’s a confident, lava-flow debut that transforms tradition into its own unruly future.
11) Anna von Hausswolff - ICONOCLASTS
Anna Von Hausswolf’s Iconoclasts is her most ambitious work yet. The organ is a living force here, a kind of architectural presence that shapes the drama of each track. Her vocals move between clarity and fevered intensity, carrying a touch of Kate Bush’s theatrical lift but rooted in something darker and more elemental. The record revolves around breaking things apart. Old beliefs. Old loves. Old versions of yourself. She leans into the idea of dismantling idols, both literal and internal, and the music mirrors that process with sudden shifts, plunges into shadow and passages that bloom into startling light. It is a rollercoaster in the truest sense, not chaotic for chaos’ sake but built with a deliberate, gothic grandeur that makes the emotional stakes feel huge.
10) Juana Molina - DOGA
DOGA marks Juana Molina’s long-awaited return, a patient and dreamlike collection that deepens her universe in subtle but striking ways. Developed from years of improvised sketches and refined into something intimate and quietly uncanny, the album drifts through mantras, ghostly grooves and melodies that feel both delicate and disorienting. Songs like ‘uno es árbol,’ ‘caravanas’ and the tender ‘siestas ahí’ show her instinct for turning repetition into emotion, while the sprawling nine-minute centrepieces ‘miro todo’ and ‘rina soi’ push her sound into more exploratory, meditative territory. Eight years on from Halo, Molina hasn’t reinvented herself so much as sharpened the logic of her world, delivering a record that is immersive, singular and entirely her own.
9) McKinley Dixon - Magic, Alive!
McKinley Dixon’s Magic, Alive! is a richly imagined jazz-rap odyssey that turns grief, memory and friendship into something luminous. Framed as a story of three friends trying to bring a lost fourth back to life, the album moves through quiet reckonings, childhood reflections and horn-soaked eureka moments with a sense of purpose that feels both intimate and expansive. Recorded in his hometown of Richmond with longtime collaborators, its lush arrangements, organic beats and searching lyricism capture an artist fully settled into his craft yet pushing himself further than ever. For all its conceptual depth, Magic, Alive! lands with an emotional clarity that lingers, reaffirming Dixon as one of the most distinctive voices in modern hip-hop.
8) Jane Remover - Revengeseekerz
With Revengeseekerz, Jane Remover continues to shape-shift in thrilling, unpredictable ways. Their third album, released with no warning but plenty of cryptic build-up, fuses digicore roots with shoegaze textures, abrasive electronics and diaristic intensity. Written and produced entirely by Jane in Chicago over winter, the record leans into chaos without losing its emotional pull, featuring standout collaborations like the warped and wild ‘Psychoboost’ with Danny Brown. Tracks like ‘JRJRJR’ and ‘angels in camo’ feel like transmissions from a fractured inner world, dense, glitchy, and oddly beautiful. If Frailty introduced Jane as a voice of a new internet-born genre, Revengeseekerz confirms their position as one of its most fearless deconstructors.
7) Clipse - Let God Sort Em Out
Clipse’s Let God Sort Em Out is a remarkably sharp and cohesive return, reuniting brothers Pusha T and Malice with Pharrell for their first album together in 15 years. Across 13 tightly packed tracks, they revisit the cold precision of their early work while pushing their sound into something heavier, darker and more reflective. Grief, legacy and the weight of past choices sit alongside razor-edged coke rap bravado, with guests like Kendrick Lamar, Tyler, The Creator, Nas and Stove God Cooks amplifying the album’s intensity. Pharrell’s production is a masterclass in atmosphere, stitching booming drums, haunted synths and brass into a world that feels both classic Neptunes and unmistakably present. For a comeback album, this is one of the best from some of the best to ever do it.
6) Water From Your Eyes - It's A Beautiful Place
It’s a Beautiful Place shows Water From Your Eyes at their most refined, sharpening their experimental impulses into songs that feel clearer, tougher and more deliberate without losing the oddness that makes them great. The album’s jagged openers, its intricate production details and its shift into expansive, dream-logic explorations all underline how naturally the duo now balance chaos and control. Rachel Brown’s grounding vocals and Nate Amos’ increasingly unapologetic guitars form the record’s core tension, while tracks like ‘Playing Classics,’ ‘Spaceship’ and the wry title interlude stretch their sound in new directions without pandering to accessibility. Rather than aiming for a breakthrough, WFYE deepen their own language, stepping confidently from Brooklyn outsiders to genuine architects of its experimental scene.
5) billy woods - GOLLIWOG
Golliwog plunges billy woods fully into darkness, trading his usual flickers of warmth for an hour of suffocating, slow-burn dread where personal fear and political horror bleed into one another. Drawing on a rotating cast of producers, the album’s warped chamber jazz, rotting boom-bap and noir-toned unease mirror woods’ most unhinged, vulnerable writing yet, turning everyday anxieties into skin-crawling nightmares and tying them to the larger violence of colonialism, exploitation and history’s ghosts. It’s his most demanding record, relentless in its tension and uncanny in its atmosphere, but the payoff is immense: a chilling, richly layered thesis on horror itself, delivered by a rapper who’s never sounded more bruised, brilliant or terrifyingly clear-eyed.
4) Geese - Getting Killed
Getting Killed finds Geese tearing up their own rulebook once again, delivering a wild, volatile and strangely beautiful third album that pushes their sound into new, unruly territory. Tracked in just ten days, it ricochets between chaos and clarity, from the frantic burst of ‘Trinidad’ to the ghostly sprawl of ‘Taxes’ and the tender spirals of ‘Cobra.’ The band lean harder than ever into unpredictability, folding in Beck-like experiments, folk detours and heavy, heaving art-rock, all anchored by Cameron Winter’s elastic, unshakeable vocals. It’s a dense, restless and deeply ambitious record that rewards close listening and confirms Geese as one of the few modern guitar bands still committed to real reinvention rather than repetition.
3) Ninajirachi - I Love My Computer
A kaleidoscopic, nostalgia-soaked sugar rush, I Love My Computer maps out pop’s future while paying tender tribute to the internet culture that shaped Ninajirachi. Pulling from mid-2000s dance, chiptune sparkle and early-web aesthetics, the album bottles the strange, luminous feeling of growing up online. It’s youthful, hypercharged and full of feeling, a coming-of-age story told through screens and synths that confirms Ninajirachi as one of the year’s most exciting new pop voices.
2) Rosalía - LUX
LUX is Rosalía at her boldest, trading the club-ready pulse of MOTOMAMI for a sweeping, orchestral epic that blends classical ambition with raw emotional clarity. Sung across thirteen languages and arranged in four movements with the London Symphony Orchestra, it’s an album that asks for full attention, weaving heartbreak, spirituality and myth into something that feels closer to cinema than pop. Tracks like ‘Reliquia’ and ‘La Perla’ sharpen her storytelling, while ‘Berghain’ and its operatic grandeur underline just how fearless her artistic instincts remain. Across these pieces she reflects on fame, faith and feminine divinity, building toward a stunning finale in ‘Magnolias.’ Lux is a reminder that Rosalía is in a league of her own, using her global success not as a cushion but as a springboard into ever more daring territory.
1) Wednesday - Bleeds
Bleeds captures Wednesday at their most direct and affecting, folding small-town ghosts, frayed relationships and country-tinged noise rock into a portrait of your twenties that feels painfully true to life. The album swings between tenderness and abrasion, from the aching clarity of ‘Elderberry Wine’ and the instant classic ‘Townies’ to the volatile eruptions of ‘Wasp’ and ‘Candy Breath,’ all threaded with a sense of transition that mirrors the band’s own shifting dynamics. Karly Hartzman’s writing leans into nostalgia without romanticising it, tracing the pleasure and sting of returning home, watching things change and admitting when something is ending.