Coming off a year with big culture-defining moments like Brat Summer and “Not Like Us,” 2025 was a little different. It was a great year for music, but everything felt a little more splintered this year, and in fact, picking a #1 album this year felt harder than it has in a while. Instead of a few major, dominant moments, we had the indie-country boom hitting a new peak, the biggest year for black metal in a while, the best year for emo in a while (see also: our list of the 50 best punk albums of 2025), the explosion of Geese, and all kinds of great albums across hip hop, hardcore, metal, country, indie rock, indie pop, pop pop, shoegaze, and more. We had great comebacks from veterans we love and thrilling breakthroughs from newer artists. It was such a good year for music that we couldn’t limit this list to 50, so here are our 55 favorite albums of 2025. And even with 55 albums here, some honorable mentions below, and other genre-specific lists (like punk and more TBA), there were still so many other records we loved in 2025 that pained us to leave off.
2025 was also the year that BrooklynVegan launched a new weekly podcast, BV Weekly, in addition to ramping up our BV Interviews podcast. If you haven’t already, please subscribe to those podcasts, tell your friends about them, and give us a good rating. Another way to support BV is to pick up something from the BV shop.
Thanks for another great year, and read on for our list…
Australian quartet The Belair Lip Bombs call their music “yearn-core,” mixing indie rock with country and power pop. It’s a very 2025 combination, but their second album feels timeless, pulling from ’70s AM radio, ’80s college rock, the ’90s country resurgence, and modern Australian indie. With warm charm, clever wordplay, and the powerful voice of singer/guitarist Maisie Everett front and center — backed by a sharp band — they deliver one instantly likable song after another. It’s the kind of record that makes you want to see them live. Fans of Wednesday’s Bleeds and The Beths’ Straight Line is a Lie should feel right at home. [B.P.]
After appearing (alongside Boldy James) on billy woods’ Preservation-produced 2022 album Aethiopes, NYC rapper Gabe ‘Nandez made his own album with Pres–which billy woods released on his Backwoodz label and appeared on two songs of–and the pair ended up having a ton of chemistry of their own. Preservation (who’s also a frequent collaborator of the late Ka, as well as Yasiin Bey, Roc Marciano, and others) is a master of eerie, slowed-down boom bap, and Gabe brings a knack for gripping, detailed bars that fit Pres’ production perfectly. The album title (French for magical spell, witchcraft, etc) is a reference to the duo’s shared francophone ancestry (Preservation is half French and Gabe is half Malian), and the songs are steeped in the tradition of underground New York rap at its darkest and most somber. [A.S.]
A lynchpin of Chicago’s young DIY indie scene, Kai Slater stays very busy: when he’s not making jagged post-punk as one third of Matador-signed trio Lifeguard, he’s crafting wonderful, jangly power pop with his solo project Sharp Pins. Guided by Voices and Cleaners from Venus are clear influences, but Slater also understands they were students of The Beatles, The Byrds, The Beach Boys, and Big Star — and he clearly is too, putting his own spin and energy on everything. Radio DDR dropped on Bandcamp in 2024 and caught the ear of Pacific Northwest labels K and Perennial, who gave it a proper (and slightly expanded) physical release in spring 2025, before issuing Balloon Balloon Balloon in the fall. Radio DDR is more acoustic while Balloon Balloon Balloon is louder and looser, but both are packed with perfectly crafted two-minute earworms. [B.P.]
Being covered by Tyler Childers and a whole lot of time on the road have introduced S.G. Goodman’s music to more people, but they haven’t altered her approach. She’s still making gorgeous, carefully crafted Americana that’s deeply empathetic to the people of her native rural Kentucky, and on Planting By The Signs, she’s also reckoning with loss, and taking wisdom from the cycles of the natural world. Her distinctive voice is never sweeter or more compelling than when she’s relaying harrowing small town tales on “Snapping Turtle” — except maybe when it rises in harmony with Bonnie Prince Billy on “Nature’s Child,” letting out a mournful “yippie yi yo kayah.” Goodman’s Appalachia can be dark, but in her expert, sensitive hands, it’s always a place worth returning to. [A.H.]
With 20 songs in 70 minutes, De La Soul leave no stone unturned with their first album in nine years and first since the death of Dave (aka Trugoy the Dove), who has posthumous verses and production scattered throughout. The group also roped in production from boom bap pioneers Pete Rock and DJ Premier, longtime De La collaborator Supa Dave West, and others; as well as standout guest verses from Killer Mike, Black Thought, Nas, Common, Slick Rick, and others; and the album finds De La Soul doing what they do best, staying true to the kind of jazzy, ’90s-style, alternative hip hop that they helped pioneer in the first place. [A.S.]
In a year that was full of great black metal offerings, Lamp of Murmuur’s latest album stood out from all of them. As on Lamp of Murmuur’s great 2023 album Saturnian Bloodstorm, the harsh black metal parts are cut with elements of speed/thrash metal, NWOBHM, and classic rock, but The Dreaming Prince in Ecstasy goes far deeper into post-genre territory than its predecessor. It makes its way through progressive rock, gothic metal, dark folk, symphonic interludes, and more, and the title track(s) is a three-part suite that clocks in at over 20 minutes. Even if a nearly-hour-long black metal album isn’t usually your thing, I think you’d be hard-pressed to deny how intense and unpredictable of a listen this one is. [A.S.]
As much as we loved hearing Margo Price’s journey away from traditional country on her last two albums, it’s a thrill to hear her getting back to her roots on Hard Headed Woman. The twangy, rustic, almost-no-frills album contains some of her sharpest songs yet, including a show-stopping Tyler Childers duet, and it really reminds us why we fell in love with her in the first place. It doesn’t just capture the sound of Margo’s early days as a solo artist; it captures the thrill of it. [A.S.]
After toying with old-timey fiddle music (2020’s Long Violent History), gospel (2022’s Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?), and Elvis impersonations (2023’s Rustin’ in the Rain), Tyler Childers returned with his most all-encompassing album in years. The record ranges from melancholic country-folk balladry to honky tonkin’ twang to jagged Southern rock to a Hare Krishna chant, while constantly toeing the line between “traditional” and “crossover” and sounding like no other artist in the world. On Snipe Hunter, Tyler throws every idea at the wall and often sounds even more cohesive than he did on his “genre” projects. He just sounds at his freest on Snipe Hunter, and the freer he is the harder his songs hit. [A.S.]
Yes, Pool Kids’ third album is their poppiest. But more importantly, it’s their most vivid and descriptive. Throughout this shapeshifting collection of songs that range from vocoder-fueled alt-pop to crunchy ’90s-style alt-rock to indie balladry to remnants of Pool Kids’ math-emo days, Christine Goodwyne sets scenes that play in your head like a movie. Throughout this record, you see our protagonist crying on a curb outside a CVS in the middle of Missouri during one song and smoking in the back of a truck in a parking lot of Christine’s childhood hometown of Tampa in another. And with the sweetest melodies of their career thus far, Pool Kids will have you singing along to all of it. [A.S.]
Five years removed from her sleeper hit 2020 debut album Forever, Ya Girl, keiyaA is back with another thrilling neo-soul offering that’s even more of a trip. The 19-song, nearly-hour-long album has a kaleidoscopic backdrop that varies from futuristic electronics to timeless jazz, and the vibes are so hypnotic that you might need a few listens to hear how deep keiyaA’s lyricism gets. Its concerns are both personal and societal; its moods are angry, anxiety-ridden, sensual, and hopeful. For an album that is often extremely intimate, hooke’s law feels larger than life. [A.S.]
When singer and guitar player Isaac Wood left Black Country, New Road just ahead of the release of their second album, Ants From Up There, that could have been the end of the band. They carried on instead, and this year Forever Howlong arrived as their first proper record with the changed lineup. With Tyler Hyde, Georgia Ellery (also of Jockstrap), and May Kershaw handling vocals and most of the songwriting, it’s a different perspective from their last two albums, and their heady chamber pop, which builds slowly and bursts into bloom, sounds like it’s coming from a group fully locked in with each other. The soaring crescendos are particularly mesmerizing, and seeing them pull it off live this year, swapped instruments, flourishes and all, was thrilling. With their current incarnation, Black Country, New Road have become a more interesting band, and they’re making some of their best material yet right now. [A.H.]
Like A Ribbon goes down as one of 2025’s best rap albums and one of its best electronic albums, and sometimes it’s home to some of the year’s best post-punk and bedroom pop too. It transcends easy categorization, and rarely does an artist make transcendence look this coolly effortless. John Glacier deadpans so casually that you wonder if she even realizes how massive her hooks are. Her delivery is so muted that, if she were a lesser rapper, she would get drowned out by the hypnotic haze that Kwes Darko, Flume, Evilgiane, and the album’s other producers create. Instead, she comes off as one of the UK’s most commanding newer MCs, and certainly one of the least try-hard. [A.S.]
Aesop Rock is still living in his own world. This year, he released two new albums, both of which showed off entirely different sides of the underground rap lifer’s approach to art. Black Hole Superette is a sci-fi concept album that sounds like it was written and recorded in an entirely different universe, while I Heard It’s A Mess There Too is much more down to earth, proof that Aes excels when he’s just rapping hard over hard beats. He sounds as obsessed with fucking with the English language as he did 25 years ago, and the fire under his ass is burning a lot more brightly than we tend to see from rappers who have been in the game as long as he has. With Armand Hammer and Open Mike Eagle features on Black Hole Superette, Aes reminds you that he helped influence some of the most prominent corners of the current underground rap world, but it’s Aesop’s own tongue-twisters and production flairs that have us just as excited about him today as we were at the beginning of this century. [A.S.]
Lambrini Girls aren’t the only current punk band honoring the age-old tradition of yelling at the tops of your lungs about societal bullshit over revved-up guitars, but they’re one of few who make it this fun. Their debut album Who Let the Dogs Out flips a middle finger at sexism, homophobia, capitalism, and gentrification, and vocalist/guitarist Phoebe Lunny screams her head off about these topics in a thick Brighton accent that goes so well with red-hot rage. She never really seems concerned with melody, but Who Let the Dogs Out reminds you that melodies aren’t the only way to stuff an album with hooks. Lambrini Girls rope you in with pure attitude. [A.S.]
Reacquainting yourself with nature might lead some to reach for an acoustic guitar, but for No Joy’s Jasamine White-Gluz — who left Montreal for rural Quebec — it made her shoegaze project more plugged in than ever. Teaming with Fire-Toolz, aka producer, vaporwaver, and onetime screamo vocalist Angel Marcloid, they dug into the dirt and, like David Lynch in Blue Velvet, found a vibrant, squirmy world underneath. Despite the very digital paths taken to create it, Bugland is the most organic, fully realized No Joy album to date, blurring reality and fantasy, rock and electronic music, noise and melody, insectoid and human into a nuclear-green Jell-O mold that vibrates at previously unheard frequencies. [B.P.]
After her pipe organ-focused 2020 album All Thoughts Fly, Anna von Hausswolff has returned to the world of vocal music with ICONOCLASTS, which was very much worth the wait. Compared to 2018’s darkwave Dead Magic, ICONOCLASTS burns with white hot intensity; it’s dark, it’s bright, and Anna’s voice sounds huger and more towering than ever. Her duets with Iggy Pop and Ethel Cain are mesmerizing, and the saxophone that’s woven between songs is sublime. At over an hour’s length, this is an album that’s ready to transport you to another world if you’ll let it, and is really worth taking the time to sit with and savor. [A.H.]
For me, the best death metal feels like a location, a literal spatial world made accessible through music. There’s something about Ego Dissolution, Ancient Death’s incredible debut, that feels like open, dimensional space, and particularly movement through that space. The drums rumble and roll like the shifting rubble of a desolate land, the ominous bass booms like distant weather, the guitars judder like harsh winds or peal across the sky in starry streaks, the vocals howl and hunt like unseen denizens of the surrounding peaks… and the riffs. Oh, the riffs. Riffs that describe the falling of empires and the rise of new ones. Riffs that cut holes in space for solos to lance through like newborn gods (“Breaking the Barriers of Hope”, my goodness). The spatial quality of the songs provides a lot of room to breathe; Ancient Death aren’t afraid to jam out, then slow down and make some time to vibe in their alien atmosphere, then rip one star-sailing solo after another.
There’s an inquisitiveness to this record, a patience that takes a lot of confidence to give full rein to, which is why such a relatively short album feels so complete, and so endlessly explorable. The siren-like clean vocals that appear here and there call you deeper into the unknown lands, the lapping waves like alien tides on interstitial track “Discarnate” (Unlike some, I’m a real believer in the power of a good interstitial) are touches that reveal a band trusting their listeners to be willing to sit and savour the details. Maybe more than any record this year, Ego Dissolution was pure pleasure for me, a death metal record with an explorer’s heart and a poet’s soul that’s one of the best debuts in years.. [Josh Rioux]
“We wanted to make catchy music,” Angel Abaya says of her debut as Gelli Haha, a collaboration with Sean Guerin. “But we wanted it to be weird. We felt like pop music is too boring and experimental music can be too unpalatable, so we wanted it to meet in the middle.” The world needs more music like Gelli Haha — not so much in sound, as she’s got that covered with influences drawn from 40 years of pop iconoclasts, but in spirit. Switcheroo overflows with joyous, giddy creativity where “have fun” is the only rule (apart from wearing all red), inviting you to dance all night to a parade of colorful bangers that are weird in the best ways. [B.P.]
Perfume Genius has continually grown his sound, to striking and often devastating effect, over the course of his discography throughout the past 15 years. With Glory, he seems to pause and take stock, and return to a slightly more intimate and organic feel than his most recent releases. Working again with producer Blake Mills, his longtime collaborator and partner Alan Wyffels, and a backing band featuring three members of Hand Habits (Meg Duffy, Greg Uhlman, and Tim Carr), Mike Hadreas has refined his approach to its ideal form. Never is that more apparent than on “No Front Teeth,” his gorgeous duet with Aldous Harding, that’s alternately tender and dramatic, full of detailed little flourishes. Hadreas called this his “most directly confessional” album, and it’s also one that’s found a balance between spectacle and intimacy. [A.H.]
“I identify this album as post-R&B, FKA twigs and Frank Ocean are that, too, but this is my contribution to the genre,” Marcus Brown told NPR about his great 2025 album named The Passionate Ones, a reference to Prince’s “The Beautiful Ones” according to The New Yorker. That’s a serious list of names, but Marcus’ music as Nourished by Time is a worthy addition to the party, not to mention — even with serious subject matter — great to play at one. Currently living in NYC, Nourished by Time originates from Baltimore, a town that years earlier churned out some of this century’s best & most eccentric synth & electronic-filled indie music with a strong DIY & lo-fi aesthetic, like Dan Deacon, Future Islands, Animal Collective & Beach House to name a few. It’s not hard to imagine Nourished By Time being born out of the same scene as these older artists who he’s now likely to appear on playlists and international festival lineups with, but the reality is actually much different (though he did end up touring with Panda Bear this year). Was he attending D.I.Y. shows in Baltimore? “No, honestly,” Brown told Cult Classic magazine, “I was a really sad, depressed kid that, like, never left the house.” It must be something in the water (Turnstile and End It — both also on this end of year list — are also drinking it), not to mention all the hard work he put in — both at becoming a musician, which landed him at the Berklee College of Music at 17, and at the various dead end jobs he worked at. Those jobs, which inspired much of the socialist worldview he tackles in his lyrics, came to an end not long after he released his his debut album that he made at his parents’ Baltimore home in his late twenties. It was a record that got him signed to a label and suddenly a ton of acclaim, and now he’s labelmates with Radiohead.
Though Nourished by Time has had a backing band at recent live shows, Marcus himself is the only credited musician on the album, aside from guest vocals on one track by UK rapper Tony Bontana. Marcus solely handled vocals, piano, programming, production, mixing, and engineering, and it’s his baritone voice and soulful singing that is a big part of what makes Nourished by Time so special. “When I sing, I try to sound like Coko from SWV or Elliot Smith – but I fail at it,” he told The Line of Best Fit. “My failure is a success because my skill and taste are at high levels. It’s gonna turn into something else dope…” Very, very dope.
Algernon Cadwallader’s comeback has been as unassuming as their departure was. After a six-year run of doing everything their own way, the emo revival OGs quietly called it quits after a 2012 tour with Joyce Manor, and as members went on to focus on other projects like Hop Along and Dogs On Acid, their legend and their influence took on a life of its own. Now they’re widely considered one of the most important emo bands of all time, and in classic Algernon fashion, they still don’t act like it. Speaking about their first album in 14 years in an interview with Pitchfork, singer/bassist Peter Helmis said the band have “never worried about how [they’ll] be received” and added “if anything, we’ll steer something in another direction if we think it’s gonna be perceived too well.” And by listening to nothing except their own instincts, they’ve made a comeback album that effortlessly stands tall next to their classics. Trying Not to Have a Thought is a little prettier sounding than their early records, a little more reflective, and at times more overtly political, but mostly it sounds like the same band you could see in basements across America 15-16 years ago. They’re still the kings of twinkly, Midwest-style emo revivalism, and they still sound like they’re having a blast doing it. [A.S.]
There may not have been an emo album in 2025 as intense and dead-serious as Arm’s Length’s sophomore LP There’s A Whole World Out There. It picks up where early/mid 2010s bands like The Hotelier and Pianos Become the Teeth left off, with heavy yet shimmering instrumentals and a knack for turning grief, loss, and trauma into goosebump-inducing songs. There’s a greater sense of wisdom and emotional weight than the still-young band had on their 2022 debut LP, and more musical variety too. The aggressive parts are more aggressive, the poppy parts are poppier, and there’s a noted folk/country influence–one of the album’s best songs, “You Ominously End,” is the banjo-infused emo song you didn’t know you needed. [A.S.]
Eight years, three EPs, and countless live shows into their career, Baltimore hardcore band End It finally dropped a full-length, and it was well worth the wait. Outside of a clean-vocal cover of Maximum Penalty’s 1996 melodic hardcore gem “Could You Love Me?,” End It don’t really use the full-length format to expand their sound at all, and they didn’t need to. It’s just more End It, and it’s also some of the best End It. It’s 15 tracks in under 23 minutes of thrashy finger-pointing screeds that you don’t wanna find yourself on the opposing end of, and each one is elevated by the pure magnetism of vocalist Akil Godsey. Akil is an incisive lyricist, and his ability to sing brings a unique flair to his primarily-shouted vocals even when he chooses not to. With Wrong Side of Heaven, we get a fresh take on a formula that’s worked since the earliest days of hardcore: short, fast, primitive songs with a vocalist that you can’t turn your eyes or ears away from. [A.S.]
Confusion Gate sounds different than previous Yellow Eyes in so much that it’s “Yellow Eyes, but better.” The band’s key traits remain for the most part, now emboldened by more expansive songwriting, both interior and exterior to their woven black metal patchworks. Regarding the latter, the New York group employs medieval instrumentation and flairs to strengthen the record’s character and setting. Meanwhile, they’ve found the cure to their allergy to power chords; more power chords. By fattening their sides and bulking up the skeletons of their songs, Yellow Eyes sound more complete than they have before. [Colin Dempsey]
Named after a beautiful but inedible mushroom near her Catskills home, Hannah Cohen’s fourth album is equally otherworldly but far more digestible. Earthstar Mountain draws from lush ’70s textures, from Fleetwood Mac–ish opener “Mountain” (featuring Sufjan Stevens), to a Dusty Springfield homage filtered through Minnie Riperton and Buckaroo Bonzai, to a sumptuous take on Ennio Morricone’s “Una Spiaggia” with Clairo on harmonies and clarinet. Glittery standout “Summer Sweat” hints at disco-inflected futures. Though guests abound, this is firmly Hannah’s show, and Earthstar Mountain marks a new plateau. [B.P.]
One of the year’s most welcome surprises was a Halloween release from Katie and Allison Crutchfield, which arrived after a few Instagram teasers that had some people wondering if a P.S. Eliot reunion was imminent. That was the twins and frequent collaborators’ last joint project, but in the years since they’ve referenced each other in lyrics and joined each other onstage, and it always seemed like a matter of time before they’d reconvene. Two other recent collaborators are rounding out the band this time, MJ Lenderman and Brad Cook. Together they pull from Katie’s country-inflected Waxahatchee material and Allison’s aptitude for punchy indie rock via Swearin’, and split the difference. Like so much of their material both together and apart, the results have the feel of an instant classic. [A.H.]
As indie rock continued to embrace the country and Americana vibes that Big Thief helped bring to the genre in the first place, Big Thief pivoted away from that sound and dove head-first into art rock on Double Infinity. This one’s been a little divisive amongst some fans and critics, but it seems like time has already been treating it well and will continue to do so. Made with an expanded lineup that finds the current core trio of Adrianne Lenker, Buck Meek and James Krivchenia joined by six other instrumentalists and three backing vocalists, Double Infinity is as beautiful, intricate, and unpredictable as anything Big Thief have ever done. Its best song, “Grandmother,” expands the lineup even more and brings in new age legend Laraaji for a hypnotic six-minute track with a hook that could double as the album’s mission statement: “We are made of love/We are also made of pain. Gonna turn it all into rock and roll.” [A.S.]
After releasing four gargantuan, conceptual albums in a row, Tyler, the Creator was craving something a little more down to earth. He semi-surprise-released the 10-song, 28.5-minute Don’t Tap the Glass in the middle of his CHROMAKOPIA tour, and his last few albums set such a precedent that he even told fans to “get them expectations and hopes down” because the album “aint no concept nothing.” It would have been understandable if the album went down as more of a “side project,” but Tyler is too good for that. Everything he’s touching lately is turning to gold and Don’t Tap the Glass is no exception. It’s an album that’s as refreshing to listen to as it sounds like it was to make. Its brief runtime is split between his danciest songs yet and some of his hardest rap songs. It sounds small for Tyler’s standards but big because it’s him. [A.S.]
Mayhem was the album that Lady Gaga was always destined to make, and I think I feel confident enough to call it the best Lady Gaga album as well. When Gaga arrived 17 years ago, she had a vision to shake up the pop world with a danceable darkness that it sorely lacked. She did it time and time again, but her early albums suffered from creative control issues that hindered them from being the album-length triumphs that Gaga was clearly capable of. In the years that followed, she branched out into country, jazz, and film work, before circling back to dance-pop on 2020’s underrated Chromatica. But it’s Mayhem that finally fulfills the promise made by those earliest Lady Gaga singles. She’s in full control, as the leader of a small team that also includes her fiancé Michael Polansky, Andrew Watt, Cirkut, and a few other contributors, and she delivers a full album of the demonic, tasteful pop music that makes Lady Gaga a force like no other. She fills the album with nods to Prince, Bowie, Madonna, Blondie, New Order, Daft Punk, Nine Inch Nails, and other pop boundary-pushers, and all of those artists would or at least should be proud of what Gaga accomplished here. The Madonna comparison has been common for Gaga since the beginning, and to keep it going, Mayhem is sort of her Ray of Light. Ray of Light came 16 years after Madonna’s first single and Mayhem comes 17 years after Gaga’s, and just like Ray of Light did, Mayhem defied the short attention spans of pop music fanbases and dominated a pop landscape that’s made up of Gaga’s daughters and sons. [A.S.]
Prewn is becoming a master of ugly beauty. The Izzy Hagerup-led project’s sophomore album System picks up where their great 2023 debut LP Through the Window left off and only improves upon its formula, putting a jagged edge on this otherwise-gorgeously-arranged batch of freak folk songs. At the core is Izzy’s gentle guitar and otherworldly voice, a voice that stops you in your tracks and truly cuts through the sea of indie rock singer/songwriters. And that core is fleshed out by warped cellos, rickety drum machines, and speaker-blowing grunge riffs. Its juxtaposition of dirty and delicate leaves me reminded of cult fave albums like Joanna Newsom’s The Milk-Eyed Mender, Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, Mitski’s Bury Me At Makeout Creek, and Hop Along’s Get Disowned, and I hope that one day we’ll all be talking about this album the way people talk about those albums now. [A.S.]
When we excise parts of ourselves to appeal to a friend or lover, is that process something like cattle mutilation, gory but bloodless? Samia reckons with this weighty concern on her third album, which is also her most varied, ambitious, and appealing release yet. After the pop-forward Honey, she broadened her sonic palette on Bloodless, which reaches from gentle folk to almost post-rock heaviness – and in the case of “Carousel,” both in the same track. These are songs that stick with you, from their ear-worm melodies to their vivid lyrics, with references to Diet Dr. Pepper, a Nikon Coolpix camera, and a pair of Levi’s drawing you ever further into Samia’s world. She went viral on TikTok this year with her plaintive lyrics and delivery on “Pool,” the opening track of her 2020 debut, The Baby, and since then she’s only become more adept at evoking emotion. [A.H.]
Dan Wriggins loves a slow burn. His band Friendship (whose members also play in 2nd Grade, Hour, and MJ Lenderman’s touring band The Wind) is an increasingly important staple of the current American DIY indie rock scene, but they don’t announce themselves with the types of big choruses that so many of their peers do. Instead, the songs on Caveman Wakes Up slowly unravel, with hypnotic guitar patterns and plainspoken lyrics that gradually build to climaxes that sound more satisfying with each listen. In the spirit of artists like Phil Elverum, David Bazan, and David Berman, the calmness in Wriggins’ singing and songwriting is always deceptive. It ever seems a little too mellow, the unrest is about to sneak up on you. [A.S.]
After the fantastic Sonic Boom collaboration Reset in 2022 and the equally essential Reset in Dub with Adrian Sherwood in 2023, Noah Lennox keeps his Panda Bear hot streak going with one of his most satisfying, melodic albums yet. A longtime devotee of Brian Wilson, he again builds from meticulous melodies and layered harmonies to create his own unmistakable sonic universe. He’s so dialed into the aesthetic that everything lands, from bouncy opener “Praise” to Cindy Lee collaboration “Defence.” There’s a tropical flair this time — his daughter Nadja adds Portuguese lyrics to “Anywhere But Here” — while a subtle undercurrent of space-echo dub provides just enough “sinister” to keep it grounded. [B.P.]
Hayley Williams is finally out of the major label contract that the now-36-year-old artist entered into when she was just 14, and her first post-Atlantic album (released on her own label that’s literally called “Post Atlantic”) seems like the work of an artist who’s never had more freedom in her entire career. Neither the album’s unconventional release (it first came out as 17 separate songs, before being compiled and combined with one more as an 18-song album that’s since been re-released as a 20-song album) nor the music within follow anyone’s rules but Hayley’s. The songs constantly hop from one genre to the next, with ’90s-style alt-rock, aughts-style indie rock, indie folk, pop-reggae, trip-hop, industrial, and more represented. And the lyrical content is Hayley’s most honest and uncensored yet, with gentrification, post-divorce life, and racism in the Nashville music industry sung about in equally-outspoken ways. Does it have some filler? Was its initial lack of an album sequence confusing? Will parts of it piss some people off? I think the answer to all of these questions is that Hayley couldn’t care less. [A.S.]
Patience, Moonbeam comes over five years, an Al Menne solo album, and an unannounced hiatus since 2019’s very good Four of Arrows, and the time away suited this band well. It’s the band’s best album by a mile, a melting pot of indie folk, grungy climaxes, and Radiohead-esque art rock that takes one delightfully unexpected left turn after the next. It has one of the year’s catchiest hooks, so catchy in fact that they sang it on two songs: “Emma” and “Doom.” Some songs are growers and others jump right out at you. Some are minimalist interludes and others are multi-part epics. It’s got plenty of playlist-ready highlights, but it’s also crafted and sequenced in a way that makes Patience, Moonbeam greater than the sum of its parts when it’s heard from start to finish. In an era in which too many albums are intentionally front-loaded, this one gets better and better as it goes on. [A.S.]
On Bambi, Anxious sound like the best early 2000s emo band that never was. They’re caught somewhere between Tell All Your Friends-style dual vocals and Bleed American-style anthems (and Bleed American-style ballads), and they’ve got the range to seamlessly weave in some Beach Boys/Animal Collective harmonies too. Like Bleed American, Bambi is produced like a big, warm rock record, eschewing scene-specific production styles and sounding instantly timeless. But what really makes Anxious stand out from all of their peers and forebears is their self-assurance. They know exactly who they are, and Bambi perfectly captures that. From the bangers to the ballads, every moment of this album is delivered with intention and grace. [A.S.]
Drain are currently putting on some of the wildest, biggest, and most fun shows in hardcore, and their third album …Is Your Friend captures that energy on tape better than any Drain record has before. With 10 ragers in 27 minutes that run the gamut from skate punk to crossover thrash, Drain make you feel like you’re right there in the room with them with lyrics that follow suit (“The energy I feed, you feed, we feel alive/Just for tonight… And when I scream, I want to hear it ring forever”). While piling on the energy, Drain have upped their songcraft too; these are Drain’s catchiest songs yet, and not just because of the clean vocals on “Who’s Having Fun?” and parts of “Living In A Memory.” Even when he’s barking his head off, Sammy Ciaramitaro delivers the most memorable refrains of his career. [A.S.]
It was back in 2018 that David Berman called Ryan Davis “the best lyricist who’s not a rapper going,” but somehow it took until this year for Davis to really get his big breakthrough. He’s a real wordsmith, and New Threats From the Soul is nearly overflowing with his nimble witticisms and canny references. It also just rocks: The Roadhouse Band’s brand of shitkickin’ country is tempered with a little indie rock, horns, and subtle electronics, but it’s enough to get anyone’s cowboy boots tapping along, not to mention the soaring harmonies from luminaries like Will Oldham, Myrian Gendron, and Catherine Irwin. For all the wordplay contained within New Threats From the Soul, my main takeaway might be that I can’t get its songs out of my head. [A.H.]
Who but Rosalía could make a pivot from flamenco to electro-pop and reggaetón to opera feel like the most natural thing in the world? The Catalan artist is one of our most interesting pop stars, and Lux may be her most exciting release yet. Certainly, it boasts some impressive statistics: Rosalía sang in 13 different languages, worked with collaborators like Björk, Yves Tumor, Estrella Morente, Silvia Pérez Cruz, and Caroline Shaw, and took inspiration from the lives of female saints and the writings of Simone Weil and Clarice Lispector. Yet what stands out most about Lux is the scope of its magisterial beauty and terror. Performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, its lush orchestration is fortifying and unnvering, delicate and fierce, and utterly transportive. And a lot of the appeal is in Rosalía’s otherworldly voice, which is mesmerizing and evocative as it spans languages and moods. There are so many different levels to appreciate Lux on, and the payoff just gets better the deeper you go. [A.H.]
“I was born to do this / shouting and pointing,” Jarvis Cocker sings on the opening track of Pulp’s first album in 24 years. Cocker has continued to make shouting and pointing an art form in his post-Pulp projects, but somehow it all just hits better when he’s with the band that made him famous in the ’90s. There are plenty of expectations attached to a comeback record, and Pulp managed to over-deliver, mixing great new songs with a couple of unused oldies polished to perfection, alongside lots of signature moves — sexy whispering, horny lyrics, disco — and a few surprises. (When Jarvis drops a raised-eyebrow “are you sure?” during “Grown Ups,” it’s fan service in the best possible way.) A lot has happened since the last Pulp album, including the death of bassist Steve Mackey in 2023, which ultimately led to the creation of More as part of a “choose happiness wherever you are” outlook Jarvis has since adopted. That brings wistful ruminations on mortality, filtered through Cocker’s distinctive worldview, but also an ease, camaraderie, and sense of fun that has been largely missing from Pulp records since Different Class. “I am not aging, I am just ripening,” Jarvis sings later on “Grown Ups,” adding, “and life’s too short to drink bad wine.” More has already aged well in the six months since its release, and it deserves to be savored. [B.P.]
Supposedly, Die In Love is Greet Death’s “happy” album. Not that the band’s usual melancholy is entirely absent on this grief-stricken LP, but there’s a sense of uplifting joy coming through in these songs that no previous Greet Death record had. They make a foray into blissful indie pop on addictive standouts “Country Girl” and “Emptiness Is Everywhere,” and they break up those moments with the heavy shoegaze and somber slowcore that they’ve always been best known for. It’s by far the most musically diverse Greet Death album, and it’s no stretch to call it their best either. Maybe a little light was just what this ever-depressing band needed.
Honorable mention: Greet Death’s Harper Boyhtari also co-leads Christian Science Reading Room, whose 2025 debut EP Under the Bed and in the Eyes of Another is very much worth hearing too. [A.S.]
Even in a year in which “indie-country” was everywhere, Florry stood out. On Sounds Like…, they come off like a lo-fi garage rock version of Crazy Horse, the Grateful Dead, and Bob Dylan & The Band, a true “road album” following the campfire singalong vibes of 2023’s The Holey Bible. But it’s not all ramshackle jams. The sentimentality of songs like “Hey Baby” and “Pretty Eyes Lorraine” tug at the heartstrings like the best country tearjerkers. [A.S.]
2025 was a great year for ’90s-era artists, but unlike Pulp — who road-tested new songs on tour — Stereolab surprised nearly everyone by announcing their first album in almost 15 years just weeks before release. The real shock was how good Instant Holograms on Metal Film is, and how naturally it fits into their catalog. This is classic Stereolab: jazzy chords, hypnotic rhythms, xylophones, flutes, brass, interwoven vocals, politicized lyrics paired with “bah dee bah” hooks, and all manner of analog synths. Lætitia Sadier says she was more actively involved than ever, and with new collaborator Cooper Crain of Bitchin Bajas, the Groop found their mojo again. This Hologram isn’t an illusion — it’s real. [B.P.]
Eusexua is a rush of feeling, pleasure, and physicality that plays out like a cross between Kate Bush, Erotica and Ray of Light-era Madonna, and the post-COVID party era. Its title is a combination of the words “euphoric” and “sexual,” and the music within is a combination of art pop and rave. Primarily co-produced with electronic futurist Koreless, Eusexua splits its time between club-night fever dreams, avant-garde excursions, and sensual comedowns, and the bliss doesn’t stop here. It fades into a disorienting haze that picks up on FKA twigs’ second album of 2025, EUSEXUA Afterglow, a worthy sequel to one of the year’s most intriguing pop records. [A.S.]
Lily Allen’s West End Girl was a semi-surprise release, announced just a few days before it came out with no pre-release singles, but an even bigger surprise than the album’s rollout was what lay within. West End Girl was written after the dissolution of Lily’s marriage to actor David Harbour, and it plays out like an open letter of Lily outlying every way that she was wronged, cheated, and lied to. It’s so raw and unfiltered that it comes off more like personal essay writing than lyricism. It’s the kind of album that you could imagine hitting hard on first listen and then lacking replay value due to the essay-style lyrics, but it’s so damn catchy that the opposite is true. West End Girl follows Lily Allen showering praise on Charli XCX’s world-conquering 2024 album Brat, and it often sounds inspired by the most vulnerable, conversational parts of Brat, delivered with a Lily Allen twist. Lily turned unflinchingly real moments into singalongs, with storytelling so vivid that it comes as no surprise that a stage adaptation is already in the works. [A.S.]
Agriculture’s 2023 debut album positioned them as the rightful heirs to the “ecstatic black metal” throne, and their sophomore album The Spiritual Sound finds them transcending that title entirely. It’s an album that doesn’t really fit neatly into any genre, with elements of black metal, sludge metal, screamo, folk, slowcore, post-rock, and more, often with two or three of those weaved seamlessly into the same song. The musical melting pot is matched by lyrical themes that make The Spiritual Sound qualify as a dual concept album, with bassist/screamer Leah B. Levinson taking on queer history and trans life while guitarist/screamer/singer Dan Meyer reflects on themes of Zen Buddhism. It would seem like too much to fit into one album if Agriculture didn’t make it all sound so enjoyable. Each individual song brings something distinctly different to the table, and even as it ends with the album’s most triumphant, climactic song, The Spiritual Sound leaves you wanting more. [A.S.]
I always say that my favorite billy woods album is the latest billy woods album, and that’s especially true with Golliwog. It’s one of the best of his very prolific career, and it already feels like it’s got a lot of staying power. It’s a semi-concept album with roots that can be traced all the way back to a short story about an evil golliwog–a racist caricature rag doll–that woods wrote at 9 years old. On this album, we find woods in the middle of a nightmare on one song and navigating everyday waking life on the next, and it’s never clear which is scarier. The production (from Steel Tipped Dove, Conductor Williams, Kenny Segal, The Alchemist, Preservation, and others) is equally haunting, and standout guest verses from Bruiser Wolf, Despot, and woods’ Armand Hammer partner ELUCID are as essential to the vision as woods himself.
Honorable mention for even more billy woods and ELUCID from this year, Armand Hammer’s Alchemist-produced album Mercy is not to miss. [A.S.]
The most common criticism leveled at Never Enough is that it sounded too much like Glow On, which was probably brought on even more so by an opening track/lead single that sounded like an intentional rewrite of Glow On‘s opening track/lead single. But six months later, you don’t have to squint very hard to see this album’s unique identity shining through. Two of its best and most widely-loved songs sound kinda like The Police (“Seein’ Stars,” “I Care”), and Turnstile prove they can swing the pendulum all the way in that direction and still find them for some of their fiercest, fastest hardcore punk songs (“Birds,” “Sole,” “Sunshower”). Never Enough is loaded with some of the sharpest left turns in Turnstile’s catalog; the Latin horns and reggaeton beat in the otherwise heavy rock song “Dreaming,” the transition from headbanger riffs to club beats on “Look Out For Me,” and the explosive mosh part after the A.G. Cook-assisted sound collage in “Dull” still sound surprising even after you’ve heard them dozens of times. In classic Turnstile fashion, Never Enough finds them focused on pushing the catchiness, the experimentation, and the heaviness to new limits, and doing so their way and no one else’s. [A.S.]
It makes sense that one of the biggest influences on Greg Freeman’s Burnover was a photobook, particularly Nancy Rexroth’s IOWA, an early ’70s snapshot of rural America. Like Rexroth’s photography, Greg Freeman’s songwriting is vivid and full of stories that reveal themselves with closer looks. Burnover is fueled by snapshots of frozen-over lakes, open roads, pastures of cows, and specified plant life, and it’s within those scenes that Greg pulls the songs startlingly into focus with plainspoken human emotion and memorably metaphoric one-liners. Throughout this record, Greg’s Americana-tinged indie rock songs contain a range of echoes, from Songs: Ohia to Pavement to The Replacements to Wilco to Greg’s contemporary MJ Lenderman, and Greg truly adds something new to that particular canon. These songs are subtly experimental, not-so-subtly catchy, and full of staying power. If I were making a list of the most enduring rock songs of 2025, at least half of this album would be on it. [A.S.]
“I don’t know anyone that’s making anything that’s like my music,” Irish singer Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson told MOJO, and she’s not wrong. Certainly not anything like “The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station,” an orchestral space-rock jam where she expresses her disdain for the British celebrity chef before reminding herself, “don’t be a bitch / the man’s got kids and they wouldn’t like it.” And probably nothing like “Lord, Let That Tesla Crash,” where she mixes haunting grief and wry, distinctly Irish humor into one of the year’s most affecting ballads. EURO-COUNTRY, CMAT’s third album, plays like a greatest hits compilation, offering something for everyone, overflowing with giant hooks and endlessly quotable lines, all while remaining unmistakably the product of one brilliant mind. There really is no one else like her. [B.P.]
Private Music is a masterclass in aging gracefully and longevity. Released 30 years after their 1995 debut album Adrenaline solidified Deftones as one of the pioneering nu metal bands, Private Music has helped make Deftones even more of a force today than they were then. In more recent years, Deftones emerged as a band that helped influence so much current shoegaze, post-hardcore, metal, and indie rock; they’re even more of a Gen Z favorite than so many of their once-more-respected ’90s peers. And on top of all that, Private Music is an album that meets the moment. It embraces everything that’s made Deftones so influential on new generations, it sounds as fresh as all the young bands that take after them, and it’s still the same Deftones that longtime fans know and love. It’s easily the strongest Deftones album since 2010’s Diamond Eyes, and it already seems as career-altering as that album was. It’s all of these things in a way that feels incredibly natural, and never comes off like Deftones are trying to fit in with any trends. It’s likely the album Deftones would’ve made whether they blew up on TikTok or not; it just so happens to be fueling the heavy rock zeitgeist of 2025. [A.S.]
“This is what Wednesday songs are supposed to sound like,” said Karly Hartzman when her band Wednesday announced their new album Bleeds. “We’ve devoted a lot of our lives to figuring this out—and I feel like we did.” Talk about calling your shot; Bleeds lives up to that promise and then some. It nails the mix of alt-country and grungy, shoegazy indie rock that brought Wednesday to the forefront of the current indie-country boom, and it explores the full range of that spectrum, from the gorgeously-twangy “Elderberry Wine” to the screamo fury of “Wasp” and all kinds of equally undeniable songs in between. Wednesday made topping 2023’s widely-loved Rat Saw God (our #7 album of 2023) look way too easy, and in a year in which indie rock felt more splintered than ever, Wednesday rightfully emerged as rare frontrunners across the board. Karly is one of her generation’s most affecting songwriters, and Bleeds has the most addictive melodies and vivid lyricism that she’s written yet. [A.S.]
Getting Killed arrived at precisely the right time. It’s not as though there’s been a lack of great guitar bands recently — look at Turnstile’s explosion in popularity over the past few years, to name just one example — but as summer turned to autumn in the first year of the second Trump administration, more than ever, everything was looking fucked up in innumerable ways. And here’s Cameron Winter, shouting about a bomb in his car and 100 horses dancing over frenetic guitar squalls and production from Kenneth Blume (fka Kenny Beats). Things connected, and suddenly you had Geese’s packed-to-the-gills free Banker’s Anchor show in Greenpoint dominating social media feeds, like a scene straight out of indie rock’s heyday in the mid to late 2000s. Glowing endorsements from the likes of Patti Smith and Nick Cave. Ticket resale prices soaring on their sold out tour. And the shows themselves, with some heralding Geese as our soon-to-be next great arena rock band. Sure, there’s some hyperbole here, but people love a New York rock band, and the momentum felt unlike anything I’ve witnessed in a minute.
While it technically came out in 2024, Cameron Winter’s debut solo album is an essential part of this story too. Released late in the year, not really expected to be a hit, it nonetheless picked up a following and by mid-2025, it felt like a genuine phenomenon. Winter’s voice wasn’t for everyone, or maybe it wasn’t at first but then it clicked (that’s my story). He has one of those unusual voices, the likes of which have set so many cult heroes apart — certainly people must’ve paused at Jeff Mangum and John Darnielle’s voices at first too! The songs are so compelling, and they feel fully removed from 2023’s jammy 3D Country or 2021’s Strokesy Projector. Beyond the songs themselves, Heavy Metal had an accompanying mythology that really captured my imagination. I loved how it positioned itself as a serious piece of art with a whole (partially fictional) backstory. And when Getting Killed arrived a few months later, the love for Cameron’s solo album made the anticipation even greater. Is the hype getting out of hand? Is the media coverage astroturfed? I can only speak for myself here, but haters be damned, I’m all in; there is only dance music in times of war. [A.H.]
With Let God Sort Em Out, Clipse released a comeback album like no other. For Malice, it’s not just his return to rapping; it’s the story of his entire journey from coke-rap trailblazer to converting to Christianity and denouncing his past to coming back to rap with a vengeance (“I done disappeared and reappeared without a voilà!”). For his brother Pusha T, who followed Clipse’s initial run with a triumphant solo career, it’s at least the third time he’s reinvented himself, and it’s a reminder that Push just has a different aura to him when his older brother’s in the studio with him. For sole producer Pharrell Williams, it’s one of his best batches of beats in years, with one foot in the aughts-era work he did with Clipse as a member of The Neptunes and the other foot in the future. It’s an album with a cast of guests that help celebrate Clipse’s important and influence; you can just feel the admiration in their voices as Kendrick Lamar and Tyler, the Creator both deliver career-best guest verses. On top of all that, and most importantly, it’s just a great rap record, with some of the most addictive rap songs of the year. [A.S.]
15 years and six albums into their career, Deafheaven released the ultimate Deafheaven album. Sunbather may always be the classic, but Sunbather doesn’t capture the full scope of this band the way Lonely People With Power does. That album’s gorgeous atmospheric black metal soundscapes are all over this one, as are the heaviest aspects of New Bermuda, the cleanest, shoegaziest aspects of Infinite Granite, and the post-genre ambition of Ordinary Corrupt Human Love. Lonely People With Power is everything Deafheaven are capable of, on top of being one of the most cohesive statements of their career and some of the best songs they’ve ever written. It’s an important album for Deafheaven, and an album that dominated 2025 in general. Even in what was one of the best years for US black metal in a while, Lonely People With Power towered over the world of heavy music and beyond. [A.S.]
Andrew’s Honorable Mentions
Adult Mom – Natural Causes
Blackbraid – Blackbraid III
Bruiser Wolf – Potluck & Made By Dope
Saturdays At Your Place – These Things Happen
Superheaven – Superheaven
Bill’s Honorable Mentions
Saint Etienne – International
Marie Davidson – City of Clowns
Viagra Boys – viagr aboys
Baxter Dury – Allbarone
Suede – Antidepressants
Amanda’s Honorable Mentions
caroline – caroline 2
Neko Case – Neon Grey Midnight Green
Ethel Cain – Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You
Florist – Jellywish
Audrey Hobert – Who’s the Clown?
Dave’s Honorable Mentions
Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory – Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory
Califone – The Villager’s Companion
L.S. Dunes – Violet
Miley Cyrus – Something Beautiful
Pissgrave – Malignant Worthlessness
**
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