This year’s album list (unranked) isn’t about one dominant style or one “scene.” It’s an array of contrasts, often between despair and hope, or the sacred and the profane. As much as they’re an enjoyable listen musically and sonically there’s also a lot going on lyrically, whether that’s asking cosmic questions, describing daily mundanity or uncovering personal grief. If there is any unifying “theme” then it might be one of taking risks. With more and more music feeling divorced from risk, these albums remind me (and us?) that boundaries can still be pushed and that the best music can still demand something from you while it’s being enjoyed.
These New Puritans “Crooked Wing” (Domino)
This feels like one of 2025’s greatest leaps: a lush, ritualistic art-rock record that marries the ancient and the uncanny. Armed with pipe organ, bells, glockenspiel and exquisite production, “Crooked Wing” draws your attention with a sort of reverent hush and then slowly dismantles it with industrial intimacy. It’s baroque and it’s beautiful. TNP as always stake a bold claim on the edges of contemporary rock and this more than ever displays their prowess for musical world building.
Perfume Genius “Glory” (Matador)
With “Glory,” Perfume Genius (Mike Hadreas) trades previous theatrical art-pop for something raw, urgent and emotionally naked. The album channels grief, longing and queer vulnerability, but pushes them through a sonic prism of lush instrumentation and quiet intensity. The result is haunting and breathtaking: a record that doesn’t cushion heartbreak, it forces you to stare at it head-on.
Suede “Antidepressants” (BMG)
The comeback record you maybe didn’t anticipate, but which was absolutely needed. “Antidepressants” finds Suede channelling their trademark glamour, melancholy, and melodic ambition with a renewed sincerity. It’s familiar but not in a nostalgic way. This is more like a rediscovery of their post-punk sounds, as if they remembered why they got into this in the first place. There’s tenderness and typical late-night longing in Brett Anderson’s vocals too but also an aged weariness that serves the songs very well.
Benefits “Constant Noise” (Invada)
Benefits evolve from their debut “Nails” with Kingsley Hall and Robbie Major introducing elements of rave and electronic wizardry to their loud, urgent sound. Still berating, frustrated and politically astute “Constant Noise” is a starkly honest snapshot of restlessness and societal upheaval. There’s something cathartic about its rawness, the way it faces the shit without any gloss. There’s not much comfort from the narratives but lots of hope in kicking against the pricks and feeling something real.
Ethel Cain “Perverts” (Daughters of Cain)
Where “Perverts” lands in your personal top-20 might say as much about you as about the record. If it isn’t present then what can we say? Taking a left field swerve beyond the Ethel Cain lore this album is audacious, confrontational, and drenched in raw emotion. Hayden Anhedönia continues to blur lines between real life and character-led vulnerability and provocation. She builds haunting soundscapes that don’t flinch. It’s a record that’s discomforting in some ways but that also makes it feel strangely necessary.
Water From Your Eyes “It’s A Beautiful Place” (Domino)
Cosmic, claustrophobic, and beautifully unhinged this second album from Water From Your Eyes is everything you want from a band tempting the boundaries of indie rock. “It’s A Beautiful Place” detonates with unpredictability: one moment dreamy and shoegazy, the next crunchy post-punk or glitch-pop. Its ecstatic collision of styles, existential lyricism and sonic daring make it one of the most intriguing and thrilling listens of the year.
Blondshell “If You Asked For A Picture” (Partisan)
“If You Asked For A Picture” sees Blondshell (Sabrina Teitelbaum) crafting something moody and vulnerable. The swirl of alt-rock, emotion, and rawness bites quietly but still deeply. It’s not a showy record for all its catchy melodies and witty story arcs, it’s an album that almost sneaks up on you. It immediately becomes stubbornly memorable and drips with the confidence of a songwriter at the top of their game.
Caroline “Caroline 2” (Rough Trade)
With “Caroline 2,” the London trio refine their sonic language into something both elegant and raw. This album feels like a conversation between precision and spontaneity and there’s an added tension between their sharp songwriting and the energy and improvisation at its heart. Overall it presents a sophisticated evolution of their signature sound with its lush textures, bold dynamics, and a refusal to settle for comfort.
Anna Von Hausswolff “Iconoclasts” (Year0001)
“Iconoclasts” is like a cathedral built of sound. Powerful, cavernous, and inherently spiritual. Anna Von Hausswolff has always thrived in the intersection of grandiosity and intimacy, and this record pushes that even further. It doesn’t comfort so much as confront; listening feels like a ritual.
Jehnny Beth “You Heartbreaker, You” (Fiction)
On You Heartbreaker, You” Jehnny Beth is at her most bold, intense, and emotionally unfiltered. This record feels like a scalding open letter. The thunderous pulses and beats pushing against heartbreak result in an a sort of defiant clarity. There’s little room for a comfort zone here, as recrimination and truth battle for peace. But make no mistake there are a slew of hefty tunes in the mix to carry the aches and pains beyond mere suffering.
ROSALIA “LUX” (Columbia)
“LUX” feels like a cinematic plunge into holy ground, or perhaps blasphemous grandeur, whichever way you look. ROSALÍA blends orchestral sweep, operatic vocals, and modern electronics in a record that doesn’t chase hits but demands immersion. Critics have praised it as “orchestral pop” that leans so close to classical that its pop instincts feel like ghosts drifting through a cathedral.
NewDad “Altar” (Fair Youth / Atlanta)
With “Altar,” NewDad pivot from their shy post-punk energy to something bolder and more polished, but without sacrificing the ache that is so emotive in their music. The album is thick with longing, displacement, and the unmooring one feels when trading home for ambition. Spiralling guitars, driving bass, intimate vocals: this is indie rock that carries the weight of nostalgia and uncertainty.
Momma “Welcome To My Blue Sky” (Polyvinyl /Lucky Number)
“Welcome To My Blue Sky” is an album that hits like a nostalgic flick-through of old Polaroids and memories, which is exactly the point. On their fourth album, Momma channel 90s-tinged grunge-pop and hazy alt-rock to examine youth, mistakes, longing, friendships, and messy growth. There’s urgency and fuzz, double-vocal hooks and slacker-charm riffs: tracks feel immediate yet weighty, personal yet wide open for projection.
The Horrors “Night Life” (Fiction)
After a long stretch and some line-up shifting, The Horrors come back not with fanfare, but within a slow unfurling haze. “Night Life” is moody, suitably nocturnal and strangely comforting in its darkness. The preternatural gothic overtones on previous incarnations are veiled now as the band swaps bombast for atmosphere: synth-soaked urban gloom, hushed vocals, and industrial undercurrents. This is a record that feels like walking home alone at 3 AM, but with purpose.
Welly “Life In The Suburbs” (Vertex Music)
Welly may not be a name people are familiar with, as much as others on this list at least, but their debut album is a sneaky and sardonic collection of songs that steal your attention rather than hit you over the head. “Big In The Suburbs” thrives on its off-kilter charm: wry melodies, sly lyricisms, and a sense that strange suburbia might be far more dramatic than it seems. It may be an outlier but it’s also very witty in its characterisations, much like Blur’s Parklife/Modern Life Is Rubbish, it takes immense pleasure in its own updated take on suburban weirdness.
Ethel Cain “Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You” (Daughters of Cain)
Far less thunderous than “Perverts,” yet no less compelling, “Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You” offers a different shade of Cain’s artistry. Continuing the Ethel Cain story via a prequel to her debut “Preachers Daughter”. There’s space here for more introspection, for pain to settle in, and for beauty to flicker in the darkness. It feels like the after-hours confession, fragile and necessary. It ripples with a more insular palette of melodies than the pop and upbeat tones of it’s predecessor.
Heartworms “Glutton For Punishment” (Speedy Wunderground)
Post-punk meets introspection. “Glutton For Punishment” walks the line between abrasive energy and melodic pop restraint, capturing perfectly the tension of someone wading through inner conflicts. It doesn’t glamorise pain whilst it inhabits it though. Singer Josephine Orme subtly merges gothic and industrial sounds along side dance melodies makes it one of the more, jolting entries on this list.
Horsegirl “Phonetics On and On” (Matador)
This album lands like early-morning sunlight sneaking through curtains, it’s casually gentle yet melodically insistent. Horsegirl mix crisp indie-rock with expansive moods, producing a record that feels intimate but vast. “Phonetics On and On” is also blessed with a wealth of tunes that swirl around in your head long after they’ve ended.
Hilary Woods “Night CRIÚ” (Sacred Bones)
“Night CRIÚ” is a devastating gem. It’s flooded with haunting intimacy, like a journal you can’t look away from. Woods wraps vulnerability in misty atmospheres and tender instrumentals and this time around adds vocals into the mix. The result is a seductive blend of emotions, human solace and hurt. It doesn’t force catharsis, but bathes you into it. It’s the kind of album you play when the world feels heavy and you just want to sit in the ache, and maybe heal a little.
Sharon Van Etten “Sharon Van Etten and The Attachment Theory” (Jagjaguwar)
For her seventh studio album, and first recorded as a band project, Sharon Van Etten strips back the comfort-blanket intimacy of solo songwriting and trades it in for a textured, collaborative rock album. With airy synths, brooding electronics, and a band that pulses under her voice, this feels like a reinvention that still carries the emotional core fans expect. There’s an aesthetic shift and a creative liberation. Van Etten’s decision to write with her band as equals gives the record a sense of immediacy, energy, and collective catharsis.