Ploughing through the album releases that have shone brightest and endured for me in 2025 in order to file the list down to ten favourites, I have definitively failed to come up with a clear winner. Other years, there were one or two albums that I had undeniably listened to above all others, but that has not been the case this time around. In fact, more than ever, I have been overwhelmed by the sheer volume of new releases that warrant some proper attention, followed by some written analysis designed to urge other people to take a listen. There is simply no scenario imaginable where I will switch off my new music radar. I love going out to hear live music too much to have no interest in what is happening in the present moment. This list is in no order, as each title is a worthy standout in a field ripe with excitement and stimulation. After all, music is art and should not be judged in a competitive sense, should it? Besides, charts in general have never been a great gauge of quality; while we live in a world where Sam Fender and not Jeffrey Lewis is the biggest selling record of the year; where Bad Bunny and not Josienne Clarke is the most streamed artist of the year; where Coldplay and not Big Thief are the most popular live act of the year, then maybe you are better off taking music recommendations not from cold analytics generated by marketing campaigns, but by passionate individuals who spend multiple hours a day listening to and appreciating music.
Hannah’s second album was a stunning melange of folk-rock fusions that pulled in abstract references to modern jazz, the grand gestures of a Broadway musical and the bold art-rock aspirations that you would reasonably expect to find on a Kate Bush recording. There are parts of this album that feature collaborative arrangements with Grizzly Bear’s Daniel Rossen, something detectable in the way these often quite progressive pieces erupt into a heady brew, with Hannah poetically honing her thematic meditations on generational trauma and maladaptive patterns with a musical experience that is deeply rewarding. All this happens across ‘Nested In Tangles’ whilst it cleverly disguises itself as an album of acoustic troubadour fare, which it is, of course, but oh so much more at the same time. This is personal music moulded into the most gregarious of sonic expressions, and it is utterly mesmerising from start to finish.
With its brilliant Bob Dylan pastiche of album title and cover art, you would be forgiven for expecting a collection of solo acoustic singer-songwriter balladry in a Dylan-esque style waiting for you in these grooves. Opening song ‘Do What Comes Natural’ is certainly in that vogue, paying homage to the talking folk tradition heard by many a Bob-worshipping acolyte over the years. But Jeffrey Lewis is a US underground national treasure in his own right, and the songs collected here touch on multiple areas of the comic book creating Lewis genius. Jeffrey has a comedians eye for the minutiae of human relationships which he can turn into very relatable vignettes like ‘Movie Date’ (a portrait of a partners inability to get to the end of a movie without falling asleep) and a record crate diggers ear for the beloved collectors sounds of Velvets inspired outsider rock and the psychedelic outlaw country portrayed by visionaries like Lee Hazlewood. Jeffrey Lewis is all of these and none because he is his own one-off voice that we are lucky to still have putting out albums as enjoyable as this in the modern music scene.
The warm, hazy country shimmer in Kassi’s music certainly caught my attention in 2023 with her wonderful ‘Kassi Valazza Knows Nothing’ album, and she pushed on further up and further in with this year’s ‘From Newman Street’ LP. That same analogue tone remains, but did I detect a little more bite and punch this time? Take a listen to the song ‘Your Heart’s A Tin Box’ with an opening lyric that seems to pull its own limbs out in frustration at the music business and the financial realities of trying to survive as a live touring musician. “Your guarantees won’t cover what you lost. It’s just money, it’s just time, it’s what it cost.” It is a frustratingly familiar theme these days for artists who are in the game because it’s a calling rather than an appealing, wealth-funded career choice. Still, we, just as they, must remember to respect and draw inspiration from the music as an indelible artistic piece of work that, in the case of Kassi Valazza and the others listed here, proves the ends justifies the means.
There were a couple of hills to climb for Big Thief ahead of this new album release. Firstly, it was going to be the follow-up to the 2022 double album ‘Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You’, which received widespread recognition not only as the band’s masterpiece but also as a pivotal work in the centuries of music thus far. Secondly, this was the band’s first record as a three-piece following the departure of bassist Max Oleartchik. Happily, this only seems to have strengthened the collaborative bond of the remaining trio, Adrianne Lenker, Buck Meek and James Krivchenia, who share the band’s first-ever joint writing credit on the song ‘Grandmother.’ With a lyric exploring intergenerational emotion, directly addressing Lenker’s grandmother, I do like the way the “gonna turn it all into rock and roll” refrain points to a connection across the generations through music. Big Thief remain predictably brilliant on an album which serves to establish their prominence and position as one of the definitive and essential bands of our time.
A collaboration between Spencer Cullum, Andrew Combs, Jordan Lehning and Dominic Billett in which the four writers reached for the pure analogue vibe of musicians playing in a room without studio tropes like headphones or instrument separation, instead just capturing the sound of players grooving together in a room. Given this potentially quite loose agenda, the finished product was a remarkably fine and focused work packed with music of a psychedelic hue that gently smoked its way around your brain. Ironically, given what I just said about headphones, this is one of my favourite records of the year for that exact kind of noise-cancelling immersion, something about the acid-folk weaving and fuzz-drenched guitar solos demands your full listening attention. That it ends on a Britpop recalling Mockney knees-up called ‘In The Pub’ is just the icing on a very tasty cake.
I wrote earlier this year about Josienne’s Sandy Denny live project, a wonderful evening offering a rare opportunity to hear Sandy’s music played live by an artist of a comparable stripe. Josienne herself made the observation that night of her own commercial fortunes being as underwhelming as solo Sandy Denny, and that burning frustration of artists denied recognition during their living years is also detectable in the short film, ‘Deluded,’ covering the remote Scottish cabin creation of this record. The candid documentary lays bare the fact that ‘Far From Nowhere’ was made in a Springsteen ‘Nebraska’ style out of financial necessity rather than through production preference, but that back-against-the-wall scenario teased out some of the rawest tracks of Josienne’s career thus far. She remains an artist I always find captivating because the music is a window to her soul. This is real and personal; she works her feelings out before our eyes and ears, but with a voice that is pure as spring water and a melodic sensibility that shines like a full moon.
Kathryn Williams is a songwriter and recording artist who welcomes and even thrives on collaboration, which is something that adds plenty of colour to ‘Mystery Park.’ Among the names who feature in both the writing and production credits are Polly Paulusma and Ed Harcourt, but arguably the one that jumps out the most is Paul Weller, who pursues his own recently enhanced love of folk sounds with a co-write on ‘Gossamer Wings’. Despite all this, the album is possibly Kathryn’s most personal collection to date, and it finds her caressing the most out of that special pop-folk sound she has mastered. Listen to the gorgeous ‘Sea Of Shadows’ musing on the passing of time adjacent to her growing son, who goes from a dressing up box child to an MF Doom t-shirt wearing teenager before our eyes, with his mother serenading “don’t explain who you are, wear your mysteries like a sheriff’s star, wearing mysteries with an open heart”. This is sublime stuff from a singer and writer who constantly astounds.
I just noticed that Ed Harcourt appears on this album too, an interesting connection as Ed is very much an artist with a similar songwriting classicist pedigree to the people he appears to have been working with lately. Ron Sexsmith is one of those artists who makes reliably good albums all the time, news of a new record is met with a similar reaction to that when I hear Richard Thompson or Lisa O’Neill have a fresh release forthcoming, I just know I am going to hear something I like on there. This one offers no great departures for Ron in terms of sound or style, but the writing this time around does have a little more abrasiveness alongside a touch of life-battered fatalism. The song ‘Camelot Towers’ is a fine centre piece example of this, portraying some soulless inner city poverty line accommodation architecture as Ron wonders “were they laughing when they called it ‘Camelot Towers’”.
Here was another artist who I had previously enjoyed, thus earmarking to keep an eye out for in the future, absolutely delivering on that promise in 2025. She magically stirs up a brew with trebly sixties guitar sounds, girl-group pop sass, and tough-edged Warhol-esque echoes of the Factory all served up with a detached nonchalance straight out of the Jesus & Mary Chain rulebook. It is at turns minimal, retro and thoroughly a valid part of the here and now. I guess you would call this pop music, but it is the kind of pop music that heads straight for the indie top ten rather than the mainstream. Whatever it is or wherever it belongs, the music of Lael Neale is a most welcome part of the audio landscape.
A real British Isles everyman and a true eccentric whose music captures something of life’s essence. Richard has featured in my end-of-year lists before, as his music is the kind that can pop into your brain as you go about your daily living, normally because you are engaged in an activity he has sung about. I am gradually settling on the opinion that ‘End Of The Middle’ is a work of outsider genius. Richard’s style is akin to that of a primitive painter, you know the kind that gets dismissed by people saying, “I could do that,” but his uninhibited melodic lines and wayward form-defying structures cut straight to both the minutiae and emotional core of everyday situations and overwhelming real-life traumas. I find it impossible not to be moved by his wholly unique music and believe him to be a genuine national treasure.
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Source: klofmag.com