It’s worth prefacing this by acknowledging that I don’t make much use of music streaming services, which means the new music I listen to is pretty selective. Spotify is an ugly company I want nothing to do with, and in any case I’m stuck paying for YouTube Music. Not because I think it’s a good service – it’s crap – but because it’s what Google Play Music morphed into years ago, and I kept paying because I watch a lot of YouTube.
Fortunately, Bandcamp still exists, so I mostly use that, generally buying music on their excellent Bandcamp Fridays where they waive their fees and send more money directly to the artists. I hope the platform sticks around; it’s bounced around a few different owners recently, but so far there have been few obvious or negative changes to what they do. Thanks, Bandcamp!
Grousing and gratitude aside, let’s get on with the fun bit! Here are my favourite records of 2025. These either released in 2025 or were new to me and released late the previous year. One last caveat: these are my favourites, I don’t pretend this is in any way a best of the year roundup, unless you are specifically me, which you are not. Sorry.
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Lorna Shore – I Feel The Everblack Festering Within Me
Confession: I saw some of Lorna Shore’s headlining performance at Tuska festival in 2023, and at the time I remember thinking something along the lines of technically impressive but I don’t like metalcore (no need to correct me, it’s fine). I didn’t really think of the band again until earlier this year, when I missed them playing again at Tuska in 2025. I only attended one day due to overlapping travel plans, so while I got to see Wind Rose, Alcest, Power Wolf and others, I missed Blood Command, Bambie Thug, Battle Beast and, of course, Lorna Shore. But my girlfriend was there all three days, and she insisted I watch Lorna Shore’s performance screened on Finnish broadcaster Yle. She was right to do so. Around the same time the video for single ‘Unbreakable’ dropped on YouTube. So, for a few weeks I became obsessed with singer Will Ramos’ vocal talents.
While I question some times just how much of Lorna Shore’s emotional punch would still be delivered if you stripped away the symphonic elements, there’s no denying the band’s talents or the calibre of the songs on this album, with particular favourites being ‘Death Can Take Me’, ‘Oblivion’, opener ‘Prison of Flesh’ and of course ‘Unbreakable’. It’s a punishing, brutal, intense journey and I love it. I won’t miss them next time I have the chance.
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Lambrini Girls – Who Let The Dogs Out
“Once again, we’re apologising for your fucked up behaviour” snarls Phoebe Lunny on ‘Big Dick Energy’. And it’s a fair cop; the song’s a laundry list of the toxic male bullshit women have to put up with from men, and I won’t lie that I can’t see familiar behaviour in that litany of toxicity.
Who Let The Dogs Out is a fierce, sharply pointed, frequently funny, uncompromising collection of songs, indisputably punk in attitude and musical style but replete with inventiveness along the way, from the breakcore elements of ‘Bad Apple’ – a tirade against police brutality – to the synth of ‘Cuntology 101’ – a fuck-you celebration of oneself, “I’ll prioritise my own needs / I’m cunty”. As for the subject matter, if you appreciate substance to your music, you’re spoiled here with songs about neurodiversity, nepotism, homophobia, eating disorders and diet culture (“Kate Moss gives no fucks that my period has stopped / I wish I was skinny, but I’ll never be enough”) and more.
Apparently the band themselves described the album as “a party for pissed off, gay, angry sluts”. God damn, I miss Brighton sometimes.
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Martha – Standing Where It All Began – Singles and B-Sides: 2012-2025
Confession: I’ve only listened to this record once or twice, but I can’t not include it given it’s a collection of thirteen years of extra tracks from Britain’s best power pop band and Durham’s greatest modern export. It starts with the songs that made me fall in love with the band back in 2014 (thanks, Daniel, for that): ‘1978, Smiling Politely’, ‘Gretna Green’, ‘Standing Where It All Began’ and ‘1848, Yawning Discreetly’.
Martha are a band that seamlessly marry clean, hooky pop with gorgeous vocal lines and socially and historically aware lyrics. They’re deeply rooted in the social fabric of their hometown, in its history as a hub of British trade unionism as well as its communities and physical space. They’re also frequently playful, frequently nostalgic, and always great to listen to. As well as those early songs, this collection has singles like ‘Sycamore’, the charity single ‘The Winter Fuel Allowance Ineligibility Blues’, and covers of Jimmy Eat World, Marked Men, Cheeky and Lemonheads.
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Curta’n Wall – georgie and the dragon
This is another inclusion that’s made on a questionable basis, but it’s my website and I can do what I want. Georgie and the dragon is not my favourite Curta’n Wall record, but it is the one that came out this year, and I’ve not written about this band I’ve been obsessed with for the past eighteen months. If you’re unfamiliar, they’re a project of Abysmal Specter aka. Jesse Terres who does a ton of other stuff as well (I’m only familiar with Old Nick so far but really should explore more). As for what Curta’n Wall actually is, it’s… a mish-mash of black metal, folk metal, cod-medievalism and a lot of great hooks and silliness. It’s probably adjacent to the somewhat popular dungeon synth scene. The songs are mostly about medieval warfare or something tangentially related. This stuff will either work for you, or it won’t. For me it’s catnip.
Georgie and the dragon is one of Grime Stone Record’s cassette releases, which they put out digitally but with the production pretty accurately representing listening to something from a cassette. I have no idea why they do this but I like it. Sometimes these EP-length records feature versions of songs that appear later on more traditionally produced full-lengths, and I recommend both 2023’s Siege Ubsessed and 2024’s Yr Gwyddbwyl, but here you have great tracks like ‘King John, the Shite’, ‘Triple Flail’, ‘Norman Keep’ and of course ‘Georgie and the Dragon’. Fundamentally unserious music that I love.
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Håndgemeng – Satanic Panic Attack
I’m quite certain this was a recommendation from someone, though I’ve yet to figure out who it was. I was drawn in by the excellent cover photograph, and stuck around for some of the best rock ‘n roll I’ve heard in ages. As the title suggests, this record grapples with the moral panic of the 1980s, but in truth I’m here because this stoner metal fucking rocks. I don’t have much more than that to say, but the album speaks for itself.
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L A N D S R A A D – The Ambiguity of Truth
Did you know that there are quite a few bands out there actively basing work on Frank Herbert’s Dune books (or, I concede, other media derivations)? I only found this out a few years back, but since then have periodically sought them out. My favourite to date is probably from stoner metallers Sandrider; metal, in particular, has a thing for Arrakis. In LANDSRAAD we have something a bit different, with what appears to be a project from ORCUS, a UK dungeon synth outfit. Look, I know nothing about them, I just googled this to see who was behind this record. This is a synth record with a strong 1970s and 1980s vibe, and which distantly reminds me of Stephanie Picq’s excellent work on the soundtrack for Cryo’s Dune game back in 1991. It’s cool and I like it. Dune is pretty weird and despite how enormously commercialised it has become as an IP – I fear Herbert himself would roll in his grave – I like that its popularity continues to inspire people to make their own niche art.
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Dead Pioneers – PO$T AMERICAN
I think I heard about Dead Pioneers via a Bandcamp round-up of good new punk records, and indeed this is a good new punk record. It’s also a strongly politicised record focusing on the indigenous American experience. It opens with tribal drums and singing that dissolves into static and noise before dropping out for a sample: “Sometimes they have to kill us. They have to kill us, because they can’t break our spirit.” And then: sick guitar solo, pounding drums, and then: “Celebrate my independence; great. All the white folks get a clean slate.” I came to this album cold and that’s a strong fucking opening. The album explores identity, history and is deeply critical of American culture and power, thoughtful and witty in equal measure. I particularly recommend spoken word piece ‘The Caucasity’ on white privilege and arrogance, and ‘Mythical Cowboys’, because you can rarely go wrong with a takedown of John Wayne.
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Dillinger Four – This Shit Is Geniuser
A surprise release from one of my favourite melodic hardcore punk bands. Dillinger Four have been pretty quiet since 2008’s Civil War, so it was a genuine surprise when ‘Like Sprewells on a Wheelchair’ popped up on their Bandcamp. This compilation album followed a few months later. I came to Dillinger Four in the early 2000s and only got to see them live once in 2009, so I don’t know much about their early work, but I can see that this has tracks that previously appeared on This Shit is Genius in the tail end of the 90s, plus a bunch more. From what I’ve seen online, they’ve also been remastered, and honestly they sound great.
One problem is that as far as I can tell some of the tracknames on Bandcamp are fucked up (the single track ‘An American Banned’ they also put up pre-release is not the same song as what’s listed under that name on the album) which sucks, but the songs are still great.
Standouts for me are ‘Like Sprewells on a Wheelchair’, ‘Fuck You Ms Rochelle’ (listed as ‘He’s a Shithead Yeah Yeah’ on Bandcamp) and ‘Smells Like OK Soda’ (which I cannot listen to without hearing Jawbreaker’s ‘Boxcar’).
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Alpha Male Tea Party – Reptilian Brain
A late addition in December of this year, Reptilian Brain is the first album from Liverpool’s Alpha Male Tea Party featuring vocals. I remember encountering this band the first time I went to Arc Tan Gent festival near Bristol; they were playing in the afternoon when we first walked from the campsite toward the stages, and I had a good time listening to this instrumental math rock band I’d never heard before. Since then, I’ve occasionally stuck on their album Health which I always enjoy returning to.
Unexpectly, Reptilian Brain hit me like a truck. It’s full of great songs with mathy time signatures and hooky and memorable guitar, drum and bass lines, but what really landed for me is how relatable a lot of its subject matter is for me, at this particular moment and juncture in my life. For example, ‘Probably Just Hungry’ is about the frustrations of creativity; “I’m sick and tired of losing time that I haven’t got / Time is cruel” and from there it soars into a chorus of “Oh well / Perhaps I should have learned a thing or two by now / I thought we’d find a way to make it work somehow”. And then there’s ‘A Terrible Day to Have Eyes’, a heartbreaking song “ about witnessing how emotionally destructive death can be but from the position of a powerless observer”. (Shout out to Birthday Cake for Breakfast for this interview with the band!)
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