Flint Presents: Top 15 Albums of 2025
It's that time of the year again, where we music nerds gaze upon the works of blood, sweat and tears that passionate musicians have released into the wide world, and then cruelly and casually pick favourites based solely on our whims.
Yes, it is indeed Listmas and I too follow the traditions. Let's therefore take a look at 2025 and more specifically, my 15 fifteen favourite albums of the year, ranked from the least excellent all the way to the lucky winner who receives the fabled honour of Flint's Album of the Year. At least, based on how things are at the time of writing this in mid-December 2025; knowing my luck, sometime in February 2026 I'll hear a 2025 release that basically rewrites the entire damn list. But for now, I'd like to take you through what I consider this year's best albums, one by one and in order.
But before that, it's time for some honourable mentions - i.e. albums that either just missed a spot, or simply didn't qualify on account of not actually being albums.
- Japanese Breakfast - For Melancholy Brunettes & Sad Women: AKA runner-up #1. J Brekkie's latest is a gentler, more nuanced affair that trades Michelle Zauner's trademark energy for some string-laden ballads and midtempos.
- The Mountain Goats - Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan: AKA runner-up #2. John Darnielle's trusty crew enlists the help of Lin-Manuel Miranda and turn Darnielle's penchant for storytelling into something close to a musical, and it works shockingly well.
- Stick Crickets - Mini Mart Projectionist EP: Stick Crickets returns with a short and sweet collection of classic Crickets cuts, echoing both late 90s alternative quirk as well as hippie era pop melodies. Inspiring and inspired.
- Flower.Puppy - Outside Time EP: Speaking of short and sweet, I picked this EP on a whim in a stall during summer and then couldn't stop giving it a spin across the season. Lo-fi bedroom pop with a twee heart and sunshine in its heart. Delightfully replayable - a carefree summer set to songs.
- Cassandra Jenkins - My Light, My Massage Parlor: I had a bit of an awakening with classic new age music this year, and in a perfectly coincidental move Cassandra Jenkins released a set of soothing ambient renditions of songs from her excellent My Light, My Destroyer from last year. It's just lovely.
- Sonic Team - Echoes of Dimensions: Sonic Racing CrossWorlds Original Soundtrack: The obligatory Sonic entry of the honoured mentions. The CrossWorlds soundtrack is an excellent mix of brand new adrenaline-pumping originals and (mostly) brilliant remixes of classic cuts across the series' history. And the box set it comes in is gorgeous!
And now that we've got those out of the way, it's time for that main list!
Flint Presents: Top 15 Albums of 2025
15. LOW ROAR - HOUSE IN THE WOODS
It's not going to be much of an exaggeration to say that most people who are fans of Low Roar are so because of Death Stranding. Hideo Kojima uses his video games as an excuse to make personal mixtapes to introduce artists he loves to the wider world, and the frequent usage of the Low Roar discography across the desolate package delivery/mindfuck simulator was a match made in heaven. Low Roar suddenly jumped from an act in the brink of being doomed to obscurity to a household name among video game enthusiasts, turning their fortunes around completely.
Ryan Karazija, the man behind Low Roar, passed away in 2022 at the age of 40 from complications with pneumonia. He was working on his first album following the popularity surge from Death Stranding, but he never got to reap the rewards.
Karazija's ghost understandably lingers all over House in the Woods, released post-humously as the final chapter to the story of Low Roar. As it always is the case with situations like these, it's difficult to tell just how much the final release meets the vision that the creator had for it. Much of House in the Woods is sparse and skeletal, most songs typically finding the barest of accompaniments from minimal pianos or guitars and sets of ambient backings; it wouldn't be too farfetched a guess that at least some of these were demos still waiting to be fleshed out. But it works. Karazija's always-frail Thom Yorke-like falsetto is in its natural environment in such stark conditions, piercing through with deep sadness and warmth. You can't escape the context here no matter how much you try (the title track even has the lyric "I'm staring death in the eyes") and it's inevitable that the same terms keep coming back to mind - haunting, mournful, final - and with that present, the somber ballads and ambient daydreams feel particularly heavy.
I went back and forth a lot on what should get the fifteenth spot on this list, and even now there are albums that didn't make the cut that I will be listening to more often, which have songs that will play in my head on a regular basis or which I'd probably recommend more readily than this. But I'll be thinking about House in the Woods a lot more. Even with those fewer listens or lack of big bops (the closest it gets is the woozy "Field of Dreams" and the cold electronic haze of "Just How It Goes", not coincidentally both preview singles as well as the album's most lushly arranged songs), it makes its presence heard and it stays with you, lingering at the back of your mind as an experience. It's not always an easy listen, but each time it plays it leaves an impact, and that's what ultimately took it over the finishing line. It also leaves a sad reminder that a great talent has exited the building.
Check also: Just How It Goes | Field of Dreams
14. YOUTH GROUP - BIG WHOOP
Australia's mid-2000s indie hopefuls Youth Group staged a surprise comeback in 2019 after a decade's absence, with the humble yet potent Australian Halloween (one of the year's best albums). And then the grand return stalled: first COVID brought the world to a halt, and even when it became possible to travel again the simple logistical nightmare of the band members living in different parts of the planet made it so that Youth Group didn't get the chance to follow things up quickly. Perhaps by intention - perhaps having the band as something that a group of friends simply come together for when the joy of playing together beckons them again is something that feels right for them now. Big Whoop was recorded in pieces across the past couple of years and after a false alarm of a start in late 2024, finally appeared later this year.
The old dog has learned some new tricks since the last time around, and Big Whoop was preceded by the buzz around the band introducing a little more electronic flair into their sound this time around. That's true as well, though if all the PR blurbs hadn't mentioned it maybe I wouldn't have noticed it enough to make it a point here - the little synthy blurbs, fizzes and light drops of drum machines here and there are usually little more than background texture, adding a clear twang to the overall pot but not so much that you could call this synth rock or anything. But it adds a more produced vibe across the album in contrast to the last album's intentional homeliness and provides a different accent to what is in the core a very Youth Group esque album. It's hard not for the band to sound like themselves really when their heart lies in Toby Martin's soft conversational voice and his incredibly earnest and sometimes bluntly personal lyrics - they alone lend the band an unmistakable presence that retains its grasp regardless of the set dressing around it.
Over the past handful of years when I've been actively listening to Youth Group and collecting their albums, they've become a little bit of a comfort zone for me. Again, Martin is a big part of it: he sounds like he's talking to a friend when he sings, his gentle smile beaming from every vocal melody. I particularly love it when he does get personal: Big Whoop's big centrepiece statement "Don't Turn Your Back on the Moon" is Martin reflecting on his age and his life lived so far over a dreamy tilt of an arrangement and I can't enough of it, especially when that petite chorus lifts up just the right amount to make it sound like a happy, nostalgic sigh. The songs sound like they could have easily come from ca. 2006-2007 (the lead single "Siberia" is a straight-up mid-00s post-punk flashback) and it hits in a way you can positively call it timeless and not just Flint nostalgia bait. Across the nine songs you can find hypnotic atmospheres expressed through keyboard wrappers and enchanting guitar lines, exciting rock-out moments where the not-so-Youth Group show they can still kick it, and plenty of tender moments that can hit particularly well when you least expect it. Youth Group may not release music often anymore, but it's turning out that whenever they do decide to do so, they release something that's going to keep captivating for the however many years until the next one.
Check also: Don't Turn Your Back on the Moon | I Don't Wanna Go Into It
13. JUNE LALONDE - FRAMEMAKER
June LaLonde has been releasing music for years, but my first encounter with her music was this year when I saw her perform in a basement mini-festival where a number of acts played 3-4 songs each. LaLonde stepped on the stage late into the evening with just a guitar and an effects pedal, and proceeded to conjure beautiful, aching songs with haunting soundscapes for the next 10-15 minutes or so. It was spellbinding, especially when it was such a contrast to all the wilder and rowdier acts around her set. It left an immediate impression and I went to check out her music the following day, and to my surprise it was completely different - oft-bright and technicolour synth pop affairs, growing from the more humble arrangements of her earlier days to the bigger and bolder anthems of her 2021 self-titled. Still good; just different.
The guitar-oriented approach wasn't a red herring, just a powerful preview. Framemaker arrives following a series of tragic losses in LaLonde's life, particularly the passing of her mother with whom LaLonde had shared a passion for late 1990s indie rock. In her own words LaLonde had never had the courage to write or perform guitar-based music prior to this, but she was inspired to do so following the loss of her mother as both a tribute of sorts as well as a way to express herself in a different manner. It is still alike LaLonde's previous albums in that it is bold and bursting with colour and light, taking big steps in shimmering arrangements - the sadness behind its creation is reflected largely in the lyrics, if not expressed in the arrangements. But the ever-present guitars and slightly rock-leaning arrangements are the framework and the connecting point, bringing the songs together and occasionally taking the lead to different waters.
Framemaker arrived quite late into 2025 and so I haven't had the chance to really digest it as much as most albums in this list, thus I'm ready to admit I'm still unlocking layers within it. But it's constantly inviting me in to keep digging deeper. I'm not afraid to admit that a lot of it is down to it being so unfortunately relatable, given the losses I've suffered over the past 12 months (more on that later...) - but it arrives with enough distance to those hits that I can enjoy something, well, cheerier again without feeling irrationally guilty about it. Thus, the combination of bubbly songs (the widescreen awe of the title track and the sky-reaching lushness of "Halo" in particular) with a heavy heart has been the perfect combination. LaLonde writes excellent melodies and the busy-yet-breathing arrangements bring them to life beautifully. Besides, if I want to get wrecked, the gentle descend towards the sunset the album takes in its last third and peaking with the accepting final farewell of "Until Next Time" is always there for that; not a dry in the house with the last one. Framemaker is a beautiful and heartfelt album that I'm still in the middle of fully sorting in my head, but it finding a place on this list is already completely obvious to me.
Check also: Until Next Time | Halo
12. GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS - CAUGHT LIGHT
Look, I'm just going to repeat what I said in my first impressions about Caught Light: it's a Great Lake Swimmers album. They ought to receive some kind of reward for being quite possibly the most reliable band of all time: every new album of theirs courts the exact same territory as all the previous ones, and yet it's always welcome. There are minute changes - here it's the focus on a core five-piece band after the last album's more (carefully) expansive sonic palette - but the results always sound like Great Lake Swimmers. Warm and wistful indie folk mid-tempos delivered straight from the cosiest cabin in the woods, sounding like old friends from the very first listen and providing a place of comfortable introspection to tuck in for a little while.
Now that I've had a little more time with the album, my thoughts haven't massively changed from the first impressions. Tony Dekker and his crew know their strengths and have downright weaponised them, and I am a melting piece of indie dweeb putty in front of their softly-sung, gently melancholy ballads. But the melancholy there really comes through this time around. Dekker spends the bulk of the album ruminating on past events, lost chances, second thoughts and longing what-ifs, frequently referencing cold winters and time running out. He comes across really worried about... everything really, from the distant past to the near future. It's impossible for him not to sound affable even when he's sunk low and Caught Light still sounds like the best throw blanket you could wrap under during a storm, but there is that dark shadow constantly lingering at the back that lends Caught Light its own personality. It lends a gentle darkness to the songs which in its own way makes them more compelling, as the navigation between the warmth and the cold gives it an interesting balance.
But what Caught Light ultimately boils down to is that it's a consistently strong set of instantly captivating songs, decorated in lovely indie folk arrangements full gentle acoustic strums, bittersweet slide guitars and softly bellowing organs, readily welcoming the listener to sink into them for a little while. So, a Great Lake Swimmers album. You know what you're getting into with them by now and if this would happen to be your first album you've heard by them and you like it, boy howdy do I have some excellent news for you.
Check also: Wrong, Wrong, Wrong | Caught Light
11. SHARON VAN ETTEN & THE ATTACHMENT THEORY - S/T
Sharon van Etten had such a good time touring the synthy and moody We've Been Going About This All Wrong (2022) with the backing band she had assembled around her that the combined quartet decided to take it a step further and formally become a democratic entity (though one with Van Etten still firmly in the center). It's not just faux-humble set dressing either - you can really feel the band at play on the self-titled "debut" album, particularly in the rhythm section. Jorge Balbi's driving drums and Devra Hoff's sturdily groovy backbone of a bass are frequently in charge and lending the songs a huge part of their personality, in contrast to Van Etten's previous albums under just her own name where... well, there were definitely drums and bass on those albums, I can say that much.
The Attachment Theory begin where We've Been Going About This All Wrong started, in the same dark and atmospheric waters full of textural synth pads and gloomy keyboards that take their inspiration from the 1980s but through the lens of someone who lived through the decade and didn't just have a synthwave playlist in the background. But as a full band with a kicking rhythm section the group has got a bit of a pep to their step, and so over the course of The Attachment Theory's 46 minutes Van Etten and her crew (besides Balbi and Hoff there's also Teeny Lieberson on keyboards and similar) live out their best 80s goth pop fantasies, black eyeliners armed and ready. There's dramatic synth swoons, sunglasses-at-night cool gloominess and big hooks full of romantic anxiety - but also there's just a lot of tangible playfulness and fun. The widescreen jangles of "Idiot Box" and the dirty synth funk of "I Can't Imagine" finds Van Etten at her most freespirited in a long while, and the mountainous pop songs like "Afterlife" and "Trouble" as well as the batcave shimmer of "Live Forever" and "Southern Life" really pop off through the band's chemistry.
SVE & The Attachment Theory sounds like an album that came together so effortlessly it's almost miraculous - and it's to its advantage. Quite often these albums that come about while on the road end up being less than the sum of their parts as the artists chase that miraculous live high in the studio, but here it's done just right: discovering something new about themselves, indulging on a shared whim and having as much fun in the studio as on the stage. We all know this is going to be a one-off discography blip, but part of me definitely hopes it wouldn't be.
Check also: Idiot Box | Live Forever
10. PUP - WHO WILL LOOK AFTER THE DOGS?
I don't like using the phrase "return to form" and "back to basics" has its own bad connotations, but I guess that's what Pup are doing here to some degree? Though with the caveat that The Unraveling of PupTheBand (2021) is a very good album; it's one where Pup tried to defy expectations and added a whole load of new sounds and ideas into their repertoire, straying the furthest from what you'd expect from them. Who Will Look After the Dogs? is, in comparison, is back to Pup's usual personality: muscular moshpit pop songs that make you think about death and feel sad and stuff, laced with impenetrable layers of self-defeating punchlines that put a smile on your face despite knowing it's against your better judgment. It is Pup as you know it - and for the second time in this list for an album by a group of Canadians, I'm fine with that, actually.
Who Will Look After the Dogs rolls in right through the gate with brute force like it owns the place, and across the next 35 minutes it reveals itself to be Pup's strongest album to date. The band are simply on fire and on point: the hooks are sharper than ever, the mad energy is the most unhinged yet and the sad fuck punchlines are their most effectively entertaining to date (the title-dropping "I can't die yet 'cause who will look after the dog?" is only second to the honest chuckling brutality of "living well is the best revenge! I've been living like shit!"). The secret ingredient running through it are the lessons brought over from The Unraveling of PupTheBand in terms of adding a little more nuance to the arrangements and the melodies. That's how we get things like the Pup-ballad "Hunger for Death", the simple yet punchy vocal harmonies decorating "Falling Outta Love" and the genuine emotional twang running through Stefan Babcock's delivery in "Shut Up" - amidst all the classic Pup of e.g. "Olive Garden" and "Get Dumber" that sound even better when paired with slightly different things next to them. It's also how we get "Hallways", which might just be Pup's best ever song and a real masterclass in everything that makes them them: funny yet also kind of earnestly affecting, hooks for days but muscles for miles, power pop at its best.
Perhaps it's just the fact that I landed in Pup's world a little late and Who Will Look After the Dogs? is the first album of theirs I've bought on release, but after appreciating them for some while I feel like I've finally discovered my Pup album - the one just right for my tastes. I've wanted to both laugh and cry to this record, its raw energy being both oh so compelling to jump along to while it also fuels the punches it sometimes suddenly doesn't pull back. I pretty much blurted it out earlier on already but what we have got here is the best Pup album to date.
Check also: Get Dumber (feat. Jeff Rosenstock) | Best Revenge
9. KEEP IT TOGETHER - SIGNALS
Here's another opportunity for me to go on my soap box and state that if you love indie rock and adjacent vibes/genres and you're not paying attention to the furry fandom indie scene, you are absolutely missing out on one of the most fertile grounds of talent right now. Somehow in the previous decade (probably spurred on by Car Seat Headrest's success to at least some degree) a veritable subculture within a subculture has gone into full bloom, with (convention-)touring acts, grassroots labels specialising in physical releases, collaborative support of talent and active, passionate fanbases - and in the center of it are now-countless numbers of talented, diverse and idiosyncratic songwriters operating from their homes, channeling their inspirations in their own voices while remaining largely hidden from the rest of the music world. We've reached the point where certain releases end up creating buzz and spreading like wildfire through word of mouth akin to how hyped releases end up causing ripples through conventional music media. This year one of those big releases was Signals by Keep It Together (a rare case of a UK-based group rather than North American where the scene is really exploding), propelled by the brilliant lead single "Navigator" which hasn't stopped playing in my head on a weekly basis since I first heard it at the start of the year (proudly one of my Songs of the Year, if we're counting).
Signals is technically KIT's fifth album, but with the switch from a solo project to an actual band and the increase in both line-up numbers and production values along the road, it sounds like a turning point for the group. What further backs that notion up is that while the influences are audible - the group cite Car Seat Headrest, Pinegrove and Slaughter Beach Dog directly as inspirations while Signals itself bears lineage from turn-of-millennium indie rock like Barsuk-era Death Cab - the way it's been blended is all Keep It Together's. There's ambition there too: Signals charges in with confidence and clarity, and compared to their previous works it sounds like a band on a mission to step and show themselves to the world. They sure do. The suddenly explosive guitar dynamics, the moments of intimate vulnerability, the surging melodies and the occasional dabble in more programmed elements are a constant flurry of little surprises and exciting delights, and they're are all bound together by Jake Ennis' voice and writing who weaves his immediately evocative vocal melodies through a set of confident and heartfelt anthems. Like the best music of this kind Signals resonates, stirring something deep within - be that the surprise emotional tinge it might hit you with when you least expect it, or the giddiness of discovery and re-realisation of just how good it is.
Look, I'm a sad luddite - I listen and buy a lot of stuff through Bandcamp and though I enjoy so much of it, I still struggle a little to truly connect with digital-only releases because of just what my listening habits (and my irrational "connection" to physical media) are like. Signals has well and truly smashed that barrier, keeping me in its grasp all year because of how compelling its songcraft is (I'm still begging for a CD issue though). This is a genuinely notable thing and you can laugh at me all you want for that. But this is a beautiful, inspired album that speaks my language and ticks my boxes, reminding me both why this sound is such a comfort zone for me and why I am so thrilled about the fandom's music scene. Signals makes me so excited to hear how the story of Keep It Together develops from here and if they ever want to break out into the wider world, they absolutely would deserve it.
Check also: A Different Language | Outside In
8. MANIC STREET PREACHERS - CRITICAL THINKING
The first concrete bit of news we heard from Critical Thinking was that it was just a set of songs with no greater connecting theme; the last time we had that was 2018's Resistance Is Futile and that's proudly sitting as the second-to-last in their album ranking. Eventually you could start reading between the lines that the album was that way because it was borne out of scrapped solo albums by frontman James Dean Bradfield and bassist/lyricist Nicky Wire that were for seemingly no reason welded together. Drummer Sean Moore seemed to actively detest any kind of promotional duties (more than usual) or spending time with his bandmates more than necessary. The lead single "Decline & Fall" was straight out of the Manics playbook of obvious lead singles. The album is named after a song where Wire rants about "smart fucking motorways" and "being your authentic self", which in no way helps with his image of a man out of time and refusing to entertain the notion of stepping up (an image he proudly self-imposes). Talk about setting expectations low...
Despite everything stacked against it from the onset, Critical Thinking has defied expectations and turned out to be a great album. Even if it's likely unintentional, there's an undercurrent across the album of the trio paying homage to the art rock heroes and post-punk contrarians of the 1980s that they so adore: it binds the disparate-at-source song material together and provides an ample backing for Bradfield to lay out some of his loveliest guitar work in the past decade on top of (gosh the guitars sound so good on this album). Its origin in two solo albums also brings in an exciting kind of diversity. The songs Bradfield has written from top to bottom are full of warm sentimentality and bittersweet beauty, emanating a kind of late summer evening serenity even when the tempo picks up and he lets his rock-out instincts take charge. Meanwhile Wire's "Hiding in Plain Sight" shows how far he has come as both a songwriter and a lead performer as he unveils some of his loveliest melodies to date (it's the band's first Wire-lead single, and it deserves it), the red herring opener of the title track is a piece of beautifully insane chaos the likes that that the band haven't indulged in years, and "Onemanmilitia" near the ends brings the album's various strands together as it kicks the last door down with its defiantly sneering energy. Even "Decline & Fall", which as a lead single did little to ring up excitement, sounds excellent in context and has really revived itself in my eyes as it leads into the album proper with a melodic breeze following the title track.
Critical Thinking holds together because it has so much heart in it. 2021's excellent The Ultra Vivid Lament felt like a reconciliation in the band's endless push and pull between settling into a more self-indulgently fearless approach in their autumn years and their misty-eyed longing back to their big hitmaker days, and it closed another chapter in the trio's history. Now with nowhere to go but the open road, their first instinct has been to take stock of where they are and to simply write songs that feel right to them at this stage; that both of the songwriters seemed to find themselves in the same spot concurrently perhaps lead to the merger of their ideas, and we've likely ended up with a stronger album for it than if we had had those two solo releases. Critical Thinking may be "just songs" at the end of the day, but you can hear in every chiming bright guitar, rising anthemic chorus and sometimes clunky lyric that it comes from a meaningful place for the band. There's an optimistic warmth to the songs, and it's difficult not to be swept by it.
Check also: People Ruin Paintings | Being Baptised
7. BON IVER - SABLE, FABLE
Last year Bon Iver released the Sable EP, a set of three songs which saw Justin Vernon return to the lonesome aching singer/songwriter sound of his earliest albums. It was a false start, for both Vernon and the audience. Hidden in the EP's typically Vernon-like abstract lyrics lied the lament of a musician who felt trapped. Despite being in a far better place mentally than he was in his younger days and creating music that reflected it, he felt artistically stuck because his most applauded work were still those sad songs he wrote when things were considerably worse; he felt he was snared by the depression of his past and not allowed to move on beyond it. Ironically but perhaps expectedly, the release of the EP resulted in hyped-up buzz about Vernon finally going back to his old sound.
Vernon ultimately scrapped everything else that came from the Sable sessions and followed his heart. The three songs from Sable are featured as the first three songs on Sable, Fable as a prologue of sorts and once they've concluded, a hymnal wave of vocal harmonies and keyboards opens the door towards the rest of the album as Vernon shrugs off the ghosts of his past and looks forward. The remainder of Sable, Fable is an altogether more optimistic record, adorned in gospel-like melodies and a serene outlook. The busy, hyper-layered production and modern RnB and pop inspirations of 2019's I, I return as the core of the record's sound world, but handled with more focus and care than the last time around, with a touch of 80s art pop thrown in for good measure. It's not as dense or complex as the previous albums but it's straight from one heart to another, leaning on both its serenity and its directness to pull the listener in.
Sable, Fable sounds like a cleansing process. The first 12 minutes are a misleading start, especially how abruptly they get swept away once the album proper kicks in, but it's a necessary prelude to understand where the heart of the rest of the album lies. From thereon in song after song Vernon sheds away his skin and allows himself to enjoy his own life for a moment, while from time to time wistfully reflecting on the journey he's taken. The short hymn-like pop songs of the main album radiate with light and love as the weight's come off, and it lends the songs a warmth that resonates deep within. When "There's a Rhythmn"/"Au Revoir" ends the album with Vernon taking toll of the whole experience, the revelation of finding the light at the end of the tunnel is practically piercing; it took no time at all to join the Bon Iver album closer hall of legends. The songs are great but Sable, Fable is an album where the context really enhances the experience; through that, you unlock the view to its emotional heart that makes this one of 2025's more impactful albums. I would've happily eaten up an entire record in the vein of the Sable songs, but how this turned out is so much more artistically gratifying and inspirational.
Check also: There's a Rhythmn | S P E Y S I D E
6. MATT BERNINGER - GET SUNK
I have written in great length about how much The National mean to me, but frontman Matt Berninger's second solo album wasn't a default slot-in to the year's best albums list. After all, while his first solo record (2020's Serpentine Prison) has grown on me quite a bit, it's still an album that's more interesting in its concept of Berninger emulating the cosy, smokey crooner ballad records in his dad's collection he grew up hearing in the background, than in the somewhat half-delivered execution. But Get Sunk was a surprise at how much it exceeds the usual expectations for a frontman solo album, and as the year's moved forward it's revealed just how sharp its bite is. The secret behind that success? Just letting loose a little.
The National have embraced the "sad dad" memes among their fans (there's merch and everything), but I suppose it stops being funny when you actually are a truly, deeply sad dad feeling like everything is falling apart. That was Berninger's lockdown period and the career-threatening breakdown, writer's block and the subsequent recovery with a new joie de vivre was the fuel behind The National's excellent duo of post-COVID comeback albums. The purpose of Get Sunk (co-written in large parts with prior collaborator Sean O'Brien) was explicitly to not be a sad dad; Berninger wanted to allow himself a musical playing field where he could relax and have a bit of fun without playing up to the demons in his mind for once. The end result isn't stylistically a million miles away from his day job and with a little tweak you could see half the album working in The National's context as well - but it's the vibe which makes the difference. "Bonnet of Pins" soars like a classic alternative hit complete with revved-up guitar lead lines, "Inland Ocean" tilts around like walking through the room four drinks in at a great chilled-out party, "Times of Difficulty" invites the listener for a frivolous singalong ("Get drunk! Get sunk!") as the last song of the night, "Nowhere Special" merges the now-classic Berninger incoherent spoken word stream of consciousness with a fearsomely locked-in-tight groove surrounded by echoing, ethereal atmospherics. Berninger sounds relaxed throughout and simply having a good time putting together some songs without second thoughts or a need to always dip in to the darker side. It helps that the songs are also largely excellent throughout, graced with strong performances, in-depth arrangements and alluring melodies.
I went to see Berninger live on the tour for this album, and if the album's intent wasn't clear by that point then seeing him on the stage (smaller than what he's used to by now with The National) made it obvious. He was bouncing around, playing up to the audience and giddily interacting with his bandmates - so much the usual as he always does, but with songs that downright invited the joviality rather than the joy of just playing music having to work to break through the millennial anxiety of The National. In the encore they whipped out a cover of "Blue Monday" and for a moment he and his crew transformed into a party band simply having a blast together (the studio version of that cover was subsequently made available via Amazon only - I've replayed it a lot this year). Get Sunk is all about that simple love for making music: a frontman breaking his usual character in order to simply deliver a set of excellent songs without any deeper ambitions or strings attached. The casual air of Get Sunk continues to be a breath of fresh air.
Check also: Bonnet of Pins | Nowhere Special
5. BDRMM - MICROTONIC
BDRMM first came to my sights with their 2023 sophomore album I Don't Know, a good and sturdy record that at the time sounded a little like a still-fresh band looking for their own voice under the shadows of their inspirations. In hindsight, they were just as much trying to figure out what their own voice should sound like in the first place. I Don't Know wavered between their original shoegaze-indebted sound, careful experiments with electronic programming and the kind of Radiohead territory alternative rock you're always in risk of following when you mix moody guitars with quirkier synthetic beats, restlessly looking for where to settle. Microtonic now arrives a couple of years later and answers some of those questions: as it turns out, their heart's guided them towards the more electronic route.
The band's original shoegaze guise is only present in Microtonic through its emphasis on dense, overwhelming textures, but otherwise the guitars are largely absent or often weaved into the background seamlessly with everything else going on. The walls of sound have now taken the form of shimmering, crystalline synth pads that fill the airwaves and build formidable structures around Ryan and Jordan Smith's oft-ethereal vocals. The skittering drum machines now sound like they should be soundtracking a busy club somewhere in an urban dystopia, but the arrangements behind them are pure vintage ambient and the trailing melodies softly cutting through - some guitar, some synth - could be from a deep sci-fi space opera score. This is incredibly specific even for a list all about what I've liked in music this year, but a lot of Microtonic reminds me of the electronic music I binged through with a scattershot approach in my teens, surfing the web at 2am while letting atmospheric synthetic soundscapes fill my headphones and colour my nights. Microtonic is hazy and dream-like to the point where it's so easy to positively sink into it, but those constant sturdy rhythms keep the momentum going and the listener on their toes.
Microtonic is as close to early 90s ambient-going-IDM as it is to modern Bandcamp bedroom shoegaze, and BDRMM find a perfect place for themselves in that middle ground. It's a bold and hypnotic leap forward, and one of the year's most rewarding repeat-listens.
Check also: Clarkycat | Snares
4. GREAT GRANDPA - PATIENCE, MOONBEAM
"Doom", the centrepiece anthem of Patience, Moonbeam, starts with a brief choral moment of Great Grandpa's multiple vocalists solemnly harmonising over a quiet violin. Half a minute in the song suddenly twitches into a nervous and twitchy alt-rocker straight from the golden period of Radiohead, complete with a mechanically precise drum beat straight out of the Selway playbook. The arrangement grows and the instruments get added in, before a sudden and downright abrupt tempo change halts the song like pulling brakes without warning, the soundscape now covered by a dirge-y wall of guitars. From there "Doom" recovers, picking up elements from all three sections so far, weaving between the contrasts and augmenting the half-art rock/half-midwest emo swing in the process. Three minutes in, the power chords and the slower tempo return - but the song now grows into a skyscraper-tall power ballad, where you can imagine the fireworks begin to explode behind the band and the simple repetition of the word "damn" sounding like the most profound syllable uttered. It's a truly incredible finale to a restless yet beautiful song - and it's one that was already sneakily previewed three songs earlier in "Emma" where the same melody first appears, though with a more acoustic arrangement.
"Doom" is Patience, Moonbeam in a nutshell. Great Grandpa sound more like a community than a band, with various voices (songwriting as well as actual voices) entering the room with different genres, styles and themes of their own in their minds and then collaborating with the others to create something they can truly call theirs, plural. Perhaps in 2025 moreso than ever, as the pandemic had brought the initial sessions for the follow-up to 2019's excellent Four of Arrows to an end and the band had scattered across the world to live different lives, and for a time no one was certain if there would even be a Great Grandpa anymore. But something called the quintet back together again and the result is not just their most impressive record; it's also their most diverse. You could summarise it just by rough styles - i.e. the breezy indie pop of "Task" and "Ladybug", the trip hop wallow of "Ephemera", the cabin log folk of "Top Gun" and the americana-tripping "Junior", the noisiest walls crashing down on "Doom", etc. But there are songs within songs here, as the arrangements flicker from intimate mid-fi to string-laden regality, from brutally emotional to tenderly calm.
Patience, Moonbeam is always shifting shape and out to surprise the listener, but not with the mind of a trickster in play. Rather, it's reflective of its creators - all who are incredibly earnest and wear hearts on their sleeves, pouring their various emotions out through honest, gripping songcraft. Great Grandpa, as a whole, then put it all together into a concoction that couldn't come from anyone else, sometimes in ways that shouldn't make sense but - as it's clear from the emotional reaction it elicits in me - absolutely do. Worth the long wait.
3. CAR SEAT HEADREST - THE SCHOLARS
Car Seat Headrest have always been a little extra. Even in the Bandcamp days the occurrence of 10-15-minute songs wasn't particularly rare and often those would be dropped early on in the album with no warning. When they signed and became a full-on band, the added production values only allowed them to go even wilder with their mini-epics, with the 2018 re-imagination of Twin Fantasy not only lengthening the songs but adding a whole meta layer narrative on top of the album's already hefty themes. 2020's Making a Door Less Open may have lacked the big songs, but it did also scatter numerous variations of half the tracklist across all the different physical and digital formats, so the extraness was still there. A concept album about the denizens of a fantastical university with a fragmented narrative you can only piece fully together through the accompanying libretto-style liner notes, concluding with a 19-minute multi-suite colossus? Something like this was always on the horizon and the only question was when?.
The Scholars is the third best album of 2025 not because of its extracurricular reading, its grand ambitions (or delusions of grandeur, positive) or because of its fantastic set of illustrated liner notes that absolutely hand it the prestigious Best Packaging of the Year award (sorry Sonic Racing CrossWorlds OST and your sexy box set). It's because the songs are so great and the band are clearly having such a great time putting them together. Between the heavy emotional psychodrama of Twin Fantasy (Face to Face) and the intentionally chaotic MADLO (great album, btw), Car Seat Headrest haven't sounded so obviously like they're having so much fun since Teens of Denial. The Scholars is a very complex and nuanced record that rarely takes any paths you'd exactly expect it to, but it's also so jubilant with its big rock choruses, vocalist swaps, irreverent call-and-answer sections, cheeky references (the sudden "who put the ram in the ram-a-lam-a-ding-dong" gave me the goofiest smile the first time around and now I wait for the line to drop with giddy excitement every time); even during its serious moment it sounds like everyone's riding the same rollercoaster with an equal thrill in their hearts, like in the cascading fireball finale(s) of the gothic "Gethsemane". The band have also never sounded better, and though they've already well proven to be an incredible set of instrumentalists the chemistry across The Scholars is on a whole new level and just from a performance perspective it's a really impressive album, with some truly incredible arrangements.
The Scholars finds a sweet spot between the brains of prog rock, the balls of glam rock and the heart of indie rock, and it results in a real experience of an album. By the end, 70 minutes don't seem enough - I get so interested in the various characters and the world they inhabit that I want to spend more time with them. The Scholars is dense, exhilarating and emotionally gripping - what a trip.
Check also: Gethsemane | Devereaux
2. SCANDINAVIAN MUSIC GROUP - RAKKAANI,
OK, time to get a little bit heavy and personal now.
First things first though, some basic facts. Rakkaani, (yes, the comma's in the title and not due to my butterfingers - it's "My beloved," as if starting a letter) is the tenth studio album by the Finnish long-running now-institution Scandinavian Music Group. Their first three albums, released shortly after the dissolution of the iconic 90s group Ultra Bra where most of SMG's members came from, presented a confident and commercially minded modern rock band; a few americana-tinged experiments within those records lead to their 2007 - 2011 era folk/country-styled album trilogy, which has become over time become their definitive "signature" period. They were followed by two albums with a slicker, more processed and synthesizer-oriented sound but the plans for another trilogy were cut short by the COVID pandemic. During the lockdowns the band suffered an existential crisis, broke up, and then regrouped by returning to the acoustic guitars and releasing the hushed Ikuinen ystävä two years ago (did quite well in the 2022 list). Rakkaani, is a direct continuation from the previous album, still residing in that comfort zone of americana-tinged folk rock that you could argue is a safe bet for SMG... but they just do it so well that it's hard to complain. Rakkaani, is also much more of a band album after the very stripped-down last offering and this time all those members in the banner actually have things to do across all the album, including bringing back some of the synths from the "cold" duology to sometimes take the songs through unexpected routes. Despite its chronic-and-actually-annoying shortness (eight songs, 28 minutes), Rakkaani, likely would've done reasonably well in the list had it been any normal year.
My dad passed away mid-December 2024 - the anniversary of his departure is just around the corner at the time of writing this. Rakkaani, was released at the end of February 2025 and inadvertently became an album I found seeking unexpected solace through: it was brand new so it felt like a blank slate to process things with, and the softly-spoken and oft-bittersweet sound felt appropriate for the headspace I frequently found myself in. When my mother shockingly passed away in May, that effect doubled; this was already my haphazard "grief album", and by that point it had enough experience under its belt to withstand twice the weight. Rakkaani, is a pathetic 28 minutes long, but I've lost track of how many twice I've played it twice, three times in a row across 2025.
Rakkaani, is an album about love. The moments of domestic bliss, the spark that still stands years later, the acceptance of when it's time to let go and the appreciation of the life shared together even once the ways have parted. It's a very mature album about love as well, less predisposed with honey-eyed notions of puppy love and more reflecting on these things through a well-lived lens as you'd expect from a group of 50-somethings who've experienced a lot in that respect (lead vocalist Terhi Kokkonen divorced later in 2025 and it's easy to read into some of the more regretful though not saddened lyrics with that in mind). I think all of that helped with living through grief. I had to unexpectedly bid farewell to familiar love, not romantic love (and a shout-out to my partner for being my understanding, unwavering wall to lean on this year), but the same notions of companionship, significance and understanding the importance of it all after it's gone are all there. The album became an indirect way to untangle the cables in my head during times when it was begging for a reboot, and as the months went on the more impactful the comfort it gave felt. There's a repeated lyric in one of the songs about "hearing your mother's voice from years ago", and each time I can barely get through that lyric without getting misty-eyed; but it's changed from sorrow to, I don't know, coping?
Rakkaani, is a great album but it's this high on the list because of 100% contextual reasons. You should still check it out.
Check also Vihreänä puuna kasvava rakkaus | Mihin auringon laskiessa jäin
1. ANTONY SZMIEREK - SERVICE STATION AT THE END OF THE UNIVERSE
Let's not end things on a downer note though, eh?
There are a number of reasons why I might choose one album over others as the hallowed Album of the Year. Sometimes it's the album that left the biggest emotional impact even if it wasn't among the year's most played (probably because it bore such an impact); other times it's been one that I couldn't put down month to month. Every now and then the choice has come down to pure vibes, i.e. to resolve a difficult choice I simply went with what felt right. Service Station at the End of the Universe has been a front runner for the title since halfway through the year for a number of reasons (some of which I'll incoherently try to explain shortly), but there was one specific metric that really helped to seal the deal: this is the one album I've not shut up about all year, encouraging everyone I know (and random followers who I don't know) to give it a listen by copious amounts of name dropping, direct recommendations and persistent sharing of links and videos. I have been desperate to have someone else hear this album and maybe, just maybe, on an off-chance get excited about it with me. By the level of sheer excitement alone, this had it in the bag all along.
But who's Antony Szmierek anyway? Despite some buzz around the UK music media and frequent appearances at "one to watch" type of listicles, the Mancunian musician's debut album has slipped past the radar for most by the looks of it. He's difficult to forget though, once you do encounter him. His tool of the trade is his comradery spoken word delivery: insightful, charming and witty poetry (and it really does read out more like poetry than traditional lyric craft, choruses nonwithstanding) grounded in the day-to-day life of people watching, observational comedy and standing still while looking at your choices and non-choices take the wheel of where you're going. Szmierek utters these musings - often funny, sometimes poignant, always resonant - with the cheeky wink of a friend offering a hand and endless moments of his time to chat with you, his gentle Northern tilt radiating warmth and sympathy. Underneath it all lies electronic production that gazes at the late 90s and the turn of the millennium years with love and admiration, but stays in the modern day rather than becoming a pastiche for millennials in their retirement homes.
Service Station at the End of the Universe is, above all, a pop album. It may not have the kind of melodically abundant approach that most pop albums do, but it ticks all the boxes: it's immediately and relentlessly catchy, it summarises something essential about the power of music through the force of three-minute songs with a beat to tap your foot to, and it feels like a rush. On one end of the spectrum you have the alluringly funky grooves of "Yoga Teacher" and "Big Light", the ca. 2000s optimistic club rush of "The Great Pyramid of Stockport" and "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Fallacy" or the atmospheric jolt that propels "Rafters" - immediate, endlessly danceable (be it in your bedroom or on a public dancefloor, though I've only tried the former), exuberant. On the other end you have the moments of introspection and calm where the facade drops in the middle of the party and the soul-searching begins, be it in tune to the late summer night lilt like "Crumb", the grand fortress of solitude that "Restless Leg Syndrome" builds with its longing textures and gentle skip-step, or the pure emotion that comes flooding over a garage beat on "Crashing Up". They all reach for wholly different kinds of emotion that they want to portray to the listener, but all of it sounds directly relatable straight from the heart even where you don't relate, because of how welcoming and approachable these songs are together with Szmierek's voice. And indeed, there is an element of surprise there that I've ruined for you now, but which is one reason why this album ended up hitting me so much: after all those funny songs about that weird corporate pyramid I've passed so many times during my life and having a spiritual crush on your yoga teacher, the second half of the album pulls the rug from under your feet by revealing how those same tricks can be used to pierce your unsuspecting heart. I didn't expect the more melancholy notes of the record at all and on my first listens, they hit me like a brick. They've done the same on all the other listens.
Deep down right in the very end is "Angie's Wedding", as perfect an amalgamation of the album's different facets as you could get. Szmierek imagines a hopeful future for people named on road signs he's passing by - "Marry me Angie", "support our local lad, he's on reality TV" - and wishes his best that they got what they dreamed of, but his telling of it also carries a deep sense of longing to have that same perfect future where those dreams came through; the thick, deep bass grooving its life out in the background is one of the most infectiously jamming arrangements of the record but still carries that same wistfulness within, in that classic Pet Shop Boys-esque happy-sad fashion. Halfway through the song breaks into a classic 90s rave mode, soaring on the wings of a relentlessly plinking house piano, swirling the song towards its finale where the curtains are fully opened and the sun comes in, the smile on the face fixing itself into a wide grin full of genuine optimism, the key lyric of the chorus sounding more assured with each repetition: "I hope she made it".
Antony Szmierek certainly made it. Service Station at the End of the Universe is a beautiful journey of both joy and ache, beaming with earnest inspiration and both love and confidence. It's an incredible debut album that I haven't been able to stop playing all year, that's managed to break through even the gloomiest spots of this awful, awful year. It came out of nowhere for me (I literally went on youtube to check out a few songs after spotting it on the front page for Piccadilly Records who've been obsessed about the album all year and the title of "The Great Pyramid of Stockport" drew my attention) and has become the best whim purchase I've made in a long time. Absolutely superlative, a clear album of the year 2025 and I will continue to not shut up about it until at least someone else listens to it.
Check also: The Great Pyramid of Stockport | Restless Leg Syndrome