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My New Band Believe self-titled debut LP
New album: A superb, rapturous swirl of energy, invention, passionate emotions and originality, this debut album by Cameron Picton, the bassist of the acclaimed British experimentalists Black Midi, features shapeshifting structures with a host of acoustic instruments, all originating from a hotel room fever dream of weird imagery and scrambled text
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LuxJury: Giving Up
New album: Catchy, funky, witty, insightful and candid soulful indie-pop debut by the London trio fronted by Nicole ‘Lux’ Fermie, with songs inspired by a formative first queer relationship and subsequent exploration of identity
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waterbaby: Memory Be A Blade
New album: A delicate, experimental, understated soulful chamber pop debut by the pure-voiced Stockholm-born singer-songwriter (aka Kendra Egerbladh) in 25-minute, eight-track release of lo-fi, lyrically semi-improvised numbers about heartbreak and self-renewal in a world of gorgeous musical sensations
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War Child: HELP(2) follows 1995’s first compilation with another impressive range of music and artists
New album: Not only a timely and topical milestone charity record following the first in 1995 to help bring aid and wide variety of support to children in war zones around he world, but an impressive double-LP array of stellar British and international talent and powerful, poignant 23 songs from Arctic Monkeys to Young Fathers
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Julianna Barwick & Mary Lattimore: Tragic Magic
New album: Delicate, beautiful, ethereal, meditative new work by the two American experimental composers in their first collaborative LP, with gentle understated vocals, classic synth sounds, and rare harps chosen from from the Paris Musée de la Musique Collection
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Part Two favourite albums of 2025 collage
Welcome to the second part of Song Bar favourite albums of 2025. There is also a first part and a third part this week. There is no countdown nor describing these necessarily as “best” albums of the year, but they are chosen by their quality, originality and reader popularity
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First selection of 25 favourite albums in no particular order …
Welcome to the first part of Song Bar favourite albums of 2025. There will also be a second and third part this week. There is no countdown nor describing these necessarily as “best” albums of the year, but they are chosen by their quality, originality and reader popularity
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Devotion & The Black Divine by anaiis
New album: Following a summer Song of the Day - Deus Deus, a review of the autumn release and third LP by the London-based French-Senegalese singer-songwriter of resonantly beautiful, dynamic, sensual soul, gospel, R&B and experimental and chamber pop, with themes of new motherhood, uncertainty, religion, self-love and acceptance
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ROSALÍA: LUX
New album: Grandiose, dramatic, passionate, with extraordinary soaring vocals, melodies and string arrangements, multi-lingual lyrics, the London Symphony Orchestra and with guests including Björk, the Catalan superstar’s fourth LP is a fabulous extravaganza, broadly themed around female saints through history, religion, sex and violence
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Florence + The Machine: Everybody Scream
New album: Another Halloween-ish well-timed release, in which Florence Welch juggles her thoughts on the addictive joys, but also horrors, of fame, experiencing traumatic emergency surgery, her passion for paganism, folk, witchcraft, and references to 14th-century mystic Julian of Norwich, all in a sixth album full of musical light and shade
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Anna von Hausswolff - Iconoclasts
New album: Perfectly timed for an autumnal Halloween, the Swedish experimental composer’s sixth LP is devilishly haunting, complex, dark and beautiful, featuring a range of dynamic, glittering and drone sounds with woodwind, strings, her soaring voice, as well as guest appearances by Ethel Cain and Iggy Pop
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The Last Dinner Party: From The Pyre
New album: This fairly speedy follow-up to the London quintet’s Mercury-nominated debut album Prelude to Ecstasy of flamboyant, theatrical, baroque and art-rock-pop, continues in a similar rich, elaborate vein, with another strong set of swaggering numbers with influences from Abba to Kate Bush, Sparks, Lee Hazlewood to Leonard Cohen, with a sprinkling of darker undercurrents and deathly themes
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Other Lives: Volume V
New album: A fifth LP, but also the first in a decade by the band from Stillwater, Oklahoma, of multi-instrumentalists Jesse Tabish, Jonathon Mooney and Josh Onstott and co, with impressive, stirring, grandiose, cinematic, dynamic, orchestra-layered indie rock
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Patrick Watson: Uh Oh
New album: The Canadian singer-songwriter, pianist and film-score composer’s latest LP presents 11 new, delicate, beautiful collaboratively performed songs about life’s various anxious moments, big or small, joined by guest vocalists including Martha Wainwright and stars, but particularly inspired by the one of any musician’s most stressful ‘uh ohs’ – a time when he lost his voice
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Neko Case: Neon Grey Midnight Green
New album: Reflecting on whole lifetime, as well as a career spanning more than three decades, a vivid, poetic, uplifting and profound autobiographical release by the American singer-songwriter and member of the Canadian indie rockers the New Pornographers, this beautiful LP’s title is inspired by the slate-coloured clouds and conifer forests on the Pacific Northwest skyline
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The Divine Comedy: Rainy Sunday Afternoon
New album: Sumptuously charming, filled with melancholy, wit, gorgeous melodies and songwriting, Neil Hannon and co bring a 13th LP of particularly tender, moving and humorous chamber pop with a vaudevillian feel, and running theme of time passing and mutability, all performed with classic panache
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