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Broken Social Scene: Remember The Humans
New album: Driven by a sense of reunion, renewal, collaboration, community and re-finding values lost, a superbly stirring, emotionally uplifting, profound and dynamic return by the Toronto indie rock collective with their first in almost a decade
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Pushing new boundaries with Kim Gordon’s Play Me
New album: Following 2024’s The Collective, the former Sonic Youth frontwoman’s fourth solo LP continues her extraordinary experimental, innovative journey, moving to more melodic beats and shorter tracks with a motorik krautrock-style driven coloured by strange sounds, intense emotions and sharply angled, dark, droll social commentary
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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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Tortoise: Touch
New album: A welcome return with a cinematic and mesmeric groove-filled first studio LP in nine years, and the eighth over all by the eclectic Chicago post-rock/jazz/krautrock multi-instrumentalists Dan Bitney, John Herndon, Douglas McCombs, John McEntire and Jeff Parker
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Just Mustard: We Were Just Here
New album: Very expansive, dynamic, experimental noise rock and dreamy shoegaze abounds in this third LP by the Irish band from Dundalk with howling distorted guitars, clattering echoes and ethereal explosiveness helped by the skilled mixing hands and ears of David Wrench
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Agriculture: The Spiritual Sound
New album: Strap yourselves in, but not merely for sheer cacophonous volume, but also surprises. The self-described Los Angeles “ecstatic black metal” band’s second album certainly brings a devilishly voluminous noise, but also huge dynamism with some surprisingly gentler moments
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Poptones: Pure
New album: Dynamic, mysterious, dark, stormy, whispered and explosive, a truly striking, mercurial, rich sonic soundscape of the angular, beautiful and dissonant and thematic perceptions of reality distorted by the experimental rock band from Copenhagen
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Geese: Getting Killed
New album: Dramatic and swaggeringly different - a crazed cauldron of anger, tenderness, the strangely eccentric, surreal and psychedelic, the Brooklyn band’s latest is an experimental odyssey of garage riffs to Ukrainian choir samples, frenzied drumming and prog riffing, with lullabies to explosive mayhem topped by wonderfully weird, wailing and yearning vocals of Cameron Winter
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Maruja - Pain To Power
New album: A impressively intense, emotional, passionate, energised, dark, philosophical-political cross-genre cosmic jazz-prog-punk-hip-hop-hardcore generational debut LP by the Manchester quartet with with lyrics spanning love, death, social issues, world affairs and mental health
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Titanic: HAGEN
New album: Following their 2023 debut Vidrio, the Mexico City-based partners Guatemalan cellist Mabe Fratti and guitarist Hector Tosta return with another mesmeric, exciting and highly eclectic experimental album, moving here from jazz into more pop and classic rock in combinations yet unheard
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Water From Your Eyes: It's A Beautiful Place
New album: Indie Brooklyn-based duo Nate Amos and Rachel Brown unleash a highly original fusion of experimental art-rock, pop, and shoegaze, mixing musical dynamism with the vocally deadpan abstract through thematic portal of otherworldly science fiction
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These New Puritans: Crooked Wing
New album: Southend-on-Sea twin brothers George and Jack Barnett return with their fifth album and first in six years - with a striking, otherworldly experimental fusion of rock, classical and electronica, with guests including Caroline Polachek and veteran jazz bassist Chris Laurence
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YHWH Nailgun: 45 Pounds
New album: A rite of passage to the senses, this short, sharp, experimental debut noise rock LP by the New York quartet feels like being dropped into a growling, stop-start pinball machine, but the experience is weirdly rewarding
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Courting: Lust For Life …
New album: A lengthy title for a short, snappy, cleverly interwoven eclectic indie-dancefloor-postpunk experimental third LP by the Liverpool band with a theme of duality, a cyclical intro and outro, and each song paired with a balanced counterpart, sharing specific sonic elements.
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Throwing Muses: Moonlight Concessions
New album: The veteran Rhode Island alternative rock and post-punk band fronted by Kristin Hersh return with an 11th studio album with a strikingly different sound - a stripped back, almost-unplugged acoustic release of restrained but haunting powe
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da Googie + Cary Tivey: The Golden Thread
New album: A mesmeric, cutting-edge, experimental tapestry of dark, magical, musical textures and songs by an English duo of seasoned, innovative collaborators – My Bloody Valentine bass player Deb Googe, and pianist and composer Cara Tivey in a superb debut LP together
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Squid: Cowards
New album: Fabulously strange, inventive and and cleverly unsettling third album by the Brighton experimental post-punk, alt-rock quintet with a series of first-person narratives and inner monologues by fictional, disturbing characters - from cult leaders, serial killers, cannibals, sociopaths and arsonists
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Mogwai: The Bad Fire
New album: Glasgow’s finest experimental rockers return with their 11th studio album, another classic of dark-humoured, irreverent titles for their dynamic, quiet-to-stormy arpeggio-laden, always stirring songs and instrumentals
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The second part of our favourite albums of 2024
Favourite albums of 2024: Welcome to The Song Bar’s favourite albums of 2024 Part 2. Part 1 can be found here. There’s no such thing as ‘best of’ and everything is subjective, but please dig into this rich seam of originality and quality, and even suggest more of your own
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