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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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Brògeal: Tuesday Paper Club
New album: Raw yet refined, raucous yet emotional, following two EPs, a stirring, boisterous melodic debut LP by the Falkirk band, who bring a strong, Scottish flavour to the folk-punk style and energy reminiscent of the Pogues, but also sounds reminiscent of the indie jangled guitars of Teenage Fanclub, Stone Roses and The Smiths
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Robert Plant: Saving Grace
New album: The Led Zeppelin singer, after successful albums and touring with collaborators such as Alison Krauss, completes a project started in 2019 with a covers collection of traditional folk, blues, Americana and other sources, working here with singer Suzi Dian, and tight band comprising Oli Jefferson, Tony Kelsey, Barney Morse-Brown, and Matt Worley
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Falle Nioke: Love From The Sea
New album: The Guinea-born, Margate-based singer and multi-instrumentalist brings a beautiful debut blend of West African sounds fused with electronica, stories and emotions, variously singing in French, English, Susu, Fulani, Malinke and Coniagui, with collaborators including Ghost Culture, Johan Hugo, Hiro Ama, Mike Lindsay (of Tunng and LUMP), and TaliaBle
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Last Night I Heard The Dog Star Bark by Gwenifer Raymond
New album: A truly evocative and extraordinarily skilled instrumental album by the Wales-born steel string folk guitarist and banjoist whose finger-picking weaves intricate aural stories inspired by tales from occult folk horror, space, science fiction, and the tangled undergrowth of various landscapes
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Africa Express Presents ... Bahidorà
New album: The collective that brought Blur’s Damon Albarn together with Malian musicians 20 years ago now assembles artists from four continents, though particularly plants the roots of this superb 21-track double album in Mexico, with a feast of numbers spanning cumbia, hip-hop, kuduro, soul, salsa, pop, reggaeton and more
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Poor Creature: All Smiles Tonight
New album: Mixing tradition and the contemporary with a transportive, striking sound and delivery, ancient, emotional elegiac folk numbers are revived and revitalised in this stirring, stylish debut LP by Irish musicians Ruth Clinton, Cormac MacDiarmada and John Dermody (from the bands Landless and Lankum respectively), produced by John ‘Spud’ Murphy
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Bruce Springsteen: Tracks II - The Lost Albums
New albums: Not bootlegs, B-sides or omitted songs from past albums (as in the 1998 Tracks outtakes release), this veritable mountain of unreleased gems – a whopping seven LPs spanning 1983–2018 with 82 unreleased songs and over five hours in a treasure trove of discovery for devoted and new fans
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Juan Wauters: MVD LUV
New album: An oddly charming, touching, gently humorous seventh LP by the Queens, NY-based singer-songwriter, returning to his birthplace of Montevideo, Uruguay, to record a tribute set of song to the place where he grew up and capturing a sense of dual identity – immigrant and native son
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Van Morrison: Remembering Now
New album: After a series of cover albums, Belfast’s legendarily brilliant but also difficult, controversial, moody and mercurial singer-songwriter returns with an LP of love-song originals, full of much of the soulful warmth, tenderness, nuance and mellow fluidity many of his past classics
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Alan Sparhawk: With Trampled By Turtles
New album: Suffused with a warmth, tenderness and powerful, grieving melancholy, this second solo album by the Low co-founder since the death in 2022 of his wife and lifelong creative Mimi Parker joins him with the fabulous fellow Duluth, Minnesota bluegrass and folk band Trampled By Turtles
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Zoé Basha: Gamble
New album: A sparkling, delightful, charming, polished and witty self-released debut by the Dublin-based French-American singer and guitarist who mixes folk, country, jazz, blues, French chanson and Appalachian with crisply performed covers and originals
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Salif Keita: So Kono
New album: A first album in seven years by the veteran Malian singer, now 75, with a pared-back, acoustic release, but one in which his distinctive, wonderfully ‘golden’ voice still shines, accompanied by guitar, ngoni, calabash, tama and cello
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Songhoy Blues: Héritage
New album: The Malian band return with a vibrant fourth LP exploring their desert musical roots with more of an acoustic and intricately rhythmic sound than their previous more electrified, distinctive African blues-rock, and includes an appearance on vocals by Rokia Koné and other more traditional instrument guest musicians
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Silkroad Ensemble with Rhiannon Giddens: American Railroad
New album: The latest in the Nashville singer’s projects with an international collective of musicians interprets traditional creates new folk songs, themed the tough history of the US rail frontier that was mostly built by Irish, African American, Chinese and Japanese immigrants
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One True Pairing: Endless Rain
New album: A strikingly beautiful new LP by the Kendal singer-songwriter aka Tom Fleming, formerly of Wild Beasts, whose tender, high voice soars and also brings hushed tones across a gorgeous set of autumnal-feel songs, accompanied by inventive sounds on various acoustic instruments
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Milton Nascimento and Esperanza Spalding: Milton + Esperanza
New album: An inspired collaboration between the veteran 81-year-old Brazilian singer and the American jazz bassist, singer and arranger, 39, their low and high voices blending beautifully and bringing new life to the former’s old catalogue, plus covers and guests including Paul Simon and Lianne La Havas.
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Bizhiki: Unbound
New album: A primal, evocative, soul-stirring release combining Native American powpow chanting and with ambient electronica dulcimer strings and gentle drums by singer-songwriter Joe Rainey, drummer and producer S Carey, and indigenous singer Dylan Bizhikiins Jennings
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Bab L'Bluz: Swaken
New album: Out last month, a fabulous second LP by the French-Moroccan quartet who fuse traditional with psychedelia, blues and heavy rock with Africa's Maghreb: Gnawa, Amazigh, Hassani and Houara music
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