Welcome to the first part of Song Bar favourite albums of 2025. Another year of many interesting releases. There will also be a second and third part this week. As usual, unlike many other publications, there is no countdown nor describing these necessarily as “best” albums of the year. But they are chosen from a variety of criteria – not merely from the quality of the songwriting, as well as originality, even oddity, but also to a certain extent popularity – by how much they have been viewed since publication. All the albums detailed below are shown in the collage of covers above.
There is also always the aim to bring a broad spectrum of genres, as well as giving space for small records as well as large ones. Naturally these choices are also a matter of subjective taste, but please enjoy them by clicking on each headline link to explore more in detail, where you will find a selection of videos as well as the album in a choice of embedded streaming formats. It is hoped that this will encourage further explorations, purchases, sharing your discoveries, and even supporting music artists by going to see them play live.
Several of these albums were released in the early part of 2025, but some came out in the summer. Another spread of favourites will appear in Part Two, then Part Three. After browsing, feel free to add more of your favourites in comments below.
Perfume Genius: Glory
The shapeshifting, enigmatic US singer-songwriter Mike Hadreas returns with his distinctive brand of polished, beautiful chamber pop, with themes of the body and its decay, of domesticity and love, identity, and also features a guest appearance by Aldous Harding
Benefits: Constant Noise
Super-sharp, angry and articulate, this is striking, vivid, social and political spoken word and hip-hop on a backdrop of cinematic electronica, dance and punk by the Middlesbrough duo of Kingsley Hall and Robbie Major – a scything sonic and verbal attack on western ills at home and abroad
Circuit des Yeux: Halo On The Inside
Dark, vivid, pagan, hedonistic, carnal goth-dancefloor experimental electronica and more by the Chicago-based multi-disciplinary superbly alternative artist Haley Fohr and her otherworldly, mesmerically rich, four-octave voice
clipping.: Dead Channel Sky
Breathlessly brilliant warp-speed hip-hop with a cyberpunk, electronica and house music soundtrack by the trio fronted by rapper and actor Daveed Diggs, set in a sci-fi dystopian universe of multiple characters and stories
Melin Melyn: Mill On The Hill
Enormously entertaining, witty, catchy, folk-country-psych-rock by the Cardiff-London band, with clear, upbeat comparisons to Gruff Rhys and Super Furry Animals as well as other original twists in this warm, vintage-feel new release
Doves: Constellations For The Lonely
A glorious sixth LP by the Manchester indie band, weathering many ups and downs, including ongoing mental health issues for lead vocalist and bass player Jimi Goodwin who is unable to tour, but despite that, summoning a powerful, dynamic, passionate work of darkness and light, and one of the best in the 25 years since their debut, Lost Souls
Ela Minus: DÍA
A wonderfully eclectic, inventive, darkly ecstatic, introspective yet musically expansive electronica and dance music follow-up to 2020’s debut, Acts of Rebellion, on the theme of light and self-discovery by the Colombian singer-songwriter, musician and producer
The Weather Station: Humanhood
Beautifully balanced, nuanced, delicate, intimate new experimental folk by Toronto’s Tamara Lindeman on a gorgeous seventh LP that goes to the individual and collective core of being alive, with a free-flowing semi-acoustic songs partly created by improvisation with her six-piece band, decorated with flurries of woodwind
Jasmine 4.t - You Are The Morning
An outstanding folk/rock debut by the Manchester-based singer-songwriter Jasmine Cruickshank, whose moving songs tackle ambiguous relationships, identity, tangled joy, heartache, camaraderie and isolation of trans-feminine life in an LP produced by the Boygenius trio of Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker
Squid: Cowards
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
Heartworms: Glutton For Punishment
After a series of outstanding singles, the British artist Jojo Orme releases her debut full LP of inventive, goth-tinged post-punk, with echoes of Siouxsie Sioux and PJ Harvey, and produced the the ever inventive Dan Carey on his Speedy Wunderground label
Tunng: Love You All Over Again
A beautiful, celebratory album of the pioneering British ‘folktronica’ band’s 20 years of music, with an eighth LP of brand new songs fully capturing their distinctive, delicate, crisply poetic, agile style with a delicious feeling of circularity
C Duncan: It's Only A Love Song
The Scottish composer, singer and multi-instrumentalist’s fifth album is timeless, romantic, clever, lush, piano-based orchestral pop with serenely beautiful chord changes and melodies, with heartache on the pain-pleasure axis expressed in the most delicious, old-fashioned form
FKA twigs: EUSEXUA
Cheltenham’s Tahliah Barnett returns for a third LP edge-pushing electronica, techno and avant-pop with a self-created title fusing euphoria, ecstasy and sex to express that feeling of transcendent losing yourself in the moment
Anna B Savage: You & i are Earth
This third album of exquisite folk by the English singer-songwriter is a beautiful love letter to Ireland as a spiritual home as well as her Irish partner, flowing with delicious images, tenderness and intelligence
Editrix: The Big E
A fabulous third LP of inventive, restlessly fast, angular, infectious experimental avant-rock by the dynamic Easthampton, Massachusetts trio of guitarist and singer Wendy Eisenberg, bassist Steve Cameron and drummer Josh Daniel
Folk Bitch Trio: Now Would Be A Good Thing
Sweetly beautiful three-part harmonies underpin darkly ironic humour and deliciously unfolding, oddly disturbing lyrics in this entertaining debut by the Melbourne former high school friends Heide Peverelle ((they/them), Jeanie Pilkington and Gracie Sinclair
Matt Maltese: Hers
A dreamy, languid, beautiful and darkly humorous sixth LP release by the British-Canadian singer-songwriter with songs drenched in yearning, pain and self-deprecation, heavily influenced by Leonard Cohen, and a voice that at times echoes the resonant sighs of Chet Baker
Disiniblud: Disiniblud
Truly mesmeric, exquisitely beautiful, original, intimate, eclectic sounds are summoned up and simmer in this debut collaborative album project by the Brooklyn composers, producers and multi-instrumentalists Rachika Nayar and Nina Keith
Emily Breeze: Rats In Paradise
Following 2023’s excellent Rapture LP, Bristol’s wild and witty indie-noir-pop-rock star returns with her special brand of acid-tongued, savagely funny, powerful and poignantly catchy numbers, with a title inspired by a song by The Birthday Party, mixing glitz and the gutter
Jessica Winter: My First Album
After a series of acclaimed singles, EPs and collaborations, the south London sweetly high-voiced singer-songwriter’s debut LP is fabulously sparkling, humorous, witty indie-dance-pop, packed with classy, clever tunes, touching moments of reflection, self-love and personal acceptance
Wet Leg - Moisturizer
The award-winning Isle of Wight indie-pop band’s second album retains all of their mischievous, quirky charm, but also an evolved muscular, punchier, dirtier guitar sound in a collection of clever love songs and kick-ass kiss-offs
Big Special: National Average
Following 2024’s LP Postindustrial Hometown Blues, the Walsall duo of Joe Hicklin and Callum Moloney return with their distinctive, Midlands earthy drawl, drolly humorous, dark and oddly profound, poetic lyrics on the absurdity of life, filled with killer lines, many animal metaphors, spoken and sung to punchy post-punk and experimental sounds
Kae Tempest: Self Titled
A fifth LP by the acclaimed London writer and rapper brings further profound and passionate wordplay themed around their identity, personal story, and dark social issue themes, with a newer sometimes synth-pop sound and guests including Neil Tennant and Young Fathers
Duo Ruut: Ilmateade
A mesmeric, gorgeous new LP of experimental and traditional acoustic psych-folk songs by the Estonian duo of Ann-Lisett Rebane and Katariina Kivi, who write, sing and play facing each other, primarily on the kannel or (Estonian zither), using texts and repetitive motifs of runo song, oral poetry specific to the Baltic Finnic languages, here exploring the deep connections between weather and emotion
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