A quick reminder first of all, with full details here and here:
60 Autocamper - What Do You Do All Day?
59 Hannah Frances - Nested In Tangles
58 Geese - Getting Killed
57 Florist - Jellywish
56 Laundromat Chicks - Sometimes Possessed
55 Dancer - More Or Less
54 Melody's Echo Chamber - Unclouded
53 jasmine.4.t - You Are The Morning
52 Jeanines - How Long Can It Last
51 Bob Mould - Here We Go Crazy
50 Neev - How Things Tie In Knots
49 Breakup Haircut - No Worries If Not!
48 Deradoorian - Ready For Heaven
47 caroline - Caroline 2
46 Tunde Adebimpe - Thee Black Boltz
45 Joanne Robertson - Blurrr
44 The Cords - The Cords
43 Emma-Jean Thackray - Weirdo
42 Matt Berninger - Get Sunk
41 Snooper - Worldwide
40 Cheekface - Middle Spoon
39 C Duncan - It's Only A Love Song
38 Tulpa - Monster Of The Week
37 Little Simz - Lotus
36 Sudan Archives - THE BPM
35 Adwaith - Solas
34 Panda Bear - Sinister Grift
33 Sacred Paws - Jump Into Life
32 Jens Lekman - Songs For Other People's Weddings
31 Lambrini Girls - Who Let The Dogs Out
30 Anna B Savage - You & I are Earth
29 Wet Leg - Moisturizer
28 Ex-Vöid - In Love Again
27 Allo Darlin - Bright Nights
26 Alan Sparhawk With Trampled By Turtles - Alan Sparhawk With Trampled By Turtles
25 Sharon Van Etten - Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory
24 Hayden Pedigo - I'll Be Waving As You Drive Away
23 Armand Hammer & The Alchemist - Mercy
22 Cate Le Bon - Michaelangelo Dying
21 The Tubs - Cotton Crown
20 Gwenifer Raymond - Last Night I Heard The Dog Star Bark
Hurrah for the American Primitive, only British! Raymond's extraordinary playing style tells stories and sets locales by itself
19 Fortitude Valley - Part Of The Problem, Baby
Whatever Laura Kovic is singing about, the bounce of their take on harmonic punk-pop/power-pop is summer-ready and irresistible as it yearns for an escape
18 Stereolab - Instant Holograms On Metal Film
The Groop return to do up the space-age bachelor pad in new shades of lounge motoric and politi-philosophical. Best they've been this century
17 The Beths - Straight Line Was A Lie
Still hooky and anthemic with a certain sadness just below the surface, this time with less of a continued rush as the world and passing time catches up
16 Big Thief - Double Infinity
A reconfiguration of what their band is leads to a looser, more jammy and psychedelic wandering rather than snaking. Whisper it, but as good as this is, had they stuck with the 2024 live versions...
15 Ryan Davis and the Roadhouse Band - New Threats From The Soul
57 minutes for seven tracks? It has to be to fit the full weight of Davis' poetic exploratory eye for character sketches and the opulent take on alt-country backing
14 Youth Lagoon - Rarely Do I Dream
Trevor Powers' late career renaissance continues with a VHS-taped night drive, all atmospheric synths and percussive movement with terrors perhaps lurking
13 Pulp - More
For all the "kings of Britpop" stuff, doesn't this sound more like a natural successor to their pre-His'n'Hers identity, albeit one that can afford strings?
12 Wednesday - Bleeds
Karly Hartzman still expertly, poetically mining obervations of small town shame backed by a country rock band letting loose on shoegaze pedals
11 Model/Actriz - Pirouette
So you can't combine dance beats and corrosive self-examination? Cole Haden's tense queer intimacy and vulnerability is made more apparent by its taut, industrial percussiveness
10 Panic Shack - Panic Shack
Raucous, funny, occasionally meaningful, occasionally social, always the last girl gang in town. The authentic sound of the Womanby Street/St Mary Street junction
9 billy woods - GOLLIWOG
Sounds like nobody else, clambering its way through thickets of disturbing ambient and jazz loops, his and his guests' flows detailing slices of paranoid life
8 Prolapse - I Wonder When They're Going To Destroy Your Face
Attacking noise guitar like Reich breaking down, motorik insistence and a drunk Scotsman shouting absurdity. 26 years away and still nobody quite sounds like their racket
7 Perfume Genius - Glory
As anyone who saw this being performed live, there's an odd theatrically creeping in but not so much it affects Mike Hadreas' idiosyncratically grand anxiety of self and dislocation
6 mclusky - the world is still here and so are we
If only everything in life were as reliable as Andy Falkous. And also as impassionedly, abrasively hilarious, but then where would the uniqueness be?
5 Gwenno - Utopia
Ms Saunders considers her previous lives, sings in English - JUDAS! - and finds a dreamier, more ruminative version of her playfully psychedelic self
4 For Those I Love - Carving The Stone
David Balfe, who married grief in spoken word with dancefloor euphoria four years ago, casts an impassioned, raging and rueful eye over his conflicted relationship with Ireland. Also the most astonishing live set we saw all year
3 Backxwash - Only Dust Remains
Mostly laying off on the punishing soundscapes of old but not the twisted samples and loops and absolutely not the darker than hell lyrical content, building on a spiritual intensity that lays absolutely everything out
2 Rosalia - Lux
The year's most audacious album by some stretch. Symphony orchestra-backed luxuriant dramatic and experimental transcendence across a range of languages, and it all works out as a Bjork-inspired singularity
1 CMAT - EURO-COUNTRY
A remarkable record for Ciara's miracle year. Her own reckoning with post-Celtic Tiger Ireland, but also with her own impulses, grief, mental health and late stage capitalist personal identity with a unique lyrical eye. Also, it's a pop record. You feel in 2025 nobody else would have had the far-sightedness to make either this or Lux, and that's why they're there
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