Welcome to part one of our by no means definitive list of albums of the last six months, there are big names, returning artists, and sleeper recommendations from 2025 so far..
Horsegirl – Phonetics On and On
Chicago’s Horsegirl are the tight-knit trio of Nora Cheng, Penelope Lowenstein and Gigi Reece, Boasting caffeinated riffs and an addictive bass line that leaves one wide-eyed. ‘Rock City’ also sounds like it may be under the influence. ‘2468’s dissonant violin harks back to the good ol’ days of post-punk pioneers such as The Raincoats.
Horsegirl’s ability to amalgamate all their instrumentation into such a tight package is something few can achieve this well. ‘Well I Know You’re Shy’ brings post-punk into the present by way of lovelorn lyricism and infectious hooks, while ‘Switch Over’ is another standout – a galloping guitar track that succeeds by keeping things simple. Effortlessly eccentric, Horsegirl’s Phonetics On and On is best described as a sonic college; its’ scraps of sound glued together to form a unique piece of art that will prove impossible to replicate. (Emily Stark)
Momma – Welcome to My Blue Sky
There is a charmingly diaristic-meets-travelogue quality to Welcome to my Blue sky, which, given its widescreen scope, is quite a feat to pull off. Written by twin singer/songwriter/guitarists, Etta Friedman and Allegra Weingarten, on acoustic guitars and fleshed out with their band during “parallel chaos”, these dueling and heart-on-the-sleeve vocal melodies that reflect on love, loss and personal growth, are wrapped in refreshingly delivered alternative tunes. Fused to catchy sun-kissed hooks, fuzz box riffing, freewheeling percussion and the deft push and pull of intricate dynamics that remind one of the Celebrity Skin era Hole, or the bold emotive clarity of Belly, but firmly stamped with Momma’s imprint. It’s more confessional and more revealing than their debut album; their songwriting has only grown, and their second offering could be a sleeper hit of 2025, and we are fully invested in the journey and along for the ride. (Bill Cummings)
Circuit Des Yeux – Halo On The Inside
Where 2021’s -io built cathedrals, Halo On The Inside flicks off the lights and takes us clubbing in the ruins. Circuit des Yeux swaps grandeur for glitch, swelling strings for throbbing synths, and in the process makes something just as epic — only weirder, sweatier, more inward. ‘Megaloner’ kicks in like a panic attack in steel-toecaps, and from there, Haley Fohr’s voice does laps around the room — part banshee, part confession, part deep-space siren call. These songs are sculpted from basement breath and insomnia logic — midnight thoughts stitched to unruly beats. On ‘Skeleton Key’ she’s looking for “a synonym for skin,” trying to name the unnameable. ‘Cosmic Joke’ spirals out, one foot still in the real world, the other dangling over the void. It’s raw, and strange, and oddly freeing. Halo On The Inside makes the list not just because it slaps — which it does — but because it expands what Fohr’s project even is. Less mournful procession, more ritual unravelling into the unknown. (Trev Elkin)
SPELLLING – Portrait Of My Heart
On Cabral’s fourth album as SPELLLING, ‘Portrait of My Heart’ she produces her best work yet, bristling with a tapestry of sound that seamlessly blends genres in its portrait, turning the mirror on herself, tackling love, intimacy, anxiety, and alienation, “pointed into my human heart.. The title track is exquisitely drawn, drums twitch, guitars nag, and Cabral’s vocal swoop as a storm of strings spiral toward the heavens. “I don’t belong here” she sings with sensitivity and supernatural power in the arms of a thunderous crescendo that is the sound of flying through a wormhole, embodying the push and pull of intimacy and the white hot need for tactile touch and rejection, the thirst for human company and the still need for isolation, all at once it’s an awesome alt- pop song. Diverse collaborations are all incorporated seamlessly into the album; they feel like part of its inner world. The sweeping ‘Destiny arrived’ aches with elements echoing 90s r&b and pop, but is punctured by Cabral’s lucid and captivating melodies. Portrait of my Heart’ paints a vivid picture of Cabral as a fascinating artist, and it sounds just marvellous. (Bill Cummings)
Mclusky – The World Is Still Here, And So Are We
A raucous shot in the side for any post, pre or slap in the middle of hardcore. Or anyone who likes to stamp on a distortion pedal. Don’t rest on your laurels motherfuckers. Cos unless your laurels are as luscious and plump and comfy as Mclusky‘s are then you’ll be sleeping on really thorny, harsh shrubbery. It’s all if twenty years haven’t actually passed and the urgency, rage and hilarious non sequiturs are all present. Singles ‘unpopular parts of a pig‘, ‘people person’, ‘chekov’s guns’ and ‘autofocus on the prime directive’ have enough variety and thunderous riffs with the Mclusky trademark stamp right across it. Riotous stuff. (Jim Auton )
Gelli Haha – Switcheroo
Gelli who? We’re fairly certain it will soundtrack your summer if you let it. Bold, bizarre, and beautifully formed, Switcheroo is one of those rare debuts that knows exactly what it’s doing, even when it pretends it doesn’t. Gelli Haha crashes through the wall between pop and performance art with cartoon sound effects, disco meltdowns and lines about Tequila, piss jars, battery bunnies and nipple piercings — and yet, somehow, it all hits. Built with wobbly synths, toy-instrument charm and the kind of heart that can turn a song about Tiramisu into a genuine, emotionally nutritious moment, Switcheroo doesn’t just play with genre, it chews it up and spits out something gleefully alien. Think bubble guns, inflatable dolphins and robot drag at a Dada disco. Think Lady Gaga’s chaos engine revved by Deerhoof at a Wacky Races cosplay. But more than anything, think pop that lets you be a weirdo and dance like it matters. Because it kind of does. (Trev Elkin)
Adwaith – Solas
Solas is the latest chapter in the Adwaith story, their most adventurous, vivid, forward-looking, connected work yet. The 23-track double album is a document to literal and creative growth, taking in different moods and textures that enchant and intrigue at every turn. Solas is the culmination of a decade-long quest, looking inward to find the answers to the challenges of the outside world, a record that calls for unity in the face of chaos and division. , it exudes an air of supernatural confidence and defiance of young women who have nurtured their craft over years, plugged in, finding the spark of joy, free to experiment, pushing their songwriting past historical boundaries. If there is a glass ceiling for Welsh music, Adwaith smash through it. Solas is an awe-inspiring document to a band that continually travels onwards, the bold forward-looking sound of a new Wales. (Bill Cummings)
Dead Pioneers – POST AMERICAN
All the pop stars are talking about genocide right now, but have they made an album about it? Dead Pioneers have. PO$T AMERICAN is as raging as Rage and as funny as Dead Kennedys.“It’s capitalism you see / And it doesn’t work for me.” Hang on, that’s not funny, it’s just true. (Neil Laurenson)
Will Stratton – Points of Origin
You’ll want a compass for Points of Origin, Will Stratton’s eighth album, where each song opens like a dusty motel door onto another life unraveling. Framed in the still heat of the American West, it plays like a California road movie scored by a quietly persistent observer. Stratton’s writing is exacting but never showy—vivid sketches of people on the brink, told in language that lodges deep and stays on your mind.
In ‘Bardo or Heaven?’ smoke curls across climate-scarred landscapes “like a postcard sent by a devil passing through Modesto,” while ‘Higher and Drier’ casts desert land deals as modern-day Faustian pacts. The cast shifts on this journey: a jailed drifter in ‘Centinela,’ a public defender clinging to purpose in ‘Slab City’, two brothers separated in their youth, who never find each other again. Their stories persist, like ghosts in the dust. Piano, brass, steel guitar and other textures hum beneath Stratton’s voice as he braids terrain and psyche into something elemental. This album deserves its place here for its restraint and emotional clarity; it’s a quietly devastating folk collection that reads like a short story anthology for our burning present. (Trev Elkin)
FKA Twigs – EUSEXUA
While FKA Twigs has always found herself on the outskirts of the modern-day electronic music landscape, this newest, shimmering effort ‘EUSEXUA‘ sees Twigs truly deploying her mastery of the unorthodox and the erratic to quite possibly its greatest effect. Defining EUSEXUA as a way of transcending one’s human form through the experience of euphoria, the album’s pulsating self-titled opener introduces us to the concept. “Words cannot describe, baby. This feeling deep inside” perhaps describes the concept best, a concept so deeply un-physical and routed in the spiritual failed by our linguistic tools.
“When a girl feels good, it makes the world go ’round. When the night feels young, you know she feels pretty” is the key takeaway from ‘Girl Feels Good’, with its exuberant Depeche Mode-esque backing, while ‘Drums of Death’ is a glitch-pop haven, a track that trips over and disassembles itself, and reinvents itself all over again throughout the course of its 3 minute 11 second run-time.EUSEXUA is easily one of this decade’s most prolific and dynamic albums, and heralds FKA Twigs as one of modern music’s greatest talents. Its uncompromising dazzle and flare is one that is unlikely to fade for the years to come. (Josh Allen)
Car Seat Headrest – The Scholars
If 18 minute long, prog leaning, multi suite epic rock opera scenes aren’t your bag then maybe avoid. It’s about an hour and ten minutes long, there’s only 9 tracks, and the majority of them are a minimum 8 minutes in length, like the best single ‘CCF (Gonna Stay With You)’, or also brilliant first single ‘Gethsemane’ which is over ten minutes. But if you love the sound of that, then dive in boys and girls. The water is lovely and a perfect balance of pretentious and urgent. Like a big bath of The Who, Yes, Green Day and Weezer. (Jim Auton)
Benefits – Constant Noise
The world in 2025, what could Benefits possibly find to write about? Well, the title track opens as a moody scene setter, it’s opening line “I’m looking up in awe at a mountain of sh*t” preparing us for the onslaught that is coming our way. and the sparseness makes you feel uneasy, just one song in. At times it can all become too much, the points where the sadness pervades the madness, but the beats help with this, their tightness filling in the sparseness, so when they disappear on the likes of ‘Continual’, it’s the music that’s not there that makes you feel even worse, but amongst this, and something very rarely commented upon, is the strength of singer Kingsley Hall’s vocal, the controlled menace that lies within, with a clarity that is perfect for what he wants, nay needs, to get across, like a snooker ball in a velvet glove.
Hall has described their process on this album as “striving for a dark euphoria” and this covers all the extreme of a stunning record, from a band that you want to grip them close to your own heart, lean on them in times of your need, keep them all to your self, like an aggressive comfort blanket, they soothe with noise in these beyond difficult times. (Steven Doherty)
Richard Dawson – End of the Middle
Richard Dawson’s End of the Middle distils his uncanny storytelling into an intimate, elemental folk experience. Recorded in his Tyneside allotment “with wasps and wandering horses for company,” the album strips away the medieval allegory and digital haze of past work, replacing it with domestic moments that reveal mythic undercurrents. From the lightning‑flash mundane of ‘Bolt’ to the fluorescent-lit poignancy of ‘Gondola,’ Dawson magnifies ordinary life—a Lidl aisle becomes an existential crossroads, a wedding turns into grotesque theatre—inviting us to peer into the quiet rupture of everyday moments.
Throughout Dawson’s voice alternates between playful whimsy one moment and bellowing Old Salt the next. He remains one of our most vital songwriters, mapping the beauty and bruises of life with warmth and the weight of myths and legends on his shoulders. (Trev Elkin)
Franz Ferdinand – The Human Fear
Let’s be honest, we probably thought that the days of Franz Ferdinand making a year-defining record were probably in the rear view mirror, but no, they returned with an absolutely top-draw set of catchy indie-pop tunes, their most coherently enjoyable record since album number two way back when.
It’s a record that doesn’t take a breath in it’s catchiness, but the range of ways it draws you in is genuinely impressive, and gets better and better the longer it goes on, ‘Black Eyelashes’ is the first stand-out, a Greek flavoured romp, with a tune impossible to get out of your head once experienced, but best of all is closer ‘The Birds’, which alas, is about five minutes too short, it’s riffs are those that you do not wish to end in a hurry. It’s a delight that they are so engaged and fruitful so far on in their career. (Steven Doherty)
jasmine.4.t – You Are The Morning
Manchester based singer-songwriter jasmine.4.t (Jasmine Cruickshank) gathered international attention back in January with the release of her debut album You Are The Morning – a raw, honest portrayal of the highs and lows of trans existence that effortlessly tiptoes between folk and indie rock. As the first UK act signed to Phoebe Bridgers label Saddest Factory records, the album’s searing sincerity benefits from its warts and all production courtesy of Bridgers, alongside her boygenius bandmates Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker.
Whether it’s the airy layers of acoustic that breeze by on ‘You Are The Morning’ and ‘Kitchen’, ‘Skin on Skin’s’ gradual descent into grunge, or the hoe down gone haywire ‘Guy Fawkes Tesco Disassociation’ – these diverse tracks all meld together effortlessly when combined with Jasmine’s delicate vocals, spanning personal accounts of love, loss and rebirth. While at times devastating, You Are The Morning is ultimately uplifting – providing a glimpse into jasmine.4.t’s growth from a fragile seedling into a blooming flower that basks in the morning light. (Emily Stark)
Great Grandpa – Patience
Great Grandpa’s third album Patience, Moonbeam is as beautiful and odd as Automatic for the People. I keep hearing new things on it and I love it. (Neil Laurenson)
Ichiko Aoba – Luminescent Creatures
Ichiko Aoba‘s, Luminescent Creatures is absolutely wonderful, offering moments of quiet isolation and meditative beauty and hope amidst the overwhelm of doom scrolling..Opener ‘COLORATURA’ has delicious echoes of the work of Françoise Hardy, with the whirring instrumental motifs, and pungent wood wind notes guides us into a new terrain of the environment man has sought to destroy, while colourful wisps of melody comfort as you are submerged in slumber. ‘FLAG‘ distills pure simplicity and transfixing majesty, with her beguiling isolated voice and a guitar, Aoba reflects on life while gazing at the sea and singing: “Is it true that we are reborn so many times over?”
At the heart of Luminescent Creatures is the push and pull between the beauty and brutality of nature, one moment its vast landscapes and oceanic depths can make us feel insignificant and powerless to its cruelty, and the wonder and awe of nature and the glowing illumination of the core of every living creature: it’s these dichotomies that Ichiko Aoba channels quite exquisitely. A beacon to call you home in the dead of night, safe harbour, a reminder of what it means to feel grounded, to be alive and it sounds absolutely magical. (Bill Cummings)
Kathryn Joseph – WE WERE MADE PREY
Just the most beautiful, haunting record. It was released on my birthday and what a birthday present.
I said in my review “It’s an immersive experience, one you can’t take for granted and play at any time. An album is a precious thing, it’s taken time and effort and pain and experience and their whole being to produce. FIRE. creates a full stop. Something that punctuates every song on this piece of art. It’s basically just her, completing the circle. The human condition. The horror, the primal urge, the evil, the destruction, the revival, the return“.
“I am a wolf now, so I have to go” (Jim Auton)
