Our writers pick their most essential albums and EPs of 2025.

For us, 2025 has been defined by innovative music pulling in all sorts of directions, producing thrilling new syntheses of rock, folk, post-rock, experimental pop and punk. Between the release of Cameron Winter’s ‘Heavy Metal’ and Geese’s ‘Getting Killed’, the New York band have cemented their position as the band of the moment, channelling the chaos of modern life and the search for transcendence and beauty among it all. New York’s music scene in general is in fine form, producing further 2025 gems including releases from Water From Your Eyes, James K and YHWH Nailgun. In the UK, we have been treated to a particularly fresh strain of records drawing from a mixed heritage of folk and punk, the ascendancy of The New Eves speaking of the very best of both camps. The release of ‘caroline 2’ further illustrates the bounds being pushed by folk-adjacent artists and adds the recent revitalisation of post-rock to the current melting pot. Wet Leg and The Last Dinner Party both returned this year with huge followups to their respective debuts, while CMAT rocketed to festival headline-worthiness on the wave of new album ‘EURO-COUNTRY’. Manchester’s music scene merits particular mention this year, the unstoppable rise of Westside Cowboy representing only one side of a flourishing community that has also produced acts like TTSSFU, The Slow Country, cruuush and Truthpaste. London’s scene is also in fine form, with releases from Wing!, Alien Chicks, lilo, Y, The Orchestra (For Now), Sam Akpro and the long-awaited debut from Legss representing only a handful of our favourite collections from the capital this year.

In reviewing our year at Hard of Hearing, we did not want to pit collections against each other in a formal ranking system, nor seek to establish a definitive list of what records we thought were objectively the most significant. Instead, each of our contributors has selected their single favourite album/EP of the year, offering a sense of the 2025 releases that have come to matter most to us.

Otis Hayes: The New Eves – ‘The New Eve Is Rising’

‘The New Eve Is Rising’ is delivered with raw expression, through poetic spoken word, unconventional vocal melodies, grating guitar riffs, silken flute, piercing fiddle, resonant cello and beating drums. The album exposes itself like a naked flame flirting amongst the dangers of the blowing wind, swaying with ease between punk and folk. Everything, from the sounds themselves to the defiant artwork – the group clad in all white against a moody sky, bearing a handmade banner sporting the album’s title – compliments the attitudes and emotions conveyed on this LP. One of the most special qualities of the album is the group’s creative and unorthodox approach to writing songs. They refuse to follow a typical verse-chorus approach, songs instead feeling like an advancing journey as the band trade vocals sung and spoken. When artists seek to serve their vision wholeheartedly, a truly great piece of art may be created. ‘The New Eve Is Rising’ is one such example. You sense it will continue to be recognised by future generations for its unique, expressive nature and the balance of relatability and authenticity, reminiscent of conscious influences like The Raincoats and Patti Smith. Ending with the words ‘Let it bleed, set it free’, ‘The New Eve Is Rising’ is a poignant piece of work which has more to give with every listen.

Lloyd Bolton: caroline – ‘caroline 2’

This record is a perfect marriage of art music experimentation and melodic songwriting. caroline have long been recognised as one of London’s best ensembles, particularly for their instinctive group improvisation and formal ambition. That formalism is everywhere on ‘this album ‘caroline 2’ without constantly being in your face. Moments drift in and out, between and within tracks, forming clearings that weave eclectic influences and individual performances into an epic whole.

In spite of a certain loose quality to the finished product, the music is carefully and obsessively constructed. ‘Coldplay cover’ is based around a recording made on a microphone passed between two rooms in which two halves of the band performed two separate but related pieces of music, though as we found out interviewing the band in May, the effect was artificially magnified in post-production. Such blurring of the organic and the artificial is felt across the album, particularly emphasised by heavy use of autotune and the collaging of musical ideas; both components the band credit to the influence of Danny Brown and JPEGMAFIA.

Alongside some outstanding new releases, ‘caroline 2’ is my favourite for its originality and timeliness. caroline’s mastery of an ecumenical breadth of influences pulls from the current British folk revival, the recent revitalisation of post-rock in alternative music, and the latest innovations in pop, the latter connection sealed by the perfectly conceived collaboration with Caroline Polacheck. All these elements are brought together with the vital urgency of eight musicians striving to make something grand and beautiful entirely on their own terms. This during one of the bleakest moments of the century so far makes ‘caroline 2’ a crucial release for 2025.

Marty Hill: Westside Cowboy – ‘This Better Be Something Great’

The Chinese zodiac would tell you that 2025 was the Year of the Snake, but anybody remotely plugged into new music would suggest that it was actually the Year of the Cowboy. The rapid ascent of Manchester’s Westside Cowboy over the last twelve months cannot be overstated: they sold out shows up and down the country, won Glastonbury’s prestigious Emerging Talent competition, traversed Europe with Black Country, New Road, bagged a deal with Island imprint Adventure Recordings and announced that they’ll support Geese – the buzziest of buzz bands – next spring.

Somewhere in amongst all of the madness they found the time to release debut EP ‘This Better Be Something Great.’ The record serves as a perfect introduction to the soaring ambition and abundance of ideas that makes them one of the most compelling new bands on the planet. ‘I’ve Never Met Anyone I Thought I Could Really Love (Until I Met You)’ is one of the most striking debut singles in recent memory and you’d be forgiven for fearing how the rest of the EP’s cuts would stand up to it. You needn’t fear. ‘Drunk Surfer’ builds one of the year’s best songs around ‘Doolittle’-esque loud/quiet dynamics and the wrong-footing tempo switches of ‘Shells’ brings to mind Big Thief at the peak of their powers. ‘Alright Alright Alright’ and ‘Slowly I’m Sure’ are the record’s shorter efforts, only just clocking the four-minute mark when you stack them together, but as a pair they offer a real insight into what the band can do at both their spikiest and their most tender. It’s no exaggeration to call this one of the most exciting debut releases of the decade.

Picking one release to highlight for this feature should’ve been difficult: I loved the Wednesday, Water From Your Eyes, Snocaps and CMAT records. Any of those would be getting the nod most years. But when I think of music in 2025 I’ll think of Westside Cowboy. I’ll think of stifling laughs midshow at the sheer absurdity of songs this big being played in tiny rooms. I’ll think of the band coming into the crowd to play their closer without any amplification and wondering how they’ll scale that up when they are inevitably playing to thousands of people each night. I’ll think of this brilliant collection of songs that introduced Westside Cowboy to the world.

Hazel Blacher: Sharp Pins – ‘Radio DDR’

The first of three(!) records in 2025 that Chicago’s Kai Slater either wholly or partially crafted – which at the fledgling age of 20 years old rivals the likes of Cameron Winter for sheer prolificacy & flair (if Winter was a die-hard mod with pipes like Marc Bolan, that is) – ‘Radio DDR’ is a treasure trove of retro-inspired composition stirred with a rich melodic sensitivity way beyond its years. So much so, in fact, that it feels like I’ve been encountering the songs on this album all my life. I could’ve been toddling around my parents living room with ‘Sycophant’ humming in the background or riding to school with ‘You Have A Way’ blasting from the tinny car radio. An album schooled on the timeless songwriting dexterity of 20^th century greats – The Beatles, The Kinks, Cleaners From Venus, to name a few – and wrapped in a warm, cushy blanket of lo-fi production, the record is an evocative haven of jangly power-pop excellence from Slater’s solo moniker Sharp Pins (though he’s also known for his work with DIY Chicago garage trio Lifeguard). Triggering the same flavour of awe and yearning that Cindy Lee’s ‘Diamond Jubilee’ did in the year prior, ‘Radio DDR’ is a masterclass in nostalgia, and as such has remained a top listening choice to accompany any activity that involves romanticising the fuck out of my life.

Brad Sked: YHWH Nailgun – ’45 Pounds’

One of 2025’s absolute best albums came by the way of New York City cacophony YHWN Nailgun, their debut ‘45 Pounds’ released back in March. Love it or hate it, ‘45 Pounds’ makes for brisk but absolutely bonkers bedlam. During this twenty-one-minute tirade, the raucous, barbed and brutal ricocheting racket is a relentless assault that never lets up on its urgency. The ten-track bombardment encapsulates the broiling live show from the New Yorkers in perfect fashion.  It all makes for a cerebral, yet heady and intoxicating onslaught, a turbo-charged, dissonant. The experimental outfit menacingly pummel with the primal energy of punk, along with an electronic synth-storm and avant-garde art-rock, making for an industrial riot evoking a scorching blend of Gilla Band and Death Grips.

There’s a claustrophobia to it all, the sonic equivalent of the post-anxiety high, where the oddly calming euphoria after a panic attack presents itself amidst adrenaline-filled tremors. In a way, you wonder, “Wait, is it odd to actually be enjoying this?!”. But ‘45 Pounds’ is an experience of exaltation, even at its caustic peak. Combining searing viscerality with its tribalistic drums, there is a peculiar hypnotism to it all, the record threatening to pull you into a paroxysm of frenzied dance. A jarring juxtaposition for sure, but one that makes for such a brilliant, idiosyncratic beast.

An outfit that stands as one of the best live acts right now, YHWN Nailgun’s debut record translates their sound to one of the best albums of 2025. It’s short and absolutely not sweet. A frenetic sensation and worthy of its acclaim. 

Isabel Kilevold: Pebbledash – ‘To Cast The Sea In Concrete’

With the seven-song EP ‘To Cast The Sea In Concrete’, Pebbledash deliver a record that distinguishes itself within the year’s releases, less by scale than by the clarity of its vision. It’s not because it’s louder, more intricate, or more conceptually ambitious than its peers—it’s because few other releases feel so fully formed, where delicate tension and raw immediacy exist in equilibrium.

The Cork-based five-piece fuse the emotional lilt of Irish traditional music with the raw edge of alternative rock. The record is both ethereal and grounded, its layers deepening with the weight of time slipping, of something vanishing even as it forms. That sense of impermanence—felt in guitar lines that echo with feedback, wrapped around vocals that feel more exposed than performed—shapes a sound that feels rooted in tradition yet newly carved.

Pebbledash craft a world from texture and tension. Dissonant melodies land with fragile intensity, carried by the soft, aching duet of Asha Egan McCutcheon and Fionnbharr Hickey. The band weave shoegaze and noise rock, letting intricate guitar textures and pulsing percussion steer their sound fluidly between dream-pop haze and post-punk grit. Across seven tracks, Pebbledash balance atmosphere, abrasion, and emotional depth, forming a cohesive whole of restraint and release.

In a year marked by polished hybrids and high-concept statements, ‘’To Cast The Sea In Concrete’ stands out as a release defined by intent rather than posture. Its impact lies not in volume or velocity, but in the precision with which it captures something fleeting – time slipping, forms shifting, the moment before a sound hardens into shape.

Few records arrive with such quiet inevitability; Pebbledash allow the music’s intent to surface without relying on grand gestures. ‘To Cast The Sea In Concrete’ lingers in the mind, its melodies drifting like mist before textures strike like feedback. Each track is crafted with intent, carrying the emotional pull of tradition while dissolving into an expansive haze that hangs between shadow and shimmer, delicate yet insistent.

Elvis Thirlwell: Gelli Haha – ‘Switcheroo’

When LA’s Gelli Haha first drifted into my ears in March with debut single ‘Bounce House’, it provided one of those damascene moments of fandom that every music obsessive strives for. Maybe it was the delirious visuals like Art Attack on LSD, or the music’s unequivocal optimism, but I felt like a child again, full of wonder at the beauty of the universe: the song, the beat, the colours; the perfection of the arrangement, the moreishness of the melody. It’s a song that you want to restart instantly as soon as it’s over. Since its release in the summer, Gelli’s debut album ‘Switcheroo’ has itself been an album on repeat. A cohesive and giddying package, the record brings together a delicious smorgasbord of synth and art-pop influences – from sultry Italo, 80s Nigerian soul boogie, to pumping, Britney-esque alt-pop – all in the name of chaotic glee. Each track ends at the perfect moment that leaves you in that tantalising limbo between satiating and wanting more, pulling you through the record. Whether it’s the shock jolt of ‘Spit’, the house pianos of ‘Tiramisu’, the monologue about pissing in jar at a party that is ‘Piss Artist’, or the gorgeously warm keyboards soaking closing track ‘Pluto is not a planet it’s a restaurant’, ‘Switcheroo’ knows how to keep its listener hooked. It is art-pop perfection.

A. L. Noonan: Milkweed – Remscéla

As we reach the crest of the decade, the sheer quality of contemporary British and Irish folk music only crystallises further. Artists on both sides of the Irish Sea are taking traditional works and, using experimental forms of instrumentation and production, repurposing age-old sounds for a contemporary audience. Tin whistles and harmoniums are welcome bedfellows with samplers and synthesisers, while lyrics once considered antiquated or problematic are reworked and recontextualised through a progressive lens. 

In a period where styles and genres are recycled and zombified ad nauseum, the folk renaissance is an ornate sculpture of old materials cast in stirring new moulds. One group at the vanguard are ‘slacker trad’ duo Milkweed. Unlike their peers who re-interpret traditional songs, Milkweed study literary works of folklore to produce warped, fractured and ghostly freak-folk that sounds more uncovered than composed. 

On ‘Remscéla’, the band’s members, who go only by G and R, endeavoured to unpack the Irish epic, Táin Bó Cúailnge. The Táin is a foundational myth of Ireland from the Ulster Cycle following Queen Medb of Connacht who invades Ulster to steal a prize bull, opposed solely by the seventeen-year-old demi-god Cú Chulainn. 

Upon studying Thomas Kinsella’s 1969 translation, it became clear that the full text was too grand and that investigating the contextual remscéla, or pre-tales, that dress the set for the wider epic was a more appropriate course of action. With this, Milkweed have produced something rare in a record that stands utterly alone from its influences and peers; a work of true originality. 

On ‘Remscéla’, the duo are at the zenith of their abilities for pairing experimentation with a faithfulness to the text they draw from. Milkweed’s ability to balance the weight of dubby basslines and cracked hip hop drum patterns with bright banshee vocals and twinkling banjo plucks is a testament to their skill and range. The foul sub of ‘How Conchobor was Begotten’ looms like a black cloud while the glassy boom-bap of ‘Exile of the Sons of Uisliu’ grooves with the swagger of a horseback joyride. Undoubtedly it’s the sparser, more impressionist moments seen on the dewy sparkles of ‘The Milk-Fed Calf’ or the lysergic calls of ‘Noisiu’s Voice a Wave Roar, a Sweet Sound to Hear Forever’ that make ‘Remscéla’ so bewitching. G’s vocals across the LP are ancient and haunting with her performance on ‘The Pangs of Ulster’ producing one of the finest compositions of original folk seen this century. 

A beguiling and enthralling release from a group that is effortlessly innovative and wholly unique. Without a doubt one of the finest folk records of the last 25 years and a totemic achievement of marrying the traditional with the experimental. 

Donovan Livesey: The Orchestra (For Now) – ‘Plan 76’

What makes a release essential? Feeling. Feeling that grips, shakes, forces an involuntary smile or tear, transports listeners somewhere they didn’t know existed. Plan 76 does all of the above, sometimes within the same thirty seconds. These songs never wash over you; they cling, dragging you through a kind of spellbinding rock opera with zero respite. The band initially imagined their two EPs as one full album, but the inherent tightness of the shorter format makes this instalment even more gripping.

This year’s obvious critical favourite will likely be by a certain Brooklyn four-piece, but these seven Londoners have an urgency that the NYC boys lack. Where Geese enjoyed nine years together and something of a cushioned creative runway, The Orchestra (For Now) had two years and a shoestring budget. That scarcity sharpens ‘Plan 76’ rather than limiting it, giving rise to a daring little epic with more bite than any of its supposed competitors – a rawness most projects didn’t even attempt.

Lead single and six-minute thriller ‘Hattrick’ might be one of the finest tracks released this year, evoking the ambition of prog’s more complex recordings while stitching together everything TOFN do best: staccato piano lines, thrashy guitar-violin leads, and an eventual crescendo steeped in cryptic lyricism that hints at the band’s more poetic instincts. 

The intensity isn’t the whole story, though. The EP’s emotional breadth and diversity is what makes it so arresting. ‘Deplore You / Farmers Market’ swaps dense arrangements for soft piano and strings, while ‘Amsterdam’ pivots into a dense, almost upbeat gallop that unravels into a cacophonous final passage. Yet even in the noisiest moments, all seven players are crisp and audible.

It’s chilling, catchy and properly hard-hitting all at once, the kind of release that makes much of the year’s output feel cautious by comparison. Fun yet quietly uneasy, it shifts pace without ever losing control – much like a roller-coaster you’re compelled to ride again and again the moment you step off. The maddest part is that the queue remains fairly short, for now. It feels inevitable that one day it’ll be winding around the block.