It only feels likes yesterday since we published our inaugural Top 25 EPs of the year back in 2023, and with our third edition, it underlines just how much the extended play has continued to be a crucial source in the new music sphere.
It’s been said many times throughout these pages, but with people’s time, listening trends and the affordability of making music becoming that much harder for so many artists these days, the EP continues to be a sweet spot all across the board.
Not just for artists who release music under labels, but for those who don’t as well. The EP, a gateway for us to maintain our DIY ethos, which – by extension – gives us the privilege to expose artists who may not receive such consideration elsewhere.
It’s always surprising just how many bands are “new” to submitting their music to publications – many rightly wary of the all-too-often bullshit PR dance and the general insidious nature of social media. It’s quite ironic, given many of the releases we do receive and enjoy are ones directly from artists.
And speaking of submissions, the numbers have grown so much this year that the introduction of our Out of Step bi-monthly feature was a no-brainer. With each edition growing from one to the next, we hope it continues to experience the same trajectory when it returns in 2026.
With our Top 50 Albums of the Year set for publication on Friday, there’s not too much to add from here. The majority of releases in our Top 25 having already featured on the site this year, and so too the words, which are either full reviews or excerpts from longer, stand-alone pieces. (Where the latter is concerned, the relevant links to full reviews are provided below.)
For those new to the site, we hope you find some new discoveries within our top picks, and we hope to see you back here on Friday for our Top 50.
25.
Ora Cogan: Bury Me
Prism Tongue
Over the last 12 years, Nanaimo, BC based Ora Cogan has taken folk music to brooding places, and following her 2023 LP, Formless, Bury Me showcases the songwriter’s range with four songs that provide a clear picture of her career so far.
With appearances from cellist Lori Goldston (Nirvana), violinist Ester Thunander and harpist Elisa Thorn, there’s everything from psych (the title track), cinematic fantasy folk (Lucile), chiming nightscapes (The North) and rustic noise across uninhabited space (Hunting the Moon), making this a kind of dream-state release that you don’t want to end.
With a swathe of albums and EPs already under her belt, for those new to Cogan’s world, Bury Me is as good a place to start as any.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
24.
Dark Scrotuum: Rotting Dream
Cruel Nature Records
Experimentalist, Dark Scrotuum, wins the prize for two things: the worst moniker and the most disturbing sound. The racket they make on Rotting Dream, everything its title suggests.
Rotting Dream is the definitive headphones listens. A surge of haemorrhaging noise that sparks senses you thought you never had, Dark Scrotuum rips apart noise and black metal like some rabbit beast succeeding in hunting its prey.
It’s brutal stuff, and while harsh noise can sometimes be reductive, it’s the quiet/ loud dynamics that make Rotting Dream stand out as the excellent outlier from such genres. It’s confrontational but not through sheer noise – its contrasts, hammering home the fact that it really is the hope that kills you.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
23.
OXRUN: OXRUN
Anathemata Editions
Featuring members of Gloop, Knub, and Silk Leash, Baltimore’s OXRUN round of 2025 with a late surge of sounds that simply couldn’t be left out of this list.
On their self-titled debut EP, vocalist Matt Buie leads the charge and backed by Shalin, Surafel Makonnen and Ben Zamzow, OXRUN deliver five urgent bursts of hardcore-inspired noise-rock that blows holes through the wall. Picture The Mark Of Cain taking on The Jesus Lizard in a drunken backyard wrestle, and you won’t be far off the mark in how this sounds.
Assessing 2025’s EP releases, and there have been few noise-rock releases that sparked the senses quite like OXRUN. Here’s hoping this is just the first chapter of many more to come.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
22.
Hell on Hearth: One Hundred and Forty Two
Self-released
Another year, another wave of Hell on Hearth, and it’s Sean Wárs’ fourth release of 2025, One Hundred and Forty Two, that grappled with the mind the most.
Think of the abrasive noise of some industrial machine slowed down and manipulated to the kind of end-world sonics that can only be found at the bottom of the vortex. It’s ultimately what the Hell on Hearth experience is: a voyage into such milieus, and on One Hundred and Forty Two Wárs may have travelled to the deepest parts of it.
In a canon that now spans over 140 releases and counting, for those already attuned, it’s now at the stage where the spine-chilling explorations of Hell on Hearth have become about as common as sticking the kettle on.
21.
No Peeling: No Peeling
Feel It Records
Nottingham’s No Peeling don’t mess about. No airs or graces whatsoever, Dan, Sophie, Dom, Nick and Phil (yup, withheld surnames intentional) arrive with synth strangling, cerebral egg punk that’s over before you know it.
Clocking in at a tick over eight minutes, No Peeling is boiled down to to the bare bones. Resuci Annie cuts all the way through to the marrow, while Hi Vis looks at the humorous side of the working-class life, and remaining in that orbit, Swift Half is an accurate snapshot of pub dweller’s evening gone wrong.
Equal parts gritty and playful, the worst thing about No Peeling is that there’s not more of it. Hopefully that’ll change in the not-too-distant future.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
20.
Doris / Es Muss Sein: Split
Kitty Records/Grey Sky Recordings
Doris hit the radar last year with their excellent debut full-length, four trees, and they return in 2025 alongside fellow antipodeans, Es Muss Sein, with Split.
Bursting with the kind of gut-busting chords that possess the same feeling as listening to the likes Exploding In Sound mainstays, Ovlov, and Adelaide darlings, Twine, this is how one smashes post-hardcore into emo. Not only that, but there’s a youthful energy at play here, and with bands like Doris and Es Muss Sein, essentially, they keep the flame of DIY culture burning.
There seems to be something brewing in Australia with new exciting bands popping up every few weeks; Doris and Es Muss Sein are just two of them, and Split is another document that underlines what feels like an important time in the country’s underground music history.
19.
Blokeacola: Shoulda
Self-released
I’m not sure whether there’s a better name across the U.K.’s underground DIY landscape than Blokeacola? With the countless submissions that land in the email inbox, the name at least stands out from most, which is a good ploy (others take note!).
It helps that Blokeacola has the tunes to match, of course, and following his mammoth double LP (2023’s Quasars and Fluff), the Newport-based songsmith returns with Shoulda. It’s Blokeacola in looking-out-to-the-mountains-from-the-porch mode, and the results are great.
Simple songcraft that falls somewhere between Jeff Tweedy and later-era Lou Barlow, these five songs tie up the loose ends you have in your mind. Nothing extravagant, but the songs on Shoulda do a job when you need them to the most. They are also a nice gateway into the Blokeacola experience.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
18.
Millpool: One Last Midnight
XVI Records
Consisting of Joshua Byrne (vocals, guitar), Duncan Little (bass), Ammar Kalia (drums), and Alejandro Van-Zandt Escobar (tenor saxophone), Millpool aren’t your average post-rock-by-numbers concern.
On their debut EP, One Last Midnight, the four-piece channel something likened to June of 44 and Ian Macakye on a crash course, and the results are very fine indeed. Recorded by Misha Hering (High Vis, Virginia Wing et al), Millpool cherry-pick the best parts of anyone’s record collection and produce the kind of noise that brims with confidence.
From all the post-rock-inspired bands coming out of London, Millpool are arguably the pick of the bunch, and there’s little doubt that One Last Midnight is a springboard for a future that people are about to hear more of.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
17.
Null Assembly: Hinterland
Self-released
Remaining in the north, and this one dropped earlier this year from Leeds producer, George Miller, who operates under the Null Assembly moniker.
Hinterland is a fierce collision between the drone and hip-hop. Abrasive walls of sound that capture the kind of field recordings that Poppy H has been the leading lights of over the last couple of years, there’s a civic vitality that operates underneath the mix here.
Effectively, Hinterland is a product born out of solitude, and the freedom to roam and capture life on the run. In that respect, it’s not unlike the inspirations that led to Burial’s earliest works, and it will be interesting to see where Miller goes to next.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
16.
Alaskan Tapes: Songs from My Living Room
We All Speak In Poems
While somewhat late to the party on Alaskan Tapes’ latest cut, Songs from My Living Room (it was released in January), it underlines the truth of such endeavours from this end: too much music, very few hours…
The Toronto producer’s latest release comprises of a series of beautiful piano-led compositions where homespun warmth overrides the wintry field recordings that faintly reveal themselves below the mix.
Alaskan Tapes is one of the few experimentalists who has maintained the ability to reach wider audiences in comparison with his fellow DIY purveyors, and it’s due to his ability to continuously shift the needle with each release, covering endless amounts of new ground. And on Songs from My Living Room, he covers a little bit more.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
15.
Taxidermy: Let Go
Pink Cotton Candy Records
Following their debut EP Coin, Danish post-punks, Taxidermy, land an even bigger haymaker with their follow-up, Let Go.
This isn’t post-punk by numbers. Led by Osvald Reinhold, Taxidermy get inventive, occupying a similar space that their fellow countrymen Iceage made their own for the best part of a decade.
Whilst similar in approach, Taxidermy add their own flavours, and with quiet/ loud dynamics inspired by Slint (Impending, You Are Here Now), not only do they does Let Go see the band taking a huge leap from their debut, they inject new life into a genre that’s started to become worn down by pastiche. No such issue here.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
14.
Wishy: Planet Popstar
Winspear
As an ardent Indiana Pacers fan and perhaps the only Liverpool-based ’Cer, admittedly, the eyes light up when a band hails from there. Particularly when they’re good, and Wishy are just that.
Like Docents, the Indianapolis five-piece follow on from an excellent debut album (last year’s Triple Seven, which was lauded by all the usual suspects), and their Planet Popstar EP continues their ascent. Melding together a woodsy dream-pop aesthetic with shoegaze inflections, this is all summer swoon and clever songcraft that turns frowns upside down.
Wishy has all the momentum, and if they continue to write songs like the ones on Planet Popstar, their world will only grow bigger.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
13.
Tharn: Seek
Crossfade Sounds
Originally hailing from London and now residing in Portland, Oregon, producer, Sam Ashton, unveils his new project, Tharn, with the first taster, Seek.
Also known for his work under the Fortresses moniker, the Tharn alias sees the producer going deep. Seek’s cover art, indicative of the soundscapes on offer here, with a brilliantly executed set of tracks that could have been conceived from the vaults of a Modern Love session.
There are echoes of Kompakt, too. Those lush, gliding fogscapes that sink deep into the mind and take you to new places. The only issue with Seek? That there isn’t more of it, and I for one can’t wait for what comes next.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
12.
Silver Nun: Tabula Rasa
Crystal Cabinet
Whether it be in person or file-sharing from all across the world, many of the finest releases in this era so far have stemmed from collaboration. It was bound to happen, as technological advances have enabled the kind of transparency and connectivity for outliers all over the world to unite and form a new dimension of underground and DIY culture.
Two of those voices merge as Silver Nun – the new project from Durham underground lifer, Lucy Valentine, which features Tampere, Finland percussionist, Simo Laihonen, who combine for the intoxicating Tabula Rasa EP. Five pieces that are a slave to the drone, which forms the backbone to these recordings.
From start to finish, Tabula Rasa is like white-hot heat rushing through the mainlines. Valentine and Laihonen, fine tuning something that sounds so confident and soulful that it begs the obvious question: what’s next?
Full review
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
11.
Docents: Shadowboxing
Ten Tremors
New York’s Docents got out of the gates quickly with their 2023 debut, Figure Study, and they continue to maraud down the home stretch with their latest release, the Shadowboxing EP.
If June of 44 decided morph into a punk band, then they could have ended up producing the kind of glorious racket that Docents do here. Frenetic post-hardcore with hairpin turns that send your mind into sensory overload.
Smashing together noise-rock and post-hardcore, Docents are the kind of band to take both genres forward, and while Figure Sturdy got them on the map, Shadowboxing will see them remain there.
10.
Swervedriver: The World’s Fair
Outer Battery Records
Following last year’s 99th Dream reissue, some of that residue drips into Swervedriver’s excellent new EP, The World’s Fair.
Once again, vocalist/guitarist, Adam Franklin, and guitarist, Jimmy Hartridge, are joined by drummer, Mikey Jones and bassist Mick Quinn (Supergrass) in what has proved a solid line-up over the past several years. While 2020’s Future Ruins failed to recapture the majesty its predecessor, I Wasn’t Born to Lose You, The World’s Fair is a pleasant return to form with a band that simply keeps marching on against the odds.
With dreamy Byrdsian chimes and rolling washes of sound that match the best parts of the Swervedriver discography, the only disappointment here is that it’s not a full-length release. And speaking of, The World’s Fair feels like a precursor to something bigger. Watch this space.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
9.
Big Break: Exile on Exchange Street
Wrong Speed Records
I won’t lie, I do love a bit of northern, and Big Break returns to provide some of it on Exile on Exchange Street – the follow-up release to 2023’s Angel’s Piss (Christ, has it been that long?).
The Sheffield four-piece dispense four short, sharp doses of unadulterated chug-a-rolla that just lines-up everything in your head. Having a shit day? This makes it better, with shouty lo-fi spit fires with the embers of proto-punk warming nicely through the mix.
Those who like their Total Control, CIVIC and anything else that subtly nods to the mighty Radio Birdman… in the U.K., few do it better than Big Break and Exile on Exchange Street is the latest example.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
8.
Burial: Coma Fields / Imaginary Festival
Hyperdub
Will Bevan has never been so literal in song titles than he is with Burial’s latest release. Continuing his decade-plus odyssey immersed in the long-form, Coma Fields / Imaginary Festival sees the London producer guiding us through new paths of his unique, foggy sound world.
And it’s a sound world of fragments and futurism where light swallows the darkness. A concept Bevan has focused on for years, but with constant refinements, his compositions grow deeper with emotional resonance as the years roll on.
On Coma Fields / Imaginary Festival, Bevan provides compositions of catharsis, washing over and taking you to a place that offers peace and respite, if only just for a little while.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
7.
Ex Agent: New Assumptions
Self-released
Undoubtedly, Bristol five-piece, Ex Agent, are a band that will be reaching more ears in the not-too-distant future. Their debut EP, New Assumptions, a hot house of ideas carefully picked from deep record collections.
While many claimed Black Country, New Road were something akin to saviours of post-rock and post-hardcore, honestly, I’m still yet to hear it. Ex Agent might be though, splicing together Slint and June of 44 homage with jazz inflections that don’t feel forced or cloaked in soulless London privilege. There’s emotional intensity here as if they actually mean it.
New Assumptions sees Ex Agent sinking their fangs in from the get-go, taking you on an exploration full of wonderful hooks and hairpin turns. The only logical thing to do is listen to this on a loop.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
6.
Las Llagas: Cuanto tiempo nos queda para oler los eucaliptos?
Fiadh Productions / Uno Azero / El Octavo
Perhaps the pick of the bunch in our first edition of Out of Step is Uruguayan four-piece, Las Llagas who blow it open with their excellent debut, Cuanto tiempo nos queda para oler los eucaliptos?
Recorded just months after the band began, with droning, downturned guitars, the four-piece mix anarcho-punk with sludge-laden black metal. The results? Shrapnel exploding from the speakers.
Swapping instruments and sharing vocals from one track to the next, while perhaps the organic spirit steeped in punk, sonically, Las Llagas travel beyond, producing something dynamic and ear-splitting, crisscrossing from one thing to the next. It’s this attitude that will have everyone from the hardcore and punks kids to the metal heads finding something to cherish on Cuanto tiempo nos queda para oler los eucaliptos?
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
5.
Mila Cloud: Quietly Unpresent
Self-released
After a quiet 2024, Warsaw’s Mila Cloud returns with more aural splendour in the way of Quietly Unpresent.
Following her 2023 EP, Long Way Back from the Familiar Place We’ve Never Been To (the inaugural winner of Sun 13’s EPs of the year), Quietly Unpresent remains firmly entrenched in the enclave Mila Cloud has created within the world of drone and shoegaze. These compositions, glittering like jewels from the crown, with heart-felt passages that lead to eye-watering drones.
The whole thing hits with brute force, and at this point the guitarist can simply do no wrong. Quietly Unpresent, another beautiful chapter in a story that continues to be one of the most understated within the European underground.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
4.
Moin: Belly Up
AD 93
Following last year’s mind-bending You Never End, Moin returns with an EP that covers more new ground in their quest to basically dismantle post-hardcore.
While Belly Up continues down a similar path to You Never Know, it’s arguably the more inventive of the two releases. Take I’m Really Flagging (or I Trusted You), a song of free-jazz freak-outs colliding with left-field samples; or X.U.Y. – dub-infused echoes on a bed of meandering post-hardcore that radiates with a deep hypnotic effect.
And that’s what Belly Up is. Psych catharsis where the end point is reached through the tall grass. Moin, continuing to break boundaries in the kind of batshit crazy ways as Lilacs & Champagne. AI has no chance of outgunning Moin, and Belly Up is the latest example of that
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
3.
Wilks: A Soul to Borrow
Bricolage
Following last year’s Left Hand Drive EP, Nick Wilkinson returns with the equally excellent A Soul to Borrow.
In fact, his second EP hits and pops harder; from the first note of Take It In, your senses are rattled as the producer grabs you by the scruff of the neck and hurls you out onto the dance floor with the kind of IDM that’s presented through the lens of early dubstep (led by the excellent Ameliorate).
Sometimes words don’t do things justice, and Wilks’ A Soul to Borrow is one of those moments. Like majority under the Bricolage stable, just press play and be teleported into a world where all your troubles are vapourised.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
2.
Pete Power: Pete Power
Kool Tone
Even in one’s local miluea, there are always gems to unearth, and from Merseyside, the latest is Pete Power who returns with his excellent self-titled EP.
Formerly of indie-rockers, Playhouse, Power continues to illuminate the spirit of the ’90s underground, mixing Sebadoh-inspired lo-fi with splendid melodies and large-hearted hooks that have you ferreting around your record collection for Big Star records.
From the first note, Power’s songs are vibrant, immediate, and sink deeper into the groove the more time spent with them. It’s one of the finest releases out of Liverpool this year, and, truth be told, I can’t see much else bettering it. Just listen for yourself.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
1.
Via: Via
Dromedary Records
If Polvo and Unwound were two of the most understated voices from the American underground of the ’90s, then it would be fair to say that Come were also a part of the same conversation. Thalia Zedek’s vocals were like a maelstrom. Unvarnished spirit where every word was felt.
Zedek spent most of the ’80s raising hell in Dangerous Birds and Uzi before joining Live Skull on a full-time basis in 1987. However, in many ways, it was Via that wove a strong thread through the patchwork of Zedek’s later creative endeavours. Matching the tonal precision of Band Of Susans, smashing it into the rockabilly of The Gun Club, the long-lost recordings now shaped into the self-titled EP is siege of white-hot noise designed to blow the mind apart. And that’s what these recordings do.
It embodies the spirit of home recordings. An unique energy that can’t be replicated anywhere else, and in this case, Via caught the kind of lightning bottle that only possesses a limited shelf life. That’s not to say this was music of its time, just a special moment frozen in it.
Full review
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Top 25 recap:
25. Ora Cogan: Bury Me
24. Dark Scrotuum: Rotting Dream
23. OXRUN: OXRUN
22. Hell on Hearth: One Hundred and Forty Two
21. No Peeling: No Peeling
20. Doris / Es Muss Sein: Split
19. Blokeacola: Shoulda
18. Millpool: One Last Midnight
17. Null Assembly: Hinterland
16. Alaskan Tapes: Songs from My Living Room
15. Taxidermy: Let Go
14. Wishy: Planet Popstar
13. Tharn: Seek
12. Silver Nun: Tabula Rasa
11. Docents: Shadowboxing
10. Swervedriver: The World’s Fair
9. Big Break: Exile on Exchange Street
8. Burial: Coma Fields / Imaginary Festival
7. Ex Agent: New Assumptions
6. Las Llagas: Cuanto tiempo nos queda para oler los eucaliptos?
5. Mila Cloud: Quietly Unpresent
4. Moin: Belly Up
3. Wilks: A Soul to Borrow
2. Pete Power: Pete Power
1. Via: Via
Previous Sun 13 Top 25 EPs of the Year:
4 replies on “Sun 13’s Top 25 EPs of 2025”
Huge thanks go out to all at sun-13 for the inclusion.Wilks
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