Sun 13’s Top 50 Albums of 2025

When the day affords some time to stop and think, in relation to Sun 13, often the first thought is, ‘How on earth are we still doing this?’ The second, ‘Why on earth are we still doing this?’

Maybe it’s some sort of an addiction? Who knows, but five years on, and here we are, still in our little enclave within the realms of DIY culture. From being asked by guest posters aiming to pedal their own slop to being floated with the idea of introducing a podcast, personally, I couldn’t think of anything worse. We are what we are, and that’s absolutely fine.

In a world where people are constantly obsessed with change, it’s also okay to have set things. Halfway through the decade, even with the scourge of AI, the hollowness of social media and everything in between, surprisingly, our readership numbers continue to grow without having made any major adjustments in how we present this site from week to week.

It underlines just how much you don’t have to change or submit to any trends. Just have a vision and show some conviction with it. Easy, right?

Well, not really. Despite the site’s continual growth, 2025 has felt like the hardest one yet. Outside noise being a source of great displeasure – namely the plague of Reform who edge closer to power thanks to the ineffectiveness of a Labour government who now seem shoulder to shoulder with the Tory Party. To differentiate the two is merely splitting hairs

Everything just feels so precarious, and not just in the United Kingdom, but also throughout the world. So much so that sometimes it makes the idea of chipping away in our little corner of Internet land seem like a pointless exercise. But unless someone has any better ideas, we’ll be here doing what we do.

Closer to home in Liverpool, and like every year there have been ups and downs. The successful relocation of QUARRY, a vital one for independent music who finally has a city centre venue that champions outsider culture. The latter point has always been a hard slog, and the downside has come via local DIY promotor, Moon Frog, who has called time on their reign. A bastion in bringing esoteric artists from all across the world to the city, given the current economic climate, it’s difficult to see who will pick up the slack.

Beyond, and the story is similar. The news of Trouble In Mind closing its doors, perhaps the biggest in independent music this year. Label founders, Bill and Lisa Roe, absolute pillars in bringing wonderful sounds into the homes of many across the world. Suffice to say, the Chicago label will be sorely missed.

It’s indicative of the current new music sphere, and while there has never been more of it, with a new generation whose listening trends are vastly different from the preceding one, you’re left to wonder what the outlook for the long-player will be in the not-too-distant future.

It’s a big reason why we will continue to do what we do, because to us, there is no better art-form than the album. And on that note, here’s 50 of the best from 2025. (Like every year, the words below are excerpts from pieces already published, with links to full articles provided.)

Selecting 50 albums is always an arduous task, and while we have never entertained a separate honourable mentions piece or even considered expanding our Top 50 to 100, there have been several releases that could have easily forced their way into this list.

The likes of the psychedelic odyssey of the Cosimo Querci or The Bug vs Ghost Dubs. The environmental-based mastery of Hiram. The komiche splendour of Bitchin Bajas. The poetic wordplay of Fortunato Durutti Marinetti. The black metal majesty of Uamh. The ethereal sketches of Joanne Robertson and James Blackshaw or the abstract purity of Braulio Lam, Willow Skye-Biggs, loscil and Poppy H. The releases from these artists, scratching the corners of the mind as much as the 50 we have selected below.

Which is where we will leave you to indulge. Happy holidays, enjoy the music and spread the goodness of it to anyone who is willing to listen.

Sun 13’s Top 25 EPs of 2025

50.
Immersion / SUSS: Nanocluster Vol. 3
swim ~

One of the first great collaborations of 2025, Immersion (consisting of Wire’s Colin Newman and Minimal Compact’s Malka Spigel) joined forces with ambient post-country heavyweights, SUSS, for Nanocluster Vol.3.

Under the Nanocluster series, Newman and Spigel have spent the decade collaborating with the Cubzoa, Thor Harris, Scanner, Ulrich Schnauss, Laetitia Sadier and Tarwater. And alongside SUSS, Immersion explore great new frontiers during a series of what are essentially borderless compositions.

It’s something born for cinema, and as both projects haven’t put a foot wrong over the years, in unison they don’t start to either with Nanocluster Vol. 3. An album that gets stronger with time and space.

Interview
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49.
Tavare: Too Small to be So High
Godunknown Records / Cruel Nature Records / Katuktu Collective

While metal-gaze pioneers Nadja have always been the ultimate reference point for Aidan Baker, the Berlin-based artist has never been one to occupy a single space for too long. This decade alone has seen his canon widen with several slowcore-inspired releases (the latest, & You Still Fall In).

It’s this subtle pivot that has led to one of Baker’s most fertile creative periods, and moving the boundaries even further, alongside Tristen Bakker (Soft Noise Collective)and Angela Muñoz (Nunofyrbeeswax) as Tavare, the trio deliver one of the year’s best slowcore releases in Too Small To Be So High.

And exploring the inner workings of it, Tavare add new inflections, delivering something gripping, aligning the loose, spatial quality of slowcore with the principles of deep listening.

Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp

48.
Snakeskin: We Live In Sand
Ruptured Records / Beacon Sound

It feels somewhat trite to speak about war from afar while people continue to be at the coal face of it, experiencing immeasurable loss, trauma and grief. To create art through these catastrophes is seemingly normalised to those who have spent years and decades experiencing it, and those of us on the sidelines can only be inspired by these architects. Architects such as Snakeskin.

We Live In Sand isn’t a clarion call. It’s a commentary of real-time events. Word vomiting in a bid to bring catharsis during a time that no one should experience.

Snakeskin’s elusively euphoric dreamscapes that once led to optimism, reduced to starker, cold-eyed dread stifled by their immediate environment. It makes We Live In Sand a much closer listen, as Sabra and Tabbal frame turmoil as poignantly as any artist around.

Full review
Interview
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47.
HAYWARDxDÄLEK: HAYWARDxDÄLEK
Relapse Records

On their debut, This Heat’s Charles Hayward and Dälek’s Will Brooks surge into the maelstrom, illuminating the cruelty in this world, largely brought about by conflict and greed, as world leaders continue to protect their own interests with little concern for anyone outside the paradigm of power.  

Hayward pivots from avant-grade to hip-hop with ease and militancy. Brisk, inventive percussive freak-outs that sound as sharp as he ever has, and alongside the most crucial voice in conscious rap since the turn of the century in Brooks, the pair combine for a dark harmony indicative of these times.

A truer line hasn’t been delivered in 2025 than Brooks’ on As Children Chant: “We exist in a flawed design,” he laments, and it’s this snapshot that confirms that nothing will change unless the system does. Chaos, nothing but a logical conclusion in a world that continues to collapse by our own making. But even despite this, Hayward and Brooks still find deep levels of catharsis in it.

Full review
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46.
Edith Frost: In Space
Drag City

Edith Frost’s songs are like long lost friends. Her voice, leaking out if the speakers like tears, but through the heartbreak that the Austin, Texas-based songwriter has always dealt exclusively in, there’s a strange comfort in it.

During Frost’s fantastic run during the mid ’90s and ’00s, a time when – by and large – the blues and country seemed out of vogue, Frost was the decade’s answer to Jimmy Campbell, peddling her pain in her own ways. As she sang on Calling Over Time’s opening track, Temporary Loan, “I sing the blues every night,” and true to her word, things haven’t changed on In Space.

In an age where all roads to Nashville where superficial heartbreak and manufactured sound have commodified country into something insipid and insufferable, Edith Frost blows the competition away by simply being herself. Songcraft instilled with street-level sincerity, Frost exposes life’s ups and downs with honesty and straight talking, making her, indeed, the real deal. And In Space is another shining example of that.

Full review
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SANAM Interview: “Everything outside of Lebanese pop music or business techno is DIY”

45.
The Necks: Disquiet
Northern Spy Records

No other act on the planet is experiencing a renaissance quite like The Necks. Whether it be from the vaults or their live performances across the globe, this decade has seen Chris Abrahams, Lloyd Swanton and Tony Buck embark on their most active period in their 39-year existence as a trio.

If last year’s Bleed was The Necks delivering their brand of doom jazz in shorthand, then Disquiet is at the other end of the spectrum. It’s a tour-de-force. Their Anna Karenina.

Meticulously shaped and designed to precision, on Disquiet, The Necks reveal every one of their personalities from their past, pulling them to new places within their sound world. It’s epic stuff, and as far as The Necks have ever travelled.

Full review
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44.
Barker: Stochastic Drift
Smalltown Supersound

Berlin-based DJ and producer, Sam Barker barely misses a trick, and on his latest album, Stochastic Drift, he has created a portal that leads to purity.

In what is a rainbow collation of sound and ideas, Stochastic Drift is like sample-size Barker. A glittering gateway that possesses all the finest elements of why so many are drawn to his music in the first place.

With beautiful shimmers and urgent rushes of noise, alongside Skee Mask, Barker is arguably the most trusted voice in modern day electronica. On Stochastic Drift, not only does he capture the cadence of his local Berlin surroundings, but he also unlocks parts of the mind with something that is the quintessential endorphin rush.   

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43.
Battle Elf: 10
Birdman Records

Spearheaded by Infinite River’s Gretchen Gonzales, the Detroit underground veteran is joined by psych kindred spirits, guitarist Chris Peters (Racehorses Are Resources), and drummer, David Hurley (Panto Collapsar).

On Battle Elf’s debut long-player, 10, the trio draws the mind to new places. While Gonzales’ krautrock voyage alongside Joey Mazzola and Warren Defever as Infinite River has been one through the milieu of a stoned, green haze, Battle Elf is more about the psychedelic trip.

To reach 10’s core, one really needs it in their ears. A pure headphones crusade, and while the term psychedelia is exploited by so many, like Infinite River before them, Battle Elf harbours a deeper intelligence of the movement. And through a heady alchemy of heavy grooves and sonic mind fuckery, the trio just about reach its ultimate endpoint.

Full review
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42.
Water Damage: Instruments
12XU

With the aptly titled Instruments, Water Damage unveil yet another high-watermark. From Greg Piwonka’s artwork (another wonderful facet in this chronicle), to the sheer torrents of noise, Instruments sees Water Damage at their borderless best.

Reel 28 – a metallic, protracted psych jam that slowly builds with hypnotic drones in a moment where Water Damage hasn’t sunken so deep into the groove, while the humid and haunting Reel 32 is the darkest moment Water Damage has committed to tape.

Bristling with energy that sends shivers down the spine, Instruments is another victory for the Austin giants, and in a decade that feels as tumultuous as life has ever been, while it’s tough to predict the future, it’s hard to imagine one without Water Damage in it.

Interview
Live review
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41.
Jayve Montgomery: Breathing With Each Ear (Hour 4)
Monastral

Combining the finest elements of ambient music and deep listening, it could be argued that Jayve Montgomery’s creations are the complete voyage of sound.

His second for Chicago label Monastral, Breathing With Each Ear (Hour 4) is the fourth collection of remembrances of the sound at the bottom of a sunken slave ship. These compositions, hitting with emotional force as Montgomery shapes interpretations of epigenetic trauma over time.

Ultimately his compositions are the product of strength, and while Breathing With Each Ear (Hour 4) is the latest example, for those new to his body of work (which now spans over 20 releases), this forms as a bridge that leads to artist’s aforementioned sound world.

Interview
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KAPUT Interview: “We tend to treat each song like a painting”

40.
Oren Ambarchi / Johan Berthling / Andreas Werliin: Ghosted III
Drag City

Another year, another chapter where Oren Ambarchi, Johan Berthling and Andreas Werliin resume their ceaselessly thought-provoking Ghosted collaboration.

While Ghosted I and Ghosted II were a boiled scrum of Afrobeat, drone and doom jazz that resulted in something akin to deep catharsis, recorded in three days, Ghosted III sees the trio at their most untethered, delivering hypno-rhythmic splendour that unlocks the mind.

It’s becoming a common theme when Ambarchi, Berthling and Werliin lock horns, and as far as collaborations in this decade are concerned, arguably, there hasn’t been one better. Ghosted III, yet another conquest.

Full review
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39.
The Ex: If Your Mirror Breaks
E & X Records

The same mantra as John Peel’s claim about the The Fall being “always different, always the same”, The Ex is a band that you can simply trust. No chinks in the armour. No ‘difficult second album’ or ‘meandering fifth release’ – their latest as good as their last, and If Your Mirror Breaks doesn’t buck the trend.

Like every encounter with the The Ex, their music needs time, and in a world where most people fail to use it wisely, while one could consider their beautiful brand of noise not fit these times, in true polemic fashion, there isn’t a better time for a band like the Amsterdam staples to reaffirm their mark.

That “beat beat drum”, completely their own, and despite the future looking as grim as it’s ever been, If Your Mirror Breaks is another example of The Ex marching to it, rain, hail or shine.

Full review
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38.
More Eaze & Claire Rousay: No Floor
Thrill Jockey

The term ambient emo is one of the many modern-day examples of a new generation unafraid to smash genres together that were previously considered no go zones by those before them.

While exponents of this hybridisation of ambient-based composition, whether more eaze (a.k.a. Mari Maurice Rubio) and Claire Rousay bake emo into their latest collaboration release, no floor, is debatable. If anything, their latest blissful wanderings extend the boundaries of post-country Americana.

It’s here where more eaze and Rousay give us a panoramic view, and in doing so, produce their finest work with no floor. A blueprint for ambient-post country, conjuring up sounds that form emotive snapshots of the same open space that both artists have been inspired by. It’s as far down the reality tunnel as more eaze and Rousay have travelled, and the results are vivid.

Full review
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37.
Glyders: Forever
Drag City

There’s a timelessness to Glyders’ second full-length release, Forever, placing you in a moment where everything else is irrelevant.

Produced by Condon and mixed by Bitchin Bajas’ Cooper Crain, Forever shakes, rattles and rolls. Psych-infused lounge country that sparks the senses, Glyders are a kaleidoscopic force of the past and present, and alongside Drag City label mates, Mike Donovan and Prison as well as New York’s Weak Signal, they take rock ’n’ roll to the places it needs to go.

The kind of record to let wash over you and bathe in its glory. It’s inventiveness, the stuff of chemical-inspired dreams, and for all those grizzled blokes set in their ways and listening habits, it’s time to bin off the annual subscription to Record Collector for some new shit. Starting with this.

Full review
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36.
Xol Meissner: Excess of Loss
Self-released

Under the Xol Meissner moniker, New York composer Mauro Hertig has delivered one of the year’s sleeper records with Excess of Loss.

Adopting a double hammer lap steel technique, these sonic inflections bubble underneath the mix for Hertig’s haunting baritone croons to take flight. Think Scott Walker serenading characters into the Black Lodge, but while there is a very Lynchian vibe to these songs, Hertig manages to excavate to deeper emotional levels.

While Excess of Loss can be a confronting listen, if you submit to it, it can also be something of an emotional crutch. Something to let wash over, and help with one’s own losses, resulting in something that can be quite comforting in its own way.

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Lux Interna Interview: “This project needed time to find its form”

35.
Rafael Toral: Traveling Light
Drag City

A year after his acclaimed release, Spectral Evolution, via Jim O’Rourke’s Moikai label, Portuguese experimental veteran, Rafael Toral, has wasted no time in delivering the beguiling follow-up, Traveling Light.

Rebuilding and manipulating sound through a set of jazz standards from the 1930s and 1940s, Traveling Light sees Toral not exactly reinventing these standards but, indeed, reinventing himself. It’s something he has always done, providing reactive, real time snapshots through sound, and here he takes experimental guitar composition to exquisite new terrains.

A sound portal that shimmers like a path to peace, and while many claim that music has lost its power to change the world, it can still change things in the moment. And on Traveling Light, that’s exactly what Rafael Toral does.

Full review
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34.
Horsegirl: Phonetics On and On
Matador Records

Making the move from their native Chicago to New York (Nora Cheng and Penelope Lowenstein now study at NYU), Horsegirl make great advances on Phonetics On and On – their much-anticipated follow-up to 2022 debut LP, Versions of Modern Performance.

With hooks as sharp as hairpin turns and not-so-subtle Sonic Youth echoes, the brawn proficiency of Versions of Modern Performance is replaced on Phonetics On and On by a delicate, sparse brand of proto-punk. It’s largely down to Cate Le Bon’s mastery from behind the soundboards, taming Horsegirl’s young energy with a dreamy, skeletal, less-is more approach.

While still growing as musicians and experiencing life through a youthful lens – a daunting prospect given their sharp ascent – it’s the brainfood needed to grow as a band and refine their songcraft. Horsegirl do that on Phonetics On and On, and while there’s more to come, here they’ve showcased just how much of a precocious talent they are.

Full review
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33.
Lawrence English: Even The Horizon Knows Its Bounds
Room40

2025 is a flagship year in waiting for Lawrence English. The antipodean keeper of the realm for all things experimental, the Brisbane composer has drafted in a swathe of equally vital guests from across the esoteric landscape for his latest full-length release, Even The Horizon Knows Its Bounds.

With appearances from Jim O’Rourke, The Necks’ Chris Abrahams, Amby Downs, Chuck Johnson, Claire Rousay, Dean Hurley, JW Paton, Madeleine Cocolas, Norman Westberg, Vanessa Tomlinson and Stephen Vitiello, Even The Horizon Knows Its Bounds is a single composition split into eight parts, resulting in one of the most accomplished pieces English has committed to tape.

Emotive and moody, with so many contributions from artists occupying different parts of that above-noted esoteric landscape, it’s a beautiful intersection of deep-listening and psychedelia, almost like a soundtrack to an upside-down world.

Full review
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32.
Dean Wareham: That’s the Price of Loving Me
Carpark Records

With That’s the Price of Loving Me, Dean Wareham delivers his magnum opus. Alongside life-partner, Britta Phillips, the songs are harnessed by touchstone producer and multi-instrumentalist, Kramer, who joins forces with Wareham for the first time in 34 years.

The results sparkle with a beautiful cadence. The title track, skewed exotica pop that lands you in your favourite holiday destination, while You Were the Ones I Had to Betray, backed by a smattering of strings and chiming guitars, creates vivid colours behind Wareham’s sleepy vocals and Phillips’ sun-dappled harmonies.

It’s an album that flourishes, revealing itself more with each listen. The light, reaching every corner of the room.

Interview
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31.
Burn Into Sleep ~ Dream Skills: I Carried You for Years and the Deers Are Still Hungry
Tombed Visions

A family affair consisting of brothers David (Aging, Fire Nearby and Tombed Visions founder) and Donald McLean (Action Beat, Final Boss) as well as the former’s partner, Lauren (also of Fire Nearby), I Carried You for Years and the Deers Are Still Hungry is a far different proposition, not only in collaboration but also due to the work of Andrew PM Hunt (Dialect, Ex-Easter Island Head).

The Liverpool electro-acoustic practitioner stitches together this album as expertly as anyone from behind the soundboards, amplifying every detail to remarkable effect.

It’s abstract minimalism that fizzes along the fault lines, and through Hunt’s ability to capture such an unsettling vigour between the studio walls, I Carried You for Years and the Deers Are Still Hungry is an absolute one of a kind.

Full review
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Track By Track: Liminal Project’s ‘Liminal Project’

30.
Two Way Mirrors: Endure
Frosti

Honley, U.K. experimentalist, Thomas Ragsdale, is an orchestrator of the immersive experience.

Empowering, multi-layered sound containing hidden depths, under the Sulk Rooms and Two Way Mirrors aliases, over the years Ragsdale has been the exponent of pristine sound collages that move and glide with grace, and on the latter’s latest release, Endure, the experimentalist frames these times as good as anyone.

A defiant, sun-over-the-horizon moment that instils hope, it’s Ragsdale telling his story through sound, and on Endure, he doesn’t sugar coat it. It’s untethered without an endpoint, accurately reflecting life itself.

Interview
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29.
Purelink: Faith
Peak Oil

Consisting of Akeem Asani (a.k.a. Millia), Ben Paulson (a.k.a. Kindtree), and Tommy Paslaski (a.k.a. Concave Reflection), the three-piece has delivered the kind of homespun ambient-based electronica that warms the bones. Their debut LP, Signs, filled with the kind misty dreamscapes that made the mind drift to places immune from conflict and despair, and Faith goes beyond that in subtly expansive ways.

Make no mistake, this isn’t some act plugging in an Ableton next to the coffee machine at some hipster café. Purelink’s compositions are much deeper, abstract and thought-provoking, transcending the shallow, transactional nature said environments often bring.

Meticulously crafted, Faith isn’t ambience built just for big sound systems. Its finest results are garnered through the medium of headphones, which is where you will piece together so many of the crucial layers to this puzzle.

Full review
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28.
Chat Pile & Hayden Pedigo: In the Earth Again
Computer Students ™

Some of the best new music this decade has been through collaboration, as voices from different sound worlds have combined for fascinating results. The latest being the unlikely alliance between noise-rock titans, Chat Pile, and experimental guitarist, Hayden Pedigo.

It’s Pedigo’s maverick-like tendencies that dovetail perfectly with the guardrail scraping noise of Chat Pile, and on In the Earth Again, they combine for something that evokes desolation and decay. The gritty exterior of forgotten America, slowly unveiled through these songs,

This collaboration, while perhaps one of the biggest surprises of the year, is also one of the most rewarding, as Chat Pile and Pedigo galvanise their boldest ideas. And in doing so, together they move forward with what is arguably their best work.

Full review
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27.
Deep Fade: Oblivion Spell
Phage Tapes

The Deep Fade experience is like being heaved into the vortex. Built on turbulence and disruption, the feral noise unit of vocalist / multi-instrumentalist Amanda Votta and gadget wranglers, Neddal Ayad (also Votta’s bandmate in The Spectral Light) and Grey Malkin first began perforating eardrums early in 2024 with their debut long-player, Line of Flight.

Like her solo project, the aptly dubbed The Floating World, Oblivion Spell sees Votta going it alone this time around. The extra responsibility is no burden, either; Votta, thriving in the same vortex as her audience.

It’s the production that makes Oblivion Spell such a frightening feat. A core-shuddering, visceral snapshot of the Deep Fade story, and throughout Votta’s many years of making music, she hasn’t sounded more extreme.

Full review
Interview
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26.
Landing: Tendrils
Structure

Landing’s latest and twelfth long-player, Tendrils, is yet another of the cosmic fairy dust variety. Each song, like a unique ice sculpture: meticulously crafted with its own set of characteristics. However, there is a nexus between these seven songs, underlining Landing’s greatest quality – their songs, possessing a delicacy that inspires their audience to feel 10 feet tall.

Pulling from the worlds of space-rock, shoegaze and slowcore, Landing are the reference point for the dreamscape. The vital voice in the pantheon of dream-pop that that splinters off and leads to so many other possibilities.

Is Tendrils is the game-changing release this band wholeheartedly deserves? You would hope so, but in a world where right-wing politics continues to weaponise the arts, while Landing may be one of the best band you’ve never heard, history may just be their greatest ally at this point.

Full review
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25.
William Tyler: Time Indefinite
Psychic Hotline

It’s hard to fathom that the music of William Tyler has been present for over a third of my lifetime. I’m sure many others can attest to something similar, and while the experimental guitarist has at times failed to capture the heights of his earlier works such as Behold the Spirit (2010) and Impossible Truth (2013), Time Indefinite sees Tyler on a whole new creative plane.

Time Indefinite sees the Nashville experimentalist tearing down his template for something that is borderless. The static AM radio and field recordings snaking through the record and while the likes of Cabin Six and Star of Hope are compositions designed for churches, Anima Hotel (despite its title) and Electric Lake capture the emotional force of the Tyler’s earlier days.

So exiled from Tyler’s previous works, Time Indefinite is something that beautifully lingers. Time really is indefinite in its case, and if you give it the attention it deserves, you will bask in the same glory Tyler has produced.

Album review
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Kieran Hebden + William Tyler: 41 Longfield Street Late ’80s

24.
Activity: A Thousand Years In Another Way
Western Vinyl / Cooler Than Smoking

Activity has always had an aptitude for prescience. Take their era-defining debut LP, the eerily titled Unmask Whoever, which was released in the first weeks of the COVID pandemic. Three years later, their follow-up, Spirit in the Room, was, indeed, just that. (Listening back, and it still feels like said spirit is stalking the hallways.)

On their third full-length release, A Thousand Years In Another Way, Activity captures the weight of these times, guiding listeners through the miasma of hope, hopelessness and paranoia – the latter of which grows stronger each day.

Not just sonically, but Activity’s narratives are equally etched to the shadows, and it’s this kind of art that always possesses the greatest pull for those with curious ears. This doesn’t change on A Thousand Years In Another Way where, once again, Activity revel in the shadows, with songs that will grow stronger as the days, weeks, months and years pass.

Full review
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23.
Mess Esque: Jay Marie, Comfort Me
Drag City

On Mess Esque’s third release, Jay Marie, Comfort Me, the stakes are higher. The title itself, in reference to Helen Franzmann’s sister who unexpectedly passed away in her sleep last year, and the residue of the ensuing grief runs deep throughout these songs.

It’s not just the level of honesty that Franzmann conveys through these songs, but her performance as well. Reaching new emotional depths, so powerful, it stirs up the embers and forces you to acknowledge your own grief and torment from loved ones lost in the past.

Mess Esque has always taken their listeners to safe, far-out places, but on Jay Marie, Comfort Me, as the dark clouds hover over them, Franzmann and Mick Turner look closer to home, and by doing so they reveal stunning, new dimensions.

Full review
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22.
Agriculture: The Spiritual Sound
The Flenser

On The Spiritual Sound, Agriculture take their greatest strides yet, intersecting the dynamism of sludge and black metal as Dan Meyer and Leah Levinson explore themes of history, Buddhism, and queer/ AIDS literature before illuminating every day living as if it were something euphoric.

There’s no better example than the beginning of Bodhidharma, as Levinson glowers, “You look like you’re dying / What do you need?” It’s The Spiritual Sound clinical moment.

The glorious shift on Agriculture’s second full-length begins with My Garden. A siege of Meyer’s overlord shrieks, Richard Chowenhill’s towering riffs, and Levinson’s bass chug. Kern Haug’s performance behind the kit is chameleon-like, and it rubs off on his bandmates for the rest of The Spiritual Sound.

Interview
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21.
The Armed: THE FUTURE IS HERE AND EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE DESTROYED
Sargent House

During the uncertainty of the COVID pandemic, on the back of their game-changing long-player, ULTRAPOP, it really did seem like The Armed were the world changers that rock music needed. A band whose principles were anchored to the “all in” ethos, their exploration in redefining the notion of maximalism was something that had to be seen to be believed.

THE FUTURE IS HERE AND EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE DESTROYED sees The Armed smashing it out of the park. With the digital age and all its ghoulish off-shoots firmly in their ire, like fellow mutant rock odyssey Tropical Fuck Storm, The Armed create a screaming shit storm of dissent against mass culture and the world at large.

While ULTRAPOP was the zenith in rock music’s extremities, The Armed still attempt to reach new limits on THE FUTURE IS HERE AND EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE DESTROYED. Kingbreaker and the face-melting closer, A More Perfect Design, songs where The Armed smash free-jazz into punk, seemingly opening a door to a post future.

Full review
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20.
The Men: Buyer Beware
Fuzz Club

Through their own creative restlessness, The Men have explored everything from space-rock (Immaculada and Drift), country (New Moon), blues (The Hits) and metal (Devil Music) to everything in between (Leave Home).

2023’s New York City saw The Men get back-to-basics in what now feels like a precursor to Buyer Beware. Once again working alongside recording engineer, Travis Harrison (Guided by Voices, Built to Spill), the songs from Buyer Beware were recorded direct to tape, and bristling with a raucous, frightening new energy, the results are there for all to hear and feel.

Get My Soul is the fitting end to Buyer Beware. At the earth’s end in all its scorched ruins, the bridge to the apocalypse awaits (“The future is caving in but I ain’t gonna live that way / You’re never gonna get my soul”). The Men don’t walk across that bridge, instead turning around to fight fire with fire. The good fight. And in between this line of chaos and optimism, The Men return to their brain burning best.

Full review
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Second Summer: In Conversation with Cory Hanson

19.
SUMAC & Moor Mother: The Film
Thrill Jockey

It was only a matter of time before Camae Ayewa (a.k.a. Moor Mother) took the plunge into the raging frontiers of esoteric metal, and there are no more suitable allies than SUMAC. The poet’s profound snapshots of a burning world, tailored for SUMAC’s radical bunker sonics, and together they bulldoze throughout the malaise on their debut collaboration, The Film.

Tugging on the thread that formed the patchwork of her excellent 2024 release, The Great Bailout, Moor Mother weaves more vital strands through it on The Film. While former was centred on the exploration of British colonialism, the latter is a panoramic view of it; Moor Mother proving that even in this modern era, not much has changed.

Alongside SUMAC, The Film is an oasis of ideas that is a collision of brute force. A screaming, black acid nightmare. Except it’s not. It’s a gruesome reality for the marginalised where atrocities are normalised, as framed during the abstract horror of Camera. It’s here where The Film reaches its crescendo, as SUMAC’s tangled barbed-wire assaults provide the kind of minefield matrix for Moor Mother to negotiate.

Full review
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18.
Suede: Antidepressants
BMG

In a fractious world seething in discontent, the hysteria can sometimes be misguided. Not Suede’s. After all, they’ve built a career on it, and led by the Francis Bacon-inspired cover art, this latest chapter seamlessly follows Autofiction, crystallising why Suede are arguably the United Kingdom’s most peerless rock act.

Where Antidepressants fits into Suede’s overall story will only be judged with time, however it possesses all the dark harmony and bristling edginess of its predecessor.

Once again, Brett Anderson strikes the perfect balance between pomp and malevolence, galvanising an album that is, indeed, broken music for broken people.

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17.
The Bats: Corner Coming Up
Flying Nun Records

Approaching 40 years since the release of Daddy’s Highway, and in 2025 it’s not outlandish to suggest that The Bats are making the best music they ever have.

A large chunk of The Bats existence has been spent hiding in plain sight. Take 2020’s Foothills – largely unnoticed in what was one of the year’s most understated releases. Without doubt the shining beacon of all things jangle, while this decade has seen many trying to emulate Foothills’ stateliness, it’s awoken The Bats to show the rest how it’s done with their excellent follow-up, Corner Coming Up.

While they have many imitators, even at their most thematically downcast, there’s no one making jangle-oriented music as good as The Bats. Corner Coming Up, another crucial chapter in the Dunedin sound story, for which The Bats remain the chief protagonists.

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16.
Prolapse: I Wonder When They’re Going To Destroy Your Face
Tapete Records

Pigeonholes are something ingrained in the psyche of music writers at large, but when unhinged noise surges through the speakers such as the kind Prolapse has made over the years, well, really, what can one say?

With four albums under their belt, a 26-year wait is over as Prolapse return with something that their devoted few will hold close to their hearts: I Wonder When They’re Going to Destroy Your Face. Aptly titled with the cover art to match, I Wonder When They’re Going to Destroy Your Face is an unadulterated, into-the-maelstrom moment where your senses are fried all the way to the nerve endings.

There’s no growing older gracefully only to return for the ‘contemplative’ record that so many of their era churn out. There’s nothing wrong with that but Prolapse aren’t wired that way. It’s about capturing an energy and framing a moment and that moment has never changed. There’s chaos and Prolapse exist to be in the centre of it. I Wonder When They’re Going to Destroy Your Face is that chaos, as Prolapse remain at their diamond-sharp best.

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15.
Lee Ranaldo & Michael Vallera: Early New York Silver
Amish Records

They say lightning never strikes the same place twice, but on their debut collaboration album, Early New York Silver, both Lee Ranaldo and Michael Vallera defy those odds.

Both cutting their teeth into exploratory guitar through the lens of alternative-rock and post-punk (Ranaldo’s heroics in Sonic Youth; Vallera’s in the supremely underrated Luggage), together they underline their appreciation for the avant-garde with two long-form compositions that leave indelible marks.

With Ranaldo’s abrasive walls of sound offset by Vallera’s arcing, glacial-like noodlings, their respective styles entwine for something that strays outside the unspoken bound. A communication that could be deemed spiritual. Message music through sound which forms as the missing link between punk and psychedelia.

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Nyxy Nyx Interview: “Most of my songs are recorded the day I write them”

14.
Throwing Muses: Moonlight Concessions
Fire Records

There has always been very little fat to trim in the Throwing Muses canon. Kristin Hersh, a master of reaching the core emotional response in one line where most others would be afforded four or five and still not reach the desired mark.

Following 2020’s Sun Racket, Moonlight Concessions eclipses its majesty from every vantage point. With 50 Foot Wave’s excellent 2022 release, Black Pearl, and Hersh’s equally enlightening solo cut a year later in Clear Pond Road, the dream grunge of former was boiled down to something more skeletal on the latter, and that residue drips into Moonlight Concessions.

Using contrast to wonderful effect on the closing title track (“It’s raining like a son of a bitch / Damn sun, shining like a son of a bitch”), it’s an endorphin rush the best songs give you, and as Hersh parts with another gem, (“I took a bullet for you / Smiling”), it paints an accurate picture of Throwing Muses. That selflessness that has always permeated underneath many of their songs, it’s why people harbour so much love for the band. And on the back Moonlight Concessions that love will only grow stronger.

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13.
Verity Den: Wet Glass
Amish Records

Verity Den don’t do things by halves. Just over 18 months since their excellent self-titled debut LP and the subsequent run of shows which saw them share the stage with the likes Rosali, and Tropical Fuck Storm, the Carrboro, North Carolina four-piece return with their much-anticipated follow-up, Wet Glass.

On Wet Glass, Verity Den make even greater strides in their quest to draw from new places. The core line-up of Casey Proctor, Mike Wallace and Trevor Reece, now joined by fourth member, Reed Benjamin, who has been a part of the band’s live set-up since the release of Verity Den, and it’s this continuity that has galvanised the band.

A combat of mess and noise that sees the band at their most untethered, it’s these sudden shifts and split-personality-like moments that make Wet Glass what it is.

Interview
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12.
The Spectral Light: Obliteration
Cruel Nature Records

Whilst Deep Fade’s latest release, Oblivion Spell, saw Amanda Votta going it alone, the results were yet another new frontier: Votta, slicing through the aesthetic of Skinny Puppy and Pure-era Godflesh with a butcher’s knife, and reconstructing this murky electronica through the shattered lens of doom.

Obliteration expands on the gravitas of their debut EP, 10000 Stars, which is hardly surprising. Votta’s mission statement, to keep launching herself into the most brutal frontiers, and alongside Neddal Ayad, The Spectral Light take folk music and drag it through barbed wire, mangling its very essence and reshaping into some form of woodsy, doom-laden no-wave.

With flinty, hard-nosed principals, they reverse engineer everything they touch. Their approach, exposing the most frightening aspects of art. This can only be achieved by travelling into the world’s darkest corners, and on Obliteration, The Spectral Light reaffirm their position as the quintessential doom folk demolitionists.

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11.
Pile: Sunshine and Balance Beams
Sooper Records

In many ways, it’s what Pile don’t say through their songs which sparks the greatest intrigue. Rick Maguire’s songcraft, filled with protagonists that are forever searching, leaving things open to interpretation. Even the title to their latest album has its own mind-bending qualities. Sunshine and Balance Beams, feels very Pile.

The Boston band has never accomplished two things: making the same record twice and mediocrity. The might and power of Maguire’s songs are, at times, like experiencing an anxiety attack. His songs, moving to dark corners, but each time they guide us there in different ways.

Existentialism has always been the focal point of the Pile experience, and as Maguire tries to unpick life’s complexities through tenderness, he realises full well that it won’t do. The only way to succeed is to blow it up by force, and it’s this quiet / loud, split personality-like persona of modern-era Pile that is their most exciting.

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10.
Cass McCombs: Interior Live Oak
Domino Recording Co.

Cass McCombs is one of the most mysterious songwriters of our time. Humourous and not one to suffer fools, over the years, many of his interviews have possessed an atmosphere that you could cut with a knife, and weaving his persona through song, McCombs’ fearlessness has provided some of the most honest results since the turn of the century.

Perhaps the best example from his excellent new double album, Interior Live Oak, is I Never Dream About Trains. Entangling a love song-like narrative with a tongue-in-cheek swipe at the conservatism in country music (“I never lie in my songs / And I never dream about trains”), it’s one of the most beautiful things McCombs has produced.

Parting with a double album in 2025 seems like a recipe for disaster, but it’s no surprise that Cass McCombs is the one to accomplish the feat. His fierce belief of all time being present, well and truly harnessed on Interior Live Oak, which could well be his magnum opus.

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Inside the Dream: In Conversation with Roger Clark Miller

9.
Pelican: Flickering Resonance
Run For Cover Records

Pelican’s concoction of tonal ferocity and melodic majesty has always attracted various emotional responses. From the cavernous sprawl of Mammoth and the ocean’s roar of Nightendday, to the euphoric Red Ran Amber and Far from Fields, the Chicago veterans have been the exponents of the kind of transcendental compositions that burn deep into the soul.

With Laurent Schroeder-Lebec returning to the band, Pelican released their first album to feature the original line-up in 16 years with Flickering Resonance. Once again at their transcendental best, Flickering Resonance sparkles with cadence and roars with menace in what is one of Pelican’s most defining statements.

As its title suggests, closing cut, Wandering Mind, sees Pelican deliver something akin to hypnotic liberation. The sonic emotional vistas that have dictated just why their music is so vital, and as the curtains are drawn, Pelican leaves you wanting more.

Interview
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8.
Michael Grigoni & Pan-American: New World, Lonely Ride
Kranky

Through their own creative histories, perhaps one would consider Michael Grigoni and Mark Nelson’s collaboration an obvious one. Their alliance, making as much sense on paper as it does in practice, and while these two facets don’t always produce the desired results, that’s not the case on the duo’s excellent debut release, New World, Lonely Ride.

Together, Grigoni and Nelson reach new levels. Nelson, also a master of the hushed dreamscape, and alongside Grigoni it’s underlined from the first note of New World, Lonely Ride’s eponymous opening track. A woodsy emotional vista that wets the corners of the eyes, New World, Lonely Ride reaches the kind of depth that hasn’t been matched by anyone this year.

Ultimately, New World, Lonely Ride sees Grigoni and Nelson intersecting song-based composition with deep listening. The latter isn’t immediate, but these pieces, so delicately crafted and rich in emotional depth, are equal parts fragile and hypnotic.

Interview
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7.
Deftones: Private Music
Warner

Whatever people tell you, a Deftones record in 2025 isn’t a nostalgic proposition. Despite nu metal experiencing an unlikely renaissance, it’s debatable as to whether the Sacramento giants were ever part of the major label construct engineered as one last hurrah for ‘alternative music’ to ‘shift units’ on either side of the millennium.

No matter which generation you’re from, it’s Deftones’ ability to freeze time that is their most potent weapon, making them the safest bet of all. Private Music doesn’t change that. It isn’t a return to form, simply because Deftones never lost it. It’s a release that sees a band maintaining an artistic relevance that apes their alt-rock and nu metal adversaries.

On Private Music Deftones find enchanting new pockets in their sound world to guide their listeners to, and as they ride into the crescendo sounding as pulsating and forceful as ever, perhaps they haven’t been in a better collective headspace as they are now.

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6.
Tropical Fuck Storm: Fairyland Codex
Fire Records

Tropical Fuck Storm has always orchestrated the kind of narratives that pop, and Fairyland Codex sees Gareth Liddiard, Fiona Kitschin, Erica Dunn and Lauren Hammel reach into the deepest part of their bag of tricks to deliver one of the year’s best albums.

Speaking to Liddiard back in 2021 following the release of Springtime’s self-titled debut LP (the collaboration also featuring Jim White and Chris Abrahams), and he hinted at a similar thing. That creeping “leisure panic” thanks to people guilt tripping you over not responding emails in less than 10 minutes. It was classic Liddiard, but on Dunning Kruger’s Loser Cruiser there’s more than just a hint: this band have had a gutful of the internet mob.

Highlighting the selfishness and narcissism accelerated by the digital age, as it spirals out of the control where the line between reality and bullshit is now rendered non-existent, at least one thing’s for certain: Tropical Fuck Storm is a band you can always trust.

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Drones, Songs and Fairy Dust: In Conversation with Robert Poss

5.
The Besnard Lakes: The Besnard Lakes are the Ghost Nation
Full Time Hobby

The Besnard Lakes have spent over two decades illuminating the frontiers of psychedelia with the kind of colours that few others have replicated. Through expansive songcraft built on emotional intensity, with very few missteps (if any at all), led by Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas, it’s made the Montreal five-piece one of the most trusted voices in independent music.

Whether it be the world outside their orbit or strictly within it, The Besnard Lakes have always been well-versed on danger and destruction. Following their aptly titled 2021 release, …Are the Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings, on …Are the Ghost Nation, The Besnard Lakes find different ways to harness turmoil, subtlety dialling down their sound to maximise their messaging. And the results are grand.

Eight sweeping emotional vistas that stack up with the band’s best work, The Besnard Lakes present a panoramic view of life and its unbridled complexities. But in their own way, they manage to provide a flicker of light through the darkness.

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4.
Holy Sons: Puritan Themes
Thrill Jockey

Emil Amos hasn’t been “Waiting for that kick down on judgement day” as he claims on Puritan Themes. Where the Holy Sons canon is concerned, it’s largely been ignored for the best part of three decades. The rejection from wider circles, the greatest anomaly across all forms of artistic expression of our generation.

Amos has been so far ahead of the game that it’s almost been to his detriment. The days of squeezing out the demons via a four track and a guitar, now seemingly watered down to an Instagram post where confessionalism has been commodified. But in this post-trash landscape, Amos continues to batten down the hatches – a loner legend who has taken the mantle from Lou Barlow.

An album that is equal parts unmoored and deeply narcotic, Amos finds inspiration from the darkest recesses of the soul. It’s the only place one can explore to maintain their true artistic relevance, and on Puritan Themes the mission hasn’t changed. And as long as Amos continues writing songs, it never will.

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3.
Chris Brokaw: Ghost Ship
12XU

Chris Brokaw is a disciple of the past. His songs, steeped in Neil Young reverence and the sombre undercurrents of Alex Chilton, and on Brokaw’s latest release, Ghost Ship, he hasn’t written something more enveloped in gloom. Said to be a landscape meditation (at sea), in truth the songs on Ghost Ship feel a lot closer to home, likened to someone navigating through the war zone of bereavement. These songs, hitting with a raw emotional force that shatters the heart.

Written on a ’60s Teisco Del Rey electric guitar with an .80 gauge low E string tuned down to a low A, it’s this tuning that adds more weight of despair to these songs, which sound like nothing else in Brokaw’s discography. Brokaw described these songs as written “quickly in a kind of fever”, and you can feel it.

The “fever” that Brokaw speaks of, playing a prominent role in an album that is alongside his best. The kind of songs that can only be written through troubled times, it’s this rawness and genuine nature that makes Ghost Ship feel like an eternal companion.

Full review
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2.
FACS: Wish Defense
Trouble In Mind

Like constellations of neglect, Wish Defense sees FACS at their deeply haunting best. Brian Case’s ominous, abstract storytelling sees the band holding up a mirror to the world’s ills. And who better to frame the dread than the best post-punk band on earth?

FACS’ exploration of duality runs deeper than most. There’s our communication with each other as humans, seemingly eroded by technology, as the line between fact and fiction has become blurred (“I wish I said your name / As a curse / As a revolt against desire” – Ordinary Voices). On the glistening blade that is the title track, Case asks the burning question that forms the thread that runs all the way through Wish Defense: “Are you real?”

Parts glacial and galactic, FACS are the architects of a world seemingly built of glass. And on Wish Defense they find just how fragile that world is, delivering something peerless and certifiably designed to combat these times.

Interview
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1.
Grails: Miracle Music
Temporary Residence

Authenticity, illuminated and celebrated in more innocent times. The once spectacular, now boiled down to the mundane. These are the themes that Grails confront on their latest crusade, Miracle Music.

Another defining statement during a tenure that has had many, Miracle Music sees Grails pulling from the past to maintain an artistic relevance in the present. Before the music industry became a parody of itself; metrics and cringe-worthy self-promotion, now cultural norms. Miracle Music exists to combat all of that. Resistance in a bid to maintain inventive significance, and the results see Grails reach the darkest frontiers imaginable. After all, where else is there left to go?

Miracle Music exists not just to break principles, but to make new ones. In title, idea and sound, Grails have delivered something completely untethered from everything, including themselves, and given their fundamental approach to art, this is the baseline. It always has been. They’ve been making art for so long that they’ve just become more refined at it.

Interview – Part 1
Interview – Part 2
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Top 50 recap:

50. Immersion / SUSS: Nanocluster, Vol. 3
49. Tavare: Too Small to be So High
48. Snakeskin: We Live In Sand
47. HAYWARDxDÄLEK: HAYWARDxDÄLEK
46. Edith Frost: In Space
45. The Necks: Disquiet
44. Barker: Stochastic Drift
43. Battle Elf: 10
42. Water Damage: Instruments
41. Jayve Montgomery: Breathing With Each Ear (Hour 4)
40. Oren Ambarchi / Johan Berthling / Andreas Werliin: Ghosted III 39. The Ex: If Your Mirror Breaks
38. More Eaze & Claire Rousay: No Floor
37. Glyders: Forever
36. Xol Meissner: Excess of Loss
35. Rafael Toral: Traveling Light
34. Horsegirl: Phonetics On and On
33. Lawrence English: Even The Horizon Knows Its Bounds
32. Dean Wareham: That’s the Price of Loving Me
31. Burn Into Sleep ~ Dream Skills: I Carried You for Years and the Deers Are Still Hungry
30. Two Way Mirrors: Endure
29. Purelink: Faith
28. Chat Pile & Hayden Pedigo: In the Earth Again
27. Deep Fade: Oblivion Spell
26. Landing: Tendrils
25. William Tyler: Time Indefinite
24. Activity: A Thousand Years In Another Way
23. Mess Esque: Jay Marie, Comfort Me
22. Agriculture: The Spiritual Sound
21. The Armed: THE FUTURE IS HERE AND EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE DESTROYED
20. The Men: Buyer Beware
19. SUMAC & Moor Mother: The Film
18. Suede: Antidepressants
17. The Bats: Corner Coming Up
16. Prolapse: I Wonder When They’re Going To Destroy Your Face
15. Lee Ranaldo & Michael Vallera: Early New York Silver
14. Throwing Muses: Moonlight Concessions
13. Verity Den: Wet Glass
12. The Spectral Light: Obliteration
11. Pile: Sunshine And Balance Beams
10. Cass McCombs: Interior Live Oak
9. Pelican: Flickering Resonance
8. Michael Grigoni & Pan-American: New World, Lonely Ride
7. Deftones: Private Music
6. Tropical Fuck Storm: Fairyland Codex
5. The Besnard Lakes: The Besnard Lakes are the Ghost Nation
4. Holy Sons: Puritan Themes
3. Chris Brokaw: Ghost Ship
2. FACS: Wish Defense
1. Grails: Miracle Music

Previous Sun 13 Top 50 Albums of the Year:

2024
2023
2022
2021
2020