The 70 Best Albums of 2025 So Far
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The 70 Best Albums of 2025 So Far

The 70 best albums of 2025 offer sublime music as major artists return with new work and brilliant new sounds bubble up from the underground and worldwide.

SASAMI – Blood on the Silver Screen (Domino)

SASAMI’s much-anticipated third LP, Blood on the Silver Screen, has arrived, and while the sound is quite different, it’s another creative triumph. Sasami Ashworth continues to take chances by altering her sound in another bold new direction, one that downsizes the heavy guitars in exchange for intricate sonic landscapes that layer trippy synths with a range of danceable beats.

Yet the LP still retains an impactful quality thanks to another batch of big melodic hooks, her impressively emotive voice, and a vibrant production with cinematic overtones. SASAMI is like a shamanic medicine woman here, sharing tales of trials and visions to help the tribe explore those feelings within their own souls. – Greg M. Schwartz


Elana Sasson – In Between (PKMusik)

Rarely is “beautiful” the most accurate or informative descriptor for anything, especially music. Even so, something is striking about In Between, the latest work from singer and composer Elana Sasson, that is hard to describe any other way. Sound, sentiment, and intent all work in exquisite aesthetic and affective concert here, the layering of these aspects giving the album multiple dimensions that are sincerely beautiful from start to finish. 

In Between is indeed a rarity, and Elana Sasson and her quartet perform with the depth it takes to anchor the beauty of their output in artistic and personal truth. Beauty does not automatically make music good or interesting; good and interesting music is not always beautiful. In Between sits at the unlikely nexus of all of these things. – Adriane Pontecorvo


Ty Segall – Possession (Drag City)

Everyone in the indie sphere is well aware of the rapid pace at which Ty Segall churns out records. Possession, his 16th album, comes after yet another busy year, with 2024 seeing the release of the more traditional Three Bells followed by the percussion-only Love Rudiments. This time around, Segall gets back into the conventional mode of things but locates something distinct from the loud and soft duality of previous LPs. 

Segall again teams up with friend and filmmaker Matt Yoka, who helped with brainstorming and setting the overall vibe. The music is jangly and freewheeling, but Segall incorporates orchestral arrangements and horns into the mix. In terms of vision, Segall displays a new level of maturity that seeks to harness the power of his craft, proving that killer riffs can be enjoyable without being polarizing. – Patrick Gill


Self-Esteem – A Complicated Woman (Republic)

Self Esteem is an unchagrined sensualist and inclusivist, rejecting patriarchal precepts, including heteronormative standards and traditional notions re: modesty, demureness, etc. Needless to say, Self Esteem will not be endorsing Belah Rose’s Christian how-to book, Delight Your Husband. With her new and third album, A Complicated Woman, these two aspects are still present, though they’re more integrated and streamlined.

The activist has become the coach and advocate. The hedonist has evolved into the embodied woman who no longer needs to deny or prove herself. Whatever the newly fashioned persona may be, the catchy beats, hooky melodies, and party vibe remain. – John Amen


Sir Woman – If It All Works Out (Independent)

The central theme of Sir Woman’s If It All Works Out is the primacy of love. The songs’ narrators make their way forward by finding love in all the right places—in one’s heart and the arms of others. That can be a physical thing as well as a spiritual and romantic enterprise. Love is not a simple emotion. It’s a complex set of feelings that can both contradict and complement each other simultaneously. That’s no reason not to pursue it. The material implies that love’s complexity is all part of what makes it special.

Kelsey Wilson imaginatively uses her voice to express the blessed confusion that makes one question one’s motives and those of others. This album ends with her singing that she’s making her way forward. However, as we know, the sequel’s title suggests, there may be setbacks ahead. – Steve Horowitz


Sports Team – Boys These Days (Bright Antenna)

Make no mistake, Sports Team are a 21st-century British alternative rock band, just as Wikipedia says they are. However, the music on their new album, Boys These Days, makes it clear that the six members of Sports Team must collectively own an impressive CD collection of the best and brightest Britpop bands from 1985 through 1995, along with a healthy selection of groups from earlier eras. That’s not a bad thing: Sports Team are a smart group that incorporate bits and pieces of past music they love into their modern sound and dryly funny lyrical point of view.

Boys These Days feels like a concept album, telling a story of navigating one’s way through their 20s in the 21st century. On the other hand, it could be a fun collection of witty pop-rock tunes that sound current while incorporating clever retro elements. Either way, Boys These Days is a blast. – Rich Wilhelm


Bartees Strange – Horror (4AD)

Bartees Strange‘s Horror has its own theme and sensibility. As the title suggests, to borrow from another brilliant artist operating at their peak, he’s got so much trouble on his mind. With his star continuing to rise, Strange is aware of the critical moment that Horror is for him. Will it expand his audience further?

The bigger the swing, the greater the need for something to show. That is the focus of “Wants, Needs”, an explosive track in the middle of Horror. He seems to be singing directly to his fans. The unquiet mind has delivered many great songs and records, and fortunately, Strange continues his streak. Horror is a refinement of the best parts of him–genre-hopping pop and confessional lyrics. Opener “Too Much” is of a piece with some of the best songs on his previous record, Farm to Table. – Brian Stout


Will Stratton – Points of Origin (Ruination Record Co. / Bella Union)

“I lost track of family when I was 19 / My sisters were drifters and old magazines / My brother took in by an Anglican priest / In Amador County, but he’s since deceased.” So begins “I Found You”, the first song on Points of Origin, Will Stratton’s latest, and perhaps most ambitious album. One can always expect strong melodies, lush arrangements, and novelistic lyrics in Stratton’s work, but on this new one, all of the things that make an excellent Stratton record, not to mention an interesting concept, rife with possibilities, are at their absolute peak. As evidenced by the quoted lyrics above, Points of Origin revels in exceptional storytelling and fascinating characters, unfolding not unlike a great short story collection. – Chris Ingalls


Swans – Birthing (Young God)

Birthing is the latest sonic crucifixion from SwansMichael Gira‘s relentless sound monolith that has been bludgeoning listeners since Ronald Reagan was president. From the first convulsion of sound, Birthing, like any Swans record, isn’t so much music as a reaction against music—a disavowal of melody, pleasure, and your nervous system’s comfort threshold. If forgotten gods had nightmares, then the album would be the unfiltered confession, a raw transmission hammered out on time’s fractured skull by some cosmic shaman whose every strike reassembles the very voice it’s trying to speak. Birthing carries Swans’ heaviest weight in years, a relentless pull toward either epiphany or collapse. It’s not an album you listen to so much as one you submit to, like an exorcism. – Matthew McEver


Thaba – December/Sedimonthole (Brabant Road)

With December/Sedimonthole, Gabriel Cyr makes abundantly clear that Thaba can exceed Khusi Seremane’s mortality while still keeping him alive through sounds and words. What happens next for the project remains to be seen; perhaps there are more tangible pieces of their shared work in the world, or possibly what they’ve already released will take Cyr in new directions.

No matter what happens next for this project, though, December/Sedimonthole is an artistic triumph of sentiment and substance, and one worth spinning again and again. Its mix of charming DIY beats and technical musical excellence, soulful lyrics, and wistful melodies makes for ephemeral moments of nostalgia and familiarity. –
Adriane Pontecorvo


FROM THE POPMATTERS ARCHIVES