This time last year, my choice of top 10 were mostly coming from albums that were due this year, which led me to question whether this year would be one of the classic years for new albums. And I was proved correct, and then some.
Pretty much every record I listened to contained some nuggets of joy, and it’s been so hard to narrow this down to just the ten below, hopefully 2025 will prove to be as exciting as this year has been.
Happy new year to one and all, and now onwards:
10. Lie To Me – Crows
Album number three Reason Enough saw Crows show their more commercial side, none more so than with this slice of bombastic Editors/White Lies power-pop with it’s huge earworm of a chorus, which sees them come out of their musical shell. This should have been a single, and I’m sure will become a massive live favourite.
9. Fakest Bitch – London Grammar
Something of a musical outlier on this list, the parent album was a touch disappointing but this was an absolute corker, a gorgeous vocal over piano, with a frail, sad chorus enveloping the poisonous lyrics that hid beneath, all beautifully delivered, like an art-school Beautiful South.
8. Loneliness – Pet Shop Boys
The grand old men of pop saw themselves with yet another Top 5 album, as well as a victory lap for their three-year-long Greatest Hits tour, all of which helped them cement their national treasure status, with this track deserving of it’s place in their imperial canon of classic singles.
7. Taxi Man – Ditz
Heard this for the first time live in Germany, when they were supporting IDLES months before it’s single release and even then it felt like an absolute standout, with its great catchy chug of a chorus. It bodes very well for their second album, which is due out in the middle of January next year.
6. Shaking Their Hands – Sprints
A band that took 2024 as their own, with a year full of life-affirming live gigs as well as the release of their debut record, which is easily one of the albums of the year, with this track being one of the many highlights.
5. Deere John – Welly
If there’s a band that should be on every single one of those ‘one to look out for in 2025’ lists, then it’s undoubtedly Welly, and it’s no wonder, with singles such as this bratty, snotty Britpop-esque slice of suburban humdrummery, which would have fitted right in on Blur’s The Great Escape.
4. Starburster – Fontaines D.C
With all due respect to them. I’d kinda written them off as one of those bands that have a killer debut and then fail to suitably follow it up, but then I heard this, the lead single from another one of the albums of the year Romance, it feels like a musical slap round the chops, with Grian Chattan’s rapping is as enthralling as it is surprising, over a glorious beat.
3. Just Popping Out For Forever – Jaws The Shark
If you are not familiar with Jaws The Shark then I would highly recommended his debut record Wasteland out earlier this year, this stunning closer is sublime, a gorgeous piece of work, where you can feel the love that has gone into it.
2. IDLES – POP POP POP
Worthy recipients of both my album and gigs of the year, IDLES shredded people’s preconceived opinions on their sound, with the imperious Tangk album, of which this Streets-aping banger is one of the many standouts. Surely a Glastonbury headlining slot is shortly in their future?
1. Jigsaw Shores – Red Rum Club
The highlight of this year’s breakthrough top 10 album Western Approaches, which is overflowing with highlights, it’s the closing track and hopefully a sighter of the direction their future lies in. Not as straightforward indie-pop as the other tracks, its tinge of strangeness really suits them, especially when they have played it live, more of this to follow hopefully.
