The 50 best albums of 2025

War. Peace. War. A moon landing. An assassination. Stranger Things. Ozzy’s farewell. 100 men vs. a gorilla. Coldplay’s kiss cam. Six-seven. Labubus. A jeans advert. The Louvre’s old-school jewel heist. Births. Marriages. Festivals. Deaths. Recession. Liverpool’s disastrous streak. Katy Perry in space.

It would be impossible to sum up 2025 with one single moment. It has been an eventful, often confusing, curious 12 months. And then you add that, once again, it has seen the release of more music than you could ever listen to in a year.

What’s stuck out, though, has been special. There have been huge, all-conquering victories, and there have been quieter wins. There has been high art and music that hits like a fist. Bands have bid a devastating farewell, and new ones have made an incendiary first impression. Some artists have done things by surprise and stealth, others have plastered themselves everywhere.

It might have been hard to keep up sometimes, but all of it has coloured Kerrang!’s world. As we gather together the 50 albums that shaped this annus confusingis, we also reflect on just what it’s all done. Some has offered a catharsis, some has made us laugh. A few took us somewhere else entirely.

But all of them have mattered. The following countdown of the 50 best albums of 2025, then, is a measure of just how many different ways there are to be brilliant, significant, and to move the needle. What a year…

Maybe we’re just yearning for a simpler time through the rose-tinted lens of nostalgia, but life has felt heavy for the better part of a decade now. You don’t need us to list the reasons why, but As December Falls cleverly tapped into information overload, burnout and unhealthy coping habits on the very-2025-titled Everything's On Fire But I'm Fine, a super sulky pop-punk record with a sharp sense of joy hidden at its core. If you’ve found yourself in another shitty situation, doomscrolling your life away, feeling absolutely terrified by the new, or all of the above, then this was the perfect listen. A lot of people thought so, too, sending the album into the Top 10 of the UK charts, something to be doubly celebrated when the band put it out independently. (RR)

• As December Falls: “So many people turn to music as therapy. It’s important they feel understood”
  

Slow burning but never knowingly underheated, Orbit Culture’s career of grandiose heaviness properly caught fire in 2025. Death Above Life, their fifth album, erupted in the same year they supported Bullet For My Valentine and Trivium on tour, a context entirely fitting given the Swedes’ sonic development and big-room potential. Abrasive in its scorching attack but often shamelessly melodic, this is the record which showed their ability to step up to the major leagues, a pitch for attention from devotees of Slipknot, Gojira or even Metallica. Twelve years in, and Orbit Culture’s future has never sounded so assured. (OT)

• “Things have happened so fast. This album became a therapeutic outlet”: How Orbit Culture are navigating becoming one of metal’s hottest bands

Fantasy has become reality for Coheed And Cambria. Three decades ago, when frontman Claudio Sanchez first emerged from the New York underground, it felt equally possible that the big-haired virtuoso could go on to weave a lore that was impossibly deep and dense or that he could be one of the great popular rock songwriters of his time. But few would have gambled on him doing both. Ten albums in to their career-spanning Amory Wars saga, Vaxis – Act III: The Father Of Make Believe confirmed they can do it all. Intricately constructed to satisfy even the nerdiest fans who’ve followed along with every song, story and comic book but immediate and accessible enough to win over newcomers, Goodbye, Sunshine and Blind Side Sonny proved to be the sounds of sonic superheroes at the height of their powers. (SL)

• Coheed And Cambria: “The end of The Amory Wars is around the corner… I see a conclusion that feels perfect”

A sort-of concept album about a hotel? This is not the Good Charlotte that announced themselves to the world with Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous in 2002. That’s what growing up is all about, though, and Motel Du Cap is at its best when it’s trying new things. That freshness is helped by the presence of some excellent collaborators, including rapper Wiz Khalifa (Life Is Great) and Maryland rising star Zeph (Pink Guitar), highlighting the Madden brothers’ unerring gift for utilising and identifying talent. There’s plenty for the OG fans too, with the warmth of early 2000s nostalgia never far away thanks to songs like Rejects and Mean. Check in to the motel if you haven’t yet. It’s a blast. No cap. (JH)

• Good Charlotte: “We’re hungrier than ever… This story is still unfinished”
  

Pinkshift’s venture into heavier sounds really burst through on second album Earthkeeper, with prominent influences from the likes of La Dispute and Birds In Row. The Baltimore trio made a record that didn’t just explore new sonic territory, moving vastly on from their pop-punky roots, but also leaned on themes somewhat untapped within heavy music: peace, understanding, and how we all share responsibility for the planet we live on. Mostly, it wrestles with the intergenerational trauma of colonialism, and as we progress through the current capitalist hellscape where AI servers are sucking up gallons of water to answer our silly little queries, Earthkeeper is bold reminder that we still have a say in how we look after the planet, and each other. (RR)

• Pinkshift: “Love is rage, because when you love something, you fight for it”
  

Already one of UKHC’s most promising outfits after only two years of existence, False Reality took a huge leap on FADED INTENTIONS, a debut album which exceeded its already great expectations. Dirty ’80s thrash riffs and solos fuelled their hardcore fire, while influences from grunge (MIRROR) to shoegaze (SONDER) further expanded their palette. Rachel Rigby proved a particularly fearsome presence, her lyrics giving voice to relatable, real-life experiences of frustration and betrayal. FADED INTENTIONS was the sound of a band pushing themselves to new heights, while never losing sight of the raw thrills that first brought them to prominence. (OT)

• Album review: False Reality – FADED INTENTIONS

Thornhill carry themselves with the sort of devilish, sultry energy that’ll loosen your hips and make your blood run hotter. They wield it to their most successful effect yet on BODIES, their riffs grooving and slinking around Jacob Charlton’s silken vocals but with a heaviness behind it all the same. Dispensing with the visual-driven mythology of 2022’s Heroine in favour of a more immediate approach clearly paid off, as the Melbourne quartet uncovered more acclaim than ever – and even landed a gig opening for Sleep Token. Turns out, even when you’re a metal band, learning a thing or two about R&B can work magic. (EW)

• How Thornhill are scaling new heights
  

God can’t give with both hands, we’re told, as a way to justify that while we might excel in one area, there will likely be a shortfall in another. Irish alt.rockers Sprints evidently didn’t receive this memo, however, as second album All That Is Over confidently delivers on all fronts. That’s not to say it’s straightforward, though. If anything, it’s a tangled mass of contradictions – artful yet anarchic, chaotic yet always in control, messy and obtuse yet absolutely instant in its magnetism. Much of the credit for this balancing act belongs to singer Karla Chubb, who presides over songs like Need and Something’s Gonna Happen with a fierce delivery – and an even fiercer intellectualism. This is a band to expect big things from in the future. (JH)

• Sprints: “We’re heading towards disaster, but disaster always comes back around to rebirth”
  

Setting aside whether the comma in its title is necessary, Bury Tomorrow’s eighth album is the sound of a band in firm control of their destiny once more after a period of creative uncertainty. Admittedly, in exploring the need for meaning and peace in a world so full of anxiety and noise, Will You Haunt Me, With That Same Patience isn't based around the most original premise. But it’s executed with such conviction, openness and good intent that it would be churlish to mark the Southampton metalcore heroes down for that. At a time when this stuff appears to be enjoying an overhaul from bands looking to reinvigorate its well-worn formula, Bury Tomorrow have delivered their definitive statement – as bold in its musical assault as in its ribcage-splaying honesty. (JH)

• Bury Tomorrow: “Life is about those tiny moments of hope, isn’t it? Hope is the only reason we have to continue”
  

As the lord and saviour of the 37 Club, we expected no less from RØRY than a debut led entirely by confessional tales of fuckery, bravery and recovery. Take Sorry I’m Late, which tells it exactly how it was: ‘Sorry I’m late, I fucked my life / Sorry I’m late, my mum just died.’ It hits like a cold gale. This album allowed us to get to know all the beautifully realised versions of RØRY, and how she conquered her demons to turn her woes into whoas. And in a moment of sweet vindication, it went Top 10, and hit Number One in the Independent Albums Chart, adding further proof that it’s never ‘too late’ to fight back. (RR)

• RØRY: “The story of my life has been trying to find out, ‘Who the hell am I? Where do I fit in?’”

‘This is true failure, embodied and immortalised,’ announces the confounding intro to The Callous Daoboys’ fascinating third album. ‘This is embarrassment painted over the first and last name of the grave.’ Darker and more solemn than 2022 masterpiece Celebrity Therapist, head-swivelling follow-up I Don’t Want To See You In Heaven found the Atlanta collective experimenting with brooding atmospherics and more defined – albeit still wildly abstract – conceptual frameworks. Self-admittedly wrung from experiences of ‘heartbreak, anguish, frustration, infidelity, lust, addiction, divorce and suffering’, tracks like Two-Headed Trout and Body Horror For Birds might have packed a little less unhinged fun than what had come before, but it’s to their authors’ immense credit that they were still every bit as mind-bogglingly compelling. (SL)

• The Callous Daoboys: “I’m not interested in art that goes down easily. I’m trying to make something that I would find challenging”
  

What a ride The Sound A Body Makes When It’s Still is. One minute you’re crying along to its tender tones and slower pace Midwest emo offerings, and the next you’re hit with a track named, ahem, Monica Lewinskibidi. It’s safe to say Hot Mulligan are the first band on the planet to ever come up with such a combo, and they’ll probably stay the only one too. The fourth album from the Michigan wailers had us feeling all kinds of ways, and stepped up their game by somehow managing to wrangle with grief and personal painful tales amid their wisecracking titles and thundering riffs. Nobody is out there doing it like them. (RR)

• Hot Mulligan: “We cut our teeth in basements… We’re doing pretty much the same thing now but really loud, and on a stage that’s slightly higher”

Selling out two nights at Glasgow’s fabled Barrowlands well in advance tells you something about how far Scottish metalcore troopers Bleed From Within have risen. Zenith’s their seventh album, and a worthy candidate for their best. As early as its second track, In Place Of Your Halo, the band showcase the extent of its development, plastering scouring hooks on to their usual heaviness, and even celebrating their roots with a flash of bagpipes. Elsewhere, it’s prime Bleed From Within: savage, pit-hungry breakdowns, immense guitars, guest spots from Mastodon and Sylosis dudes, plus Scott Kennedy and Steven Jones’ ever-improving vocal interplay. Winner. (SB)

• Bleed From Within: “If anyone is qualified to talk about getting f*cked over and coming back, it’s us!”
  

‘I’ve been slipping up,’ Ian Shelton barks by way of an introductory confession at the top of Militarie Gun’s second album. It’s the first in a stack of unsparing statements he has to make on God Save The Gun charting his spiral into alcoholism, ruthlessly leaving every shard of anxiety, desperation and regret on the table. From the tornado of self-destruction comes banger after banger, electric with energy, belonging loosely to hardcore but free to blur with any other genre they see fit, all laced with lacerating truths (see anti-suicide song I Won’t Murder Your Friend for a truly soul-wrenching listen). It’s a gigantic silver lining from a period of crisis, and boy, is it cathartic. (EW)

• Militarie Gun: “It’s important to be hopeful – the worst version of art is about a person that learns nothing”
  

Where Pupil Slicer’s 5/5-rated 2023 LP Blossom was a noisy expression of things from within, Fleshwork found the Brit metallers breathing in the horror of a world that’s so often entirely stacked against individual human beings. Managing to find moments for slightly more catchy bits among their scalding attack, their palette continued to expand, while also frequently doing things that would irritate your brain if they weren’t so brilliant. Dealing with topics like getting crushed by the unceasing capitalist machine, and the plight of those who can’t keep up, the fire at the heart of Fleshwork is one that is both pure and justified. Pupil Slicer continue to be one of the best heavy bands in Britain, and here made something that is a salve for those who identity with it, and a hideous mirror to those whom it is against. (NR)

• “If there’s something you can be hated for, someone’s gonna hate you for it”: How Kate Davies confronts inhumanity on Pupil Slicer’s killer new album
  

The cover of The Bestiary, featuring singer and Rat Queen Riley Pinkerton armed and mailed-up on horseback in the snow, should tell you everything you need to know about Castle Rat: epic, fantastical, sword-y, brilliantly camp and just crazy enough to work. Gloriously in thrall to the unashamedly heavy metal of the late ’70s and ’80s, those with a fondness for Maiden, Priest, Angel Witch, Pagan Altar and Manilla Road will have had much to chew on throughout this second album. But it was in their own flashes of brilliance that they delivered something special – Riley’s mystical voice, the grubby production that sounds more like their Brooklyn home than a fantasy world, the ongoing story of their defence of The Realm from those who wish to destroy it, not least the terrible Rat Reaperess. Quickly, they became one of 2025’s great underground success stories. The Chinese zodiac doesn’t officially have it til 2032, but already 2026 looks set to be the year of the Rat. (NR)

• “We wanna create this universe for people to step into”: How Castle Rat are putting the fantasy back into metal
  

Running up to its September release, fans knew that Violent Nature was set to be make-or-break for I Prevail. Climbing fast into heavy music’s upper echelons in recent years, the departure of co-vocalist Brian Burkheiser after a decade with the Michigan metallers could have derailed them. Instead, being forced into a corner has galvanised them, fuelling a fourth album that might just be their best yet. Part of that is down to a herculean performance from remaining singer Eric Vanlerberghe, veering between soaring clean vocals and a throat-ripping snarl without pause for thought. More important was the broader collective confronting their uncertainty, rage and resolve, then pouring it into the fuel tank for the most intensely cathartic music of their career, helping them also reach a new high-water mark. Ally Pally won't know what hit it next year. (SL)

• “We’ve started to define what the new era really sounds like”: Eric Vanlerberghe takes us inside I Prevail’s revitalising new album
  

Discussing the inspiration for Flesh Stays Together, Dying Wish vocalist Emma Boster pulled no punches when it came to the nihilism at the heart of the third album from the Portland five-piece. “We wanted it to feel hopeless,” she explained. “Like, we’re so fucked. If God is cruel, we’re worse.” She wasn’t kidding. This is bludgeoning stuff, an album of relentless intensity in its quest to articulate the rage, frustration and pain of existing in a world hellbent on cutting its own throat. Dying Wish did come in for some stick on this album, from those decrying its departure from the pure metalcore of yore. Those people need to take a long, hard look in the mirror, because nothing is heavier than hopelessness. (JH)

• Dying Wish: “It’s incredibly nihilistic. I had to reckon with the fact that art is supposed to be honest and uncomfortable”
  

Barely two years since their first-ever show, Split Chain dropped motionblur into a world that looked very much like theirs for the taking. Indeed, by the time the album landed in July, the Bristol post-hardcore five had already done Download twice, got themselves all over America, and been taken under the wing of A Day To Remember. While they were still getting up to fifth gear early on, powerhouse punk label Epitaph had decided to snap them up. “What does this mean?” was singer Bert Martinez-Cowles’ reaction when the email came in. That you’re one of the coolest new bands in Britain, sir. motionblur was a fantastic collection of nu-metal-tinged energy, shimmery big chords, and raw emotion that traversed everything from death to self-doubt to picking through the confusing knots of life. “Even the title, motionblur, is kind of a reference to how mad everything’s been since we started,” Bert told us at Download. Get used to it – it's still speeding up. (NR)

• Split Chain: “Life is not easy and never will be – this album is a depiction of all that sh*t”

Halestorm could well look back on their ascent to Everest as the moment everything changed. It came at a time in their career where it might have been tempting to stay in familiar waters. In the event, it was far from it. Lzzy Hale and her loyal bandmates went through serious self-examination, deconstructing everything they were about and putting the pieces back together in fresh, interesting ways. The results were a kind of devil-may-care funfair ride through both their most experimental (Darkness Always Wins) and crushingly alternative-heavy (K-I-L-L-I-N-G and Watch Out!). Three-quarters of the album, nine songs, made it into their recent run of arena headline gigs, capping off a year in which they got the nod from Iron Maiden, and saluted Ozzy at Back To The Beginning. This was a new Halestorm, and we liked it plenty. (SB)

• Halestorm: “I have this innate belief that I shouldn’t be here after everything that I’ve survived – but for some reason I am”

Maruja have a well-stocked arsenal to deploy in their mission to address society’s ills – joyously rowdy live shows, messages of solidarity and spiritually and, at last, a debut full-length that lived up to all the band’s early promise. Pain To Power ran the gamut from anti-capitalist critiques to plaintive reflections, the band’s blend of modern jazz, glowering post-punk and hip-hop sensibility pouring forth with improv-informed flow. Revelatory sax-playing, a devastating rhythm section and Harry Wilkinson’s street-shamanic vocal presence locked together to produce something intense, boundary-pushing and emotionally overwhelming. An astonishing piece of work, this. (OT)

• Meet Maruja, the most essential new band in Britain
  

LANDMVRKS could almost single-handedly restart the heart of metalcore. The French noisemakers pressed harder on the accelerator with the battle-scared The Darkest Place I’ve Ever Been, processing and healing from burnout in real time while also flexing just how innovative they could be. Armed with scorching riffs and an affinity for Francophone hip-hop, they created a genuinely raw body of work that was all the better for its relatively unvarnished style of production. As worn down as they were, something about their hip-hop side (complete with Flo Salfati’s agile rapping) also gave them a veneer of being properly, authentically cool. Are they France’s greatest heavy export after Gojira? Quite possibly – and certainly the most successful since. (EW)

• LANDMVRKS: “We had to prove we belong here. We’re gonna show you”

Drain had already established themselves as a crucial force in hardcore’s ongoing renaissance, but this third album found them achieving something close to perfection. On ...Is Your Friend, the Californian crew’s thrashy sound called back to ’80s crossover while being very much of the moment, its pit-bothering fury no barrier to positivity and warmth. Whether celebrating the joy of a live show (Nights Like These), sunny days (Can’t Be Bothered) or rising above haters (Nothing But Love), vocalist Sammy Ciaramitaro led the charge with indefatigable energy. That Who’s Having Fun? was their most irresistibly catchy song to date was the icing on the cake. (OT)

• Drain: “It doesn’t matter if you just got into punk music or you’ve been into it your whole life – this band is for everyone”
  

Eight years on from picking up the K! album of the year for 2017’s awesome second album The Warmth Of A Dying Sun, Woking metal masters Employed To Serve have evolved from red-hot newcomers to battle-hardened guardians of the British underground. However, fifth outing Fallen Star was all about breaking on through to metal’s mainstream. Having already proven themselves on a massive arena run with the mighty Gojira and across countless even more mammoth festival stages, Fallen Star underlined an ability to command such spaces in their own right. From playing up the serrated influence of Scandi forbears Soilwork and In Flames to getting Lorna Shore’s Will Ramos, Svalbard’s Serena Cherry and Killswitch Engage’s Jesse Leach to chip in, they threw the kitchen sink at it. But nothing is more integral to the album’s meteoric glow than the unstoppably adaptable chemistry between co-bandleaders Sammy Urwin and Justine Jones. Stunning stuff. (SL)

• Employed To Serve: “There’s nothing more powerful than heavy metal”
  

As if the surprise announcement of Stray From The Path’s 11th album at this year’s Slam Dunk (complete with vinyl copies being hurled into the crowd) wasn’t enough, the New York hardcore crew also declared this to be their swansong after more than two decades of flying the flag for socially-conscious and politically-motivated brawling brutality. Going out on their own terms in a blaze of glory, Clockworked pulled no punches, raging against the U.S. political system, corporate greed, and certain metal singers who sign bombs to be dropped on civilians. One of the most under-appreciated bands in heavy music, and a direct influence on so many hardcore acts that have come in their wake, Clockworked stands as a testament to their unwavering grit, determination, and standing up for what they believe in until the last note rings out. They will be missed. (LM)

• Stray From The Path: “The world needs music like this right now, but it takes a lot to actually make it”
  

Witch Fever have always conjured spine-chilling atmospheres, but on their second album FEVEREATEN, they stepped further into invoking the feeling of cold, choking terror. Inspired by the residual trauma of vocalist Amy Walpole’s time in the Charismatic Church, leaving the feeling that she was being constantly watched, their sound metamorphosed into something more sorcerous and theatrical. Bolstered by bassist Alex Thompson’s gorgeous contributions on the cello, it transcended their previous doom-punk stylings, harrowing but also opening space for clarity and confidence. When Amy screams, ‘WITCH FUCKING FEVER!’ it’s impossible not to root for them. (EW)

• Witch Fever: “If our mere presence is pissing people off that much, we’re doing something right”

Say what you want about awards shows in 2025, but becoming the only British artist ever to receive three GRAMMY nominations in the rock category has got to count for something. And that wasn’t all YUNGBLUD accomplished with Idols. From hitting the top spot in the charts to selling out a full-on North American tour in one minute, paying tribute to Ozzy Osbourne and most recently collaborating with Aerosmith, he’s had a golden year. It all started with March’s superb nine-minute lead single Hello Heaven, Hello, in which Dominic Harrison unveiled his rock’n’roll era with the introduction, ‘There’s a chance I won’t see you tomorrow / So I will spend today saying “Hello”.’ What an absolute treat it was getting properly acquainted, sir. (EG)

• YUNGBLUD: “I needed to get my fight back. I’ve always been a fighter, and I’ve found it again”

Months after becoming the first Japanese act to headline The O2 in London, BABYMETAL further demonstrated their universality by buddying up with a global list of stars on METAL FORTH, their, err, fifth album. It was head-spinning fun, our kawaii heroines proving a sugar-sweet contrast to the genuinely alarming Slaughter To Prevail on Song 3, and going full dance rock with Electric Callboy on the 100 million-plus streaming RATATATA. These were on top of unlikely but deadly cool collabs with Poppy, Bloodywood, Spiritbox and more. We’ve always expected the unexpected from BABYMETAL, but what stood out here was the grin-inducing joy of cultural crossover taken to a surprisingly listenable peak. (SB)

• How BABYMETAL entered uncharted territory
  

As difficult second albums go, Conjurer’s epic 2022 effort Páthos was a good one. Birthed from the strangeness and separation of the COVID era, however, it felt more like a shellshocked standalone statement than the true successor to incredible 2018 debut Mire. Another three years down the line, they course-corrected spectacularly with Unself. From the delicate acoustic strum and vocals cracking under the weight of emotion of the audacious opening title-track, they dragged the listener through the swampy middle-ground between doom, death and black metal courtesy of the most mercurial extreme compositions this side of Converge, taking in an appraisal of the unfairness of late-stage capitalism on a basic level, guitarist Dani Nightingale's identity journey, and feelings of disconnection. The band are some of the most down-to-earth, unobtrusively decent people in modern heavy music, but on this evidence they’re back on track to becoming true Metal Gods. (SL)

• “Being different is often met with punishment and estrangement. That ties into not knowing who you are”: Inside the self-discovery of Conjurer’s new album
  

Reviewing Lorna Shore’s fifth album, K!’s Sam Law hit upon a hell of a mental image when trying to encapsulate the New Jersey deathcore heroes: ‘Like latter-day Parkway Drive if someone peeled off all their skin.’ It certainly paints a picture. So, too, would the suggestion that it resembles Dimmu Borgir if they grew up in the U.S. state cruelly dubbed ‘The armpit of America’ rather than scenic Norway. Regardless, the most important thing to note about I Feel The Everblack Festering Within Me is that it marks the true arrival of Lorna Shore as the musical force they’ve been threatening to become for years. Combining their long-standing technical prowess with frontman Will Ramos’ cataclysmic voice and radiating charisma, this is a record that’s devastating musically and, in its explorations of dementia and broken homes, lyrically too. It's also the record that underlined their promise. As Alexandra Palace awaits, this is the moment when Lorna Shore became one of the most significant bands of their day. (JH)

• Lorna Shore: “The band’s growing so fast that it’s hard to keep your hands on the wheel. Sometimes you’ve got to let it drag you around”
  

Nova Twins knew they couldn’t always project the image of superheroes. Behind the scenes their resolve was softening. They channeled that anxiety, doubt and fatigue into an inkier, more revealing third album, Parasites & Butterflies. They span their darkest feelings into towering bangers, including the steely but world-weary Monsters and the grinding, gritty Piranha, while silken ballad Hummingbird was a vulnerable meditation on grief that was as delicate as they have ever been. Despite this, the girls were just as eager to search for the light. With the brassy Soprano and N.O.V.A.’s sky-high spirit, they reconnected with the fearless, joyful parts of themselves we know and love. Ultimately, it was evidence of how multi-dimensional they could be. (EW)

• Nova Twins: “It’s important to not stay too comfortable… Stepping out of our box was scary and fun”
  

For Hot Milk, that ‘difficult’ second album Corporation P.O.P. came with typhoon energy plus big sounds and really big songs. Proper songs. Insubordinate Ingerland and 90 Seconds To Midnight were infectious punk hellraisers very much of their time, not entirely fearless but kicking back regardless. Meanwhile, album closer Sympathy Symphony was such an emotive epiphany that attempts to pigeonhole the Mancunians were pointless. The band’s various influences – everything from pop to metal – were simply friendly nudges, pointed to rather than stolen from. That's the crucial difference when it comes to torch bearers: Hot Milk want to be nothing other than a representative of their own generation, and this album sealed the deal. (SB)

• Hot Milk: “Why shouldn’t we make England the home of music again?”
  

Our Spidey senses were tingling right at the very beginning of the year. We included Sleep Theory in our round up of the new bands to keep an eye on, on the promise that their debut album would be a cracker. And that it was: Afterglow immediately went skyward, its mix of immediate bops and head-smacking heavy parts proving to be one of the sounds of 2025. It was such a success, in fact, that their debut UK tour was upgraded, not once, not twice, but thrice, after original dates sold out in just three minutes. If that doesn’t tell you that this band are becoming colossal, we’re not sure what will. (RR)

• Sleep Theory: “We’re here to make art. That does not begin with being the same as everybody else”
  

Surpriiiiiiise! In a time of tediously drip-feeding singles and trying to generating TikTok hype, A Day To Remember shunned usual music industry tactics by doing things their own way, releasing Big Ole Album Vol. 1 on physical formats, and later dropping it on streaming. And whichever way you chose to listen to the follow-up to 2021’s You’re Welcome, it more than delivered the goods. The likes of Flowers, LeBron and All My Friends are some of the very best pop-punk sing-alongs of their career, while Make It Make Sense and To The Death prove that two decades in, ADTR can still be gloriously heavy to boot. Now, how about that Vol. 2? (EG)

• Inside A Day To Remember’s surprise new album: “So many different emotions have fed into this”
  

Notching up 11 full-lengths in under two decades is an achievement in itself, but The Sky, The Earth & All Between proved that Architects continue to deliver in both quality and quantity. The all-encompassing scale of its title was a clue to what lay within its grooves, Brighton’s finest pushing forward while drawing on all aspects of their sound. A decisive return to heaviness didn’t preclude typically deft engagement with the art of the hook, while electronic and even hip-hop influences made their presence felt. Sam Carter told K! that “everything needed to be at 100 on this record”. Mission very much accomplished, fellas. (OT)

• Architects: “Everything needed to be at 100 on this record… If we’re going to be heavy, it needs to be absolutely ridiculous”
  

What would happen if Biffy didn’t ’Mon anymore? It’s a question two-thirds of Britain’s biggest and best rock band, James and Ben Johnston, began asking themselves upon Simon Neil’s return from duties with his ‘other’ outfit, Empire State Bastard, as the brothers struggled to muster the requisite motivation to get going – having momentarily lost their sense of purpose. Thankfully, they were soon reacquainted with it, though the notion that one day, whether we know it or not, they'll do something for the last time stuck with Simon. The resulting record, Futique, their 10th, is another stellar collection, vibrant and introspective, about what it means to be in a band, to give your all to a cause and commit to its future – albeit while pondering, not unreasonably, what life might have been like on the road not taken. (JH)

• Biffy Clyro: “I’ve got this almost unhealthy relationship with music, because I can’t create something that isn’t absolutely everything I’ve got”
  

Up until now, Dayseeker could best be described as a ‘vibes’ band. Granted, those vibes were predominantly built around incredibly sad subject matter, though it was accompanied by a sultry sound and sleek aesthetics that fans were beguiled by. As a result, the weight of exceptional singer Rory Rodriguez’ words could be taken for granted, arguably holding the Orange County band back from achieving their full potential. That’s a flaw remedied on Creature In The Black Night, which saw Dayseeker adopt a more dramatic vehicle for Rory’s explorations of love, loss, disappointment, isolation and addiction – quite literally turning them into horror stories. In doing so, they ensured the drama of the words and the music were intrinsically linked, amplifying both in the process, to produce their finest work to date. (JH)

• Dayseeker: “This album is about the personal issues I’ve dealt with, trying to navigate life as our band becomes a little more successful”
  

Having cemented their status as one of the greatest bands in the burgeoning west coast hardcore scene with 2021 debut How Flowers Grow, Scowl sharpened their focus and doubled-down with this sensational 5/5-rated follow-up, elevating everything that makes them such a special, essential prospect. With the captivating Kat Moss front and centre, armed with a voice that effortlessly veers from snarl to serenity, the Santa Cruz collective perfected the art of infectious hooks and power-pop-esque choruses that fizz and burn with the most bombastic shades of ’90s alt.rock. Reckoning with one’s own vulnerability, burnout and overwhelm, and the difficult yet necessary decisions to escape negative situations, it’s an honest, vital record from a band who are only just getting started. (LM)

• Scowl: “Please don’t check out. I hope I can plant that seed in young people who I see myself in”
  

Everyone’s angry, but Lambrini Girls wear their rage different. Their Who Let The Dogs Out debut is made for laughing wickedly with both middle fingers raised. It saw the Brighton duo filter their fury at everything from police violence to gentrification and nepotism through an idiosyncratic lens of wit, loudmouth personality and wrinkle-nosed disdain (‘Michael, I don’t want to suck you off on my lunch break!’ shouts vocalist Phoebe Lunny on workplace harassment tirade Company Culture). Every song is a solid-gold banger, thick with walls of scuzzy riffs and spilling at the sides with genius one-liners, not least C**tology 101, which celebrates healing your inner child, having autistic meltdowns and… 'Doing a poo at your friend’s house'. It’s no wonder they’ve hardly been out of sight this year. (EW)

• Lambrini Girls: “It’s time for the genre of ‘women in music’ to be put to bed”
  

It was a lot of things, 2025, but Aquarian was not one of them. Fittingly, the sixth album from French synthwave genius Perturbator was an appropriate soundtrack to the year in which Stephen King set The Running Man; far from a world of peace and harmony and wisdom, instead a dark place in which joy comes as a rush of stolen thrills and illicit sin. Bangers like The Art Of War and the futuristic Lunacy set the sci-fi club tone, while Greta Link’s alluring vocals on the gothy Lady Moon and Ulver man Kristoffer Rigg’s sardonic ‘The war to end all wars again… We’ve got bullets for everyone,’ on Apocalypse Now added a human chill. It saw mainman James Kent breaking ever more new ground to become a truly singular artist, while the huge tour that followed confirmed that a lot of people actually rather like his dystopia. Welcome to Perturbator’s world. You’ll never leave. (NR)

• Perturbator: “It’s like what Watain would sound like if they played Justice songs. My friends were baffled”
  

Brilliant as Deafheaven have been for the past 15 years, even their most sun-bleached black metal reinterpretations have been delivered with ice in the veins. Their sixth album changed all that. On face, Lonely People With Power is a grandstanding critique of the 21st century’s disaffected ruling class. Really, though, it’s a treatise on the powers of influence and interaction we all wield and how we should guard against the callousness that corrupts so many millionaires off in ivory towers. After the polarising experimentation of 2021’s Infinite Granite, cranking the volume and emphasising more extreme elements of their sound could be taken as a backward step. But it’s actually all about understanding how those sounds can be deployed to communicate intimate truths and how their presence makes the more retrained moments – ethereal pivot Heathen, pulsating highlight Body Behaviour – hit all the harder. A blackened masterpiece impossibly full of colour. (SL)

• Deafheaven: “If power is influence, we have a responsibility to be as understanding, empathetic and knowledgeable as possible”
  

Those pesky liars! While last year’s 5/5-rated Clancy was thought to have wrapped up twenty one pilots’ legendary lore, Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun had a whole other record up their sleeves to emphatically close the book instead. And what a way to do it. Spend a cool $1 million to make the music video for exhilarating opening track City Walls? Sure. Get Josh properly singing on Drum Show? Great. Sample the viral moment a fan stole one of their drums in Center Mass? Why not? As always, the dazzling duo threw everything into Breach, and they were duly rewarded with the biggest first week for a rock album on the Billboard 200 since Tool’s Fear Inoculum in 2019. This particular story might be over, but twenty one pilots have gone out on top. (EG)

• twenty one pilots: “It’s full-circle. This was the first time I felt okay coming back to where we started”
  

Not even Sleep could guard Vessel and his masked brethren from the trappings of fame. Sleep Token’s fourth album plunged them to even greater depths of vulnerability, to the point where the veil between man and character began to slip, and they briefly departed from their own lore to unpack the anxiety that accompanies success (Damocles) and the intrusion of fans violating the frontman’s privacy (Caramel). It was wrapped up in the quartet’s most unusual touches yet (see the guitar-less Past Self), taking on the quality of complex pop music with a harder edge. Their metallic sheen, of course, was still there, creeping through in the epic pairing of Look To Windward and Infinite Baths that bookend the record. Sleep Token refused to be complacent, and the fans worshipped in their droves. (EW)

• Unpacking Arcadia: Analysing the clues in Sleep Token’s new album
  

While their classic 2021 debut Eternal Blue showcased the brain-rattling diversity of armament within Spiritbox's canon, its follow-up Tsunami Sea hammered the message home with ferocity its predecessor only hinted at. Atop the electronic underflow and sinuous song structures came this quite feral force, a vortex of heavy things like Soft Spine and Black Rainbow. When it got experimental, you listened closely. When it went big, you just looked on helplessly. It’s an album that’s both deep and intense, clever and yet delivered with terrifying power. There was a catharsis about it, a note of reinvention that brought it close to genius, establishing Spiritbox as being, beyond argument, among our pack leaders. (SB)

• Spiritbox: “Every time I walk out onstage, I can’t believe this is my life”
  

Sequels: bigger, longer, more, more, more. Applying the old Hollywood rule to 2023’s Sanguivore, the second part of Creeper’s Ultra Camp Rocky Horror Heavy Metal Bonanza, Mistress Of Death, was as OTT as it was brilliant. The plot: Creeper are a vampiric rock band in 1980s Los Angeles, trying to outrun the enormous, titular muscle-mommy executioner who’s out to get them while they spend their time snorting blood and indulging in sapphic vampiricism on Pablo Escobar’s private jet. The sound: the biggest goth rock you can imagine, openly saluting Bon Jovi, Alice Cooper and, um, Belinda Carlisle (on Blood Magick (It's a Ritual)), while somehow also turning the worship of Meat Loaf and Stephen Sondheim up beyond anywhere they’ve been before. Also, William Von Gould told us, "We've gone even more jazz-hands." Yes. It was a record of excess, unashamedly indulging their most ambitious musical fancies, while piling on the sauce, shagging and sin. And, frankly, silliness. If sequels are meant to be shit cash-ins, nobody told Creeper. (NR)

• Creeper: “We’re turning rock’n’roll on its head”

‘If ivver tha does owt fer nowt – allus do it fer thissen – in God’s own country, where only the truth is spoken,’ comes the sage command early in Malevolence’s awesome fourth album. Less a tribute to their home city of Sheffield than a chronicle of the contemporary grit and ageless no-nonsense attitude of life in the north, its 11 songs were also confirmation that no matter how far Malev climb, they’re going to do it on their own steely terms. Big stories kept frontman Alex Taylor and the boys in the news cycle all year. On March 13, the Sheffield Online Facebook page shared blurry CCTV footage in relation to high value burglary that was really taken from the video shoot for lead single If It’s All The Same To You. In May, the clip for Salt The Wound – shot partially over the county line in Derbyshire’s Peak District National Park – was pulled after intervention from the National Trust. But for all the big banter and inadvertent drama, nothing grabbed the attention more than their music itself: the frantic Blood To The Leech and treacly Heavens Shake the biggest, boldest iterations of a sound they’ve been brewing for a decade and a half. (SL)

• Malevolence: “Bands come and go, and it’s really nice to believe that we’re still on the up”
  

As Paramore’s primary lyricist and within her own solo work, Hayley Williams has proved time and time again how the biggest creative risks often reap the biggest rewards. Marking her first independent release, EDAABP became the most experimental body of work she has ever put out across her entire career. From its quirky release as individual singles, delivered with the task of ordering them ourselves, to its lyrical matter exploring everything from religious hypocrisy to eldest daughter trauma, this album didn’t just feel like the bearing of weeping wounds, it felt as though Hayley had peeled away an entire layer of flesh. (RR)

• Album review: Hayley Williams – Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party

Be honest: who else in this list could get away with lyrics like, ‘Love rockets / Shot right in between your eyes’ in 2025? Well, most bands aren’t Ghost, and sixth album Skeletá is absolutely jam-packed with similarly great nuggets from the captivating, cheeky mouth of Papa V Perpetua. Our new leader’s personality shines bright on the devilish likes of Satanized and Marks Of The Evil One, while elsewhere mastermind Tobias Forge peels back the curtain with messages of hope (Peacefield), remembrance (Cenotaph), lust (Umbra) and the importance of celebrating life (Excelsis). That every single one of these 10 songs is a certified banger doesn’t hurt either. Even if your eyes have been obscured by, ahem, ‘love rockets’, there’s no denying what your ears are telling you… (EG)

• Ghost: “I’m a misanthrope, I hate people, but I also believe in miracles”
  

The prospect of a new Deftones album is always cause for lofty expectations, but something about Private Music felt special even before its characteristically colossal first single My Mind Is A Mountain first galloped into earshot. Even its artwork, a white snake against a grass-green background, felt special – the image of something familiar yet evidently different. Once Private Music was released, we came to realise that the cover telegraphed what was contained therein – familiar yet different. Those trademark riffs and atmospherics were all present, yet imbued with the kind of freshness you don’t expect to find 10 albums into a career. The result was Deftones’ most complete and cohesive offering since 2010’s Diamond Eyes. (JH)

• Deftones: “A lot more people are expecting things from us now, but that pressure is good”
  

Let’s be real: 2025 belongs to Turnstile. When their 2021 album GLOW ON shattered any and all notion of what a hardcore band could and should be, sending shockwaves through a scene that was already bursting with rejuvenated energy and a surge in genuinely exciting bands, the Baltimore punks found themselves riding the crest of a wave of their own making. Indebted to a love of Bad Brains, Nirvana and Fugazi, their unique sound was just as informed by passion for shoegaze, pop and R&B, and through this blurring of the lines, they became the gateway drug for a generation of fans now packing out venues everywhere, having captured lightning in a bottle.

But could they do it again? The answer, it won’t surprise you, was yes. NEVER ENOUGH takes the foundations laid down by GLOW ON to build a veritable cathedral of creativity, a monument to innovation and imagination, as Turnstile proved once again that they are the bar setters and the world around them is simply playing catch-up. Growing up immersed in the local hardcore scene, they’ve taken that hard-won knowledge and die-hard mentality to prove what’s possible on a multitude of levels – not just finding themselves experimenting with pan pipes, steel drums and seemingly The Police’s pedalboard – but the strength and success of NEVER ENOUGH saw them headline the debut Outbreak London as well as their biggest-ever UK tour including the 10,000-capacity Alexandra Palace, which had one of the rowdiest, most up-for-it crowds we’ve ever seen at that venue.

And it’s all because there’s something for people to connect with on NEVER ENOUGH. Even though Turnstile have transcended from house shows to arenas and find themselves running riot at the likes of Coachella and Glastonbury, they are still our band. Their win is a win for bands everywhere, and shows what you can achieve by simply following what you believe in, even if that means breaking away from convention and the rules set out in front of you. This writer remembers seeing Turnstile in the 250-capacity Boston Music Room in London in 2018, and now they’re playing to 40-times that many people thanks to the courage in their convictions and an insatiable desire to reject conformity, which is so perfectly encapsulated on NEVER ENOUGH. It somehow still doesn’t feel like Turnstile’s final form, but will go down as a turning point not just for them, but all of alternative music. (LM)

• Album review: Turnstile – NEVER ENOUGH
  

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