15 LORELLE MEETS THE OBSOLETE: “Corporal”

“Mexican band LMTO started out as a riffy fuzzy psych rock combo and have added increasing layers of electronica with each album. On this, their seventh album, it all fuses together to glorious effect. Pounding, pulsating, thrilling, woozy, droney, shoegazey, noisy, sometimes sweet, sometimes abrasive. This has been a regular on the shop stereo this year”. Nick

14 SHARON VAN ETTEN: “And The Attachment Theory”

“This feels like a debut album in that the band aren't just hired hands backing one of our favourite singer songwriters - they create an origami of post punk guitar stabs and foggy synth layers that hold together SVE's most cohesive and compelling album yet. And that voice, those sad sad words... A superb record that just emboldens the amount I already loved Sharon and makes her even cooler, if that were possible”. Adam

“In which one of our very favourite US indie singer-songwriters reinvents herself as part of a classic rock band with stunning effect” Nick

13 DEFTONES: “Private Music”

“Totally brilliant. An established and noisy band making a record that is heavy, heady and impeccably played. It brings to mind The Cure and Mogwai at times with the textures and whispers underneath but the breeze block guitars and Chino's versatile vocals could only be Deftones. Milk of the Madonna was probably my favourite song of 2025, it gallops like a ten ton iron horse on a motorway made of rivets and glass” Adam

“There aren’t many bands that keep hitting creative peaks 30 years into their career but this new Deftones album is a triumph, melding their wall of heavy shoegaze guitars and alt-metal riffs into something really essential”. Nick

12 VIAGRA BOYS: “Viagr Aboys”

“The most fun live band in the world right now. I'll go see them at every opportunity I get. Sebastian Murphy is the most ridiculous frontman to come out for a while I think. This album feels like their most fun-live focused album, and it really is. The Bog Body is one of my year's highlights. 'Do you even know the difference between a swamp and an ancient bog? In a bog you are pickled in a swamp you would decompose.' He is a very funny writer, and has made me laugh out loud several times this year which doesn't happen nearly enough from music”. Jake

“Everyone’s favourite Swedish (mostly) punk band have gone large and won over EVERYBODY with this, their fourth album: singalong punk(ish) anthems, funny lyrics and generally being one of the greatest live bands around” Nick

11 SPRINTS: “All That Is Over”

“The word 'visceral' gets waved around a lot when describing music but this album really is visceral: feline and matted with blood and muddy leaves. There are assured quiet moments that up the atmospherics but you're here for the bangers like Descartes, which is like a greased up Idles on a bouncy castle. Intelligent punk music being made confidently and with an angry clarity of vision”. Adam
“In a year where bands have used their voices to speak out on issues we have had a wonderful resurgence of powerful message laden punk music and no one does it better than the Sprints. They’ve absolutely honed their craft and this album stayed on my turntable for weeks”. Mark

10 CMAT: “Euro-Country”

“You’ve heard the songs you don’t need a review from me. It’s the most intelligent pop album this year. You’ll end up hating how much every song is both immediately stuck in your head and somehow simultaneously the best song on the album! (Just to settle the argument’ when a good man cries’ is actually the best song on the album)” Mark

“Fun brilliant clever pop music. Utterly infectious and joyful. Jamie Oliver Petrol Station and Running Planning both in my very favourite songs of the year” Nick

9 ANNA VON HAUSSWOLF: “Iconoclasts”

“What happens when you put a very slightly pop edge on a career that has produced highlights that sound like church organ soundtracked dreams and nightmares. This shouldn’t work but does and adds another beautiful record to a discography that’s already full of them”. Mark

“Iconoclasts feels like the confluence of all the music I've listened to up until this point. It's got the grandeur of The Turning Wheel, the strings sound like All Mirrors and it's got an Ethel Cain feature. Couldn't have been more aimed at me if it tried. And yet I've never heard anything that quite sounds like it. This thing is magnificent. It's post-rocky and jazzy and ambienty in places and just stunning throughout. Stardust is my favourite song of the last few years, that song makes me ascend! 'And I hate to see you cry, but the life we had has vaporised into the skyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy' gives me goosebumps every time. She is one of the best vocalists in the world right now, her voice is insane; from her belting to her almost crazed growling. Like on Struggle With The Beast, the other defining highlight from this, where she balances both so beautifully. And the saxophone oh my GOD! Otis Sandsjo should be on everything. This was my personal album of the year and nothing really came close. I literally cannot wait to hear Stardust at the Electric Brixton in January. Woooo”. Jake

8 WET LEG: “Moisturiser”

“I think Rhian might be in love. This is just a very very good indie rock album, with songs so classic sounding that feel like they can't have only been come up with this year. Whilst they're first album leant on its singles and the rest was fine, this is all great. No filler. Fantastic”. Jake

“Absolutely taking their second album in the stride. Full of indie-pop bangers as per the debut but with greater variety of sound and voice, as Rhian embraces her rock frontwoman status with way more confidence and energy”. Nick

7 RICHARD DAWSON: “End Of The Middle”

“Since the album 2020, I have fallen in love with Richard Dawson's way with a narrative that expands from a microscopic detail into some genuinely touching social commentary. His guitar work always sounds like it's slightly out of time and tune but it isn't, it's just the work of an artist with such a clear vision that it will all and always fall into place. This album feels timeless as well as contemporary. A thoughtful and funny set of downbeat tracks, exemplified by Polytunnel's documentarian eye for the joy of being at the allotment. More please”. Adam

“In a year where Richard Dawson was on the death metal album by Pharoah Overlord, the last release by Pigsx7 and released my favourite single of the year “Scales Will Fall” by his folk side-project Hen Ogledd, what do we get from his solo album? We get a set of wonderful stories that are told in only the way Richard can. Musically less extravagant than his recent releases but it means you can really hear the pain or joy of the characters. If you get to the end of the record and you aren’t in tears maybe check your heart because it might mean you are dead inside”. Mark

6 ETHEL CAIN: “Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You”

“This album is a beautiful record that is the exact mid point between pop, gothic Americana, slowcore and ambient noise. It’s an album that explore themes of love and heartbreak in a way I’ve not heard before. It genuinely reminds me of the feeling of being young and in love. The line ‘it makes no difference who held back from who’ slays me every time. It took me a long time to get why Ethel Cain was getting the acclaim but between this and the “Perverts” EP I am a total convert”. Mark

“My expectations for this were almost unfairly high. Her previous album “Preacher's Daughter” is, on most days, my favourite album of all time and I didn't think it was possible she'd be able to even come close again. I have never been so happy to be proven wrong. This album takes everything on PD and amps it up; the post-rock textures get drawn out into full 7 minute interludes (Willoughby's Theme being one of the emotional highlights on the album even without words), and it takes the country undertones and drives it home with the most beautiful fiddle on Nettles, another highlight. The epic closing 25 minute punch of Tempest into Waco, Texas is the greatest end to an album in recent memory. She is an absolute visionary and there is no one else currently working at her level”. Jake

5 THE NEW EVES: “The New Eve Is Rising”

“Imagine the soundtrack for Midsommar if it was done by the Velvet Underground on traditional folk instruments, that is the closest way I can describe this magnificent record. This album is intense and as a live machine the New Eves are one of the best things I’ve seen this year (twice!). It deserved the hype go listen to it now, go on!” Mark

“Debut Of the Year. The New Eves are a Brighton 4 piece doing something genuinely original fusing pagan Wicker Man folk, classy cello, feminist anthems, and squally Velvet Underground-esque guitar and violin.... it’s a joyfully primal ragged affair underpinned by a full set of brilliantly memorable songs” Nick

4 MOGWAI: “The Bad Fire”

“If you already like Mogwai, here is more Mogwai. If you don't like Mogwai, and I'm stuck for reasons why that might be the case as they are probably the most reliably entertaining band of the last 25 years, I think this might be as good an entry point into their flawless catalogue as any. Lion Rumpus has a guitar solo which always makes me think I'm going to combust. God Gets You Back and Fanzine Made of Flesh are career highs. There's a song called Pale Vegan Hip Pain. The song titles are all brilliant and so is the music this band makes”. Adam

“Mogwai have been our collective favourite shop band since pretty much day one and have made more appearances on our AOTY list than anybody else simply because they are so consistently brilliant. This has almost certainly been the shop’s most played album this year, being a constant go-to…. if in doubt, Mogwai. Over the years they have evolved from the quiet/loud post-rock dynamic into a much more polished and mature affair featuring more synths and more vocodered vocals but still making the most glorious racket on occasions. A magnificent album”. Nick

3 BLACK COUNTRY NEW ROAD: “Forever Howlong”

“Yes, they have pivoted from being a male-fronted post-punk band to a prog-folk ensemble fronted by three female singer-songwriters. Yes, it is a bit confusing and yes maybe they should have changed their name. But this album has been the most spectacular slow-burner. On first listen, I think EVERYBODY was a tad confused. But this is a glorious album of story-songs in the tradition of folk-rock bands of yore, embracing harpsichord, mandolins, and recorders in addition to their previous violin and sax. It reveals its pleasures slowly, often the sign of a genuinely classic album. But the real excitement is in the emergence of three wonderful singer-songwriters taking the reins, seizing triumph from the jaws of adversity, and then writing some phenomenal songs. The result feels like an emotional journey as much as an album”. Nick

2 CAROLINE: “Caroline 2”

“The Vinylstore gang had a listening party when this came out and there were fairy lights and laughter and a warm sense that this was a happening as much as an album. It was one of my favourite evenings of the year. And what a happening this second album is. The rough edges of their debut are smoothed in some places (joining Caroline Polachek in a bubblebath of dream pop, no less) and sheared jagged in others to some genuinely cathartic and shattering crescendos. Two Riders Down in particular packs a rowdy emotional heft. This sounds like Caroline and not much else and I adore it entirely. Album of the year in any other year”. Adam

“If you’ve ever stood in our queue on RSD or read previous years write ups you will know the Vinylstore Jr elders as we are now known don’t agree on much. That is until Caroline 2 hit our ears. An album that made us all splendour in its wonderfully incoherent coherence. An incredible experience that has elements of pop, post punk, slow core, indie and everything in between. It shouldn’t work but it just does and is an absolute work of art”. Mark

1 GEESE: “Getting Killed” (with CAMERON WINTER solo album “Heavy Metal” as honorable mention)

“Heavy Metal, Cameron Winter's weird and sad and moving and clever solo album, was the soundtrack to my year. It is to my ears the best and most coherent musical statement that I have heard from a solo artist since Grace by Jeff Buckley and is probably my favourite album of the last ten years. I could say so much more but instead, I just implore you to acquaint yourself with its generous and tortured soul.
And you say he made album with his band Geese too this year? Yes, he did, and yes it's just exceptional. Geese are having a moment, for sure, but in my memory no hyped up band has ever delivered something so worthy of the hype. This band unravels in musical left turns that illustrate a precocious understanding of rock music's many dusty corners: From the wobbly opener Trinidad ('yeah the chorus is me shouting about there being a bomb in my car' would have been a great band meeting) through Cobra's distillation of 70s rock into something vital, taking in 100 Horses' tower of song and Taxes' ebullient and moreish euphoria, Getting Killed is an album to obsess over”. Adam

“You don’t need me to tell you why the Geese album is great. Believe the hype, trust my esteemed colleagues and go listen. The Cameron Winter LP is something else in its entirety. Nausicaa is such a great song. No one song has ever reminded me of Jeff Buckley, Nina Simone, Mavis Staples the Tindersticks and Tom Waits. When he sings ‘love will be revealed’ I want to cry and when he sings/shouts ‘Nausica’ I can’t stop smiling” Mark

“It has been the year of Geese. Cameron Winter’s remarkable solo album came out right at the turn of the year and raised the excitement and expectation levels. Then the Geese album itself is simply the best and coolest indie rock album this year, or indeed most other years. Ridiculously good. A universally agreed winner.” Nick