Intros are for suckers, just read about the albums in the list.
Benjamin Booker LOWER
Top Track: HOPE FOR THE NIGHT TIME
Having broken out in the mid-2010’s as a guitar-toting modern bluesman, Benjamin Booker re-emerged after almost 8 years with something of a reinvention. LOWER is a challenging sonic experiment, which manages to successfully fuse disparate elements, including industrial rock, dream pop, and abstract hip-hop. The perfect backdrop for a redemptive journey told through some brilliant songwriting, which is at turns harshly blunt, and elegantly poetic. An ostensibly bleak and hopeless album, which is filled with defiance and hope; a reminder to keep finding the beauty in an ugly world. (Read More)
billy woods GOLLIWOG
Top Track: BLK ZMBY
GOLLIWOG is billy woods’ cinematic masterpiece; a psychological horror of matter-of-fact, surrealistic, and utterly haunting storytelling. Combining abstract imagery with the vividly descriptive, woods interweaves seemingly distant tales; from harrowing snapshots of his childhood to the bleak fate of a mid-20th century Marxist philosopher. Modern day trauma and tragedy is juxtaposed with colonial collapse; a lingering, malign influence. With an absolute murderer’s row of guests and producers (including El-P, The Alchemist, and Bruiser Wolf), woods’ continues to push the boundaries of abstract hip-hop; often unnerving (there’s a beat literally composed from a woman’s simpering cries), with the occasional glimmer of staggering beauty. An album that’s challenging, confronting, and completely captivating.
Blu & August Fanon Forty
Top Track: Happy
Forty is a grown-ass rap record. A reflection of an acclaimed underground stalwart as he reaches early middle-age. It charts a loose autobiographical narrative from early rap origins and brushes with stardom, navigating a changing cultural landscape, before realising that elder statesman status has crept up on him. Jam-packed with features from a supporting cast of veteran names, including Asher Roth, Homeboy Sandman, and R.A.P. Ferreira; the album achieves the rare feat of turning introspection into celebration. Albeit a celebration that’s entirely befitting of the subject manner; a breezy chillout aided by August Fanon’s no-nonsense production of sweet soul loops, as Blu takes stock and finds contentment in what he’s got.
Bon Iver SABLE, fABLE
Top Track: Day One
With the weight of the Bon Iver/Justin Vernon mythology behind it, SABLE, fABLE is ostensibly a paean to the transformative power of love, while also cautioning against such clichéd extremes. The opening SABLE section returns to the stripped-back, introspective folk of their debut. While the fABLE section sees Vernon basking in the light of love, pushing the glitchy electro experimentation of recent albums into more overtly pop and soul territory, often veering into outright devotional music. It borders on schmaltzy, but its undoubtedly the most euphoric music of his career. With Vernon talking of potentially retiring the moniker, this is a largely successful encapsulation of the Bon Iver project and all that goes with it; a satisfyingly uncertain conclusion. (Read More)
DARKSIDE Nothing
Top Track: S.N.C
DARKSIDE staked their claim as the masters of modern psychedelia on their third album. Nothing was borne from jam sessions where their intent was not letting anything happen; a clean slate freeing them from genre forms and conventions. The resulting music feels like it could be anything and everything at any given time. Incorporating a myriad of influences, from Americana to techno, a growing sense of unease cuts through ostensibly soothing chillouts, which might morph into funk grooves or transform into pangs of chaotic terror; sometimes a bit of both. Warped vocals occasionally sound like disembodied howls from outer space, and, in other moments, are like ritualistic mantras. This is a rare modern prog record, that is genuinely progressive; the past and the future colliding to create the nightmarish and exhilarating sound of today.
Fatboi Sharif & Driveby Let Me Out
Top Track: Battlestar Galactica
New Jersey’s Fatboi Sharif has become an infamous torchbearer for a new generation of experimental hip-hop; always pushing into new extremes in search of the unknown and unexplored. On Let Me Out he teams with frequent collaborator, Driveby, whose production conjures up something barely recognisable as hip-hop, or any particular genre; like a soundscape of transmissions shot in from another dimension. That’s the canvas for Sharif to lay out expressionistic sketches of harsh, hauntingly evocative imagery capturing life’s absurd horrors; a surrealist philosopher reflecting the grotesque terror of our times. A disconcerting but utterly compelling album. (Read More)
Hamilton Leithauser This Side of the Island
Top Track: Knockin’ Heart
Hamilton Leithauser is one of the great rock singers of his generation, while also being a borderline terrible singer. His voice is kinda shrill, kinda piercing, but it’s always kinda fantastic. As he straddles the tightrope between tortured and triumphant with explosions of unrestrained emotion, you can’t help but feel that shit. That duality is mirrored in his songwriting, as he alternates between downcast realist and hopeless romantic on a charmingly ragged collection that injects his baroque pop crooning with a little jazz, a little funk, and some noisy nods to his indie rock roots. Its imperfect, and Leithauser is a master of imperfection. (Read more)
HORSEBATH Another Farewell
Top Track: In The Shade
The debut from Montreal roots rockers, HORSEBATH, is pretty much pure throwback; as if the past 50 years of music didn’t happen. Their influences could probably be narrowed down to The Byrds and their alumni, but that still leaves a fairly eclectic sound. From radio-ready jangle-pop, through the cosmic country of Gram Parsons, to the psych-tinged folk that David Crosby explored with CSN. There’s always a risk that such overt retro-ism devolves into empty pastiche, but the songwriting (shared amongst the four members) always leans more timeless than dated. The tales of loneliness, longing, and lost love just as fitting for rambling cowboys of the old West as rambling touring musicians of today. An accomplished collection of heart-on-sleeve ballads and singalong boogies that sound like lost classics.
Lord Sko PIFF
Top Track: Understand
The third album from Washington Heights up-and-comer, Lord Sko, sees him picking up the torch for New York rap. Sko’s stream of gruff, laid-back braggadocio and stoner tales are packed with casually delivered hooks that’ll quickly sneak their way into your brain. The album nods heavily to 90’s boom-bap classics, but also touches on the hazy, lo-fi sounds associated with the likes of MAVI, who features here. This is very much an inter-generational affair, with the guest list spanning legends like Del The Funky Homosapien to contemporary underground stars like Curren$y and Conway the Machine. Similarly, production comes from established names like Statik Selektah and Harry Fraud, through to Sko’s young right-hand man, Arlo Walker. PIFF is a salute to the past, present, and future of NYC rap.
MIKE Showbiz!
Top Track: Bear Trap
On Showbiz!, MIKE continued to establish himself as one of the modern forerunners in alternative hip-hop. Largely self-produced under his dj blackpower moniker; fragments of warped and woozy lo-fi psychedelia are interspersed with pitched-up and distorted soul hooks, and fleeting funk grooves. With 24 tracks packed into 47 minutes, a series of song snippets play out in a collage-like backdrop for MIKE’s lackadaisical, muffled drawl. His voice may not command attention, but from his opening lines (“Dreams of getting rich, I was poor then, Nowadays I don’t pray for shit but for more strength”) you know to lock-in, lest you miss moments of introspective wisdom amidst his stream of concisousness flows.
Moonchild Sanelly Full Moon
Top Track: To Kill a Single Girl (Tequila)
The South African star’s reputation has been on the rise over recent years, featuring alongside the likes of Gorillaz, Ezra Collective, and Self Esteem. Her third album, Full Moon, aptly provides a more rounded view of her larger-than-life persona and establishes her as a worthy main character. Sanelly’s self-styled brand of “future ghetto funk” merges amapiano roots with mainstream hip-hop and pop influences. The album bursts with her twist on the kind of brash, sex-positive party hits in the lineage of Minaj and Megan (“It’s your God-given duty to appreciate my booty”). But that’s balanced with open-hearted ballads revealing the humanity and vulnerability beneath the bravado. A portrait of a potential crossover star, that’s full of heart, humour, and horniness. (Read More)
sleepingdogs DOGSTOEVSKY
Top Track: piece of mind
While large swathes of underground hip-hop becomes increasingly left-field and hook-less, sleepingdogs revel in the kind of melodic boom-bap throwbacks that would surely have made them indie rap stars in any other era. The third album from the duo comprised of Providence-based, Jesse the Tree, and Philly-based, Andrew, is their most accessible yet. As the goofy pun of its title indicates, DOGSTOEVSKY eschews the grander themes of its namesake, instead dealing in low-stakes existentialism as they serve up a collection of dreamy stoner anthems. Sounding like they barely break a sweat, its a credit to them that DOGSTOEVSKY is as addictive as it is nonchalant.
Tunde Adebimpe Thee Black Boltz
Top Track: Magnetic
The TV On The Radio co-founder’s solo debut captures the eclecticism and urgent intensity of the New York art-rock innovators. The album moves restlessly, but adeptly, between styles. From the electrifying dance-punk banger, Magnetic, through dreamy and disorienting electro experimentation, tender ballads, and the masterful 80’s synth-pop pastiche of Somebody New. On Magnetic, Adebimpe references the “the age of tenderness and rage”, and it often feels like he’s caught somewhere in between as darkness looms over the record; a reflection of the recent death of his sister and the general angst of our times. But Adebimpe never quite succumbs to despair; instead Thee Black Boltz celebrates the sparks of inspiration, love, and hope that still appear amongst it all.
William Tyler Time Indefinite
Top Track: Concern
There may not be a word uttered across Time Indefinite, yet its as deep an exploration of the human psyche as you’re ever likely to encounter. The Nashville guitarist is a former member of alt-rock cornerstones Lambchop and Silver Jews; going onto a solo career where he’s continually pushed forward the idea of what an acoustic guitar record can be; combining ambient soundscapes with gorgeous finger-picked compositions. With its origins in the anxiety-inducing uncertainty of 2020, the album contrasts harsh, sinister noise with moments of majestic beauty. Equal parts unsettling, hopeful, and spiritual; against the relentless and ruthless march of time, its a reflection of humanity straining to survive alongside it.
Youth Lagoon Rarely Do I Dream
Top Track: Football
The music of Youth Lagoon (aka Trevor Powers) has always felt like it exists somewhere in-between. From his androgynous, ghostly vocals to his blend of dream-pop with ambient psychedelia. On Rarely Do I Dream, Powers’ tendency towards the formless is transformed into his most fully-formed vision. Built around recently discovered home movies from Powers’ early childhood; the sounds of these VHS tapes are sampled and spliced into a collection of ethereal Americana. Moments of domestic joy naturally lend an air of nostalgic poignancy, but this is contrasted with blurred sketches of everyday noir: tales of addiction, small-town villains, and bleak mysteries. A world where mundanity meets the mythic, where innocence fades into foreboding dread; its light and dark, its life and death. Or rather, it’s just life; Powers’ dreamlike compositions capture the dichotomy of our world, where competing forces co-exist and coalesce. It’s beautiful and it’s tragic.
We’ve also selected five under the radar gems from 2025. Check out our pick of the best albums you haven’t heard of here.
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