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Favourite Albums 2025

The 2025 album landscape reveals a rich tapestry of introspection, experimentation, and emotional exploration. Across genres, artists are mining vulnerability, resilience, and identity, whether through the ethereal electropop of Alison Goldfrapp’s Flux, the intimate reflections of Blood Orange’s Essex Honey, or Cat Burns’ raw personal journey in How to Be Human.

Many works engage with themes of grief, loss, and self-discovery, as seen in Dijon’s Baby, Olivia Dean’s The Art of Loving, and Skunk Anansie’s The Painful Truth, often balancing emotional depth with creative sonic approaches. Others channel rebellion, empowerment, and catharsis, such as ALT BLK ERA’s genre-bending Rave Immortal, Heartworms’ Glutton for Punishment, and Wet Leg’s playful Moisturiser.

Several albums emphasise memory, nostalgia, and the passage of time, from Ludovico Einaudi’s reflective The Summer Portraits to Ichiko Aoba’s luminous folk textures in Luminescent Creatures, while conceptual works like Steven Wilson’s The Overview and Christian Fiesel’s Dusk at Dawn explore cosmic and cinematic narratives, connecting human experience to broader existential or fantastical frameworks. Also included in my favourites of 2025 are ambient albums by Cousin Silas collaborating with Kevin Buckland and Substak.

Live albums from Nick Cave, BEAT, David Gilmour, and Pink Floyd highlight performance, reinterpretation, and the enduring power of musical dialogue. Experimental, ambient, and avant-pop approaches, exemplified by Brian Eno & Beatie Wolfe, Stereolab, and FKA Twigs, demonstrate an ongoing fascination with sound, texture, and immersive atmospheres.

Overall, these favourite albums reveal a 2025 musical zeitgeist defined by introspection, emotional honesty, and sonic adventurousness, blending personal and universal narratives, celebrating human resilience, and pushing the boundaries of genre, form, and expression. The year’s music feels simultaneously intimate and expansive, reflective and experimental, offering both solace and provocation in equal measure.

Flux (Alison Goldfrapp) blends lush, ethereal electropop with some of her most vulnerable lyrical writing yet, featuring shimmering production from collaborators like Richard X and Stefan Storm on this, her second solo album.

Rave Immortal (ALT BLK ERA) is a fierce, genre-bending record fusing punk, rave, and hip-hop energy to confront themes of identity, rage, and resilience, channelling raw emotion into anthemic, rebellious tracks that celebrate empowerment and defiance.

Live (BEAT – Adrian Belew, Tony Levin, Steve Vai & Danny Carey) is a live document of their reinterpretation of King Crimson’s 1980s-era material, conveying both devotion to the originals and the energy & spontaneity of a modern performance. It features extended versions of songs from Discipline, Beat, and Three of a Perfect Pair, weaving in improvisational moments and dynamic interplay.

Metalhorse (Billy Nomates) combines elements of synth-pop, punk, blues, folk, and electro around a concept of a crumbling funfair, exploring loss, insecurity, resilience, and life’s unpredictable ups and downs.

Essex Honey (Blood Orange) is a reflective and intimate record by Devonté Hynes exploring grief, memory, and home. It’s grounded in his Essex upbringing and stitched together with his signature genre-blur. It blends dreamy sonic textures, subtle guest appearances, and a deeply personal emotional core.

Lateral, Liminal, and Luminal (Brian Eno & Beatie Wolfe) unfold as a triptych of sound and thought, blending ambient experimentation with poetic reflection on human consciousness and the planet’s fragility, weaving a meditative dialogue between technology, ecology, and empathy.

How to Be Human (Cat Burns) finds her peeling back layers of grief, self-doubt and resilience. It’s a deeply personal journey of navigating loss and identity, yet ultimately offering comfort in our shared existence of being human.

We Are Love (The Charlatans) is a warm, reflective album that explores tenderness, resilience, and the ways love quietly holds a life together. Its songs move through nostalgia, hope, struggle, and renewal, offering a gentle affirmation that connection remains the one thing that endures.

Dusk at Dawn (Christian Fiesel) offers a musical retelling of the themes of 2001: A Space Odyssey, drawing inspiration from Kubrick’s film and Arthur C. Clarke’s screenplay. Find it on Bandcamp.

Waiting for Winter (Cousin Silas & Kevin Buckland) is a collaborative ambient album released on Bandcamp, featuring atmospheric soundscapes and minimal classical textures evocative of cinematic winter landscapes. Find it on Bandcamp.

Silent Hour (Cousin Silas & Substak) creates a spacious ambient journey where gentle drones and subtle rhythms evoke stillness and nocturnal calm, drawing the listener into a meditative, dreamlike state. Find it on Bandcamp.

The Luck and Strange Concerts (David Gilmour) is a live album capturing performances from his Luck and Strange tour, blending tracks from his recent solo work with iconic Pink Floyd songs into a sweeping live retrospective of his career. It showcases Gilmour’s emotive guitar work and vocals across 23 live tracks, drawing on concerts from 2024 and released in multiple formats with rich audio and video options.

Baby (Dijon) is a deeply personal, experimental R&B album that explores the chaos, ecstasy, and anxiety of new fatherhood and the messy emotional landscape of domestic life through fractured, genre-bending production and deeply felt vocals. It’s an often raw, sometimes unsettling journey that uses glitchy electronics, warped rhythms, and intimate songwriting to reflect on love, fear, lineage, and the overwhelming experience of becoming a parent.

Play (Ed Sheeran) captures his instinct for storytelling through melody, moving between carefree joy and quieter confession, with songs that centre on connection and everyday emotion wrapped in instantly familiar hooks.

EUSEXUA (FKA Twigs) delves into sensuality, self-discovery, and the complexities of desire, blending intimate vulnerability with empowered expression through experimental, immersive music that weaves ethereal textures with bold, confrontational moments.

Everybody Scream (Florence + the Machine) explores the fierce alchemy of physical vulnerability, emotional upheaval and spiritual reclamation, wrapped in mythic imagery and ritualistic sound. With echoes of witchcraft, survival and rebirth, it’s a bold statement of power and fragility entwined.

The Human Fear (Franz Ferdinand) wrestles with anxiety, vulnerability, and the strange beauty of collective experience, turning personal unease into something communal and cathartic, where sharp riffs and wry lyricism coalesce into a powerful whole.

Glutton for Punishment (Heartworms) is a debut studio album that delves into the psychology of self-inflicted pain and emotional resilience, blending dark, gothic energy with danceable post-punk and alternative rhythms to explore conflict, obsession, and catharsis. The record juxtaposes raw introspection and narrative storytelling across a blend of propulsive beats and atmospheric textures, presenting a bold artistic identity that balances vulnerability with fierce sonic ambition.

Luminescent Creatures (Ichiko Aoba) drifts like a half-remembered dream, bathing the listener in softly glowing folk textures that explore fragility, memory, and the quiet holiness of the natural world. Aoba moves with her usual tenderness, letting voice and guitar shimmer at the edges of silence, creating an atmosphere where vulnerability feels luminous rather than exposed.

Son of Glen (Jakko M. Jakszyk) is a deeply personal and reflective album exploring family, memory, and identity through prog-rock sophistication and lyrical intimacy, balancing intricate musicianship with emotional storytelling.

Curious Ruminant (Jethro Tull) spans nine tracks from intimate folk-rock to a 16-minute suite, showcasing Ian Anderson’s flute and leadership alongside long-time members and new guitarist Jack Clark in a mix of reflective lyricism and expansive instrumentals.

From the Pyre (The Last Dinner Party) is a character‑driven, myth‑steeped baroque pop and art‑rock album that explores mythic emotional extremes and elemental storytelling through vivid imagery and dramatic narratives. It binds a suite of personal yet allegorical tales around the symbolic concept of the pyre (a place of destruction, regeneration, passion, and fire) with a darker, earthier tone than their debut, blending theatricality with raw emotional depth.

The Summer Portraits (Ludovico Einaudi) captures fleeting warmth and gentle nostalgia through delicate piano and orchestral textures, each piece feeling like a memory preserved in sunlight, reflecting on time, transience, and quiet beauty.

Critical Thinking (Manic Street Preachers) channels the band’s trademark intensity into reflections on truth, ideology, and the noise of modern discourse, balancing intellectual bite with emotional depth while questioning conviction and compassion in a fractured world.

Tall Tales (Mark Pritchard & Thom Yorke) emerged during the COVID-19 lockdowns through remote collaboration, using vintage synths, experimental textures, and Yorke’s haunting vocals to explore dystopian themes of alienation, disconnection, and the uneasy effects of progress.

The Bad Fire (Mogwai) confronts recent personal challenges, including Barry Burns’ daughter’s illness, while delivering the band’s signature mix of brooding atmospherics, expansive crescendos, and moments of luminous melody.

Live God (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds) is a live double‑album capturing the intense, transcendent energy of their Wild God Tour across Europe, the UK, and North America, blending powerful performances of new material with reimagined classics. The album stands as a testament to the band’s emotional and spiritual breadth onstage, showcasing both the gravity and joy of Cave’s towering catalogue in a visceral live setting.

The Art of Loving (Olivia Dean) moves through the complexities of intimacy, heartbreak, and self-discovery with warmth and clarity, balancing soulful vulnerability with confident joy in songs that feel both deeply personal and universally resonant.

Live at Pompeii MCMLXXII (Pink Floyd 2025 Mix) offers a freshly remixed and remastered take on the band’s iconic 1971 live performance in Pompeii, mixed by Steven Wilson with 11 tracks, alternate takes, and bonus material presented in spatial audio and vinyl.

Wish You Were Here 50 (Pink Floyd) revisits the band’s classic album Wish You Were Here with a deluxe 50th Anniversary box set that honours the original themes of absence, alienation and creative struggle while uncovering rare studio demos, alternate versions and live recordings. This edition re‑contextualises the 1975 music with restored audio, a new Dolby Atmos mix and previously unreleased material, offering fans both nostalgia and fresh insights into one of rock’s most beloved albums.

More (Pulp) marks the band’s first album in 24 years, bringing together core members Jarvis Cocker, Candida Doyle, Nick Banks, and Mark Webber for a lush art-pop sound rich with reflective, witty lyricism and sophisticated arrangements.

Saving Grace (Robert Plant with Suzi Dian) is steeped in quiet reflection, weaving themes of longing, resilience, and weathered spirituality into a folk-rooted sound that feels both earthy and ethereal, carrying a sense of intimacy and pilgrimage.

The Painful Truth (Skunk Anansie) is a bold, emotionally raw comeback album that confronts personal struggles, mortality, and creative identity with fearless honesty.

MAD! (Sparks) showcases the Mael brothers’ inventive blend of art rock and synth-pop, filled with sharp songwriting, energetic experimentation, and characteristic wit, accompanied by an EP aptly titled MADDER!

Instant Holograms on Metal Film (Stereolab) feels like a dreamy, retro-futuristic return. Weaving together their classic motorik grooves, warm synth textures, and political lyrical reflections, while also sounding freshly alive. It’s an album about memory, utopia, and the strange currents of the present, rendered in their timeless avant-pop style.

The Overview (Steven Wilson) is a sprawling, cosmic concept album that explores the transformative “overview effect” astronauts experience when seeing Earth from space, blending progressive, space, and psychedelic rock into two long, evolving musical suites. The record weaves existential reflection with narratives of humanity’s beauty and fragility, returning Wilson to expansive prog‑rock territory while pushing his sound forward in richly detailed compositions.

Moisturiser (Wet Leg) revels in playful irreverence, mixing cheeky humour, catchy hooks, and witty observations on modern life into a carefree, mischievous celebration of fun and youthful rebellion.

The Clearing (Wolf Alice) explores introspection, transformation, and emotional turbulence through a sound that shifts between delicate vulnerability and cathartic intensity, balancing personal reflection with broader social resonance.

So, there you are, 40 great albums. Unfortunately, I can’t bring myself to choose an overall favourite, they’re all good. Enjoy!

Stop Using Grok and X Now!

Let’s be honest about what’s happening here. X hasn’t simply “changed”, it’s been deliberately reshaped into something harsher, noisier, and less trustworthy, and people are right to walk away. A public square that once aspired, however imperfectly, to host plural voices has become a platform where outrage is rewarded, nuance is buried, and misinformation travels faster than truth. That’s not accidental, it’s structural, and users are being asked to accept it as the new normal.

Trust has been hollowed out. Moderation has been weakened in the name of “free speech”, but what that has often meant in practice is freedom for the loudest, the most aggressive, and the most cynical. Good-faith conversation gets drowned. Marginalised voices retreat. Reasonable people self-censor or leave altogether. A space that silences people through hostility is not a free space, it’s a hostile one.

Then there’s the concentration of power. One individual now exerts extraordinary influence over rules, reach, and direction, with minimal transparency and no meaningful accountability. You don’t need a law to be broken to decide you want no part in that. Consumers are allowed to make moral choices. Withdrawing attention, data, and participation isn’t censorship, it’s conscience.

Grok sits uncomfortably inside all of this. It isn’t being received as a neutral, trustworthy tool, but as an extension of the platform’s brand and ideology. When the environment around a technology feels politicised, unstable, and ego-driven, trust in the technology collapses with it. That’s not irrational scepticism, it’s common sense.

People aren’t leaving because they’re fragile or offended. They’re leaving because they can see clearly what the platform has become, and they refuse to pretend otherwise. That’s not virtue signalling, it’s integrity.

Drowning in Simplified Certainties

Many things in our modern world require complex explanation, yet people increasingly want simple, black and white answers. We live in an age shaped by science, technology, economics, psychology, and global interconnection, all of which are layered and subtle. Real understanding often demands patience, humility, and a willingness to sit with uncertainty. But too many people resist that discomfort. They’d rather reach for certainty than wrestle with complexity, rather accept a neat story than think carefully about probabilities, evidence, or the messy realities of human behaviour.

Social media makes this worse. Its design rewards speed over reflection, outrage over balance, and certainty over curiosity. Algorithms don’t promote nuance because nuance doesn’t travel well. What spreads fastest are the loudest, simplest, most emotionally charged claims, regardless of whether they’re true. In that environment, conspiracy theories flourish and extremism feels normalised. Ignorance isn’t just tolerated; it’s amplified, packaged, and broadcast with confidence.

That’s what makes it so exhausting. Trying to explain basic concepts in science, history, or maths can feel like pushing against a tide. Conversations that should begin with shared foundations often start with fundamental misunderstandings. Instead of building on common ground, you’re forced to go back to first principles again and again. It drains energy, patience, and hope. Yet the work still matters, because without careful thinking, honest learning, and respect for complexity, we lose our grip on truth itself, and that loss carries consequences for everyone.

When Justice Meets Impunity

The killing of Renee Nicole Good has forced the USA into a defining moment, one that exposes in painful clarity two competing visions of what the country is and what it ought to be.

On one side are those who believe that accountability must apply to everyone, without exception, that the rule of law only has meaning if it restrains power rather than protects it. They argue that when an American citizen is killed in the street by a federal agent, the response must be humility, transparency, and an independent search for truth. They insist that no uniform, no badge, and no political convenience should shield anyone from scrutiny. This vision is rooted in the belief that justice is fragile and must be actively defended, especially for those whose voices are most easily ignored.

On the other side is a far darker impulse, one that rushes to judgement, excuses violence, and treats state power as something to be obeyed rather than questioned. An administration that has already declared the agent innocent and the woman he killed guilty, before any meaningful investigation has begun, sends a chilling message about whose lives are valued and whose are expendable. That instinct embraces impunity over process, loyalty over truth, and force over fairness.

This moment is no longer only about one death, tragic as that is. It’s become a test of whether America still believes in equal justice under the law, or whether it is prepared to surrender that ideal in the name of power, fear, and political expediency.

The Kingdom That Sings

Psalm 47 reads like a burst of fresh air, the kind that catches you by surprise and leaves you smiling before you’ve worked out why. It opens with this bold invitation to the whole world; every nation, every people, to clap their hands and shout with joy because the Lord most high is awesome, the great king over all the earth. There’s no sense of exclusivity here. It’s a psalm flung wide open, gathering everyone in.

As you sit with it, you can feel the music running through the lines. God is lifted up with shouts of joy and the sound of trumpets, and the whole psalm seems to sway with that confidence. At its heart is a quiet, steady reassurance that the world isn’t drifting without purpose. God reigns. Even in seasons when life feels uncertain, the psalmist calls us back to trust, almost like someone placing a gentle hand on your shoulder and saying, Look up.

One of the most moving threads in the psalm is its vision of unity. The nobles of the nations assemble … for the kingship belongs to God. It imagines former strangers standing together, not because they’ve all agreed on everything, but because they’re held by something greater than themselves. In a world like ours, so often split by fear and noise, that picture feels both ancient and startlingly hopeful.

When you approach Psalm 47 as more than a song, it becomes a reminder of your place in a wider, joyful story. It tells you that even when your own praises feel quiet, you’re still part of a kingdom that sings on your behalf. It invites you to breathe, to trust, and to let your heart rise with the music that’s already playing.

Grace Through Broken Voices

Regarding Philip Yancey’s confession of adultery; his moral failure doesn’t invalidate his writing. It does, however, change how some readers might approach them, and that response is understandable. Much depends on what you believe gives an author moral or spiritual authority.

From a Christian perspective, Yancey’s work has always centred on grace, failure, mercy, and the stubborn love of God that meets people at their worst. A confessed moral failure doesn’t contradict that message, it actually places the writer inside it. Scripture itself is full of voices shaped by serious moral collapse, David, Peter, and Paul among them, whose words weren’t discarded but received with discernment because God’s grace was seen to be at work through broken people.

That said, confession doesn’t mean consequences disappear, nor does it require readers to feel comfortable or uncritical. It’s reasonable to reread an author more carefully, to separate insight from personality, and to test what’s written against wisdom, humility, and truth. Yancey has never claimed moral superiority, and his credibility, for many, rests not on perfection but on honesty, repentance, and a long pattern of thoughtful, compassionate reflection.

In the end, his writings stand or fall on whether they illuminate grace, foster humility, and point beyond the author to God. If they still do that for you, they remain worth reading. If they don’t, you’re free to set them aside without bitterness or denial.

The Fragile World Order

The world order is changing at an alarming pace, and what’s at stake reaches far beyond any single conflict or crisis. The credibility of international law itself is under pressure, tested by actions that appear selective, self-serving, or indifferent to agreed norms. When rules are applied inconsistently, or bent to suit the interests of the powerful, law begins to look less like a shared framework for justice and more like a tool of convenience. That erosion doesn’t happen overnight, but once trust is weakened, it’s painfully hard to restore.

Alongside this, the authority of the United Nations is being steadily undermined when its resolutions are ignored, bypassed, or treated as optional. The UN was never perfect, but it was built on the conviction that dialogue, restraint, and collective decision-making were preferable to unilateral force. When states act as though multilateral institutions matter only when they deliver convenient outcomes, they hollow those institutions out from within, leaving little more than symbolism where substance once stood.

At the heart of the matter lies a vital principle, that no state, however powerful, can appoint itself as judge, jury, and enforcer of the world order. Power without accountability breeds resentment, instability, and, ultimately, resistance. If might replaces right as the organising logic of global affairs, smaller nations are left exposed, alliances fray, and cooperation gives way to fear and calculation.

If that principle collapses, so too does the fragile trust on which global cooperation depends. Climate action, humanitarian protection, arms control, and peace itself all rely on the belief that rules mean something, and that no one is above them. Once that belief is lost, the consequences will be felt everywhere, and for generations.

A New Year Unfolds

As a New Year stretches out before us, full of possibility and uncertainty, Paul’s words fold around us like a warm cloak. In Romans 8:38–39 he says he’s convinced that nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God that’s in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nothing – not the fears that creep in as the calendar turns, not the regrets we carry from the year just gone, not illness, disappointment, change, or the quiet ache of things unresolved. Neither death nor life, neither the heights of our joys nor the depths of our anxieties, neither what’s pressing in on us today nor what might surprise us tomorrow can prise us from the love that already surrounds us.

And Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3:17–19 feels especially tender at the doorway of a New Year. He longs for us to be rooted and established in love, so that we might somehow grasp its vastness, even though it surpasses knowledge. Wide, long, high, deep: love that fills every direction we might turn. Love that steadies us when we step into something unfamiliar. Love that whispers courage when we don’t feel ready. Love that keeps nourishing us beneath the surface, the way roots drink in hidden water.

As the year unfolds with its mix of beauty and burden, that love won’t thin out. It won’t grow tired. It won’t lose interest. Even when we face decisions that feel heavy, or days that feel lonely, or news that unsettles our confidence, we remain held. God’s love isn’t a feeling that wavers with the season; it’s the deep reality beneath every season.

So let yourself begin this year resting in what’s already true: you’re loved with a love that can’t be broken, outmatched, or undone. Whatever comes, you won’t face it alone.

An Invitation to Hope

A New Year always arrives quietly. No fanfare, no guarantees, just a clean page waiting for the first mark. It can feel hopeful and heavy all at once. We carry into the New Year the joys we want to protect and the disappointments we’d rather leave behind. And yet, here we are, breathing, still becoming.

This is a gentle reminder that you don’t have to rush. Growth rarely announces itself with fireworks. More often, it looks like small, faithful steps taken when no one is watching. A kinder word spoken. A habit nudged slightly in a healthier direction. A decision to begin again, even if you’ve already begun many times before.

The New Year isn’t a test you can fail. It’s an invitation. An opening to live a little more truthfully, love a little more bravely, and listen a little more deeply, to others, to yourself, and to God. Scripture often speaks of newness not as something dramatic, but as something quietly persistent. Morning by morning, mercies renewed. Strength given for today, not for the whole year at once.

So set your intentions lightly. Hold your plans with humility. Celebrate progress, however modest it seems. And when you stumble, because you will, remember that grace doesn’t run out in February.

May this New Year be shaped not by pressure, but by purpose. Not by fear, but by faith. Step forward with hope, trusting that even unfinished, uncertain steps can still lead somewhere good.

What to leave behind?

New Year’s Eve has a particular stillness to it, a threshold moment where we pause with one foot in the familiar and the other hovering over what’s yet to come. It’s tempting to treat this night as a hard reset, as if everything behind us must be swept away to make room for something new. But wisdom rarely lives in extremes. It invites us to look back with honesty and tenderness, to notice what has shaped us, and to choose carefully what we carry forward.

Some things deserve to be packed gently for the journey ahead. Habits that have rooted us, relationships that have deepened us, moments of courage we didn’t know we had until they were asked of us. These are not accidental successes, they’re signs of growth, grace, and quiet perseverance. Carrying them forward isn’t clinging to the past, it’s honouring what has helped us become more fully ourselves.

And then there are the things it’s time to release. Old grudges that have grown heavy, patterns of thinking that shrink our hope, voices, including our own, that tell us we’re not enough. Letting go isn’t failure. It’s an act of trust, a decision to stop giving our energy to what no longer brings life.

As the year turns, we’re not asked to reinvent ourselves overnight. We’re invited to travel lighter, wiser, and more attentive. To keep what serves love, justice, and kindness, and to lay down what doesn’t. In that gentle discernment, we make space for God to meet us again, not as strangers to the future, but as people ready to step into it with intention and hope.

Rushing Through Traditions

There’s a strong tendency in society, fuelled especially by advertising, to rush headlong towards whatever comes next. Novelty is prized, anticipation is monetised, and lingering is quietly discouraged. We’re nudged to believe that satisfaction lies just beyond the next purchase, the next upgrade, the next season. Christmas makes this habit particularly visible. Before the last crumbs of mince pie have been brushed away, the message has already shifted, sales banners change colour, playlists move on, and the glow of the season is treated as something faintly embarrassing to hold on to.

You see it most clearly when decorations come down well before Twelfth Night. What was meant to be a period of celebration and reflection is truncated, tidied away, and replaced with a brisk return to normality. In the hurry to move on, something gentle is lost. The slower rhythms of tradition invite us to dwell, to savour, and to let meaning settle. Resisting the rush, even briefly, becomes a quiet act of attentiveness, a reminder that not everything of value needs to be cleared away at speed.

But there’s also another way of seeing this, and it’s worth holding it alongside the longing to linger. Traditions can ground us, but they can also harden into habits that resist necessary change or growth. For some, moving quickly beyond Christmas isn’t a loss of meaning but an expression of renewal, a clearing of space for fresh starts and forward momentum that can be genuinely life-giving. Rather than framing this as a choice between tradition and progress, it may be wiser to hold a both-and approach, preserving what nourishes the soul while remaining open to change, even when that balance feels untidy and unresolved.