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Nourished by Time – The Passionate Ones
Marcus Elliot Brown, AKA one-man project Nourished By Time, has a classic R&B singing voice in the style of Freddie Jackson or Luther Vandross: warm, earnest and with every word enunciated as if to express his keenness of feeling. But his music is quite different: a slippery layer cake of samples, multitudinous keys and lo-fi pop production, with Brown singing of a world where “the ebb and flow isn’t ebbing right”, be it in love or civic life. There is still room for an instant-classic R&B ballad though, in Tossed Away. Ben Beaumont-Thomas
49
Rochelle Jordan – Through the Wall
Everything is just so on the British Canadian producer’s sixth album: expensively plush deep house suggesting club lights low, gleaming mirrors, potent looks igniting across the dancefloor. As much as the cold beat and ballroom flow of Ladida or the slapping “body, body, body” incantations of On 2 Something suggest a steadfast commitment to abandon, Jordan maintains impeccable poise and control throughout, whether in diva mode on Words 2 Say, breaking hearts on Bite the Bait, standing up for her needs on Doing It Too (“I’m not too much / You just give too little”) or patiently waiting for a frustrated lover to see the light on Ladida. Commanding, wise and committed to atmospheric excellence, party hosts don’t come better. Laura Snapes
48
Jerskin Fendrix – Once Upon a Time … in Shropshire
Jerskin Fendrix’s high-profile scores for the last three Yorgos Lanthimos films can’t really help prime you for the Midlands composer’s eccentrically beautiful second album, which pairs pristine musical theatre with the harebrained prog cabaret of Faith No More and (particularly) the under-sung Morphine. At first, Once Upon a Time … casts the rural bliss of growing up in 00s Shropshire in a golden light, a haven of getting ratted on Baileys and listening to Kanye on a farm, then having a lovely hungover group breakfast in someone’s kitchen. But the unexpected deaths he has experienced in recent years intrude to spoil paradise, eliciting feverish, absurdist expressions of grief – Jerskin Fendrix Freestyle is a bravura wig-out – and fathomless devastation from his camp, craggy voice. It demands a full theatrical production. LS
47
Clipping – Dead Channel Sky
Clipping frontman Daveed Diggs is best known for being in the original cast of Hamilton, and for all that this album is filled with noisy industrial rap, you can easily imagine it being successfully adapted for the Broadway stage. Dead Channel Sky is set in a cyberpunk dystopia not dissimilar to the scorched-sun “real world” of the Matrix, humming with janky tech and populated with fascists and freaky hedonists. Producers William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes render it in acid squiggles and revving breakbeats, while Diggs delivers his mutoid poetry like a prophet jacked up on some amphetamine he’s synthesised in a backstreet lab. BBT
46
The Tubs – Cotton Crown
In different hands, the Tubs’ second album might be a crushing listen, and understandably so. In 2014, frontman Owen Williams’ mother, the songwriter and author Charlotte Greig, died by suicide. Grief, as these songs detail, made him a rubbish boyfriend. But Cotton Crown is often funny and ardent, and especially self-aware about how new love might feel like a life raft to a depressed mind ill-equipped to reciprocate: “Know it’s all in my brain / Caught in the middle of loving you and being insane,” Williams sings on Fair Enough. His striking voice, somewhere between Richard Thompson and Bob Mould, bolts through the band’s joyful jangle-pop. Clear students of the form, they’re virtuosos with zero patience for perfection, their riffs hurtling and plundering like seagulls going at a spilled catch as they vigorously rough you up with profundity. LS
45
Smerz – Big City Life
Catharina Stoltenberg and Henriette Motzfeldt feel like the pop girlies of the incredibly prolific and off-kilter Copenhagen Rhythmic Music Conservatory scene, making music that’s more outward-facing and arch than some of their insular and traditional (and equally great) classmates. Their second album lurches between throwing yourself at life – “you’re a girl in the city and you shouldn’t think twice”, they chant in deadpan harmony on Roll the Dice – and actually thinking twice quite a lot in existential spirals about purpose and desire. The dissonance between confidence and anxiety comes through in the album’s stilted beauty: one minute, their whorls of prepared piano carry you along like clouds amid perfectly turned pop-R&B and balladry; then they stab and stutter, like cracks in the pavement destined to trap your heels. In 2023, K-pop’s brightest hopes NewJeans hired them as co-writers: more pop bearing their imprint can only be a good thing. LS
44
Sabrina Carpenter – Man’s Best Friend
Released almost exactly a year after her superstar-minting breakthrough Short n’ Sweet, and using a palette of soft rock, 80s pop, light disco and yearning country melodies, Carpenter added rich colour to one of pop’s most distinctive self-portraits. Her blatant sexuality is offset by an ironising sense of camp and a deep streak of cynicism, as she wonders whether to wrap her little finger round a series of hot but useless men. But whether dialling her exes while hopped up on “go-go juice” or being toxic for the sport of it (“you think that I’m gonna fuck with your head / well, you’re absolutely right”), Carpenter knows she’s part of the problem. Her fake helplessness at her own worst impulses is just one part of a formidable screwball comedy arsenal – she’s a Rosalind Russell for the dating app era. BBT
43
Jennifer Walton – Daughters
This Sunderland producer’s previous work included one EP of power electronics, one of antic club tracks, collabs with Aya and 96 Back as Microplastics, gigging with Kero Kero Bonito and a smattering of other credits. So her staggering, fully formed songwriterly debut was a total bolt from the blue. A swarming orchestral epic with shades of Julia Holter and Phil Elverum, it addressed her grief for her late father in serenely surrealist images – hitting a deer with a car in the middle of the night – and the painfully mundane realism of sitting in hospital corridors together. The standout Miss America combined both to stunning effect, a numbed incantation of everything Walton had seen on the US trip where she learned of her father’s diagnosis, the familiar now remade horribly mythic. LS
42
Erika de Casier – Lifetime
Erika de Casier’s fourth album updates the Y2K R&B template that fought for body-to-body sensuality in the face of rising digital creep. The old-school dial tones that pierce Lifetime’s rapt, liquid atmosphere work both as Janet homage and ironic sigh at how good those forebears had it when emotional warfare could only be conducted via pager: “Took a screenshot so / I could look at your pretty face all the time now / Without a sign that I’m online,” de Casier sings on earworm Delusional, a low-slung anthem for contemporary dating anxiety. “Hit midnight / Not even a text to hold me warm,” she rues on The Chase. That’s one of the most inviting things about Lifetime: its seductively cool surfaces conceal de Casier frantically kicking her feet below the surface, just like the rest of us. LS
41
Danny Brown – Stardust
The Detroit rapper’s first post-rehab record totally disproved his fears that sobriety makes artists boring. On Stardust, Brown is still hard-wired with cartoonish verve, coupled with a genuinely touching sense of gratitude: “Sleeping real good at night ’cos I’m proud of myself,” he raps on Book of Daniel. While you probably wouldn’t describe someone who ponders “going bonkers and knocking out your chompers” as a wise elder, his hunger for life, opportunity and unmediated sensation blares through in how evidently gagged he is to centre younger producers from the digicore and hyperpop undergrounds: his unruly kids 8485, Jane Remover, Underscores, Frost Children and more make Stardust trip with glitch, rave, squealing riffs and overdriven noise. The rare record that makes you want to riot and shed a smiling single tear emoji. LS
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YHWH Nailgun – 45 Pounds
In 21 minutes, the New York band’s debut chews you up and spits you out the other side in a tentacular whirr of rototoms, guitars that shriek and whine like neglected machinery, erratic tempos and frontman Zack Borzone’s choked-out vocals. The way the record lurches and reels brings to mind the classic horror film scene in which a human undergoes a violent, magnificent transformation into some sort of beast: much like Gilla Band’s Most Normal, 45 Pounds is a font of mutant rock pleasures. LS
39
Sudan Archives – The BPM
The title refers to the beats per minute of dance music, but for an album that is so totally alive, it surely also refers to a pounding heart. Sudan Archives (AKA Angeleno producer-singer-songwriter-violinist Brittney Parks) announces that “life’s a game and I got VR goggles” as she revels in the epicurean joys of sex, dancing, travel and music itself with an almost superhuman appetite: “The rest are cowards / They choose to eat and we devour.” It’s all done with breezy good humour but there’s something inspiring, even quietly political about this mindful rejection of the straight life. Her backings – full of pop-R&B and ethereal electro – also dart away from obvious mainstream paths. BBT
38
Ethel Cain – Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You
It’s easy to see why US singer-songwriter Cain has become so adored. This album further sketches out the kind of storytelling universe that attracts footnote-writing fandoms: it’s a prequel to the events of her debut album Preacher’s Daughter, deepening the tale of Ethel and a cast of young peers as they fumble towards connection and understanding. Her moody, romantic slowcore is also perfect music for listening to on headphones as you walk around boring suburban streets wishing you could leave for bigger things. It’s also great for road trips: songs between five and 15 minutes that seem to make a long, slow blur of the pell-mell world outside. BBT
37
Olivia Dean – The Art of Loving
The British breakthrough of the year, as Dean – already doing decent business with her pleasant but rather neat debut Messy – reached a completely new level of songcraft. Bossa nova, folk and soul (classic and neo) are warmed together with beautiful production, evaporating any sense of pastiche to make a sound that’s both easy on the ear but distinctly Dean’s. Every song has a superb top line, Dean stretching them into loose jazzy shapes (Let Alone the One You Love, Lady Lady) or tightening them into brisk pop (Man I Need, Something Inbetween). But it’s the lyrics that make these songs so red-blooded: every stage of love, from the first flutter of flirtation to the adrenal shock of rejection, is made so true to life. BBT
36
Anna von Hausswolff – Iconoclasts
Anna von Hausswolff is no stranger to a monumental statement: her primary instrument is the pipe organ, a towering edifice of tin and arsenic that offers her an ever-renewing sense of awe. But the Swedish composer’s sixth album goes bigger than ever, grappling with mortality, transcendence and evil in a series of stormy epics that also lash a little pop structure to her prow. “Oh, I’m breaking up with language / Oh, in search of something bigger than this,” she screams on Stardust, an exhilarating co-pilot on the path to absolution. LS
35
Bon Iver – Sable, Fable
If, as Justin Vernon recently suggested, this is the last ever Bon Iver album, it’s a beautiful redemption arc: a loving send-up of his anxious, myopic sad-sack self blossoms into a radiant appreciation of possibility, sensuality, risk. Everything Is Peaceful Love has one of the year’s best refrains: “Damn if I’m not climbing up a tree right now!”, giddy with thrill and absolutely no idea of what to do when you get up there other than enjoy the view. And while there are gorgeously passionate songs here, it’s the ones about gracefully letting go of an unviable love that really underscore the admirable humility in Vernon’s bowing out. LS
34
Snocaps – Snocaps
Katie Crutchfield’s full-throated transformation into country doyenne on her last couple of albums as Waxahatchee almost makes it easy to forget her indie-rock origins. Fourteen years since she and twin sister Allison wound down their teen band PS Eliot, the DIY stalwarts got back together – with a little help from MJ Lenderman and producer Brad Cook – and went back to brass tacks for their surprise album as Snocaps. What a treat it was: full of punchy indignation – “I could never just … coast!” they exclaim on Coast – crunchy ruminations and sing-songy contemplations of what it means to depend on and grow alongside one another. You’d follow them anywhere. LS
33
Amaarae – Black Star
We all need an Amaarae in our lives: the person who, when you weakly protest that you’re a bit tired to go out, will soon have you holding a bottle of decanted rum in the back of an Uber, while alongside you she looks quizzically at a series of resealable plastic bags. “Ketamine, coke and molly,” she chants on Starkilla; “I spiked this drink so please open your mouth,” she tells her lover on Fineshyt. And this club-ready album from the irrepressible Ghanaian-American pop star ends up being a sensual body high, as she chases sex and glamour into the ends of the night. BBT
32
Perfume Genius – Glory
With typical grace and humour Mike Hadreas sends up his self-defeating tendencies on his seventh album, and wonders how old you have to be to escape those lifelong patterns: like the contradiction of struggling to face the world while also fantasising about violence and romanticising “all the poems I’ll get out” of it. It feels apt that Glory starts with the western twang of It’s a Mirror, suggesting a fixed, brawny masculine archetype – then breaks it down over the course of the record, a gothic, celestial voyage into the interior, and the latest addition to a uniquely beautiful American songbook. LS
31
Horsegirl – Phonetics On and On
Spindly rock à la the Velvets and the Raincoats is as spartan in its constituent parts as it is high on reward, and Chicago trio Horsegirl demonstrated the inexhaustible pleasures of this 60-year-old form on their second album. With production from Cate Le Bon, they wove magic from just a few thrumming guitar and bass notes and Nora Cheng’s nonchalant, near-spoken vocals, as well as a knack for melodic hooks as finely turned as intricate woodwork: the bittersweet, skipping chorus of Information Content is an all-timer. LS
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Oklou – Choke Enough
Trance, medieval polyphony and Y2K pop may seem like odd bedfellows, but French singer-producer Oklou cast them all in a dawn-like haze on her gorgeous debut album, flowing these distinct disciplines together until they swooped and soared like a flock of starlings. Choke Enough was no academic exercise, either, with standout pop moments including Take Me By the Hand with Bladee – a winsome conjuring of how Alice Deejay might sound in collaboration with a piping minstrel. LS
29
Jacob Alon – In Limerence
One of the star-making moments of the year was at the Mercury prize, as Scottish singer-songwriter Jacob Alon reduced the arena audience to a hush with just a voice and an acoustic guitar (though there were delighted whoops when a call of “free Palestine” was folded into their rendition of Fairy in a Bottle). It hopefully brought a broader audience to their debut album In Limerence, which has shades of Adrianne Lenker, Jeff Buckley and even Paul McCartney’s cadences to its unguarded indie-folk. It would have been easy to make this music blandly beautiful, but Alon and producer Dan Carey keep it rustling with life, as they reach for a burbling synth, trumpet improvisation or dusty-sounding drum kit. BBT
28
KeiyaA – Hooke’s Law
The title of the Chicago producer’s second album references the law of physics that reflects how stretch is proportional to load, how a spring always bounces back when tested within its elastic limit. The whistlestop Hooke’s Law expands and contracts accordingly as KeiyaA’s trifles with loss and romantic disappointment find their embodiment in racing breakbeats and collagist chaos one minute, gorgeous, soul-weary stillness – as with the liquid Stupid Prizes – the next. Listening can feel like being pleasurably blitzed with sensation, with each repeat revealing new details: an invitation to submit to KeiyaA’s masterful grip. LS
27
Wet Leg – Moisturizer
In 2022 they released one of the 21st century’s biggest indie debuts, which scored a UK No 1 and Grammy and Brit awards. The pressure was there for the follow-up, but not only did it top the charts again and earn another couple of Grammy noms, it had even more swagger and heart. “You wanna fuck me, I know, most people do,” Rhian Teasdale shrugs on Mangetout, and she actively intimidates a lustful bloke on Catch These Fists – but much of the album is given over to her wonderment at falling in love. “I’ll be your Davina, I’m coming to get you … I’ll be your Shakira, whenever, wherever”, she sings: great new vows for millennial weddings. BBT
26
Wolf Alice – The Clearing
“English bands are so hesitant to ever admit ambition, but I am ambitious with this record,” Wolf Alice’s drummer Joel Amey said as The Clearing was announced – and sure enough, this was a huge step up and out for a band who were already one of British indie’s biggest. There’s something symphonic about the heft of it and not just because of the string sections, thanks to superb production by Greg Kurstin: the bass and toms are heavy yet warm, the piano pounding yet not overbearing. Ellie Rowsell sings about suitably big themes, too, from universe-bending love on Leaning Against the Wall (“it really, really made the room sing, the way you said my name”), invaluable friendship on Just Two Girls, and The Sofa’s uplifting manifesto for being wild and indolent instead of toeing the line. BBT
25
Wednesday – Bleeds
The North Carolina band’s sixth album is littered with endings, some violent – the title of Carolina Murder Suicide tells you all you need to know – some devastatingly mundane, as Karly Hartzman examined the cracks that led to a long relationship’s end. Her unique gaze unites both, noticing the details and dynamics that other songwriters might write off as inconsequential: like the “mounted antlers in the kitchen on a crooked nail” at a wake in Wound Up Here (By Holdin On). Full of screaming noise and riffs that evoke knee-sliding through the mud, as well as moments of unexpected sweetness, Bleeds shows the fullest picture of her band yet. LS
24
Titanic – Hagen
There can be few faster-evolving ensembles than that of Mabe Fratti and Hector Tosta, who in just two albums have leapt from sparkling cabaret jazz to … whatever the uncontainable euphoria of Hagen is. It’s a record that vaults from blast beats to choral beauty, eerie splendour to nervy cacophonies, like nothing else you’ve heard. Despite these bold stylistic clashes, it hangs together beautifully, thanks also to Fratti’s spectacular voice, as capable of cirrus-like delicacy as parched sharpness. LS
23
Cate Le Bon – Michelangelo Dying
Where two of this year’s most prominent breakup albums were savage (Lily Allen) or spectacular (Rosalía), Welsh innovator Cate Le Bon’s hypnotically murky seventh album reflected the circular sadness of love faltering – the catch-22 of wanting to escape heartbreak while knowing that letting go means relinquishing something that was once profound. Michelangelo Dying contains some of her very best choruses and melodies, powerful enough to penetrate the album’s billowing haze of guitar, sax and synths, like a hand reaching out in the dark. LS
22
Little Simz – Lotus
Simz’s sixth album came amid a dispute with the Sault producer Inflo – she has sued him for allegedly failing to repay a loan – and a couple of tracks target him in all but name (“You talk about God when you have a God complex / I think you’re the one that needs saving”). But Simz seems to be having a wider reckoning: she revels in how far she’s come from once just having “a dream and a pushbike”, and reflects on self-preservation, creative frustration and – in a gorgeous, naturalistic back-and-forth with Wretch 32 – push-pull family dynamics. BBT
21
John Glacier – Like a Ribbon
For all that you can link her to trip-hop and cloud rap, what British MC has ever really sounded like this? It would be easy to call Glacier monotone, but in truth her careful, even flow holds so much musicality: her deliberately limited melodic and rhythmic range means that the subtle distinctions in her vocals are fascinating, as she goes from bored to wry to boastful to poignant within one-degree turns on the emotional thermostat. The grainy, faintly corrupted beats are superb, but it’s that delivery, and her lyrics themselves – stoic and even amused as life blows her from place to place – which make this album an all-timer in UK rap. BBT
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Aya – Hexed!
A series of surreal vignettes confronting addiction, panic and the challenges of growing up queer, Aya Sinclair’s experimental electronic masterwork is a wind-whipped dash around the towns and moors of Yorkshire and Greater Manchester. From the rotor blade-whomp of Peach to the infernal pattering snares on Navel Gazer, her sound design hits you like a ton of feathers: a surreal, destabilising flurry of detail. And the lyrics, done as careful mutters or sarky sing-song, are world-class. Her poetry revels in multiple meanings – is she saying “Flemish” or “phlegmish”? – and in the plasticity of language, rhyme and even lived experience, whether retelling a toxic relationship (“Couple rows so we could pop our cysts / as though the pus’d bust right out of the tryst”) or evoking the feeling of being totally cut adrift: “Abseil away another day supine inside the bag.” BBT
19
Clipse – Let God Sort Em Out
They may have been outdone by Oasis as 2025’s most anticipated fraternal comeback, but there was still considerable excitement around the return of Gene and Terrence Thornton, AKA Clipse’s Malice and Pusha T. After making two of the best albums in 00s rap, Malice found God and left Pusha to it. But on returning, Malice’s mic tone – which always had a sort of ancient, oaken majesty to it – felt rich with wisdom, while Pusha, who in the interim had beefed Drake to hugely entertaining effect, still had his nose for a scrap, this time with Travis Scott. Together, they advocated for their own brilliance and for what they see as a better class of rap, sometimes at the same time: “They content-create, I despise that / I create content then they tries that.” BBT
18
Big Thief – Double Infinity
After their bassist Max Oleartchik left the group, Big Thief pressed on as a trio but brought in a number of auxiliary musicians, resulting in an album that sounds like it could have been worked up around the campfire of a utopian off-grid commune. These are some of the American band’s best, biggest-hearted songs to date, with the type of easy facility with melody – and equally easy access to their emotions – that can’t be taught. Take Grandmother, in which frontperson Adrianne Lenker surveys our collapsing world and flawed humanity, and decides on the singalong chorus: “Gonna turn it all into rock’n’roll.” In many other hands this would be trite, but as with so much of Big Thief’s music, the purity of intention makes it life-affirming. BBT
17
Alex G – Headlights
What constitutes integrity? Working for love or money? Freedom or obligation to others? On his first album for a major label, standing at a new frontier of success, Alex G weighs these existential questions in appropriately vast, beautiful indie-rock epics, some breathless with anxiety (Spinning), others sardonic (Real Thing) or severe (Headlights). Despite the very contemporary, very Alex G touches – take the sprite-like voices and distortion of Bounce Boy – there’s a comforting solidity to this record that makes it feel as though it’s existed for ever, sharing the same spooked twilight as the best of Yo La Tengo and REM. LS
16
Pulp – More
The anticipation of a reunion album rarely measures up to the often dismal results. Perhaps the key is to spend a solid chunk of years playing together again, as Pulp did, before risking putting anything down on record. “I exist to do this / Shouting and pointing,” Jarvis Cocker sang on comeback single Spike Island; anyone who’s seen Pulp in recent years can attest that he has lost none of his calligraphic physical flair. Nor, as the magnificent More proves, has his gimlet eye for the grubby disappointments of middle age diminished. Life apparently feels no less of a charade at 62 than early adulthood did back in the 90s, a fact he sells as both anticlimax and a weird kind of comfort: if that’s the case, the unvarnished love songs and heartfelt stands against commodification suggested, you might as well stick it all on the line. LS
15
Turnstile – Never Enough
Is it hardcore punk or not? As this dull debate brewed on comment sections and Discord servers, the rest of the world got on with the business of just enjoying the uncomplicated thrills on Turnstile’s latest. Certainly, Seein’ Stars sounds like 90s Duran Duran, the epic title track could be played as NFL teams run on to the field and even the hardcore-paced Dull and Solo have a sheen to them. But for every frowning punk purist, you had 10 more lining up to pile into the pit with smiles a mile wide. BBT
14
Deftones – Private Music
This was the US alt-metallers’ first album back after serendipitously getting a huge new following via TikTok, particularly for their sweeter, shoegazier material. But rather than court that audience by cynically remaking Sextape 11 times over, they instead created a balletic cyborg of a record. The riffs could put a dent in concrete masonry, but the groove-metal rhythms are light-footed and, as ever, vocalist Chino Moreno sets out even wider tonal possibilities. It’s as if waves of pain and relief pass across his spirit as he goes from dry croaks to thunderous denouncements to blissful clean singing. BBT
13
Suede – Antidepressants
Three decades since their debut and five albums into the second phase of their career, Suede sound as impassioned and vital as they ever have. Brett Anderson’s voice is a long way from the nasal sneer of Animal Nitrate all those years ago: it’s now rounder and deeper in colour, reminiscent of Echo and the Bunnymen’s Ian McCulloch, but the core Suede theme – humanity in all its reckless and sexy brokenness – is still there. Playing post-punk with a Britpop grandeur, Anderson and co reckon with the fleeting nature of existence (“Formless as a cloud / Weightless as a sound”) and the caprices of brain chemistry, but with a sense of optimism, even triumph. BBT
12
Jim Legxacy – Black British Music (2025)
His previous mixtape Homeless N*gga Pop Music was at No 42 in our 2023 albums list; rapper-producer Jim Legxacy jumps up the rankings as his place in British rap becomes more and more assured. Beats-wise, he defines the joyous anything-goes energy of the current UK underground, expertly applying chipmunk effects to samples, adding funny DJ-style vocal tags (“turn that mediocre bullshit off, we’re listening to Jim Legxacy right now!”) and even making a left turn into high-tempo pop-rock for ’06 Wayne Rooney. There’s more of a mournful cast to the lyrics though, as he works through grief for his late sister, and confronts the lingering effects of his impoverished, fatherless childhood. BBT
11
Jade – That’s Showbiz Baby!
Pop’s trickiest manoeuvre is crossing the divide from successful group to solo career. After departing Little Mix, Jade Thirlwall didn’t so much jump it as pirouette across: her multi-part debut solo single Angel of My Dreams was completely nuts, impossible to ignore and spent 20 weeks on the UK chart. Could a whole album match up? From trashy ballroom house (It Girl) to disco-funk (Fantasy, Headache), Robyn-esque sad bangers (Plastic Box, Self Saboteur) and waltz-time ballads (Natural at Disaster), she certainly has the range, not to mention smart and sweary lyrics – rhyming Edward Enninful with experimental is a neat encapsulation of what moves her. It’s her voice that really sets it all apart, though: as you’d expect of a talent show graduate turned longtime pop star, it remains stunning on a technical level, but Thirlwall also brings a whole West End musical’s worth of emotion. BBT
10-6
10
Billy Woods – Golliwog
“The English language is violence, I hot-wired it / I got a hold of the master’s tools and got dialled in,” Billy Woods announces at the outset of a rap masterpiece that works both as stunning poetry on the page and thrilling music out of loudspeakers. With intensely vivid lyrics, he picks his way through psychic wreckage wrought by racism, poverty, war and more, menaced by horrible dreams (“Didn’t want the doctor to turn, I knew it’d be something awful on the ultrasound”) and dispensing jaded wisdom: “Amputation how you survive / Can’t get away if you don’t leave something behind.” And then there’s Misery, a vivid romcom about a polyamorous and possibly vampiric lover. Frantz Fanon, Cecil Rhodes, Miles Davis and “Black Thanos” are among the other figures populating these strange, heat-sick tracks, helmed by a diverse and stellar range of production talent including the Alchemist, DJ Haram and Kenny Segal. BBT
9
Geese – Getting Killed
The ways that love unravels us and knits us back together are explored on the outrageously accomplished and wise fourth album from the New York garage rock band, who are still in their early 20s. They originally formed as kids at a Brooklyn music school which partly explains the depth of their connection, but there’s something bigger at work: how to explain the way a tiny chord change can carry so much emotional weight, or how these songs can groove so tightly at the waist while their arms flail this way and that. Cameron Winter’s lyrics and vocals are peerless, too, done in a reedy head voice that’s also somehow soulful. He’s trying to live his life on a higher frequency than the rest of us, but so often he’s having his heart broken, “getting killed by a pretty good life”, or hemmed in by his circumstances: “I was a sailor, and now I’m a boat / I was a car, and now I’m the road,” he glumly pouts on Bow Down. BBT
8
Bad Bunny – Debí Tirar Más Fotos
With the absolute integrity that has become his trademark, Bad Bunny shone his inestimable spotlight back on his roots in Puerto Rico for his sixth album, singing of sacrifice, colonial oppression and the importance of preserving tradition. He’s an incredible conduit, synthesising the past – salsa, bolero, perreo – with the present, bringing local artists including RaiNao and Lorén Aldarondo along for the ride. As if it needed stressing, Debí … also underscored his own legacy, and his incredible range: heartbroken that life must one day end on Baile Inolvidable; lovelorn in the rave on Perfumito Nuevo; seemingly cast in moonlight on the heavy Bokete. LS
7
Lily Allen – West End Girl
Lily Allen’s divorce album is so lurid in its apparent disclosures (she has said she employed some poetic licence) that it felt as though there was a risk of the carcass being tossed aside once the tabloids had picked it clean for gossip. But the quality of the songwriting and silvery electronic production, as well as the tangibility of Allen’s hurt and her ability to mint viral bits in “who the fuck is Madeleine” and Nonmonogamummy, gave West End Girl not just staying power but a place in the pantheon of great breakup albums. Standout Pussy Palace turned the grottiest of reveals into a kind of cosmic reverie that seems to suggest the elemental rearrangement of life as she knew it; the guttingly powerful Relapse, about the sober musician’s fear of losing her grip after her relationship breakdown, highlighted the temptation of oblivion in numbed-out vocoder. It lands light as icing sugar but lingers deadly as toothache. LS
6
PinkPantheress – Fancy That
True to her form for writing the shortest songs in the biz, in just 20 minutes and 34 seconds, PinkPantheress vaults from weed highs to romantic lows, obsessive crushes to gripping paranoia, seduction to confrontation. (“The status cheque is due / So do I still belong to you?” from Nice to Know You, is a classic bluff call.) The music of Fancy That is just as much of a slip’n’slide through British club culture at its most playful and dazzling, from jungle to UKG and the big-tent joys of Underworld, Basement Jaxx and even the hyper-cheesy Just Jack, samples she deploys expertly, and all threaded together by her pointedly sugary voice. It’s a breathless ride, and PinkPantheress’s best case yet for her micro melodramas: why dither when you can pack this much into so little? LS
No 5 coming soon
Come back tomorrow for the next 10 albums in the countdown! Comments will be open on weekdays from 2-5pm GMT
English (US)