On replay: Our favourite albums of 2025

Sarah Ruiz: Ryan Castro, SENDÉ 

Ryan Castro’s SENDÉ is a Caribbean love letter to his roots and my personal favourite album of the year. Throughout the project, he authentically blends reggae, dancehall, afrobeats and reggaeton into a vibrant kaleidoscope of sounds. The album also serves as an ode to his heritage in Curaçao, a tribute paid through his lyrics, musicality, and thoughtful collaborations. The song “BOMBASTIK<3”  was my ultimate favourite and was a high-energy collaboration with Blaiz Fiyah and Tribal Kush. This year also marked Castro’s first major headline world tour, the “SENDÉ World Tour.” I was fortunate enough to be invited, and it was my favourite concert of the year. He brought the Caribbean vibes to every city and had backup dancers to further bring the SENDÉ theme to life. Castro’s evolution is evident sonically and visually, fueled by a meaningful reconnection with his mother during the creative process. If you’re ready for a journey through the sounds of the Caribbean, this project is as much for you as it was for me.

Eric Mura: Greg Freeman, Burnover

In a year that saw the influence of alt country take center stage in the American indie music scene, with the rise and proliferation of acts like MJ Lenderman and his work with groups like Wednesday and The Snocaps (a collaboration with Waxahatchee and her sister Alison Crutchfield) the real standout came not out of North Carolina or Alabama, but from 1,000 miles north in Burlington, Vermont. This year, Greg Freeman followed up his 2022 debut, I Looked Ou,t with a 10-track skipless album that pushed the boundaries of mainstream sound with his warbling voice and big band sound. Burnover is a steam-powered album with lyrics that overlay fire and ice one after another until the resulting pressure bursts forth in explosive avalanching crescendos. Many of the songs sing of feverish love that now sits broken in the winter snow.

Freeman prescribes for the heartache either a running appointment with your bartender, smashing the windows out of cars lining the street, or burning the furniture to keep the darkness away. The images he conveys through his thickly poetic lyrics are at once beautiful and haunting. If his lyrics are what keep you listening, is a sound that entices you to invite him in. His voice carries what sounds like a traditional country twang, singing from his nose and the back of his throat, but instead of letting his voice round out the sounds like Hank Williams would, he lets it rattle and shake around his throat. The effect is a unique, almost keening sound that lacks much predictability but keeps you hanging onto each word. His band creates an enormous sound that nearly teleports you to a barn house stage. He replaces the traditional reliance on the slide guitar with layers of horns, strings, and keys. Each song carries a familiarity of the genre it represents, but at each place Freeman and his band could find to deviate, they did. Bonus points from me as they reported that they recorded some of the tracks live as a band, and that has to be my favourite recording style on the planet. 

Danyyil Nosovskiy: ROSALÍA, LUX

LUX feels like the work of an artist fully in control of her direction. ROSALÍA embraces restraint, using space, careful phrasing and melody.  whether she is singing in Spanish, Catalan, Ukrainian or English to shape each song rather than relying on excess. The album moves deliberately, incorporating flamenco influences into modern production without overdoing it. What makes LUX my album of the year is its quiet confidence: it never demands attention, but it holds it. The more time you spend with the record, the more it reveals, proving that artistic growth does not need volume to make an impact.

Danyyil Mosovskiy: Machine Gun Kelly, Lost Americana

With Lost Americana, MGK delivers his most grounded and emotionally direct record to date. The album feels lived-in, shaped by memory rather than momentum, and it leans into storytelling with a clarity that has often been missing from his work. There’s a worn, reflective quality about youth, regret, and the search for belonging that’s a common theme in all the tracks. And it feels honest rather than performative. What sets Lost Americana apart is its sense of place and purpose, capturing an artist embracing where he’s been and choosing vulnerability over volume.

Niall Fitzgeral: Jim Legxacy, black british music

Released in July on XL (Legxacy’s debut for the label after years of honing his reputation in the London underground scene), black british music puts Legxacy firmly on the map as a leader of the next generation of rap and hip hop voices not only in the UK, but across the globe. Several tracks (“Stick”, “Father”, “06 Wayne Rooney”, “I Just banged a snus in Canada Water”) already sound like classics, toeing the line between contemporary chaos and a classic rap feel. Black british music manages to feel both extremely relevant and of the moment while also having a tinge of nostalgia throughout. The hype man doing the intros to tracks reminds of a bygone era of downloading mixtapes off of DatPiff, and the whole record has an element of taking the best of the past and pushing things forward. Legxacy has a pretty yet gritty voice. He utilises incredible samples. One could envision hearing the tracks in the grime of a basement party just as well as on the terraces of a football ground, and it would make total sense in both contexts. Incredible ad-libs throughout. black british music will continue to grow in stature as the rest of the 2020s roll by, but it already feels like an instant classic.

Kateryna Topol, Romain Garcia, EURÊKA!

Another signature sound release from Anjunadeep, Romain Garcia’s EURÊKA! works well from day to night, much like the infamous Millennial office-friendly club outfit, except tonight we’ll opt for a much more comfortable shoe. The album is a journey through Romain’s transformative breakthrough summer, and as far as debut albums go, this one tells a cohesive story hard to find a fault in. The sound is reminiscent to that of Ben Böhmer and Tinlicker, perfect as summer soundtracks (“Lost in Bisca,” “Next To You“) sprinkled with songs that will heat up a late-night dancefloor in euphoria-induced morning (“Eurêka!,” “Heya“).