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As spring dawns and the festival season arrives, join Live4ever as we look back at some of the albums and tracks which have been rocking our world during the first half of 2025.
10: Ezra Furman – Power Of The Moon
9: Parastatic – Tear It Down
8: Heavy Lungs – Yes Chef
7: Superlate – Better Than You
6: For Those I Love – Of The Sorrows
5: Divorce – Hangman
4: Welly – It’s Not Like This In France
3: VLURE – Better Days
2: Turbo Diesel – Sweat It
1: Isaiah Hull – A IS FOR AFRICA
10: Anna B Savage – You And I Are Earth
Anna B Savage has followed everything, not only her heart, and embraced a new life as much, much more than the same clothes in a different wardrobe. A window onto her happiness we should open, You And i Are Earth wonderfully celebrates both the soil and the soul.
9: Car Seat Headrest – The Scholars
Re-emerging after a tumultuous few years which resulted in a ‘spiritual rebirth’ for Will Toledo, the college campus at Parnassus University was the fictional setting for The Scholars, an expertly disciplined, perfectly realised concept album.
8: Emma-Jean Thackray – Weirdo
Ostensibly seen as a modern jazz powerhouse, on Weirdo Emma-Jean Thackray has explored a variety of genres to confront the immense grief of her partner’s passing in 2023 and create an undeniably powerful piece of music which she’s credited with, ‘saving my life’.
7: Bartees Strange – Horror
You don’t have to be a psychologist to work out that fear produces different responses in different people. On Horror, Bartees Strange reveals himself as afraid of himself, but also of being afraid of no longer being afraid. Not having a reflection in the mirror seems to suit him.
6: bdrmm – Microtonic
Microtonic closes with The Noose, a resigned draw of breath as bdrmm view the world around them with the weight of it on their shoulders, yet the smattering of uplifting keys convey a modicum of hope of better times to come.
5: Snapped Ankles – Hard Times Furious Dancing
Nor does Hard Times Furious Dancing sound much like The Fall (think instead of a more charged Das Koolies or I Like Trains), but there the promise of liberation through dancing is always hard to resist, as are the album’s fascinating sub plots.
4: Doves – Constellations For The Lonely
As with all Doves albums, Constellations For The Lonely reveals something new on each listen, but the overwhelming message is that this is a band strengthened and emboldened by hardship, ready to face the world, as ever, on their own terms.
3: Sam Akpro – Evenfall
There’s intent evident, even if Sam Akpro lacks the ego to determine it as ambition. Moreover, this is a record anchored in the South London communities he’s called home, especially the now hipsterfied borough of Peckham.
2: Billy Nomates – Metalhorse
The punky grit remains, grounding even the album’s grandest moments in something real. Equal parts fist-pumping and tear-jerking, Metalhorse is Billy Nomates’ most expansive and confident work yet. A triumph over adversity, she hasn’t just survived the carnival, she has become its star act.
1: Benefits – Constant Noise
Such a stylistic turnaround shows a prodigious talent at work, and while Benefits had mastered textbook anger, their ability to channel it into something deeply moving and musically experimental while retaining their essence makes Constant Noise an essential listen.