And on we went, part three of the 2025 album round and the next batch of the pick of the year. A year when it was rather difficult to keep it down to 43 like we did last year, it has been a rather good year for music, albums and indeed gigs. We were debating for ages but really, once you get past the first twenty does it really matter what order it all comes in? These are just the best albums we heard this year and once we get to number 26 they are almost in no particular order….
The links will take you to the full reviews, the music and the details…
26: Rëlisp – Warthåk (Noizu Collective) – They sound like a box of wasps on extra strong orange juice, actually they sound like hyper Magma if there can be such a thing as a hyper version of Magma. They say this is an EP, it is something like twenty-eight minutes long and it feels like a hell of a lot more than the nearly half hour it actually is. This is relentlessly busy music! This is brilliant, this is a fully grown very big album. – Mexico’s Rëlisp and their massive thing that is Warthåk…
27: Agriculture – The Spiritual Sound (The Flenser) – Now this is a positively violent album. Agriculture call themselves an ecstatic Black Metal band, they come from Los Angeles, they are a whirlwind of screaming noise and speed metal, thing is, they’re not like all the others – the spiritual sound of Agriculture…
28: Drill for Absentee – Strand Of A Lake, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (Expert Work) – U.S Post Hardcore Math Rock legends Drill For Absentee are back with a challenging new album, hear the whole thing exclusively here ahead of release…
29: Dead Pioneers – Post American (Hassle Records) – Dead Pioneers bite again, a second album released today and a proper properly good activist punk rock record from a band who properly matter, oh and by the way, they make damn fine music as well…
30: Witness Wounds (P/O Massacre + Tomorrow I Feel Wrong) – Witness Wounds (Arsenic Solaris) – This is one you really need to explore without any ideas in terms of who they are and what they’re doing, just go in there with no prior knowledge or proffered opinion, don’t read this review, just go straight in there, play it loud and give it your full attention, you can only listen to this for the first time once, full attention is needed… Witness Wounds and a whole load of intensely claustrophobic extreme art of noise collaborations with P/O Massacre and Tomorrow I Feel Wrong, things that you really need to listen to first before you read about any it…
31: Hawkwind – Live At The Royal Albert Hall 3CD/3LP (Cherry Red) – The new Hawkwind triple album Live At The Royal Albert Hall just landed, do we need another Hawkwind live album? Here’s our take on it…
32: Clipping – Dead Channel Sky (Sub Pop) – Clipping have always been thrilling, there’s always been a dark edge to it all, those flashes forward, it really is dystopian, even those ice blue coloured tennis shoes sound dystopian, it does sound like Science Fiction this time, Science Fiction crossroads, is it easier on the ear this time? Codes and key cracked? Hip hop science fiction concept album, how prog rock of them… Clipping and that vital thing they do…
33: Michael Woodman – Hiss of Today (Beliver’s Roast) – …an album that goes on in that beautifully dramatic gloriously detailed way all things Thumpermonkey flavoured do. Once again this is an album that creeps up on you, that takes it own time to let you know just how good it actually is –a bit more Michael Woodman…
34: Public Enemy – Black Sky Over The Projects: Apartment 2025 (Enemy Records) – an album they put out backin the Summer, intially as a free thing for those who were paying attention. It was raw in terms of production but look beyond that, they are still angry, they still bite – Grab your clocks, get on this, without any kind of warning Public Enemy just took a whole load of bites out of a whole lot of things with a strong new album, grab it quickly while you can pay whatever the hell you want…
35: Lost Crowns – The Heart Is In The Body (Believer’s Roast) – Lost Crowns are at times very very (very) English, mostly they are delightful, sometimes rather powerful. In terms of the music, in terms of the constant changing of key and time, it is all very maximalist, you might even say super maximalist, it sound easy though, I mean this is seriously hard-boiled difficult composition it does flow easily – Lost Crowns
36: Nick Prol & The Proletarians – An Erstwisle Alphabestiary: Book Two – ORGAN: Nick Prol & The Proletarians and more of those strange beast of Erstwisle, that and some rather wonderful blending of the catchiness of pop with the experimental sounds of avant-prog…
37: Junior Brother – The End (Strap Originals) – I guess we could just stick Junior Brother over there is some kind of convenient catch all folk music box while we consider the days and days and days and the idea there isn’t really a weekend? It would be easy to just say he’s an Irish folk artist and leave it over there but that really would be lazy and it would miss the point of what he continues to do in such a compelling way – the blends of Junior Brother and…
38: NYOS – Growl (Pelagic Records) – Nyos have a dense twinkle to them, post rock mathy rhythms, that, knowingly or not feel positively African in bright alive king of way – Nyos; two people just working together so so well, joyous without ever being close to overbearing, just brightly alive music…
39: Elliott Galvin – The Ruin (Gearbox Records) – …and I really don’t like talking of them just in terms of tracks, each one is a piece of art, each one in the right place on the wall in this exhibition of an album, each one connecting with next via Elliot Galvin’s own finger print; Elliot Galvin’s new album is something that really needs investigating properly…
40: Lana Del Rabies – Omnipotent Fuck – (Phage Tapes/Feral Clone) – And it does possess, it does demand go you with it, with her, or it dares you to? It does both sound and feel demonic, or encasing, something that you could get lost in. And it does demand you play it loud, you give it full commitment, you fill the room with her and that you don’t ask where she’s going (or is she doing the asking?). This is a recording, a piece of art, that drips with dark atmosphere – And so Sam An, aka Lana Del Rabies started her own label, Feral Crone, uncaged an Ash Barrett album and followed it with her own Omnipotent thing…
41: Frankie and the Witch Fingers – Trash Classic (The Reverberation Appreciation Society / Greenway Records) – Frankie and The Witch Fingers are one of the vital bands right now, both live and in a recorded state. They released another of their raw urgent new wave space rock flavoured post punk album, a mutation some said, mutant said others. Here’s a couple of Organ pieces from this year, as we discover we never did review the latest album – They are one of the best live bands out there, they make excellent albums, they have a new album out any moment now, they are Frankie And The Witch Fingers… and Frankie And The Witch Fingers heat things up in East London, that locked-on new wave bite of theirs, that urgent fizz that follows the anticipation…
42: Osmium – Osmium (Invada) – …let us let the art itself do the talking. all of it rather intense, it does sound industrial, not the cliched version of industrial, not a bunch of black-clad goths hitting machines, this is something far deeper than that, these are the sounds of industry or machines or machines as ritual. their pieces of art move in a mechanical way, it a ritualistic almost tribal way, a dark way, if these are words rather than human sounds, then they are kind of lost in the depth of it; Experimental supergroup Hildur Guðnadóttir, Rully Shabara (Senyawa), James Ginzburg (Emptyset/Ginz) and Sam Slater release their debut…
43: I’m Being Good – Shapeshitter (Infinite Chug) – Never as unhinged as a first listen would have you think, there’s some complex things going on here, abstract things, beautiful things, moody things, sometimes a little darker that previous times maybe? A waking memory of a Wim Wenders film where Dennis Hopper and Bruno Ganz form an unlikely friendship maybe, and that bit there, kind of sounds like there’s a stealth-like shark approaching – I’m Being Good…
44: The Residents – Doctor Dark (Cherry Red) – A first listen to the new album from The Residents, Doctor Dark has landed and it certainly is classic Residents. She just shouted from the other room “this sounds amazing”, she is right, it is rather amazing, amazingly theatrical, it is rather epic…
45: National Diet – The King in Yellow – On their new album, Portland’s National Diet have evolved into that rare thing, a properly progressive prog rock band, a band who want to genuinely challenge…
46: Apparitions – Volcanic Reality (Deathbomb Arc) – and what can possibly be said about experimental drone metal trio Apparitions? They haven’t thrown off that need to be a little different and the mountainous drones, the beautiful feedback, the powerful drums, and throbbing synth machines and the sound of a Convulsing Earth are all there, it feels more claustrophobic this time…
47: Rattle – Encircle (Upset The Rhythm) – double-drum duo Rattle have a new album, Encircle more that delivers in terms of those rather unique experiments in rhythm… and they were rather good live this year as well – Breathtaking songs from Quinie, while Rattle are reaching back down a thousand generations to something primal. Day one of Upset The Rhythm’s birthday party at London’s Cafe Oto…
48: Maria Iskariot – Wereldwaan (self-release) – Every single thing about this album (with the possible exception of the cover art, don’t judge the book by the cover) is brilliant! This is just what we need! And yes, there is a every chance that there will be a need for more exclaiming in this review! I have no idea what they’re shouting about but I instinctively know they’re right, they’re singing in Dutch and… – Maria Iskariot’s properly brilliant punk rock energy…
50: North Sea Radio Orchestra – Special Powers (Believer’s Roast) – Another rather delightful blend of the almost quirky and the almost classical, once again all very English, timelessly so, or maybe they are of a very specific time and place… a new album from North Sea Radio Orchestra
51: Kev Hopper – XiX (Dimple Discs) – Kev Hopper, he of Stump and such, Kev Hopper; painter, experimental music maker, I almost said his paintings are a little more traditional than the music he makes but then again maybe not? Kev Hopper has a new album…
52: Gelbart – Liquid & Flesh (Egglike Records) – From Berlin and an album featuring music composed, played and mixed by musician, film maker and visual artist Adi Gelbart. Space age pop? Nu Jazz? – Gelbart, this time he’s all about dystopian bunnies, opening portals, and getting people to just sit down and listen which really is no bad thing…
53: Ger Eaton – Season Changes (Dimple Discs) – And not just for that absolutely gorgeous title track that touches on Nick Drake and hints at a psychedelic almost prog rock undercurrent that you really need to hear…. this debut solo album isn’t a one trick pony by any means, don’t let me give you that idea; Hollow is a lush piece of lounge flavoured warmth and the rich beauty of The Time it Takes to Fall is something that would stand out on any album by The Divine Comedy – Ger Eaton’s Season Changes.
54: Friendly Rich – The Birds of Marsville (We Are Busy Bodies) – Is that wood pigeon actually on the record or is it up in the tree outside? – “I hope you enjoy this weird and wonderful record!” said whoever sent this in and yes those are two of the key words here, this is both a weird and a wonderful record. It isn’t fairground music or cartoon music, there are flavours but there’s far far more going on that that and anyway, nothing is ever as obvious as – …and this weird and wonderful record from Friendly Rich…
55: Chimehours – Underneath the Earth (Cold Spring) – Underneath the Earth is full of earthly treasure, it glows, it is a walk in the woods, calming, captivating, gloriously alive. a lazy list? Well think Kate Bush, think Cocteau Twins, think Oroonies, think deep ecology Webcore and that Captain’s Table, with that feeling, that spirit, that deep in the woods thing. Think leaves in trees, falling from trees, things glimpsed through them, yes thing folk music, pagan wealth and the woods alive with the smell of her coming… – The ethereal spiritual beauty of Chimehours…
56: Geese – Getting Killed (Partisan Records/Play It Again Sam) – there is a tenderness to their beautiful almost freeform chaos, there’s a warmth, a soul, they sound like they know, Geese are a knowing band, they’ve got ‘it’, Geese have soul as well as bombs, it isn’t anything new, it isn’t massively different, they just do it timelessly right and… some Geese…
57: Nick Cave & Warren Ellis – The Death Of Bunny Munro (Invada) – Nick Cave and Warren Ellis and The Death of Bunny Monroe soundtrack – a beautiful piece of almost sanguine work, without any consideration for the book or the TV series, just as the music, just as this body of music…
58: PsychoYogi – World of Danger – London’s PsychoYogi do a lot more than just count to four and play the same old chord….
59: Poptones– Pure (Happy Metal) – Danish experimental rock trio Poptones have a new album, none of Pure is obvious, this first proper dive in reveals a rather beautiful body of work. There’s an ambition here and yes, a boldness in terms of refined tone and scale…
60: Quinie – Forefowk, Mind Me (Upset The Rhythm) – We must admit it was her live performance that really won us over and made us pay proper attention to what turns out it be a rather remarkable album – Breathtaking songs from Quinie, while Rattle are reaching back down a thousand generations to something primal. Day one of Upset The Rhythm’s birthday party at London’s Cafe Oto…
Previously….
ORGAN: Our best albums of another very musically busy 2025. Who did we rate? Part One, 1 to 10…
The Next bit….
THE ORGAN 
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