Great albums that you might have missed this year

Little Simz - Lotus

It is a fool's errand to argue that West End Girl by Lilly Allen is only the second biggest break-up album of 2025 - then again stranger things will make it into copy for these end-of-year lists, so here it goes.

Little Simz’s record spilled the tea on the UK music scene in epic fashion, luridly detailing the fallout with her ex-producer, Inflo. There are further shots fired at the music industry for how it treats artists as well as her brother for his absence at home - the weight of stardom is laid bare in these raw, revealing songs that feel like a diary (yes, this level of vulnerability is the cultural zeitgeist in 2025).

Lotus is Simz’s first full-length release without Inflo on production. The struggle to release this record without the SAULT producer she’s known since they were teenagers makes for therapeutic-level sharing and brutal lyrics. The confessional Hollow: You told me be wary of the sharks and then you became one… What can anyone truly expect from a day one?... You're not for the culture, you're just for the cult.

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On the opening track Thief, she makes no bones about the accusations: Financial exploitation, emotional exploitation, calculated and conceited manipulation, you a Thief… Selling lies, selling dreams.

Little Simz is suing Inflo to the tune of £1.7million for unpaid loans some of which she alleges went towards financing the first SAULT live show in the Drumsheds, London back in December 2023. SAULT have been the secret darlings of the music scene in the UK for the last number of years; they subverted the industry by releasing multiple quality albums a year, with people only able to speculate on the musicians and artists that were involved.

While it does feel voyeuristic, there is much more musically to this album than industry gossip, settling scores and therapy-speak - Little Simz is top of her game with that blistering, unrivalled flow laying waste to her doubts.

Highlights: Lion, Free and the soaring Enough.

Bon Iver, SABLE fABLE

On his fifth studio album, the first in five years, Justin Vernon harks back to the acoustic minimalism of his 2008 breakthrough For Emma, For Ever on the first half SABLE, while then pushing his band Bon Iver forward into lush new musical territory on the second part entitled fABLE.

An album distinctly split in two, the word 'sable’ is about mourning and darkness, and it explores how Vernon became synonymous with charting heartbreak in his music. While fABLE, where his falsetto voice is matched with a richer palette of sounds, sees him embracing a greater maturity in romantic endeavours and breaking a cycle of sorrow he had become too attached to repeating.

There’s A Rhythm is one of the tracks of the year, and the best example of the band’s new direction with its R&B beat. The darling of American indie folk is documenting the infatuation of new love and the self-exploration needed to ground that magic back into the rhythms and realities of real life.

Listeners will delight in these songs, especially the most American of instruments, the pedal steel guitar that features on a couple of tracks.

Highlights: There’s A Rhythm, Awards Season, Speyside

Emma-Jean Thackery, Weirdo

This is the jazz cross-over record of the year with the much-deserved Mercury Prize nomination mainstreaming this album by multi-instrumentalist, Emma-Jean Thackery.

Over 19 tracks, we are thrown into a world of neurodivergence, loss and resilience in an adventurous exploration of the seams of jazz, funk and grunge that grounded Thackery in a creative quest that helped her process the tragic death of her partner. She played every instrument on this record herself, she sang vocals across all the songs, she produced it - and she did all this from her South London flat while in the throes of grief.

We are under no illusions as to what we’re in for with the 30-second opening track, as Emma-Jean sings on loop: There’s something wrong with your mind. Despite the tricky terrain navigated, we find an artist defiantly ebullient throughout these songs. She pairs humorous vocals with bouncing jazz-funk that captures someone clearly struggling but determined to find joy amongst her despair.

In terms of the live show, I went on a journey with this album. Supporting Kamasi Washington in the Olympia back in April, Emma-Jean tried to realise this bedroom-recorded project alone. Stood in front of a set of synths and keys at the corner of a huge stage, with a guitar slung over her shoulder and a trumpet she played regularly at her feet, it was just too much for one person to bring fully to life. When we saw the gig again in Sété in July at Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide Festival, with a full band this time, she was able to do justice to what is a remarkable artistic statement.

Highlights: Save Me, Black Hole, Maybe Nowhere

Durand Jones & the Indications, Flowers

Lover’s Holiday was the song that brought me to Durand Jones & the Indications. That song soundtracked summer festivals in a certain soul-influenced sphere of the music world, and for me this album instantly transports me back to warm summer evenings spent in the garden earlier this year. 2025 was a summer for the ages, don’t forget, and Flowers is full of allusions to nature and slowing down enough to take stock of our own growth.

From start-to-finish, the album is packed with blissful 1970s vintage-sounding soul music. Full productions, with groove-laden hooks layered over gospel-esque vocals, that leave a shimmering afterglow with every listen.

The trio of Durand Jones, Aaron Frazer and Blake Rhein have produced a complete mood-enhancer of a record, and like flowers towards the sun, we lean into this music whenever we need musical sustenance.

Highlights: Flower Moon, Been so Long, Lover’s Holiday

Zé Ibarra, AFIM

The thriving Brazilian immigrant community in Ireland means that we are spoiled for gigs from one of the richest musical cultures in the world, the mecca of Latin American music. It only takes an ear to the ground to become acquainted with the best of Samba, Bossa Nova and contemporary MPB (Música Popular Brasileira), especially with artists like Roge and Moreno Veloso appearing regularly in the Sugar Club and other venues around the city.

Zé Ibarra is the latest, buzzy iteration of the traditional Brazilian form of MPB songwriting and his AFIM release in 2025 has caught the attention of the greats such as Milton Nascimento, Caetano Veloso and Gal Costa. The songs are often about the powerful feeling of Saudade, which in Brazilian culture means a profound longing and nostalgia for what has been lost. This feeling is central to any emigrant experience.

As a part of the group Bala Desejo, Zé Ibarra won a Grammy for Latin album of the year in 2022 for SIM SIM SIM. Both these records are entry points into a rewarding aspect of modern Irish cultural life in our cities – watch the gig listings for when Zé Ibarra comes to a venue near you.

Annie and the Caldwells, Can’t Lose My (Soul)

In October Cork Jazz festival was treated to two shows from Annie and the Caldwells, a family gospel group that have been plying their trade in Mississippi for forty years before being discovered and releasing their debut album to much acclaim in 2025.

It was none other than David Byrne that picked up the phone to Annie Caldwell to try license a song that she did years ago with the Staples Jr Singers for a compilation he was releasing for his Luka Bop records. Off the back of that exchange, it became clear that new music was on the cards too, with the family still performing locally. These songs were first recorded in an empty church in West Point, Mississipi, their hometown, and were released on Byrne’s label.

Very much a family affair - mother, husband, daughters, step-daughters, and sons all involved - this gospel-soul outfit are getting the remix treatment and can be heard on dancefloors with edits of the track Wrong done by Nicky Siano and Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor.

Jonny Nash, Once Was Ours Forever

Netherlands-based ambient guitarist Jonny Nash released Once was Ours Forever as a solo album on the Melody as Truth label and these 11 tracks are stunning in their craft and simplicity, providing a refuge for listeners in 2025.

An entirely relaxing blend of folk music, ambient jazz and textured shoegaze, this is an album that slows down time and provides a splash of colour whenever it is needed. It is akin to taking a walk in your favourite park and being left with that feeling of restorative beauty that nature affords us.

Annahstasia, Tether

The gravelly vocals on Annahstasia’s opening track Be Kind cast us into her intimate, soulful world on what is the debut full-length album from the LA-based, Nigerian-American artist.

Oh, I won’t be heartless, So don’t be heartless with me.

Oh, I won’t be careless, So don’t be careless with me.

The vocal performance across all these songs announces a singular talent with a vision both raw and full of spell-binding emotion. The sparse accompanying musicality builds the atmosphere around her visceral singing.

Just imagine what hearing this voice will be like live, with its shades of Nina Simone and Tracy Chapman.

‘Cause I get lonely, And I know you get lonely too, Can I be lonely here with you?

Highlights: Slow, Satisfy Me and Believer

Great albums that you might have missed this year

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