Sourhouse Albums of the Year 2025

It’s been a hot minute since my beloved Kali Uchis was on this list, and one would fear that Sincerely, has lost the edge of her earlier material. But its soulfulness and mellow vibes are beguiling; behind the record’s writing sit the “life altering events” of losing her mother and giving birth to her son. What she therefore appears to have crafted is an album of urgent, necessary softness, masquerading as a soundtrack for self-indulgence. On the latter point, the record is a thoroughly low-lit affair, perfumed and sweet scented by candles. On the former though, she truly proves that grief is the love you never got the give, intertwining loss with the joy of new life. Things risk getting lethargic in the mid section, but then comes in its four track final punch to lift everything. She saves the most beautiful moment for its finale on “ILYSMIH”, a dedication to her newborn. A poor reading of Sincerely would see it in the same line as the overly silken sounds pioneered by SZA. The reality is that this is a welcomed and deserved moment of respite for one of Neo Soul’s greatest living contributors.

What a journey it’s been for Sorry. Once upon a time, they were a brilliant two-piece oddity, quirky and raunchy, plucked right out of that post-2am mood you get at a houseparty with too many substances. 3 albums in and a few extra members in tow, it seems we’re in the next-morning hangxiety phase. Top of the agenda: who on earth are we supposed to be now? Cosplay states right off the bat that pretending is far easier than creating something new in the convenience age. For all the love I try to give new talent and new sounds, it’s an open secret that culture is agonisingly stagnant at the moment and too often consumed by nostalgia. So Sorry play with that, trying on new faces across tracks that range from Bent-esque Downtempo cuts to thrummy Slacker Rock jives. It’s still them alright, still weird and still horny, and we might learn from their example of how to deal with the morning after scaries. Paying homage to what you like doesn’t require fooling yourself or others into being someone else. The next big thing can make its own way here.

I know, I know, the phrase “new five piece Art Rock band” is terrifying. But stick with me on this one, because Why Horses? are still pure and uncorrupted. Yeah, Hi? has nocturnal, small room intimacy, holding close to the train of thought of lead singer Gabriel Lester. Around him, the band forge quaint yet moody soundscapes, urban and minute, often isolated and yet incredibly human. Anyone with a penchant for Slowcore will find something to like here, but their Post-Punk tunings and spectral weirdness make them feel eminently now, as well as giving them some extra edge. Watch this space, and make sure to catch them in Cardiff when they next play a gig.

To synthesise the last 40 years of House, RnB and Garage into one record is a mighty task. Yet here comes Rochelle Jordan, still ludicrously underappreciated, gliding over track after track of some of the lushest sounding material in a minute. It’s all there: Rave chords mingling with Timbaland-esque beats, 2Step sounds dressed in Tropical House cocktail glamour, gold-plated Luther Van Dross 80s reverb adorning chillout room jams. Jordan could have finished this off with a big 90s diva vocal performance, but she holds back. She isn’t centre stage; the atmosphere is, all late-night bar-club, soft lighting and plush seating. I’m a sucker for ready-made party albums, and Through The Wall might be the most expensive sounding one I’ve ever heard, a testament to the production work of her long-time collaborator K L S H. Nothing is off limits for Jordan, her album a complete collage of the best sounds for immaculate post-11pm vibes.

It’s a fine line between the abstract and outright pretentiousness for any band part of the Windmill Scene, but Squid remain the best thing it will ever produce, and Cowards is a shot in a new direction. Their cleanest and most narrative work to date, less about the hooks and more about the layering. Cowards transposes lyrics on the manifestations of evil across prog-like songwriting and expansive yet mature instrumentation. Whether or not you can deal with philosophy exercises in the lyrics is one thing, but long-time fans will enjoy the experimentation. Folk-derived numbers like ‘Well Met’ sit alongside the compositional two-part ‘Fieldwork’, whilst their Post Punk origins are not neglected with stompers like ‘Building 650’. It’s ironic that in making something less abrasive and urgent than their prior work, they’ve actually made a record that is harder to engage with. The effort is rewarded though, and one of Britain’s most interesting bands continue to inspire inquisitiveness.

A record so averse to giving you a hit yet so in tune with e-girl culture might seem like some ironic statement. But Choke Enough is less ‘anti-Pop’ and more ‘conceptual-Pop’, playing with the snippetising of aesthetics synonymous with now to examine nostalgia’s interaction with modern music. Oklou employs the same methodology of Deconstructed Club to try finding a genuinely new interpretation of the Y2K stylings that have been in vogue for the past few years. Plenty of other artists end up recreating the past when doing this. Lou, in being so vague, creates a collage reminiscent of PS2 menu music, video game arcades and night drives through industrial estates. What should be discordant ends up being resoundingly complete, each component like the 2 second riff of sounds you associate with a childhood memory. When pop culture scalps the past for ideas in lieu of risking something new, Choke Enough strikes out on a conceptual route in the pursuit of making an actual contribution.

This blog rarely uses the phrase ‘follow-up’, but what more could you cask for? Mode/Actriz’s debut LP was an incessant and buzzy listen, fueled by sex and shame. Of course you want more. Pirouette is most certainly the best follow-up one could ask for, honing the band’s blend of Industrial hardness and Post Punk grit so well that its metallic construction twinkles even its darkest moments. On the more energetic cuts, the basslines hug tight to their thumping drums, too tight for comfort, claustrophobic in construction and feeling. Meanwhile, new additions of spoken-word sections and acoustic guitars fill the quieter spaces of the album, never relenting in tone.

Cole Haden is a rapturous performer, bringing the camp swagger and dry humour of a drag queen. The greater eloquence of his lyrics, and the band’s knack for falling back on tenderness for balance against the harder edges of the record, makes Pirouette a complete package. Queer music, rightfully, tends more to the euphorics, saving drama and depressiveness to depict the realities of homophobia and conservative attitudes. Model/Actriz remain the cut above; to paraphrase a RateYourMusic user, they are continuing to craft one of the most all-encompassing depictions of how suffocating and anxiety-inducing gay connection can be. Their sound is about as accurate a sonic translation for that as I’ve ever heard.

When all knowledge can be accessed from a device in your pocket, the distinction between those repackaging old culture and those remodeling it grows greater. Quite literally thousands of label executives and marketing agencies want to pretend they’re doing what Pink is doing on Fancy That, a 20 minute long collage of the British dance scene, 2000’s aesthetics and pop culture references. None have or ever will come within eyeshot. So charismatic is she that, as her twee vocals blend effortlessly into the intense, layer-upon-layer mixing, it becomes impossible to distinguish her individual person. The whole project is one complete expression, the kind she has been building to achieve on her already astonishing career. 

Where in Pink’s previous work her ability to write songs right on the pulse of Gen Z sensibilities and her sheer knowledge of dance genres was gobsmackingly impressive, Fancy That feels like her laying down the gauntlet. If we’re going to repeatedly turn to past sounds to construct our pop hits, let us not hand the power to chart merchants and label wonks to do so. Pink is miles ahead, articulating the relationship between the cultural references that people build TikTok moodboards around and how we actually want to utilise them in our lives in a way no one else is doing. 

Oh, and she’s done all this through 9 banger tracks that are mixed to high-heaven. A true bedroom clubroom experience, pulsating and torso-popping, conjuring strobe lights and dry ice with total ease.

Simzy knows which way the wind is blowing. Hip Hop is in need of revitalisation, as its regional scenes double-down on one another and its stalwarts drop off. But she alone isn’t going to resculpt it, and that doesn’t play to her strengths anyway. Simzy’s real virtue is the aesthetic quality she imbues her music with. In that light, Lotus is her most refined, tempered and darkest outing to date, solidly enclosed by the urbanised gothic husk of its art style. 

The sound is just as conceptual: Jazz and Funk, not used for familiarity, but made malleable to craft a smart and refined accompaniment to her unrivaled flow. I always feel her work is never far from comparisons to Kendrick Lamar, though she most certainly is not within his shadow. Even with the similar sonic influences they’ve pursued, Simzy has her own indelible mark. Her vocals are rarely tampered with on the record, a strand used to link up the album’s softer, introspective moments with its harsher, unrelentingly honest ones.

Simzy has nothing left to prove, though I will always vouch that she deserves ten times the adulation that she receives. But there’s nothing wrong with carving her own path, and unlike past attempts by other Hip Hop artists, she proves that doing so fosters greater connection with the scene. When her artistry is so fluent and so effusive across both audio and visual elements, to merely witness her pull off another project is enough. But Simzy puts on a feast for us every time, narrative work beyond compelling, and her flow still as addictive as ever.

It’s practically the default for us queers to turn to music for guidance, and few artists in the 21st century have offered such reliable wisdom as Perfume Genius. In that light, heed the word of your elders. I do not mean to call Michael Hadreas old, but his seventh work glimpses the self monologues we can expect in middle age. Barely a song goes by without him ascertaining his distance along the line of life, with callbacks to youth and scopings of the future. Ever in the balance between what you carry with you and the anticipation of what you might need to hold onto, so unwinds a brilliantly tender album.

Have no fear of anything depressive, however. Though it leans hard on the sombre, Glory’s instrumentation is rendered with rattle and bristle, given colour with the additions of flutes and an evocative range of synths, all interwoven by Hadreas’s immutable delivery. Growing older requires no shelving of flamboyance, nor does the album depict any associated consequences as detrimental. There is a peace and satisfaction in its writing that points wholeheartedly to acceptance, leaving it comfortable to live out its daydreams of crying quarterbacks and unafraid to wallow in past troubles.

Quite why Hadreas appears to have been thrown through the window of a suburban living room on the album cover, I have yet to decipher. Perhaps, despite having to trip his way to it, he is finally home.